It was hard to know whether Ben was unaware of how his fear was controlling him, or just allowing it to interfere with his judgment, but it really didn't matter. The time was fast approaching when the young man had to face his demons or surrender to them, and-as much as Luke wished it otherwise-the choice was one that no father could make for his son.

Continuing to don his vac suit, Luke peered out the viewport and scowled at the fleet of abandoned vessels. "Take a look outside, then tell me again about sound tactics."

Ben frowned and studied the equipment-strewn hangar outside, then slowly flushed with embarra.s.sment.

"Yeah ... I see," he said, opening his vac suit. "We aren't going to have time finish our repairs."

"Probably not," Luke agreed. "A Jedi needs to be observant, and being observant means-"

"Thinking about what you see," Ben finished, quoting one of Kam Solusar's favorite sayings. "I should have asked myself why everyone was leaving their tools lying around. It could be that something has been drawing-or taking-the s.h.i.+p crews away, and it doesn't look like anyone makes it back here to finish their repairs."

"Which means?"

Ben peered out the viewport for a long time, obviously searching for some missed detail that would explain what was luring the crews away from their vessels-and why no one was returning. Finally, he turned back to Luke, shaking his head.

"I don't know," he admitted. "All that occurs to me is that we shouldn't make the same mistake everyone else did."

Luke smiled broadly. "Congratulations-that's exactly exactly what it means." what it means."

Ben looked more puzzled than before.

"The trouble with sound tactics sound tactics is that they make you predictable," Luke explained. "Jedi shouldn't be predictable." is that they make you predictable," Luke explained. "Jedi shouldn't be predictable."

Ben's eyes finally lit in understanding. "Got it," he said. "From now on, we eat when I'm I'm hungry." hungry."

Luke laughed, glad to see that Ben was relaxed enough to joke. "I don't think we have the supplies for that." He pulled their helmets from the suit locker. "s.p.a.ce yachts don't come with that much cargo capacity."

They sealed their suits and exited through the air lock into about a quarter standard gravity. Luke immediately began to feel a bit dizzy. Like Centerpoint Station, this habitat lacked true artificial gravity. Instead it created an imperfect imitation by rotating on its axis-a method that wreaked havoc on the delicate inner ear of many bipedal species.

Once the Shadow's Shadow's outer hatch had closed, Luke secured the hidden lock inside its framework by triggering a latch that could only be accessed with the Force. Meanwhile, Ben gathered some equipment from nearby s.h.i.+ps, and they proceeded to camouflage the outer hatch had closed, Luke secured the hidden lock inside its framework by triggering a latch that could only be accessed with the Force. Meanwhile, Ben gathered some equipment from nearby s.h.i.+ps, and they proceeded to camouflage the Shadow Shadow together. Ben tossed some hand tools onto an engine mount, and Luke leaned a torch kit against a landing strut. Finally, they used the Force to stir up a cloud of dust that would eventually drift back onto the together. Ben tossed some hand tools onto an engine mount, and Luke leaned a torch kit against a landing strut. Finally, they used the Force to stir up a cloud of dust that would eventually drift back onto the Shadow Shadow, leaving it covered in the same gray blanket as the surrounding vessels.

They weaved their way through the tangled ma.s.s of s.h.i.+ps and into the primary air lock at the back of the berthing deck. Like the hangar itself, the chamber was equipped with motion-sensitive lights that remained fully functional. So when Ben secured the hangar hatch behind them, the two Skywalkers patiently waited for an automatic valve to open and equalize pressure with the station interior.

They were still waiting two minutes later when the motion-sensitive lights switched off.

Ben's voice came over the helmet speakers. "Great-maybe we should should have started on the repairs." His tone was joking, but with a nervous edge. "And waited until they sent someone to fetch us." have started on the repairs." His tone was joking, but with a nervous edge. "And waited until they sent someone to fetch us."

"Something," Luke corrected. He raised an arm, and the lights reactivated. In contrast with the hangar illumination, which had been tinted heavily toward the blue end of the spectrum, the light in the air lock had a distinctly green cast to it. "Or maybe we should just equalize pressure ourselves." Luke corrected. He raised an arm, and the lights reactivated. In contrast with the hangar illumination, which had been tinted heavily toward the blue end of the spectrum, the light in the air lock had a distinctly green cast to it. "Or maybe we should just equalize pressure ourselves."

Luke reached over to the side of the chamber and pushed down on a lever, which he a.s.sumed to be the handle of a manual standby pump. A sharp clunk clunk shook the entire air lock; then the ceiling slid aside and left them staring up into a cavernous darkness above. shook the entire air lock; then the ceiling slid aside and left them staring up into a cavernous darkness above.

Ben's hand dropped to the lightsaber hanging on his belt. "What's that?"

"The door, I think."

Luke extended his awareness through the opening. When he did not sense any danger, he Force-leapt up into the darkness and landed adjacent to the hole. Almost instantly dim green light began to pour from a nearby wall, illuminating a short length of squat, wide corridor. Ben arrived a moment later, still standing on the air lock floor as it rose into the hole through which Luke had just jumped.

"Do you get the feeling someone's making this easy for us?" Ben asked.

"Either that, or the equipment is just that reliable," Luke said. "I don't know which worries me more."

"The equipment, definitely," Ben said over the suit comm. "This place has the same external design as Centerpoint Station, remember? That can't can't be coincidence." be coincidence."

"Probably not," Luke admitted. "But this station can't be as dangerous. It's sitting between two black holes, and it would be pretty hard to target anything from in here. We can't even get navigation readings."

"Yeah, we we can't," Ben agreed. "But can't," Ben agreed. "But we're we're not the ones who built it." not the ones who built it."

Luke frowned at the thought that another weapon similar to Centerpoint Station might exist in the galaxy. Fortunately, this one was much smaller, which meant it probably did not share the same function. At least, that was what he hoped hoped it meant. it meant.

Luke checked his external readouts and was not surprised to discover he and Ben remained in a hard vacuum. He motioned Ben to the other side of the corridor. "And on that cheery note ..."

They started toward the interior of the station, studying their environs as they walked. No more than two meters high but three times as wide, the corridor appeared to have been designed to move a lot of traffic quickly-an impression reinforced by two metal bands running along the floor, which might have been a guide ribbon for some sort of robotic hovercart. The walls and ceiling were made of a translucent composite that did not quite conceal the network of fibers, tubes, and ducts running behind them.

After the Skywalkers had traveled ten meters, the wall behind them fell dark, and a pale green glow began to pour from the next section. As Luke and Ben continued deeper into the station, they began to come across detritus of all kinds-vac suit helmets, an ammonia breather's air tank, blaster rifles, flechette launchers, and half a dozen single-wheeled carts with round bellies and gel-padded kneeling benches. Each time a new section of wall illuminated, the light grew more anemic, and soon the hue was more yellow than green.

"This place is starting to dark me out," Ben said, stopping beside a half-inflated vac suit. "Why can't they just pick a color?"

"Good question," Luke said. He was not happy to see Ben reacting to his feelings instead of focusing on the problem. "Maybe the colors are supposed to tell you where you are. You have a guess?"

"Yeah, maybe." Ben used his boot toe to flip the vac suit onto its back and shone his wristlamp into the helmet's faceplate, revealing a visage so shriveled and gray it might have been Ho'Din or human. "The lights could be a warning system, you know? Like blue means safe, green means danger, yellow means big trouble."

Luke felt only a faint tingle of danger himself, but that didn't mean Ben's theory was wrong-especially considering the body they had just found. He activated the status display inside his faceplate and found all radiation levels well within the normal range.

"Ben, are you sensing something that worries you?"

"You mean aside from that strange presence in the central sphere?" Ben asked.

"Right."

"And besides the fact that we're poking around a ghost station with no way to contact anyone?"

"Yes, aside from that."

"And that somebody really old, powerful, and mysterious obviously went to a lot of trouble to keep this place hidden from the likes of us?"

"And that, too."

Ben shrugged and shook his helmet. "Then no, I'm all systems ready." He stepped over the body and continued up the corridor. "Let's keep moving."

They continued up the corridor for another two hundred paces, pa.s.sing a series of intersections and huge chambers filled with equipment so alien and mysterious that Luke could not even guess at its function. There were huge barrels made of the same material as the walls, surrounded by glowing coils of what appeared to be fiber-optic cable. In another chamber, they saw a silver sphere the size of the Millennium Falcon Millennium Falcon hovering over a disk of dark metal. The next cavernous room held a warren of containment-field cubes, each one holding a hammock, a couple of basins, and a large, wedge-skulled skeleton still draped in a thin yellow robe. hovering over a disk of dark metal. The next cavernous room held a warren of containment-field cubes, each one holding a hammock, a couple of basins, and a large, wedge-skulled skeleton still draped in a thin yellow robe.

Reluctant to cross a still-s.h.i.+mmering barrier field that had probably sealed the entrance for centuries-if not millennia-father and son lingered outside the chamber for a time. They could not help debating whether the prisoners had belonged to the species that had created the station, were some enemy species the creators were fighting, or had been a crew from one of the vessels abandoned in the hangar, left here to die by a long-forgotten band of pirates. After discussing the likelihood of each possibility for several minutes, they finally realized they would never know and continued on their way.

Twenty meters later, they came to another detention center. The remains inside these these cells were exoskeleton parts. Judging by the size of the thoraxes and abdomens, the inhabitants had been a little smaller than humans. Their chitinous skulls were large and heart-shaped, with openings for huge multifaceted eyes. Scattered around each cell were at least half a dozen small limb tubes and no more than four larger ones, suggesting insectoids with two powerful legs and four long arms. cells were exoskeleton parts. Judging by the size of the thoraxes and abdomens, the inhabitants had been a little smaller than humans. Their chitinous skulls were large and heart-shaped, with openings for huge multifaceted eyes. Scattered around each cell were at least half a dozen small limb tubes and no more than four larger ones, suggesting insectoids with two powerful legs and four long arms.

Ben's voice came over Luke's helmet speaker. "Hey, those look like-"

"Killiks," Luke agreed. "Unu did did claim they were involved in the building of the Maw and Centerpoint Station." claim they were involved in the building of the Maw and Centerpoint Station."

"As slaves slaves, it looks like," Ben replied. "Dad, what is is this place?" this place?"

"I don't know." Luke admitted. He shook his helmet and started up the corridor again. "But I intend to find out."

A few steps later, the next section of lighting activated and they found themselves facing the curved bulkhead of the station's central sphere. Their way forward was blocked by a translucent membrane bulging out toward them. Luke touched his gloved fingertips to it, then pressed lightly and felt it yield.

"That's air pressure," Ben observed. "It must be an emergency bulkhead seal."

"Probably," Luke agreed.

Luke activated his wristlamp and shone it through the center of the membrane. The view beyond was blurry, but he could see enough to find himself struggling to reorient his sense of direction. They seemed to be looking down into a dome-shaped chamber, with themselves and the membrane located near the top and a bit off to one side. A shoulder-high rail ran down the curving wall to the dome's circular floor, which had a ring of hatches running along its outer edge. Some of the hatches seemed to be open, but it was impossible to see more than that.

Luke reached out with the Force again and felt the Presence somewhere beyond the chamber. It was clear and strong and as large as a cloud, concentrated in the darkness ahead. But it was floating everywhere around them, too, above and below and behind. He felt it snaking up inside him, a growing hunger that longed only for his touch.

A shudder of danger sense raced up his back. Luke deactivated his wristlamp and stepped away from the membrane.

"You feel it, too?" Ben asked.

Luke nodded. "And it feels us."

"Yeah." Ben looked away, then activated his headlamp and shone it up an intersecting corridor. "So which way to an air lock?"

Luke was concentrating too hard to smile, but he was glad to hear his son sounding so determined. It didn't mean Ben was ready to face every demon from his past, but it did suggest he understood the necessity.

When Luke didn't respond right away, Ben swung his helmet lamp back around and said, "Right. Trust the Force."

"Always a good idea," Luke said, "but I had something else in mind."

He turned his hand vertical and began to push his fingertips against the membrane.

"You think it's a Killik pressure seal?" Ben asked.

"Something like that." Luke continued to push, stretching the membrane so far that it swallowed his arm to the elbow. "We know they were here, so it seems likely they would have adapted their own construction techniques from this technology."

By now Luke had pushed in his arm to the shoulder. He stepped forward, inserting his whole flank. The membrane continued to stretch. A lamp panel activated, flooding the room with white light, but his view of the chamber grew even blurrier. With nothing beneath him except a steep, curving wall, it felt like stepping off a cliff into a fog bank. He grabbed one of the rails he had seen earlier and brought his other foot across.

Luke started to slide down the wall, the membrane slowing his descent as it gathered behind him in a long, hollow tail. He was about halfway down when the tail closed, forming a new seal and bringing him to a sharp halt. He tried to pull free, but where the membrane had come together, it had grown rigid and unyielding. Releasing the rail, he unclipped his lightsaber and twisted around to cut himself free-then nearly fell when the tail of membrane suddenly snapped and sent him spinning.

He danced down the curving wall, fighting to keep his balance as changes in both the apparent gravity and his apparent att.i.tude challenged even his Jedi reflexes. By the time he reached the bottom of the chamber, gravity had increased to about half normal, and he felt like he was standing on the wall he had just slid down.

Ben's voice came over the suit comm. "Dad, you okay down there?"

"Fine." Luke raised a hand to wipe his faceplate clear, only to discover that the membrane was dissolving before his eyes. When he did not see anything threatening, he said, "Come on through."

"Affirmative," Ben said. "Do I need to do that little dance at the end?"

Luke chuckled and looked up toward the membrane. "I guess that depends on how graceful you are, doesn't it?"

The membrane bulged inward as Ben began to push through. Luke returned his lightsaber to his belt and, now that the membrane was no longer obscuring his vision, took a moment to examine the chamber more closely. Clearly, it was a primary access point to the station's central sphere. It resembled a serving bowl that had been stood on its side. The wall to Luke's right was the interior of the bowl, a deep basin that curved up to the membrane through which he had entered. Three meters above this one was a second membrane, no doubt providing access from another part of the station.

Luke was standing on what would have been the inner rim of the bowl, a walkway that curved gently upward both in front of him and behind him. To his left, where the bowl's cover would be, rose a large, disk-shaped wall ringed by the hatches he had glimpsed earlier. About half of them were open, and through one of the doorways he could see the red strobe of a small alarm light.

Luke was just completing his survey when Ben arrived, nearly bowling him over as he came tumbling down the wall and crashed into a closed hatch. Ben cringed with embarra.s.sment, and a long stream of static came over the helmet speaker as he hissed indiscernible curses into his microphone.

Luke glanced down at his son's membrane-clouded faceplate, then commented, "So much for that remarkable Jedi balance."

Ben c.o.c.ked his helmet. "I thought you had to pull pull free." free."

"Me, too." Luke helped Ben to his feet and spun him in a quick circle, inspecting the vac suit for damage. "Everything looks fine. At least you know how to fall right."

"Lots of practice," Ben said. As the last of the membrane dissolved from his faceplate, his gaze dropped to the lightsaber Luke was still holding in his free hand. "Trouble?"

"Maybe." Luke pointed up toward the hatch with the flas.h.i.+ng red glow. "Let's go have a look."

Luke returned the lightsaber to his belt, then led the way toward the hatch. As they ascended, the centrifugal force of the spinning station kept them firmly secured to the walkway, so that they always felt as if they were standing at the bottom of the room. The queasiness that had come over Luke when they left the Shadow's Shadow's artificial gravity grew a little stronger, and the station seemed even more alien and dangerous than before. This was not a place hospitable to humans. artificial gravity grew a little stronger, and the station seemed even more alien and dangerous than before. This was not a place hospitable to humans.

On the way to their destination, they pa.s.sed two other hatches, both open. One led to a larger version of the sloping wall by which they had entered their current chamber. The other provided access to a long corridor lined every couple of meters with simple sliding doors. Judging by the rumpled cloth and spare vac suit parts spilling out of many of the open doorways, the cabins beyond had served most recently as private quarters.

As they drew near the hatch with the flas.h.i.+ng red glow, Luke began to hear a faint, rhythmic buzzing from inside. He checked his environmental status. The atmosphere in this part of the station appeared to be within survival tolerances, so he opened his helmet's faceplate-and immediately wished he hadn't.

The air wasn't just stale, it was fetid, reeking of a dozen different kinds of decay-a couple of which he had not smelled since the swamps of Dagobah. But there was also a more worrisome stench, an acrid odor that had filled the c.o.c.kpit of his starfighter all too often: melting circuit boards. And the rhythmic buzzing was, of course, exactly what he had feared: the clamor of an alarm klaxon.

A surprised retch sounded behind Luke, then Ben gasped, "I think my sampler unit is feeding me static. This stuff can't can't be breathable." be breathable."

"It sure isn't pleasant," Luke said. "Feel free to seal back up if you want to."

"Are you?"

Luke shook his head. "I have a feeling it's going to take all all my senses to sort this out." my senses to sort this out."

"Then it won't hurt to have an extra nose sniffing around," Ben said. "You can stop being so soft on me. Yoda wouldn't approve."

"Yoda would have made you do all the sniffing," Luke said, stepping through hatchway. "And he would have had you convinced he was just trying to educate your nose."

Beyond the threshold, they found themselves standing on the observation platform of a large, trilevel room. Outside the front viewport shone a pulsing ma.s.s of purple light, lined by crackling veins of static discharge and haloed by tendrils of shooting flame. Luke's gaze was drawn to the strange radiance so powerfully that he found himself starting into the room without pausing to inspect the interior. He stopped three steps inside the hatch and corrected his mistake.

Each level was packed with tall white equipment cabinets, made of some carbon-metal composite that Luke did not recognize. Arranged in neat rows-one to each level-the cabinets stood about shoulder height, with slanted tops that were identifiable as control panels only because of the red lights blinking on their surfaces. Wisps of blue and yellow smoke were rising through the edge seams of several consoles and gathering up near the ceiling in a multilayered cloud.

Though the floors were littered with cast-off clothes, containers, and a generous layer of well-tracked grime, there was no sign of the corpses their noses had warned them to expect. Luke sent Ben to investigate the front of the room, then descended to the first row and stepped over to the nearest of the white cabinets.

Instantly a holographic representation of the entire station appeared a few centimeters beneath the cabinet's surface, then slowly began to spin. Messages began to appear around the perimeter of the schematic, written in a strange, flowing alphabet that Luke suspected even C-3PO would not recognize. When they began to blink and turn colors, he touched his hand to one. The hologram immediately enlarged to show the interior view of a stores hold, so overgrown with gray-green mold that the shelves looked like tall, rectangular trees.

Luke stepped over to another cabinet, this one leaking yellow smoke from a tiny melt-crevice flanked by blinking red lights. Again, a hologram of the station appeared. He touched his hand to one of the blinking lights. The schematic swung around, pointing the end of one of its long cylinders directly at him. A pair of circles, one green and one red, appeared over the cylinder. The green circle was fixed in the heart of the cylinder, while the red hovered a millimeter to the left, flas.h.i.+ng and adding its own urgent voice to the clamor of buzzing that filled the room. It seemed clear that something important was out of alignment, but it would have been folly to attempt guessing what.

Luke moved to the next row, where the middlemost cabinet had a long row of lights blinking down one side. This time, the hologram showed nothing but gravity vectors surrounded by words and figures in the strange alphabet. Eventually, he began to recognize the image for what it was-an arrangement of black holes.

As Luke studied the holograph, he had an idea. To check his theory, he traced the route he and Ben had taken to this station, and his heart leapt so high into his throat he thought he might choke. There could be no doubt that he was looking at a chart of the entire Maw cl.u.s.ter.

He touched the binary system where the station was located. This time, the hologram did not zoom in to give him a more detailed view of the immediate area. Instead, the image rotated, swinging the binary system around to the back of an egg-shaped grouping of black holes so thick that he could no longer find it through the tangle of letters and gravity vectors. As Luke studied it, he noticed a crescent-shaped gap adjacent to the binary system where there were no letters or vectors at all. He touched a finger to the top of this area.