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“If you must,” she said with elaborate sufferance.

Her face was pale and her eyes were underscored by dark circles, but some of the sheen had returned to her red-gold hair, and her green eyes sparked to life under his gaze.

“What’s the verdict, doctor?”

Luke pretended not to hear the quaver in her voice, but Mara saw through his pretense. There wasn’t much they could hide from each other, though one of the more devastating aspects of Mara’s illness had been its detrimental effect on the depth and intensity of their bond.

“You tell me.”

“It hasn’t been my best week.” She smiled frailly, then compressed her lips in annoyance. “But I don’t know how I ever let you talk me into coming here—and don’t say you got me at a weak moment.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

Months earlier, Mara had determined that the best way to fight the illness was to remain active and fully attuned to the Force. But after the brutal murder of Elegos A’Kla and the devastation visited on Ithor her condition had worsened. If all of Luke’s and Mara’s instincts were wrong and the illness wasn’t linked to something the Yuuzhan Vong had introduced to the galaxy, her vitality at least appeared to wax and wane in accordance with the invasion. Where following the minor victories at Helska and Dantooine she had emerged strong, Ithor had constituted a new low, not only for Mara but for everyone.

Luke slipped out of his cloak, and the two of them moved arm in arm into the suite’s modestly furnished sitting room, his black trousers and shirt in stark contrast to Mara’s white sheath. Mara lowered herself into a corner of the couch, her taut legs tucked beneath her. She gathered her long hair in one hand and twirled it behind her head, then spent a moment staring out the window at passing traffic. The apartment wasn’t far from the Grand Convocation Center, but sonic-cancellation glass kept the noise from intruding.

“Did you meet with Dr. Oolos?” Luke asked at last.

She turned to him. “I did.”

“And?”

“He told me the same thing Cilghal and Tomla El told me seven months ago. The illness isn’t like anything he’s ever seen, and there’s nothing he can do. But I could have told you that—and saved both of us the trouble of coming here. Oolos wouldn’t come right out and say that the Force is the only thing keeping me alive, but he implied as much.”

“There’s the one other … case,” Luke started to say.

Mara shook her head. “He died. Just after you left for Kashyyyk.”

Luke allowed his disappointment to show. A Ho’Din, Ism Oolos was not only a noted physician, but also a researcher of some celebrity, as a result of his investigations into the Death Seed plague that had swept through the Meridian sector twelve years earlier.

“Did he have anything to say about the beetle?”

“The infamous Belkadan beetle,” Mara said jocularly, then shook her head. “Other than that it’s also like nothing he’s ever seen. But the tests he ran didn’t show any evidence that my illness is connected to the thing.”

Luke grew introspective. Many years earlier, the Mon Calamari Jedi Cilghal had employed the Force to heal then Chief of State Mon Mothma of an assassin-induced nano-destroyer virus. So how was it that she and Oolos and the Ithorian healer Tomla El could all remain powerless against the molecular disorder that had assailed Mara? It could only have come from the Yuuzhan Vong, Luke told himself. In the midst of an all-embracing conflict, he and Mara were waging their own private struggle.

“Was the memorial difficult?” Mara said, clearly eager to talk about something other than the state of her health.

Luke looked up and took a breath. “Not for Chewbacca’s immediate family. Wookiees are very accepting of death. But I am worried about Han.”

Mara frowned sympathetically. “Your sister might be Han’s soul mate, but Chewbacca was his first mate. It’s going to take time.”

“I didn’t help matters any. When I tried to suggest that he open himself up to the Force, he made a point of reminding me that he isn’t a Jedi.”

“Which is another reason he and