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Evening had arrived, and Bburru City’s big lights dimmed outside the hallway viewbubbles. Two tall Duros in CorDuro uniforms waited on either side of an unmarked door around the next bend.

“Take the near one,” Luke murmured.

Gently, almost tenderly, Luke pushed the farther guard down into a deep sleep. The Duros sagged against the synthplas-mosaic wall. The other guard followed him down.

“Good,” he told Anakin. “Stay out here. If anyone else shows up, put them down the same way. I shouldn’t be long.”

Jacen’s host had left him in a bedroom with a large, round transparisteel window and two hallway guards. Standing beside the window, he’d watched the big lights fade on Bburru’s central plaza. The open space was almost large enough to create the illusion of a living planet, with diagonal bracing struts that ran from street level to the faintly blue artificial ceiling. As in the avenues, raised planters supported massive trees that were layered with vines. It was a far cry from the jungles of Yavin 4, but Jacen was starting to understand why the Duros would rather live here than down in the murk.

Now he lay on a soft bed in semidarkness, wondering if he’d done the right thing after all. Brarun didn’t seem to be in any hurry to finish negotiating tariffs.

The hall door opened silently.

Jacen slid his hand under his pillow and got a grip on his lightsaber. A dark form slipped through. Jacen saw the short trunk and goggles of a Kubaz, then heard as the door slid shut, “Jacen, it’s me.”

Jacen knew the voice. He would’ve sensed the presence, if he’d been alert to the Force. He let go of his lightsaber, but he didn’t wave on a light.

“Master Skywalker, there could be listening devices—”

“Not at the moment.” Luke sank onto his bed’s foot, moving as silently as a shadow. He pulled off his trunked mask and laid it on the bed beside him. “What is it you’re trying to accomplish, Jacen? How can I help?”

Jacen didn’t need any further encouragement. He poured out his vision, relating every detail he could remember. When he got to the parts about Luke in shining white robes, a magnificent warrior of the light, his uncle’s cheek twitched and he looked away, seemingly embarrassed. Most vivid of all was the voice, though—and the command to stand firm.

“I didn’t,” Jacen said. “I slipped. I fell, barely on the dark side of … of the balance point. Everything started to slide. Everything.” He shuddered, remembering the stars turning dark. “Do we have the right,” he asked, “to use this … magnificent, terrifying light … as if we were in charge of the universe?”

Faintly lit through the window, Luke frowned. “Jacen, the Force is our heritage. Unless we use it, we have no better way to safeguard peace and justice than any police group.”

“Many Jedi are misusing their powers.”

“Not all,” Luke answered softly.

“I want to reach them,” Jacen said. “I’ve finally had time to think this through. I’m marginally famous, just because of you and Mom and Dad … and Anakin,” he admitted, “and Jaina. If I go out on a limb, if I refuse to channel the Force in aggressive ways, other Jedi would have to pay attention.”

“It’s a noble cause.” Luke’s weight shifted on the bed. “But are you ready to stake your life on it?”

Jacen had thought about just that. “Yes,” he said. “Even if I died, my death might wake up the rest of the Jedi. It might prick their consciences into realizing they can’t just blast around with all the power at their disposal, without suffering consequences.”

“But it’s you,” Luke said gently, “who would suffer the consequences. Not any of the others.”

“I can’t do anything about them. I can only offer myself.”

He felt his uncle’s scrutiny. “Never forget that it’s one thing to lay down your life when you have to. But to choose death when you could’ve escaped—that diminishes us all.”

Jacen frowned. He didn’t want to overestimate his importance, or the other Jedi’s willingness to pay attention. “We’re developing bad patterns,” he insisted. “We’re slipping past everyone else’s laws, and those