"True. But she's the only one you're, uh, involved with."

Jos raised an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?" Uli grinned, just like the big kid he was. "Come on, Jos, We share a cube. It's not that big, and a couple of plastoid panels down the middle doesn't exactly make it soundproof."

Jos felt uncomfortable. "I thought we were pretty circ.u.mspect."

"Not really. Besides, it's obvious even to people who don't live in the same clutch with you. She okay?"

"She's fine. She had to go up to MedStar for a CME cla.s.s. She'll be back in a day or two."

"You miss her."

It wasn't a question, and Jos supposed he could have slapped the kid down for it, but it sounded like a sympathetic comment, not a smarmy one. "Yeah. I miss her."

There was an awkward pause. "I think I'll go get a bite to eat," Jos said. "Join me?"

"Maybe later. I need to check on a patient first."

Barriss had been practicing with her lightsaber diligently since the accident in which she had cut herself. There had been a little hesitation at first, a concern that had slowed her moves, but that had gradually faded, and now she was back up to speed. Whatever the problem was, it had not come back, and so her confidence had risen, even though she still could not imagine what had caused the slip. A move she had made ten thousand times was not one about which she would normally think-in fact, she shouldn't have to think about it.

Thought was far too slow.

She also had no idea what had created the sudden blast of cold air. She'd checked with others in the area, as well as some of the techs. No one else had experienced it, and no one had any explanation for what might have caused it.

It was tempting to believe it had been her imagination, But she knew it hadn't. In addition to the croaker bushes, she had felt energy of some sort rippling through the Force.

She trusted in the Force; had done so since the first time it had surged to life within her and she'd understood what it was. She had also learned quickly what it was not. It was not, first and foremost, a protector, or a weapon, or a mentor-though it could, at times, manifest aspects of all those things. The Force was what it was, no more, no less. Errors in wielding it belonged to the user, She had just finished the section of Form III in which she danced against four imaginary opponents, all of whom were using blasters. The greatest Jedi who ever lived could not stop four bolts fired from different angles at the same moment, but that wasn't the point.

Jedi combat principles were founded in the concept of constantly reaching for perfection.

A Jedi began the battle with the idea of facing multiple attackers, who would be armed, and skilled. If you trained for combat believing that you would always be outnumbered and outgunned and that you could still prevail, you stood a much better chance than if you allowed in the idea of defeat because the odds were against you.

Someone approached Barriss from behind. She reached out with the Force . . .

Uli.

"Hey," came his voice.

Barriss turned, pleased that she had identified him be-fore he spoke, and amused at herself for taking pride in such a trivial thing. "Hey, yourself."

"How's the foot? No residual impairment?"

"No, it's fine. Completely healed." As he smiled in rueful admiration of her healing abilities, she asked, "Are you going off to hunt for flare-wings again?"

He shook his head. "Just finished my shift in the OT, and 1 needed to move around a little." He looked at her, not quite meeting her eyes. "May I ask you something?"

Barriss extinguished her lightsaber. "Sure."

"How can you be a healer and use that lightsaber like you do?"

"Practice. Lots and lots of practice."

Uli smiled and shook his head, but before he could reply, Barriss said, "You really mean why, not how, right?"

He nodded. "Right."

A wingstinger buzzed past, looking for prey smaller than the two people standing in the hot sun. Barriss pointed to the hard shade of a nearby broadleaf tree, and they walked to it.

"Since these wars, the Jedi have become primarily warriors," she said. "Made more powerful by their abilities to use the Force. Throughout history, as guardians, we have always sought to use our powers for the good of the galaxy-thus, for defense, rather than aggression. Even so, a warrior must know how to fight at levels from full-out battles to one-on-one personal combat. And part of that is taking responsibility for our actions.

"We believe that, if you must slay someone, if you must snuff out a life, then you must be willing to look that being straight in the eyes while you do it. The killing of a fellow sentient, even one who richly deserves it, is not a thing to be done lightly. Nor should it be a thing done easily. You should be close enough to see what it takes, to understand the pain and fear that enemies suffer when you dispatch them. You must feel some of their death."

"So that's why the lightsaber," he said.

"That's why the lightsaber. Because it puts you nextto an enemy, face to face, not at some far remove. You can use a holoscoped blaster to put a bolt through your opponent a kilometer away-it's more efficient, and there's much less risk to you in so doing. But you don't hear the death rattle, you don't smell the fear, you don't have to wipe your enemy's blood from your face. If you must kill, then you need to know how great the cost is-to your opponent, and to you."

"Okay, I understand that part. But-"How can I be a healer and a warrior at the same time?"

He nodded.

"They are but opposite sides of the same coin. Take a life, spare a life-there's always a balance. Most cultures teach that people are a mix of good and evil-seldom all of one or the other. In most folk, there is an innate decency. They live lives that are more virtuous than not, but there's always an option to choose bad over good.

"I can't create life, Uli, but I can restore it. Being a healer helps me keep m balance the fact that I have-and no doubt will again-taken lives. Sometimes, an opponent doesn't deserve the ultimate penalty. If I amputate a hand or an arm, I will have accomplished what needed to be done. Allowing this enemy to die, then, is wrong. Being able to repair what damage Fve caused can thus be of value."

"But not alljedi are healers," Uli pointed out. "True. But all Jedi are taught basic medical skills and first-aid techniques. And sometimes, of course, we ate called upon to heal our friends-and our own-as well as our enemies."

He nodded again. "Yes, I can see that."

"Then why the question?"

He looked at the ground, as if his boots had suddenly become fascinating. Then he looked back at her. "I'm a surgeon. It runs in my family, but it's also what I've wanted to do ever since I can remember. Fix patients, cure them, make them well. And yet . . ."

He was quiet, thinking. Barriss waited. She already knew what he was going to admit-the Force had told her, loud and clear-but it was important that he say it himself.

"And yet," Uli said, "there's a part of me that wants to kill. To hunt down the people who set this war in motion and exterminate them, by any and all means. I can feel it-that killing anger. I'm . . . that's not how I want to see myself."

Barriss smiled, a small and sad expression. "Of course not. Decent folk don't want to travel that path. Good people, people who love and care, would rather not have those feelings."

"So how do I get rid of them?"

"You don't. You acknowledge them, but you don't allow them to control you. Feelings don't come with 'right' or 'wrong' labels, Uli. You feel how you feel. You are only responsible for how you act.

"That's where choice comes in. Even the Force, a great power for good, can be used for ill,"

"That's the 'dark side' I've heard mentioned?"

Barriss frowned. "Jedi refer to the 'light side' and the 'dark side,' but really, these are only words, and the Force is beyond words. It is not evil, just as it isn't good-it simply is what it is. Power alone doesn't corrupt-but it can feed corruption that already exists. A Jedi must constantly choose one path or the other.

"Tell me, if you actually had a chance to meet Count Dooku, face to face, and you had it within yourpowerto kill him-would you?"

He reflected on that for what seemed a long time. Bar-riss could hear the rhurp-rhurp of the nearby croaker bushes, the high, thin buzzing of fire gnats swarming around her, the leathery slap of an Ishi Tib's bare feet striding through a nearby mud puddle. "Probably not," Uli said. "There you are."

"But I'm not certain I wouldn't. After all, he's been directly or indirectly responsible for planetary genocide. the destruction of things like the Museum of Light on Tandis Four ...".

"This is true. On the other hand ... are you familiar with the Vissencant Variations, by Bann Shoosha?"

He nodded. "Less than two years old, and already considered one of the great musical works of the millennium. "

"They were a great favorite of Zan Yant's. The music was written to celebrate the Shoosha family's escape from Brentaal. Had that battle not taken place,1' Barriss said, "the Variations might never have existed."

Uli looked troubled. "But is any work of art worth thousands of lives?"

"Probably not. I'm not saying it is-I'm just saying things aren't simple. That's really what it's all about, isn't it? Making choices and living with the consequences?"

"I guess . . ." He still sounded doubtful.

Barriss relit her lightsaber. "Well," she said to Uli, as she resumed her practice, "that's all we've got."

12.

Seated near the top row of the hastily constructed bleachers, Jos, Den, and Uli, along with several others of the trauma team, watched as various species filled the rest of the seats rapidly. It was evening, and the short tropical twilight was rapidly darkening into night. The area was lit, brilliantly but without glare or shadows, by powerful full-spectrum LEDs. Doctors, nurses, a.s.sistants, techs, workers, and other Rimsoo staff personnel had one set of staggered plasticast row seating for themselves, while the troopers and other enlisted personnel occupied two others.

Uli watched as the clones filled the rows, dozens of identical faces and forms. "It's one thing to see them one at a time on repulsor gurneys," he commented to Jos. "But all lined up like that . . . well, it's pretty remarkable. Like they came out of a holoduplicator."

Jos nodded without comment. He, too, was watching the clones. They sat next to each other, laughing, chatting, some boisterous and outgoing, others quieter, more preoccupied. He could see no real difference in their behavior from that of a group of soldiers anywhere in the galaxy who were antic.i.p.ating being entertained for a couple of hours. True, many were eerily alike in their mannerisms and gestures, and they also had little reti-cence in sharing drinks or bags of cracknuts, but such behavior, he knew, was common among monozygotic twins as well. Still, identical whorls of DNA did not necessarily mean identical personalities, even if those personalities had been geared toward certain similarities since birth-or decanting, in the clones' case.

Jos bit his lip thoughtfully. He knew now that he had come to think of the troopers as being interchangeable mostly because their organs were-because transplantation could be performed without the need to pump them full of immunosuppressants to prevent rejection syndrome. Klo Merit had been right: his training as a surgeon, however benevolent its intention, had conditioned him to look upon the vat-born as less than human. Now that he knew the truth, he wondered how he ever could have seen them any other way.

The bleachers were full now, with some latecomers sitting on the ground. There was no structure on the base big enough to hold the troupe of entertainers, so a half-rotunda stage had been set up in the large center compound. Now, abruptly, the white-noise audience sounds were stilled by the announcer's voice: "Gentlebeingsof all species, please welcome your host, Epoh Trebor."

On one side of the stage, the Modal Nodes, with their leader Figrin D'an, struck up the well-known theme music for Trebor, a Bith composition that translated into Basic as "Appreciated Reminiscences." Trebor, a human, was one of the HoloNet's most enduring entertainers. Re-voc was the current younger and popular holovid star whom HoloNet Entertainment had insisted have top billing, but Trebor had been doing this in various venues for decades. Since the beginning of the current conflict, he had been one of the driving forces behind these tours to various battle fronts to entertain the troops and, as he put it, "the other unsung heroes of the war." Jos had never particularly cared for Trebor's brand of humor; he found it overly sentimental and a bit too party line. But there was no denying his popularity, judging by the applause.

"Good evening, fellow sentients-and a special greeting to our troops." This brought renewed applause and cheers from the troopers. "Y'know, I hear the Kaminoans feel that the entire clone army project has been so successful, they're thinking of branching out into other areas. They're planning on cloning Falleens as marriage counselors . . . Zeolosians for farm and gardening aid ... and Gungans to teach elocution."

The laughter and applause continued as Trebor delivered his opening monologue. Most of his quips were somewhat funny, but Jos's mood continued to be somber. He wished Tolk were here with him, instead of high overhead on MedStar enduring some ridiculous and unnecessary tutoring-and possibly well-meant but equally unnecessary interrogation by Admiral Great-Uncle. He found it difficult to get into the festive spirit with her circ.u.mstances weighing on his mind.

He wondered how long this war was going to continue, and what their lives together would be like afterward-always a.s.suming that there would be an afterward. Like Erel Kersos, if Jos espoused an ekster he could never go home again. He had no worries about making a living-with his skill as a surgeon he could find work just about anywhere there was a medcenter, as could Tolk. They could even have children, since Lorrdians and Corellians were both basically human.

But to never see his homeworld, his friends, his family, again . . .

That would be hard. Brutally hard.

Erel Kersos had lived the life of an exile, and Jos could read the regret in the lines of the man's face. He felt his mood growing darker. He wished Merit were here so that he could unburden himself to him, but the minder was also away from the Rimsoo on some errand. No, he would have to deal with these sorrows himself.

And the only reliable way he knew to do that was, of course, to drown them.

The cantina was probably close to deserted, b.u.t.teedle would be on duty, and his mood would be best served by drinking in solitude anyway. Thank the stars he didn't have to worry about becoming addicted to alcohol-five hundred milligrams of a new drug called Sinthenol before the first drink prevented the potent concoctions from having long-lasting effects on the brain. It also sometimes helped alleviate hangovers, and the times that it didn't he could always go to I-Five. The droid had recently discovered in himself the ability to soothe headaches and other postparty symptoms with sonic tones. "Two clones walk into a cantina ..." Jos felt suddenly impatient. The show seemed to him pointless, or worse: a cla.s.sic case of whistling past the pyre. The chances of it being interrupted by more incoming patients were even higher than usual, since the Separatists were currently aggressively extending their front lines. Abruptly he stood, made his way to the steps, and left.

Den and Uli watched Jos leave the bleachers. Uli scratched his head. "I thought he was looking forward to this."

"Probably so did he. After you've been here a little longer, you'll realize that our good captain, while not exactly bipolar, can sometimes be a little .. . moody."

"I think he misses Tolk."

"Of course. But he's also been waxing existential of late about the whole war effort. I get the feeling Jos was pretty much apolitical when he was conscripted, maybe even leaning toward war a bit. But I'd say his sensibilities have taken a sharp turn away from the party line since he's been on Drongar."

Uli snorted. "Show me one person who hasn't made that turn."

"I could have, but he's dead now, Went out in a blaze of glory, mowing down Separatists and probably, it looks now, preventing an a.s.sa.s.sination attempt that might have cost the Republic dearly." Den shrugged. "But he was definitely in the minority. Around here, in fact, he pretty much was the minority."

"Phow Ji," Uli said. "The Martyr of Drongar, they're calling him. HoloNet News is doing a doc.u.mentary."

"Of course they are." For a moment, Den thought about joining Jos in the cantina, for that was surely where the captain was headed. But then Epoh Trebor introduced Eyar Marath, a most comely Sull.u.s.tan singer and dancer, and he decided to stay for a while longer.

Nothing wrong with watching a good-looking fem wearing next to nothing, was there?

Nevertheless, it was hard not to brood on the cosmic injustice of it all. True, Ji was dead and thus unable to enjoy his brief notoriety. But that only deepened the irony as far as Den was concerned.

Ah, well-all fame is fleeting. He watched Eyar Marath prance about the stage, belting out the lyrics of one of the songs that had recently made it onto the Galactic Top 40,000. She was beautiful, of course. She was hot plasma now, but where would she be in ten years? And the band backing her up-what were they called? The Modal Nodes?-were also rocketing high now, but if, twenty years later, they wound up playing for pouch change in a dingy s.p.a.ceport bar somewhere, he wouldn't be at all surprised. It was the nature of the business. No matter how bright the spotlight on you, sooner or later it went out.

At that point all the lights in the camp went out. A surge of panic enveloped the crowd.

Den heard cries of shock and surprise, and the uneasy babble of questions. Both he and Uli were small enough to hunker down and roll under the bench, and he was about to tell the young human to be ready to do so if the crowd around them panicked. Better an uncomfortable squeeze than being trampled.

But before he could open his mouth, the emergency generators kicked on, washing away the darkness. Den could see Trebor, Marath, and some other members of the troupe looking about in puzzlement and apprehension.

The collective stir of fear ebbed with the light. But then things got really interesting.

Den felt a cold draft touch the back of his neck. Then, in the somewhat-dimmer-but-still-sufficient-to-see lighting, fat white flakes began to drift down upon the gathering. One of them landed on Den's hand. He stared at it, watched it melt.

Snow. Holy milking Sith! Snow?

13.

Jos had just settled himself at a table in the cantina-he had plenty from which to choose, since n.o.body else was in the place except the serving droid Teedle-when the lights blinked off. The emergency generators rumbled online and quickly replaced the darkness with a slightly dimmer, more hard-edged lighting.