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The heavyset man made an angry gesture. “We just got sick and tired, that’s all. We got word a planet-hopper was sending in a shipment of chips and droid parts, and them motherless Therans were out to blast ’em because that braidy-haired Listener of theirs told ’em droids were against nature or something. Blast it, if they got a problem with droids, we’ll import Bandies—they’re tough enough to do the work of droids, if you keep ’em fed, and just smart enough to pick and haul but don’t make trouble. I hear we can ship ’em in cheap from Antemeridian.”

“Oh, come on, Gerney,” interrupted Gin irritably. “If the Listeners don’t like droids, you bet they’ll object to slaves!”

“Bandies aren’t slaves!” flared Gerney Caslo. “That’s like calling a cu-pa a slave! You’re as bad as my cousin Booldrum! Bandies breed like sand bunnies, work like droids, and they’re better off with somebody taking care of ’em.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“Oh, just ’cause some bleeding-heart rigged a big-deal Sentience Test …”

“Bandies are sentient,” said Luke quietly. “They may not be terribly bright, but that’s their privilege. I’ve met humans who weren’t terribly bright, either. They deserve better than slavery.”

“And who’re you?” Gerney glared belligerently across at the slight, beard-stubbled form sitting relaxed on the speeder bench in the near darkness. His voice turned heavily sarcastic. “You another one going to lecture us on the motherless rights of motherless sentience the motherless galaxy over?”

“Anyway, that wasn’t all of it,” put in Aunt Gin quickly. She looked up at Luke, “You come in off the hills, pilgrim? You didn’t happen to meet Therans, did you? See them up to anything?”

“Besides stripping my ship of everything but the space tape, you mean?” He grinned, understanding her attempt to head off a quarrel, and she grinned back. Silver space tape was a standing joke among colonists, as it had been among the Rebels: Everything was held together with it, from household appliances to—allegedly—the Imperial Palace on Coruscant.

“No, it’s serious.” The woman Arvid had pointed out as Umolly Darm moved over carefully to the side of Caslo’s skimmer, small and trim and pretty with an ion cannon slung casually on her shoulder. She must have muscles like a rancor, thought Luke. “About six hours before the attack there was a … I don’t know what. I’ve heard the Oldtimers talk about Force storms, and this must have been one of them. Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. Every tool came flying off the bench, whirling around the room like a cyclone. Boxes of crystals heaving and scattering rocks and jumping off the shelves. Down the street at the grocery it was like somebody hit the shelves with a dirtmover. Tinnin Droo and Nap Socker were working at their smelter; it leapt up like a live thing, they say.… They don’t think Socker’s going to pull through, he was burned so bad.”

Her blue eyes narrowed, troubled and darkly angry. “They always did say the Listeners had some kind of special power. I never heard of this kind of thing, never. They—the Oldtimers—say there used to be these Force storms, a hundred, two hundred years ago.”

“The Oldtimers say,” said Gerney Caslo with a sneer. “Like they say their Healers can cure a man of everything from petal fever to a broken leg just by laying hands on him.” He looked Luke up and down again. “When’d you meet these Therans, friend? And what was they up to?”

Luke shook his head. “They attacked me with lances and pellet rifles when my ship came down, that’s all,” he said. “I escaped.”

Six hours before the attack on the gun station.

At the very hour when he had used the Force to get himself away.

I knew it. The all-encompassing presence of the Force, the terrible strength of it, moving like wind around him, imbuing the very air.

He had caused the Force storm.

Yoda’s voice came back to him, the rough green fingers pinching his arm. Its energy surrounds us and binds us.… You must feel the Force around you, between you and