constructing another one, using the plans he'd found in an old leather-bound
book at Ben Kenobi's. It was a traditional exercise for a Jedi, so he'd been
told. It had given him something to do while his new hand had finished final
bonding to his arm. It had kept him from thinking too much.
The lights under the canopy were dim; he could barely see the stranded-
steel line. The carnival was done for the night, the acrobats and dewbacks and
jesters long asleep. The crowds had gone home, and he was alone; alone here
with the tightrope. It was quiet, the only sound the creak of the syn tent
fabric as it cooled in the arms of the Tatooine summer night. The hot desert
day gave up its heat quickly, and it was cold enough outside the tent to need
a jacket. The smell of the dewbacks drifted up to where he perched, and
mingled with that of his own sweat.
A guard whose mind had accepted Luke's mental command to allow him inside
the giant tent stood watch at the entrance, blind now to his presence. A Jedi
skill, that kind of control, but another one he had only begun to learn.
Luke took a deep breath, let it out slowly. There was no net below, and a
fall from this height would surely be fatal. He didn't have to do this. Nobody
was going to make him take the walk.
Nobody but himself.
He calmed his breathing, his heartbeat, and, as much as possible, his
mind, using the method he had learned. First Ben, then Master Yoda had taught
him the ancient arts. Yoda's exercises had been the more rigorous and
exhausting, but unfortunately, Luke had not finished his schooling. There
really hadn't been any choice at the time. Han and Leia had been in deadly
danger, and he'd had to go to them. Because he had gone, they were alive, but.
..
That hadn't turned out well.
No. Not at all.
And there had been the meeting with Vader...
He felt his face tighten, his jaw muscles dance, and he fought the anger
that surged up in him like a hormonal tide as black as the clothes he wore.
His wrist ached suddenly where Vader's lightsaber had sliced through it. The
new hand was as good as the old, better, maybe, but sometimes when he thought
about Vader, it throbbed. Phantom limb pain, the medics had said. Not real.
"I'm your father."
No! That couldn't be real, either! His father had been Anakin Skywalker,
a Jedi.
If only he could talk to Ben. Or to Yoda. They would confirm it. They
