Vision of the future

around the outer edge at the level of the tunnel, dropping then a meter down to the main floor, which was also tiled. Five meters up the sides, behind a protective railing, a balcony deeply indented into the rock ran two-thirds of the way around the room, its inner walls lined with electronic equipment.

On the main floor to their far right was a more modest version of the command center they'd found in the upper floor of the Hand of Thrawn. This one was only a single ring of consoles, centered not on a galactic holo but on the wide, squat cylinder of a superstorage library/computer information base. Again, as in the fortress above, a handful of glowing lights indicated the equipment was waiting patiently on standby. The rest of the main floor was empty except for a row of furniture lined up against one edge of the raised walkway beneath a plastic sheet.

But all of that was just background, things to be peripherally noted and filed away into his mind for later evaluation. From the first moment he and Mara had entered the room, Luke's full attention had been focused on the deep alcove coming off the main room over to their left. Sealed there behind a solid transparisteel wall was a complete cloning apparatus: a Spaarti cylinder wrapped in nutrient tubes and flash-learning cables, surrounded by support equipment, all of it tied into a humming fusion generator.

And floating gently in the center of the cylinder, asleep or perhaps not even yet truly alive, was a blue-skinned adult humanoid. A humanoid with an exceptionally familiar face. Grand Admiral Thrawn.

'Ten years,' Luke said quietly. 'Just like you said. Just like you figured. He told them he'd return in ten years.'

'The old fraud,' Mara muttered, the words in sharp contrast to the reluctant awe Luke could sense in her. He could sympathize; the alcove and its occupant were intimidating in their subtle grandeur, and in their equally quiet threat. 'Probably had the cycle set on a ten-year timer and just reset it back to zero every time he dropped by for a visit.'

'Probably,' Luke agreed, tearing his eyes away from the almost hypnotic sight of the floating clone and looking over at the ring of consoles at the other end of the room. 'Artoo, get over there and find a computer jack you can link into. Start downloading everything you can find about the Unknown Regions area Thrawn opened up.'

The little droid warbled acknowledgment and rolled past him to one of the half-dozen ramps leading from the outer ring down to the main floor. He made it down the ramp without tipping over and headed for the console ring, his wheels clattering rhythmically across the small gaps between the tiles as he went. He stopped beside one of the consoles, whistled a confirmation, then extended his computer jack and plugged in.

'He's in,' Luke said, turning back to the cloning tank. 'Come on, I want a closer look at this.' Together, he and Mara circled the room to the transparisteel wall. 'Don't touch it,' Mara warned as he leaned in close. 'It's probably wired with alarms.'

'I wasn't going to,' Luke assured her, peering inside. From this angle he could see something that hadn't been visible from the archway. 'You see what else he's got in there with him?'

'A couple of ysalamiri.' Mara nodded. 'Just in case a wandering Jedi happened by.'

'Thrawn was the type to think of everything.'

'He sure was,' Mara agreed. 'Except maybe that lake out there.' Luke frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'Over there,' Mara said, half turning and pointing across the room. Luke turned to look. There was the rock wall, and the furniture beneath the plastic sheet, and the upper equipment balcony running around the dome above it. 'What exactly am I looking at?' he asked.

'The water damage,' she said, pointing again. 'On the wall across from the tunnel mouth. See?'

'I do now,' Luke said, nodding. The wall over there was subtly but definitely discolored, the stain marked with multiple vertical lines where water had seeped through the rock and dripped down. In fact, now that he was paying attention, he could see water oozing slowly through the rock in a dozen places. 'Child Of Winds said the lake had been expanding,' he said. 'Looks like it found a way in through the caverns.'

He turned back. 'I'd say our clone reached his ten-year mark just in time.'

'What do you think he'll be like?' Mara asked, her voice sounding odd. 'I mean, how close to the original Thrawn will he be?'

Luke shook his head. 'That's an argument that's been going on for decades,' he said. 'With the same genetic structure plus a flash-learning pattern taken directly from the templet, a clone should theoretically be completely identical to the original person. But despite that, they're never exactly the same. Maybe some of the mental subtleties get blurred over in transition, or maybe there's something else unique inside us that a flash-learning reader isn't able to pick up.' He nodded toward the clone. 'He'll presumably have all of Thrawn's memories. But will he have his genius, or his leadership, or his single-minded drive? I don't know.' He looked at Mara. 'Which I suppose leads us to the question of what we do with him.'

'Funny you should ask that,' Mara said pensively. 'Ten years ago, I'd have said flat out we blast our way in and get rid of him. Maybe even five years ago. But now... it's not so simple anymore.' Luke studied her profile, trying to sort through the mixture of emotions swirling through her. 'You really were spooked by all that talk about distant threats, weren't you?' To his mild surprise, she didn't take offense. 'Fel and Parck are worried about it,' she reminded him. 'You willing to bet they're both wrong?'

'Not really,' Luke conceded, looking back at the clone. 'I'm just trying to imagine what having Thrawn suddenly