Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 02_ Shield of Lies - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [42]
“Show me.”
Akanah saw his shoulders rise and fall, heard the deep breath that came out almost as a sigh. When he turned his couch toward her and looked up, she saw a sixty-year-old face that reminded her at once of everyone and no one. The eyes were unguarded but vacant, the expression open but bland. There was nothing distinctive about his features, nothing at all to remember him by or for.
“Very good,” she said. “May I try something?”
He gestured silently with open hands.
Drawing a shuddery breath, Akanah closed her eyes and moved the focus of her senses behind where Luke seemed to be, groping for an anchor in what was real. When she found it, she opened her eyes again and blew away the illusion with the soft breath of disbelief.
“There you are,” she said, and smiled.
“Very good,” he echoed. “It takes a strong mind to penetrate the illusion.”
“I wanted to make certain I could find you, if we had to separate on Teyr. Do you change your voice, too?”
“I can. It requires more concentration, because the ear isn’t as easily fooled. I’m not sure why that is, but it is—with humans, anyway. Speaking of Teyr—we’re in the yellow zone.”
“Is it safe to jump out now?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Luke. “And we’ll pick up almost an hour, jumping from this point. Assuming that I didn’t break more than I meant to back there.”
She smiled. “Let’s find out.”
“Let’s,” he said, turning back to the controls. “Do you still want to make a misdirection jump, or shall we go directly to Teyr?”
“I still want to,” Akanah said, letting one hand settle lightly on his shoulder. “Someone could still be watching us from Lucazec. But a short one, please. I want to get to Teyr as soon as we possibly can. I just know that we’ll find something more than ruins there.”
Her touch caught Luke momentarily unguarded and made her mind open to his as well. He felt the barely restrained urgency of her need for reunion, the brightness of her hope, the depth of her anxious fears.
“Well, better strap in, then—just in case,” he said.
The jump-out was reassuringly uneventful. By the time the Mud Sloth would have been released from the FCZ, it had already completed its first jump and turned to the heading for Teyr.
Then there was time to think, in the quiet, undisturbed hours while Akanah slept and nothing could touch them. Luke thought most about Ialtra, returning to his mother’s dusty, crumbling cottage, searching his sense-memories again for her presence.
Luke knew he would have to return there when it was safe to do so, and wondered if something should be done to preserve the site. He wondered how the authorities on Lucazec would react if he asked them to protect his mother’s onetime home. If the burned-out ruin of the Lars farm could be rebuilt as a historic monument, perhaps the ruins of Ialtra could be rescued from a hostile neglect by the Skywalker name. Perhaps the reputation of those who had been driven from there could even be rehabilitated.
But that would have to come later, when there were fewer secrets to protect. For now, Luke would have to count on the shame of the Fallanassi to shield Ialtra from being further disturbed.
Let the nackhawns take the bodies, he thought, and the shadows keep Ialtra undisturbed. Let her memories sleep until I can return to awaken them.
When Luke heard Akanah moving in the bunk behind him, he planted a bare foot on the control console and pushed off, spinning the couch around to face aft.
“Hey—are you awake?”
“It’s hard to sleep,” she said, invisible behind the privacy curtain. “Perhaps we should change places.”
Luke looked back over his shoulder at the displays. “It’s only two hours to the end of the jump,” he said. “And there’ll be plenty of chance for me to rest up during the crawl to Teyr.”
“Couldn’t we use your military waiver, now that you’ve disconnected the interlock?” Her voice was clear and unmuffled, and Luke pictured her