Armistice


Scene 53

Obi-Wan stood to receive the newcomer, reflexively tightening mental defenses even before the inevitable tendril of Force energy was extended to prod at his shields.

Time had not been so kind to Ky Shinshee as to, say, the perrenially dashing Garen Muln. Well into his forties, Ky looked at least a decade older than he was. Silver touched his temples not as the laurels of hard-won experience, but as the scar of long endurance. His skin had a sallow tinge to it, his face more lines upon than should be there yet, his posture the shadow of a stoop. His dark eyes, however, still harbored smouldering ashes, twin braziers whose blackened incense had not yet been consumed.

"Master Kenobi," he said, the slight emphasis hinting at a suppressed leer.

"You know one another," Altis observed, in surprise.

Ky rolled grimy shirt sleeves up and dipped his head in the Jedi master's direction. "Obi-Wan and I had the dubious privilege of growing up together in the Temple. We weren't that many years apart. But that's water under the bridge, isn't it? Only one of us was perfect enough to remain in the Order."

"Much time has indeed passed," the subject of Ky's disdain replied. Neither man sat.

"And what brings the glorious Negotiator to my humble doorstep?" Shinshee spat. "I've pavilions to set up- more wounded are headed this way on transports. I've real work to do."

"I'm sure you have," Obi-Wan retorted. "As have I. Tell me, Ky, what did you do to the cloning templates on Kamino? Something to do with a blood sample extracted from a Force-sensitive clone."

The accused man blanched. "I don't have to talk to you," he snarled, turning on his heel.

"Ky." Altis' stern remonstrance brought him up short. "I will not tolerate disrespect. Especially between two children of the Light. Answer the question- you are here as my guest, and you recall the terms of your promise to me, I hope."

These words proved efficacious, if not welcome. Scowling, Shinshee turned back to his interrogator. "I did what I had to do." He cast a pleading glance at Altis, a look in which regret and hope for absolution were blended.

Obi-Wan bristled. "Nearly a thousand men are already dead. What in Force's name did you do, Ky?"

There was a stunned silence. "Dead?"

ALtis interposed himself between the tense pair. "Sit, you young fools. And let us delve into this matter without acrimony. Clearly there has been a …miscarriage of good intentions."

Ky sullenly sank onto a chair, eyeing his unexpected visitor warily, as a cornered foxill might glare at the slavering hounds outside its hole. "Dead?" he repeated. "This is some kind of trick, Kenobi. You always were a devious barve."

The younger man's eyes narrowed. " I am not he who sabotaged a biogenetic laboratory and caused countless living beings to suffer irreversible harm."

"I don't believe you. They – they weren't supposed to die! They were supposed to, to wake up! To live. Free. In communion with the Force. Out of your grip!"

"What are you saying?" Altis demanded, grimly. "I fear you have not been entirely honest with me."

"He never said anything about dying! They were supposed to be… it was supposed to cure them of Force blindness!"

"Who is he?" Obi-Wan demanded.

"There is no cure for Force blindness," Altis reminded him. "You should know better."

"Who is he?" the other repeated, rising from his place. Ky followed him to his feet.

"An old man. A wise old man."

"Dooku?"

"Not that pompous tyrant! Do you take me for a fool, Kenobi? Just because I was exiled from my rightful home, cast out to find my own way, I am not a helpless infant. This was a man like no other I have ever met… except you, Master Altis."

The silver haired Jedi gave a wry snort, unflattered by the comparison to such an ambiguous exemplar.

"Where did you meet this old man? What did he say to you?"

Djinn Altis laid a hand on his guest's shoulder. "I agreed to an interview, not an interrogation."

Ky glowered at his former colleague. "On one of the moons of Bogden. He gave me something – a vial of blood platelets in a bio-suspension solution. Midichlorians, do you understand?"

"They cannot be isolated," Obi_Wan snapped. "You were deceived. "What do you know?" Both hands clenching convulsively, Ky closed the distance between them to that occupied by a hot breath. "The Order has no monopoly on knowledge of the Force. There used to be others, others who had arts and ways –"

"Sith!" his interlocutor snarled. "Come to your senses!"

But Shinshee 's bark of laughter was bitter with scorn. "Everything outside your precious orthodoxy is Dark, isn't it, Kenobi? You'll be hung on the rope of your own sanctimony someday, mark my words. I took that vial, and I found a use for it. Spliced the hibernating cells into active ones taken from a mild Force-sensitive with the same genetic code – do you have any idea what the likelihood of finding such a person is? It was meant to be I tell you! And introduced them into the last conditioning template. What would you do, Obi-Wan, if the entire clone army woke up one morning and could feel as we can? They wouldn't take orders; they wouldn't fight! This war would end in an instant. "

"You've gone mad."

"Peace is not madness."

"But genocide is!" Obi-Wan brushed aside Altis' restraining hand. "And that is what you have committed, in your insufferable arrogance!"

"I have forged an armistice!" Ky ranted. "What have you done in all these years, Master Jedi, but shed a tidal wave of blood? Well? The stain will never be cleansed from your soul, not if you immolate your conscience in the magma pits of Mustafar!"

"Enough!" Djinn Altis roared, in a voice like condemning thunder. He pushed himself bodily between them.

"Yes. Enough," Ky hissed, turning on his heel and departing without a word. The pressure door slid closed tartly behind him.

"That man is a vile traitor," Obi-Wan quietly observed.

"That man is a wounded creature, and under my protection," the senior Jedi retorted. "You have had your interview. Now go in peace or stay in peace, but do not make further trouble here. What is done is done. "

"Not yet." There was yet a chance; as Anakin was so fond of asserting, if it can be broken it can be fixed. "I must take my leave, Master. I have a rendezvous on the moons of Bogden."

Altis held out a hand. "I cannot stop you from pursuing your own path of folly. But I have kept my word, and so I trust you will keep yours."

Obi-Wan nodded tersely. He was honor bound to return. "As the Force wills."

They parted company in a doubly agitated mood.