toggled a large switch, then said aloud--but softly, "Disruption bubble
generator. I can't leave it on for more than a few seconds at once. You're in
danger."
"What's wrong?"
"The Ssi-ruuk have approached Governor Nereus." She slid her hand back
into the satchel. "Is your party comfortable here, Commander?" she asked full-
voice.
He had to think quickly. "The situation's a little awkward," he answered.
"I have an allergic reaction to stormtrooper armor."
Good, she mouthed. She raised her right eyebrow, over the green eye, then
twisted her wrist again and softly said, "They've asked Governor Nereus to
surrender you and offered to leave Bakura if he does."
The dream-warning rushed back into his mind. So, they meant to move
through Nereus. "Naturally, he's tempted."
"I don't think so. He's not stupid. If they want you alive, he's going to
make sure they don't get you that way." She glanced down and moved her hand
again. "We all have to deal with our automatic reactions, I suppose," she
announced.
So much for Leia's assurance that Nereus wouldn't harm them. Now the fun
begins. "The accommodations are excellent, though." He motioned toward a
corner lounge. "I've been on my feet all day. Please. Sit down, so I can."
"I don't think I should."
He overlaid his voice with a calming veneer of Force overtones. "I wish
you would trust me."
She slid her hand back into the string bag. "I suppose my reaction to
Jedi is like yours to stormtroopers."
"I'm learning to suppress mine."
"So am i. Eppie was still sleeping when I went back." She glanced away,
then mumbled, "Thank you. Now... my aide and I intercepted a transmission from
the Ssi-ruuk. Governor Nereus asked for one day to arrange things."
"One day." Luke nodded. "Thank you."
Shift. "Is there anything your alien requires? What did you say he was, a
Wook?"
"Wookiee. Nothing special, just twice as much food as the rest of us."
"I understand." She worked the generator again. "They wouldn't come after
you the way they'd grab one of us plain folks, you know. Neither will Governor
Nereus. Watch your back. Watch your guards. Watch what you eat and drink and
breathe."
"What do the Ssi-ruuk want me for?"
She shrugged.
"I'll be careful," he said quietly. Nereus would probably try to play all
angles, convincing the Ssi-ruuk he meant to cooperate.
Maybe he did.
"Have you eaten this evening?" Gaeriel asked. "I can have a light dinner
sent to my suite and then diverted here."
Touched, Luke brushed at a grease stain on his coverall, then hid it
under one hand. "Would you?"
Once she'd called over the comm center for something he couldn't
remember, let alone pronounce, awkward silence fell. Luke held his peace,
wondering what she would say if he waited. At last she stopped pacing around
the room, looking out the long window into the greenwell, and up at the
ceiling. She glanced over at him. "Are you listening to me think?" she asked
boldly.
Her string bag lay on the repulsor lounge. "I can't do that," he said
carefully. "Some of your feelings come through the Force, but that's all." Not
really all.
"That's still not fair. I can't tell what you're feeling."
Luke slid out the gray box and found the control. "Would you like to know
what I'm feeling?"
"Yes."
He drew a deep breath. Honesty was one thing, stupidity another. He
wished he had Leia's gift for turning a phrase. "I already know you on a
deeper level than anyone else does. Of course, that makes it worse, because
all you know about me is what you think you believe." Had he said that right?
He plowed on. "Your feelings are strong for me. Strongly ambivalent."
She walked toward the lounger. "It's not that I'm afraid of you,
Commander--"
"Luke," he insisted.
"I have a religious objection to what you are. What you've become. You
weren't born a Jedi. And you'd better turn that back off for a few seconds, or
we'll both be in trouble." Then he caught it through the Force, a swirl of
intense attraction that had not come from him. Five years ago, he might have
seized her hand and sworn away everything--the Fleet, the Alliance, and the
Force.
But those five years had molded his destiny. Perhaps he could change her
mind.
He caught himself. What right did he have to chip at her beliefs? She
drew on the Force like anyone else, though she couldn't accept it.
Quickly, he switched the field off. "How long have you been a senator?"
he asked. Surely that could be considered casual conversation.
"The senate elected me five years ago. I've been in school ever since,
either here or at Imperial Center. And don't be too impressed with the
position." She tapped her thumbs together. "It mostly involves finding
creative ways to drain tax credit out of Bakurans. Now we've got an influx of
Imperial data flow and culture to support, too. Some of it's very good," she
added, "but some of it only appeals to a few people who think like Governor
Nereus."
In every subjugated culture, there'd be a few people who welcomed the
Empire because they were already Imperials at heart. "I don't think you're one
of them."
She glanced at the generator. Perhaps the conversation was getting too
personal for comfort. "Does it always rain this much?" he asked. "I was raised
on a desert world."
After a few more noncommittal comments on the weather, he turned the
generator back on. "I will respect your fears," he said. "And your beliefs."
The door chimed.
Gaeri sprang up and opened it, grateful for the distraction. She had no
business flirting with destiny this way, and no hope of bringing Luke
Skywalker to understand the universe as she saw it.
One of her personal staff pushed a hover cart through the door. Gaeri
motioned for the staffer to park it between their chairs. Once he had gone,
she uncovered the single plate. "I hope you like seafood." Raised on a desert
world--and this is twice in two days.
"Would you stay?"
"Forgive my cowardice, Luke, but..."
^wlessly he unhooked a cylindrical silvery object from his belt and laid
it on the repulsor cart. Long enough to grip two-handed, it looked like half
of a weapon.
"Is that what I think it is?" she asked softly.
"You may be safer here than at home." His face colored. "Sorry," he
added. "I sound like a swaggering stormtrooper."
At least he could laugh at himself. She hesitated. For a few minutes,
she'd probably be safe. "There are two of them out in that corridor," she
reminded him, "and if I were you, I wouldn't trust them any more. St--th
smells very fresh. I'll join you."
Evidently he did like seafood, because he ate like a starving man. She
blunted her hunger with a few delicately seasoned bites. In a few minutes, he
reached for the projector, which now lay on the cart beside his lightsaber.
"Do most Bakurans share your beliefs?" h
e asked.
Relieved that he'd brought up the subject, she answered, "Many are
stricter. My sister is an ascetic. She lives with almost nothing in order to
free up more for everyone else. I'm less... devoted. We're a minority, but the
weight of the universe could balance on one rightly placed atom."
"I can feel through the Force that you're a woman of depth. Of deep
feelings."
"I thought I'd convinced everyone that I'm a career politician."
"Everyone else seems convinced."
"Good," she said lightly. Mustn't look at his eyes--but they're such a
delicate blue.
"The Ssi-ruuk are out there." He gestured with his fork. "I have a day,
at most, to get ready for them."
"Less."
"Once I settle with them, I'll come back - - fftalk with you, Gaeriel--if
there's any hope that you'd reconsider about me. About Jedi. You were only
partially right when you said I wasn't born a Jedi. The Force is strong in my
family."
Startled, she sipped from the water glass. Part of her head had guessed
he might say something like this, and part of her heart had longed to hear it.
Why not admit it? she asked herself. See how he reacts. "Thank you for being..
. honest. We have no time to be socially correct. And I'm drawn to you, which
is dangerous."
He shook his head. "I wouldn't--"
"Yes, you would. If I encouraged you." She stared down at her clasped
fingers. "You could manipulate people easily if you chose to."
"I wouldn't," he repeated, blushing. "That would be dishonest. There's no
future in it."
She fingered her pendant. "What are you, Luke Skywalker? What gives you
the right to these powers?"
"I'm a..." He faltered. "A farm boy, I guess."
"A family of Force-strong farm boys?" she asked sarcastically.
The high color drained from his face. She must've struck a nerve. "Think
of it this way," he murmured, scraping the last morsel off his plate. "There
will always be people who are strong for evil. If the only way to protect
others is for a few of us to become strong in the Force for good, isn't that
important? Even if your beliefs are correct, and that means bringing someone
else low? People constantly sacrifice themselves for good causes. I didn't ask
anyone to die for me."
Almost persuaded, she resisted his seeming genuineness. "The Cosmos must
balance."
"I agree. The dark side calls constantly for aggression, revenge,
betrayal. The stronger you become, the more you're tempted."
That made her hand tremble. "Then if you, you loved someone, you could
easily hate them."
He glanced down at the generator and raised an eyebrow.
She forced herself to ignore the hurt in his eyes. "No need for the
generator," she said. "We could easily be eating in silence."
"Here's another balance." He pressed a hand to his dirt-streaked
forehead. "The mountaintops in my life are balanced by canyons. I've lost
friends, family, teachers. The Empire killed most of them. If I'd never even
begun my Jedi training, they'd still be dead." He frowned. "Actually, I'd be
dead too. The day I met my first teacher, the Empire struck our farm. They
butchered my Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru while I was away. Everyone who was home
died. Haven't they done that here too? Do you approve of the Empire?"
"That's a loaded question."
"Do you?" he pressed.
Of course she did. Didn't she? "The Empire has seized more power than any
government needs," she admitted. "Yet it balances submission with privilege.
One advantage to living under the Empire is a wonderful range of educational
opportunities. Bright children may study right at Imperial Center."
He made a wry face. "I've heard that the brightest don't get to go home."
How did he know that? Some stayed on, offered lucrative employment. Some
vanished. She'd preferred to go home. "Let's say we learned to hold back a
little. Imperial leadership has been good for Bakura, anyway. It restored
order when we were close to civil war. It has drawbacks, but I'm sure your
people would tell you that the Alliance has problems."
"They're the problems of freedom."
That stung. "You frightened us when your battle group arrived. The Rebel
Alliance's reputation is destructive, not constructive."
"I guess from an Imperial point of view, it could be. But we're not.
Honest."
He's no diplomat. "Thank you for talking this through," she said. "I feel
better--"
"I wish I did."
his--And more certain of myself," she lied firmly. She reached into the
satchel, twisted her wrist, then slipped the bag over one shoulder. "We will
work together against the Ssi-ruuk."
He made a hand-twisting motion. She switched on the generator one last
time. "Is there a chance we--I--cd buy a few of those?" He pointed inside the
string bag.
She shook her head. "This is Eppie's. There are only a few of them left
on Bakura, property of the original families. We've kept them secret from
Governor Nereus."
"That's too bad."
"Yes, it is," Gaeri agreed. "I'll take the hover cart out."
He clipped his lightsaber back onto his belt.
her, erode her defenses with the Force. Even begging seemed reasonable.
Instead, he palmed the door open and then thrust his thumbs through his belt.
"Thank you," she said. The stormtrooper guards watched as she pushed the
hover cart out and strode down the hall without looking back. Once she
vanished around a corner, Luke dropped his hands. He clenched them, loosened
them, and clenched them again. His abilities had always opened doors. Doors
into danger, both in space and in the brighter, darker, wider spaces of his
own soul, but he'd always had the freedom to walk through.
Gaeriel had tried to slam this door in his face, but she hadn't
succeeded. He'd felt the conflict within her. She might not fight him forever.
Then again, she might. Exhausted, he shut the apartment door behind him
and strode up the hall in the opposite direction. A roof access door opened on
his left. He pushed through and rode the lift up.
By night, the roof garden could have been primitive, isolated forest.
Still air cooled his face. Clusters of white tree trunks branched out of
protruding root wads, then swept up and ended in bright yellow-orange twigs,
damp but no longer dripping. Two small round moons and several dozen bright
stars shone overhead, and night glims edged a stone path between dark, mossy
banks.
As he paced away from the lift shaft, the path branched. Several meters
down the narrow spur toward the complex's edge, he knelt on a bench, rested
his elbows on the restraining wall, and looked down. The circles of the city
stretched out around him, lit by hovering blue-white street lamps at the
center, then pale yellow, fading to reddish--
Like a diagram of star types. The comparison leaped into his mind. Salis
D'aar's founders must have laid out the city for navigation by star colors,
with the finest homes--like the C
aptisons' mansion--in the zone that
represented warm, hospitable yellow suns.
The moment of insight cheered him. It wasn't wrong for a human to learn
to use natural talents. If Gaeriel's religion were carried to its logical end,
everyone would have to be equal--even identical--in all respects, for fear of
diminishing anyone else.
And his life was no longer his own.
He thought he could make out slow-moving pinpricks of light overhead that
would be ships in the orbiting defense web. Locked in position with other
ships, joined by common orders and a common enemy.
Many of those pilots had life mates to return to--or, at the last need,
to grieve them. The stronger he became in the Force, the harder it might
become to find a woman who'd have him.
He opened his empty hands. "Ben?" he whispered. "Ben, please come. I need
to talk with someone."
Not even a breeze answered. Along the wall's surface, a black creature
the size of his smallest finger humped on twenty legs. He concentrated on the
rhythms of those legs, focusing his spirit. After it vanished into a crack, he
called again. "Master Yoda? Are you near?"
Foolish question. Yoda was with the Force and therefore everywhere. But
he did not answer.
"Father?" he called hesitantly, then repeated, "Father," wondering if
Anakin understood. He tried to imagine himself in Gaeri's place. With her home
world threatened and her life in peril, into the crisis came a man who
frightened her. A Jedi.
He felt someone approach. Ben? he thought, but the intensity wasn't that
of a master, and it carried the restless striving of a living person. Light
footfalls hurried down the path. Leia hesitated at the branching, her white
gown glimmering between vine-shadowed white trees.
"I'm over here," he called softly.
She hurried up beside him. "Are you all right?" She pulled a blue Bakuran
knit shawl around her shoulders. "I heard--well, I thought I heard you call
out through the Force."
She'd tracked him this way at Cloud City, too. He sank down onto the
bench. "It's been a long, rough day. How was yours?"
"Uh," she answered, "good. I left Artoo and Threepio with Prime Minister
Captison." A self-conscious excitement begged him not to notice. She tingled
with eagerness.
Envious, he said, "Let it flow, Leia. He loves you."