He did not know how to talk about what had passed between them, or what
might come of it, but she did not ask that of him. She allowed him to
stay in the restful comfort of the circle of their mutual embrace,
making no demands, expecting no explanations. He returned that
courtesy in kind.
It had been much the same the night before. Loneliness, grief,
compassion, and a previously undiscovered hunger for a touch that felt
like acceptance had brought them to the brink. But by silent mutual
consent, something had been held back. Neither of them had asked for
or offered their deepest intimacies. And, unpressured, each had
allowed the other to enjoy the novelty of not being alone.
They lay together in the sleeper, awake, aware that the other was
awake, and aware that the other was aware. But for a long time,
neither of them spoke. Luke barely trusted the privacy of his own
thoughts, and didn't dare open himself to reach out for hers.
"Your turn," she murmured at last." What?"
"To talk about your father."
For some reason Luke did not fully understand, the familiar inner wall
of resistance did not snap into place.
"I don't talk about my father," he said, but it was a rote refusal,
without conviction.
Even though she must have heard the opening, she did not try to cajole
him into a reversal or probe for the exceptions. "I understand," she
said, showing a sympathetic smile. Then she turned onto her back,
looking up into the holographic galaxy. "It was hard for me."
That small physical retreat was enough to draw Luke out. "It's not as
though there's much I could say, anyway," he said, rolling onto his
side and propping his head on one hand. "Almost everything I know,
everyone seems to know--and almost everything I'd like to know, no one
seems to know. I don't remember my father, or my mother, or my
sister.
I don't remember ever living anywhere but Tatooine."
Akanah nodded understandingly. "Did you ever wonder whether those
memories might have been blocked?"
"Blocked? Why?"
"To protect you. Or to protect Leia and Nashira.
Young children don't know when they're saying too much or asking the
wrong question."
Luke shook his head. "I've deep-probed Leia for unremembered memories
of our mother. If there was a block there, I'm sure I'd be able to see
it."
"Unless your own block prevented you from recognizing it," she
suggested. "Whoever did this might have anticipated that you would
have the gifts of the Jedi."
"Ben could have seen that," Luke said uncertainly.
"Or Yoda."
"If you wanted, I could--" "But what possible danger could those
memories be to me now?" Luke asked, trampling her offer before she
could make it. "No, I think there's a simpler explanation.
I think we were just too young. Leia's memories may not even be
real.
They might be something she invented to fill that empty space you spoke
of, so long ago that she can't remember doing it. An imagined memory
looks just like a real one."
"And their comfort value is usually very high," Akanah said. "Luke,
when did you become aware of the empty spaces?"
"I don't know. Much later than Leia did, anyway.
Kids say things--you start realizing your family is different."
Luke frowned, his eyes focusing somewhere far beyond the bunk. "My
uncle and aunt said almost nothing about my father, and even less about
my mother."
"Maybe that was to protect you, too."
"Maybe," Luke said. "But I always felt that my uncle disapproved of
them, and resented getting stuck with the obligation of raising me.
Not my aunt--I think she always wanted children. I don't know why they
"It sounds like she only got her way when it was what he wanted,
too."
"I guess that's more true than not," Luke said after a moment's
reflection. "But she never complained where I could hear it, or let
you know that they'd had a fight and that she'd lost."
"Self-sacrificing," said Akanah. "For the good of the family, for the
peace of the household--" "Owen was a hard man," Luke said.
"Hardworking, hard to talk to, hard to know, hard to move. When I
picture him, he always looks annoyed."
"I'm all too familiar with the type," said Akanah.
"Your aunt probably didn't dare cross him too often, or too openly."
"She took my side sometimes. But mostly I think she tried to keep us
from colliding head-on--especially the last couple of years."
"Was she happy?"
"I used to think so."
"But--" "I think she deserved better than the way she lived--the way
she died." Luke shook his head. "It's been harder to forgive my
father for what he did to them than for almost anything else."
"Harder to forgive, or harder to understand?"
Luke answered with a weary smile. "I wish it were harder to
understand. But I know how tempting it is to simply bend someone to
your will, or break them and push them aside. All of the whims and
wishes and wants that we carry around inside--I have the power to
fulfill mine. So I find I have to be careful about what I let myself
want."
"How do you do that?"
"I have Yoda's example--he led a very simple life, and Wanted for very
little. My father walked a different road. I try to let him be an
example to me, too," said Luke. "The impulse to take control--to
impose your will on the universe--has to be resisted. Even with the
best of intentions, it leads to tyranny--into Darth Vader reborn."
"Control is a transitory illusion," said Akanah.
"The universe bends us to its purposes--we do not bend it to ours."
"That may be so," said Luke. "But in the moment of trying, people
suffer horribly and die needlessly.
That's why the Jedi exist, Akanah--why we carry weapons and follow a
path of power. It's not out of any lust for fighting, or for our own
benefit. The Jedi exist to neutralize the power and the will of those
who would be tyrants."
"Is that what you were taught, or what you've taught your
apprentices?"
"Both. It was one of the First Principles of the Chu'unthor academy,
and I made it one of the First Principles at the Yavin praexeum."
"And what binds the Jedi to that end?"
"Because it's necessary," said Luke. "There's a moral imperative--the
one who can act, must act."
"It would be easier to trust you with the responsibility you seek if so
many Jedi hadn't strayed from your high ethic," Akanah said. "Jedi
training doesn't seem to prepare a candidate well for the temptations
of the dark side. You have lost students, just as your mentors did."
"Yes," said Luke. "I almost lost myself."
"Is it always to be so? Are the temptations beyond resisting?"
"I don't have an answer for that," Luke said, shaking his head. "Is it
how Jedi are chosen, how we are taught--a flaw in the candidates, or a
flaw in the disciplines-" "Perhaps there is no flaw," said Akanah.
"Perhaps some piece is still missing--something you have not yet
rediscovered."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps it will always be a struggle.
The dark side is seductive--and very powerful." He hesitated.
"I fought Vader with all I had, and still barely escaped with my
life.
Han saved me at Yavin, Lando saved me at Bespin, and Ariakin saved me
on the Emperor's Death Star. I never defeated my father. The deepest
cut I ever gave him was in refusing to join him."
Luke lay back on the sleeper and looked up at the stars.
"I think the next deepest was when I forgave him."
The viceroy's personal aide, Eri Palle, ushered Proctor Dar Bille into
the blood garden where Tal Fraan and Nil Spaar were already waiting.
Dar Bille offered his neck to his old friend, then accepted Tal Fraan's
offer to him.
"Darama," said Dar Bille, "I hear it proclaimed that your breedery
gloriously affirms your vigor."
"Fifteen nestings, all full and ripening," said Nil
Spaar. "The scent of it is intoxicating. I had to have my tenders
neutered in order that they remember their work."
"Your blood has always been strong, Nil Spaar, going back to when Kei
Chose you--but it has never been stronger than it is now."
"I would rather have truth than flattery from my old friends," said Nil
Spaar. "Those who can remember the glory of our uprising are already
too few in number.
What news of my flagship?"
"Pride of Yevetha is fully ready," said Dar Bille.
"The holding chambers for the hostages have been completed, and the
hostages are being loaded this very day.
What is the prospect for more fighting? Has Jip Toorr reported from
Preza ?"
"He has," said Nil Spaar. "His report is the reason I called for
you.
The vermin have not bared their necks or withdrawn. She who claims
honor in her own name still defies us. In the last three days, the
vermin fleet grew by at least eighty vessels. It has now dispersed
into the boundary regions of the All, and our vessels there have lost
contact with many of these intruders."
"I am greatly surprised that they value the lives of their own species
less than they valued the lives of the other vermin at Preza," said Dar
Bille. "Perhaps we do not hold whom we think we hold. Could Tig
Peramis have deceived you, in league with the Princess?"
"No," said Nil Spaar. "Han Solo is Leia's mate and consort, and these
are relations of great meaning to the vermin."
"Perhaps she does not realize that we hold him," said Tal Fraan.
"Perhaps she does not realize that her actions place him at risk.
Uncertainty has not made her cautious. Perhaps it is time to show them
our hostages."
Nil Spaar made a gesture that said the suggestion was premature. "Tell
me what you have learned studying the prisoners."
"They are uncomfortable with blood, even their own weak blood," said
Tal Fraan. "The aversion is strong enough to be a distraction, even in
challenging
moments. Beyond that, they have provided confirmation of suspicions I
already held."
"Indulge me and voice them."
"They form alliances as child to parent--one world claiming the
protection of a thousand," Tal Fraan said.
"They are divided, but they do not see it. They live in the long
shadow of their own disharmony, and do not know to seek the light."
"Is that their greatest weakness?"
That was a more dangerous question, and Tal Fraan hesitated before
answering. "No," he said.
"Their greatest weakness is that they are impure. The strong do not
slay the weak, and the weak do not yield their place to the strong.
The pale vermin think of self first and kinship last."
"And you find the evidence of this where?"
"It is why eight thousand Imperial slaves still serve us, and why these
two prisoners remain in our hands.
They fear death more than betrayal," said Tal Fraan.
"Any of the Pure would sacrifice himself before letting the warmth of
his breath make him a traitor."
"Dar Bille," Nil Spaar said. "Do you agree with my young proctor's
appraisal? Are the guildsmen and tenders who serve on my flagship as
eager to give themselves up as Tal Fraan declares?"
"It is true of many," said Dar Bille. "But if your young proctor could
speak with the late viceroy Kiv Truun, he would know it has never been
true of all."
The answer elicited a grunt and grimace of amused delight from the
viceroy. "Mark well, Tal Fraan, how the truth is usually a good deal
less certain than a willed belief," said Nil Spaar. "Now, tell
me--what is the greatest strength of the vermin?"
"It is as with all lesser species," said Tal Fraan, who had anticipated
the question. "Their strength is in their numbers. They overwhelm
their worlds with their unclean fecundity. You saw yourself how their
spawnworld is overrun with their soft, squirming bodies.
If they acted in concert, as one kinhold, they could overwhelm us."
"But they do not," said Dar Bille.
"No," said Tal Fraan. "Their great weakness undermines their great
strength."
"We will see that they do not learn how to be one kinhold," said Nil
Spaar.
"You succeeded most splendidly in that while on Coruscant," said Dar
Bille. "But they seem less confused now--and they have not
retreated.
How shall we answer them?"
Tal Fraan knew that it was the viceroy's question to answer, and he
held his tongue. But Nil Spaar turned his way and smiled. "What
advice would you offer, Proctor?
How shall I make this Leia show me her neck?"
"It is time we showed her our hostages," said Tal Fraan evenly. "And
since the pale vermin are uncomfortable with blood, we should find a
way to remind them-that we are not."
The meeting of the Ruling Council in the matter of Doman Beruss's
petition against Princess Leia Organa Solo was delayed two days, then
another, then another.
No reason was given for any of the postponements. Leia was notified of
them by secure messenger--Beruss did not contact her and made no
attempt to see her. She suspected that the members of the Council were
still divided about how to proceed now that she had rebuffed Doman
Beruss's private overtures.
Behn-Kihl-Nahm did come to see her on the third day. But his report
was gloomy and his advice unusually terse.
"I cannot count on enough votes to protect you if you refuse to step
aside," he said. "But if you accede gracefully, Doman has promised to
support me as interim President. Come to the Council and say that your
duties are too taxing in this difficult time, that you must be with
your family. Ask that I stand in for you until this crisis is past."
"I didn't ask for such help when my children were kidnapped," said Leia
frostily. "How will that look?"
"None of this need ever be made public," said Behn-Kihl-Nahm. "Leia,
Borsk Fey'lya has been trying to put together four votes for himself.
If yo
u appear unreasonable, Rattagagech will turn his support' to
Fey'lya, who is saying all the right things--and that will give Fey'lya
his four votes. You must understand how fragile your position has
become."
"There will be no vote at all unless I accept Doman's judgment that I'm
unfit to be President," said Leia. "There's no need to select a
caretaker if I haven't stepped aside."
"Princess, that option is gone," the chairman said sternly. "All you
will accomplish by being stubborn is to force the Ruling Council to
report the petition of no confidence to the Senate. And no one can
control or predict what will follow. If we are to deal with the
Yevetha, there must be stability and continuity."
"Then go back and tell Doman Beruss to put an end to this distraction,
Bennie," Leia said. "Because the easiest way to have stability and
continuity is for me to stay where I am."