The Black Fleet Crisis_ Tyrant's Test Part 8

"Maybe that was to protect you, too."

"Maybe," Luke said. "But I always felt that my uncle disapproved of them, and resented getting stuck with the obligation of raising me.

Not my aunt--I think she always wanted children. I don't know why they didn't have any of their own."

"It sounds like she only got her way when it was what he wanted, too."

"I guess that's more true than not," Luke said after a moment's reflection. "But she never complained where I could hear it, or let you know that they'd had a fight and that she'd lost."

"Self-sacrificing," said Akanah. "For the good of the family, for the peace of the household--" "Owen was a hard man," Luke said.

"Hardworking, hard to talk to, hard to know, hard to move. When I picture him, he always looks annoyed."

"I'm all too familiar with the type," said Akanah.

"Your aunt probably didn't dare cross him too often, or too openly."

"She took my side sometimes. But mostly I think she tried to keep us from colliding head-on--especially the last couple of years."

"Was she happy?"

"I used to think so."

"But--" "I think she deserved better than the way she lived--the way she died." Luke shook his head. "It's been harder to forgive my father for what he did to them than for almost anything else."

"Harder to forgive, or harder to understand?"

Luke answered with a weary smile. "I wish it were harder to understand. But I know how tempting it is to simply bend someone to your will, or break them and push them aside. All of the whims and wishes and wants that we carry around inside--I have the power to fulfill mine. So I find I have to be careful about what I let myself want."

"How do you do that?"

"I have Yoda's example--he led a very simple life, and Wanted for very little. My father walked a different road. I try to let him be an example to me, too," said Luke. "The impulse to take control--to impose your will on the universe--has to be resisted. Even with the best of intentions, it leads to tyranny--into Darth Vader reborn."

"Control is a transitory illusion," said Akanah.

"The universe bends us to its purposes--we do not bend it to ours."

"That may be so," said Luke. "But in the moment of trying, people suffer horribly and die needlessly.

That's why the Jedi exist, Akanah--why we carry weapons and follow a path of power. It's not out of any l.u.s.t for fighting, or for our own benefit. The Jedi exist to neutralize the power and the will of those who would be tyrants. "

"Is that what you were taught, or what you've taught your apprentices?"

"Both. It was one of the First Principles of the Chu'unthor academy, and I made it one of the First Principles at the Yavin praexeum."

"And what binds the Jedi to that end?"

"Because it's necessary," said Luke. "There's a moral imperative--the one who can act, must act."

"It would be easier to trust you with the responsibility you seek if so many Jedi hadn't strayed from your high ethic," Akanah said. "Jedi training doesn't seem to prepare a candidate well for the temptations of the dark side. You have lost students, just as your mentors did."

"Yes," said Luke. "I almost lost myself."

"Is it always to be so? Are the temptations beyond resisting?"

"I don't have an answer for that," Luke said, shaking his head. "Is it how Jedi are chosen, how we are taught--a flaw in the candidates, or a flaw in the disciplines-" "Perhaps there is no flaw," said Akanah.

"Perhaps some piece is still missing--something you have not yet rediscovered."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps it will always be a struggle.

The dark side is seductive--and very powerful." He hesitated.

"I fought Vader with all I had, and still barely escaped with my life.

Han saved me at Yavin, Lando saved me at Bespin, and Ariakin saved me on the Emperor's Death Star. I never defeated my father. The deepest cut I ever gave him was in refusing to join him."

Luke lay back on the sleeper and looked up at the stars.

"I think the next deepest was when I forgave him."

The viceroy's personal aide, Eri Palle, ushered Proctor Dar Bille into the blood garden where Tal Fraan and Nil Spaar were already waiting.

Dar Bille offered his neck to his old friend, then accepted Tal Fraan's offer to him.

"Darama," said Dar Bille, "I hear it proclaimed that your breedery gloriously affirms your vigor."

"Fifteen nestings, all full and ripening," said Nil Spaar. "The scent of it is intoxicating. I had to have my tenders neutered in order that they remember their work."

"Your blood has always been strong, Nil Spaar, going back to when Kei Chose you--but it has never been stronger than it is now."

"I would rather have truth than flattery from my old friends," said Nil Spaar. "Those who can remember the glory of our uprising are already too few in number.

What news of my flags.h.i.+p?"

"Pride of Yevetha is fully ready," said Dar Bille.

"The holding chambers for the hostages have been completed, and the hostages are being loaded this very day.

What is the prospect for more fighting? Has Jip Toorr reported from Preza?"

"He has," said Nil Spaar. "His report is the reason I called for you.

The vermin have not bared their necks or withdrawn. She who claims honor in her own name still defies us. In the last three days, the vermin fleet grew by at least eighty vessels. It has now dispersed into the boundary regions of the All, and our vessels there have lost contact with many of these intruders. "

"I am greatly surprised that they value the lives of their own species less than they valued the lives of the other vermin at Preza,"

said Dar Bille. "Perhaps we do not hold whom we think we hold. Could Tig Peramis have deceived you, in league with the Princess?"

"No," said Nil Spaar. "Han Solo is Leia's mate and consort, and these are relations of great meaning to the vermin."

"Perhaps she does not realize that we hold him," said Tal Fraan.

"Perhaps she does not realize that her actions place him at risk.

Uncertainty has not made her cautious. Perhaps it is time to show them our hostages."

Nil Spaar made a gesture that said the suggestion was premature.

"Tell me what you have learned studying the prisoners."

"They are uncomfortable with blood, even their own weak blood,"

said Tal Fraan. "The aversion is strong enough to be a distraction, even in challenging moments. Beyond that, they have provided confirmation of suspicions I already held."

"Indulge me and voice them."

"They form alliances as child to parent--one world claiming the protection of a thousand," Tal Fraan said.

"They are divided, but they do not see it. They live in the long shadow of their own disharmony, and do not know to seek the light."

"Is that their greatest weakness?"

That was a more dangerous question, and Tal Fraan hesitated before answering. "No," he said.

"Their greatest weakness is that they are impure. The strong do not slay the weak, and the weak do not yield their place to the strong.

The pale vermin think of self first and kins.h.i.+p last."

"And you find the evidence of this where?"

"It is why eight thousand Imperial slaves still serve us, and why these two prisoners remain in our hands.

They fear death more than betrayal," said Tal Fraan.

"Any of the Pure would sacrifice himself before letting the warmth of his breath make him a traitor."

"Dar Bille," Nil Spaar said. "Do you agree with my young proctor's appraisal? Are the guildsmen and tenders who serve on my flags.h.i.+p as eager to give themselves up as Tal Fraan declares?"

"It is true of many," said Dar Bille. "But if your young proctor could speak with the late viceroy Kiv Truun, he would know it has never been true of all."

The answer elicited a grunt and grimace of amused delight from the viceroy. "Mark well, Tal Fraan, how the truth is usually a good deal less certain than a willed belief," said Nil Spaar. "Now, tell me--what is the greatest strength of the vermin?"

"It is as with all lesser species," said Tal Fraan, who had antic.i.p.ated the question. "Their strength is in their numbers. They overwhelm their worlds with their unclean fecundity. You saw yourself how their sp.a.w.nworld is overrun with their soft, squirming bodies.

If they acted in concert, as one kinhold, they could overwhelm us."

"But they do not," said Dar Bille.

"No," said Tal Fraan. "Their great weakness undermines their great strength."

"We will see that they do not learn how to be one kinhold," said Nil Spaar.

"You succeeded most splendidly in that while on Coruscant," said Dar Bille. "But they seem less confused now--and they have not retreated.

How shall we answer them?"

Tal Fraan knew that it was the viceroy's question to answer, and he held his tongue. But Nil Spaar turned his way and smiled. "What advice would you offer, Proctor?

How shall I make this Leia show me her neck?"

"It is time we showed her our hostages," said Tal Fraan evenly.

"And since the pale vermin are uncomfortable with blood, we should find a way to remind them-that we are not."

The meeting of the Ruling Council in the matter of Doman Beruss's pet.i.tion against Princess Leia Organa Solo was delayed two days, then another, then another.

No reason was given for any of the postponements. Leia was notified of them by secure messenger--Beruss did not contact her and made no attempt to see her. She suspected that the members of the Council were still divided about how to proceed now that she had rebuffed Doman Beruss's private overtures.

Behn-Kihl-Nahm did come to see her on the third day. But his report was gloomy and his advice unusually terse.

"I cannot count on enough votes to protect you if you refuse to step aside," he said. "But if you accede gracefully, Doman has promised to support me as interim President. Come to the Council and say that your duties are too taxing in this difficult time, that you must be with your family. Ask that I stand in for you until this crisis is past."

"I didn't ask for such help when my children were kidnapped," said Leia frostily. "How will that look?"

"None of this need ever be made public," said Behn-Kihl-Nahm.

"Leia, Borsk Fey'lya has been trying to put together four votes for himself.

If you appear unreasonable, Rattagagech will turn his support' to Fey'lya, who is saying all the right things--and that will give Fey'lya his four votes. You must understand how fragile your position has become."

"There will be no vote at all unless I accept Doman's judgment that I'm unfit to be President," said Leia. "There's no need to select a caretaker if I haven't stepped aside."

"Princess, that option is gone," the chairman said sternly. "All you will accomplish by being stubborn is to force the Ruling Council to report the pet.i.tion of no confidence to the Senate. And no one can control or predict what will follow. If we are to deal with the Yevetha, there must be stability and continuity."

"Then go back and tell Doman Beruss to put an end to this distraction, Bennie," Leia said. "Because the easiest way to have stability and continuity is for me to stay where I am."

The next morning, Leia received a visit from the tall, slender Rattagagech. He brought with him a balance table and a compartmented canister of colored hemispherical weights--the tools of Elomic physical calculus.

"I have come to a.n.a.lyze with you the logic of your circ.u.mstances,"

said Rattagagech. "It will give you an opportunity to quantify the objective elements in conflict."

"Please don't trouble yourself, Chairman," said Leia.

"It is no trouble--it is a welcome opportunity," said Rattagagech, setting the transparent table on its floating pylon. "I find the old art elegant and the practice of it soothing--it makes me feel very young in the presence of minds that are very old and wise." He sat down before the table, now balanced on its pylon.

"Chairman, I thank you for your concern," said Leia, stopping him from opening the canister. "But you can't help me."