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Sel’s question brought Vestara out of her reverie. She offered the old woman, who shared the speeder’s backseat with her, a smile she hoped looked authentic. Then she remembered that it would go unseen under her goggles and cold-weather veil. “Just thinking.”

Sel nodded, then turned forward again.

Taru’s speeder bike was fifty meters ahead, making a left turn down a side canyon. Sel took a look around, orienting herself. “We’re almost there.”

“Good.”

Moments later both vehicles came to a stop before a cave mouth. This was a large aperture in the canyon wall, tall enough for a Wookiee riding his brother’s shoulders to stay upright as they walked in. Two more speeder bikes, another landspeeder, and three cu-pas were situated outside. Taru and Ben parked among them.

The five of them entered the cave. Its entrance, just inside, was flanked by two Oldtimers carrying modern, well-kept blaster rifles. These two men gave Taru a quick glance and then ignored him and the others.

The first cave was a bare and colorless thing, illuminated by a single high-powered glow rod. Toward the rear, its uneven floor sloped down at a steep angle. Steps had been cut into the floor there in some ancient time; they were now well worn with the passage of booted feet across the centuries. Taru led them down.

Deep within the canyon wall and well below the level of the canyon floor outside, the cave more or less leveled off. The half-natural stairwell opened out into a much grander cavern. Here, crystals were embedded in the walls; illuminated by more glow rods, they gleamed as if lit from within.

There were more men and women here, Oldtimers, most of them arrayed around an ancient black cooking pot from which smokeless heat emanated. Drawing close, Vestara could see that cans of heating fuel had been placed within it and ignited.

Taru brought Luke up before a man, as elderly in appearance as Sel. Tall for an Oldtimer, he was bald and white-bearded with intense eyes, black in these lighting conditions, that seemed fierce enough to stare clean through a person or a wall of stone. Vestara had seen eyes like his many times in her life, the eyes of Force-users with goals to pursue.

Taru made introductions. “Master Nenn, this is Master Luke Skywalker. Nenn is the senior Master of the Theran Listeners—as close as we have to a leader. Master Luke, of course, is head of the Jedi Order.”

“Former head.” Luke offered his hand.

Nenn stared at it before appearing to remember the Newcomers’ way of doing things; he shook Luke’s hand. “We of course know your name. I think I met you long ago, when you first began coordinating the effort to bring the lost tsils home.”

“I believe so.”

“Taru tells me you have disquieting news about Nam Chorios. I might have some disquieting news for you in return. Here …” He gestured to a rocky ledge, one nearly absent of crystals, and sat. “Please begin. Taru has told me what he understood, but I prefer to have such information firsthand.”

Vestara settled in on the far end of the ridge to half listen. These were details she already knew.

If she switched herself over to the mind-set of the Vestara who had been composing the letter, Ben and Luke became different people. That was interesting. Yes, Ben was still infuriatingly boyish, in a way few Sith of Kesh ever were. Even Luke was sometimes boyish. But from that emotional perspective, this boyishness was not so ridiculous. Perhaps it was even attractive, in moderation.

Luke spoke of Abeloth, her ability to absorb others whole and take on their knowledge and identities, her desire to extend her very nature throughout the galaxy, her bleakness. Luke concluded with the warning he’d already offered to Sel. “Because the Listener techniques are so heavily involved in opening themselves to the Force, in listening to and interpreting the will of a difficult-to-understand species, I worry that they are vulnerable to Abeloth. If she—when she understands the tsils, she might be able to simulate their voices and thoughts very effectively, and persuade the Listeners to follow her.