On Distant Shores (II)
Desperation drives the weak to folly, and the strong to victory. – Mandalorian aphorism
Yervei Adah's home was a simple hut constructed on a raised foundation of wooden planks. The walls were fashioned of a flexible fibrous material, translucent in the light filtering through the trees at the hill's summit. A single movable panel divided the interior space into two halves: on one side was set a thin mattress, while on the other there was a low table covered in plant specimens, and a single meditation pad. A few chests and cabinets lined the furthest wall. Besides these, a fire pit sunk in the center of the smooth floor was the only furnishing.
"Leave your shoes at the door," Adah commanded, entering ahead of the others. "Here. Lay him on the hami. That is what the locals call their sleeping mats," he explained.
"Then there are people here besides you?" Satine asked, following Qui Gon into the small dwelling.
"A Nautolan community," Adah supplied. "It is well that you landed on this side of the island. Your presence might have disturbed them. They are not a star-faring people." He helped Qui Gon lower his Padawan onto the hard bed.
"Glee Anselm is a major center of trade," Satine pointed out, confused.
"This is not Glee Anselm," came the acerbic reply. "You. Qui Gon Jinn. This man is your apprentice. You take full responsibility for what occurs because of my efforts, for I am only doing this to appease you."
"I accept responsibility," the tall Jedi replied gravely. "Do what you are able."
Adah crouched beside the wounded Padawan for a long while, eyes closed. Qui Gon knelt nearby, solemnly watching, while Satine sat a short distance apart, her eyes resting expectantly on the small group of silent Jedi.
Adah placed his hands on the young Jedi's back again, fingers splayed. His face grew taut with concentration; and then he sighed heavily. "If I pull the probes forward or backward, it will kill him. And there is no way to untangle the microfilaments. They have bonded to the tissue. There is only one thing possible. And I am certain that will kill him, also."
"What is this last possibility?" Qui Gon asked, impatiently.
The ancient Jedi gave him a withering look."I could break both filaments and probes into fine dust," he stated. "You understand. This is a Force-helaing technique called chlore –rui: the blood is a river. The principle is simple enough. Harmful substances can be reduced to a sub-cellular level. The body then launches at attack, disposing of them as though they were toxins or micro-organisms, by way of an acute fever. But in one already so damaged – it would be foolish."
"Then folly is our only choice. Will you do this?"
Adah shook his head, patently displeased. "Very well," he grumbled. "But both of you – leave. Your presence is disturbing. I must concentrate without your ill-disciplined emotions clouding the Force."
Satine drew herself up, a sharp remonstration forming on her lips, but Qui Gon held out a warning hand and drew her away, out the door and back into the shade of the giant yabanna stalks and aoli trees. Once a stone's throw away from Adah's dwelling, the Jedi master drew in a deep lungful of cool, moist air. Beside him, the Duchess gazed unseeing at the ragged skyline, the rich tropical growth. Her anxiety twisted palpably through the Force.
"No matter the outcome, my lady, I will continue to act in your best interest," Qui Gon promised her. "This in no way changes that mandate."
Her clear blue-grey eyes slid sideways to regard him with disdain. "You Jedi are heartless," she whispered, and strode away, back down the narrow beaten path which marked the winding trail from Adah's home to the shoreline.
Sensing no danger in the area, Qui Gon let her go. He sighed and hooked two thumbs through his belt, considering. Another problem - one which they could not evade, like the bounty hunters that hounded their steps. This problem they carried with them, constantly, and it grew deeper roots by the day. When the time came….but no. That was the future. This was the present moment. Shifting restlessly, he brushed aside the problem and set off into the forest himself, deliberately choosing a path in the opposite direction from that which the distraught Duchess had taken, one which descended the far side of the ridge.
He had climbed down no further than halfway, unable to see what might lie at the foot of the steep hill, when he was nearly barreled down by another figure, running crosswise to the thin downward trail, a supple bow in one hand and a quiver of long, deadly arrows on his back. The stranger's dozen or so headtails spread out behind him like the plumage of a splendid bird, and his globular opalescent eyes widened in comical surprise as he twisted in midair to avoid trampling Qui Gon.
"Te gorri!" he exclaimed, in a rich musical voice, mouth quirking into an astonished smile as he skidded to a halt and stared at the stranger. "Pelah?" He extended one hand, palm up, then hesitated. "Ah…greetings," he amended, his Basic accented with a deep, lilting tone. "You are…human, yes?"
Qui Gon found himself smiling in return. "And you are Nautolan," he observed.
The Nautolan grinned, displaying dazzling, perfect teeth. He reminded Qui Gon strongly of the Jedi knight Kit Fisto, a character famed for his zesty wit, boundless daring, and appetite for the unknown. "No, no. I am Po Tikkoro. Your name?"
"Qui Gon Jinn," he replied, liking Po Tikkoro immediately. He sensed the quick intelligent mind of the being standing so casually and confidently before him. He felt the spark of a kindred spirit. "I am a visitor here. Do you dwell on this island?"
Po Tikkoro's vibrant smile widened yet further. "Yes, friend. To live in the ocean – for fish that is. Ha ha ha ha!" Hhis laugh was rich, infectious, an invitation to join in the joke. "You live where, though? Another island?"
"So to speak," the Jedi answered. "If you count the stars as islands."
The Nautolan's smile faded – not to displeasure, but to awe and wonder. "You live in the stars? But Ke Adah says there are no gods." He tilted his head to the side, sending the headtails sliding over one muscular shoulder. "Did you tell him where you live?" Again, that sly, jesting undercurrent.
Qui Gon made him a short bow. "I am only a man, like yourself. And Ke Adah is not much one for conversation."
Po Tikkoro broke into another delighted cascade of laughter, and slapped Qui Gon heartily on the shoulder. "You speak truth like a brat-child, Ke Gon Jinn. Come. The others – I will share you to them."
Others? A small Nautolan community dwells here…they would find your presence disturbing. So said Adah. Yet Po Tikkoro here did not seem to find him disturbing in the least. Fascinating, perhaps; but that was something different. "I can come for a short while," he agreed. "I must return soon; my friend is very ill."
Po Tikkorro's mercurial smile faded again. His opaque eyes softened with concern. "Then we shall send him a val-timeon. Come. Come!" He sprang away again, this time down the narrow trail Qui Gon had been following, waving his green arm in a gesture of invitation. The Jedi hesitated but half a second before jogging down the path in his wake.
It is nothing but unreasonable and unjust prejudice which makes people afraid of things that are not warm-blooded like themselves. –spokesman for the Nemoidian Trade Federation, on inter-species relations.
Satine Kryze reached the bottom of the long, wending footpath long before her temper had cooled. It was perhaps imprudent to be so cross with Qui Gon Jinn, when he was her assigned protector, and might very well be her sole companion for the duration of her exile hereon. Yet his….detachment was repugnant to her. It was repugnant because she knew it to be false. She knew his stoic exterior to be a mask of utter hypocrisy. For she had spent many months now with the two Jedi, and she had seen and heard much. She had been witness to their private lives, at least more so than almost any citizen of the galaxy might claim. She had seen anger and worry and pain in Jinn's eyes, all the way from Pelion to these distant shores. She had seen the way he tended to the injured Padawan, seen him smooth a furrowed brow, grasp at a hand clenched tight in pain, heard the soothing words spoken in answer to groaning apologies. She recognized parental love when she saw it. Yet to none of these things would the Jedi admit. It was against their damnable Code, she guessed. Instead, they must torment themselves with denial and silence and outright self-punishment.
She could stomach the act of detachment. It was the denial of any kind of feeling or passion beneath it that so infuriated her. Why say I will do what I must, because there is no emotion in the Force, when one could instead more truly say I will do what I must, even though my heart break? What was so very, very hard difficult about that? Was it too great a demand on their abominable pride?
She stopped at the edge of the white sands. The security shuttle sat a short distance away, the tide now lapping against the bottom of its hull. Glad to be distracted from her brooding thoughts by a pressing practical concern, she removed her boots and rolled her trousers past the knees, tucking the frayed hem of her long overblouse into her belt. The ignition cylinder was in her pocket, thankfully. She could simply move the craft up the beach as far as possible, perhaps set the security shields at low power.
Padding across the damp sand and wading through an ice-cold breaker, she reached the stern of the ship and activated the ramp, lowering it halfway. And then she saw them.
A horde of flat, shining bodies, topped with waving eyestalks. Huge serrated claws hungrily waved in the air, and hard double jointed legs splayed beneath them, scuttling and splashing in the foam of the oncoming waves. Overwrought nerves flashing an image of the venomites on Pelion before her astonished eyes, Satine gasped. She clambered in a childish panic over the open ramp and shut it behind her, cold adrenaline coursing in her veins. She really must get hold of herself. What would Obi Wan say if he could see…?
No. Do not think of that. Do not think of him. What did she care what he thought? Inside the relative safety of the shuttle, she could hear the creatures scraping and clawing at the hull. Their claws pinged against the tritanuim shell, and made a hideous screeching music as they were dragged along the metal curves of the ship's underside. She suffered another moment of irrational dread, now recalling the horrific spider-like B'Omarr monks in their attic….seeming to hear them scraping and hammering at the ship, battering their way in…
Foolish! She chastised herself. She slammed the cylinder into place and brought the major systems online. A moment later, the shuttle lifted off the sand with a soft sucking noise and floated on repulsors, unwieldy beneath her inexpert piloting. It hovered slowly all the way to the top of the beach, one or two determined crustaceans still clinging to its landing gear like fishermen trying to land a whaladon. She could feel their bodies crunch as the ship set down again on dry land, and she shuddered. A glance through the viewport revealed their compatriots now surging up the warm sand in eager pursuit, and she wasted no time in exiting the way she had come, dashing back up the thin forest path as the things poured over the ship again, scratching and battering at its shining exterior.
Breathless, full of childish terror at some primordial nightmare, she ran barefoot all the way to the summit, as the shadows lengthened and the blue sky deepened to a purple dusk.
There are many reasons why I have never taken a Padawan. And foremost among them are all the flaws of all the students with whom I have ever been acquainted. –Yervei Adah, in official correspondence with the Jedi Council.
Obi Wan lay watching the textured ceiling and the translucent, papery walls of the unfamiliar room slowly spin, as though this haven were a boat set adrift upon a lazy stream. He wondered vaguely whether they would find a waterfall ahead and tumble to their destruction upon rocks below….and then he wondered – a difficult thought to formulate – if perhaps the room was not actually moving. Perhaps it was he who was spinning…He tried to shift his arms and legs, but he still could not feel them. Then doubt seized his mind: did he even still possess his limbs? An image of the dreadful B'Omarr monks on Pelion flashed before his eyes, and he cried out in horror.
"Quiet…quiet…don't be a fool, now," an old man's voice murmured.
The old man had a distinctive, odd presence in the Force. He was luminous, though, and that meant he was Jedi. Obi Wan turned his head a little to see him, and the slight motion set the room to blurring and spinning again. "I hate flying," he groaned.
"It's delirium, boy, not flying. Now be quiet," the old man commanded. He had a white, grizzled beard that reached past his waist, and a brown, weather-creased face. Two sharp black eyes flanked a thin nose surmounted by a high, deeply furrowed brow and balding skull. He knelt beside the thin mattress, in meditation posture. There was something ….resentful… in his mood.
"Qui Gon?" the young Jedi rasped, trying unsuccessfully to piece together what had happened between Pelion and here, wherever this was. The room was unbearably hot; waves of fire washed over him again and again, stealing his own warmth, stripping it away until he shivered with cold.
The old man snorted. "I sent him away. Now listen to me. You haven't much time, so don't waste it thinking. Prepare yourself instead."
Obi Wan frowned. Not much time? For what? He shivered in the freezing heat and closed his eyes as the world tilted upside down and then slid sideways, rolling in a sickening spiral. A thought: did the old man mean prepare for death? That must be what he meant. Did the strange being actually intend to kill him? No…. that didn't make sense. He couldn't feel any hostility in his interlocutor, just annoyance and impatience. Maybe the old Jedi misunderstood the situation. "Not dying," he attempted to explain. " The mission."
"Have it your way, you young ass," the white-beard chuffed. "I've done all I can for you. Your friends will be back soon, I have no doubt, wanting their dinner. So I can't stay here debating with you all night."
Debate? What an insufferable grouch the old Jedi was. Obi Wan felt temper flare, a lightning flash in his bleary mind, lending sudden vigor. "Then go to the hells," he muttered, well past self-restraint.
The old man gripped his shoulder hard, cutting into flesh with bony fingers. "If you were not a dying man, that impertinence would earn you a lesson with my saber," he growled.
"You wouldn't last long," the Padawan snipped, gritting his teeth against another wave of vertigo.
Anger flashed across the Force between them. "Neither will you," the ancient one shot back. He laid a cool hand across the young Jedi's forehead, calmly assessing. "No," he decided. "Neither will you." Then he rose and strode out of the room, into the space beyond the partition, leaving a dizzying ripple of irritation in his wake.
Obi Wan scowled at the deepening shadows on the walls. The sun was setting, outside, on whatever world this was. With the dark came the cold…and fire. The agony that had been clamped around his spine for endless hours now seemed to erupt everywhere in his body, a diaspora of pain. He burned and burned with fever and hurt, until the world mercifully spun out and fell into a slow, bottomless night.
