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“This is what I do. This is what I’m best at.” Qwi nodded her head absently, as if considering her answer. “Here I have a chance to grapple with the greatest mysteries of the cosmos, to solve problems that others have claimed are unsolvable. To see my wild ideas take shape. It’s very thrilling.”

Han still could not understand. “But how did this happen to you? Why are you here?”

“Oh, that!” Qwi said, as if suddenly understanding the question. “My home planet was Omwat, in the Outer Rim. Moff Tarkin took ten young Omwati children from various cities. He placed us in intense forced-education camps, trying to mold us into great designers and problem solvers. I was the best. I was the only one who made it through all the training. I was his prize, and he sent me here as a reward.

“At first I worked with Bevel Lemelisk to bring the Death Star to fruition. When we had the blueprints completed, Tarkin took Bevel away, leaving me to create newer and better concepts.”

“Okay,” Han said, “so I’ll ask you again, why do you do this stuff?”

Qwi looked at him as if he had suddenly grown stupid. “It’s the most interesting thing I can imagine. I have my pick of the challenges, and I’m usually successful. What more could I want?”

Han knew he wasn’t getting through. “How can you enjoy working on things like this? It’s horrible!”

Qwi took another step backward, looking baffled and hurt. “What do you mean by that? It’s fascinating work, if you think about it. One of our concepts was to modify existing molecular furnace devices into autonomous ‘World Devastators’ that could strip raw materials from a planet’s surface, feed it into huge automated onboard factories, and produce useful machines. We’re quite proud of that idea. We transmitted the proposal off to Tarkin shortly after he took Bevel with him.” Her voice trailed off. “I wonder what ever happened to that idea.”

Han blinked in astonishment. The terrifying fleet of World Devastators had attacked Admiral Ackbar’s home planet, laying waste part of the beautiful water world before the juggernauts were destroyed. “The World Devastators have already been built,” Han mumbled, “and put to very efficient use.”

Qwi’s face lit up. “Oh, that’s wonderful!”

“No, it isn’t!” he shouted into her face. She sprang back. “Don’t you know what your inventions are used for? Do you have any idea?”

Qwi backed off, straightening up again defensively. “Yes, of course. The Death Star was to be used to break up dead planets to allow direct mining of the heavy metals trapped in the core. The World Devastators would be autonomous factories combing asteroids or sterile worlds to produce a wide range of items without polluting inhabited planets.”

Han snorted and rolled his eyes. “If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. Listen to their names! Death Star, World Devastator—that doesn’t sound like something for peacetime economic development, does it?”

Qwi scowled and turned her back on it. “Oh, what difference does it make?”

“The Death Star’s first target was the planet Alderaan—my wife’s home world! It murdered billions of innocent people. The World Devastators were turned loose on the inhabited world of Calamari. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Those efficient factories of yours manufactured TIE fighters and other weapons of destruction, nothing else.”

“I don’t believe you.” Her voice did not sound confident.

“I was there! I flew through the rubble of Alderaan, I saw the devastation on Calamari. Didn’t you read about it in my interrogation report? Admiral Daala pressed me over and over again for those details.”

Qwi crossed her slender bluish arms over her chest. “No, that wasn’t in your debriefing summary, which you so melodramatically call an ‘interrogation.’ ”

“Then you didn’t get the whole report,” Han said.

“Nonsense. I’m entitled to all data.” She stared at her feet. “Besides, I only develop the concepts. I make them work. If someone on the outside abuses my inventions, I can’t be held responsible. That’s beyond the scope