Chapter 17

Jabba jerked impatiently at her chain. "Girl! I have water for you, girl! Get up!"

Shmi looked listlessly up at him. She vaguely registered the cup in his hand. She swallowed, and her throat was swollen and scratchy, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Eventually the pressure of the collar on her neck dragged her to her feet, and she stood unprotesting as the Hutt's sticky hands and slimy tongue made free with her body. When at length the cup was placed in her hands, she drank, and then dropped again to curl into a huddled ball, wishing only that they would leave her alone.

"Bah!" Jabba spat on her in disgust, but even the slime sliding down the back of her neck failed to provoke a reaction. "This one's no good any more. She was such a feisty thing, too. I hoped she would last a bit longer than usual, but they're all the same. Take her away; put her back in with the other slaves."

Her guards dragged Shmi off. She was stripped of her fancy costume and stuffed into slave rags. She watched in a detached daze, as if it were happening to someone else.

She plodded along through the compound behind her guards. She barely noticed her surroundings until they stopped, and she looked up to recognize the familiar environs of the slave kitchen.

"This used to be one of yours, didn't it?" the guard demanded.

The head cook regarded her in resigned appraisal. "Yes, I suppose. She was a good enough worker, but rebellious. Looks like that may have been beaten out of her, at least." He gestured to a sack of purple roots, and shoved a peeler into Shmi's hands. "Well, get to work, girl."

Automatically Shmi began to peel the roots, which another slave snatched from her as soon as she was finished to chop and dump into the stewpot. The head cook swept away to oversee other matters, and the ordinary buzz of gossip and laughter picked up around Shmi. She had an eerie feeling that she was waking from a dream. She was back exactly where she had started, and nothing had changed, except her. There was no external evidence that the momentous events that had engraved themselves in her heart and memory had ever actually happened.

The fantasy had a bizarre appeal, so she played along with it in her imagination. Today was her first day under her new owner, and she strove with naïve anxiety to please. Mealtime arrived, and hungry slaves lined up. She bore the first bowl of stew from the pot to the serving counter, heart racing.

The stranger at the head of the line was dark haired and quiet. He looked through Shmi without seeing her as he took the bowl of stew and walked away.

Shmi bent to her task and served bowl after bowl. At length she realized she could barely see what she was doing for the tears clouding her eyes, and she swiped at them impatiently with her sleeve.

When it came her turn to eat, she took her bowl and sat among the chatting, laughing slaves. She picked at the stew, but could summon no appetite. When the woman sitting next to her asked if she planned to finish, she shook her head mutely and shoved the bowl over. She rose and made her way back to the deserted kitchen.

A small, sharp knife lay abandoned among vegetable peels and trimmings on the counter. It glinted in the sunlight slanting in from the high windows, attracting Shmi's gaze. She drifted over and stood looking down at it. Gradually she became aware that her heart had begun to race, and her breathing had become quick and shallow.

Surreptitiously she looked around, and seeing no one, she picked up the knife and studied it, considering the possibilities. Just a little pain, insignificant compared to what she'd already suffered, and it could all be over….

Approaching footsteps startled her, and she thrust the knife into her apron pocket. She wanted privacy. She turned reluctantly but inevitably to the door that led out to the courtyard. What better place than there, after all? Amidst the withered brown stems that were all that remained of love and hope that had once shone bright as stars and fresh as raindrops?

A surge of determination, the first real active emotion she'd felt since she'd lost the baby, pushed her into motion. She shoved the door open and slipped through. The brilliant light of the suns dazzled her eyes, and she blinked as she moved purposefully toward the back corner where she and Kern had found a haven together.

As she came closer her steps faltered. Though she knew what she must inevitably see, still she was reluctant to look. She drew the knife forth and took courage from the feel of it, hard in her hand. Staring resolutely ahead, she marched forward.

Finally she could delay no longer, and steeling herself, she looked down at the tumble of rocks at the base of the wall. She drew in her breath in shock and stumbled forward the last few steps, to fall on her knees, the knife tumbling from nerveless fingers.

She reached a trembling hand to touch the soft, starred green carpet that spread before her. Not all the flowers had survived; there were scattered patches as sere and dead as she had imagined. But for the most part the little weeds had thrived even without their daily dose of water, and white and gold blooms tossed their heads in the hot breeze as cheerfully defiant as they had been on the day of her wedding.

Shmi sank to the ground, and all the sorrow she had tried to bury swept up and flooded her. She sobbed, her body shaking uncontrollably.

Kern's words echoed in her heart. It's tougher than it looks. It still clings to life. Something inside it won't give up that easily.

I thought of you, when I saw it. Still alive, still fighting to live, after all it's been through.

"No! You were wrong!" She didn't even realize she'd spoken aloud. "I'm not that strong. I don't want to fight anymore. You didn't understand how awful it would be. You don't know what it feels like…"

She faltered, for that wasn't quite true. Kern had known what it felt like to lose someone he loved. His sister had died by her own hand. He had borne the guilt of giving her the weapon she used. And still he could say those words to her. Still he could value the unquenchable spark of life he had thought he had seen in her.

If anything should happen to me, promise me you won't do anything foolish. You have to take care of yourself and the little one. That's all that matters to me.

"I couldn't take care of him, Kern. I tried, but there was nothing I could do. I can't bear losing him, and you, Kern. I can't. I don't want to…"

The little gold and white flowers danced in silent reproach.

"Do you want me to live like this? Why? What purpose could it possibly serve, to go on, hurting this way? Why, Kern? Why should I have to? Why can't I just come and join you, and our child? I want… I want to…."

Again, the lie in her words stopped her. She threw herself forward and lay among the flowers, breathing in their green fragrance. She didn't want to die. She wanted the pain to stop, but to willingly surrender the life they had all fought so hard to keep seemed suddenly a desecration, a rejection of everything she and Kern had ever believed in.

She wept, shuddering. "I can't do it alone, Kern. I can't face being alone…"

I love you, Shmi. I'll always love you.

For a long time she cried, until she felt drained of all emotion. Then she lay quiet. But eventually she could stay there no longer.

Slowly she pushed herself to her knees. She picked up the knife and tucked it with a shudder into her pocket. She climbed to her feet and looked around.

"Help me, Kern. You'll have to help me, if I'm going to be able to do this."

She turned back toward the door. Probably a beating awaited her, for she'd once again lingered far past time to report back to work.

But for some reason the head cook ignored her tardiness, and merely gestured for her to resume her place. She put the knife back in the drawer where it belonged, and picked up the first of the huge pile of dirty dishes.

The following weeks and months were lonely and difficult for Shmi. Often she wept, alone in her bed at night, back in the same alcove where Kern had joined her and they had shared their love together. Often the days seemed to drag in endless monotony. Often she questioned why she bothered to keep on, and looked with longing at the drawer where the knife rested. But somewhere she found the determination to keep going, to sleep each night and wake up each morning. And gradually, as time passed, it became just a little bit easier.

Eventually she was able to look at those around her and reach out for human contact with them. Irneeto no longer stood guard over the slave quarters at night; he'd been replaced by an ever-changing series of humans and aliens. When Shmi questioned her fellow slaves, they told her he had vanished the same night Shmi and Kern had made their escape. Shmi missed him, but was glad he had given Jabba the slip and not had to endure his wrath. She wished him well, wherever he was. Maybe someday he would be able to return to his home on Mordant after all.

Slowly, painfully, she made a few friends among the other slave women. No one particularly close, but a few she could chat with in line for the 'fresher in the morning, or sit with at mealtime. Even a few who would play sabaac with her, after she scrounged a bit of discarded paper and made herself a deck.

On such foundations she rebuilt her life. It was a pale imitation of what she once had, and far from what she had hoped for, but she was alive, and could smile, and even sometimes laugh, and that would have to be enough. Daily she made her pilgrimage out to the courtyard and the patch of flowers. She sprinkled the libation from her cup, and spoke to Kern about her struggles and successes, and renewed her determination to survive.

At length a certain date arrived. She had been dreading it, and for the week beforehand had become progressively more quiet and withdrawn. Her new friends wisely left her alone, only offering a little quiet reassurance now and then. That morning when she woke, she remembered what this day should have held, and it was as if all her pain was fresh again. When she emerged from her alcove her eyes were red, and the other woman gave her a careful distance, lest her temper, which erupted at rare unpredictable intervals against random targets, should be directed against one of them.

She brought her cup of water out into the courtyard after her meal. She poured it out, and sat silently for a long time watching the flowers. Finally, she spoke.

"Our baby would have been born today, Kern. Or yesterday, or tomorrow – sometime close to now. I miss him, Kern, so much. I so wanted to be a mother. I would have loved it, I think, having a child to hold, to love, to take care of. I dream of it sometimes, even of changing diapers, and cleaning up spit up, and walking with him when he cries and nothing will comfort him. I would have been such a good mother, Kern, and now I'll never get the chance. I feel so… empty…"

She stared blindly into the distance. After a while she shook herself, and returned to the kitchen and her duties.

But that night lying awake in bed, the grief for her lost child swept over her again, and she cupped her hands over the emptiness of her womb that once had been filled, and wept. She longed, with an intensity that twisted her guts in knots, to someday, somehow, experience again the blossoming of life within her, to know again the wonder of love given physical form, to fulfill this time the course which had before been cut cruelly short. Spirit and body wrapped in aching, burning desire, she slipped into sleep.

And she dreamed.

Two robed figures, their faces obscured by deep black hoods, stepped into a round stone room. The walls were smooth polished marble, mottled black inlaid with dark red flames. The room was bare except for a block of white stone in the center, like an altar, or an operating table.

The shorter, broader figure turned to the other, inhumanly tall and slender. "Master, will you tell me now what you intend to do? You have instructed me on the preparations to be made, and I have done all you asked, but to what purpose? You cannot expect me to learn unless you teach me."

"Patience, my apprentice." The taller figure spoke with detached amusement. "I promise, all will be made clear before the night is over. Perhaps even your endless thirst for knowledge of the Dark Side might be quenched, for tonight you will be privileged to assist me in a task greater than any before undertaken."

The apprentice put back his hood, revealing a human face, a man of middle years with a beaked nose and reddish sandy hair. He regarded his master with avid interest. "What task, Master?"

The other paused, tantalizing his apprentice by his silence. But soon he relented, a trace of excitement escaping the careful control he kept over his voice. "Tonight, we call into existence the Sith'ari."

The apprentice's eyes opened wide for a moment, then narrowed, and he frowned. "Master, how is this possible? You have taught me that the Sith'ari is a being foretold by prophecy. How can anything we do influence the time of his coming?"

"This has been my life's work, apprentice, to discover how it might be done. It has led me down strange and twisted paths, into secret depths of the Force where no Sith has ever before ventured. At times I despaired, and thought myself deceived by a fool's quest. But we are not like the Jedi, who sit passively and wait for the coming of their prophesied Chosen One. The Sith have always chosen to forge our own destiny, to pilot with our own hands the ship of our fate, to bend the Force to our own will. So I persevered, and in the end, I triumphed. I know now how it must be done. I have been preparing the proper circumstances for years. And tonight, all will come to fruition. Tonight we will create the being who will rise up and lead the Sith to rule the galaxy!"

"But master, does not the prophecy also say that in the process, he will destroy the Sith?"

The master turned and drew himself up into a forbidding shadow that loomed over his apprentice. "There can be no creation without destruction. Are you afraid?"

The apprentice shrank back. "No, my master."

"Good." The master stepped to the table in the center of the room, and laid his long, slender hands flat on it. His voice took on a remote, sing-song quality. "For that is the heart of the matter. Life feeds on death, and death on life, and only in the collapse of a star can a black hole be born. Somewhere in the galaxy tonight, a female who has been touched by death yearns for life. The Midi-chlorians cluster thick around her, for they crave to fulfill her longing. It is their purpose to create life, and her desire draws them. Not much is needed to open a path for them. In the ordinary course of events, a single sperm cell would be enough. But that would only hold the gap open a moment, enough for a handful of Midi-chlorians to slip across. Occasionally the bridge holds a bit longer, and a few more pour in, enough to give the child created a sensitivity to the Force. But tonight the Midi-chlorians are doomed to fail, and the female will remain barren. Unless we act."

The apprentice's voice remained respectful, but there was an edge of petulance in it. "I don't understand, master. I thought the Dark Side fed on death. How can it be used to create life?"

"Haven't you listened to what I've been telling you? What are death and life but nightside and dayside of the same planet?" The master sighed in frustration. "How can I make this clear to you? You are familiar with the new Master the Jedi have just appointed to their Council?"

"Yes."

"You know that he is renowned among them for creating a new form of lightsaber combat. Vaapad, he calls it."

"I know of it, yes."

"Do you know also what is so revolutionary about it?"

The apprentice bowed his head, a trace of sullenness in his voice. "No, my master."

"This Jedi has learned to tread close to the border between light and dark. There is power there, in the place where they meet. If one dares venture dangerously close, and risk being drawn across that line, one can tap a far greater potential than is found in either light or dark alone. This Jedi has learned a minor variation of that art. But he does not truly understand it; not the way I in my studies have come to."

The apprentice leaned closer. "You will instruct me in this mystery?"

"That is my intention. It shall be your last lesson, for after tonight, you will know all I have to teach you."

The apprentice's eyes lit for the briefest instant with predatory joy, concealed by his meekly bowing head, and quickly veiled. "Thank you, my master." His features once again schooled to obedient interest, he cocked his head. "So, if I understand you correctly, the Sith'ari will be conceived as child? And you do not know where in the galaxy the woman – do you even know of which species? – who will host the dark power is located?"

The master waved a hand. "That is of no consequence."

"But how will we know who he is? How will we find him, to instruct him in his destiny?"

"He will find his way to us. If he is born within the Republic, most likely the Jedi will identify him and bring him to their Temple. Or perhaps we will find him first, and can raise him, as you have done with your pet Zabrak. But even if neither of those things come to pass, such power cannot remain hidden, and in time he will reveal himself."

The apprentice's brows drew together. "The Jedi could claim him? But might he not then become a great enemy?"

The master laughed. "What sweet irony, is it not, that they might nurture their own destruction? But try as they might to direct his heart to the light, they are doomed to fail. He will be a creature of the dark side; he will have no choice but to turn to us. It would be best if it indeed plays out that way, for as I explained, there is great power in the boundary between light and dark, and never more so than in the crossing of it. When he abandons the light to join the dark, he will bring us such power as the Sith have never before controlled."

The apprentice slowly nodded. "I begin to understand, master." He pondered in silence a moment. "And this woman – I do not understand how she was chosen, or how you know tonight is the time she will draw the Midi-chlorians to her."

The master smiled, smugly superior. "Oh, at any given moment, among all the trillions of beings in the galaxy, any number of females are experiencing the proper emotions to make them suitable subjects. Our working will simply locate the one who at that instant happens to be attracting the Midi-chlorians most strongly."

"Ah, I see." Again the apprentice mused over what he had been told. Finally he looked up at his master, an almost innocent eagerness lighting his face. "What will he be like, master?"

"He will be wonderful and terrible, apprentice." The master looked off into the distance, anticipation strong in his voice. "The ranks of the Jedi will fall before him like ripe grain to the harvest. He will bring slaughter to a multitude of worlds, and the dark side will drink deeply of death. With his victims' every cry, the Sith will grow stronger, and their fear and pain will swell our power a thousandfold. It will be a glorious time, my apprentice, the consummation of untold generations of toil. He will lead us to unimaginable heights of power, he will crush the galaxy beneath his heel, and we will hold unchallenged dominion over it forever."

Eyes shining, the apprentice contemplated the vision of the future. "Then let us begin, master."

The master bowed his head in acquiescence. "Let us begin."

He stepped to the doorway, and opened it. "Bring her in."

A servant droid led a child into the room, a slender, pretty, Muun girl, clad in a plain tunic. She followed obediently. When she spied the two cloaked figures, her face lit up, and she ran across the room to clasp the master around the knees. "Adda!" she cried happily.

The master knelt and put an arm around her. "Welcome, dearest."

The girl hugged him. "I missed you, Adda. Will you play with me? Will you show me your pretty red light again?"

"I will." He rose, grasped her beneath the arms and hoisted her up to sit on the stone block. "But first, dearest, wait here a moment, please, while I speak with my friend."

"Yes, Adda." The child swung her legs and beat her heels playfully against the hard stone.

The master stepped back and laid his hand on the apprentice's arm, and together they withdrew to the edge of the room. The apprentice gave up any attempt to hide his confusion. "Who is she, master, and what has she to do with our working tonight?"

"She is its heart, my apprentice." The master turned and gazed at the waiting girl. "She is a child of my own body. Her mother died by my hand in the hour of her birth. I have raised her. I have allowed her to love me, and by this have let myself be drawn perilously close to the boundary where light meets dark."

The apprentice turned to look at the girl. He turned back to his master, breath quickening, focused intently, on the verge of understanding some great truth. "Why, master?" he whispered.

"Because only in this way could I access the power I will need. Only in this way can I tear the veil between life and death open wide enough for the Midi-chlorians to pour across in vast numbers, and create a being powerful enough to bear the destiny of the galaxy. Only by walking close, close to the borderline, and exposing myself to the full temptation of the Light."

The master folded hands that shook just a little before him, and bowed his head. His voice sank to a barely audible whisper. "Only by allowing myself to love her."

He stepped forward to the altar. He extended one hand, and the girl was pushed flat on her back by an invisible force. She gave a cry of surprise, and looked at him in trusting puzzlement. "Adda? What are you doing?"

A lightsaber appeared in his other hand, and blossomed into life, its scarlet glow lighting the girl's face and reflecting in the master's eyes, deep within his hood. He raised it, and held it vertical in the air, hilt up, point down, directly above the girl.

His voice was strained. "Apprentice, do you remember all that I have instructed you, and know what you must do?"

"Yes, master," the apprentice breathed. His face was suffused with a glow of deep wonder. "I understand."

"Good. Now is the time." The master raised his other hand to the lightsaber hilt, and both hands clutched it fiercely tight, trembling.

The apprentice moved to the altar, and placed his hands flat on the stone, on either side of the girl's head. He bowed his head, and closed his eyes in concentration.

For the first time fear dawned in the girl's face, and she cried out. "Adda, I don't like this! I'm scared. Adda, please, help me!"

The master gazed into the child's wide, terrified eyes. The red reflections within the hood vanished as he closed his eyes. He drew a deep breath, and plunged the lightsaber down, plummeting towards the girl's heart.

Across the galaxy, Shmi's body convulsed in pain, and she screamed.