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“Who the blazes are you?”

I am the inferno, you are quite accurate. I am the Sarlacc. I am the distilled essence of—

“You’re not the Sarlacc,” Fett said grimly. “Sarlacci aren’t intelligent, they don’t have a brain worthy of the name—”

The voice chuckled and said softly, I am Susejo. The wall Fett hung on shivered. An emotion that could have been delight emanated from the creature. It’s been a long time since I had one like you, all bright and sharp around the edges. You are nearly a work of art, Fett; there is a clarity to you that is—chuckle—quite wonderful. A purity to your intent.

Fett fought back the useless rage that threatened to overwhelm him; it was something he’d had practice at. “I’m a hunter. I bring those who do evil to justice, and there is little room to be unclear on the subject.”

You remind me of someone—ah. I have it. You remind me of the Jedi.

Keeping his voice expressionless was an accomplishment “The Jedi.”

Yes. A Jedi we ate a few thousand years ago. We’ve kept her; would you like to meet her?

“No.” Fett closed his eyes and floated senselessly in the darkness. A Jedi we ate, it had said. “No. Keep your Jedi to yourself.”

Impression of a shrug. As you wish. You’ll look forward to a break in the tedium … soon enough.

Fett opened his eyes and stared ahead into the emptiness, listening to the silence. The screams he had heard at first, those of the men who had fallen into the Great Pit with him, had ceased. He had not heard even one in some time. The fury built in Fett, self-contained, black and bone-deep. Another crack nearby, sounding very like a whip; Fett took a shuddering breath and when he spoke his voice shook slightly. “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand this at all. Why is this being prolonged? Is there a purpose? The Sarlacc can eat me when I’m dead, can’t it? I’ve killed, I’ve killed virtually everything that moves, one time or another, a hundred different species, sentient and dumb; if it breathes I’ve probably killed it or something like it But I’ve killed clean. I’ve killed without stretching it out Where’s the grace in a death like this?”

Fett had the impression that his question was being considered. For you? Why, I suppose there is none. But your life and death belong to me now, not you; and they serve my purpose. Recognize and understand your place in things, Boba Fett, for you are not even a real thing; merely a collection of thoughts that has deluded itself into a belief in its own existence.

“You’re saying that I’m not real, that nothing’s real?” Fett’s lips twisted in a snarl. “The air stinks too badly for me to believe that.”

You, and I, and everything else—we are merely a process, Boba Fett. A process that has named itself “I.” Surely the Real exists, and we are an expression of it. But are you and I real? No. We are processes that have grown arrogant and broken apart from the Real. In time we shall be rejoined to it. The voice paused. You want to know why this is taking so long? You’ve barely been down here a day, Boba Fett. There are sentients who’ve been kept alive for hundreds of years while the Sarlacc digested them. After a long pause it added, with a sense of weariness so profound Fett believed it would have killed him to experience it, Thousands of years, in some cases.

Fett did not know what made him so certain, the weariness; he said, “You … you lie. You’re not the Sarlacc—you’re down here, with me.”

I’m not the Sarlacc? Considering, thinking: Don’t be so sure of that. I am c, or I was, and I have been here for a very, very long time. Longer than you can imagine … but who knows? Perhaps you will not have to imagine it. Perhaps you will survive. You entertain me, and that which entertains me entertains the Sarlacc. When I am happy, it is happy. I expect you will be with us for some time.

Let me activate even one weapon system—Fett fought the thought down, pushed it back hard, and said aloud, “You are cruel.”

There’s a joke, said the voice, that my Jedi told me. A sentient visits a nearby farm and sees