I slowly straightened up and smiled. "I know, but I choose not to. The fatigue and little aches and pains feel good. They remind me I'm human and mortal, and I think that is a good thing right now."

"Certainly not a bad one." His right hand came out from beneath his cloak. Hovering above his outstretched palm I saw a milky jade crystal block. It rotated slowly there in the air and glowed with an internal light that gave Luke's flesh a nasty green cast to it. "You remember what this is?"

"A Jedi Holocron. It contains histories and wisdom and in-formation about the Jedi, collected down through the years." I twisted my torso left and right to stretch some of the muscles in my back. "Tionne has been using it to research Jedi history. She said the gatekeeper is an alien Jedi named Bodo Baas."

;'Exactly right." Luke cupped his hands and touched the floating cube with his fingertips.

The crystal flared white for a moment, then the hologram of a hunched insectoid creature with a bulbous carapace con-gealed above it like a green ghost. The creature oriented itself toward Luke. "Greetings, Jedi,"

it intoned, "I am Bodo Baas, the gatekeeper of the Holocron. Do you have a question for me?"

Luke looked through the hologram at me. "A model of Bodo Baas' cognitive network functions as a search, recovery and storage allocation program.

There is quite a bit of information stored here. I spent some time researching last evening to see if what you did the other day has been done before."

"Has it?"

The Jedi Master smiled. "It has. In fact, one of the first manifestations of Jedi skill showed to me by Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi was very similar.

Gatekeeper, explain the power cla.s.sified as Alter Mind to Keiran Halcyon."

The gatekeeper turned toward me. Its black compound eyes fixed me with a stare. "Jedi skills in the Force are rooted in three areas. Control is internal. It is the Jedi's ability to recog-nize the Force in himself and to use it to his benefit. Sense involves the next step, in which the Jedi recognizes the Force in the universe outside herself. Here she feels the Force and is able to draw upon it for information about the world around her. Through it she is connected to the rest of the universe. Alter is the third and most difficult area to master, for it in-volves the student's ability to modify the Force and redistribute its energies.

Through these skills, the Jedi can influence the universe, making changes as needed to accomplish its goals.

"The power known as Alter Mind bridges all these skill ar-eas. Through it a Jedi can project her perception of reality into the mind of another, or an illusion or conclusion that she needs the other to hold as true. This is a most magnificent and useful power, but it is also one fraught with danger. Bending the will of another for a benign purpose can be n.o.ble and good. The dark side lurks nearby in this power, so it should be used with caution."

I blinked my eyes. "Well, that's very interesting."

Luke nodded. "When confronted by a stormtrooper looking for droids back on Tatooine, Obi-Wan used this power to con-vince a stormtrooper that our droids were not the ones he was looking for."

"I remember having a stormtrooper searching for me during my escape from Lusankya. I was doing all I could to make myself unseen and he didn't see me."

The Jedi Master's eyes narrowed for a moment. "You think you unconsciously tapped this power before you began train-ing?"

"I guess so. Is that bad?"

"No, actually, it is good. It explains some things." Luke nod-ded toward Bodo Baas' image. "As the gatekeeper indicated, it's a very powerful Force ability. Some individuals show a cer-tain apt.i.tude for areas of Jedi power-they have an inborn talent for it. It could be your talent falls into this area."

"Could be. It's good I have apt.i.tude in something, because I am useless when it comes to telekinesis. Then again, I'm not certain how adept I am at influencing minds. I remember trying to influence a stormtrooper on Thyferra with disastrous re-suits."

"Just because you have a talent for it doesn't mean you will always succeed." Luke grinned somewhat sheepishly. "When I visited Jabba the Hutt's den I managed to use it on his Twi'lek aide to get myself an audience. My attempt to use it on Jabba failed right after that. The Hutt may have been stronger-willed, and a Hutt's thought patterns are a bit further from human than those of a Twi'lek. Success was not guaranteed for me, either."

I nodded. "I should also take the caution about the dark side to heart as well."

"Yes, definitely." Luke released the Holocron and the gate-keeper evaporated. "The dark side is seductive for those who want too much too fast. I was concerned at how easily you managed to make us all see what you wanted us to see, which is why I consulted the Holocron about your ability. I think you should be very careful about how you employ it. I would like you to team up with another student and try to alter the perception of color or simple things that don't matter, to test your limits.

Of course, I want you only to work with that student's permission and full knowledge."

"Got it." I smiled. "However, the temptation to make Gantoris think he's already dressed when he isn't does exist."

Luke laughed lightly for a moment, then withdrew the Holocron from sight.

"You still think like a pilot-maybe this room wasn't a good idea after all. Please don't do that to Gantoris. Jedi powers are not for playing pranks. Later on test-ing yourselves against each other will hone your skills, but we have to work together at it. Your rivalry with Gantoris concerns me."

I held my hands up. "Master, I don't consider Gantoris a rival. I don't particularly like him. He reminds me of a pilot I knew when I first joined Rogue Squadron. Bror Jace and I didn't get along at first, but we grew to understand each other. We never became good friends, but we managed to work to-gether and managed to liberate his homeworld from Isard."

The Jedi Master lowered his head for a moment. "Gantoris has had a lot of hardships in his life. He managed to keep the people of Eol Sha alive in a very difficult place. We have moved his colony to Dantooine and relieved him of his responsibility for them. Despite that he pushes himself and holds himself to the strict level of discipline that kept him alive on Eol Sha. Here he sees you pushing yourself harder than he does, and your work pays off with surprising successes. He cannot beat you physically. While you failed to raise the rock, you exhibited a power for which he has no apt.i.tude and can't understand."

"You're saying he is having trouble enjoying the freedom he now has because it's new to him. All the measures for his con-duct he would have used before have no value here, so he has seized upon me as a scale against which to measure himself?" I shook my head. "He's worse off than I would have thought."

"Maybe you can do things to help him."

I felt a cold draft seep in through my sweaty tunic. "I can try."

"You should do."

"If he lets me. I will do what I can, but if he is not receptive, my efforts won't work."

"I appreciate what you will do." The Jedi Master nodded beyond me toward the communal refresher station. "Go get cleaned up and get some food. It will be a busy day for every-one. If things work the way I intend, more will learn what you have learned and we can move into the next stage of develop-ment for Jedi Knights."

In the several days that followed our conversation, a variety of things became readily apparent to me. The first was that my ability to feel the Force followed a simple pattern: when the pressure was on, I could touch it and use it. When just practic-ing I found it elusive. I did manage to make nebula orchid blossoms change colors for Kirana Ti, and let Tionne see what she would look like if she changed her hair color, but even those simple efforts tired me.

Master Skywalker found this problem more alarming than I did. I think I was able to put it into perspective because of my training for CorSec.

All recruits were taught how to handle a variety of blasters. We had it drilled into us over and over again that the only time we should draw a blaster and point it at someone was if we fully intended to use it, or were willing to use it. We were told that to use methods that escalated the tension in a situation was a bad thing, which meant my default mode was to hold back. Only when I had to succeed would I cut loose.

That being said, I was able to access the Force more than I had before.

Luke was right: tapping into the Force could re-fresh me after a long run. It could sharpen me up when I was feeling drowsy. It could convince my body that I really didn't need to eat yet and could dull the aches and pains of life. The most faint trickle of Force energy was enough to accomplish these simple things and, not needing the vast power I had previ-ously, I didn't draw on it.

I know Master Skywalker wanted all of us to feel comfortable in the Force and to progress at our own rates in finding out how we would use the Force, but I wanted a bit more discipline in our training. We had no baseline against which to measure our-selves-in many ways Gantoris'

problem was one we all shared. Progress was difficult to determine, and with a more organized approach we could have tried to duplicate previous efforts and learned how to actually do them again.

I don't think it helped that Luke had trained with two teach-ers and under extreme conditions. He presented us with the lessons Yoda and Obi-Wan had taught, but they weren't always directly on point for what we needed at the moment. Tionne helped a lot, offering other examples from the Holocron, but there were times when Luke had difficulty getting his message across.

One night, in the deepest of Truenight, Master Skywalker summoned us all without a word. Wearing only a hooded cloak, I joined the rest of my comrades and padded along silently in their wake. Far ahead of me, leading the way with a dim glow-lamp, Master Skywalker conducted us through the Great Tem-ple and down a tunnel I had never previously noticed. The dusty stones leached warmth from my feet and the tiny wisps of cool air that sliced in through the gap in my cloak tightened my flesh.

Down and down we walked, deep into the bowels of the moon. The steps were worn, but not slick, and somehow I got the impression that this pathway predated even the Temple it-self. Eventually our descent ended, and I sensed Tionne's close-ness a second before I b.u.mped into her. Past her shoulder I could see the circle of light playing up against what appeared to be a solid stone wall, but a hint of steam and a whiff of sulfur suggested something more lay beyond it.

Luke praised Gantoris and Kam for voicing their suspicions that the trail had not ended, then he worked some sort of switch that slid a panel of stone aside. The resulting hole swal-lowed the light from his lamp. Our line began to move again and as the trail curved to the left, the scent of sulfur grew. With it came a feeling of humidity and heat. Condensation slicked the stones on the pathway.

I came into the underground grotto last of all and found a place with my back to the tunnel, facing Luke across the circle. His glowlamp played over the surface of a bubbling mineral spring. Steam coursed over the water and washed up to tease us with warm caresses. The random staccato of bursting bubbles filled the silence, and the acrid air began to burn in the back of my throat. Beneath the glowlamp's light, the water appeared to be an inviting blue, which contrasted easily with the white min-eral crusts on the visible rocks and edges of the pool.

"This is our destination," Luke intoned solemnly. He snapped off the glowlamp, plunging us into darkness. A couple of the students gasped, but I'd sort of expected him to do that. Whatever he intended for us in this place, something mechani-cal like the glowlamp seemed unlikely to be part of it.

After a time distant starlight poured through a creva.s.se in the stone ceiling above us, allowing us to perceive shapes and the wavering rippled reflections of stars in the pool's bubble-wracked mirror. The algae in the pool gave off a dim glow itself, outlining the edge of the pool, but doing nothing to dis-pel the black murk of its depths.

Luke's voice filled the grotto. "This is an exercise to help you concentrate and attune yourself to the Force. The water is a perfect temperature: you will float, you will drift, you will reach out and touch the rest of the universe." As the last of his words echoed through the cave, the water rippled outward from where he had been standing, indicating he had somehow si-lently slipped into the water.

Without waiting for more of an invitation, I shed my robe and eased myself into the pool. The water at first seemed scald-ingly hot, but I knew that was only because I had been cold once I stripped out of my robe. I sank myself gingerly up to my waist, then released the pool's edge and sank beneath the sur-face. The water washed the last of the cold from my hair and goatee while bubbles marched up through the hair on my chest.

I broke the surface again and shook my head to clear water from my eyes.

The pool eased aches and pains easily, with the heat pouring in through my flesh to warm muscle and bone. I stretched my arms out and brought my legs up, doing my best to relax so I could float there. Tipping my head back, I looked up at the stars and idly wondered how many of them I had visited in my lifetime.

I heard the occasional splash and whispered apology as one apprentice floated into another. With the warmth of the water and the way it held us up, it was very easy to forget our physical bodies. I recall Luke remarking that Yoda had told him we are all luminous creatures, not crude conglomerations of flesh and bone. Here in the grotto pool, warm and isolated in the dark, forgetting our physical selves became more easy than ever be-fore.

And absent contact with our physical selves, we are left feeling the Force within us.

Luke's voice again broke the silence. "There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no pa.s.sion, there is serenity. There is no death, there is the Force." He spoke the words of the Jedi Code with such power and solemnity, I found myself whispering them along with him. My voice joined that of the other students, until our declarations filled the grotto, binding us together.

Master Skywalker urged us to use the water and the warmth to free us so we could feel, really feel, the Force. I lay back and could hear the echoes of my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I concentrated on it, knowing it as a sign of life. I let my heart-beat meld with the rhythms of the Force and felt the sizzle of the Force soaking into me.

I heard Luke saying more, but the words lost their meaning in what I was seeing through the Force. Instead of hearing every syllable, stringing them together, then translating sounds into concepts, through the Force I saw his intent create eddies and currents. He herded our attention to the stars above us, then redirected us back down and into the pool.

I rolled over and floated vertically, staring down into the pool. The sky's reflection sank beneath the rippling surface, then took on depth.

The sliver of sky expanded as if the rocks above us had become transparisteel. As Luke asked, "Can you see it?" the pool was gone and I found myself floating in the limitless depths of s.p.a.ce.

With my mind I reached out and grafted my thoughts to those of the Jedi Master. I clung to his energy as he soared us through various solar systems. Nebulae gave birth to stars as we flew past, and suns went nova, consuming whole planetary sys-tems. Worlds flashed past, some which I recognized, others I did not. We visited systems where Imperial warlords battled each other for supremacy, and planets where refugees sought new lives.

On our journey I caught a flicker of something I recognized. I wanted to linger for a second while I identified the feather-light brush of consciousness against mine. The second it took me to make contact proved too long because even as I knew I felt Mirax's presence, Luke had torn me away from her. I spun around, trying to find her again, but I could not.

In her place I sensed malevolence and danger. At first it came from where ! had felt Mirax, then it sank deep into the moon and focused itself beneath us. I knew what I had felt had been one danger, and what I was feeling now was part of a warning from Master Skywalker about another.

He'd felt an-other menace, one closer and more immediate.

Somewhere, deep inside the moon's crust, searingly hot ga.s.ses had been released and were jetting their way upward. They would bubble up and into the pool through the same cracks that allowed the water to fill the basin. In a heartbeat or three the water would be flooded with hot ga.s.ses, roasting us alive.

I fought panic and would not have made it but for two things. Above the splashing of others striking for the side of the pool, Master Skywalker's voice rose. "A Jedi feels no heat or cold. A Jedi can extinguish pain.

Strengthen yourselves with the Force." The calm strength in his words banished my fear and allowed me to concentrate.

The second thing was a choked gasp from Tionne. She had lunged for the side of the pool but her slender fingers had failed to hang on. She sank abruptly and came back up, sput-tering. She coughed hard and noisily sucked in air, then real-ized she would never get clear. In the lichen's light reflected by her pearly eyes, I saw that she knew she would die.

I refused to let her die. The frustration, pain and sorrow that had tortured me when my father died in my arms, became transformed into a determination that Tionne would not die here. I knew I had it within me, using the Force, to prevent her death. I opened myself to the Force, adamant that I would do whatever I needed to do-even dying-to save her.

The Force flooded into me as the superheated ga.s.ses. .h.i.t the pool. I felt the heat hit my feet first and expected the Force to channel it around me. Instead the heat poured up through me. The Force insulated me from its destructive potential, then seemed to digest it into energy I could use. Without thinking I gestured toward Tionne with my cupped right hand and raised it.

As if riding a repulsorlift couch, the silver-haired apprentice rose from the water and drifted to the side. I set her down as gently as I could.

She dropped to one knee and coughed again, with her silvery hair flowing down like a curtain between us.

I turned about to see if there was anyone else who needed help, but the roiling surface of the water had reverted to a more placid state and everyone else appeared to be fine. I sensed no pain, just surprise and grat.i.tude and confidence. A smile blos-somed on my face as I realized that I, too, had survived a lethal challenge by using the Force.

"Enough for tonight." I heard the splash as Luke pulled him-self up out of the pool. "Think about what you have learned."

Once again, I found that when it was necessary I was able to use the Force. Lifting Tionne clear of danger surprised me, causing me to a.s.sume that the energy I had absorbed needed to be expended in some way. I had used it to power telekinesis-something I had shown no talent for in the past. It was nice to know that with an energy boost I could do telekinesis, but with-out one it would still be hopeless. That didn't matter, though. Tionne was safe and I was plenty pleased with that.

I swam to the side of the pool and pulled myself from the water. The cooler air immediately raked cold claws over me, puckering my flesh. I looked around for my robe, then found it drifting through the air toward me. I pulled it on and nodded my thanks to Luke.

The Jedi Master watched me cautiously, his blue eyes intense even in the dim light. "Do you know what you did here?"

"As nearly as I can tell, the Force allowed me to serve as a conduit for the heat."

"Very good. There is another Jedi power that manifests with the absorption and dissipation of energy. My father had skill in it. He could absorb or deflect a blaster bolt without harm." Luke's voice became colder. "He even managed telekinetic tricks with the energy he pulled in."

"I don't like the sound of that, Master." I opened my hands toward him.

"I just knew Tionne would die if I did nothing. Lifting her from the water seemed the most direct method for saving her. I did not think, I just acted."

"I know, and that's very good. The Force is more heart than brain. I did not mean what I said to sound like criticism." His voice softened a bit.

"It is just that doing anything with haste can lead to impatience, and that invites the dark side. You would be better off to let the power bleed back away into the galaxy through the Force. If you are going to employ it the way you did, avoid haste so you avoid problems."

"Yes, Master."

Luke approached and slapped me on the shoulder. "You did well, Gantoris did well and saved Dorsk 81 in the process, and the others also survived this unexpected challenge. This is a good sign for our future."

'Tm sure you are right, Master," I found myself saying, but the chill creeping into my feet as we climbed back toward the Temple left me wondering if another disaster lurked to rip us apart.

The next morning I woke all muzzy and, as a result, didn't realize I was starting out on my run later than usual. About halfway through the run, at the point in my circuit furthest from the Great Temple, I realized what time it was. While Luke still allowed flexibility in training times, in the mornings he usually appreciated our getting an early start. I tried to pick up my pace, but I knew I'd arrive back at the Temple well after everyone else had a.s.sembled to start working.

I wanted to kick myself for being so stupid. The previous evening had been an impressive victory in the battle to open ourselves up to the Force. While the emergency had opened me broadly to the Force, I'd been feeling it before that. I knew I could make great progress and had been looking forward to the morning's exercises to see if I could capitalize on what I had learned the night before.

The reason I'd awakened rather dull was because I'd not gotten much sleep at all. Master Skywalker had mentioned that dreams rarely disturbed a Jedi's sleep. I don't know why, but I'd never dreamed much. When I did dream I tended toward nightmares that ruined my sleep.

Nightmares had kept my sleep uneven and fragmentary. I kept drifting back to the place where I had felt Mirax's pres-ence. I tried to freeze the stars in place so I could figure out where I was supposed to be, but one by one they winked out. They left me alone and in the dark. When I tried to look at my hands, I saw through my flesh as rot ate away at the bones, then I fell into nothingness, forever to exist in the knowledge that when Mirax needed me, I had failed her.

Pretty much my definition of a nightmare.

Nearing the Great Temple on my return, I heard something that made me push myself and increase my speed. The hum-hiss of a lightsaber and the spit-crack of it slicing through some-thing is unforgettable once heard.

I couldn't imagine Luke and Karo would have begun to teach anyone how to fight with light-sabers without me there. I realized in an instant that such a thought was unworthy and arrogant, but since I had the only other lightsaber on Yavin, including me made sense to me.

I entered the clearing just as Luke drove Gantoris back into a purple-boled Ma.s.sa.s.si tree. Where did Gantoris get a lightsaber? With the black-haired apprentice's braid whiplashing through the air, he fell, scattering purple bits of tree bark. His knees resting on a thick root, and his elbows keeping his back off the ground, he stared up at Luke as the Jedi Master approached. Gantoris' white-violet blade still pointed up toward Luke, but from where he was there was no way the apprentice could strike at the Master.

Then Gantoris did something that extended the blade, dou-bling its length. He slashed at Luke, but the Jedi Master moved faster than I ever thought possible. The sleeve of Luke's grey flightsuit smoked from where the lightsaber's blade had ca-ressed it, but Gantoris had done no real harm. Luke set him-self. imposing his green blade between himself and his student, bracing for another attack.

Gantoris had rolled to his feet while Luke retreated and ad-vanced confidently. The length of the blade on his lightsaber gave him an advantage and he clearly meant to use it. He waded in toward Luke, crashing down blow after blow with a ferocity I'd only ever seen in a glitbiter gripped by spice paranoia. Though Luke picked off each blow with ease, never letting Gantoris make him defend in the Inner Ring, the ap-prentice kept coming. His intensity and singlemindedness kept Luke falling back to the point where the Jedi Master's only escape was to leap away and levitare himself onto a branch of a Ma.s.sa.s.si tree.

I watched, stunned, as Gantoris waited for Luke to descend again. All the other students had pressed back away from the clearing. They lurked in the edges of the forest, waiting, uncer-tain what to do. Like me, Kam had no lightsaber with him. As he glanced over at me, I knew we both weighed the chances of our being able to race to the Temple, getting our lightsabers and managing to return in time to make a difference.

And if Gantoris can kill a Jedi Master, what chance would I have of stopping him ?

Luke asked Gantoris a question, but the hum of lightsabers stole both it and Gantoris' shouted reply. Then the apprentice slashed at the Ma.s.sa.s.si tree with his lightsaber, shearing all the way through it. Stintarils in the highest branches shrieked as they leaped away. The scent of spicy sap reached me about the same time as the tree slowly toppled into the rainforest with a crackling and snap of bushes and saplings caught beneath it.