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The twins turned to look at her; Winter took that moment to slip inside the shuttle. Before Jacen and Jaina noticed she had gone, Winter activated the doors, sealing herself inside.

Leia stood beside the children on the windswept landing pad. The shuttle’s repulsorlifts whined, powering up. Leia stepped backward, nudging the twins with her. “Out of the way now. Back where it’s safe.” Jacen and Jaina still sniffled, on the verge of crying again. In her untrained way Leia tried to send them calm, loving thoughts.

She spoke into a comlink on the lapel of her robe. “Grant departure clearance to unmarked shuttle on top northside platform of the Palace, authority of Minister Organa Solo.”

The orbital traffic controllers acknowledged, and Winter’s shuttle rose from the platform, pivoted, then angled into the sky. Leia raised her hand in a farewell salute. “Wave to Winter,” she said.

The twins flailed their pudgy arms in the air. Winter flashed the lights in the shuttle at them; then the orbital-bum rockets kicked in, and the vessel shot into the aurora-streaked distance.

“Come on, you two,” Leia said to them. “I’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.”

Streen sat atop the ruined and abandoned skyscraper where he had made his home. When Luke brought him to the yammering mass of Imperial City, where millions of people covered the planet with all their thoughts and all their feelings, Streen had begged for a place where he could have some solitude until they moved off-planet to their Jedi training center. Luke showed him the abandoned parts of the city, and Streen had selected the tallest building. Being high up reminded him of the clouds of Bespin.

Now Leia brought the twins with her, keeping a firm grip on each of their hands as she led them into the barely functional lift, which took them to the rooftop. They walked out onto the upper platform where Streen sat alone on the edge. The old man dangled his feet over the sides, unperturbed by the unbroken kilometer drop below him. He looked up and out at the unrelenting cityscape, the geometric spires of sprawling buildings. He watched the tiny shapes of hawk-bats riding thermals.

Leia walked across the rooftop. She had never been afraid of heights, although with the young children at hand she felt an altogether different kind of fear, a stomach-clenching paranoia of the millions of things that could bring danger to her children. Jacen and Jaina wanted to dash to the edge of the platform and look over, but she refused to release her grip.

Upon hearing them approach, Streen turned. Leia noted that he still wore his many-pocketed jumpsuit, not wanting to change into the warmer or more comfortable clothes she had offered him.

“We just came to check on you, Streen. With Luke gone I wanted to make sure there was nothing else you needed.”

Streen paused a moment before answering. “What I’d like is solitude, but I fear there’s no place I can have that on this entire planet. Even in the quietest places on Coruscant, I can still hear a constant hum of whispering thoughts and voices. It’ll be very difficult for me here, until I learn how to block it out. The Jedi Master promised to teach me how to do that.”

“Luke should be back shortly,” Leia said.

They approached the edge, and Leia insisted on standing a safe distance away. But Jaina pulled forward to the full reach of Leia’s arm, to where she could peer over the edge and gape all the way down. “That’s far!” Jaina said.

“Too far to fall,” Leia told her.

“I won’t fall.”

“Me neither,” Jacen said. Then he insisted on straining forward to look over the edge as well.

Streen stared at them with a kind of wonder. “You’re better than the others. The children’s minds are simple and straightforward, and they don’t bother me. It’s only when thoughts are complex and filled with a thousand subtexts that it makes my head ache. And you, Minister Organa Solo, are quieter and more focused than most other people.”

“Luke taught me how to control my own mind. I don’t leak out the thoughts and feelings that bother you so much. I keep from broadcasting