Vision of the future

lid. But deep inside she knew he deserved an answer on this one. 'I can't just offer that kind of blank-line invitation,' she said. 'Sure I can be loyal; but only to the people I choose to be loyal to. I'm not ready to open myself up to anyone who walks in off the street.' She grimaced. 'Besides, I keep remembering stories about how the last step to becoming a Jedi is usually making some supreme and rather ugly personal sacrifice. I'm not crazy about that one, either.'

'It's not always as bad as it seems,' Luke said, and Mara could sense his discomfort as unpleasant memories of his own floated back to the surface. 'Just before he died, Master Yoda told me that before I would truly be a Jedi I needed to face Vader again. I jumped to the conclusion that that meant I had to either kill him or let him kill me. As it turned out, it didn't happen either way.'

'But you had to be willing to make that sacrifice if necessary,' Mara pointed out. 'Thanks, but I'm not interested.'

'Then you automatically limit your capabilities,' Luke said. 'If you aren't willing to make a commitment—'

'Commitment?' Mara snorted. 'You're the one telling me about commitment? What about Callista, or Gaeriel, or any of the other women you've brushed paths with over the past ten years?

Where's been the commitment there?'

Luke's flash of anger was so sudden and so unexpected it physically shocked her back against the stone wall. 'You should talk,' he snapped. 'What about Lando? Huh?' For a long moment they just glared at each other. Mara held her breath, bracing herself for another outburst, stories of uncontrolled Jedi anger running ominously through her mind. But instead, she felt his anger drain away, replaced by shame and a deep embarrassment. 'I'm sorry,' he said, dropping his eyes away from her face. 'That was uncalled for.'

'No, I'm the one who should apologize,' Mara said, trying to hide her own guilt feelings from him and knowing she was being only partly successful. She knew better than to fight like that. 'I know how you felt about those women, and what happened to them. I'm sorry.'

'That's all right,' Luke murmured. 'What happened to them was probably partly my fault. Maybe even mostly my fault. I'm the one who dabbled in the dark side, not them.'

'You acknowledge your mistakes, and learn from them,' Mara reminded him. 'Then you pick up and move on. It's time to pick up and move on.'

'I suppose.' Still not looking at her, he climbed to his feet. 'You're right—we should get moving. I had the Qom Jha make some measurements while you were sleeping, and it looks like the upper door out of here should let us out in one of the top three floors of the fortress. Let's try that approach.'

'Just a second,' Mara said, looking up at him. She had promised herself—rather cavalierly, she realized in retrospect—that she wasn't going to tell him this until he point-blank asked her about it. But her silence was childish. Anyway, the accusation he'd just thrown in her face was probably close enough. 'You wanted to know about Lando and me. Right?'

She saw the twitch in his neck. 'That's all right,' he said. 'It's really none of my business.'

'I'm making it your business,' Mara said, getting to her feet so she could look him straight in the eye. 'What was between Lando and me was... absolutely nothing.' His eyes flicked suspiciously to hers. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean just what I said: absolutely nothing,' she repeated. 'Karrde had an important mission for me to carry out, and because Lando had supplied the starting point he invited himself along. The—well, personal aspects to the whole thing were nothing but window dressing to keep people from figuring out what we were up to.'

She could feel Luke probing at the edges of her mind. 'You could have told me,' he said, not quite accusingly.

'You could have asked me,' she countered. 'You never seemed all that interested.' He grimaced, and she could feel a fresh wave of embarrassment wash over him. 'I didn't, did I?' he admitted.

'You learn, and move on,' Mara reminded him. 'Actually, if you want to come right down to it, you were the one who got the whole thing started in the first place. Remember that beckon call you found on Dagobah and took to Lando's place on Nkllon?'

Luke looked at her sharply. 'Yes. In fact, I was just thinking about it a few days ago. I wondered why it had suddenly come to mind.'

'Proddings of the Force, no doubt,' Mara said. It was as good an answer as any. 'It turns out that particular beckon call used to belong to someone Karrde once knew who had dropped out of sight some years back. Fellow named Jorj Car'das—ever hear of him?' Luke shook his head. 'No.'

'Apparently, not a lot of people have,' she said. 'Made things so much more challenging. Anyway, with the beckon call we had a starting point, and Karrde asked me to try to track him down. And as I said, Lando—smelling profit, no doubt—insisted on tagging along.'

'Must have been a long search,' Luke murmured. 'The stories of you and Lando...'