Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 01_ Outcast - Aaron Allston [16]
Luke frowned. It didn't sound like the sort of relationship in which Jacen would teach Valin an obscure Force technique. “And how about Valin and Seff?”
Jysella shook her head, causing her brown hair to sway. “They weren't close. We all studied together at Shelter and afterward, but once we were apprenticed, following our respective Masters around, hardly ever. Occasionally one or the other of us would encounter him on missions. We were acquaintances, colleagues, but we weren't social buddies.”
Luke heaved a sigh. “But the similarities are too striking to be a coincidence. Seff also knew an obscure Force technique we can't account for. Another one that Jacen exhibited, a Force-based paralysis. There's just too much missing in what we know about Jacen's travels, even his thought processes. Whether or not it has any bearing on Valin, at some point we need to fill in as many details as we can about what he was up to in the years prior to the Killik crisis.”
Corran caught Cilghal's eye. “Is there anything you can do for him? To snap him out of it?”
“Nothing at the moment. We need psychological experts to evaluate the recordings we have made of him. We need complete toxicological lab work to come back. We need to find a way to complete a brain scan … As far as we can tell, whatever he's doing to thwart the scanner works even when he sleeps. I wish he hadn't awakened from Mirax's stun bolt before we tried the scanner the first time.”
She pressed another couple of switches on the control board. An opaque panel slid down in front of the window, cutting off their view of the malevolently staring Valin. Mirax started, then reluctantly turned back toward the others.
“Let's go upstairs,” Luke said. “Sit down, get some caf, and figure out what to do about this. And other problems. Ben, I want you to exercise your investigative skills and see what information you can get me on the bounty hunters we encountered today.”
“Will do.”
“Will he be all right, left alone?” Mirax's tone was soft, full of pain.
“He is being watched constantly on monitors by my staff.” Cilghal sounded confident, reassuring. “They will also look on him personally every half hour to an hour. He is not strong enough to break through his straps, and, as you know, like his father he lacks telekinetic strength—he cannot free himself that way.” She led them from the chamber.
Luke patted Corran's back as they departed. “Did you have any trouble with the authorities?”
“We didn't wait for them. Just threw the boy in Mirax's speeder and came straight here …”
Valin could sense their departure. Bright lights in the Force, somehow approximating those of his family and respected teachers, grew more distant.
He smiled to himself. They were nowhere near as smart as they thought they were, no matter how much research they may have done. They did not know all his secrets, including the one that was going to free him.
He closed his eyes and looked for other lights in the Force—tiny ones in nearby pockets and streams. Individually they did not hold much life, but their collective biomass exceeded that of all the sapient beings on Coruscant.
They were the insects, and though he had not done so in years, he remembered how to be their friend. Now he needed them to come here. He needed certain species that he could convince to crawl out of gaps in the Temple walls, march up his gurney, and consume just a small portion of one strap holding him down.
One strap, and then when his nurse came on an in-person visit, one lunge. Valin would escape and find his way to where the real people were.
A two-tone musical alarm awakened Luke. He sat up, glancing around his darkened Temple quarters, and saw his monitor lit, Cilghal's face displayed on it. “Master Cilghal. What time is it?”
“Middle of the night. Valin Horn has escaped.”
Luke sighed at the inevitability of those words. “This day … How long ago?”
“Twenty minutes or so. His night nurse, Apprentice Romor, is not badly hurt but has a concussion.”
“Do we have any leads on where