[Black Fleet Crisis(35)

“Viceroy, ” the attache said, bowing.

“Thank you, Eri, ” he said, accepting the heavy silver viceroy’s neckguard and fastening it in place. “I must resign myself to it-their stink never leaves my nostrils, no matter how long I stay in the scrub chamber. “

“You carry no taint to my senses, ” Eri said.

“I will trust that is more than politeness, ” said Nil Spaar. “Is Vor Duull expecting me? “

“Yes, Viceroy. “

“Good. See that abstracts of today’s reports and examinations are waiting for me in my quarters. I’ll be there shortly. “

An aircart whisked him up eleven levels to the domain of Vor Duull, proctor of information science for theAramadia . Nil Spaar was greeted with a quick bow. “Welcome back, Viceroy. “

“More welcome for me than for any of you, ” he said. “Were you able to receive a signal? “

“Without interruption, ” Vor Duull said. “A recording was made per your instructions and placed in your library. “

“Did you watch? “

“Only enough to make certain that the decoders and stabilizers were functioning. “

Nil Spaar nodded. “What do you think of them? “

When Vor Duull hesitated, the viceroy prodded, “Go on, I excuse you. “

“They seem to me weak, gullible-eager to please. She is no match for you. “

“We shall see, ” Nil Spaar said. “Thank you, Proctor. Continue your fine work. “

The aircart carried him swiftly up the central spiral of the ship to the third level, above which only command personnel could go. He accepted the salutes of the honor guard and a kiss from his darna, then disappeared behind locked doors.

In the privacy of his quarters, Nil Spaar sat in front of a cryptocomm.

His brief message was beamed to N’zoth, capital of the Duskhan League, as a scrambled string of bits mixed into the stream of ordinary open dispatches.

“I have had my first meeting with the vermin, ” Nil Spaar said. “All is going well. “

The datacard Admiral Hiram Drayson dropped into the datapad on his desk looked for all the world like a standard Universal Data Exchange card. But the cards used by Alpha Blue for sensitive data used a nonstandard encoding, which made the card appear blank when placed in a standard datapad.

The little plastic rectangle could even be erased and re-formatted without destroying the information it bore-in this case, excerpts from a recording made earlier that day by a tiny audio telescope concealed in the ornate scrollwork on the ceiling of the Grand Hall.

The excerpts had been selected for Drayson by an Alpha Blue analysis droid, using sophisticated context-processing protocols.

Tipping back in his chair and folding his hands over his abdomen, Drayson listened to the recording that no other sentient had heard-or would hear, unless he chose to share it with them.

He listened as Princess Leia said, “I want Coruscant to stand for the idea that there’s an alternative to war and tyranny. Cooperation and tolerance-the best of all of us, available to all of us. “

He listened as Viceroy Nil Spaar said, “We do not want or need your protection. We enjoyed the ‘protection’ of the Empire for half my lifetime, and we are determined to avoid such blessings in the future. “

And he thought as he listened, I wish that you’d chosen to let us into that room with you, Princess. But I’ll do all I can to make certain you don’t look back on that choice with regret.





Chapter 6


Inside the protective cocoon of Luke Skywalker’s secret hermitage, time had no meaning.

To be sure, the elemental cycle of day and night was echoed in the ebb and flow of the Force, as the living web of Coruscant stirred and slept, fought and foraged. The turning of the seasons was a longer, slower rhythm, an almost imperceptible crescendo and decrescendo of vitality and dormancy, fecundity and death.

Beyond that, a mere whisper, lay the almost unimaginably deep, subtle echo that was the birth of stars, the creation and extinction of life, the blossoming of consciousness. Deep in meditation, profoundly connected to the mysteries of the Force, Luke could see that through the manifestations of life, the universe knew itself, and beheld its own wonders.

But to extend himself that far, and reach that degree of oneness, Luke found it necessary to let go of his everyday senses to a degree he once would have thought impossible.

Sealed behind opaque walls, he lived in darkness for days at a time, barely conscious of hunger, thirst, or other bodily demands. He wore clothing only out of habit, but the habit weakened. The winds howled outside the hermitage, but Luke was oblivious to them.

He took no notice of the sun or moons in their courses, the rise and fall of the tide, the ever-changing sky painted in light and cloud.