“Could it be a Force-user who’s here now, and using arts to diminish her presence?” Leia asked.
Jacen nodded. “Maybe.”
“Then why couldn’t it be Luke’s ‘man who doesn’t exist,’ using those same arts to impart a different gender feeling, perhaps to throw Luke off?”
Jacen smiled. “Mom, that doesn’t make any sense. First, if I could detect the presence Uncle Luke is feeling, then I would probably detect it the same way, at least initially. If it’s a man to him, it should be a man to me. Second, and I think this is very important, why hasn’t Luke mentioned this female presence I noticed? Did he not detect it all, or has he dismissed it because it’s not as strong or as in-your-face as his ‘man who doesn’t exist’?” He took a deep breath. “Mom, I think Uncle Luke is dismissing a lot of information and premonitions he may be getting, simply because they don’t match with what he believes. He didn’t think much of my suggestion that the Corellians wouldn’t roll over as quickly as the GA said they would, and look what happened. Now he has a pet theory about some shadowy enemy, and nothing else seems to be getting through to him.”
“I know he hasn’t studied every esoteric Force discipline you have,” Leia said, “but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. His opinions shouldn’t be disregarded.”
“Neither should mine.” Jacen’s tone was sharper than he intended. He softened it for his next words. “I didn’t mean to sound angry-“
“You are angry,” his mother said.
“Maybe. But my point is still worth listening to. Uncle Luke had to carry the burden of the survival of the entire Jedi order all by himself for years. He’s faced pressures that no Jedi in history has endured. After forty years of doing this, he may be burning out.”
“I doubt it,” Leia said. “Jacen, the way he’s lived his life, the way he’s learned about the Force, that’s one path to knowledge. Yours is a different one. Do you really think yours is better?”
“With apologies, Mom-yes, I do. I think Uncle Luke is closed off to some avenues of learning, and it may mean there are things he’ll never be able to see.”
“All the same,” Han said, “keep your eyes open for strangers. Ignoring warnings is a good way to get dead.”
Jacen grinned. “We agree on that.”
Chapter Nineteen
TWO LEVELS ABOVE KALLEBARTH WAY AND TOWARD THE HABITAT center, in an auxiliary security command compartment normally occupied only in times of emergency, Captain Siron Tawaler scanned a series of readout boards, looking for trouble.
The leftmost board showed him the station’s external tracking sensors, indicating every ship, piece of debris, or asteroid larger than a groundspeeder within several thousand kilometers of the station’s position. On the screen, numerous green-for-friendly blips dotted space.
The next board showed a much closer view; only Toryaz Station appeared there. On it, a green blip moved with considerable delicacy among the spokes that connected the station to its satellite habitats.
The third screen on that bank showed an almost identical view, but did not show the green blip. It was this view that command crew on the bridge would be seeing, this view that was being recorded in the station’s files.
The rightmost screen showed a diagram of the station’s layout, each section colored by alert status. Everything was in the green except for one belt of yellow, Kallebarth Way, the yellow indicating its heightened state of security.
Tawaler felt rather than heard his companion lean over his shoulder, and was for once not startled when she spoke. Her voice was, as ever, quiet and silky: “I am always amazed at the initiative security officers show in ensuring that they can peer through every set of holocam lenses on a ship, pry into every confidential computer file, and access every ship’s function … even when they’re not supposed to.”
A comment like that would normally have made Tawaler feel defensive, but here it seemed soothing. Tawaler chanced a glance over his shoulder.
The woman who stood there was a beauty-tall, slender, and aristocratic, her dark eyes intelligent. She wore colorful but cumbersome robes in the latest Kuati style, and she did so with a grace that began with a lack of self-consciousness.
Tawaler shrugged, trying to appear unconcerned. “A security officer has to be able to provide security. Even when commanding officers are killed or subverted. He has to be able to see where everyone is, know what everyone is thinking. Otherwise things aren’t safe.”
“You’re right, of course.” There was amusement in the woman’s tone, and again Tawaler was surprised that he wasn’t even a little offended. The woman’s words sounded like condescension. But of course they weren’t.