Sacrifice

Masters may use their ships to fight but not involve apprentices.

"Ship, Jacen made an error. Do it for me, so I can find my mom again. Please—don't fire."

The sphere decelerated dramatically.

Who is the enemy? the ship asked. Unless I know, I can do nothing except evade and protect.

"That's right," Ben said. Shevu had told him that humoring nutters, as he called it, was an essential police skill. Keeping them talking was what it was all about—and if Ben had the ship, he had Lumiya. "Ship, what's your task?"

Once I fought. Now I educate and protect apprentices.

"What do you believe I am?"

Apprentice.

"Who's the one within you now?"

Apprentice also.

Ben was starting to form a picture of the sphere's view of the world. It had been buried on Ziost for centuries and possibly millennia.

It had reacted to him when he was being targeted from orbit and running for his life with a terrified little girl.

"Ship, what do you mean—educate?"

I teach apprentices to fight.

Ben could sense Lumiya communicating with it. The ship was responding strongly in his mind, but there was a second stream of soundless words running almost like interference on a comlink from overlapping