"Then, if we may begin. Chewbacca. Jaina Solo.

Jacen Solo. Anakin Solo," said Ebrihim. "Permit me to present the d.u.c.h.ess Marcha of Mastigophorous. If she will so deign to honor us, she will be your hostess. Pray do her honor.

"You never told us your aunt was a d.u.c.h.ess," Jacen said accusingly.

"You never asked," Ebrihim replied evenly.

Jaina curtsied prettily, and managed somehow to look quite ladylike, considering that she was in rumpled, oversized ship's coverall& "Pleased to meet you, Your Grace." Chewbacca bowed, and did so with a surprising grace.

Ebrihim turned toward Jacen and Anakin and waited in silence until Jaina gave her twin a poke in the ribs.

"Huh? Oh." Jacen bowed awkwardly, popping up and down rather clumsily. Anakin got the idea, but imitated his sister's curtsy instead of his brother's bow.

"Close enough," Ebrihim muttered to himself. Then he turned to his aunt. "Your Grace, may I present the Wookiee Chewbacca, and the humans Jaina Solo, Jacen Solo, and Anakin Solo, all of the planet Coruscant."

"Ignored again, I see," Q9 muttered.

As good manners required, the d.u.c.h.ess paid the droid no attention whatsoever. "I am most pleased to meet you all," she said, nodding gravely. "I am honored to have such guests. Please make my home your home"Within reason. Ebrihim said with a warning look at the children.

"-and accept all that my hospitality may offer," the d.u.c.h.ess concluded, not missing a beat.

"Thank you," the three children said in chorus.

"Come, then, and enter," said the d.u.c.h.ess, and gestured toward the door, which opened on its own.

She stood aside and let her guests go. The children went first, followed by Chewbacca and Q9. Ebrihim and Marcha entered side by side, and waited while Chewbacca and the children admired the interior of the dome.

Ebrihim remembered his own first visit to the dome.

No one could set foot in it without stopping just to look It was a special and magic place. The plain white walls of the hemispheric dome rose up to the ceiling, peaceful and perfect, its warm white featurelessness drawing the eye upward. The columned entryways to the two wings of the house faced each other, each as elaborate as the exterior of the building was plain. One entry was carved in purest white marble, the other in jet-back ebony.

Monsters and fabulous creatures out of legend and history clambered and slithered and flew up and down the doorframes and around the columns.

The elaborate entryways faced each other across a F formal courtyard filled with planters and flowers of all kinds. A jet of water danced in the center of the dome, tempting those who dared to thread their way through the hedgerow maze that surrounded the fountain itself.

A dozen species of Drallish aviars and Corellian birds and other flying creatures flittered and fluttered about the dome.

After a moment or two of wide-eyed admiration, the children rushed into the dome, eager to explore.

Ebrihim saw Anakin rush straight into the maze, and wondered whether the lad would break all records m solving it, or whether he would vanish into it for all time.

"We have to conserve power everywhere else to do it," Marcha said to Ebrihim and Chewbacca, watching the children race about, "but by the stars, I am going to keep this dome green and alive." She began to walk about the garden, Ebrihim by her side, and Chewbacca and Q9 walking behind.

"I am glad of that, Aunt Marcha," said Ebrihim. "But we have just now arrived from Corellia, where there has been a complete news block.

What has caused the power shortage?"

"Bandits. Terrorists. Drallists. Call them by the names they have earned, or by the name they give themselves.

It doesn't much matter. They cut the power lines and sabotaged the local backup generator. All we have is the auxiliary house generator, and that's been balky. I had to send all the help home, not just to conserve power, but for their own safety. Driggs is the only one here with me.

He's been caretaker here since before you were born.

This is his home."

"Aunt, please, tell me. What is a Drallist?"

His aunt turned and looked at him solemnly. "If you do not know the answer to that question, you did well to come here," she said.

"The Drallists are Drall who say Drall for the Drall! Foreigners out!

No Selonians. No humans. Everyone with a tail off the planet!

Everyone without fur off the planet!"

"Not here, too," Ebrihim said. "The madness has not reached our people as well."

"Oh, yes it has, dearest nephew. Yes it has." She paused to regard Chewbacca and Ebrihim. "But it is late, and you have had a long journey-and it will take some doing to get those human cubs to bed, if I am any judge. We shall talk more in the morning."

Chewbacca bowed low and let out a low moan and a quiet little whoop as he pointed back toward the ship outside.

"What is it your friend is saying, Ebrihim? I never did learn Wookiee."

"He is offering to run power from his ship to the house and to take a look at your generators. And, I might add, our ship is in need of repairs. Nothing major, I take it, but the hyperdrive needs a bit of work, along with some other adjustments."

"I thank you for your offer of help, and will gladly accept what a.s.sistance you can provide," Marcha said to Chewbacca. "And you are, of course, welcome to repair your ship here, but not much joy will you have of a hyperdrive. Don't you know about the interdiction field?

The broadcast comlinks are down, but we still get news over the fiber cable links, and we heard about it." Ebrihim looked at her blankly.

"What interdiction field? As I said, we have just come from Corellia The last news we got was of Thrackan sal-solo using the Dogff Moc1fl A-v starbuster to demand all nonhumans be thrown off Corellia-"

"What? What in the heavens are you talking about?"

"The threat to blow up more stars if the Human League's threats aren't met."

"There has not been the slightest mention of that on Drall," Aunt Marcha said. "If there had, it would have been all over the planet in an hour. How did you get this remarkable news?"

"It was on an all-channel broadcast that Millennium Fakon's corn system recorded automatically while were making our escape. Chewbacca and I played it back later, and we agreed not to tell the children about it.

No need to frighten them. I take it you did not hear any of this on Drall."

"Nothing. Not at all."

"But what would be the point of making the threat on only one world?"

"How could anyone seriously threaten to blow up F stars to begin with?" Marcha asked.

"A very good question," Ebrihim said. "But they have. And they claim to have done more than merely threaten. They claim to have actually blown up a star.

And for heaven's sake, don't tell the children. But you still haven't told me about the interdiction field."

"But how could you not-ah. Of course," Aunt Marcha said. "With your ship's hyperdrive out, the instruments that would tell what had happened would also be inoperative."

"What interdiction field?"

Ebrihim asked again.

"Plainly," said the d.u.c.h.ess Marcha, "we have a lot to talk about."

CHAPTER SIX.

Meefings and Lies aeriel Captison adjusted her cloak and threw back its hood to reveal a cascade of brownblonde hair that was her crowning glory. Perhaps the red cloak was too formal for the meeting with the Coruscant group.

Whatever it was they wanted, it was supposed to be a private working group, not an official delegation.

Nonetheless, she wanted to make a good impression.

Gaeriel sighed and began pacing again. Foolishness.

Absolute foolishness. Why pretend? She did not care one little bit what sort of impression she made on the delegation. She was through with politics, for the most pan, and glad of it. While it had always pleased her to be able to do good, she finally had lost all patience with the posturing, the positioning, the worry over appearances that went with it.

But Luke Skywalker. He was part of the delegationand she wanted to look good for him. Why hide it? It was vain and foolish and pointless, but that did not make it any less true.

Suddenly the door annunciator chimed, and there was no longer time to worry. They were here.

Gaeriel could have sent a servant, but after all, this was supposed to be a secret meeting, so she had sent the servants away.

She went to the door of her private apartment, paused for a moment to compose herself, and then pressed the door control b.u.t.ton.

The door slid silently into its recess.

And Luke Skywalker stood there, all alone. He was dressed in a fighter pilot's flight suit, cleaned and neatly pressed, but unadorned by any insignia. He wore his lightsaber clipped to his belt in place of the standardissue sidearm. He was bareheaded, his hair was cut a bit shorter than she recalled, as if the adult Luke was stricter with himself than the youth had been. He looked, if not exactly older, then more mature.

The rigidly controlled pa.s.sion, the determination held in check by that same inner discipline-that was all still there.

She could read that in his eyes, at a glance.

"Master Skywalker," she said. "I bid you welcome.

You were expected, of course. But you come alone."

Luke flushed and bowed slightly. "The others of my party will be along in a few minutes, Lady Captison. But I thought it best if I saw you alone, at first, so that we might-we might-"

"That we might have the awkward scene we are having without an audience. Of course. That was most thoughtful of you, Master Skywalker."

Her visitor stood stiffly in the doorway. "It would-it would please me if you would call me Luke," he said.

"Good. I'm glad to hear it. You and I should not be formal with each other."

"Thank you3aeriel." Luke craned his neck slightly forward. "Is it all right if I-"

"Oh, yes, of course. Where are my manners?

Please, please come in.

Gaeriel stepped back and ushered her guest in.

"Come this way, into the garden. We can talk there." She led him through the light and airy house to the central courtyard, open to the sky. She had planted her garden there-bright flowers, straining toward the sun, sharing their beauty with the world. There was a little marker-stone in the shadiest corner of the courtyard, still looking a little new, a little out of place, like a plant that had not quite set its roots down yet. Her husband's ashes slept under the simple cube of stone.

Sitting down on the bench facing the marker, she looked from Luke to the stone, and then from the stone to Luke. What was she thinking of, bringing Luke here for their first talk? So her dead husband could serve as chaperon?

She felt a twinge of what? -guilt? embarra.s.sment?

shame? Whatever the precise emotion, it made no real sense.

It was all so ridiculous. Gaeriel pushed the feeling out of her mind and gestured for Luke to sit down beside her. She considered pointing the marker-stone out to him, and explaining what it was, but what would be the point of that, beyond making the man feel more awkward than he already did?

Once Luke was seated, at a more-than-respectful distance, she couldn't help but note, she began to speak with a certain forced cheerfulness. "So, Luke," she said, "what brings you to Bakura?"

Luke looked down at his feet for a moment, and then straight in her eye. "The present," he said. "Not the past."

"Ah," Gaeriel said. "I see."

"You meant a great deal to me, Gaeriel," he continued. "You still do mean a great deal. There have been many, many times over the years when I have wanted to contact you, send you a message, come for a viSit-"

"And why didn't you?" Gaeriel asked. And why did I never go to see you? she asked herself. There was an odd thought. In all the long years she had thought of seeing Luke again, it had never once entered her head that she might go to him.

"Because I could never be a part of your life, not really. Not when I might be called away to who knows where at any moment. Not when your political career, and your duty to your people, would have made it impossible. I could only have disrupted your life, and then disappeared from it again. Would that have been fair to either of us?"

"No," Gaeriel said. "It was hard enough that first time, looking at you and saying good-bye. To have had you return, and then leave again, over and over, to have seen what I wanted, and to have the seeing remind me that I could not keep it-no, Luke, you were quite right' "But-but the thing of it is that time pa.s.ses," said Luke. "I remember what I felt for you, but that's not the same as still feeling it. You have a piece of my heart, but it's a different, calmer, quieter piece than it used to be."

Gaeriel looked toward her husband's tombstone and smiled again, more sadly this time. "I certainly got over you, Luke, if that helps."

"Yes," Luke agreed, "you did. You married, and had a child, and-"

"And my husband died," she finished for him. "And here we are. But you are here for the present, you said, not the past."

"Yes." Luke agreed, and let out a deep breath. "We need your help,"

he said. "When the others in my party F arrive, we can explain it in more detail. Some of it I have learned very recently, from an NRI agent traveling with me by the name of Kalenda. She got out with the latest information we have. The basic facts are these.

There is a crisis. There seems to be a revolt in the Corellian system. Those who started the revolt claim to be able to blow up stars at will, and they might be telling the truth. Worse, they are prepared to blow up stars in inhabited systems. It's at least possible that they will do just that if we interfere, though they have n0t explicitly said so.