"Roan has been like a father to us," Eritha said. "After our father's death, we saw his grief.

It was real. He would not allow us to leave this residence. He said he would be our father now." "We are a family," Alani said firmly.

Qui-Gon nodded. He would not challenge the girls' beliefs. But he would not take them as truth, either. He had known the girls at the age of ten, bewildered by their world's conflicts and longing for their father as he spent long years imprisoned. They had been protected by Ewane's followers, who had proven their devotion to their leader by sheltering his daughters. Perhaps they still were unable to cope with the complexities of a world where sabotage and treachery were practiced. The cozy room and private compound told him that they were still sheltered.

"So you haven't heard that Tahl is on New Apsolon?" Qui-Gon asked.

The girls shook their heads.

"If she is, I wish she would come and see us," Alani added.

Qui-Gon nodded. A feeling of dread loomed inside him. If the girls had not called Tahl, who had? And where was she?

With no leads, Qui-Gon decided that until they thought of a plan of action, observation was their best strategy. They walked past the government buildings, noting the high security. Everyone seemed to be on alert.

Obi-Wan read the inscription on a windowless building nearby. Unlike its graceful neighbors, this one was squat and long. "It's the former headquarters of the Absolutes," he said to Qui-Gon. "It's now a museum."

"Let's go in," Qui-Gon suggested. "It could be that the Absolutes still have power here. Groups such as that find it hard to disband. The more we learn about them the better off we are."

They paid a small fee to enter. They found themselves in a surprisingly tiny hall with a low ceiling. Carved into the stone archway above an entranceway to the rest of the building they read ABSOLUTE JUSTICE CALLS FOR ABSOLUTE LOYALTY A petite, wiry woman approached them, dressed in a navy tunic and trousers. Her jet-black hair was cropped short, and Obi-Wan noted that her right hand was twisted, the knuckles of the fingers large and knotted.

"Welcome. I am Irini, your tour guide. All the guides to the museum are former prisoners of the Absolutes. Let's begin the tour."

They followed her underneath the archway and down a long corridor, where she accessed a thick durasteel door. Immediately they found themselves in a cell block. They walked past the deserted security desk through the row of cells.

"Here is where prisoners were detained before undergoing 'reclassification,' which was the Absolute term for torture," Irini explained. Her voice was calm and dispassionate. "Often prisoners were kept waiting without food or water for long periods, to break down their resistance. They were not allowed counsel or contact with their families.

If you are visitors to our world, you may have noticed the many memorials, especially in the Worker Sector. The white columns stand for those who gave their lives on the spot. The blue columns memorialize those who were taken by the Absolutes and arrested. There is a column on Teligi Road for me."

Irini stopped before the last cell. "I was held here for three days, then moved to the reclassification area. I was a prisoner for a total of six months."

"Why were you arrested?" Obi-Wan asked. Since Irini was a tour guide, he assumed it would be all right to ask such a question.

"In addition to my job in the tech sector, I ran a Worker newspaper,"

Irini said. "We wrote about change through peaceful protest. Our venture was not illegal, but the Absolutes accused us of advocating violence. The charges were false. They were afraid of our influence with the other Workers. Technically the Workers were allowed freedom of expression, but in actuality the Absolutes tried to control what we could say or do."

"Could you vote?" Obi-Wan asked curiously.

"Again, technically yes. But the Civilized Authority — which is what our United Legislature used to be called — placed the oldest voting systems in the Worker Sector. Often the systems broke down, or Workers could not register. Votes were not counted. Demands for recounts were refused. Soon we saw that to effect change, we had to take more dramatic means."

"Sabotage," Qui-Gon said.

She nodded. "Yes, that was the principal strategy. When I was released from this place, I joined this movement. We were high-tech workers sending goods out to the galaxy. If the goods were defective, profits would fall. The Civilized were worried about profits above all. Eventually they saw that they had no choice but to negotiate with us. It was a long, hard struggle. Let me show you how hard. Come this way to the torture rooms."

Irini led them through room after room, each one designed for a different kind of detainment or torture. Some rooms were bleakly empty of equipment, yet the thick walls and doors spoke more eloquently than any device of what had been done there. One room held a single object, a coffin like device made of durasteel and plastoid materials. There was a narrow slit at the top.

"This is a sensory deprivation containment device," Irini said quietly. "All of them were destroyed except for this one, which we keep as a reminder of what went on here. Some were kept in the device so long that they went mad. Others were given paralyzing drugs and died inside it."

She led them into another chamber with screens along one wall. Behind them a projector lens protruded from the back wall. "But this is what we feared the most. Here we were forced to watch the torture of others.

Sometimes it was people we knew, friends, family. The Absolutes used probe droids largely to monitor the Workers. They kept the vital statistics of all of us on file for easy tracking. They could find anyone if they needed to." Irini stared at the blank screens. "They found out I was engaged to be married and found my fiancc."

Obi-Wan drew in his breath. He could not imagine the kind of mind that would devise such a torture. This time, he did not feel he could ask Irini what had happened.

Irini glanced at him. "What they did not realize, the Absolutes, was that for the one being tortured it somehow helped to know others were watching. The Absolutes thought only of the pain they could inflict — the double pain of the victim and the watcher, you see. But the victims took courage from the idea that they would be brave for those who knew and loved them. They would withstand anything for love. Probe droids are illegal on New Apsolon now. No one wants to bring back those days again."

She looked back at the screens again. "There were many days in this place that I said goodbye to life. Yet I did manage to survive."

"It must be difficult for you to return," Qui-Gon said. "And yet here you are, giving tours to others."