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“Almost instantly. But now we have lost contact with the Stalking Moon.”

That was an unpleasant surprise. “Perhaps they’ve merely experienced disorientation after leaving hyperspace. The cloaking shadow it wears is prone to complications.”

“And perhaps your ‘allies’ were waiting for her and destroyed her as she reverted.”

“That’s not possible,” Nom Anor said. Or was it? The Givin were stranger even than the humans, much harder to read. Had he miscalculated so badly?

No. This was a minor setback, nothing more. The plan was good.

“We have some hours, yet,” Nom Anor assured the warleader. “I shall discover what troubles, if any, the Stalking Moon is having and report promptly back to you.”

“See you do,” Qurang Lah snapped.

Non Anor’s expression soured as the villip calmed. If something had happened to the advance ship, could he still convince his Givin allies to perform their act of sabotage?

Of course he could.

But he smelled Jedi in this somewhere, beyond the lone Rodian who had identified Nom Anor as Yuuzhan Vong when visiting Yag’Dhul Station. It had been easy enough to have him tracked and murdered, and his Peace Brigade contacts on Eriadu assured him that the Rodian had never had a chance to communicate to anyone else.

But then the Peace Brigade had been known to lie before, when they thought it made for better groveling, and the Jedi had the power to send thought without words.

Nom Anor sat and composed his ideas carefully. If there were Jedi here, what would they do?

He had to be ready for them when they came. He would be. And perhaps, added to the conquest of Yag’Dhul, Givin slaves, and the threat to the source of bacta in the nearby Thyferra system, he would have another jewel or two to hand Tsavong Lah.

TWENTY-NINE

Luke gripped Mara’s hand and tried to keep his tears at bay, tried to make his mind still, free of pain, fear, and grief.

“Cut it out, Luke,” Mara said. “You’re giving me the creeps.” Her voice was a dry croak, barely louder than the stridulations of larval tlikist.

Luke took a shuddering breath and tried to smile. “Sorry,” he said. “Not one of my better days.”

“It’s got to be better than mine,” Mara said.

Her hand in his felt papery and hot. He gripped it harder, feeling the disease beneath. It was in furious motion, mutating at rates that medical science had once considered impossible. The only still point in her body was that place where their child floated. Somehow, even now, when her skin had gone blotchy and her hair was falling out, when the chain reaction that was fast approaching meltdown raged in her flesh, she still kept their child safe.

“Maybe—maybe it’s time to let Cilghal induce labor,” he said.

“No.” Mara’s voice cracked on the word, but it was the loudest noise she had made in days. Her eyelids dropped over her pale orbs. “I told you,” she whispered. “I can feel it’s wrong. If I do that, we’ll both die.”

“How can you know that?”

“How can you ask? I know. The Force.”

“But this is killing you, Mara,” he said. The words sounded as if someone else were saying them, like an unknown language.

“No. Really? I would never … have … guessed.”

He felt her fluttering toward unconsciousness again.

“Mara?”

“Still … here.”

Luke glanced at the sleeping form of Cilghal on a nearby cot. The healer worked night and day, using the Force to slow the progress of the disease. The results were hardly noticeable. Only Mara had ever been able to control it, but her terrific will was too focused now.

“Mara,” he said softly. “Mara, you have to let me in.”

“I can manage, Luke.”

“Mara, my love … no games this time. You want to do this your way, and I respect that. Now you have to respect me. That’s my child, too—and you, you’re the best part of my world. Let me help.”

“Selfish,” Mara said.

“Yes, maybe,” Luke admitted.

“Meant me,” Mara corrected. “Help our child.”

Luke reached into her, then, into the maelstrom. He felt how truly feeble her life was. Her pain racked