Much later than Leia did, anyway.
Kids say things--you start realizing your family is different."
Luke frowned, his eyes focusing somewhere far beyond the bunk. "My uncle and aunt said almost nothing about my father, and even less about my mother."
"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 lust 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 flagship?"
"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.