Fate of the Jedi: Backlash (15 page)

That had changed with the arrival of the Sith strike team in the Maw cluster. Most of the Sith whom Ben and Luke had fought had been at about the level of training of experienced Jedi Knights. Luke had described Vestara Khai’s female companion as being at the approximate level of a Jedi Master. Ben didn’t feel lucky enough to hope that the strike team had been the last representatives of this new Sith Order.

So there were Sith again, and part of him, the younger Ben who had been tortured and nearly turned by Darth Caedus, was still a little afraid of them.

Death didn’t frighten him. Becoming like Jacen Solo … that was another matter.

A couple of meters away, Luke sat up, fully awake, serene. “Your emotions betray you.”

Ben gave him a scowl.
“Your
emotions wander around short-sheeting beds and putting everyone’s hands in bowls of warm water.”

Luke grinned. “Would you please stop saying things like that?”

“Sorry. I just get tired of hearing the same old phrases, the same old way, year after year. I think that’s why Master Yoda mangled his Basic for the archival recordings. After nine hundred years, he was sick of hearing the same old things the same old way. Use the same cliché phrases too long and people stop hearing their message, you know?”

Luke blinked, considering. “You may be right.”

“So, Dad, what’s our plan for this morning?”

Luke rose, discarding his blanket. “Making breakfast.”

“Not actually the work of strategic genius I was hoping to hear.”

Luke grinned again. “No, but if we don’t eat, I won’t be capable of much strategic genius later in the day.” He headed off toward the supplies.

As Dathomir’s sun rose, the camp began its preparations for the day’s activities. Groups of men and groups of women, seldom mixed, moved out into the grassy fields surrounding the lake, hammering marker stakes into the ground, flattening grasses along racecourses, situating targets, corralling sturdy green-and-yellow lizards.

Firen Nuln, trainer of rancors for the Raining Leaves, perhaps having lost a bet or finding herself in line for minor punishment, came to join the offworlders at their campfire. “I am to answer questions. If you have any.” Her tone was disinterested. Clearly it was a duty she did not relish.

Ben exchanged a glance with Han and shrugged. “Sure. Um, what sorts of competitions are you having?”

“Many. Footraces, riding-lizard races, rancor races, speeder bike races for those who have them, shooting competitions with pistol and rifle, accuracy with spear, wrestling, boating, swimming, riddling—”

“Riddles?” Ben couldn’t keep surprise and even a little scorn out of his voice. “You have a competition for telling riddles?”

Firen nodded. “Of course.”

Ben held out his two hands about a third of a meter apart. “What’s this big, weighs forty kilos, and eats people?”

Dyon, leaning against the cargo speeder and watching the preparations in the fields, shook his head without turning. “That’s not how
it’s done. Among the Dathomiri, and among most people with an oral history tradition, riddles take a very different form. Yours would go something like, ‘I am less than the length of a man’s arm. Yet my weight would cause a grown man to stagger should he carry me a full day. And when that day is done, it is a grown man I will have for my meal.’”

“That’s a lot more involved than the way I asked it.”

Firen nodded. “Yet it is more dignified. Less like a child’s game when it is phrased as Dyon did.” She looked restless, uncomfortable. Finally, she added, “What
is
so long, weighs forty kilograms, and eats people?”

Ben gave her a look that was all innocence. “An Ewok in a lunch box.”

Han snickered.

Dyon turned to give Ben an exasperated look. “You see, that’s not funny because there’s no local context. There are no Ewoks on Dathomir, and no lunch boxes except at the spaceport.”

“It could be adapted.” Firen frowned, considering. “Perhaps a kolef lizard in a wineskin.”

“Loosen up, Dyon.” Han stretched, his joints popping. “It was funny.”

Dyon shook his head. “You won’t win any of the competitions with that attitude.”

Han looked startled. “Win? We’re not competing!”

“In fact, you are,” Firen said. “You must compete—the adults among you, anyway—if you are to hold the respect of the clan members.”

A slow grin spread across Han’s face. “Well, now, that’s a different story!”

Firen nodded. “First, of course, you must declare which of the divisions you will compete in.”

“Men and women, I assume.” Leia, adjusting the top layer of her Jedi robes, sounded only so interested, but Ben wasn’t fooled.

“No.” Firen shook her head. “Women and men compete against each other. The divisions are those with the Arts and those without the Arts.”

“Force-users and non-users?” Ben looked out over the field again. Sure enough, where competitors were gathering, every group had both men and women but seemed to be dominated by one gender or the other rather than having an even mix. He guessed that the groups with more women were the Force-users, and those with more men the non-users.

“As you would say it, yes. It must be this way, for in competitions between those with the Arts and those without, those with the Arts almost always win.” Firen gestured, not toward the fields, but toward a bare patch of lakeside beach where wood for a large fire was being placed. “There is where the riddling and other competitions will take place. Those are among the few where those with the Arts and those without can compete with each other.”

“It seems very well thought out.” Luke, sitting cross-legged on the speeder hood, was doing some final adjustments on the hilt of his lightsaber. “I suppose there would especially be a lot of talk if
I
don’t compete.”

“Oh, yes.” Firen sounded sure. “All will wonder if you have grown feeble, or if you merely scorn our traditions.”

“Guess I’d better compete, then, so they’ll know neither is true.” Luke gave his brother-in-law a look. “You, too, Han.”

“But I
am
feeble.”

Leia snorted. “Right. You mean lazy.”

Han looked at Firen, an appeal for help. “Tell me that there’s a wine-tasting competition.”

“No.”

“Solving navigation problems?”

“No.”

“Bragging?”

Firen sighed. She turned away and headed back toward the Raining Leaves encampment.

When the call went up for the first competition of the morning, the short footrace for those with the Arts, Luke went out to join the competitors, and most of the offworlders went out to cheer him on.

Ben did not. He stayed in the shadow of the cargo speeder and began dealing with items he had traded for or borrowed in the earliest hour as the camp was rousing.

A green Broken Columns cloak, suitable in these temperate foothill elevations, went over his black garments, and a brown hood hid his too-visible reddish hair. He slid the clip for his lightsaber to the back of his belt and put a large sheath knife, borrowed from Carrack, where the other weapon normally hung. Now anyone looking at him would still, in moments, be able to discern that he did not belong to the Raining Leaves or Broken Columns, but he was not instantly obvious as an offworlder or Jedi.

As he was putting on his impromptu disguise, he sneaked the occasional look at the athletic field, specifically at the crowd around the competitors. Olianne was there, and, as Ben and his father had guessed she might, she was keeping a close eye on the offworlders.

Vestara was near Olianne, but not always; she drifted along the edges of the crowd. Ben got up and moved as nonchalantly as he could toward the race’s audience.

As he walked, a woman of the Raining Leaves bellowed the rules. All competitors were to race the length of the field, round a marker post, keeping it to their left side, and return to the starting line. Afterward, a longer race would be run, eight laps. Then the two races would be repeated by those with no Arts.

As the recitation of rules came to an end, Ben found himself at the back of a press of onlookers. Three meters ahead of him, at the front of the crowd, was Vestara. Olianne stood a dozen meters to the right of Vestara, separated from her by onlookers.

A blaster fired into the sky was the signal for the race’s start. Ben saw his father and three others, two Dathomiri women and one man, draw out to an early lead. Luke did not move to the front; the Raining Leaves trainer of scouts, Halliava Vurse, was ahead of him. Ben doubted she’d remain there; Luke, ever strategic, was doubtless pacing himself.

Vestara withdrew a couple of steps into the crowd, which put her directly in front of Ben. Then she turned to look at him. She showed no surprise at finding him there. “Good morning.”

“If you say so.”

“You don’t think it is?”

He frowned. “Whether it’s good or not isn’t relevant.”

“It’s always relevant. Will your morning be worse if your father loses?”

“He won’t lose.”

Over Vestara’s shoulder, Ben saw the racers as they returned to the starting line. Luke was clearly drawing on the Force and gaining ground—but so was Halliava. The Dathomiri woman stayed a good two meters ahead of Luke and crossed the finish line first. The audience erupted into cheers.

Vestara smiled. “So. Better? Worse?”

“The same.” Ben struggled not to show the irritation he was feeling. “I’m not here to watch the races. I’m here to talk to you—”

“—without my adoptive mother seeing—”

“—about your pack of lies from last night.”

“Oh. What did you think of them?”

“So you admit you were lying to us, to Olianne?”

“Happily. Come on, let’s watch the long race.” She turned and moved back to the front of the crowd.

Feeling awkward, Ben followed, pushing himself up to the front beside her. “What are you actually doing here?”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Vestara gave Ben a scornful look. “You haven’t told me which of my statements were lies.”

“They all were.”

“No. First, my name. Vestara Khai. A lie?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t care. If Vestara’s not your name, it’s a convenient tag. Anytime I say ‘Vestara,’ my father will know who I mean.”

She nodded. “That’s a good point. And an even better dodging of my demand. So, what was my next lie?”

Ben thought back to the previous night’s conversation. “You denied being a Sith.”

“No, I said that I had
been
a Sith, and that I was now of the Raining Leaves.”

“You’re still a Sith.”

“From a certain point of view, perhaps. But by the laws of the Raining Leaves, I am not. So, no lie. What’s next?”

The athletes participating in the long race were lining up. Luke and Halliava were among them. The blaster sounded and they began to run, their pace somewhat less ferocious than in the short race.

“You said you wouldn’t talk about your friends and family because it would get them hurt.”

“Another truth. You certainly want to hurt them. Where, exactly, is my pack of lies?”

“You just
admitted
they were a pack of lies.”

“Perhaps I lied.”

Ben found himself gritting his teeth. Her smart-mouthed evasions were really getting on his nerves. He wondered what Luke would have done if he, Ben, had ever—

The realization that he’d given his father precisely the same sort of responses on innumerable occasions hit Ben like cold water in his face.

Above the sound of onlookers cheering, he heard Vestara laugh at him.

“You lied about where you crashed.” Ben knew this was true; he put the confidence he felt into his voice.

She considered, her head tilted to one side. “You know, I think you’re right. I did.”

“Where did you crash?”

“Oh, I’m too good a pilot. I’ve never crashed in my life.”

“Another lie.”

She laughed again. Then she pointed. “Your father’s doing quite well.”

She was correct. Again, Luke and Halliava were at the head of the racing pack. They were first to reach the starting line and round the post there. They headed back toward the far post, another lap completed.

Vestara looked contemplative. “These are a fine people, Ben. I think my kin could learn from them. Would you prefer that not happen?”

“I’d prefer that the Sith not learn anything except how not to be Sith.”

“And what have you learned from me?”

He considered. “The Jedi have a saying.
The future is always in motion
. Sometimes it’s said garbled because of one eccentric old Master.
From you, I calculate that the Sith equivalent is
The truth is always in motion.”

“Interesting. And if I say,
I hope your father wins
, am I telling the truth, lying, or just aiming at a moving target?”

Ben shook his head and turned away.

L
UKE WON THAT RACE, COMING IN METERS AHEAD OF
H
ALLIAVA, WHO
in turn was meters ahead of the third-place finisher. Halliava was less than half Luke’s age, but his ability to draw on the Force at a consistent level clearly surpassed hers, and he raced across the finish line, his pace undiminished, to the cheers of the onlookers.