Cilghal held up a hand. “Wait.”
Gorog continued to clench her limbs to her chest and whip her antennae. Tekli, who as a healer was a little faster at extricating herself from the equipment, emerged from her chamber first.
“I’m sorry,” she said, marching straight for the exit. “I need to use the refresher.”
“Of course.” Cilghal swiveled a dark eye in Luke’s direction, and he felt her interest growing. “Take your time.”
Tahiri emerged next. “You need to give us a break sometimes,” she complained, walking over to the console. “I’m beginning to feel like I’m on a weeklong X-wing jump.”
Tahiri’s gaze drifted to the data-holo and lingered for a moment on Gorog’s bars. Then she turned to Luke with her mouth twisted into a brutal grin.
“Looks like I’m not the only one who came out of the war part Yuuzhan Vong,” she said. “What’s next? Jedi tattoos?”
The comment stung Luke more than it should have-in large part because he could feel his wife growing more worried and angry as the experiment continued.
“This isn’t for fun,” Luke said. “We’re-“
“Tahiri, are you feeling any pain?” Cilghal interrupted. “Is that why you came out here?”
Tahiri looked at the Mon Calamari as though she were a dimwit. “Cilghal, I’m half Yuuzhan Vong inside. The only thing pain would cause me is a religious experience.”
“You’re sure?” Cilghal asked. “You don’t feel any at all?”
“This one feelz no pain, either, but that does not excuse what you are doing.” Tesar emerged from his compartment trailing a dozen broken sensor wires. “This one is through with your gamez. He will not be party to a breaking.”
He tore a handful of electrodes off his chest, threw them on the floor, and started toward the exit.
Tahiri watched him go, then looked back to Luke with the hardness of a Yuuzhan Vong in her green eyes. “Tesar and I must not be completely joined, ” she said. “I’d kind of like to stay.”
“I think we’re through,” Luke said, wondering if the revulsion he felt was for the Yuuzhan Vong in Tahiri’s personality, or for himself. “Isn’t that right, Cilghal?”
“Yes, I have seen everything I need to.”
She cut the power to the probe. Gorog’s data bars returned to normal, and Mara gushed relief through the Force.
“We’re through for today,” Cilghal said to Tahiri. “Thank you.”
As Luke watched the young Jedi Knight leave, he began to feel increasingly disappointed. He had no doubts now that Tesar and the others were completely under Raynar’s control; that they had agreed to return to the Galactic Alliance only so they could sneak away from the academy-as they had all done at one time or another-and seek support for the Colony.
After the door had hissed shut, Luke shook his head and dropped onto a bench in front of the control panel. “I guess that tells us what we needed to know,” he said. “They’re all under control of the Colony’s Will.”
“Of a Will,” Cilghal corrected. “Not the Will, as the Chiss believe.”
Luke looked up. “You’ve already lost me.”
Cilghal came out from behind the control console. “Like the Force itself, every mind in the galaxy has two aspects.” She sat next to Luke on the bench. “There is the conscious mind, which embraces what we know of ourselves, and there is the unconscious, which contains the part that remains hidden.”
Luke began to see where Cilghal was headed. “You’re saying that since the war, the Colony has developed two Wills, one conscious and one subconscious.”
“Not subconscious-unconscious,” Cilghal corrected. “The subconscious is a level of the mind between full awareness and unawareness. We’re talking about the unconscious; it remains fully hidden from the part of our mind that we know.”
“Sorry,” Luke said. “It’s complicated.”
“Just like every mind in the galaxy,” Cilghal said. “This is an analogy, but it fits-and our experiment demonstrates just how closely. Alema and Gorog are controlled by the unconscious Will-the correlation of their emotional centers makes that clear.”
“And Tekli, Tesar, and Tahiri are controlled by the Colony’s conscious Will?” Luke asked.
“Influenced by,” Cilghal said. “They have not fallen under the Colony’s complete control. They still think of themselves as individuals.”
“Then why did they end the experiment?”
“How often do you do something without truly understanding why?” Cilghal countered. “In every mind, the unconscious has a great deal of power-some psychologists even think it’s absolute. So when Gorog was in pain, the Colony’s unconscious Will influenced its conscious Will to end the experiment. Suddenly, Tekli had to use the refresher, Tahiri had to stretch-“