"What are we going to do?

Artoo maneuvered his way into one of the offices, where an Ithorian in the white coat of a physician lay dead over her console, and plugged into the computer jack in the wall. He tweeped worriedly, light from the street outside falling across him in pale orange bars.

"At the same time as the Adamantine?" said Threepio. "That's absurd.

Plague vectors don't operate that swiftly and the odds against a simultaneous mutation are seven thousand four hundred twenty-one against."

A couple of tweets and a wibble.

"When were the last reports from anywhere in the facility?"

Artoo reported. Though the street below the med station had been deserted for some time, a small band of e-suited figures hurried along, dragging sheets heaped with what looked like random gleanings-monitors, circuit boards, jewelry, shoes. One of those figures staggered, caught itself against the corner of a wall. The others conferred hastily among themselves, not going anywhere near their afflicted comrade, and ran. The man they had left tried to stagger after them, then sank down, helmeted head resting on his knees.

In ten minutes or so, during which Artoo gave Threepio a prcis of the progress of the plague in all reported quarters of the Meridian sector, the green light on the looter's e-suit went to amber, then to red, visible as a tiny dot of brightness across the street.

Through the smoky transparisteel of the facility's environmental dome, the orange streak of a departing ship could be seen.

A few moments later, the streetlamps went out.

The nights on Cybloc XII are long. The small moon on which it is built has a rotation period almost synchronous with its...o...b..t. The great, glowing ma.s.s of the planet Cybloc is only occasionally visible from the port facility there, as a huge gold-and-green disk low in the sky. It did not show that night. Until the harsh light of the primary, Erg Es 992, flooded through the port's dome, Artoo worked alone, sending Threepio out on scavenging expeditions to various laboratories for what he needed and improvising what the protocol droid could not find. By that time it was safe, the streets were deserted save for the dead.

In time Artoo was ready.

"But it's useless," Threepio protested, looking down at the little stack of circuit boards and wiring that the astromech had hooked into the medical center computer. "There isn't enough amplification in that modulator to get a signal out of the system. Don't get smart with me," he added, to Attoo's tweeted reply. "I found the only thing on your list that was available. You should be glad I was able to retrieve that.

There's absolutely nothing usable left in the Port Authority, or in any one of the shipping companies."

Artoo hooked another circuit into the loop.

"And I don't see what good that's going to do. If there's known to be plague here, no one's going to come near enough even to hear a distress signal except more looters."

Threepio did not even add, We're doomed. There was, perhaps, enough true doom, enough complete hopelessness, in the silent streets he had spent the night traversing to have stilled that particular observation.

Threepio had seen dead humans, but the scale of this devastation awed him. The implications of looters innocent of quarantine regulations scattering even now to every corner of the Republic in all available transport horrified him still more.

So when Artoo gave him his instructions, Threepio obeyed. Thin as a thread, on a beam that wouldn't get much past the world that had been their goal for so long, the signal went out, in Basic and every one of six million galactic languages, just to be on the safe side: "Help."

"Whaddaya mean, you can't get a response from Cybloc Twelve?" Han Solo slapped the comm b.u.t.ton on the office viewscreen of the Durren Base Comptroller, much to the annoyance of the Comptroller herself.

"There should be a half-dozen cruisers in port there..."

The Comptroller shouldered her way past him to be in full view of the screen. "Is there no signal at all, or is there interference?"

"No signal at all, ma'am." The extremely young midshipman in charge of the communications room saluted nervously. "The Courane and the Fireater, both out of Cybloc, both reported in as of three hours ago..."

"Where are they?" demanded Solo.

It had been a nightmarish flight to the Durren orbital base. By the time the Millennium Falcon had cleared the dense and stormy atmosphere of Exodo II, the advancing fleet had been close enough to pick them up on sensors. TIE fighters, of the old-fashioned LN type but perfectly serviceable, had been dispatched. While Lando, a good pilot but a less-than-reliable shot, had dodged and veered through the gas clouds of Odos and the nearby fringes of the Spangled Veil Nebula, Chewie and Han had manned the gun turrets, accounting for two of their pursuers before the thickness of the glowing dust clouds and the danger of floating chunks of ice the size of small moons, which swam up with horrifying unexpectedness from the shimmering soup of visual and electrical interference, discouraged pursuit. Han had geared and tinkered with the engine to reduce impulse power below the range of detection; and at greatly reduced speed, the Falcon had all but drifted out of the fighters' range.

"Either they're too shorthanded to risk a scout in this mess," Solo had remarked, watching the engine vibration of the remaining two TIEs retreat into the distance-the only dependable means of detection on board-"or they're in a h.e.l.l of a hurry and don't think we're worth stopping for."

"Or they think they got us with that last shot." Lando was nervously calculating the probable locations of the huge ice chunks that were out there, somewhere, in the soaked screens of glittering whiteness that drifted everywhere in both visual and sensor pickup.

Chewbacca had growled and snarled a retort that they had gotten them with that last shot: That black chunk rapidly disappearing into the dust clouds was their rear starboard stabilizer.

Because of the extreme lightness of the floating ice mountains within the nebula compared to the density of the Falcon, seven or eight of these enormous blocks began to drift toward the smuggler vessel and followed it, like banthas in love with a speeder, for some distance, until out of range of the fleet's sensors Lando was able to lay on a little more speed.

But it was not a pleasant journey. By the time they fetched up in the Comptroller of Durren's office, Han was in no mood to be told that no vessels or crews could be released to him from the slender reserves still at the station.

"Captain Solo, if you please..." The Comptroller thrust her way around him, to face her communications officer again. "Have you attempted to contact Budpock base and inquire, Midshipman Brandis?

"Budpock doesn't know anything, ma'am. They say communications with Cybloc went dead about forty-eight hours ago, no reason given. There's been a lot of static interference; nothing's getting through. They sent a drone visual but it hasn't come back yet."

"Thank you, midshipman."

Solo was reaching for the comm b.u.t.ton and taking in breath to demand the whereabouts of the two ships out of Cybloc. For an elderly, diminutive, and rather stout woman, the Comptroller had very quick reflexes and cut the transmission before a word could be spoken.

"As you know, Captain Solo," said the Comptroller, with quiet precision, "the Republic's treaty with Durren specifies protection, not only of the existing majority planetary regime but also, as a backup, of the system itself. We have barely gotten the plague isolated on this base.

The planetary government has only just regained a foothold in the capital and over the transportation and communication systems, and the insurgent faction is equipped with suborbital and supraorbital vessels that have already wreaked great havoc on this station. This is not the time to strip our forces. .."

"The sector is being invaded." Han spoke slowly, trying to hold down his temper, knowing that this was an officer who would meet shouting with an icy stone wall.

"Then why have I not been contacted by either the Chief of State or the Senate Inner Council?" When she said "Chief of State" she fixed him with a beady dark eye-she knew perfectly well who he was married to.

Because the Council is deadlocked over the appointment of a successor, and n.o.body's g oing to risk starting a war they may have to repudiate when Leia shows up again, if Leia shows up.

Han drew a deep breath and let it out. "You're right," he said. Leia always started negotiations by saying, You're right. He'd frequently told her that such untruth would eventually cause her tongue to turn black and fall out of her mouth. "Maybe i'd better see if I can contact the Chief of State on the private channel-it sometimes works better than the military ones."

Lando and Chewbacca were crowded together with the single clerk in the outer office-because of the outbreak of the Death Seed plague in its lower quarters the entire orbital base was short staffed-every screen around them covered with readouts.

"This's bad, old buddy." Lando turned in his chair. "We got two more scouts missing. There's a whole corridor right down the center of the sector blacked out. I'll bet you any money it's those little whatever-they-are missiles, coming out of hypers.p.a.ce shooting..."

"Come on." Han grabbed him by the arm and hauled him out of his chair and out of the room, Chewbacca striding like a giant, funguscovered tree at their heels.

"What the...?"

The corridor was deserted. Quarantine signs and barriers were everywhere, at every gateway to the lower levels. Han's skin p.r.i.c.kled at the thought of being in the same installation with the Death Seed.

He wondered how soon anyone would know of infection. How was it transmitted? How long an incubation period did it have? Months?

Minutes?

"Does Wing Tip Theel still operate out of Algar?"

"Wing Tip?" Calrissian looked confused at the sudden introduction of one of their less-reputable computer-slicer colleagues into a military operation. "I think so. He did last time I talked to him."

"How soon can you get there'. And can he still slice into the Algar Pleasure Dome's central computer core?"

"h.e.l.l, Wing Tip could slice into Fleet Central and forge the personnel records of any corporation in the galaxy back to the Old Republic without anybody being the wiser. But what...?"

Han shoved his friend against the wall and frisked him for his pocket recorder. "Get the first ship you can out of here and get there.

Take the emergency cash from behind the Falcon's starboard bulkhead..."

"But what about fixing the stabilizer? What about...?"

"Just do it, okay? Tell Wing Tip I need the best holo fake of Leia he can make, absolutely top cla.s.s, narrowest bands, latest recordings, background perfect, the whole nine meters. Give him the emergency cash as a down and tell him I'll give him thirty thousand in two weeks-swear anything, sign anything."

"Thirty thousand? And you're planning to rob which bank to pay for this?"

"Let me worry about that." He checked the pocket recorder, glanced around to make sure they were unheard, though the corridor outside the Comptroller's office was deserted. The whole quadrant of the base was deserted, the crew and guards of the two cruisers still on base confined to their ships in the hope of avoiding infection, those few not in sick bay-or the morgue-keeping to their rooms.

"Best and latest sc.r.a.p of Leia, understand?" he said softly. "Tell him to futz it up with a little interference so the join lines don't show. I want him to gimmick up the broadcast so it looks like it's being relayed in on the main line from Coruscant. And this is what I want her to be saying."

"You're the brother, aren't you?" After long silence, in which he seemed to have sunk into sleep or death, Liegeus stirred. His voice was barely a thread, and Luke, shivering uncontrollably in the night's bitter cold, wondered if either of them would survive till morning.

"Skywalker. The Last Jedi."

"The first of the new batch, I hope." He thought about those he had trained: Kyp, so intense and so frighteningly powerful. Tionne and her music. Clighal with her talents for healing. Some had already departed Yavin Four, to seek their own paths, their own work. Some, like his faithful Dorsk 81, were already on the Other Side. There was a new recruit, a Bith, of all things And more, over the years. With the help of the Force, many more.

If he died tonight, they'd be able to go on, somehow.

The memory of Callista on Yavin Four was piercing, pain more intense than any he had experienced in his flesh. He remembered her teaching Tionne the finer points of the lightsaber or sitting on the terraces of the old temples in the apricot sunset light, speaking of her own master Djinn Altis and his floating stronghold in the gas clouds of Bespin.

The morning Luke had brought the image tank that Han and Leia had found in the crypts of Belsavis, Callista had showed them all how to call shapes in it, how she had learned to use such a thing as a tool to strengthen her command over the Force. While the students shrieked with laughter and congratulations at one another's successes, Callista had left in silence. Coming out a half hour later Luke had found her standing on the terrace, staring out across the jungles at nothing, willing herself not to feel.

"I should have realized it earlier," went on Liegeus. "The planet...

draws Jedi. At least Beldorion always claimed to be a Jedi, and he got that lightsaber of his from somewhere, though that horrible woman Taselda claims that it was originally hers. She sent that poor girl of hers to steal it back. .."

"Girl?" Luke's heart stood still in his chest. He tried to keep the flare of fear, of hope, from his voice, but must not have succeeded, for in the starlight the older man's eyes seemed to change, understanding.

"A young woman named Callista."

Luke felt for a moment unable to breathe. He remembered his own illingness to do whatever Taselda asked, not only in the hopes that she would lead him to Callista but out of the urgent desire to please her that seemed to be one of the uses of the control mind of the dark side of the Force.

Of course Callista would have lied to Officers Grupp and Snaplaunce about leaving Hweg Shul of her own free will. She had left to do Taselda's bidding.

If she came to harm, he thought, I will...

Will what? Kill Taselda? And Beldorion? And who else?

None of it would bring Callista back.

Release your anger. Truly release it, and let it evaporate like the drochs in the sunlight.

Liegeus was still watching his face. "Beldorion took her prisoner, of course," he said, his voice gentle, as if speaking to a man who had been hurt in some accident, or who had fallen hard and far. "She was no match for him, and Ashgad's synthdroids. She seemed to think Taselda could make her a Jedi, and Beldorion wanted her taken alive because he thought she had some kind of... of Jedi power, though that wasn't the case. Beldorion had some thoughts of enslaving her himself, but he ended up giving her to Dzym. One... one does."

"And you did nothing?" Luke's hand balled tight. The urge swept him to strike this helpless man where he lay, and Liegeus knew it. He flinched, but made no effort to ward off a blow.

At the whisper of his indrawn breath Luke remembered him dying among the drochs, remembered Dzym with blood and brown slime running down his monstrous mouth and pity for him swept away his rage. "No," he said softly. "What could you have done?"

The Force, he thought. The dirty echo of the Force I felt in Dzym's power... As if through a mouthful of dust, he asked, "What happened to her?"

"She they had her after Luke escaped. I overheard Beldorion and Dzym; I told her what agreed. She escaped that night. I don't know what became of that. She was...very bitter."

?????? found that he was breathing hard. "I have to find her," he said softly. "I have to tell her..."

His voice trailed off. In the lifeless silence of the canyons, ground lightning flickered somewhere far off, as if in echo of the tiny, artificial field in which they sat.

"Tell her what, my friend?" Liegeus's voice was gentle. "That you love her? She knows that. It is the one thing that she has never doubted."

"You spoke to her?"

He moved his head a little, Yes, thin hands folded on his chest.

"Then you know that I have to see her."

"Do you think she thinks so little of you, that she believes you'd turn against her for her lack of power?" From the darkness his voice came, tired and disembodied. "Many years ago I loved a woman-a girl, really.

She was very young. It was... like nothing I have known, before or since.

At times it felt almost as if we were brother and sister, two halves of the same whole, and at others it seemed as if our pa.s.sion for one another colored the world like firelight. I can't explain it, if you haven't felt the same."

Luke whispered, "I have felt it."

"Like me she was a wanderer, wanting to know what lay beyond the stars.

Like me she was adept with machines and tools. A bit of a cynic, like me, but with a pa.s.sionate heart.

"But she had her own road," he said. "I don't think she ever loved me less, but it was a road that I could not follow. I did try. But sometimes... you have to let them go."

"Not this."

Not Callista.

Not the one thing in his life that he'd wanted That he'd ever wanted this badly. The words came hard. "I can't."

"Well, every case is different." Liegeus's deep voice was so thin that Luke risked illuminating the glowrod on his torn and ragged flightsuit, so that he could check the philosopher's fingertips and eyelids. His pulse was weak but steady, his breathing shallow and slow.

"I went after her." Under the discolored lids his eyes moved, as if he could still see her face. The brows pinched. "Like a fool I thought I was the only person who could ever teach her what I thought it was she had to learn in this life, that I was the only person who could give her what she needed for all that long and winding road of the human span. And all I managed to do, in clinging to her as I did, was hurt her terribly."

Luke said nothing. Callista's face came back to him in the morning light of Yavin Four's temple tower, and the voices of the adepts playing with the image tank that she herself had instructed them in.

"In the end," said Liegeus, "I understood that the most truly loving thing that I could do would be to let her go, to seek her own road. I suppose it was vain of me to believe myself the only guide she would ever have or need. Or to believe that she was the only one I would ever love."