Star Wars: Rogue Planet (23 page)

Personally Obi-Wan found ritual a bore. Jedi training was remarkably free from it—only the greatest moments were so marked.

When conversation with Anakin lagged, Jabitha worked intricate geometric puzzles from a small lamina box she carried in her cloak. When she placed the box on the bench of the boat, Anakin noticed that a corner of the box fastened to the lamina of the bench. And when she finished a puzzle, the pieces re-formed into new shapes. She would never have to work the same puzzle twice.

Communication, coordination, constant touch—these people had harnessed a marvelous network of living creatures that seemed, all of them, intimately related, like a huge family.

How much more disturbing it must have been, then, for literally half the family to die of disease! Or to face the destruction caused by whatever energies had gouged the planet to bedrock along the equator.

Perhaps this journey was devious not because of a misplaced sense of ritual, but because of fear.

Y
our ship has arrived at the northern plateau,” Captain Kett told Sienar. “We’ve received a laser beacon signal from Ke Daiv himself. The protocol droid has established its credentials and presented him. He is awaiting transport to Middle Distance.”

Kett preceded the commander down the bright corridor leading to the
Admiral Korvin
’s shuttle bay.

Sienar nodded absently at the news. He was about to inspect the squadron. If Ke Daiv failed to buy a Sekotan ship, the next step would be all too Tarkinish: a show of power diplomacy at close quarters.

Sienar briefly gave in to a vision where he traded one Republic Dreadnought for all the ships in his squadron.
Not like you to prefer the large and impressive. Tarkin’s thinking getting to you? Not sure Ke Daiv will succeed? Subtlety will win this day. You have what you need
.

He was confident he could make what he had seem a very tangible threat, under the circumstances.
Something has burned them already. Once burned, perhaps twice cowed
.

Unless they’ve faced an even greater threat … and prevailed
.

But he could not see how that was possible. The planet was only very lightly developed and sparsely settled. It was practically virgin territory. Who would bother to mount a planet-scarring invasion?

They walked up the short ramp into the diminutive shuttle.

Kett absorbed the long pause philosophically. He was growing accustomed to this commander’s style, though he did not like it. Sienar pulled back his long coat and sat in the central chair, with a good view of the slowly precessing star field beyond the shuttle’s long, sloping nose. “Anything more on those gouges?”

“No, sir.”

“Battle scars?” he mused. They had reminded him of snips made along puckered flesh by an expert surgeon.

“I believe they will prove to be geological anomalies,” Kett said.

“Maintain squadron distance and keep all intership communication to a minimum,” Sienar said. “I want
no one
scanning that planet.
We are not here
. Send a specific directive to all ships reminding them of that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re very close,” Sienar said, rubbing his hands on his elbows. They were unaccountably damp with sweat. “I will not tolerate any mistakes.”

A
dim green light dropped like thick syrup from the end of the tunnel. The river had settled into a smooth, gently roiling flow as the cavern widened. Gann guided the boat with a few sure, deft stabs of the pole. They glided behind a natural ledge festooned with green and red tendrils. An open space atop the ledge had been kept clear, and Gann and the two attendants slipped ropes to two older Ferroans in black and gray.

The boat was snugged in and bobbed against the dock’s buffers like an animal nuzzling up an old friendship.

Obi-Wan walked forward and saw that his Padawan had fallen asleep. The long, restless night had finally taken its toll on him. Anakin lay in deep slumber, surrounded by his seed-partners, all still. His face was beautifully blank, brows straight, lips parted in slow and shallow breath, a simple and profound work of living art. Jabitha sat near his head, her hand brushing at the boy’s silky hair, and looked up at Obi-Wan, with her lower lip between her teeth.

“He’s very pretty,” she said. “Should we just let him sleep? There’s time.”

Anakin slept like a baby in the girl’s presence. That was significant. Obi-Wan was well aware of the boy’s frequent nightmares. He seemed much younger, asleep. Obi-Wan could easily bring back in memory the nine-year-old who had become his apprentice, now grown two hand spans taller—the same pleasant broad features, the nose a little larger.

He misses the female. Thracia Cho Leem knew that
.

Obi-Wan reached out, then hesitated. He felt a strong urge not to wake the boy, to let him sleep like this forever, to forever anticipate a great adventure, forever dream of personal triumph and joy. This feeling held too much sentiment and weakness to be allowed, but he allowed it nevertheless.
This must be how a father feels, looking down on his son, worried about an uncertain future
, Obi-Wan thought.
I would hate to see him fail. But I would hate far more to lose this boy. I would almost rather freeze time here, and freeze myself with it, than face that
.

Someone familiar seemed to stand at his shoulder, and lost in this un-Jedi emotion, self-critically, wonderingly, Obi-Wan murmured, “He is no more special than any other child, is he?”

Like a whisper, in reply, “To you, he is. And now
you know
.”

Obi-Wan swung about and saw Gann approaching. The voice had not been Gann’s.

“Time to move on,” Gann said, searching Obi-Wan’s drawn and startled face. “Something wrong?”

“No.” With a small shiver, Obi-Wan gripped Anakin’s shoulder and gave him a single gentle shake. Anakin, as always, came from deep sleep to instant alertness. His
seed-partners stirred and reattached themselves to his tunic and pants.

Obi-Wan’s seeds crawled up to his shoulders and chest, and together, master and apprentice climbed out of the long boat. Gann and Jabitha followed.

“I dreamed I was with Qui-Gon,” Anakin said. “He was teaching me something … I forget what.” The boy smiled and stretched his arms. “He said to tell you hello. He said you’re so hard to talk to.” Anakin ran for the ramp and stepped up onto the ledge of stone.

Obi-Wan stood as if stunned by a blow, then set his jaw and followed his Padawan.

Drums and the music of plucked strings drifted down the shaft. Behind this music came a number of deep male voices engaged in a strong, grunting chant.

“They’re waiting,” Gann said anxiously. “The forging is about to begin!”

Jabitha walked in step beside Anakin. “Are you excited?” she said.

“Why should I be?” he asked with bravado.

“Because you’re the youngest client ever,” she said. “And because if you succeed, your ship may be the best ever made.”

“All right,” Anakin said, taking a deep breath. “That’s pretty exciting.”

Jabitha gave him a broad smile and put her arm around his shoulders. Anakin’s face stiffened in youthful dignity, and Obi-Wan detected a flush on his cheeks, even in the dim light. As they climbed, they passed two choruses of Ferroan men, all holding small drums and stringed allutas. Lit by electric torches, they chanted, their voices following the party of four all the way to the top of the shaft.

“Aren’t they grand?” Jabitha said.

“If you think so,” Anakin said.

T
his is the head of the factory valley,” Gann said as they reached the top of the last long flight of steps.

Anakin’s extra brace of seed-partners felt particularly heavy after the climb. Jabitha had run ahead, reaching the top before they did, and now rejoined them, her face wreathed in a smile.

Anakin looked up at the high, arching branches of boras densely interlaced over a hundred meters overhead, forming the roof of an immense hall. Sunlight filtered through the thick canopy, casting a dreamlike, green-tinted light over a causeway of stones. The causeway extended for several kilometers between straight walls comprised of long, close-packed, octagonal columns of lava.

Tumbled brown boulders had been caught in these walls before they solidified, interrupting the regular fence-post arrangements. Some of the boulders, as big as Anakin’s room in the Temple, had cracked open, revealing hollows in which brilliant orange and green crystals were packed as tight as needles in Shmi’s knitting
cushion. All along the walls, thick black tendrils striped with red thrust up between the regular, octagonal basalt paving stones of the causeway, pushing them aside, and reaching for dozens of meters to join with the trunks of the boras. Smaller green-striped tendrils forked from the big ones and curled within the hollow boulders, as if resting before some final effort.

The air beneath the canopy was dense and moist, blood-temperature, not easy to breathe. It was filled with thick, sweet smells—flowers and cakes, wine and ale, and an intense undertone of soil.

“The stones were here before we arrived,” Jabitha said, face solemn in the green-cast gloom. “And the boras were here, as well. Just last year, Father made a new rule: When the factory begins its work, the boras hide what we’re making, in case anyone should catch us by surprise.”

“Your father is a brilliant man,” Gann said solemnly. Obi-Wan again noted Gann’s pallor when they talked about the recent past.

A sound like giant horns blew down between the stone walls, followed by great warm blasts of thicker, moister air. Above, the massive trunks of the boras twisted and shivered, and the arching branches stirred and rustled with a sound like many hissing voices. Fragments of cast-off boras skin showered down upon the causeway.

Their seed-partners shivered violently.

“They can’t wait much longer,” Gann said.

Anakin could not believe he was actually here. Had he dreamed this place, that it seemed so familiar? With every step, he felt as if he were two people, one who had been here before, who knew all this so well, and a young boy born on another world far, far away. He was not sure from moment to moment who was foremost, who did his walking and thinking. He looked at Obi-Wan and
for a moment could not remember who the man was, walking beside Gann, wearing a Sekotan ritual robe.

But Anakin bore down and drew these selves together, using Jedi discipline to sharpen and unify his consciousness, and to unify and bring to order all those ranks of thought below consciousness.

All but the lowest and most private layer, on the edge of nonself. It was here that this other lurked with its vague, dark, and separate memories.

Anakin decided that now was no time to report this anomaly to his master. But he was interrupted. What looked like large red, black, and green insects marched along the causeway toward them. Their bodies were wide and flat, with three legs on each side and a seventh, central leg front and center. Two long, gray, thornlike spurs thrust up from beside the central leg. They seemed to have been born to carry heavy cargo.