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“The key to your dome?”

“No, to my mnemotherapy.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Think of the mind as a computer system. The patient must trust the Listener, and they must work together to create a key, one that will give the Listener a back door by which he can invoke the mesmeric trance used in the technique. This was already accomplished on Thei before we arrived tonight. You understand?”

“I think so.”

Sel passed him a folded sheet of flimsiplast. It was thin enough that Luke could see some of the notation through the material. It seemed to be a musical score. The lyrics belonged to an ancient lullaby of Alderaan; Luke had heard Leia sing it to Jacen and Jaina when they were little.

Sel returned her hand to the warmth of her jacket pocket. “That is mine. Taru and the other Listeners used it when curing me. You may have need of it, if you feel that I may have been … compromised … by this Abeloth. It might allow you to be sure.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Sel. You’d still be better off just leaving for a while.”

“So would you.”

“Point taken.”

SENATE BUILDING, CORUSCANT

“YOU SEEM DETERMINED TO OFFER ME OFFENSE AT EVERY STAGE OF this discussion.” Daala’s voice was as frosty as Hoth in midwinter. Perhaps the spotless whiteness of her uniform and many of the furnishings in her Chief of State office contributed to that impression. “You refuse to allow me to speak to Kenth Hamner, and give me reasons for his absence that are patently insulting. You refuse to hand over information on the mad Jedi who assaulted Admiral Bwua’tu. You say you want to normalize relations between the Jedi Order and the government, but do nothing to support your claim.”

Leia and Han exchanged a glance. It frustrated Daala that she could not read its meaning. Long-married couples possessed a language, one of glances and cryptic terms and throat clearings, that no outsider could interpret.

Han replied first. “We haven’t seen any sign that the attackers were Jedi.”

Wynn Dorvan, the fourth person participating in this private negotiation, gave Han a look that was all mockery. “No sign? Lightsabers? Forensic evidence that they knew how to use these weapons—not just to kill, but also to deflect blaster bolts? That’s not something you learn from watching holodramas.”

“Not everyone who knows how to use a lightsaber is a Jedi.” Leia’s voice was measured and polite but implacable. “There are ex-Jedi, of course.”

Daala nodded. “Such as Tahiri Veila, the murderess.”

“There are also, as you now know, more Sith in the galaxy.”

“So good of you to have informed me of their existence before my intelligence forces discovered them. And I’m still waiting for a clarification on the difference between Jedi and Sith—a difference Jedi Veila and your son Darth Caedus could not seem to distinguish.”

Leia was silent for a moment, and Daala wondered if she had finally pushed the doomsday button that would cause Leia to come over the desktop at her. But after the pause Leia continued speaking, with no change in her tone. “You yourself employed a lightsaber user, Zilaash Kuh, a bounty hunter, who was no Jedi. Where did you find her? Perhaps she can explain where Admiral Bwua’tu’s attackers came from.”

That rankled Daala … because Kuh had, shortly after her last mission with the bounty hunters employed by Daala, disappeared. Her ID documents proved to be masterful forgeries. Her true identity and current whereabouts were a mystery.

Daala did not allow this fact to intrude upon her point. “If you’re hoping to recruit her, I regret that I do not feel obliged to help you. Back to the subject. The subject that has plagued me for many months. There can be no normalization of relations between the Jedi and the government until the Jedi Order acknowledges itself as, and behaves as, a government resource.”

Han offered up a lopsided smile, a smuggler mocking authority. “Even if that’s not what the public wants?”

Daala transfixed him with a hostile stare. “You think the public has any