"And you're gonna explain that to Loronar how."

"I'm going to explain," said Leia sweetly, "that without their cooperation, the entire story of their support of the epidemic will be released for general consumption, accompanied by sanctions that will put them out of business in a week."

Han nodded judiciously. "You got me sold."

"Once the Guardians are able to get offplanet," said Luke quietly, "I don't think Loronar's going to have much of a market for Needles anymore.

The CCIRs worked because the central controllers mimicked the vibrations of the Guardians themselves. But even reprogrammed, the enslaved Spooks will know and obey the voices of the Guardians, their-their family, their alter-selves. The living crystals that have inhabited this planet since first it was formed.

"They knew about the drochs," he went on, speaking to Leia. "They were aware, when the Grissmath Dynasty seeded the planet with them to kill its political emigres. They did their best, for seven and a half centuries, to keep the drochs from getting offplanet. They invaded the dreams of the prophet Theras and his followers, taking whatever forms they found there, whatever they would believe, and instructing them to keep anything larger than about the size of a B-wing from taking off.

Anything bigger would have sufficient shielding to protect the drochs from the radiation. But there's nothing, really, to keep large cargoes from coming in. And there are seams of mineral wealth, platinum and rock ivory, deep in the mountains that can be exported in small enough quant.i.ties to be ray screened and still support those who take them off."

"Which is just fine with me," put in Umolly Darm, hurrying past with Arvid and his aunt. "I never liked that Spook crystal business. Too fragile, the ones with good color were too far back in the hills, and even a box or two of the things gave me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. That Theran Listener Be is already putting together an expedition for rock ivory with me and Arvid here."

She hurried on her way, Arvid waving back at Luke, to the stock freighter that stood some distance from the gun station's walls.

Leia glanced in the direction of the shuttle and then back inquiringly at Han. "An old friend," said Han, rather drily. "She showed up at the last minute to help us out. She wants to have a diplomatic discussion and some a.s.surances from you."

Leia nodded, "All right."

She turned back, "Luke?"

He and Liegeus were among the Therans, shaking hands with those who had found Luke in the wastelands, sent by the voices in their Listeners'

minds; bidding good-bye to the Rationalists, to Booldrum Caslo and his landlord and Aunt Gin. Luke paused for a moment, looking around, and Liegeus said, "We'd best be going, Luke. I've gotten the gun station back online again. It will be forbidding egress from this world in very short order now."

And, when Luke still hesitated, the older man added gently, "I think that there is nothing further that you can do here."

So close, thought Luke desperately. So close. if I could just tell her...

Whatever dark the world may send...

He remembered her eyes, in the sunset light of Yavin Four's towers.

Remembered the pain in her voice, in that final message.

I have my own odyssey...

Tell her what, that would not give her still greater pain?

"No," said Luke softly. "You're right."

He turned, and followed his sister and Han, the droids and Chewbacca and Liegeus, to the shuttle. At least he'd have a reason to get up in the morning, he thought wryly-now, and for quite some time to come.

He would be back to this world, he knew: to bring back the Guardians, when those who went offworld to form the droch-killing apparatus returned. To bring back the remains of the synth-droids and Needles, for the Guardians to try to rehabilitate and realign after their enslavement.

To learn what he could of the Force, as the tsils understood it and of this strange civilization of timeless minds.

But he would always wonder.

He stopped at the bottom of the ramp, for one last look at the cool-glaring sun, the twilight stars, the wind-scoured sea bottoms, and wastelands of colored gla.s.s, the towering crystal tsils.

She has her own way, Liegeus had said. And he was right. Where she had to go now, Luke thought, he could not follow.

The only way in or out of the gun station tower was over the walls.

A Theran was grappelling easily down on a line, dark crimson coat and gray veils striking a familiar chord: the fighter who had thrown the grenades, thought Luke, during that first battle he had seen. When the gawky, graceful figure reached the ground and walked toward Umolly Darm's freighter, he saw the lightsaber swinging at the heavy leather belt, the long tail of malt-brown hair as she pulled loose her veils, and his heart leapt against his ribs.

She turned, at the other side of the landing ground, at the base of the freighter's ramp. She had always known if he was looking at her, even as he had known when her eyes were on him.

For a long moment they stood in stillness. She at the threshold of her long road, he thought, and he at the beginning of his.

He raised his hand to her, Farewell.

Her shoulders relaxed, and he could feel the tension leave her, the fear that he would cross that open ground to tear anew all those toofresh wounds by taking her in his arms.

The time was past, for that.

In her stillness he read her thought: Please understand.

I understand.

She raised her hand to him, and he could feel her smile.

The antigravs on the shuttle were so smooth that there was no need to strap in for liftoff, though once the vessel got moving Luke knew he'd be better to be sitting down. He hurried his steps, to catch up with Liegeus as they made their way to the forward lounge. The philosopher was right, he knew. Trust your instinct, Obi-Wan had said, and curiously enough, once Liegeus had spoken of loving and freedom, he could no longer deny what his instinct had been telling him.

There was a time to embrace, and there was a time to release.

Time was long.

He was at Liegeus's heels when they stepped into the forward lounge, and the woman seated near the mist and glory of the viewport rose from her chair. "Your Excellency," said the red-haired woman to Leia, who had preceded them in.

But she said no more. She only stood transfixed, color draining from her face and with it draining the harshness of its lines, the terrible stern bitterness that seemed as much a part of her as the skull beneath the skin.

It seemed to Luke that there was another face looking out from those bitter emerald eyes. A girl's face, almost unrecognizable. A fierce dreamer's face, scarred by the ecstatic knives of her dreams.

In a whisper, unbelieving, Daala said, "Liegeus?"

He was staring, as if at a ghost, only no ghost could have brought that leap of amazed joy to any man's face. "Daala?"

They crossed to each other, stopped inches apart, as if, after a lifetime of diverging roads, at the crossroad they feared to touch once more. It was Daala who reached out first and took his hand.

"Have you..." His voice hesitated. "Have you had a good road, all these years?"

"A long one," she said, the girl's voice, the proud dreamer's, audible still beneath the damage of battle and years. And it seemed to Luke that he saw death leave her eyes, and long-forgotten life stir there again.

"Cruel, in places. You?"

"A long one."

She put up her hand, touched his unshaven face.

"I've missed you, Liegeus," she said softly. "I've missed This will sound foolish, but I've missed having someone to talk to."

Liegeus's fingers brushed her cheek, wonderingly exploring the footprints of the years, then gathered up the copper weight of her hair.

She had always been the stronger of the two, Luke thought, watching them together. And knowing this, he had released her into her strength.

Their lips met, tasting first, both afraid, then drinking deep, as if they could never again have enough. Her arms went around him, in congruous in the military severity of her uniform; he crushed her to him, medals, blaster, and all.

n.o.body in the lounge existed anymore. It was as if Leia, and Han and Chewie, and the droids, and Luke had all been wiped from existence, and with them the past twenty years.

No one in the lounge was the slightest bit surprised when Daala and Liegeus made their exit, without a word to anyone, handfast, into some other part of the shuttle. "I guess you'll have that conference some other time," remarked Han, drawing Leia down beside him on the black leather of the couch.

Leia sighed and laid her head against his shoulder, weary beyond words.

"I guess we will." His arms were around her, strong and rock hard under the rough linen of his shirt. He smelled of salt sweat and burned insulation; his chin was sandpaper against her temple and his breath living warmth on her skin. She wanted more than anything simply to remain there, and drift into sleep.

From the viewport, Luke watched the thin yellow track of Umolly Darm's freighter as it lifted from the planet, streaked through the atmosphere and away.

She's all right, he thought. It was like watching a hunt bird when after its years of servitude, its owner frees it to return to the woods. She is well, and strong. She'll find her way one day to the Force, to the light.

He felt weightless, at peace, and strangely free.

The blue air thinned to darkness and stars. The shapes of the fleet became visible, silvery pendants in the blackness-the world that he had sought since the age of eighteen, when he had looked into the Tatooine skies.

She had released him, he thought, to travel his road, wherever that road was going, to whatever end that journey would have.

He heard a soft step behind him, knew it was Leia before her hands touched his shoulders. Her voice was worried. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," said Luke softly. "I'm all right."