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Sel gave her a wan smile. “More because there is no place for me anywhere else. I was raised in the Jedi Temple. I never knew my family. My contemporaries, all dead. Even my enemies, my rivals … dead and gone. I feared and struggled against death for longer than some planets have been settled. Now I know that death is part of life, a part I embrace. I do not rush toward it … but I might as well meet it here as anywhere.” She gestured around at her modest home. “At a certain point in life you realize how little you need. Now I enjoy days without hatred and insanity, nights without bug bites and bad dreams.”

Luke caught her eye. “How were you healed? The last time I saw you …”

“I suspect I was not a pretty holo.”

“No.”

“There is a Listener technique. I needed many applications of it over many years. I apparently knew, when they explained it to me, that it would probably restore my sanity but would rob me of memories … because I was so far gone, of most of my memories. The Listeners call it vein routing, meaning that you completely grind out every memory contributing to some traumatic response or insanity. I call it mnemotherapy, a gentler term, less frightening.”

Luke nodded. “Which is why you don’t remember meeting me.”

“Yes.”

“Teselda …” Luke battled a mix of emotions as he leaned forward. Dimly remembered revulsion at what Teselda had been, anger at how she had tried to use him and Callista, warred with his native sympathy … and his need for help in the here and now. “I suspect you’re in greater danger than anyone on this planet.”

Her smile widened. “That will be a refreshing change.”

“I’m not kidding. Something is coming here, or has arrived already. A great menace that preys on the vulnerable through the Force. Before, you were too undertrained to have even the basic set of Jedi techniques. And then you couldn’t keep from falling to the dark side, couldn’t keep madness at bay. Couldn’t control me for very long even when I was a much younger, much more emotional man. Unless you leave Nam Chorios now, I doubt you stand a chance. Especially if, as you say, you’re a Listener now. I suspect their techniques of opening themselves to voices in the Force will make them especially vulnerable to Abeloth.”

She blinked, considering. “And yet, knowing me, you stand a much better chance of recognizing this Abeloth’s influence if you can witness changes to my manner. My personality.”

“That’s … very noble of you, but you don’t want to be Abeloth’s tool before you die.”

“And yet here is where I will die. I made that choice a long, long time ago. So, how can I help?”

Luke sighed. “We suspect, from asking around at Koval Station, that Abeloth has not arrived yet—she’d be in a very small, very distinctive ship. But we can’t be sure. Do the Oldtimers still operate the old weapons emplacements?”

“Yes, as sensor stations only.”

“Can you get me any reports of small craft entering the atmosphere in the last few days, especially if they bypassed Koval Station?”

“Probably.”

“And I was hoping to learn something of the Theran Force Listening technique …”

“Which I’d be honored to teach you.”

“But now, I think I’d also like to see this mnemotherapy technique.”

“Which I can’t teach you … but I can introduce you to someone who can.”

“Thank you.” It felt strange to be grateful to someone who, for the last thirty years, Luke had remembered as an object of revulsion at worst, pity at best.

She put her hands over his. “Welcome back to Nam Chorios.”

SENATE BUILDING, CORUSCANT

The shuttle DeepRay, a Lambda-class vehicle much newer than the one Luke had boarded at Koval Station, glided through the open blast-style hangar doors south and west of the Senate Building’s main entrance hall. Alone in its tiny flight deck, Seha Dorvald put all her attention on making the last moments of this flight smooth and unremarkable.

Ahead and below, a jumpsuited Gamorrean, his greenish, porcine features disinterested, gestured with a pair of guidance glow