and none of the challenges he was facing were the ones he'd been preparing for.
Apprentices always thought the life of a Jedi Knight was all lightsaber battles
and high-level diplomatic negotiation, because that's what they were trained
for. There was no classroom work to simulate running into a servant who claimed
you were some sort of long-lost prince of Vjun.
After the cleanup crews had made their sweep through Taupe Corridor, he and
Maks Leem had met with Fidelis, the droid who claimed to serve Whie's human
family, and his partner, Solis. At least it was clear to Jai that they were
partners; he wasn't sure the Padawans had figured out that Tallisibeth's trip to
the purser's office had simply been a ruse to allow Fidelis to get Whie alone.
It was a curious business all in all, and certain to be distracting for the boy.
Jai had felt a fierce hope that the droid would be able to give them
information about Dooku and his movements, but its information turned out to be
strictly secondhand; it had not been back to Vjun in a decade.
Still, the droid's descriptions of Château Malreaux did match the glimpses
Jai had gotten during his brief interview with the hated lapsed Jedi, Count
Dooku, and his despicable lapdog Asajj Ventress. Jai had asked Fidelis for
complete schematics on the château and its surrounding terrain, so they could
prepare a plan of escape in case Master Yoda's negotiations with Dooku went
badly. Exasperatingly, the droid had all but ignored him; he would only take
orders from Whie. He certainly knew Jai and Maks were Jedi—a term that he
clearly found roughly interchangeable with cradle-robber or kidnapping cultist.
It was one of the things they never quite mentioned in the Temple —how many
people, even in the Republic, viewed the Jedi with distrust or even outright
fear and hostility. The sentiment had grown during the Clone Wars, to the point
that Jai hated going on the missions to identify new Jedi; as much as he knew
the children they found were going to lead better, richer, and more useful lives
than they would otherwise have had, the whispers of "baby-rapper!" bothered him,
as did the heartbroken eyes of the parents who watched their children being led
away. Less painful but still ugly was the relief in the eyes of a different kind
of parent, the ones glad to be rid of the burden of an extra mouth to feed.
One couldn't see that without wondering which kind of baby one had been
oneself.
And now "Palpatine's Secret Police" was a whisper he was hearing more and
more often—even, painfully, from schismatic Jedi who had left the Order.
But however unpleasant it was for Jai to see the word Jedi fill people's eyes
with fear and distrust, instead of hope and gratitude, he was at least used to
it. Maks Leem, who rarely left the Temple , and especially the young Padawans
had been shocked to see just how mixed the public's feelings about the Jedi
truly were.
And on top of all that, for Whie, there was the issue of the girl.
Tallisibeth was pushy and smart and pretty in an athletic way, and she was
weak in the Force. A more disruptive combination it would have been hard to
imagine, Jai thought wearily. Presumably Master Yoda had his reasons for
bringing her along, but a stronger Padawan with a little less personality would
have made life a lot easier. For one thing, Whie couldn't stop looking at her.
This was normal, of course, in a thirteen-year-old boy forced into close
quarters with a pretty girl for days on end: but it wasn't helping anybody
focus. Scout didn't seem to have noticed the boy's habit of stealing glances at
her, but to judge from Master Leem's affectionate little smirk, Whie certainly
wasn't fooling his own Master. This would have been nothing but fun and games at
the Jedi Temple —adolescence had its laughs at the expense of a few Padawans
every year—but out here, on a mission to confront Count Dooku, it was one more
distraction Jai didn't want.
Jai liked the girl, too.
He didn't want to, to be honest. With the war going as it was, Jedi lives
were being risked far more frequently than at any time since the Sith War. A
girl like Scout Enwandung-Esterhazy, he reminded himself; don't fall into the
familiarity of nicknames, Jai—a girl like that was going to be dead within a
year.
That was going to hurt enough already. He didn't need it to hurt any more.
Whie had slipped into his robes. The room door slid down almost to the floor,
alarm went off, and though Maintenance had taken out the hugely excited security
monad, they hadn't gotten around to fixing the lighting.
Jai watched the boy step over the stub of door and close it again.
Jai would bet ten credits the boy was bound for the gym. Jai was pretty sure
he had put in a few midnight workouts of his own as a Padawan, trying not to
think about some girl . . . who was it? Jang Li-Li's red-haired friend.
Politrix, that was her name. Killed in an ambush two months after Geonosis.
Plasma grenade.
He remembered the fall of her hair, red ringlets around her shoulders. The
smell of it one day—they had been sparring in the exercise room, she pinned him
and laughed, her hair dangling down to his cheek.
Gone now.
Jai felt a tear on his cheek and let it come. Grief, too, was a part of life:
no use denying it. From a calm center he watched it, this grief. So much sorrow.
So many of his childhood friends already gone.
It was getting harder now, to feel the grief without giving in to it. What
had Master Yoda said once? Too long sorrow makes a stone of the heart.
So he tried not to like Scout so much, and at the same time he could feel
himself pushing her, pushing her: willing her to be stronger and faster and more
deadly because that's what she would need. She was brave enough, by the
stars—even he would give her that. But brave wasn't enough. He'd been brave,
standing before Dooku and Asajj Ventress. It hadn't kept him from failing.
Jai's breath came out in an exasperated hiss. So much for his Jedi serenity.
He lay in the dark a little while longer, then gave up all hope of sleep,
slipped into his robes (far more quietly than Whie had managed), and followed
the boy out into the ship, leaving Scout's strangely touching little-girl snores
behind.
As predicted, he found the boy in the workout room, going through the Broken
Gate unarmed combat form—swing, stamp, strike, throw! He was good—better than
good, he was quicksilver, letting the Force ball and surge in counterpoint to
his movements, suspending it in a high flip, and then calling it down like a
thunderbolt in the last stroke. Where the boy's feet had landed, the floor mat
burst open, spewing out rockets of foam.
"Excellent," Jai said quietly.
Whie spun, flipped, and landed in a fighting stance, his open hands up,
cupping the Force like chain lightning in his palms. "What do you want?"
Jai blinked. "Is that how you speak to a Jedi Master, Padawan?"
Whie stared at him, chest heaving.
"Padawan?"
"Woul
d you kill another Jedi?" Whie said abruptly. "If you thought he had
gone over to the dark side?"
"Yes."
"Just like that? Aren't we all supposed to be family?"
"Because he was family," Jai Maruk said. "A Jedi who has turned to the dark
side is not a common criminal, Whie. His gifts and abilities give him a great
power for evil."
"You wouldn't give him a chance to reform?"
"Once the dark side has you, boy, it doesn't let go." Jai cocked his head.
Carefully, he said, "I hope, Padawan, you are not confusing a moment's weakness
with a wholesale embrace of the dark side. We all have our vices—"
"Even Master Yoda?"
"Even Master Yoda! Or at least so he claims. I don't know what they are,
though I will say that when Master Yoda is hungry, his temper does not sweeten."
Jai grimaced. "My own temper is not well regulated. It might be described as
angry and resentful. I am too quick to condemn and too slow to forgive. I have
struck men in anger." Casually, now, careful not to place too much emphasis, "I
have had feelings for women. This is natural. But though the dark side draws
much of its power from such feelings, merely having them is not to have chosen
the wrong path. Do you understand? It is the decision to dominate, to crush, to
draw your strength from another being's weakness that signals a turn to the dark
side. Dark or light is not a feeling, but a choice."
Some of the furious energy was draining slowly from Whie's tense body. His
shoulders relaxed, and his arms fell to his sides. "I always thought I was a
good person," he said quietly. "I could never see the point of . . . stealing
food from the kitchen. Or cheating on exams. I was a good boy," Whie said
heavily. "I thought that was the same as virtue."
"Amazing how easy it is to resist other people's temptations, isn't it?" Jai
said dryly. He felt an unexpected surge of pity for the young man—one part
sympathy for Whie, and one part compassion for his own remembered self at this
age: pent-up and furious and barely aware of the fact. After a lifetime of
pretending to be good, the boy was only now coming alive to the difficult
choices of life—the ones that every shopkeeper's son had to face, let alone a
would-be Jedi Knight. "Don't worry," Jai said. "There are ways Master Yoda and
Master Leem know you better than you know yourself. Even I know a few things
about you, young Whie. Life in this world is never easy, but all of us still see
in you what you thought you saw in yourself: a fine man, who one day will make a
fine Jedi Knight. Make your choices, Padawan. They won't all be right, but most
will be, and none of your Masters has any fear that you will turn to the dark
side."
Cautious hope came into the boy's face, along with relief. "Thank you," he
said.
"Will you come back to your cot? You have some dreams yet undreamed this
night."
It was not a happy turn of phrase. Whie's face darkened again. "N-no," he
stammered. "I think I'll just stay up, thank you." He adjusted a weight machine
currently set for a body type with flippers. "What about Scout? Do you think she
would ever turn to the dark side?"
Jai shook his head. "Forgive me for putting it this way, but she hasn't had
things as easy as you, Whie. She has lived with her temptations for years—to
cheat, to peek at other kids' tests, to conspire against quicker students to
make herself look better. She may not play by the 'regular' rules, but she has
committed her whole soul to living with honor, despite her limitations. She will
be fine, as long as she remains in the Order. If she were to be cast out,
perhaps bitterness might drive her to the dark side. If she felt we betrayed
her."
"That's what I thought, too," Whie said. "I always thought she'd be sent to
the Agricultural Corps, but now I see why she wasn't. It's not just that Master
Yoda feels sorry for her. It's that she's already passed the test the rest of us
will be facing, with this horrible war."
"Scout told me yesterday that she found it very irritating that a boy so
young should be so wise," Jai said. "I begin to see what she means."
Whie snorted and settled into the weight machine, pushing hard through ten
fast repetitions. No use of the Force to move the weights: this was all the old
animal body, burning in his legs, his breath getting deeper as his cells called
for oxygen. It was good to push like this, meat on metal. The truth was, he'd
had another prophetic dream, the worst one yet. Far worse than the vision of
himself and Scout, bleeding, in a room with Asajj Ventress‑
No. Push the weights. Don't think don't think don't think.
But as soon as he took his rest between sets, the images of his dream flooded
back.
"Master Maruk?" he said, as Jai turned to go back to the cabin.
"Yes?"
"Are you afraid of death?"
"That is the one thing I do not worry about," the Jedi said. "It is my job to
live with honor, to defend the Republic, to protect her people, to look after my
ship and my weapon and my Padawan . . . My death," he said, with a little smile,
"is somebody else's responsibility."
Phindar Spaceport, Gateway to the Outer Rim. The Phindians, known throughout
the galaxy for their dour sarcasm, were tall and thin and mournful looking, with
yellow eyes streaked in red and exceedingly long arms, so their luggage scuffed
along the floor as they milled about the crowded space station. A vendor sold
them balls of air-puffed flat bread and the stimcaf came in low-g squeeze bulbs
instead of cups. Even the recycled
space station air smelled different, and the bland synthesized voice that
came over the speakers spoke Basic with a sarcastic drawl that made their own
Coruscanti pronunciations seem clipped and brusque. "If you want your droids
seized and searched by all means let them wander around unaccompanied."
"Hear that?" Scout hissed, pinging the R2 unit on the head with her
fingernails. "So be good."
A muffled and rebellious snuff leaked out of the little droid's casing.
They were standing in line waiting to buy tickets for the next leg of their
journey, from the Joran Station to Vjun proper, this time as the Coryx family.
"Business or pleasure?" the attendant asked in a bored voice as Jai Maruk
stepped to the head of the line.
"Pleasure, mostly."
"On Vjun?" the attendant said. "Oh, sure."
"I hope," Jai Maruk added, with a well-delivered falter. "I'm a water chemist
by trade, and I've always wanted to study the famous acid rain. The kids are
just coming along to, ah, play on the beach and so forth . .
"Gee, that will be fun," the attendant said, glancing at Scout. "Can't hurt
her looks, anyway. By the way, I only see one kid. Am I blind, or can you not
count?"
"My son went to use the, ah, facilities," Jai said. "But I have his ID card
here."
The attendant took their does. It was good work, best Jedi forgeries, but
Scout felt her heart speed up as he frowned and thumbed through the stack.
"If you want your droids seized and searched, by all means let them wander
around unaccompanied."
"Everything is in order," Jai suggested.
"Wow, imagine my relief," the attendant said, handing the card back. "Put the
droid on the scale next to your bags, please."
Scout jumped at a touch on her shoulder and found herself facing the
well-worn droid she had met on Reasonable Doubt. "Stuffy!" His head tilted back.
"I mean, Solis!" Scout said. "Shipping out?"
"In a manner of speaking. Actually, I was wondering if you could do me a
small favor," the droid said. He pointed to the food court on the concourse
above them. "I am supposed to meet a friend up there. It's no more than a
five-minute walk, but apparently there was a Trade Federation attack at the
Greater Hub spaceport two days ago, and consequently the Phindians are taking
security very seriously at the moment." Scout looked blankly at him. "I would be
traveling through the spaceport as an 'unaccompanied droid,' " he explained.
"Oh!" Scout said. "I hadn't thought of that."
"Phindar is notable for, among other things, the SPCB—Sentient Property Crime
Bureau—given to the enthusiastic collection and resale of personality-bearing
artifacts such as myself. As I would much rather not be seized and resold, I was
wondering if you would walk with me to my rendezvous?"
Jai Maruk was busily lifting their indignant R2 onto the weigh scale at the
ticket counter, but Scout caught Master Leem's three eyes. "Go ahead," the Gran
said, smiling. "It will be your good deed for the day. And collect your brother
on the way back, if you catch sight of him."
Solis bowed. "I am greatly obliged."
They set off at a brisk walk across the crowded concourse, Scout slipping
through the throngs of Phindians with the droid at her side. "You're the same
model as the droid who claims to be Whie's servant, aren't you?"
"You have good eyes."
"Did you—Wait a sec. Can droids get offended?"
"Not usually," Solis said ambiguously.
"Mm."
"Try me."
"Well, I was just wondering if you got, urn, scrapped by your owner, and that
was why you didn't have the shiny paint and so on. I have a morbid curiousity
about this kind of thing," she hurried on. "I very nearly got sent to—got kicked
out of the school I go to," she finished.