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“I suppose that could be an answer.”

“Let’s not guess,” she said. “Is the ship clean?”

“I couldn’t find anything.”

“Then let’s go. Let’s go directly to Atzerri.”

“I’m not saying there aren’t people who could hide things I couldn’t find,” Luke warned.

“I know that.”

“Well—let’s see if a direct route is available from here,” Luke said, turning to the astrogator. “I’d been planning to line it up with the next one.”

They jumped out twenty minutes later, with the report on the Mud Sloth still waiting for him on Coruscant.

The skiff had a way of getting smaller the longer they were in it, and the recent tensions had accelerated the process. As soon as they were on their way to Atzerri, Akanah and Luke resumed sleeping in shifts.

It worked largely because the active noise-canceling system in the bunk was effective enough that the curtain divided the ship into two worlds, dark and light, awake and asleep. For most of a day’s cycle, no matter which side of the curtain they were on, both Luke and Akanah could enjoy the illusion of being alone on the ship. They allowed just enough time between shifts with both awake to avoid military-style hot-bunking—though Luke could usually catch Akanah’s gentle scent on the pillow even after he turned it.

The jump to Atzerri was a long one. The travelers did not have much to say to each other at the first turn—she was impatient for bed and he to read the diplomatic files. It was little different at the second turn, when the conversation was polite and perfunctory.

By the third, they were both just lonely enough again to welcome some company and to linger together in idle talk. And by the fourth, Luke ventured to broach a subject that had kept touching his thoughts in the time he spent alone.

“Akanah—if telling me what the scribing says violates your oath, why do you do it?”

“Because I consider you one of us,” she said, her expression carrying a hint of surprise. “You are untrained—you are not an adept—but you are Fallanassi.”

“Why? Because my mother was—is?”

“That, and because of the potential within you, given proof by your skill with the Force.”

Luke returned to the pilot’s couch and curled up sideways in it. “How do people become part of the circle?”

“Curiosity is not sufficient—which I hazard you know. Some are born to it. Some come to it. Is it any different in your discipline?”

“Born with the gift, do you mean, or born to someone who already belongs, to a trained adept?”

“Is the gift not in the blood?”

“Sometimes it seems that way. Sometimes it seems as if the talent goes wild, almost as if the Force chooses its own,” Luke said, turning on his back and propping one foot on the control panel.

“Why, what do you mean?”

“Look at the way the Jedi are coming back,” said Luke. “The Empire hunted us so relentlessly that most everyone who escaped thought they were the only Jedi left. But it isn’t just that a few solitaries who were hiding have resurfaced. I’ve found students with no family history whatsoever, in species that were never represented before in the Order.”

“Some of your number may have been adventurous travelers,” said Akanah. “On Carratos, I heard many jokes about how the Emperor spent his evenings. If a Jedi sleeps alone, surely it must be by choice, as it is with you.”

“Are you saying that you expected me to warm a bed with you?” Luke said. “I didn’t think that was our bargain.”

“No,” she said. “I never expected that.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“That Luke Skywalker could have a hundred children by now. A thousand.”

“That’s crazy.”

“No—that’s the simple truth. There are different rules for heroes and royalty, and you’re seen as a little of both. You can’t be unaware of that.”

Luke frowned and looked away. “I don’t know how to be a father to one child, much less a thousand.”

“You wouldn’t need to know,” she said. “Their mothers wouldn’t expect it. They would be grateful enough for the gift.”

“I’d expect it of me,” he said, and firmly steered the conversation back on course. “We were talking about my being an honorary