Tapping Senators' comlinks didn't seem to bother anyone else at the briefing. Ben couldn't see the problem, either. It made sense, for their own protection. Jacen tasked squads to their roles, and there was discussion about supplies.
"Draw up a wish list," Jacen said, beaming. "I think we've eased the supply situation. Or we will have, by the end of this week."
There was a ripple of laughter. "Did you persuade them to see things your way, sir?"
"Oh, I just made sure the flimsi was in order . . ."
There was more laughter and a ripple of applause. For a moment, Ben felt a conspiratorial closeness between Jacen and the troopers. It was genuine: Jacen wasn't doing his charisma act to persuade people to do what he wanted, although he was very good at that. He enjoyed the company of his troops, and they enjoyed his. There was a sense of shared danger and that the rest of the world wasn't part of all this. Ben took mental notes about the art of effortless leadership.
The briefing broke up. Ben hung back to talk to Jacen, getting a few joking comments about his recent absence as the troopers filed out, and giving as good as he got. He felt a sudden pressure at the back of his head, and when he looked around, Jacen was watching him from the side of the dais, smiling slightly.
"They like you," he said. "That's good for an officer, as long as you're liked for the right reasons."
"Isn't it important to be respected instead?"
"What's respect, Ben?"
Ben pondered the question, hearing a subtle test in it. "Thinking that a person does something right, and that they do it better than you, and so you feel positive toward them."
"Excellent."
"That's not the same as being liked, though, is it?"
"Not at all. We can respect those we dislike," Jacen said. "The way to be liked by your men is this—that they believe that you would never spend their lives cheaply, that their welfare comes first, and that you wouldn't ask them to do anything that you wouldn't do yourself. To share their trials and triumphs without being one of them, and they know that's how it has to be —because they know an officer has to make decisions that cost lives, and that's something you can only do if you remain sufficiently separate."
Ben hadn't lost a trooper from 967 Commando yet. In fact, they'd had no fatalities or even serious injuries. They led charmed lives as far as the rest of the military were concerned. He had no idea how he'd feel if he had to put them in a position where deaths were inevitable.
Jacen seemed to read his mind again. "Until you can make those decisions, you're not safe to lead."
"But it's easier if you're prepared to die yourself, right?" Ben suddenly felt much better about Lumiya's attempt on his life. He knew it was her now, piecing together what had happened on Ziost and what Mom had told him. But it was okay. He could look all the 967 in the eye now.
"Because if you're willing to make the same sacrifice, that's the one thing that matters."
Jacen leaned close to him. "It inspires. It's the ultimate act of honesty with your troops."
Ben knew that was how Jacen led, and why everyone was so loyal to him. He led from the front, and he loved being in the thick of the fighting. The fact that as a Jedi he had survival advantages they didn't have rarely
"I don't know which way I'll jump when the time comes," Ben said.
"Nobody does. But I'll try to do what's right for the majority."
Jacen's smile was utterly luminous for a moment, but then it faded as if he'd recalled something awful. His Force presence vanished for a few seconds and then returned. That was weird, Ben thought: Jacen was standing right next to him, so what was he hiding from?
"Can you teach me to do that?" Ben asked. "Hide in the Force?"
Jacen seemed shaken. "Why?"
"Because Lumiya is trying to kill me. I thought it might come in handy." And for avoiding Mom and Dad sometimes. Yes, it would be handy.
"Mom says she's got evidence that I killed—that Lumiya thinks I killed her daughter. I don't remember a thing about what happened on that asteroid, Jacen, but maybe it doesn't matter, because Lumiya believes it, and I bet she was behind what happened on Ziost."
Jacen's face was carefully blank. Ben couldn't tell what he was thinking now, not even from the Force.
"Yes, why not?" Jacen said. His voice was softer, almost hesitant.
"Don't you worry about Lumiya. She's not up to killing you."
"When can we start?"
"It's very simple."
"Yeah," Ben said dubiously.
"No, it is. The principle is simple—it's the practice that's hard.
It might take you years to master it." Jacen motioned him to sit down on the floor. "Come on. Meditation position."
Ben sat down cross-legged and closed his eyes automatically, taking deeper and slower breaths until he reached the stage where the world beyond him seemed distant and he was hyperaware of his own body, even the movement of blood in his veins.
Jacen's voice seemed to be coming from another time and place.
"You're contained. The world can't touch you."
"Yes."
"Now break the shell. Break the container." Jacen's tone was even and soothing. "See the world in its component atoms. See yourself as atoms, too. Find the line where you end and the world begins."
Ben visualized the room around him and the air in it. It became a frozen snowfall of varying density, some particles clustered, some scattered; then he looked into himself, and saw the microscopic unevenness of the surface of his skin, and the overlapping plates of keratin in his hair, and then beyond that to where he was just like the room around him—a snowstorm of molecules. Some of the room was within him as oxygen and dust, and some of him was in the room as fragments of skin and droplets of water.
There was no line. There was no edge that divided Ben Skywalker from the room, or from Coruscant, or from the galaxy. He merged with it all, and it merged with him. There was nothing solid: just a warm, drifting sea of molecules, some of which assembled loosely and long enough to be Ben Skywalker.
"So you can do it . . ."
Jacen's voice drifted from a long way away. Ben suddenly felt as if he were dissolving and would never be whole again. Panic gripped him. He jerked his eyes open with a massive effort like tearing open rock with his bare
"Oh. . .wow.
"Now," Jacen said softly, "you see why practice is necessary. But full marks for technique."
"How does that hide me?"
"You blend with the universe. Think of it as Force camouflage. The trick is to become so comfortable with it that you can slip into this state of being . . . dissolved, yet still carry on functioning, fully aware."
Ben couldn't even manage another wow. He was absolutely determined to master the technique, and at the same time scared by it because it felt like a seductive, comfortable death. He was afraid he might sink so deeply into it that he'd never get out again.
It was as close as he'd ever come to both knowing and feeling what the Force was. He felt he'd never be the same again, or see the world in quite the same way.
Wow.
If only all his Force knowledge had manifested itself that fast and that vividly.
"You need to practice regularly," said Jacen.
Ben nodded, worried about looking too enthusiastic. It was more than just a useful way to evade his father now. It was worth pursuing in its own right, for the sheer sensation of it.
"I will," he said. The moment of ecstatic revelation had passed, and he felt oddly chilled. "Any orders for me? Or am I just going to be listening to comlinks now?"
"Oh, I have a mission for you."