"It's the meld." Alema's answer came a little too quickly. "We really baked ourselves on the voxyn mission."

"That so?" Leia was far too experienced to miss the Twi'lek's attempt to change the subject, but she decided to play along - for now.

"When did you start using the battle-meld with Killiks?"

Alema looked genuinely confused. "We haven't. What makes you think that? They're not even Force-sensitive."

"I know." Leia gave her a motherly smile. "But there is a mental connection, especially with you. I saw it at the dance."

Alema cast a hopeful look toward the multiprocessor, then seemed to realize that the bell would only delay the inevitable.

"Maybe there is," she said. "It's nothing you're aware of. You start feeling like you belong, then you sort of... suddenly you just seem to have a larger mind."

Leia began to wonder if there were any deprogrammers in the Galactic Alliance capable of handling eight Jedi.

"It's hard to describe." Alema must have sensed Leia's thoughts in the Force, because her tone was defensive. "You're aware of so much more.

You see outside the nest when you're inside, or inside when you're outside. And what you feel-you feel everything."

"I've heard glitterstim is a lot like that," Leia commented dryly.

"This is even better," Alema said. "You don't get sick. It's completely harmless."

Leia was beginning to see why the Twi'lek's infatuation with Anakin had always made Han so nervous. Though the multiprocessor hadn't chimed yet, she returned to the galley and took two empty mugs from the cabinet, then placed a sliver of tang-bark and a drop of orchid-bean extract in each.

"What's that?" Alema asked, joining Leia at the galley.

"Spice," Leia said.

Alema's eyes lit.

"Not that kind," Leia said. "Just flavoring."

The multiprocessor chimed. She filled both mugs, topped them with dollops of mallow paste-made from real mallow root-and handed one to Alema.

"You're wrong, you know," Leia said. "It's not harmless."

Alema glanced at her mug and looked confused.

"The Colony," Leia said. "Or have you forgotten the attack on the Shadow? And the tower collapse on Yoggoy?"

"You can't believe the Colony was responsible. Taat may not have healed Saba, but they saved her life."

"Taat's healers had to save Saba's life because someone else tried to take it."

"Not Killiks. Saba said she was attacked by..." Alema frowned, then finished, "... a man. You heard her."

"She thought it was Welk," Leia said, supplying the name Alema had not been able to recall. "Saba also said he was protecting a Killik nest.

A nest with two dark blue Killiks." Leia paused, then demanded, "Who were they?"

"That part makes no sense," Alema said. "There are no blue Killiks-at least none we've seen here."

The denial would have been more convincing had Alema's eyes not slid away. Leia took a sip from her mug, savoring its silky sweetness as she pondered what the Twi'lek might be trying to conceal.

"It makes sense to you," Leia said finally. "But you don't want to tell me."

Alema took a sip of her drink, hiding from Leia behind the rim of her mug. "We're all upset about what happened to Master Sebatyne. Why would anyone hide information about that?"

"Obviously, because you're trying to protect the Killiks." Leia returned to the table and sat down, regarding the Twi'lek from across the cabin. "What I can't figure out is why you wanted to come with us. Are you afraid we're going to discover the secret they're trying to protect?"

"Very good." Alema raised her mug to indicate she was talking about the hot chocolate. "It is better this way."

Leia ignored the compliment. "Or maybe you're afraid that what happened to Master Sebatyne is going to happen to us?"

Alema raised her mug again, but she swallowed too quickly to enjoy what she was drinking.

"So that's it," Leia said. She could not help feeling a little hurt that her own daughter had not worried about her safety - but that was probably because Jaina knew that Leia and Han could take care of themselves... or so she told herself. "You're trying to protect us."

"Not at all." Alema came to join her at the table. "You don't need protecting-at least not from Killiks."

"The Chiss are afraid of something," Leia pointed out.

"Yes." Alema sat down next to Leia. "They're afraid the Galactic Alliance will learn what they've been doing in Qoribu."

"They're afraid of the Killiks," Leia said. "And you're hiding the reason. All of you are."

"There's nothing to hide," Alema said. "Chiss xenophobia is well doc.u.mented. And where insects are involved, it's pure bigotry. Just because a life-form has six legs, they think they're free to smash it."

"Nice try," Leia said. "But we're not changing the subject."

The jump alert knelled softly, and the silky beverage in their mugs shuddered slightly as the Falcon slipped into hypers.p.a.ce. Leia decided the time had come to start pushing.

"Alema, what were those insects Welk was protecting?"

Alema made a point of meeting Leia's gaze. "You know as much about that as anyone."

"Fair enough," Leia said. "I do have a theory. Those insects were exactly what Saba thought they were: Colony a.s.sa.s.sins."

Alema shook her head. "Why would the Colony need a.s.sa.s.sins?"

"Because Unu wants its own Jedi," Leia said. "And that means stopping us."

"No," Alema insisted. "The Colony would never murder anyone."

"Sure it would," Leia said. "That's why Raynar was willing to let us leave after we discovered Yoggoy's location. He didn't think we'd live long enough to reveal it to anyone else."

"He let you leave because he trusted you to keep the secret. Unu has nothing to do with the attacks on you and the Shadow. That was..."

Alema frowned again, as though she were trying to recall the name of Saba's attacker.

"Welk," Leia supplied. "I'm surprised you have so much trouble remembering the name of someone who betrayed you."

"It doesn't mean anything," Alema said. "You're fl.u.s.tering me with this nonsense about the Colony trying to kill you, that's all."

The excuse was just convenient enough to rouse Leia's suspicion.

"I'm sorry. Maybe you can remember the name of Welk's Master? What was his name? "

"Her name," Alema said. "Good try, though."

"Do you recall her name?"

Alema thought for a moment, then asked, "What does this have to do with anything? They're both dead."

"Then it wasn't Welk who attacked Saba?" Leia asked.

Alema shook her head resolutely. "It couldn't have been. He died when the Flier crashed, along with... his Master."

Now it was Leia's turn to frown. The truth-at least Alema's memory of it-seemed to be changing before her eyes. "Then who was it?"

"It must have been a Chiss spy," Alema said.

"With a lightsaber?"

"He could have stolen it," Alema said. "Or found it."

"That's possible," Leia said carefully. "But wouldn't a simpler explanation be that Welk survived the Crash?"

Alema shook her head, and her tone grew ardent. "Raynar was the only one Yoggoy found at the Crash."

"That doesn't mean Raynar was the only one who survived," Leia insisted. "Didn't Jacen tell you? He was there. He saw Raynar pull both Welk and Lomi out of the crash."

"Jacen said that," she admitted. "But it's impossible. When the Flier crashed, he was on Baanu Ra.s.s with us. Or Vergere's prisoner on Coruscant."

"True," Leia said. "Still, he saw what happened at the Crash. I don't know how, but he did."

"He said he did." Alema stood and turned as though to leave, then whirled back toward the table. "That doesn't make it true."

Leia was puzzled by the strange reaction. "When I was at the Crash, he spoke to me-at the same time he was on Jwlio," she said. "So I tend to believe him."

"You would." Alema began to pace. "He's your son."

"And I've seen what he can do." Cautiously, Leia asked, "Why is it so important for you to believe Jacen is wrong?"

"Why is it so important for you to believe he isn't?"

"I'm trying to figure out who's been attacking us." Leia was speaking in a soft, nonthreatening voice... and wondering who exactly she was talking to. Maybe there had been more to that hopeful look than Leia imagined when Alema had mistaken the tangbark for glitterstim. "And I'm pretty certain Welk is involved. Possibly Lomi-"

"It doesn't matter what Jacen thinks he saw," Alema said. "They're both dead."

"And you know this?"

Alema nodded.

"How?" Leia asked.

"We..." Alema's face went blank, and she began to make loud clicking sound deep in her throat. "The Colony knows."

"The Colony knows." Leia made a point of letting her skepticism show. "Alema, what are you trying to protect us from?"

"Nothing!" The Twi'lek banged her fists on the table. "You have nothing to fear, if you will just do what we tell you!"

"We who, Alema?"

Alema's eyes widened, then she drew herself upright and stood at the table in shock, her mouth working but no sound coming from her lips, The Noghri appeared silently at the cabin entrance. Leia signaled them to wait with an eye flicker, then let the silence hang while she finished her hot chocolate.

Finally, she put the empty mug down and looked up. "Well, I'm happy to see you understand why that statement is so wrong."

"Of course," Alema said. "We... I... apologize."

She spun on her heel and left the cabin so quickly that the Noghri barely had time to step out of her way. Leia did not go after her. There would be plenty of time to tease the rest of the truth out of her on the trip back to Ossus, and Leia had learned enough for now. She closed her eyes and reached into the Force for Luke, hoping that this time her sense of him would be a little more solid, that she could impart to him some hint of the hidden danger that the Shadow might have carried back from Qoribu.

TWENTY-ONE.

The four brains displayed above the medholo varied broadly in size and shape, the largest being oblong with only a slight downward bulge to join the brain stem, the smallest looking more like a withered pallie mounted on a pulsing mushroom stem. In three of the brains, bursts of activity were simultaneously blossoming in bright identical colors, then fading at exactly the same rate. Even more telling were the two-dimensional alpha waves crawling through the air beneath each hologram.

Three of the patterns were indistinguishable, with matched frequencies and amplitudes. The fourth wave, located beneath the solid blue shape of a human brain, was alternating between dead flat and so wildly erratic that the peaks vanished into the holo above.

"Very funny, Jacen." Luke frowned toward the relaxi-chair where his nephew reclined, looking out through viewing window of a huge scanning hood. "Would you stop playing with the brain mapper?"

"Just making the point." The fourth brain went entirely white.

"This won't tell you anything. You must decide for yourselves whether we can be trusted."

"Trust isn't the issue," Corran Horn said. Along with Luke, Mara, and several other Jedi Masters, he was standing in the isolation ward of the infirmary at the Jedi academy on Ossus, where they would be far from the prying eyes of the Galactic Alliance advisory council. "We're just trying to figure out what happened to you."

"It has nothing to do with Killikz," Tesar said.

"We overused the meld," Tahiri said.

"And now we can't stay out of each other's minds," Tekli finished.