Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 03_ Tyrant's Test - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [29]
Luke awoke in Mud Sloth’s sleeper with an unaccustomed warmth beside him and an unaccustomed memory hovering close to his thoughts. He stirred, and Akanah melded her body against his again, skin touching skin and coaxing slumbering senses to awaken.
He did not know how to talk about what had passed between them, or what might come of it, but she did not ask that of him. She allowed him to stay in the restful comfort of the circle of their mutual embrace, making no demands, expecting no explanations. He returned that courtesy in kind.
It had been much the same the night before. Loneliness, grief, compassion, and a previously undiscovered hunger for a touch that felt like acceptance had brought them to the brink. But by silent mutual consent, something had been held back. Neither of them had asked for or offered their deepest intimacies. And, unpressured, each had allowed the other to enjoy the novelty of not being alone.
They lay together in the sleeper, awake, aware that the other was awake, and aware that the other was aware. But for a long time, neither of them spoke. Luke barely trusted the privacy of his own thoughts, and didn’t dare open himself to reach out for hers.
“Your turn,” she murmured at last.
“What?”
“To talk about your father.”
For some reason Luke did not fully understand, the familiar inner wall of resistance did not snap into place. “I don’t talk about my father,” he said, but it was a rote refusal, without conviction.
Even though she must have heard the opening, she did not try to cajole him into a reversal or probe for the exceptions. “I understand,” she said, showing a sympathetic smile. Then she turned onto her back, looking up into the holographic galaxy. “It was hard for me.”
That small physical retreat was enough to draw Luke out. “It’s not as though there’s much I could say, anyway,” he said, rolling onto his side and propping his head on one hand. “Almost everything I know, everyone seems to know—and almost everything I’d like to know, no one seems to know. I don’t remember my father, or my mother, or my sister. I don’t remember ever living anywhere but Tatooine.”
Akanah nodded understandingly. “Did you ever wonder whether those memories might have been blocked?”
“Blocked? Why?”
“To protect you. Or to protect Leia and Nashira. Young children don’t know when they’re saying too much or asking the wrong question.”
Luke shook his head. “I’ve deep-probed Leia for unremembered memories of our mother. If there was a block there, I’m sure I’d be able to see it.”
“Unless your own block prevented you from recognizing it,” she suggested. “Whoever did this might have anticipated that you would have the gifts of the Jedi.”
“Ben could have seen that,” Luke said uncertainly. “Or Yoda.”
“If you wanted, I could—”
“But what possible danger could those memories be to me now?” Luke asked, trampling her offer before she could make it. “No, I think there’s a simpler explanation. I think we were just too young. Leia’s memories may not even be real. They might be something she invented to fill that empty space you spoke of, so long ago that she can’t remember doing it. An imagined memory looks just like a real one.”
“And their comfort value is usually very high,” Akanah said. “Luke, when did you become aware of the empty spaces?”
“I don’t know. Much later than Leia did, anyway. Kids say things—you start realizing your family is different.” Luke frowned, his eyes focusing somewhere far beyond the bunk. “My uncle and aunt said almost nothing about my father, and even less about my mother.”
“Maybe that was to protect you, too.”
“Maybe,” Luke said. “But I always felt that my uncle disapproved of them, and resented getting stuck with the obligation of raising me. Not my aunt—I think she always wanted children. I don’t know why they didn’t have