Destiny's Way

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Completely, Supreme One.” Tsavong Lah bowed in submission.

  A smile twisted across Shimrra’s features. “It seems that the two of you are bound together once again. The fate of one will depend entirely on the fate of the other. If success comes to one, it will come to both. But if one fails …” He left the thought unfinished.

  Tsavong Lah straightened and looked at the executor, who he found looking back at him. Tsavong Lah let a smile spread across his slashed lips.

  At least if I fall, he thought at him, I may rejoice in the thought that you will not long survive me.

  Though it was not comfortable to think that Nom Anor was probably thinking the very same thing.

  “I want Cilghal,” Luke said. “I want a healer. The fact that she’s an ambassador is a bonus.”

  He and Mara were in their apartment, trying to choose five Jedi to serve with Luke on the new Jedi Council. In the background, a live holo of Cal Omas was giving his acceptance speech before the Senate.

  “With sorrow for our countless dead, but with hope for the future,” Cal was saying. “With sadness for the many who have fallen, but with confidence in the many who have taken their place …”

  “Cilghal,” Mara said. “Very well.”

  Luke looked at her. “Who I really want,” he said, “is you.”

  Mara’s green eyes sparkled. “I’m always flattered to hear that.”

  “For the council, I mean,” Luke said, “as of course in every other way. But a Jedi Master can’t appoint his wife to government jobs without people disapproving.”

  “You’ll get my advice anyway,” Mara said. “You won’t be able to avoid it.” She looked at the list they’d compiled. “Who’s next?”

  “How about Kenth Hamner? He has the contacts, and the knowledge.”

  Mara nodded, and entered the name on her datapad. “Hamner’s in, then.” She looked up. “Kam Solusar? Or Tionne? It would be good to have someone representing the Jedi academy.”

  “Put them down as maybes. If we weren’t at war, I’d put one of them on the council for certain, but right now we may need a council oriented more toward action.”

  “Then why Cilghal?”

  Luke looked at her. “Healing is important.”

  Mara held his gaze, then nodded. “Of course.”

  “Saba Sebatyne. She commands an all-Jedi squadron, and brings all the Barabels on board. She’s proved herself many times over, and it’s time she had a higher profile.”

  Saba hadn’t been trained at the Jedi academy, but on Barab I by the Jedi Master Eelysa. Saba in turn had recruited and trained a whole pack of her fellow Barabels, most of whom formed her Wild Knights Squadron.

  “You’ve thought about this pretty thoroughly, haven’t you?” Mara said.

  “I do my best.”

  She gave a sly smile. “Maybe Cal is right—you are turning into a politician.”

  Luke affected horror and made a warding gesture.

  Mara laughed. “My only objection is that Saba is a Knight,” she said, “not a Master.”

  “Knights should have some representation on the council, too.”

  Mara looked at her datapad. “Saba’s representing a lot of people—Knights, Barabels, and an all-Jedi squadron.”

  “Then it’s all the more important that she have a seat.”

  “With compassion for the millions of our dispossessed,” Cal’s holo was saying, “with firmness in the rightness of our cause …”

  Mara shrugged and made a mark by Saba’s name. “Streen?” she suggested.

  “A maybe. Tresina Lobi?”

  “She’d be good.”

  From the holo came Cal’s voice. “… I accept the Senate’s nomination to be Chief of State of the New Republic.” Roars followed, and applause.

  “That was a good speech,” Mara said.

  “It was.” Luke glanced thoughtfully at the holo Cal listening respectfully to the Senate’s applause. “You know, I’m beginning to have a lot of sympathy for Cal. He’s got to fill seats not only on the Jedi Council, but in all the government departments as well.”

  “He has more practice at this sort of thing than we do.”

  “Let’s hope so.” Luke glanced at Mara’s datapad and the list of names. “Let’s add one more. My most controversial nominee.”

  Mara turned her eyes to him in rising horror. “Not Kyp Durron!”

  Luke returned her gaze, then gave a deliberate nod. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I think that Kyp’s actions at Hapes and Borleias show that he’s a much more stable person than he was. He seems to have made peace with himself. Remember, he renounced pride on Ithor, and since then he voluntarily put himself under Jaina’s command. He’s always supported the idea of a Jedi Council.”

  “You’re setting yourself up for a lot of grief.”

  “Wouldn’t it be more grievous to have a Kyp running around loose, where the council can’t control him?” Luke said. “Remember, he’s only one vote. If he takes an independent line, he’ll be outvoted by the rest, and then he’ll be obliged to support the majority.”

  “I think you have a very generous idea of Kyp’s sense of obligation. Plus,” Mara considered, “how do you know he’ll be outvoted? There are going to be six non-Jedi on the council now. What if Kyp’s arguments make sense to them?”

  “If Kyp’s arguments make sense to half a dozen political appointees, then I’d better pay more attention to those arguments than I have been.”

  Mara gave him a skeptical look. “I think you’re going to regret this.”

  Luke shrugged. “I may. I probably will. But if a person in authority talks only to those who agree with him, he soon finds himself out of authority.”

  Mara sighed. “You are a politician,” she said.

  Luke presented his nominees for the Jedi Council to Cal Omas the next morning. Cal leaned back in his office chair—the office smelled of fresh paint and newly laid carpet—looked at the list, and gave Luke a skeptical look.

  “Kyp Durron?” he said.

  “Kyp has changed,” Luke said.

  “He hasn’t blown up any planets in a few years, that’s true.”

  “That wasn’t precisely Kyp who did that,” Luke said. “He was possessed by the spirit of a long-dead Sith Lord named Exar Kun.”

  Cal shook his head, and when he spoke his voice had a mournful air. “That’s exactly the sort of thing I hope never to have to explain to a Senatorial committee,” he said.

  Luke looked at Cal in concern. “Should I withdraw the nomination? I don’t want to wreck our chances of reestablishing the Jedi Council.”

  Cal considered, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I understand why you did it. It’s best to have the opposition inside the tent, where you can keep an eye on them. That’s why I’m putting some of Fey’lya’s old faction on the Advisory Council. And Fyor Rodan, if he’ll agree.” He looked at Luke. “And you.”

  Surprise rose in Luke. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Don’t you think Leia would be better?”

  “Maybe. But Leia hasn’t returned from Bastion, and you’re here.”

  Luke smiled. “You’re going to keep me so busy running to meetings that I’m not going to have time for anything else.”

  “Would that be a bad thing?” Cal asked. “Does the head of the Jedi order need to be blowing up Death Stars and engaging in lightsaber fights at his age?”

  Luke smiled. “I haven’t blown up a Death Star in ages.”

  “That’s what your young folks are for,” Cal said. “If you put me back in a starfighter, I’d feel like an idiot.”

  “I doubt that very much,” Luke said.

  “Maybe I exaggerate.” Cal smiled. “I’m appointing myself to the Jedi Council, by the way.”

  “I had hoped you would.”

  “And Triebakk, as Senatorial representative—the Senate will need to confirm that, but I don’t think we’ll have any trouble. Dif Scaur, the chief of Intelligence. Someone f
rom the Justice Council—I haven’t worked out just who as yet. Releqy A’Kla, who will also head the Ministry of State.”

  “Her uncle was a Jedi.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t have any of Fey’lya’s people. Or Fyor Rodan’s.”

  “I know.” Cal smiled. “They’ll have to be satisfied with seats on the Advisory Council, won’t they?”

  “You haven’t mentioned the sixth.”

  “Sien Sovv, as head of the military.” He looked troubled.

  “If I decide to retain him. He offered me his resignation practically the second I finished my acceptance speech.”

  Luke gave Cal a serious look. “You need to call on Ackbar.”

  Cal looked curious. “To be Supreme Commander?”

  “No, but you need to talk to him. He has a plan to deal with the Yuuzhan Vong.”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  “Very soon, Cal,” Luke warned. “You know how good he is.”

  Cal nodded again. “Fine. Soon.”

  The voice of Cal’s comm droid came from the speakers on his desk. “Senator Rodan is here for his appointment.”

  Cal rose. “I shouldn’t keep Fyor waiting.”

  He escorted Luke to the door, allowing the Jedi Master to precede him into the outer office.

  Fyor Rodan stood there, wearing a stainless gray suit and a cold demeanor. Luke gave him a polite nod, but Rodan only returned a glare.

  “I see you have the compliant Chief of State required by your plans,” he said.

  “I don’t believe you ever asked me my plans,” Luke said. “You only assumed you knew them.”

  “You interfered,” Rodan said. “You and your wife did something to my supporters.”

  “We did nothing of the sort,” Luke said.

  “Then it was your pirate friends. Do you deny that?”

  “I deny that I have pirate friends,” Luke said mildly. “And I have no idea what my other friends may have done, if anything.”

  “Jedi virtue!” Rodan said. “You remain stainless, while your friends do the dirty work. I couldn’t help but notice that your friends’ droids are guarding the Chief of State whom they created.”

  “The YVH droids in the corridor belong to the government,” Cal Omas said. “You voted for the appropriation yourself, Fyor.”

  Fyor Rodan turned his scornful eye toward Cal. “I thought you had more pride than to sell yourself to a bunch of renegades and their witch-doctor accomplices!” he said. “I refuse to have anything to do with supporting the illusion that your government is anything but illegitimate. I’ll thank you to keep my name off any list of appointees.”

  He turned, stiff-spined, and marched out. Luke and Cal looked at each other.

  “Stickier than I thought,” Cal said.

  NINETEEN

  Jacen spent his first day of freedom in the apartment, marveling at its strange solidity. The scratch of the carpet against his bare feet, air that didn’t taste like a rich stew of organics, walls that were vertical and a ceiling that was a flat plane above his head. Holos on shelves. Popular music that bounced its rhythms from hidden speakers. A kitchen full of wondrous, gleaming appliances. A refrigeration unit full of food designed for the human palate.

  Furniture. The Yuuzhan Vong didn’t have furniture the same way that people did. It wasn’t crafted or assembled, it was sprouted. And their sense of scale was different, the way they placed it in one of their rooms with its resinous floors and walls of coral or stabilized protein.

  Jacen had said farewell to furniture, to holos and kitchen equipment and refrigeration units and to everything else that was human. Finding it again was a rediscovery.

  Messages appeared on the comm unit. WAY TO GO, SPROUT. And ONCE AGAIN, JACEN, YOU HAVE ANSWERED A MOTHER’S PRAYERS. The messages gave him a singing joy that stayed with him for the rest of the day.

  That evening his aunt Mara tactfully hinted that he might buy some clothes, so the next morning he set off to do some shopping. He borrowed some of Uncle Luke’s clothes and threw a cloak over everything, but people recognized him anyway. His face had been everywhere in the holocasts. Many were friendly, many curious, and only a few turned away with angry glares or muttered asides. The Jedi, it seemed, were more popular than they had been.

  He bought clothing from a Quarren tailor who assured him that the drape was perfect and in the mode, at least for humans. Afterward he wandered the city, enjoying the elegant architecture beneath the vivid blue sky, and tried to ignore the fact that wherever he went he was the center of attention.

  Later, from the apartment, he tried to contact Vergere, but was told she wasn’t allowed calls. He spoke to Luke about it, but Luke only said, “You’re on vacation. And that includes being on vacation from Vergere.”

  Then Luke invited Jacen to sit by him. “I’d like to hear your ideas on the Yuuzhan Vong,” he said.

  “Vergere would be the one to ask,” Jacen said.

  “I have asked her. But I’d like to ask you. Their immunity to the Force aside, are the Yuuzhan Vong so very different from us?”

  Jacen considered. “No. They have a tyrannical government, and their religion is absolute poison. But they’re no better or worse than humans would be if we were raised in their system.”

  Luke looked at him. “Do you hate them?” he asked.

  “No.” Jacen’s answer was swift and very certain.

  “Why not?”

  This time Jacen had to think. “Because,” he said finally, “it would be like hating a child for being raised badly. It’s not the child’s fault, it’s the parents’. I could hate the leaders who made the Yuuzhan Vong what they are, but they’re long dead, so why waste energy in hatred?”

  Luke rose and put a hand on Jacen’s shoulder. “Thank you, Jacen,” he said.

  “I … understand them,” Jacen said.

  Luke seemed startled, his mind inward. “You do not hate, because you understand,” he murmured.

  “Sorry?”

  Luke’s attention snapped back to Jacen. “No. Go on.”

  “I was implanted with a slave seed, remember, and it interfaced with my nervous system. It was supposed to be a one-way communication link, to enslave me and give me my orders, but I discovered that it worked the other way. It’s produced a kind of … telepathy. I can extend my mind into the Yuuzhan Vong and into their creatures, and sometimes I can influence them.”

  Luke looked at him in surprise. “You can touch the Yuuzhan Vong with the Force?”

  “No. It’s different. I can’t use the Force and my—my ‘Vongsense’ at the same time.”

  Luke’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Can you teach this?”

  Jacen had been wondering this himself. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so. I think perhaps you need to be implanted with a slave seed, or some other form of Yuuzhan Vong control that can interface with your nervous system.” A thought struck him. “I might be able to teach Tahiri. After what they put her through, it’s possible that she … might still be attuned enough to the Yuuzhan Vong to learn to do as I’ve done.”

  Luke frowned. “Tahiri found her experience at the hands of the Vong to be highly traumatic. And she’s—had some traumatic experiences since. I wouldn’t want to force her to revisit an experience that damaged her.”

  “Nor would I.”

  Jacen didn’t tell Luke about one of the consequences of what he’d just called his “Vongsense”—the fact that he was still in occasional mental contact with the entity whom the Yuuzhan Vong called the World Brain, the dhuryam who controlled the environment of Coruscant. He and the dhuryam were conspiring against the planet’s worldshaping, sabotaging it in minor but annoying ways: through the creation of an itching plague, for instance. Jacen had just inspired the World Brain to cause a sickness in the maw luur, the creatures who recycled Yuuzhan Vong waste, during what the dhuryam sensed was an important occasion or ceremony.

  Though Jacen could theoretically inspire
the World Brain to more deadly action, from poisoning Yuuzhan Vong food to causing an ecological catastrophe, he had refrained. His empathy with the Yuuzhan Vong had grown along with his Vongsense: he would not be a mass murderer, not even of a deadly enemy.

  In part, that was why he hadn’t told Luke of this particular ability. He didn’t want his ability known for fear that someone would want him to use it as a weapon. Though he realized that Luke would never ask such a thing of him, he felt that the more private he kept this secret, the better.

  The conversation with Luke was interrupted when a holojournalist commed, asking for an interview. Jacen told the comm unit to refuse anyone it didn’t already know was a friend.

  The following morning Jacen felt delicate, ate a bland breakfast, and returned to his bed. Luke left to do political things, and Mara went off to play counterspy with her mouse droids. He was awakened by a call on the comm, which meant that the comm’s artificial intelligence recognized the caller as family or a friend.

  He answered and stared into a pair of green eyes framed by curling blond hair. Danni Quee.

  “Hello, Danni.”

  “Jacen. I hope it’s all right to call.”

  “I’m not sick or in quarantine or anything. I’m allowed to talk to people.”

  “That’s good. Would you like to see a bit of the city? Or are you being besieged by friends?”

  “I’m not besieged by friends,” Jacen said, “I guess because they’re as tactful as you are. But I’d just as soon not go anywhere public, because I seem to attract crowds.”

  She grinned, teeth white against her tanned face. “I saw you on the holonews yesterday. Was that cloak supposed to be a disguise?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “If you’re not ready to face your public, then, why don’t I get a hovercraft and take you out to Mester Reef?”

  “Sure.”

  Twenty minutes later, Jacen met Danni at a public pier. “Nice clothes,” she remarked, and gave him a hug. Soon they were on a craft racing west on its repulsorlifts ten meters above the water. Danni had provided diving equipment for two, as well as a light lunch.