“By the time I was sixteen, I had come to know the plateau almost as well as I knew the grounds of my parents’ home in Eriadu City,” Tarkin said. “There was one area that we avoided, however — a vast stretch of savanna interrupted by stands of thick forest. It wasn’t precisely off limits. In fact, on several occasions I understood that my uncle was taking us well out of the way simply so I could get a glimpse of the territory. Each time he did so he would explain that we were not alone in being the plateau’s reigning predators. And while there was no denying that our blasters were capable of eliminating all competitors, an act of that nature would have flown in the face of keeping the plateau pristine. One goal of the training was to help me understand how to place myself at the top of the food chain through fear rather than force, and how best to maintain my position. The territory we always seemed to skirt was there to provide me with another lesson, as it was ruled over by our chief competitors on the plateau, a one-hundred-strong troop of especially vicious primates.”
He paused to glance up at Vader. “Are you familiar with the veermok?”
Vader nodded. “I’ve had some experience with the species, Governor.”
Tarkin waited for more, but Vader said nothing. “Well, then, you know how ferocious they can be on their own, let alone in a group. There’s scarcely a creature they can’t outwit or outfight when they set their minds to it. But the species on Eriadu is probably not the one you are familiar with. The Eriadu veermok stands a meter high, but is sleek-skinned rather than woolly, is social rather than solitary, and is ardently territorial. It has adapted to the dry conditions of the plateau, rather than to swamps and moist woodlands. Like the more ordinary species, it has razor-sharp claws, equally sharp teeth in its canine muzzle, and the strength of ten humans. Its powerful arms and upper torso appear made for climbing, but the Eriadu veermok is generally not arboreal. Like all its brethren, however, it is a swift and voracious carnivore.
“At the center of the terrain the troop controlled stands a one-hundred-meter-tall hill that more resembles a rock fortress. Crowning it is a four-sided spire of black volcanic glass, some twenty meters high and flat at the top. A time-eroded shaft of quickly cooled magma, to be sure, as are the boulders that support it.”
Vader looked at him. “The Carrion Spike?”
“Just so,” Tarkin said. “Without Jova having to say as much, I began to grasp that the Spike was to be the site of my final test.”
Vader interrupted his rhythmic breathing to make a sound of acknowledgment. “Your trial.”
Tarkin nodded. “I was in the midst of my second season on the plateau when Jova first pointed the Spike out to me, but my … trial, as you say, wouldn’t take place for four years to come. When that time arrived, he explained what was expected of me: I merely had to spend an entire day at the Spike, on my own. I would have neither food nor water, but I would be allowed to carry a vibro-lance of the sort we used in some of our hunts.”
“A vibro-lance,” Vader said.
“An electroshock weapon longer and lighter than the force pike. It has the same vibro-edged head but is balanced in such a way that it can also be hurled like a spear. Mine would be primed with a limited number of charges, though Jova didn’t specify how many. In any case, if I could accomplish that — spend a single day at the Spike — my final test would be behind me, and I would no longer be compelled to visit the Carrion Plateau, unless of course it was my desire to do so.”
“You must have thought it a simple task,” Vader said.
“Initially, indeed,” Tarkin said. “Until Jova allowed me to observe the hill and the spire through macrobinoculars.”
“Your eyes were opened.”
“Jova said that I could take as much time as I needed to assess the situation and decide on a course of action, and I spent the better part of my sixth season on the plateau doing just that. The first order of business was to get to know my enemy, which I did over the course of the first couple of weeks. I would conceal myself in areas of forest or in the tall savanna grass and observe the routines of the veermoks, which rarely varied from day to day — or perhaps it’s better to say night to night, since that was when they would emerge from their hill caves and set out on communal hunts. The feasting that resulted from their hunts would continue for most of the night, sometimes at the site of their kills or sometimes back at the caves, where the females fed their gray-skinned young. With the return of the light and the heat, the males would ascend to the top of the hill and sprawl on the rocks at the foot of the Spike, which I was never able to get a good look at, even through the macrobinoculars, as the hill was the tallest feature for kilometers around in every direction. Midafternoon, the veermoks would make their descent, gathering at a watering hole to drink before repeating the entire routine.
“The water hole became my preferred place for observing them, and it was there where I began to get to know some members of the troop individually. Their dominant member was a dark-striped male, large and battle-scarred, to whom I gave the name Lord. During my weeks of stealthy observation, I saw him challenged at regular intervals. Sometimes the fights would be to the death, but more often Lord would allow challengers to limp away in shame but remain part of the troop. Since it was impossible to defeat him, there was much competition among his subordinates to get close to him. In some sense, the fights were as much about training as they were displays of supremacy. Lord was teaching the weaker males, aware that he would eventually have to yield his position for the sake of the troop. The rest understood this and as a result followed his lead in all matters. I don’t think the species is capable of abstract thought, much less truly sentient, but they do communicate with one another through a complex language of displays and vocalizations.
“There was a second male that caught my attention — a younger and smaller veermok who always seemed to be in Lord’s shadow, so that was how I began to think of him. Shadow would tag behind and watch Lord from a respectful distance. Sometimes Lord wouldn’t abide the scrutiny and would run Shadow off; at other times he tolerated the younger veermok’s attempts to learn from him. What interested me most, however, was that Shadow had a following of his own, a subgroup of some eight young males who accompanied him wherever he went. Lord tolerated them as well, so long as they kept their distance, which they always did, retreating if he so much as turned in their direction.
“It was at the water hole that Shadow and his group began to take an interest in me. They observed me observing them, and began to study me as something curious that had showed up at the edge of their carefully defined domain. Sated from the previous night’s hunt and having dismissed me as a threat, they demonstrated no immediate interest in killing me. At that point in my life, I had never heard of a veermok being domesticated, but I had heard of people who used the creatures as watchbeasts, and I imagined that it was possible to enter into some sort of partnership with them. I thought that perhaps I could make use of them as allies of a sort, either when I was at the Spike or in making my escape; and so each day I would try to edge closer to them, only to have them challenge me on every occasion, forcing me back across the invisible line of their hunting grounds.