Part Forty-Five

"I could have hot-wired it, you know."

"I know. We never had to teach you that at Temple."

"The old spacer pilot taught me how. The one who told me about the angels on Iego's moons."

There were no angels on the moons of Iego. There were some very odd beings living on the moons, but nothing like Anakin envisioned when he said the word 'angel.' Obi-Wan, Yoda and his other teachers never told him that there weren't his imagined angels there, wanting to leave him some comforting beliefs in his transitional period. Years passed. At age sixteen, some snip of a Padawan whom Obi-Wan had never liked teased Anakin about his beliefs. Anakin had investigated, found out his 'angels' were mostly malicious and wholly strange, and was miffed at Obi-Wan for one full week for not telling him sooner.

"It was a harmless omission, Anakin. You needed comforting. Sleeping with me until you were twelve told me that. Master Yoda agreed to the deception, since he didn't send you to live in Initiates' Hall."

"I feel foolish, Master."

"Time will lessen that. Time is to blame for many things, but easing mental or physical pain is not one of them. We simply forgot about it as you got older. After all, we're not infallible."

Anakin knew that. Anakin at sixteen was quite withdrawn, though, and could only scowl and splutter internally. All his friends were tactful about it. Only Tru made mention of the incident. "She's a twit, Anakin. Pay her no mind." Anakin hoped that Tru was on the road to recovery by now as he strolled with Obi-Wan to their inn. The glowglobes overhead attracted as many flitterbugs as possible, as well as a humming species of moth. They encountered only three pedestrians on their way back. Two were a Besalisk couple, rare offplanet visitors toting a large wicker basket as they peered into shop windows. Anakin assumed the basket held the couple's family, about to hatch. On a street like this on Coruscant, ethnic diversity would have been the norm; here on Nepsa, it was the exception. He wondered what growing up here would be like.

"It would make you provincial, Anakin. You would be the wide-eyed moisture farmer in a place like Coruscant."

"Yes, I guess I wo---did I ask that out loud?"

"Didn't you?"

"I, I suppose that I did. Huh. Daydreaming. Sorry, Master."

Obi-Wan smiled. "Nerve strain will do that to you." He would have enjoyed a Togorian Terrorizer right now himself, but nothing like that awaited him at their swiftly-approaching inn.

Yeah, Tru's probably better, Anakin consoled himself. Master Ry-Gaul would soon be with him. Masters made Padawans feel better. That was part of their job.

Anakin glanced at his own Master. Under Trow's weak double-moonlight and soft glowglobe's illumination, Obi-Wan's hair resembled the velvety nap in Senator Organa's dress cloak. At least Anakin assumed it was his dress cloak. It was the one that he wore to every Senatorial meeting and social function that Anakin had also attended and it could have been his everyday cloak for all Anakin knew. He wanted to pet the hair, rub it against the grain, do other things with it. How can I start things up with Master? He's thinking about the mission as he always does. Well, maybe not always anymore. Last night's activities flooded his mind and his groin. Down, groin, Anakin chastised it.

They heard the commotion before they rounded the last turn. Many more people than staying there circulated outside the inn, an actual crowd. After dark? In Nepsa? Could demonstrators have found them? Even if they were on the Reps side and not the Seps side, it was a complication. Obi-Wan and Anakin slipped through the throng with Jedi efficiency, looking for the pimply-faced clerk/maitre d' to ask about the brouhaha, when they spotted Kuki slumped at a windowside table, looking weary. Together at a central table sat Strenghis, his Cabinet, and Trokas Qikal.

Obi-Wan wondered what had gone wrong.

The river muttered.

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