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Mara smiled wanly. “Put on a little weight and everyone treats you like an invalid.”

“You’ll see how long that lasts after the big event,” Mirax said. “When Baby Skywalker has a little accident, everyone will magically think you’re plenty strong and capable.”

“Boy. And I thought this was the best part.”

“Yep,” Mirax said. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Come along now. I’ve got a comfy couch with your name on it.”

“I’ll come with you, too, if you don’t mind,” Cilghal said.

“Of course,” Mirax replied. “The more the merrier.”

They sat around Booster’s circular conference table, absorbing the news.

“Do you really think you would have been arrested?” Kam asked, folding the fingers of both hands together into one very large fist.

“I honestly don’t know,” Luke replied. “Hamner thinks the whole thing was a ploy engineered to get me away from Coruscant. He may be right. Borsk Fey’lya has never been one of our strongest supporters, but I can’t see him thinking that arresting me would solve any of his problems. In fact, I think we narrowly escaped an insurrection because he ordered my arrest.”

“Last I heard,” Booster said, “the senate was divided over the Jedi question. Maybe it’s tipped, and Fey’lya was just being the politician he is.”

“Maybe,” Luke agreed. “In a way, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is what we do now.”

“And that is?”

“Right now, Han, Leia, Jacen, and a number of other allies are out there creating a network to help Jedi or whoever else needs to escape from danger zones—to get us in and out of Yuuzhan Vong and Vong-sympathetic space as safely as possible. I have no doubt that in time, that network will be in place. But when that day comes, we need a terminus—a planet that only we know about, that only we can find. We can’t just keep hopping around the galaxy—we have to have a home base to plan and act from. If Han and Leia are creating a great river, we need a sea for it to flow into.”

“Well, that sounds good to me,” Terrik said. “I certainly don’t want all of you robe-wearing freeloaders on my ship. You have someplace in mind?”

“Frankly, no. I was hoping for some suggestions.”

“The Maw installation,” Kam said.

“We’re already using that,” Luke said, “but the Maw is pretty well known. Almost impossible to navigate in, but well known. Any number of collaborators could at least point the Yuuzhan Vong there, and we still don’t know the limits of their technology. We’re risking a base there, a safe house, but I won’t place the future hope of the Jedi in that exposed a position.”

“If there were another cluster of black holes like the Maw …,” Tionne began.

“Well, there is,” Booster said. “Or at least a place like it. Worse, actually.”

“Where?”

“Think. What makes the Maw such a nightmare? All those mass shadows, butted up against each other. Gravity bending space and time so much that almost no hyperspace route is a safe one. There’s another place like that.”

Kam nodded. “The Deep Core,” he said. “Terrik, you’re crazy.”

“You’re the one who suggested the Maw,” Booster pointed out.

“Yes, but we know how to get in and out of the Maw.” “Somebody found the way,” Booster said.

“Right. Somebody crazy.”

“Kyp found it, too,” Luke said. “Using the Force. If Kyp could do it at the Maw, we can do it in the Core. It just won’t be easy.”

“A world of our own,” Tionne lilted. “A Jedi world, safe for the children. It’s a worthy goal.”

“Worth a song or two, wouldn’t you say?” Booster asked.

Tionne, well known for her ballads, nodded and enigmatically smiled.

Not so enigmatic to Kam. His eyes went very wide. “Us?” he said.

His wife continued smiling. “The students will have Luke, at least until Mara gives birth, and I suspect for a bit after. And they will have Corran when he returns. We have been too long sedentary, Kam. You have. This will be good for us.”

Booster bellowed laughter. “I suspect we’ve found your madman, Solusar.”

Kam set his shoulders uncomfortably. “Yes, perhaps you have,” he acknowledged.

“Speaking of Corran,” Luke said, after smaller