Vision of the future

'He was a Jedi Master named Yoda. I don't know whether that was his home, or whether he had just flown in specially for the occasion. What I do know is that he was definitely waiting for us.' An odd shiver ran through Car'das's thin body. 'I won't try to describe their battle,' he said in a low voice. 'Even after forty-five years of thinking about it, I'm not sure I can. For nearly a day and a half the swamp blazed with fire and lightning and things I still don't understand. At the end of it the Dark Jedi was dead, disintegrating in a final, massive blaze of blue fire.' He took a shuddering breath. 'None of my crew survived that battle. Not that there was much left of what they'd been anyway. I didn't expect to survive, either. But to my surprise, Yoda took it upon himself to nurse me back to life.'

Karrde nodded. 'I've seen a little of what Luke Skywalker can do with healing trances,' he said.

'Better than bacta in some cases.'

Car'das snorted. 'In my case bacta would have been completely useless,' he stated flatly. 'As it was, it took Yoda quite a while to return me to health. I still don't know how long. Afterward I was able to jury-rig the ship well enough to get it spaceworthy and limp home.

'It wasn't until I was back with the organization that I began to realize that, somewhere in that whole procedure, some part of me had been changed.'

He looked at Karrde. 'I'm sure you remember, Talon. I seemed to have gained the ability to outthink my opponents—to guess their strategies and plans, to know when one of them was planning a move against me. Abilities I assumed I'd somehow absorbed from Yoda during the healing process.'

He looked up at the ceiling, a new fire in his eyes and voice. 'And suddenly, there were no limits to what I could do. None. I began expanding the organization, swallowing up any group that seemed potentially useful and eliminating everyone that didn't. Victory after victory after victory—everywhere I went I conquered. I saw the Hutts' criminal cartels and planned how I would take them down; foresaw the gathering of power around Senator Palpatine and considered where and how I could best insert myself into the coming struggle for my own advantage. There was literally nothing that could stop me, and I and the universe both knew it.'

Abruptly, the fire faded away. 'And then,' he said quietly, 'without warning, everything suddenly collapsed.'

He took a long drink from his cup. 'What happened?' Shada asked into the silence. Karrde stole a look at her, mildly surprised at the intense concentration in her expression. Despite all her professed distrust of Car'das himself, she clearly found his story riveting.

'My health fell apart,' Car'das said. 'Over a period of just a few weeks, all the youth and vigor that Yoda's healing had woven into my body seemed to evaporate.' He looked at Shada. 'Very simply, I was dying.'

Karrde nodded, the last mystery of that beckon call lying abandoned in the Dagobah swamp suddenly falling into place. 'And so you went back to Yoda and asked for help.'

'Asked?' Car'das gave a short, self-deprecating laugh. 'Not asked, Talon. Demanded.' He shook his head at the memory. 'It must have looked quite absurd, really. There I stood, towering over him with a blaster in one hand and my beckon call in the other, threatening to bring my ship and all its awesome weaponry to bear on this short, wizened creature leaning on a staff in front of me. Of course, I was the single-handed creator of the greatest smuggling organization of all time, while he was nothing but a simple little Jedi Master.' He shook his head again.

'I'm surprised he didn't kill you on the spot,' Shada said.

'At the time, I almost wished he had,' Car'das said ruefully. 'It would have been far less humiliating. Instead, he simply took the beckon call and blaster away from me and sent them spinning off into the swamp, then held me suspended a few centimeters above the ground and let me scream and flail to my heart's content.

'And when I finally ran out of strength and breath, he told me I was going to die.' Entoo Nee stepped to his side, silently pouring more of the spice drink into his cup. 'I thought the first part had been humiliating,' Car'das went on. 'The next part was worse. As I sat there panting on a rock, swamp water seeping into my boots, he told me in exquisitely painful detail just how badly I'd squandered the gift of life he'd given back to me a quarter century earlier. How my utterly selfish pursuit of personal power and aggrandizement had left me empty of spirit and vacant of purpose.' He looked at Karrde. 'By the time he finished, I knew I could never go back. That I could never, ever face any of you again.'

Karrde looked down at his cup, suddenly aware he was gripping it tightly. 'Then you didn't... I mean, you weren't...'

'Angry with you?' Car'das smiled at him. 'On the contrary, old friend: you were the single bright spot in the whole painful mess. For the first time since I'd left Dagobah, I found myself thinking about all the people in my organization. People who I'd now abandoned to the viciousness of internecine warfare as my lieutenants, most of them as selfish as I was, fought for their individual slices of the fat bruallki I'd created.'

He shook his head, his old eyes almost misty. 'I didn't hate you for taking over, Talon. Far from it. You held the organization together, treating my people with the dignity and respect they deserved. The dignity and respect I'd never bothered to give them. You transformed my selfish ambition into something to be proud of... and for twenty years I've wanted to thank you for that.' And to Karrde's surprise, he stood up and crossed the circle. 'Thank you,' he said simply, holding out his hand.

Karrde stood up, a terrible weight lifting from his shoulders. 'You're welcome,' he murmured, gripping the extended hand. 'I just wish I'd known sooner.'