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“Telling you will do no good,” he sneered at Harrar. “Nothing can reverse the damage now.”

“I believe you,” Harrar said, his face twisting as he took a quick step toward Nom Anor.

Nom Anor pressed the stud on the lightsaber and the cutting beam blazed out, hissing and trailing steam in the downpour. It felt strange, a weapon with no weight other than its grip. He cut at the priest’s knee, but his position and the unfamiliar blade made the cut awkward. At the appearance of the blade, however, Harrar tried to stop his forward motion and jerked his leg away from the attack; he slipped on the wet rocks and stumbled, falling past Nom Anor and over the cliff.

His howl of rage and frustration was quickly cut short.

Panting, Nom Anor rose, extinguished the lightsaber, and continued on his way. The gods were with him again, it seemed. Certainly they were no longer with Harrar.

When the turbolift jarred to a halt, Corran ignited his lightsaber and cut through the roof of the car, stepping aside as the circle of metal clanged to the floor. After waiting a few seconds for the plating to cool, he leapt up and caught the edge of the hole, then drew himself up into the shaft.

In the dim emergency lighting, he could see the door some ten meters above. The lift was magnetic, so the walls were glassy smooth, and the power cables were buried in them. There were no rungs and nothing to give purchase. He could cut handholds for himself and climb, but that would take a long time.

He dropped back down into the car and examined the control panel. He didn’t know the language. The up and down icons were obvious, but the others would take a little figuring out.

Nom Anor must have cut the power from above somehow, but the car hadn’t fallen—presumably there was an emergency battery system to prevent that happening. But would the emergency system be able to finish the ascent, or was it doing its best just to keep him from falling?

He pushed a red button with two vertical lines and a triangle, with no result. He tried a few of the others, again with no result. Frustrated, he tapped the up key.

The car started moving, though much more slowly than before. He felt like pounding his head against the wall: the emergency system was separate from the normal one—he needed only to tell the car where he wanted to go.

A few minutes later, he emerged from the lift, ready to fight—but there was no one to fight. The room was empty. There were light spatters of black blood on the floor, but other than that, no clues as to exactly what had happened.

He was about to go outside when he heard a faint noise behind him, in the maintenance shaft. Peering over, he saw Tahiri pulling herself up the superconductor cable, about twenty meters below.

“Are you okay?” he shouted.

“I’m fine,” she called back up, her voice shaking. She seemed to be having trouble climbing. “Nom Anor got away,” she added. “You have to stop him—I’ll join you when I can.”

“And leave you dangling? No. I don’t think so. You just hang on there.”

He went back to the lifts. Someone had indeed cut through the power couplings—with a lightsaber, it appeared. He reached cautiously inside and grabbed a rope-sized fiberoptic conduit and began to pull it out. When he thought he had enough, he cut it with his weapon and then tied a loop in the end.

Tahiri hadn’t made much progress in the intervening time. He threw the loop end down to her.

“Put your foot in that,” he said, “and hang on with your hands. I’ll pull you up.”

She nodded wearily and did as instructed. Bracing his end of the rope over the safety rail, Corran hauled her up.

When she had pulled herself over the rail, he saw her hands.

“Let me see those,” he said.

“They’re all right,” she protested.

“Let me see them.”

They were badly friction-burned, but it looked as if her tendons were undamaged, which was good. The scar on her old amphistaff wound had torn a bit and was leaking blood, but not too much.

“Well, at least you got to slide down the cable,” he said. “Was it as fun as you