Beyond the Last Illusion
Chapter 7
Dawn broke early, painting the sky brilliant shades of lavender and orange. Satine stirred fretfully, untwisting the thin but effective thermal sheet and levering herself upright one stiff, sore limb at a time. The ashes of the fire were damp with morning dew, and only a few lonely bird calls punctuated the hanging silence. She was alone in the small clearing.
Poking at the fire's cold remains with a branch, and tossing a self-light capsule onto the heap of raw tinder she had gather, she gazed through a gap in the sparse trees. There lay the broken escape pod, and the dark ploughed-out trail of earth behind it. Obi Wan had insisted that they remain within comm. distance of the pod, hoping that Qui Gon would be able to send a signal through the long distance transceiver. If he could not do so – if he could not contact them - they might be stranded here for some time.
The thought was unnerving.
She prowled away from the fire and the trampled earth which demarcated their makeshift camp. The Jedi must be nearby; he would have retreated a short distance to meditate, or to work through some esoteric physical exercise, or simply to make a reconnaissance of the area. She padded silently through the soft undergrowth, uphill a short way, listening for the sound of a lightsaber humming in the cold air or for the rustle of branches or leaves. Her foot crunched against something small and hard. Leaning down in curiosity, she retrieved the exoskeleton of an enormous insect. It easily exceeded her fist in size. Armored plates covered a jointed body, with ten or twelve legs to either side. A narrow head set with crushing mandibles and a tail terminating in a crooked tip polished the monstrosity off. Some other creature had gnawed at it, hollowing out the armor until it was a harmless and empty shell. But the sheer size of the dead thing in her hand set her to shivering.
Closing her fingers around this gruesome discovery, she proceeded further uphill. The land crested and changed; she had reached the top of the rise, and now looked down into a valley below. A building sat in the hollow of the valley – a set of buildings, really, dome-topped like the poisonous mushrooms she had been told never to eat in the wild. Mist settled primly about the fortress' walls and base, making it seem to float on a cloud.
"You're up early," a soft voice said behind her.
Starting so badly that she dropped the dead insect to the ground, Satine spun around. "There you are," she sputtered, lamely.
Obi Wan used the Force to flick the exoskeleton into his own hand. He peered at it grimly. "Breakfast?"
"You Jedi pride yourselves on not being picky," she retorted. "I hope you don't mind it cold and uncooked."
"I've had worse," he remarked, still turning the thing over in his hand. "This is a …venomite, I think. I saw one once, in a biology tutorial. Master Shantu said they live in swarms of ten thousand or so."
Satine did not ask who Master Shantu was. "It was quite alone," she insisted.
But he did not look convinced. "They are relatives of the firebeetle," he said, in the dry academic tone he used to mask any personal emotion. "Only more venomous. Which explains the name." Then he smiled and tossed the thing out over the valley in a long arc. It plummeted into the treeline below. "Do you recognize that compound down there?" he asked, abruptly changing the topic. This meant that the venomite discovery had touched a nerve, Satine noted. She was coming to know him quite well.
"No," she admitted, gazing down at the simple, squat architecture. "What is it?"
"It's B'Omarr style," he mused. "Probably not inhabited. The monks are harmless enough, anyway. They spend their lives trying to escape the shackles of bodily existence."
"You sound as though you disapprove," she countered. "I would think such asceticism would be familiar to you, as a Jedi."
He raised his eyebrows. "We also believe in the simplest path to a goal. Master Windu once said that if one wishes to throw off the chains of bodily existence, there is no need to spend thirty years doing it…it's a simple matter of jumping off a cliff or –"
"Stop," Satine commanded, irked by his levity. "Even to jest about such things is to show irreverence for life. You Jedi deal in death too lightly for my taste."
He turned away, looking at the distant B'Omarr castle, or monastery, or abandoned ruins. "I didn't kill that bounty hunter on the ship," he said after a moment. "though likely I should have."
She understood. He had held back for her sake, as a conscious bow to her pacifist beliefs. But he strongly suspected that the act had been unwise, that the relentless bounty hunters were even now pursuing them…
"We're safe," she assured him. "Stop worrying."
His sarcastic reply was cut short by a ping from the comlink. "Master!" he exclaimed, in evident relief, thumbing the device to transmit mode.
Qui Gon Jinn's voice came through garbled by static. "I've downloaded the pod's coordinates from this link," he said. "But I don't have a mobile amplifier. Stay put."
"We will," Obi Wan promised. "I'm tired of running around."
Qui Gon unwired his comlink from the public comm. hub and wedged the loose ends of circuitry back into their panel as best he could. It had required a small act of vandalism to get his transmission through effectively, but the situation left him little choice. Noting that the longitude of Obi Wan's position was halfway across the continent, he grimaced. His next task would be to acquire a fast transport, for nothing.
Fortunately he had plenty of experience in wheeling and dealing – and on occasion, outright swindling.
It didn't take long to find a gambling establishment. The sun was just setting on this city – presumably the largest city on planet, since it contained the only major medcenter – and the holoboards and flashing nighttime lights were beginning to transform the downtown sector. The first two casinos turned him away at the door because his tattered and filthy clothing did not meet dress code expectations, but he was admitted freely to the last – a boisterous establishment styling itself "The Brain Jar."
Chuckling inwardly at this bit of insouciance – a reference to the B'Omarr monks' bizarre retirement habits – he entered the already crowded interior. On worlds where the economy suffered, and people could only dream of better living conditions, gambling often took firm root. Pelion was no exception. Humans and others eagerly pursued games of chance and the card tables were full.
He found a large table near the back of the room, where a circle of half-drunken patrons played sabaac. Waiting until the last round was finished and the curreny and IOU slips had been divvied up, Qui Gon slipped in and sat down for the next hand. A tall shaggy Whiphid grunted something on his right, and slammed a fifty credit piece on the table. With a sigh, Qui Gon emptied his money pouch. Fifty credits. He would be obliged to win this round just to stay in play. Ah, well. He trusted in the Force and his luck – though there was no such thing – and his skill. After all, he was somewhat skilled at sabaac.
When he won the first hand, as expected, the Whiphid grunted something else and slammed another fifty credits down. Like bees attracted to rich pollen, others drifted toward the table, fascinated by the high stakes. Soon there were ten players, and a whole gaggle of onlookers. Somebody offered the Jedi a drink. He waved it away; he needed to concentrate. The dealer slid his cards across the table, and the game began again.