But it's out of our jurisdiction." She looked over at the brig and did a double take. "He came in that?"

"He's not kidding about those gun stations." Luke gestured to the long char on the brig's side. "A b-Wing should be just small enough to get past the screens."

There was a moment's silence, awkward, neither knowing quite what to say.

To break it, Luke fished in his pocket for Callista's message.

"You need this for anything? a.n.a.lysis."

"Keep it." She put her hands on his shoulders, drew him down to kiss his cheek. "We've got all we can out of it. It may tell you something about where to find her, once you get down there."

There was silence. Then, "She's got to come back," said Luke softly.

"She'll stand a better chance of regaining the ability to use the Force at the Jedi academy than she will on her own. We have all the records that are still in existence, all the training aids you found on Belsavis.

The Jedi power has to be still within her somewhere. Cray had it. It isn't as if Callista's mind went into the body of a non-Jedi. And the Academy needs her."

Leia was silent.

"I need her."

"You'll find her." Still she held his hands, willing him to feel a rea.s.surance she did not share. She had never seen her brother happier than during the time he'd spent with that quirky, silent, gentle lady: A Jedi Knight reincarnated without her powers. A woman who had been a ghost and lived again.

But she'd been with Callista on Belsavis, when she'd realized that her ability to use and touch the Force had not carried over into the body that Dr. Cray Mingla had bequeathed to her. She'd watched the woman's grief, frustration, and slow-growing despair; had talked to her about things that could not be said by either one to Luke.

Luke would find her, Leia thought sadly. Somehow she knew that much.

But to what end?

"You'd better go," she said. "Luke-When you're down there, look around, will you? According to Ashgad, the Theran cultists who control the gun stations use coercion and superst.i.tion to rule the Oldtimer population."

As Leia spoke, she followed Luke to the corner, where he'd stacked the supplies he'd take with him: a water bottle, a small medkit, wheretablets. They'd chosen a B-wing over the smaller X-wing fighter partly because of the nearness of the pirate-nests on Pedducis Chorios, but partly because of Callista's warning. The three systems had been scanned repeatedly, and reported clear. But Leia still felt uneasy. A B-wing could take on a much larger ship in a fight, but it was perilously close to the estimated automatic target ma.s.s of the gun stations.

"Now, if it's just superst.i.tion, there's nothing we can do about that,"

she went on. "It's their free choice, and they voted overwhelmingly to keep the original trade restrictions in force. But if there's coercion involved, that may change the Rationalists' case. We may be able to negotiate. Moff Getdies still rules the Antemeridian sector 'in the name of the Emperor, and it isn't that far away."

That had been yet another reason for choosing a B-wing.

"If fighting breaks out between the Newcomers and the Therans, he may try to interfere. We've got a pretty strong force at the Durren orbital base, but I'd rather not have to use it."

Luke nodded. She stood below, looking up as Luke climbed the long, fragile ladder up the side of the airfoil and began working the bottles and packets into every spare cranny of the c.o.c.kpit. In the days of the Rebellion, and during the long mopping up of sporadic warfare with the various Moll} and Governors and self-proclaimed Grand Admirals of the Empire, he'd partic.i.p.ated in s.p.a.ce battles and dogfights without number.

Given the presence of Imperial Warlords and a sizable Imperial fleet still under the control of those who longed for the old regime, he supposed he'd take part in hundreds more. But more and more, in the back of his mind, was a growing regret, and a terrible sense of waste.

"I'll keep an eye out," he said. He climbed back down to her, and zipped up the light, tough fabric of his suit. "Being incognito should help." He glanced across at the brig, its pilot still in conversation with the guards. The dispatch of an escort vessel would rouse very little curiosity, given the proximity of Pedducis Chorios.

"Just the fact that Callista would send that message, would come out of hiding to send it, means there's something going on. The fact that she didn't think it could go subs.p.a.ce means it's serious."

Leia shook her head, the gold finials and cabochon gems of her hairpins flashing. "It could be.... That's something else I wanted to ask you."

She leaned her shoulder against the airfoil, which rocked just slightly in its antigray cradle, and lowered her voice. "It isn't generally known, Luke, but there's some kind of leak in the Council. Information's getting out to Admiral Pellaeon and to the imperial Moffs like Getelles and Shargael over in I- sector. Minister of State Rieekan thinks it may be through someone in the Rationalist Party-maybe even Q-Varx himself, though I think the man's honest. They have adherents both in the Republic and in nearly every piece of the Empire still big enough to field a fleet."

She hesitated a moment, her mouth wry and her brown eyes suddenly older than her years. Luke saw - in her eyes the years of bitter wrangling, the betrayals: Mon Mothma poisoned, the Council split by factions, Admiral Ackbar betrayed, discredited, hounded...

"Myself," she said softly, "I think it could be almost anyone. But Callista knows something about it."

"I'll keep my ear to the ground." He checked the seals on his flightsuit and the helmet tubes of the emergency systems-not that any system would save anyone's life in a true emergency in vacuum.

"Leia..." He reached out a hand for hers, not entirely certain what it was he wanted to say.

Her eyes met his. He understood the look in them. Before she was twenty she had seen her family, her world, everything she knew, casually wiped out as a demonstration of the Empire's might. Before he had ever met her, she had lost some essential part of herself.

But that weary hardness in her eyes, that look of steeling herself so as never to be surprised by even the worst...

And she knew it. She felt what she was becoming.

He said, not knowing that he was going to say it, "Keep up with your lightsaber practice. Kyp or Tionne should be able to help you.

They're the best, the most centered in the Force. You need it. I'm speaking as your teacher now, Leia."

Surprise wiped the defensiveness from her eyes, but she looked quickly away. When she looked back it was with a quick grin, to cover her uneasiness. "To hear is to obey, Master." Turning his seriousness aside.

But in the meeting of their eyes he saw in hers, Please understand.

Although he knew she didn't understand herself the false note in her voice or the intention, momentarily seen and as quickly buried, to let the turmoil in the Grand Council, the ma.s.sive investigation of Loronar Corporation's abuses in the Gantho system, the Galactic Court trial of Tervig Bandie-slavers, the education of her children-anything and everything-divert her from the Jedi training she knew in her heart that she needed.

He didn't press her. "You kiss the kids for me." He drew her close for a quick, warm kiss on the cheek, awkward around the helmet, tubes, and wires. "Tell the guys at the Academy I'll be back."

"I wish you could take at least Artoo with you."

He climbed a few rungs of the ladder up the airfoil. "So do I. But even if I took him apart and tucked the pieces into every corner and under the seat of this thing, there wouldn't be room."

She drew back, and watched as he climbed the rest of that long ladder, settled himself into the B-wing's c.o.c.kpit. "I'll subs.p.a.ce you from Hweg Shul when I need to be picked up," he said, his voice tinny through the helmet conam as he fastened himself in. "Probably before that, if I can find a transmitter strong enough that'll take the code."

"I'll be waiting." She reached out with her mind, through the glowing inner net of the Force, and touched his spirit like the warm clasp of a hand. Felt his thanks for that final rea.s.surance.

Then she and the droids retreated, and at her signal the security guard, the shuttle's pilot, and Marcopius joined her at the bay doors.

Ezrakh had already faded into the corridor's shadows. The great leaves of dull gray metal slid open to let them out. Her last sight of the bay showed her Luke's B-wing turning with weightless grace to face the black, star-spattered rectangle of the magnetic portal and the steady-burning violet eye of the distant world where Callista had taken her refuge.

The doors slid shut.

'Keep up with your lightsaber practice.

Why had she felt that guilty flinch when he'd said that? You need it.

Why did she feel in her chest that slight sensation of panic, like a woman deathly sick who fears to ask the doctor what she has.

She knew she needed it.

The comm light was flashing in her stateroom when she reached it, but when she pressed the toggle and said, "Organa Solo," there was only the faint hum of an open channel. She frowned, annoyed and a little worried, and kicked the heavy train of her robe aside as she settled into the chair before the station.

"If you have no further requirements, Your Excellency," said Threepio, "Artoo and I will take this opportunity to repower."

She looked up quickly-she found she had been staring reflectively at the blinking comm light-and said, "Oh, okay. Fine. Thank you."

She punched through an alternate comm number, and again, got only tone.

It happened, of course. Usually it meant that the comm watch was in the break room. As a girl she'd had the annoying habit of coding and recoding comm numbers every few seconds until she got results. It had taken her years to break herself of it, to relax for a few moments, do something else, then try again like a normal person.

But the situation wasn't normal. Though the Meridian sector included a number of Republic planets and two major fleet strongholds at the Durren orbital base and on Cybloc XII, Moff Getelles's satrapy in the Antemeridian sector wasn't all that far away. And whereas she doubted he or his admirals would try anything in the face of the combined firepower of the Borealis and the Adamantine, the fact remained that her mission to the Chorios systems wasn't widely known. If there was trouble, response time would be slow.

The bright-faced boys and girls of the Academy guard leapt to their feet as she re-entered the anteroom. bringing their weapons to the present.

Leia returned the salute with a grave lifting of her hand.

"Marcopius, would you do me a favor? I know this sounds really paranoid, but I've got a message light and I can't raise anyone in Comm.

Could I get you to go down there and see if it's anything urgent?"

"Of course, Your Excellency." He slung his weapon, bowed, and departed like an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the Academy before she could get her thanks out of her mouth. As Leia returned to her private parlor she smiled a little in reflection. Several members of the Council-notably Q-Varx, who like most Rationalists was enchanted by gadgetry-had moved to purchase an executive honor guard of the new synthdroids, arguing that, in addition to eliminating any further need to use the Noghri, it would be cheaper to maintain in the long run and provide more uniform security with less chance of betrayal or individual error.

Her desk-neatly arranged by See-Threepio, who had taken it on himself periodically to pa.s.s through her stateroom like a golden hurricane of tidiness-contained a very nicely produced ad-cube from the Loronar Corporation's synthdroid division concerning the aesthetic quality, utter reliability, high performance standards, and low cost (Hah! thought Leia) of the new droids. "Hardly droids at all," the pleasant voice of the obviously synthdroid announcer had lauded before Leia muted the sound.

She had to hand it to Loronar ("All the finest, all the first"): The cube had been in her stateroom since the start of this mission and as far as she could tell hadn't repeated itself yet.

Centrally Controlled Independent Replicant technology could allegedly reproduce the watchfulness and defensive capabilities of the Noghri, though she didn't believe it and wasn't sure she wanted something like that on the open market. She had to admit, seeing Ashgad's three, that they were nice looking, undoubtedly efficient, less aesthetically intrusive than droids, and certainly less unsettling than Noghri.

Freed of standard droid memory system requirements, for all intents and purposes they looked like human beings, if human beings were what you wanted.

She shook her head and sat down at the comm station again, suddenly overwhelmed with fatigue. Members of Daysong, a splinter group of the Rights of Sentience Party, claimed that an honor guard was a form of servile humiliation and should be replaced by droids (Hadn't these people ever heard of magnetic flux disruptors? But Leia didn't consider either Ezrakh or Yeoman Shreel, for instance, either humiliated or servile.

In his off-duty moments-not that a Noghri was ever completely off duty-the little hunter-killer would tell Leia tales of his childhood on Honoghr, of his wife and children there, the same way Yeoman Shreel or Yeoman Marcoplus would show her holos of their brothers and sisters and pets at home.

The Daysong folks objected violently to the synthdroids too, of course, on the grounds that synthflesh was living and had rights as well.

The Theran Listeners, wandering around the desert holding conversations with rocks, couldn't possibly be crazier.

Leia leaned her head against the back of the chair, tired beyond words.

Tired, she thought suddenly, as her hands and feet grew cold, beyond what she should be. It didn't exactly hurt her to breathe, but every breath was an effort. The hand she raised, or tried to raise, to rub the ache behind her sternum felt as if she'd been manacled with lead.

This is ridiculous, she thought. Every member of Seti Ashgad's party and yesterday's good-faith inspection of the vessel had been scanned.

Of course they'd been scanned. No virus, no microbe, no poison... nothing had been detected.

Dizziness swamped her. She reached across the table for the comm b.u.t.ton, but collapsed halfway and slid to the floor in a great sigh of velvet robe.

"Your Excellency?" The door swished open. "Your Excellency, I have been attempting to monitor fleet communications, and... Your Excellency!"

Threepio toddled into the stateroom, golden hands flying up in a singularly human gesture of alarm. "Your Excellency, whatever is the matter?"

Artoo-Detoo, close on the protocol droid's shining metal heels, rolled up to Leia's side and directed a scanner beam over her. He tweeped informatively.

"I know she's not well, you stupid bucket of bolts! And don't you go quoting heart-rate readings to me." He was already at the wall comm unit.

"Infirmary? Infirmar? There's no answer!" He turned dramatically to his counterpart. "Something terrible is going on! I attempted to get in touch with the Adamantine just now to check on our departure for the rendezvous point and there was no answer! We must..."

The stateroom door slid open, framing in its tall rectangle the slumped, small form of Dzym.

"Oh, Master Dzym!" cried Threepio. "Something terrible has happened! You must inform the emergency services..."

The man only stepped clear of the opener beam of the doorway and walked to Leia's side. He seemed a trifle unsteady on his feet, as if drunk or drugged. His colorless eyes half-shut, he wore on his face an expression Threepio-never truly good at interpretation of human facial expression despite the most advanced of pattern-recognition software-could not define or even guess at: ecstasy, concentration, dreamy pain.

He stood beside Leia for a time, looking down at her. Then he half-knelt and began to pull off his violet leather gloves.

The door swished open behind him. "Dzym!" cried Ashgad, striding through as his secretary slewed around.

Dzym got quickly to his feet, pulling his glove on once again.

Ashgad dropped to one knee at Leia's side.

"Oh, Master Ashgad..." began Threepio, starting forward.

Ashgad said briefly, "Push him aside," and one of the fair-haired, androgynous synthdroids stepped through the door after him, and shoved Threepio hard across the room. The synthdroid had the startling strength of cable and hydraulic joints, and Threepio, for all his excellent construction, was only middling well balanced. He went crashing down in the corner, flailing and struggling to get up.

"Stop it," said Ashgad, looking up at Dzym, holding his gaze: Meaning, obscure to any onlooker, pa.s.sed between them that they both understood.

"Release her."

"My lord, she may revive before..."

"Release her! Now!"

Dzym's mouth turned pettishly down for a moment. He shut his eyes in momentary concentration. Then he drew a little breath, and said, "Very well. The action is stopped."

Ashgad turned back to Leia. Artoo-Detoo, standing over her with his single little clamper-arm extended downward as if to try to rouse her, swung back to his upright mode and backed hastily.

"Wait!" cried Threepio. "No!" For the first time, he had an almost human intuition that this man had not the smallest intention of taking the Chief of State to the infirmary. "Artoo, stop them!"

But Ashgad was human, and Artoo, though he had a certain defensive capability with his electronic welder, could no more have attacked him than he could have danced on a tightrope. It was something that normally programmed droids simply could not do.

Ashgad got to his feet, with Leia limp in his arms, the red velvet of her robes hanging nearly to the floor. To the synthdroid, Ashgad began to say, "You're to wait until the brig is... Yes, Liegeus?"

The thin, tired-looking man whom Threepio recognized as the brig's pilot stepped in as the door swished open once more. "It's finished," the pilot said. "I've launched the slave relay with the time-delayed projections of final reports for both vessels. I used sc.r.a.p from the active files of both onboard computers. The messages should be indistinguishable from real transmissions."

His face was white in the dark, graying tousle of his hair, and there was a tautness to his mouth, as if he had just finished being sick.