Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 06_ Vortex - Denning Troy [109]
If Akanah had felt the ripple, she showed no sign of it.
Deciding to follow her lead, Luke said, “There’s great wisdom in what you say. But what of the evil in the galaxy? Should we allow the selfish to enslave the weak? The greedy to steal from the poor?”
“One cannot rid the galaxy of a killer without becoming a killer,” Akanah countered. “One cannot fight evil without doing evil. Did the Jedi learn nothing when they decided to stand against the Yuuzhan Vong?”
“The Jedi stopped a brutal and savage species from conquering the galaxy,” Luke replied, starting to grow irritated. “And later, we prevented a cruel retaliation against those same invaders.”
Akanah shook her head. “You prevented a change from coming to the galaxy,” she said. “That is all you did.”
“So we should have allowed the Yuuzhan Vong to take everything?” Luke countered. “We should have gone into hiding and allowed them to sacrifice trillions of innocents to their imaginary gods? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I am saying the Current is not ours to control,” Akanah replied. “We cannot know where it will carry us, or what turns it may take getting us there. We can only trust to its purpose and not try to bend it to ours.”
“And you believe that’s what Jacen was doing,” Luke said, once again probing for the source of her knowledge. “Trying to change something in the future?”
“No, I am convinced he did change something.” Akanah waved Luke toward the Shadow’s open hatch. “And that is why I must ask you to go and leave the ancient one here with us. Perhaps, with our help, she will be able to undo the damage.”
An icy lump formed in Luke’s stomach. “Undo it?” He wanted to ask Akanah if she had lost her mind, but considering who she had just admitted the Fallanassi were sheltering, he was not sure he wanted to know the answer. “How?”
“Why do you ask questions when you already know the answer?”
Luke understood, of course. Abeloth had promised to return the Current to its original course. Perhaps such a thing was even possible—but that did not make it a good idea. Jacen had looked into the Pool of Knowledge and had a Force vision of a dark man in dark armor, sitting on a golden throne surrounded by acolytes in dark robes. But when Luke had looked, two years after Jacen had become Darth Caedus and been killed, his vision had been of Jacen’s daughter, Allana, standing next to a white throne and surrounded by friends of all species. If that was the change Abeloth had promised to undo, Luke wanted no part of it.
Instead of ascending the Shadow’s ramp, Luke said, “Master Yoda once told me that the future is always in motion. We can never see it perfectly because it’s always changing.”
“Yes, you have told me about Yoda’s teachings before, when we were … traveling.” Akanah smiled at the memory, then continued, “We Fallanassi believe much the same thing—that it is impossible to know where the Current will take us, because the Current is ever-changing.”
A flutter of exhilaration rose inside Luke, and he began to hope that he might yet persuade Akanah to cooperate. “Then why would you want Abeloth to change it back?” he asked. “If we don’t know where it’s going anyway, how can we know that the old course is any better than the new course? Or even that it’s different?”
“Because now we do know,” Akanah replied. “When Jacen changed its course, he changed it to something—to that vision you saw in the Pool of Knowledge, of the white throne—”
“How do you know about that?” Luke demanded, interrupting to prevent her from mentioning Allana while Vestara was outside eavesdropping. “Abeloth?”
“Then it is true.” Akanah’s voice