"Let me review my last mission there," Tahl said. "Apsolon used to have a totalitarian government ruling over a civilization split between a prosperous minority called the Civilized and a majority called the Workers.

The Workers lived in a separate sector of the city in poor housing and had to pass through checkpoints at an energy wall to travel to work. The Civilized kept control through a feared and hated secret police, called the Absolutes. As no doubt members of the Council are aware, Apsolon is a center of the high-tech industry. The Workers tried to achieve what they called a 'bloodless revolution' through a campaign of industrial sabotage.

The civil war was conducted with some violence, but nowhere near as bad as we have seen on other worlds. Mostly the violence came from the Absolutes as they tried to stop the sabotage and demonstrations. But the Workers were not stopped. The economic pressures forced the government to call for free elections and give each Worker a vote. As a result, a Worker leader who had been a hero to the people, Ewane, was elected. Apsolon was renamed New Apsolon to symbolize this new direction."

Qui-Gon remembered Ewane well, as well as his two daughters. Ewane had been imprisoned for many years. The girls' mother had died when they were young, so they had been raised by his supporters. They had been pretty, quiet girls who had looked at Tahl with awe and brought out a tenderness in Tahl he had rarely seen.

"Ewane ruled for five years as Supreme Governor and was reelected,"

Tahl went on. "Shortly after this, he was murdered."

Qui-Gon closed his eyes in a moment of remembrance. Tall, elegant Ewane had been frail from his years of captivity, but his inner strength had given him an aura of nobility. His sense of loyalty and purpose had made him an ideal leader. He had been committed to bringing justice, not punishment, to his former enemies. How sad that he hadn't been given a chance to fulfill his great promise.