"What?"
It burst up from the rock below and ahead of the speeder, a swirling ball of colored lights, just large enough to fit an astromech like R2-D2 completely within it. It leapt up directly into Han"s path, its comparative brilliance all but blinding him. He twitched the speeder to port, the barest of maneuvers, intended to return the speeder to its original course instantly after it avoided the obstacle ...
But the speeder plowed right through the ball of light. Han felt hair standing on end all over his body. Instantly, the repulsors quit, and every monitor and readout on the control console crackled and went black.
Han yanked back on the yoke, knowing the attempt was futile. The speeder dropped three meters and plowed nose-first into the tunnel floor. It skidded forward, its contact with the bare stone sending up sparks, then fetched up against the right-hand tunnel wall and was still.
Leia leaned over him. "Are you all right?"
"No problem." Han turned to stare back the way they"d come. The swirling ball of luminescence hovered there, thirty meters away, un-moving, as if watching them.
Leia put her hand on her lightsaber. "Very pretty. And destructive. What is it?"
"The miners here call them bogeys. Some sort of indigenous life-form-"
Leia extended her free hand toward the thing and closed her eyes.
"-and the spiders eat them, so, you know, if one is here, the odds improve that a spider is coming-"
"I don"t think it"s alive. I can"t detect it in the Force as life, just as energy. Energy and intent." Leia opened her eyes again. "I"m going to give it a look." She donned her breath mask, then opened the door. Han felt the air pressure diminish; he grabbed and put on his own mask. Leia stepped out of the speeder.
"Leia, no, get back in the speeder, it just may mean that no Kessel life-form shows up in the Force, you know, like the Yuuzhan Vong, meaning that the spiders might not, either-"
She wasn"t listening. Muttering a swear word that would have caused other smugglers to raise an eyebrow, Han grabbed a grenade launcher from the backseat and stepped out. "Leia ..."
His wife walked straight toward the bogey, her free hand upraised. The bogey hovered there, decorative and unmenacing, making a curious clacking and chattering noise, until she was a meter from touching it. Then it plunged straight down into the stone below, vanishing from sight.
And taking every trace of illumination with it.
Suddenly Han was thrust into the past, into the absolute darkness of these tunnels, when he, Chewbacca, and Kyp Durron had run for their lives with a monster in pursuit. Now, again, he was kilometers deep within Kessel, insufficiently armed or mobile to deal with the dangers of the place.
He forced himself to slow his breathing. Now wasn"t then. More than thirty years had gone by. He was in a section of the mine where there was no sign of spice, and therefore no sign of spiders.
But if one came, he"d be just as helpless before it.
"My lightsaber doesn"t work."
Han let out a slow breath. "How do you know?"
"Tried to turn it on to give us a little light."
"Let me know if you hear anything like skittering. Clattering. Clicking." Well, maybe he wasn"t entirely as helpless as he"d been the last time. The grenade launcher in his hands was rea.s.suringly heavy, and perhaps, given its antiquity and simplicity of construction, it hadn"t been disrupted as the speeder and lightsaber had.
Perhaps. He kept his voice under tight control. "Want to get back in the speeder, sweetie?"
"No, I"ll just keep my ears open until you get it started up."
Han fought the urge to grit his teeth. "All right."
CITY OF DOR"SHAN, DORIN.
The chamber where they met Mistress Tila Mong was far less ceremonial and ostentatious than the one in which Ben had fought. Though it was circular, with smooth black walls of stone, its furnishings of tan wood proclaimed it to be an office.
Tila Mong, seated behind one of three desks when the Skywalkers entered, rose to shake their hands. She was, to Ben"s unpracticed eye, perhaps a bit older than the other Kel Dors he had seen, more wrinkles to her face and even less flesh on her bones, but she moved gracefully enough. She wore simple, undecorated robes in a sh.e.l.l-like off-white that seemed oddly detached from the colors around her.
Once her guests were seated and the door had slid shut behind Tistura, she began. "We heard with sympathy and misgivings the news of your recent unpleasantness."
"Thank you." Luke gave her a little nod of appreciation. "Because of those events, it would be inappropriate to refer to me as or accord me any of the benefits that would come to me as Grand Master of the Jedi Order."
"Then we shall limit ourselves to the benefits due the man who re-founded the Jedi and helped break the hold the Empire had on the galaxy."
Ben decided that he liked her.
"My recent unpleasantness is related to the Second Galactic Civil War. The war was, in part, due to the actions of Jacen Solo. I am trying to retrace the steps he took throughout the galaxy prior to the war, to find out more about what made him the way he was. Some time back, he demonstrated a Force technique that makes me think he may have been here during his travels-here, studying among the Baran Do Sages."
Tila Mong nodded. "He was here. Some nine years ago. He came seeking knowledge of our ways with the Force."
Ben did a quick mental calculation. That would have put Jacen"s visit close to the end of his wanderings, just prior to the Dark Nest crisis.
Neither Luke"s face nor any sign in the Force betrayed his reaction. "May I ask, what did you teach him?"
"I, nothing. I was not Mistress at that time. Master of the Baran Do was then Koro Ziil, who has since accepted death."
Luke looked a little puzzled. "I"m sorry. I"m not sure I understand. In most dialects of Basic, one "accepts death" as a consequence of an act or as an alternative to some other fate. Is that what the phrase means as you use it?"
"Oh. No." Tila Mong shook her head. "To accept death among the Baran Do is to decide that your time has come, to make preparations, to say farewell, and to die. It is a peaceful end."
"If it is not too personal a question, what is the mechanism of death? The actual means by which the body becomes lifeless?"
"We simply offer up the life within us to merge with the Force. Life flees, the body perishes. It is a technique known to the Masters of our Order. The body is then cremated. This is a sign of great respect, as combustible materials are rarer here than on oxygen-rich worlds."
Luke nodded. "Was this one of the techniques Jacen learned?"
"I think not. He was more interested in the areas of our specialty-extension of the senses, detection of danger, detection of evil intent. Also of keeping himself from from detection." Tila Mong lowered her gaze to the desktop, clearly casting back in her memory. "We thought he was a good man. We hesitated not at all to teach him our methods." detection." Tila Mong lowered her gaze to the desktop, clearly casting back in her memory. "We thought he was a good man. We hesitated not at all to teach him our methods."
"I think he was was a good man then." Luke, reflecting, was silent for a moment. "Would it be possible for me to learn the techniques Jacen learned?" a good man then." Luke, reflecting, was silent for a moment. "Would it be possible for me to learn the techniques Jacen learned?"
Tila Mong looked up at him-a hard, direct stare. "Would it be safe?"
"I"m not sure what you mean."
"Our observation, thankfully distant, has been that Jacen Solo became a nryghat nryghat-a monster of nightmares, the sort that haunts the dreams of children. But he was not always so. Could it be that the methods we taught him, Force techniques developed by our species for our own use, could affect the mind of a human in a bad way, a damaging way?"
"It"s ... possible."
"Then you should not be subjected to the same danger. If Jacen Solo, a very powerful Jedi, were transformed by what we taught him, and did all that he did, what might Luke Skywalker, the most famous, most powerful, and most experienced living Jedi, do if he were similarly affected?"
Luke met her gaze steadily. "And yet I have to know."
"Teach me instead," Ben heard himself saying.
Both his father and Tila Mong looked at him, surprised, as if they"d forgotten Ben was not a droid with a restraining bolt keeping its vocabulators from being activated.
Ben continued, "If I change the way Jacen did, well, I"m not as powerful as he was or my father is. I"m no danger. Well, less of a danger. My father could find a way to cure me."
Luke shook his head. "I"m sorry, Ben. It needs to be someone as educated in as many subtleties of the Force as possible, and that means me."
"But if you do turn the way Jacen did-"
Luke gave him a wan smile. "It took Jacen years to become Darth Caedus, and in that time he exhibited signs that we missed or ignored ... signs that I believe we are very much attuned to now. Yes?"
"Well, yes."
"If something happens to my thinking processes, to the way I feel about people and my duties, I suspect I"ll notice the change and seek help. Even if I don"t, you will."
"No, Dad. What if it"s sudden and total? What if you"re Luke Skywalker today and Darth Starkiller tomorrow?"
Luke hesitated. "Then it would be your job to find a way to stop me. Even kill me."
"No."
"Ben, I don"t think anything like that will happen. But if it does, you need to be a Jedi first. To put personal loyalties behind your responsibility to the innocent, to the Force. If you can"t promise me you can do that, you may need to return to Coruscant."
Ben just stared, stunned by the implacability of that statement. But he knew his father meant it.
There it was again, attachment. The things Jacen and Darth Vader had been attached to had meant more than all the innocent lives in the galaxy, and they had become monsters.
He could not let his own father become a monster.
"All right, Dad."
"Promise me, Ben."
"You have my word. As a Jedi." Every one of those words was a twist on what felt like a clamp around his heart.
Luke sat back, satisfied, and returned his attention to the Mistress of the Baran Do.
She, too, nodded. "Very well. Return tomorrow at dawn. You may want to bring food of your own choice, as humans do not much care for ours. There is a shop catering to human needs near the street market."
Luke smiled. "We"ll be here."
On their walk back to the s.p.a.ceport, Ben kicked a rock lying at the side of the street and watched it bounce off an estate wall. "I think I"d rather be tortured again than go through another conversation like that."
Luke nodded. "Me, too."
"You seemed to take it well enough. Making me promise to kill you."
"Only under certain circ.u.mstances. Not just because I insist you eat your vegetables."
Ben snorted, his humor partly restored. "If you start to feel evil, tell me as soon as possible. Don"t wait and cut my hand off first."
"Did you notice that she was lying?"
Ben frowned at the sudden change of subject. "The Mistress? About what?"
"I"m not sure. It wasn"t as though I had a little spike of perception saying, Ah, she"s just lied about her name Ah, she"s just lied about her name. It was a conviction that grew throughout the conversation, like she was hiding some fact, sitting on it and smothering it so we wouldn"t notice it."
"Sort of like trying to not think about the pink bantha in the corner."
"Exactly."
"Nah, you"re imagining things. Masters of ancient orders who study the Force never have secrets. Never have shameful events in their families ..."
"Ben, I think your words alone might turn me evil."
JEDI TEMPLE, CORUSCANT.
"THE PROBLEM WITH VENOMOUS REPTILES," MASTER CILGHAL SAID, "is that when you use them to harm others, you stand a chance of being bitten yourself."
Surrounded by many other Jedi in the eating hall of the Temple, she thought she was speaking to herself, and that her words were being drowned out by the words blaring from the news monitor mounted on swing-out armatures on one wall. Master Durron had rushed in and gestured at the monitor; it had come to life, showing the soaring exterior of the Galactic Courts of Justice Building. Though it was generally against the rules to have broadcasts running during meals, teaching sessions, or anytime the Jedi and students needed peace of mind, n.o.body argued with a Master who had something to show.
And so there on the monitor screen, framed by the Courts of Justice Building in the background and bracketed by small boxes of scrolling data on either side, had stood Wolam Tser, who had been well respected as a newscaster and doc.u.mentarian before anyone in the Temple had been born, offering news about them: "... rush to accelerate all legal issues concerning the Jedi Order seems to have worked against the intent of the Chief of State"s office. Today, in a landmark nine-to-three decision, the highest court in the Galactic Alliance has overturned the so-called Guilty by a.s.sociation rider to the recent executive order limiting the powers of the Jedi Order. Though the restrictions remain in place on the Jedi, former members and Alliance citizens with training in Jedi-like arts remain free of those limitations. Chief Justice Uved Pledesin of Lorrd, in the majority-opinion doc.u.ment, states unequivocally that possession of a skill or specific knowledge cannot in and of itself be sufficient to curtail an individual"s rights. Legal a.n.a.lysts point out, however, that individuals in possession of sensitive information can still be declared a danger to the Alliance, a measure that allows for person-by-person imposition of limitations such as those recently levied against the Jedi.
"Alvida Suar is standing by with the instigators of this case. Alvida?"
As the monitor picture shifted to that of an attractive woman with a yellowish tint to her skin, the very well-dressed Nawara Ven and Tahiri Veila behind her, the Jedi in the dining hall applauded and raised their voices in discussion of the decision.
But Cilghal had a feeling of foreboding about it. She did not think the Force was speaking to her; it was simply experience with galactic politics ... and the sentient tendency to exact revenge for offenses both great and small, real and imagined.
"Master?" The voice was soft and high, immature, and Cilghal looked down to see, sitting below her peripheral vision, a Jedi youngling, a platter of food before her. The human girl, who could scarcely have been eight, looked confused.
"Yes, child?"
"I don"t understand what you meant by poisonous reptile."
Cilghal considered her words. "I meant that the strength of every blow you strike can be turned against you. The energy in your lunge can be made to propel you in a direction you do not wish to go."
"So the court thing is bad for us?"
"It doesn"t improve our situation at all, but it suggests to the government that we are defying them."
"So it"s like getting in trouble for what your friend does."