Sbeit inquires into what happened during Mill and Menyoo's meditation. Mill brushes off his question, claiming he was just getting into it before Sbeit pulled him out, but Sbeit sees through Mill's duplicity, evident by him responding with a snort, then brusquely walking away. Menyoo waits outside for the ship and has not said anything to Mill or Sbeit since forcing his way out of the room, but Mill knows he had an experience, just as he had himself. Mill will spend the rest of the day thinking on and off about what he saw and felt, memories that had been dormant for years. The strangest part about it, even after all of those upsetting memories resurfaced, Mill still feels better, as if those feelings had been present the entire time, weighing him down, fueled by a subconscious longing to be acknowledged. Mill is curious to know about what Menyoo saw or felt, but he knows better than to ask, at least while it is still fresh.
TC will be here soon, if he isn't already, and Mill still needs to pack up some books from the attic. Mill braces himself for the bone-chilling cold and goes back upstairs, quick to gather what he needs and leave the eerie space for good. He empties some of the dusty boxes that contain old ritual garments and cloths, old homecare items, and cleaning supplies (most things were so old that Mill did not recognize them, nor could he figure out how they would have been used.) He works his way over to the library and looks through the books one last time to decide what is worth taking.
He decides to inspect the middle section first, knowing exactly what he wants from the works of D.G. He grabs all four volumes of Meditations on the Junction of Sith and Jedi Ideology. Mill does not want to take too much from the library, fearful that something may happen to the ship or himself, resulting in the loss of the entire collection. He decides he will grab a fifth text, Where the Light Meets the Dark, hoping the title is an indication that the book will help Mill figure out his current standing with the force.
He then walks to the Sith shelves, thinking it would be best to fill the bottom of the boxes with them first in case Sbeit decides to look through the cargo. All of the books are unfamiliar to him, and he does not want to stay long enough that Sbeit comes up to check on him, so he grabs titles that sound relevant to his need, limiting it to three. He selects: Sith Ruminations, From the Light Births the Dark, and Sith Techniques: From Master to Apprentice.
He carefully places fabric down first as cushion, then places the three Sith books and one of the handwritten books into the box. He then looks to the Jedi books for something innocuous to place on top. Mill recognizes some of the books by name and avoids those; He decides instead to pick them based on how old they look. Not the most selective of methods, but this maximizes the chance that the book is rare— or at least that makes sense to Mill. He gets a second box for the four volumes by D.G., then grabs four Jedi texts, two for each box to top off the piles of contraband. He shuts off the light one last time, then carries each box downstairs. He telekinetically lifts the staircase back into the ceiling and clicks the lock into place. The stairs were much easier to lift back into the ceiling than they were to bring down, which makes Mill wonder the last time they had been opened.
Sbeit is waiting outside the temple door, watching as Xamsters carry crates onto their ship. TC-26 stands on top of the ship, hanging two of its spider-like limbs over the side nonchalantly. Mill lugs out box number one, drops it near the temple door, then goes back and grabs box number two and places it on top of the first. Sbeit sees Mill and tells him that the Xamsters are sending them off with supplies to show their appreciation for pacifying the bandits. Mill asks Sbeit if the Er'Kit will be safe, to which he replies that the Xamsters swore to the Er'Kit's safety, on their honor. "That will have to do," Mill says. He turns to head back inside, but then Sbeit asks if he needs help carrying the boxes onto the ship. Mill agrees, hoping this will erase any suspicions Sbeit may have about the books. Mill made sure to hand Sbeit the box that had a copy of The Emendation of the Jedi on top, a book that every Jedi has had to read from, with hopes that Sbeit will assume the rest are equally mundane.
That plan fell apart fast. Sbeit gets aboard and immediately drops the pile in front of the door, where his and Menyoo's bunk usually hangs, "So, any good finds?" Sbeit rubs his hands together greedily then begins digging through the box, quickly working through the Jedi texts. He must have read them all, Pfft showoff, Mill thinks to himself. Sbeit stops and says, "whoa," under his breath. Mill begins to worry, but tries to seem unconcerned, asking with a tone of casual disregard, "Find anything interesting?"
Sbeit does not look up at Mill, "Yeah, I sure did." Mill's heartbeat picks up its tempo. Sbeit looks at the inner cover of one of the books, reads for a moment, then says to Mill, "This is a first edition! This is amazing! Good eye Mill." Mill let's out the breath he was holding, that was close, he thinks to himself. Mill then begins to feel weird about the entire interaction. He begins giving himself a pep talk in his mind, Why should I be worried about what Sbeit finds or thinks? He is my former student, I shouldn't have to hide things like this from him. This is my mission, and if Sbeit does not like what he sees, he can go back to Coruscant on his own.
That confidence cracks once Sbeit reaches back into the box, "Oh, what's this?" Mill begins worrying again. Sbeit flips through the pages of his other selection, looking intently through the contents. After sifting through a handful of pages, he sets it down and says, "oh well," then walks to the open doorway and steps down from the platform.
Mill looks at the book, then at the back of Sbeit's head, glad, but confused. "Wait, what do you mean 'oh well.' What was it?"
Sbeit turns around. "The book? I don't know the language it's written in so I can't read it. But somebody at the Jedi temple will be able to transcribe it. Good stuff Mill." Sbeit turns and walks off toward the Xamsters to finalize preparations.
Mill walks over to the book Sbeit left open on the bunk and looks through it. He is right, the language is like nothing Mill has seen before. "Damn it, I should have opened them first," he says to himself, then closes it and loads the books back into the box in the correct order. Menyoo comes by and starts going through his bag, looking for his holoplayer no doubt. Mill asks him, "I thought you would have already been on the ship, what were you doing?"
Menyoo huffs to himself, "Thought I could use a walk. Checked the perimeter to make sure we weren't being watched. Making myself useful. Happy?" Mill closes his eyes and exhales quietly. I'm getting really tired of these passive aggressive comments, Mill thinks to himself. He reminds himself to go easy on Menyoo, there may be more going on with him than he knows. Menyoo is a tough kid, and ignorant of his feelings—as Jedi are trained to be. He must have had an intense experience to have cried from what he saw or felt, especially being a young kid; Mill's memories hurt to revisit, and they are well into his past, from a time before Menyoo would have been born.
Mill says back instead, "happy we are all safe, that is what matters," then a comfortable silence persists for the next several minutes while they settle in. Sbeit and TC-26 come through the main doors, TC beaming with wonted excitement, Sbeit maintaining his usual austerity. TC climbs into his hatch and exclaims, "To Socorro we go!" Menyoo reaches to shut the door, and reclaim his bunk in the process, but is stopped short by the Xamsters that Mill had met earlier. They give one last round of thanks to the Jedi. The female Xamster casually brings up once more how she saved Mill, then the Xamsters collectively wish them a fair and safe trip. Menyoo shuts the door, just about in their face once they paused long enough for it to ostensibly not be rude, then everybody settles into their bunk, in preparation for the trip ahead.
TC decides to take the hyperspace lanes that run through Ryndellia and Llanic. This means the Jedi can safety guarantee a day travel at best, with an extra half a day if they make any stops or slow for traffic in the lanes. The atmosphere in the cabin is much more serious this time around. Menyoo and Sbeit only speak when something worth mentioning happens on the other's device, which Sbeit initiates all but one time the entire trip. Mill feels bad for having been annoyed on their way to Xagobah. Seeing Menyoo and Sbeit sit next to each other in silence makes Mill feel sad for both of them, which is also much easier for Mill to think as he enjoys the quiet ride. Mill naps shortly after leaving Xagobah, with the intention of staying awake while Sbeit sleeps so he can read through some of the books without him noticing. Mill again feels disgruntled about tiptoeing around Sbeit, but figures he has gotten this far, so he shouldn't quit now. He finds napping no difficult chore after all the physical and emotional stress, and falls asleep almost immediately.
When he wakes up—how much later he is unsure— he looks over and sees Sbeit fast asleep. Menyoo is still up watching his holoplayer, so Mill whispers over to him, "Psst, how long has he been asleep?"
Menyoo looks up from his device, and says back with no attempt at a whisper, "an hour maybe." Mill turns his head to the side in disapproval, but Menyoo does not care and goes back to watching his holovid. Mill quietly absconds his bunk and creeps over to the pile of books. He decides to start his studies with the handwritten set since they have a connection to the mission. He picks up volume one and carries it over to the small table in the corner, then opens the book and begins working through it line by line. The book is well organized and well written, beginning with a foreboding note describing the author's experience with the force. The writing is a bit difficult to follow, clearly having been written during a much earlier time, but Mill understands the basic ideas. The writer did not start off studying the Jedi code, that much is clear. Somehow the author began under the tutelage of the dark side, which is concerning as it would be unlikely one would do so as an unaccustomed force sensitive without the assistance of a dark force user at their side. There have been cases of force sensitives learning to use the force in minor ways before being introduced to the order, but to begin using the dark side instead of the light is unheard of to Mill.
He reads further to find information on how the author may have found balance between the dark and the light. Mill reads scraps of each chapter, searching for main ideas and summaries, hoping to skim the entire volume before Sbeit wakes up. It would seem this writing took place in the early stage of D.G's research, because there is no application, just general theory. It becomes increasingly clear as Mill reads on that D.G. was no novice force user; he is well versed in the ways of the dark side. How is it that this came to be? Any experienced dark-side wielder would have fallen to the Jedi. Could this book be older than a thousand years? Or could the Jedi have been wrong this entire time? Maybe the Sith did survive? Mill reads further, but his questions remain unanswered by the end of volume one.
After hours pass of working his way through the maze of words, Mill does find his first bit of useful content near the end of the book. The author describes his experience as a practitioner of the dark side as "an unending quest to facilitate the growth of feeling, which includes fabricating such material out of one's own free will. To act as a siphon, our beliefs and feelings toward all that we encompass, and consequently encompasses us, leeches' power from the very source of our every action. To live is to feel, and to feel is to react; in our every action, we force others to react, and all beings feel some way about this cycle. These feelings in youth are natural. The desperate need for attachment and power is a tool of the dark arts to beguile the uninitiated. It is only by using these feelings to our advantage that we learn to build onto these feelings, make the world around us the perfect source of our every reaction, and strengthen our repulsion to that which fills us with vitriolic hate."
Mill ruminates over the meaning of this passage. It would seem the dark side uses feelings as a tool, just as the Jedi teach, but the feelings are not synthetic as the Jedi claim. These feelings that lead to corruption are natural feelings, things every sentient creature experiences. This would explain why the Jedi work so hard to eliminate attachment and emotion from younglings; and furthermore, why the Order refuses to teach children passed a certain age. Mill really has been trained to be inhuman. To be the perfect Jedi is to be a machine. Mill thinks back to what Rancisis and Mill discussed during the last council meeting, before Sifo-Dyas distracted Mill with news of Sbeit, about how the Sith may have converted Jedi in the past. Mill then remembers the title of one of the Sith books, From the Light Births the Dark.
Mill stands up quietly from the table, then tiptoes over to the stack of books. He begins rummaging through the pile, but ceases when he hears Sbeit say to Menyoo, "Damn spaceships, they disrupt my circadian rhythm." Mill hurriedly places the meditations back into its spot, tucked safely under a Jedi text, and returns to his bunk—all while holding back from making fun of Sbeit for the way he talks. The rest of the trip Sbeit stays awake, despite Mill's suggestions to do otherwise. Mill makes a plan to work through the books on their next trip. If he can manage to cover the spines, or just stash some under his padding, he should be fine. TC's familiar call, "We have arrived!" rings out through the ship after another series of bumps and tosses during the landing, which at this point go unappreciated by all aboard, except Menyoo who mutters, "I hate this ship."