• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“No? Nothing personal, but hiding from that pair makes great sense to me. I can think of a couple of times I’d have been glad to do it if I could have.”

“But why in the middle of a desert, or a jungle?”

“Eh—isn’t that obvious?”

“No,” Luke said, shaking his head. “It’s much easier for Han Solo to hide—even with a price on his head—than for a powerful Jedi, whether Knight or Dark Lord. A Jedi’s physical presence is only a small portion of his connection to the universe. Change his face, hide him from sight, and I’ll still feel his presence when he draws on the Force. It doesn’t matter if he’s in the next room or across the system. Remember when we were taking the stolen shuttle to Endor, to destroy the second Death Star’s shield?”

“Yeah,” Han said. “You were pretty jumpy. You said Vader could sense you.”

“He did sense me,” Luke said. “I didn’t have the skill yet to make the waters still. But Obi-Wan and Yoda were Masters. If they could hide from the Emperor—and I believe they could—why, they could as easily hide in Imperial City, or on Vader’s own Star Destroyer, as anywhere. And if their skills weren’t equal to Palpatine’s, neither distance nor isolation could save them from being discovered.”

“Maybe they hid out in the sticks so no one else would get hurt if Vader showed up,” Han suggested. “You’ve gotta admit, when you guys fight, it has a way of getting messy. We’ve got a few monuments to that fact downtown in Imperial City.”

Luke shook his head. “No. I discovered the real reason while I was on Yavin—the dilemma that every Jedi eventually faces. I discovered a very important and difficult truth, Han—a frustrating truth. The stronger you become in the Force, the more that you can do, the more that’s expected of you, and the less your life belongs to you.”

“Is this the answer, then?” Han said, gesturing at the room with one hand. “Running away?”

“Call it that if you must. It’s one answer. There’s another, even less appealing,” Luke said. “Han, I’m convinced that for each Jedi, there comes a point at which he or she must choose. When the world presses in on you, threatens to drive you mad, there’re only two ways you can find peace. One is to impose your will on everyone and everything around you. The other is to surrender your will, your ego, and withdraw from those who are always wanting you to ‘fix’ their lives.”

“I don’t see it,” Han said stubbornly.

Luke smiled. “Try to imagine that you’re at home. One of the children is screaming, and the other two are tugging at your elbows, each demanding that you punish the other for some slight—”

“Routine,” Han said.

“Chewbacca is playing tree-drum music at ear-splitting levels. See-Threepio is nattering on about nothing. Artoo-Detoo is behind your chair, arguing with the household droids in Basic. The hypercomm is blaring two channels at once, both too loudly. Your comlink is chirping in your pocket. You have three messages from people who want you to come do them a favor, and Leia’s insisting on your attention. Lando has a raucous sabacc game going in the next room, there’s someone at the front door, and a flight of airspeeders keeps buzzing right over your head.”

“Okay, that’d be a little worse than routine,” Han conceded. “A little.”

“Now imagine it goes on around the clock for a day, ten days, a month, half a year, a year—not only without a break, but getting worse all the time. Until you reach your limit, whatever your limit might be. What are your choices? Control your environment, or leave it.”

“Or go mad and destroy it,” Han said. “Which hardly counts as a choice. Yeah, I think I get the picture now.”

“Do you see what a thin line separates Palpatine and Yoda?” Luke said earnestly. “Palpatine sought power over others. Yoda sought power from within. Palpatine wanted control of everything, in the hopes of building what he thought would be a perfect universe. Yoda gave up the idea of controlling or perfecting the universe, in the hopes of understanding