“Is the damage done at Utharis still with us?” she asked sadly. “I had hoped to receive your trust again.”
“There’s very little I trust in this life, Akanah—myself included.”
“Too true,” she agreed. “Very well—I will try to explain.” Akanah frowned as she searched for the right words. “Where the Current touches self-awareness, there is a tiny ripple—as when you sense a presence with the Force. The metaphor is more different than the means.”
“But I can’t feel anything here—nothing more than the energy of the ecosystems on the fourth and fifth planets,” Luke said. “Nothing of consciousness—nothing of will.”
“It is not consciousness or will that matters—it is the profound essence of being, nothing more,” she said. “I can perceive the crew just as you would perceive a handful of sand I scattered on the far side of a pool. From a distance, sometimes you can see only the effect, not the cause.” She smiled. “But you must be very still to see even that, for you are also of the Current, surrounded by the ripples of your being.”
“So what you sense is the crew of this ship?”
“Whether they are crew, or cargo, or captives, I can’t say. I only know that there are many thousands there, orbiting J’t’p’tan, and some smaller number on the surface below.”
“Colonists,” said Luke. “They must be here to settle the planet.” At her questioning look, he added, “I heard some rumors in Taldaak that the Yevetha were expanding their territory by taking over the habitable worlds.”
“And you trust these rumors because—”
He laughed grimly. “Because they came from the Fleet. I obtained a tactical briefing on the war.”
“So you already knew that a ship was here,” she said. “And said nothing to me of it.”
“I knew that a ship was here at one time,” Luke said. “I didn’t say anything to you because I couldn’t. I take seriously the oath that allows me access to secure data. I wouldn’t tell your secrets to them, either,” he added.
“Then you weren’t testing me just now? To learn if I’ve spied on you?”
“No,” Luke said. “I just needed to know how you knew. What about the Circle?”
She shook her head. “The essence of concealment is merging with what surrounds you. Not even the best among us could answer your question at this distance, and I am far from the best. I hear only silence—I do not know what the silence means.”
Pushing Mud Sloth to its navigational limits, Luke began to contrive a spiraling approach that would keep the mass of the planet between the skiff and the Yevethan vessel.
“Best for everyone if they never see us at all,” he said as he charted the course.
“Done,” Akanah said, looking on from behind Luke’s flight couch.
Luke looked up at her quizzically. “It can’t be that easy.”
“Why not?”
“Eh—don’t you have to know who it is you’re trying to hide from?”
“Why?” she asked.
“So you have a focus. So you know whose thoughts you’re trying to deflect. It’s done with precision, not brute force.”
“That’s coercive,” she said. “And invasive. You reach into another mind and bind its thoughts, or place your own there.”
“Well—yes,” Luke said. “But the use of that power is constrained. The purpose must be important enough to justify the deed and the consequences.”
“It seems the Jedi are always finding reasons to justify their violence,” she said. “I wish you would try as hard to find ways to avoid it.”
“Violence? What violence?” Luke protested. “More often than not, all that’s required is to induce a moment’s inattention, or reinforce a suspicion. No harm is involved. A sworn Jedi would never—oh, make someone walk off a cliff thinking there was a bridge there.”
Akanah shook her head in earnest disagreement. “You, who’re immune to your own tricks—who are you to judge the harm done? You do this in secret, to lead a suggestible mind, or compel an opposed one. Do you think that those you’ve coerced see the morality of it the same as you do? Besides,” she sniffed, “it’s inefficient.”
“What?”
“Inefficient,” she repeated. “It requires your constant attention and involvement.”
“If you know an alternative, I’m your eager student.”
“What about the way you concealed your hermitage?”
Luke frowned. “That’s different. I created it from elemental substances to have that quality—to blend in with the coastline as though it were part of it.”
“It was a powerful bit of work,” she said. “When I saw it, I knew you had the gift of the Fallanassi. But you didn’t go far enough and apply the principle to its ultimate conclusion.”
“Which is—”
“To make it not merely resemble its surroundings, but merge with them,” Akanah said. Closing her eyes, she drew a deep breath. She let the breath out slowly as she lowered her chin to her chest—and then she was not there.
“I’ll be a—” Luke reached for her where she had been standing, but his hand grabbed only air. “Cute trick,” he said, taking a step toward the refresher, away from the forward deck. “Handy for breaking into libraries, escaping arranged marriages—where are you?”
“Here,” she said from behind him. He turned to find her silting sideways in the right-hand seat, wearing a small proud smile. “Did I touch your mind?”
“No,” he admitted. “Not that I could notice.”
Akanah nodded. “A long time ago, one of the Circle discovered that when she achieved a particularly profound Meditation of Immersion, she would disappear from the view of others. Much later, we learned how to take an object in with us and leave it there.”
“Where do you go when you disappear?”
“Where do you go when you dream? It’s impossible to say. What does an answer from that context mean in this one?”
“Well—is it difficult?”
She shrugged. “Once mastered, it’s no more difficult or mysterious than concealing a cup of water by pouring it in the sea.” Then she smiled. “But achieving mastery is much like trying to remove that cup of water afterward.”
“And you’ve merged this ship?”
“Yes. Some time ago, while I was in meditation.”
“Will the engines still work?”
“Did the floors of your hermitage hold you, and the roof keep out the rain?”
Luke wrinkled up his face. “So we’re completely undetectable now?”
“No,” she said. “Nothing is absolute. But we’re safe from eyes, and from the machines that are like eyes. Take us directly to J’t’p’tan, Luke—as quickly as you can. Trust me in this, at least. I’ve depended on this art for my survival, virtually from the time I was taken from Ialtra. I promise you that we won’t be discovered—not by the beings in that starship.”
The stone ruins of the temple of J’t’p’tan sprawled over more than two thousand hectares. Even scorched and smashed, what remained made the extent of the builders’ ambition clear. The ruins filled the floor of a pocket valley with an intricate pattern and climbed the inner walls of the enclosing hills.
But it was also clear long before Mud Sloth landed in the middle of an open diamond that the ambitions of the H’kig had collided with the ambitions of the Yevetha, and the latter had triumphed.
Long walls of finely chiseled cutstone had been toppled and shattered. The slope of the hills had been undercut in several places, collapsing parts of the great structure onto itself. The quarries were half filled with water, the quarry sledges burned to charcoal, the quarry road blasted out of existence. And nowhere was there a hint of life.
Luke climbed down from the skiff slowly, wordlessly. The destruction assaulted his senses—there was a sick smell on the slight breeze, and before he had gone a dozen meters from the ship his eyes began to pick out the blackened lumps of corpses among the scattered stones.
“It’s l
ike Ialtra all over again, only worse,” he whispered to himself. Then he turned back toward the skiff, looking for Akanah. He found her kneeling on the paving stones near the ship’s front skid, bent forward with her head on her forearms.
“Akanah—”
When she made no response, gave no sign she even heard, he became concerned and moved toward her. But she rose to her feet before he reached her and moved away from him at an angle, climbing over a jumble of stones that had once been a wall and then breaking into a run.
Puzzled, Luke stopped and called after her. “Akanah—what is it? Where are you going?” Reaching out with his sense skill, Luke swept his surroundings for threats, but found none. “Akanah!”
When she did not even look back, he started after her. But in the next moment, she vanished—as thoroughly and effortlessly as she had aboard the ship. There was not even a tremble in the Force to mark her disappearance or betray her presence afterward.
Luke’s first thought was of betrayal. She got me here like she was supposed to, and now she’s getting herself out of the way. Crouching behind a jumble of broken cutstone, Luke swept the area again, concentrating on the ridgeline of the enclosing hills.
The ship’s vulnerable—if I were them, I’d take it out first.
But there was no blaster fire from the hills, no sudden appearance by troops concealed in the rubble, no patrol flyer swooping up through the entrance to the valley. He found his failure to detect any other life presence—Imperial, Yevethan, H’kig, Fallanassi—puzzling.
“Akanah!” he called loudly.
There was no answer. Luke stood up slowly, letting his lightsaber fall from his hand to dangle at his hip. Still scanning warily, he walked to where Akanah had knelt, but there were no clues there.
Maybe she never was real, he thought. Maybe someone’s been playing with my mind.
Whether he was alone or not, Luke did not intend to become stranded on J’t’p’tan, with only a Yevethan colony eight thousand klicks away to look to for help. There was no place to hide or shelter Mud Sloth, but he knew that the skiff’s navigation shields would provide some protection against hand blasters and other small weapons. Luke revisited the cockpit just long enough to activate them, then sealed the hatch and set off in the direction Akanah had been heading when she vanished.
When he reached the spot where he had last seen her—or as closely as he could fix it—he sat down on the edge of a giant building stone that was scorched black and cracked in half.
“No Yevetha. No Fallanassi. No Akanah,” he said aloud. “No Imperial troopers. No Nashira. So why am I here? There’s something missing from this picture. What’s this all been about? There’s something here still not seen.”
Prodded by his own words, Luke turned his head slowly to one side, then the other. “Maybe a lot of somethings not seen,” he said, more loudly. “Finding a cup of water in an ocean, was it? I can do that. All it takes is time, and knowing that it can be done.”
When there was still no response, Luke stood. “If I have to pick between your being an illusion and your being real, Akanah, I think I have reason enough to know that you’re real.” He turned slowly in a circle, waiting. “So I know that you’re still here—and I’d bet that you can hear me.”
When waiting was not rewarded, Luke climbed atop the broken stone, making an easy target of himself. “At first I thought you were hiding from whoever did this,” he called. “But they’re long gone and far away, aren’t they? And you didn’t run away in fear, did you—no, you wouldn’t need to. You told me over and over that you can protect yourself.”
Jumping down, he began walking slowly in the direction Akanah had been going when she vanished. “Which leaves only one conclusion, Akanah—that you were running toward something. That you found what you were looking for.” He felt his throat tighten as envy washed over him, and his next words came out with a hoarse rasp. “That the Circle is here.”
Ten meters away to Luke’s right, three women suddenly appeared, as though they had stepped through an invisible curtain. One wore a sashed white gown with diagonal sky blue bands. Her silver hair tumbled down her shoulders to her waist. A second, copper-skinned and short-haired, wore very little at all—a dusty yellow wrap that started low on her hips and fell only to her knees. Akanah was standing between them, clinging to their hands with fierce possessiveness, her face streaked with tears and lit by a profound joy.
“This is Wialu, who marked the way for me,” she said brightly, her voice thick with emotion. “And this is Nori—Norika, my friend of long ago.” She looked from one to the other, first left, then right, with an almost disbelieving expression in her eyes. Then she smiled a giddy smile and looked toward Luke. “Yes, Luke—I am real, and they are real. And I am finally home.”
Wialu released Akanah’s hand and came forward to where a stunned Luke stood.
“You helped our child Akanah return to us,” she said. “We are grateful to you for that. Akanah tells us the burden was taken freely, but the risk and sacrifice were substantial. Is there a debt owed?”
“What?” Luke searched Akanah’s face. “Not a debt, no.”
Wialu nodded. “You are the man of honor that she said you were,” she said. “Your friendship to the Fallanassi will be remembered.”
“Thank you,” Luke said uncertainly.
“Your ship must be removed from here as soon as possible,” she said. “It has already been a disruption, and its presence threatens what we do here.”
“Of course,” Luke said. “Just show me where you’d like me to move it to—”
“It must leave the planet,” said Wialu. “Its, presence in the temple is intolerable, but even elsewhere it would be a danger.”
“It’s Akanah’s ship.”
“She has given it to you, in gratitude,” said Wialu. “But it is also simple pragmatism that she do so.”
Luke squinted. “Are you telling me I have to leave?”
“I am grateful for your understanding.”
Luke looked again to Akanah, expecting her to speak out. “I can’t do that,” he said. “Akanah isn’t the only one who came here hoping for a reunion—I’m searching for someone, too. Her name is Nashira.”
Wialu’s expression did not change, but she inclined her head back almost imperceptibly, as though listening to something Luke could not hear.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I do not say I know the name—I do not say that I do not know the name. I cannot help you.”
“I can’t accept that,” Luke said. “If she’s here, you have to at least tell her that I’m here. If she isn’t—” He shook his head as though throwing off a thought. “I’m her son.”
Wialu turned her head as though listening to someone behind her. “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “My answer must be the same.”
Luke stepped past her in the direction of Akanah, then stopped and turned back. “It’s not a debt,” he said, “but it was a promise. Akanah said that she would help me find Nashira. She thought we would find her here with you.”
“Is this true?” Wialu asked, looking past him to Akanah.
“It is,” she said. “His loss has been longer and more profound than mine. He has been separated from the Current and ignorant of the Creed. I had hoped to bring him to them.”
“Reckless,” said Wialu, shaking her head. “We will speak of this later.” She turned to Luke. “I am oath-bound. None of us can betray another to outsiders, by denial or by affirmation. Akanah cannot make such a promise, and such a promise cannot bind me.”
“I’m not asking you to betray your oath. All you need to do is tell Nashira that Luke is here, and let her decide what to do.” He looked past her, sweeping his gaze across the ruins. “Or let me tell her. Bring her here and let her see. She can choose.”
“That is impossible,” Wialu said. “You speak a name, and if I give that name meaning, I have given you power over she who carries it. I’m sorry. I cannot help an outsider.”
“He’s not an outsider,” said Akanah, letting go of Norika’s hand and advancing on Wialu. “He asked to learn the ways of the Current, and I have taken him as my student.”
“This is also impossible,” said Wialu, “for you are but an untrained child yourself.”
Akanah’s eyes flashed anger. Her hand shot out and grabbed Luke’s wrist. “You do not understand the importance of his presence,” she said darkly. “You do not understand the importance of his quest.”
“Do not do this, Akanah.” It was said with sadness rather than threat.
“What choice have you left me?” Closing her eyes, she threw her head back and drew a sharp breath.
The air trembled. The bodies, the ruins, began to shimmer and dissolve. Akanah let out a little cry of pain, or surprise. Standing beside her, Luke felt her anger drawing on the Force—controlling, not merging, hurling it against something he could scarcely perceive.
Then, in an eyeblink, everything before him, everything surrounding him, was transformed. The burned bodies vanished. The scorching was bleached from the cutstone, the shattered stones healed, the toppled walls and towers restored, the scarred hills painted and smoothed. The tragedy of the ruins was transformed into a glorious work in progress, filling the valley in every direction and filled with the vitality of thousands of solemnly industrious H’kig.
Akanah gazed defiantly at Wialu, whose answering look mixed gentle reproof and regret.
“My stars,” Luke breathed. “It wasn’t destroyed? You’ve been hiding this from the Yevetha—”
“Yes,” said Wialu. “Akanah must have thought this important for you to know.”
Luke shook his head in disbelief. “The Fleet memorandum called this a cult colony—they have no idea—look at what they’ve done! How long have the H’kig been here?”
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