DOWN ON THE FARM
by ardavenport
- Part 1
The Alzidans liked windows, big, landscape-wide windows. It was fairly obvious to Qui-Gon Jinn why they liked them, but he didn't think that beautiful scenery was a sufficient reason for putting them in their med-center. They had them there anyway.
Qui-Gon faced the huge picture window; the swampy flat lands and the hills beyond them were bathed in the orange light from Alzida's huge, primary sun. A padded chin rest and frame immobilized his head. His body lay supported on a slanted medical table with rests for his arms before him.
He heard a click and a whoosh. In his side vision, he could see that the second droid, Em-Four-See, had just finished positioning his apprentice in the bacta tank on the other side of the med-center. He floated in the clear liquid, eyes closed, naked except for the harness and body fittings that supported him and the breathing apparatus on his face.
Obi-Wan Kenobi was also bald, shaved everywhere by the droids, except for the Padawan's braid that drifted in the bacta next to him.
"I shall begin this part of the decontamination. Please remain still, Master Jinn," Em-Four stated in its smooth modulated tones. It was a voice programmed to be comforting and reassuring for its patients. Warmed, white-padded, silver fingers gently grasped his head. Qui-Gon Jinn cared for neither comfort nor care. He merely wished to endure the procedure as silently and quickly as possible and be done with it. Em-Four's skilled fingers began picking through the jelled hair around his left ear. Having no other choice, Qui-Gon stared out the window as the droid worked, making little, slick smacking sounds as it moved up his head.
An enormous moolu had slowly undulated onto the plain below the farm complex. Two smaller ones followed it. A 'small' moolu was at least as big as any of the farm complex buildings. With no limbs, their whole bodies were one great long, fat muscle; they skimmed the swampy plain, feeding on the tasty algae and fungi that grew on the flat lands with a small mouth at the forward end. Dark brown patches spotted the great beasts' hides. The glint of a droid skiff hovered into view, scanning the moolus and the discolorations on them.
A small, white tray moved to Qui-Gon's left and he saw tiny, little moolutee dropped onto it by Em-Four. Their thin black bodies coiled and twisted like animated strings. The tiny little pincers on both ends, their only feature, flexed and grabbed the air before the droid's suction nozzle took them away. Tiny smudges of red blood remained on the white tray before the droid wiped it off and then dropped more wriggling little moolutee on it. Bits of clear gel clung to them.
"They look rather active. Are you sure they're anesthetized?" It was difficult to speak; aside from the numbness, with the frame around his chin he had to move his whole head to just open his mouth even a little bit.
"It is only reflex motion. They are no longer able to attach themselves to you." Em-Four continued its clicking and smacking. "The decontamination will go faster if you refrain from speaking, Master Jinn."
Qui-Gon obliged by not replying and looking away from the tray. Another moolu had moved into the field outside, another moolu with more irregular brown patches of colonies of billions and billions of teaming moolutee clinging to its sides.
The droid continued to click and smack and slurp up the parasites from Qui-Gon's hair. There were also little rustling sounds of flimsiplast as the medical droid covered up its work as it went, preventing any un-captured moolutee from escaping. He couldn't feel anything on his head, but it sounded like the droid was making progress.
The tray moved forward and Qui-Gon saw a new collection of squiggling, bloodstained strings. Their long, little bodies allowed them to burrow into a thick moolu hide, but fortunately they only went as deep as they needed to get their blood meal through much thinner human skin. A few of them had been cut into pieces but even the smallest severed end still flexed its little pincers. A moolutee could regrow itself, whole, from any portion of its body. This was only one of the many ways that they reproduced, so they had to be carefully removed from their hosts, especially prior to treatment for the many welts and bites the moolutees made. Qui-Gon was to be next in the bacta tank and moolutees loved bacta. They could happily multiply and completely fill a bacta tank in a few days if just one piece of one of the parasites got into it.
The tray moved up out of Qui-Gon's field of view, and he once again stared out at the vast orange-hued plain outside. Another moolu had crept into view with a small swarm of farm skimmers buzzing around it. Each skimmer was at least as large as a single passenger space ship, but the huge bulk of the moolu dwarfed them. They hovered and circled before darting in to scrape away at the brown patches on the moolu's sides.
"Under the orange sun,
Produce second to none,
Alzida Farms!
Alzida Farms!"
Qui-Gon shut his eyes, clearing his mind to rid it of that awful song. Like all advertising, it was designed to stay in the mind and even Jedi were not immune to it. Alzida Farms had one of the largest and most visible ad boards in a busy lower level commercial district close to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. One couldn't possibly come and go from the nearest entrance to it without going past those insistent, animated images.
Qui-Gon had to credit Alzida Farms for one thing; their images were accurate. The fields of Alzida outside the med-center windows looked exactly like their advertisements.
"From algae and swamp scum,
Pure and oh, so wholesome,
Alzida Farms!
Alzida Farms!"
Qui-Gon clenched his teeth, which came naturally with his chin fixed in place. There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of verses to that song. Qui-Gon hardly knew more than a few but he begrudged every brain cell occupied by them. Unfortunately, his focus was seriously diminished by the anesthetic. Moolutee were tenacious blood parasites and the only effective way to deliver an anesthetic that would force them to detach was through the blood of their hosts.
Outside, some of the skimmers had gone on to the largest moolu and lightly passed over its surface, mowing long, cleared stretches though the brown patches and flitting away only when the great sluggish beast threatened to roll over on them.
Inside the white-walled med-center, Qui-Gon flexed his fingers without moving from the armrests. Only Qui-Gon's scalp was completely numb. He still had some residual numbness in his body from the initial stage of the decontamination, when the droids had suspended both of them with medical anti-gravs and rapidly skimmed and shaved every moolutee from their bodies from toes to head. The only good things Qui-Gon could say about it was that he couldn't feel anything at the time (that itself being an unpleasant experience for him) and the droids were well programmed.
Obi-Wan had chosen the quickest procedure and had sacrificed his hair except his braid which was easily enough checked for any hidden moolutee; there had been three.
Qui-Gon had refused to have his head and beard shaved. So while his Padawan went to the bacta tank right away, he had to wait while Em-Four picked out the moolutee individually from the long strands of hair that they could hide in. Thankfully his facial hair had not been infested.
Something splashed and Qui-Gon realized that he'd been staring vacantly out at the orange plain and hills for several minutes. He could only see fuzzy whiteness in his side vision, a side effect of the anesthetic. His whole body felt lethargic and strangely distant.
He heard more water, dripping and sloshing. But Em-Four didn't seem to notice. If there was something wet or leaking he thought that they would want to do something about it, especially in a med-center. Only after a few more minutes of staring blankly out the window did he realize what it was.
The droids had taken Obi-Wan out of the tank.
end Part 1