Seekers (by Cathy Pauline)

Chapter 7

As if from a long distance, Qui-Gon heard Tomas and Ki-Erin talking.

"...was afraid something like this would happen. I tried to warn him..."

"What's wrong?" the girl asked.

"He extended too far -- farther than he could ever have gone on his own strength. If only he had been content for knowledge of him -- but no. He sent a part of himself to Obi-Wan, to be with him, and never fully returned. You saw how he was distracted after..."

"Especially after the second time," affirmed Ki-Erin. "So now that we've left the nephrolite, past his strength to keep contact with it..."

"His soul is split in two."

There was silence for a moment. It occurred to Qui-Gon that it was him they were speaking of. He was finding it difficult to think.

"Will he ever be whole again?" Ki-Erin asked, horrified.

"I hope it's not too late -- that if he can come to himself while we're still here --"

"Should we go back to the surface, then?"

No! We need to go on!

"Hold on... did you see him stirring?"

"I didn't see, Master, I wasn't looking."

"Qui-Gon, wake up. Answer me."

Tomas...

"Qui-Gon, we can't go on. We need you to come back to us."

"Is he --"

"He's conscious, at least partially. He hears what we're saying, and he's trying to answer."

"Why won't he wake up?"

"He won't until he decides to be fully present, here. Do you understand that, you great foolish boonta? You're as stubborn as you were when we were children! You've got to leave the boy and come back to your body where you can do some good! Come on, man!"

Hearing Tomas so angry and anxious was something of a shock to Qui-Gon, even half-gone as he was. He struggled to wake, to gather and center himself. He was horrified to find that no matter how he tried, he could not make himself whole.

Tomas, I can't. I don't know how.

"You've got to."

"Can he still feel the part of him that's with Obi-Wan?"

"Good thinking, Padawan! Can you still sense him, Qui-Gon?"

Remembering how earlier he had followed their connection in the Force, Qui-Gon relaxed, easily finding the thread and following it back to his Padawan. The boy lay on his stomach, unclothed and sweating, asleep in the hot sun. He was chained to the boulder beside him by the collar around his neck. His skin was badly lacerated, the cuts sealed with fleshbinding tape. Qui-Gon wanted nothing more than to free him, to have him safe beside him.

But that, of course, was the basis of his problem. Tomas was right. He had let his anxiety for Obi-Wan lead him to be careless with the power that had let him find the boy. Now he had to leave him, completely put him from his mind, in order to be whole again himself.

I'm coming for you. Hold on, Padawan.

Qui-Gon focused all of his being on his purpose: to find and rescue Obi-Wan, and to bring Xanatos to justice. Slowly he became aware of his body, slumped uncomfortably in the starship seat. He stirred, waking fully, and heard his friend sigh deeply.

"I am sorry, Tomas. I was a careless fool. I should have listened to you."

"I should have spoken up when I began to see what was happening."

Qui-Gon put a hand on Tomas' arm. "Thank you for bringing me back."

"Are you all right now?"

Qui-Gon breathed deeply, straightening in his seat, bringing himself to balance and focus. He felt whole once more. He nodded. "I believe so."

Ki-Erin's eyes were wide watching him. "We'll go slowly from the system until you're certain," she said.

"Thank you Ki-Erin," said Qui-Gon, smiling gently. The girl shook her head, with a lopsided grin, almost inciting him to laughter with her chiding look.

*****

Master Yoda was with Tahl when they made the connection.

"I have some good news and some bad news," said Tahl immediately. "The good news is that there is a star system along the line of the coordinates you sent me earlier. The fourth planet in that system is inhabited: it's called Lansar. It has little surface water, and most of the land is desert, with little economic value. Once it was colonized by humans, but several generations ago the climate changed there, enough to make farming much more difficult. Now the humans live in a few small enclaves, a few of them in the remaining cities. Mostly the planet is controlled by the original inhabitants -- the Mozelle, a nomadic people who live in tribes. When the colonists were more numerous, the nomads were driven to the worst land. When the climate turned hotter and dryer, they waged war on the remaining colonists, and for the most part defeated them. Most human inhabitants of Lansar are now slaves of the Mozelle."

Tomas nodded thoughtfully. Qui-Gon spoke up: "You said that Lansar is mostly desert. Is any of it red and rocky desert?"

Tahl raised one eyebrow. "Yes. Large sections of Lansar's soil have a high iron content. There's more that I learned though, Qui-Gon. About five years ago, a small company called Starways took over Lansar's largest city. They are tolerated because they employ many of the local Mozelle, and because they pump water from the ground that they allow the locals to take freely. Starways demolished what was left of the city, and set up a resort and gambling center. All the practices that the Republic forbids or controls are rumored to take place there -- slavery, smuggling, gambling, prostitution, the sale of black-market weapons and drugs... One of the biggest draws is the Palace: an enormous combined hotel and arena where sentient slaves are set against each other in dangerous contests -- with gambling on who will win, of course. I was able to trace the ownership of Starways. I'm certain that it's a front company for Offworld."

After a short silence, as the three Jedi absorbed this information, Ki-Erin spoke up.

"And was that your bad news?"

"No, Ki-Erin." Tahl shook her head, sadly. "My bad news is that Lansar is clear on the other side of the Rim from you. It will take you seven days in hyperspace to get there from where you are now."

Tomas looked up. "This ship doesn't carry seven days of fuel."

Master Yoda spoke for the first time. "Come back to the Temple, you must." Qui-Gon looked sharply at him as if in protest, but Yoda ignored him. "Not far from your path it is, and refuel here, you may. Also, much to speak of, we have. Of nephrolite, the Council must learn more."

Tomas nodded. "We'll be on our way as soon as we sign off, then."

"I can transmit this information on Lansar to you now," said Tahl.

"Go ahead," Qui-Gon confirmed, keying his datapad to receive the transmission.

"Expect you we will, in four days," said Master Yoda, looking at Qui-Gon. "Do not delay ."

"We will be there, Master," said Qui-Gon.

The tiny Jedi Master nodded, and as the data transmission was finished, they closed the communication.

"Seven days," said Tomas, shaking his head.

"So far," said Qui-Gon.

Tomas snorted. "So far that you extended yourself, through the nephrolite!"

*****

Obi-Wan woke at midday, stiff and sore, his throat parched and swollen. He reached around to the shady side of the boulder, and, finding two freshly filled water bottles, opened one and drank. It was difficult to maintain the discipline to sip slowly, he was so thirsty.

When he had drunk his fill he sat up against the boulder and stretched his tired muscles. The skin of his back felt tight and dry from lying in one position in the sun. He lay down again, on his back this time, and sank back into sleep.

Night fell with its play of breezes. Obi-Wan finally felt alert and rested once more. He sat by his rock, back straight, waiting for Sitaris to come. He hadn't long to wait.

This time, when he had unfastened the chain, Sitaris set him to make a circuit of the camp. Obi-Wan ran the extra distance gladly, happy for the freedom of movement. When he returned to Sitaris he was surprised to see that there were two circles, one blue and one red; and where last night the ring around him had simply marked a space in the dirt, tonight the circles floated above the dirt by twenty centimeters; and they were disks -- probably force fields -- not simple rings. Both were three meters across, and subdivided into wedges and sub-circles.

In silence Sitaris handed him a kazaba and watched him put it on. At Sitaris' direction, he stepped onto the blue force-field.

Sitaris took a whip from the crate. This whip was different than the one he had used the night before, Obi-Wan noticed. It had controls on the handle, and instead of being constructed from cannibalized steel cable, it seemed to be made of thousands of tiny overlapping rings.

"This whip is made to interface with the force field on which you are standing," explained Sitaris. He pushed a small switch on the handle, and red light illumined the entire length of it. "If the tip -- only the very tip -- of this whip touches a section of the force field, that section will disappear. Do not step off the force field, or fall through it." Sitaris turned, and stepped onto the red disk. "The whip will also give you a shock if it touches you," he added.

The game began again: but Obi-Wan was prepared. It was good that he knew what to expect, because Sitaris did not start slowly with the whip this time. He began immediately with quick snaps, twisting the cable expertly so that Obi-Wan must use all his skill to avoid it.

But there was more. With nearly every flick, Sitaris was able to cancel out one of the sections of the blue force field. Obi-Wan was quickly losing safe places to put his feet. He began to see that he would have to do something to prevent the disk from disappearing altogether. When the end of the whip snapped toward a large ring around the center, he deliberately tripped across the tip to prevent it touching.

The pain of the metal end whacking his shin was nothing to the sting of its charge. Obi-Wan breathed in sharply, hopping across the disk, barely avoiding falling through one of the gaps. The next flick of the whip caught him square on the chest, however, and threw him over the edge to the ground.

The collar activated. He collapsed, his muscles twitching, immobilized until Sitaris stopped the current. He struggled to his feet. Sitaris had stepped off his circle and was standing before him.

"Tell me what you must do to stay on the circle."

It took a moment for Obi-Wan to catch his breath and calm his body. He used the time to gather his thoughts, and when he was able to stand straight again, he spoke as Sitaris had told him: the first time he had been permitted to speak in five days.

"The sting of the whip is painful but does not affect movement or strength. Deflect the tip when I can on parts of me that won't be damaged easily by the metal of the whip, like my hips and thighs."

"Good. Up again."

They returned to their positions. The blue circle on which Obi-Wan stood had been restored to full solidity. When the whip came at him again, Obi-Wan turned his body into where he predicted the tip would be to deflect it. It was difficult to focus over the constant pain; difficult to track the movement of the whip and determine where it was aimed. Only ten minutes later Sitaris was succeeding in making holes in the blue force field on every other strike. Ten minutes after that, Obi-Wan fell through.

Sitaris had him up again, once more on a whole disk, as soon as he could scramble to his feet. But the pain was wearing him down, and though he was learning quickly, he was also tiring, and soon fell through yet again. This time Sitaris left him alone to rest and eat, sitting on the restored blue disk above the ground.

He felt weary and morose. He was tired of the constant pain, tired of being constrained and made to play in others' games. He was sick with having to hold himself in, for no reason he could discern. For a brief moment he considered giving up, refusing to cooperate; how much worse could they punish him, than this? It could be a great deal worse, thought Obi-Wan grimly, remembering Xanatos' cruel smile. Sitaris was hard and cold, but at least he was not cruel.

Which left him wondering how to do better at the game, to satisfy Sitaris. In his Temple training, they used lightsabers at low power, so they stung when coming into contact with a body. He was not unused to physical pain during training. The whips, however: their sting was far more intense than he was accustomed to, and on his bare skin instead of on tunics and trousers. More than that, the only way to succeed at this game was to deliberately take the pain, rather than avoid it.

Still: it was only a matter of intensity. He barely noticed the sting of being hit in lightsaber practice, because he was so focused on what he was doing. If he could learn to hold his focus better, he would be better able to shut out the pain. And the better I can focus, he told himself, the more the Force is with me: it will help me to know what to do, to stop the whip.

*****

Sitaris was pleased with Obi-Wan when he chained him to the rock again at dawn. The boy could tell, though Sitaris said nothing. He wondered whether he should be glad at the big man's pleasure, or anxious. Still: he was happy himself at his own success. He had learned to focus and live with the pain. After his midnight rest, Sitaris had not been able to dislodge him from the disk at all, though the man had eventually riddled it with holes.

That night, when Obi-Wan stepped on to the blue disk, Sitaris surprised him by handing him a whip. This one had blue markings and a blue tip, unlike the one Sitaris had used. It did not, however, glow blue, and would not conduct a shock.

"Strike each section of the red disk with the tip," Sitaris told him. "Make it disappear."

It took the boy a while to get the hang of snapping the whip. It was not an easy weapon to maneuver. And once he had started to learn the feel of snapping it, he had to learn to aim it. It wasn't until just before the midnight break that he was able to strike the red sections of force-field with any regularity: about once every ten tries. Still, he was improving steadily. By dawn he was able to strike even the smallest sections after only one or two tries.

For another day he rested and meditated, keeping his mind and body limber in captivity. That night he was given the whip again. The difference this time was that there was a droid hanging above the red disk. It wasn't much of a droid: like the training droids at the Temple, it had sensors all over its surface, and little else besides repulsors to hold it above the ground. Unlike the Temple training droids, it was long and slender: a rod hanging perpendicular to the ground. The Temple droids were tiny spheres.

His task, again, was to strike the sections of the red disk away with the whip. The challenge, tonight, was that the rod-shaped droid would move to prevent him. For the first hour, he was completely unsuccessful. But, with a few hints from Sitaris, he was soon striking more quickly and accurately than ever. With practice, he began to see how Sitaris had made the whip twist and dance, and he experimented, trying out new moves, spinning the whip over and around the droid, confusing its sensors and knocking it about. Sitaris sat cross-legged on the ground and watched him, and gave occasional advice. When night ended, he was surprised at how much he had enjoyed the training, and all through the next day he dreamed of it: the weight in his hands, the constantly shifting balance of the whip as he spun the end, the ease with which he was learning to shift its momentum.

More than anything else, Obi-Wan was surprised at how quickly he was adapting to living in the present. He no longer tried to think ahead: he had accepted that he was trapped, at least for the time being, and felt no further desire to test the limits set upon him. Memories made him almost unbearably homesick, so he avoided dwelling on the past, on thoughts of the people he cared about. Instead he focused on where he was: the feel of the evening breeze on his skin; the lazy warmth of the red rocks in the sunshine; starlight on the desert; the sounds and sense of life around him. The pleasure of running, his feet bare on the hard-baked soil, after a day of resting in the sun. Pride in his strength and grace. And even this, he must admit: pride at surprising and pleasing Sitaris with his quickness in the training.

He thinks of me as no more than a particularly clever pet, he reminded himself. He is training me. I am an apt learner. There is nothing more to his pleasure than this.

Still, he felt at peace with Sitaris. At least, he wished him no ill.

*****

He woke as the light fell, as was becoming his habit. Sitaris was just approaching. He stood, leaning against the rock, eager to run again.

"Tonight we play for real," Sitaris told him as he unchained him. He sounded almost eager himself, though his expression was as blank as ever. "Stay within fifty meters of this point, and in my line of sight. Do not enter the tent. You must come back to me by fifteen minutes from now."

Obi-Wan set off running immediately. Fifteen minutes of freedom seemed a luxury. He ran in a wide circle, jumping rocks and grasses; stopped to investigate a lizard's hole he had noticed from his daytime boulder. All too soon his time was up; he ran to stand before Sitaris, cutting as close to the deadline as he could guess it without going over the limit. Sitaris was just finishing the night's preparations, and handed the kazaba to him without a word, pulling off his tunic and sandals while Obi-Wan wrapped himself.

The red disk was empty tonight. Obi-Wan took his place on the blue force-field when Sitaris indicated he should do so. The tall man handed him the blue whip, then took the red one in hand and stepped up on the red disk himself.

"Tonight we fight as they fight at the Palace. The rules are simple: do not leave the circle. The first to leave his circle, or to fall from it, loses the contest. Use the switch at the bottom of your whip's handle to activate it. Are you ready?"

Obi-Wan reached down to push the switch. His whip hummed to life, blue along its entire length. Looking up, he saw Sitaris' whip now glowing brightly red. He nodded once.

"Then begin."

Sitaris' first strike came quick and direct, to the front of the blue circle. Obi-Wan knocked it aside with his hip, at the same time using the twist of his body to impart a deft spin to his own strike, twisting back at the last moment to flick the tip in a new direction. Sitaris had seen it coming, however, and blocked it; at the same time sweeping his whip up and over Obi-Wan to strike on the far side of the circle. Obi-Wan blocked it with the handle of his whip as he swept the end in and over: a simple move, that Sitaris easily blocked, but it set him up for a quick snap to the side as he stepped to block Sitaris' next strike. He scored the first successful strike, and a small wedge of the red circle disappeared. Sitaris usually blank expression was curving into a wide grin.

And so it went. Sitaris gave no quarter, and expected none. He scored the next two strikes; Obi-Wan sacrificed yet another small wedge in order to gain a sure strike against one of Sitaris' larger rings. He was no stranger to the use of feints and reversals, and he knew how to keep his cool in a fight, to strategize and watch his opponent for clues of his intent. And the Force was with him: he trusted his instincts and let them guide him. Against this, Sitaris clearly had far more experience, both with the weapons they were using, and with strategies particular to this contest.

It was a long fight. An hour after they had begun, they were still at it, still striking steadily, dancing across the wide gaps in their force fields. Then Sitaris feinted to the back of the blue disk, snapping the whip around at the last moment to catch Obi-Wan around one ankle, the end wrapping quickly around his leg twice before Sitaris yanked and he fell to the ground.

He was surprised when the collar did not activate, as it had always done before. Sitaris was stepping down from his disk, clearly exhilarated. "That was well done!" he said. "At the Palace, be aware that you will experience intense pain when you fall, like that generated by your collar. But I saw no need for that tonight." He was chuckling as he walked to the generator to reset the fields. Obi-Wan stepped out of the center of his circle to wait, letting his heart slow and his muscles recover, wondering at the change in Sitaris' manner. "You have challenged me as I have not been challenged in years! And you a stripling, barely more than a child! But you're not ready yet, no -- not until you can defeat me." He fiddled with the equipment, and the disks were whole once more. "Sit in the center," he ordered him brusquely, though still grinning.

As Obi-Wan settled himself cross-legged on the blue force-field, Sitaris fetched him water and two of the sweet bars, taking the blue whip. "Rest in the circle," he told him. "You know the routine. I'll be back in half an hour." He walked back to the tent, leaving Obi-Wan alone.

Obi-Wan thought about Sitaris as he ate. Obi-Wan had thought him cold and pitiless when he first arrived, but now he saw him differently: disciplined and professional. He was a trainer, and like the trainers at the Temple, he was strict and demanding. But where the Jedi insisted on inner discipline, and fostered it with high expectations and gentle guidance, Sitaris imposed discipline with punishment and threats. Still, Sitaris did not seem to want to punish him: he was pleased when Obi-Wan obeyed him and did his best. Could Obi-Wan use that to his advantage? He felt certain that Sitaris liked him. The man had already made one exception for him tonight, turning off the collar for when he fell. Would he make another?

Sitaris was returning, striding across the hard earth with purposeful strides. Obi-Wan stood. He would do his best to please the man, and take what opportunities were afforded him.

Once more they began their dance. Obi-Wan remembered how Sitaris had used the whip to catch his ankle, and took every opportunity to practice that technique. It cost him several lost force-field segments while his opponent lost none, but after a dozen tries he was able to hook Sitaris' wrist, pulling him off balance and out of his rhythm, and make two unhindered strikes against the largest rings. Satisfied, he let Sitaris occupy him for a time with strikes and counterstrikes, taking two small wedges against two lost. Then, seeing Sitaris leaning away from one foot, he caught the man exactly as he himself had been caught: wrapping his ankle and pulling him into a fall. The red disk was still mostly whole, and Sitaris was able to catch himself and roll to his feet, but not before Obi-Wan had taken the center of his circle and a large wedge. Sitaris laughed aloud and came after him twice as quickly as before. Obi-Wan was equal to this and fended him off. For a time neither scored any strikes. Then, with a twist that sent the red whip spinning in a tight spiral, Sitaris entangled the blue whip and pulled it from Obi-Wan's grasp.

"We'll end this game here," he told Obi-Wan, "though at the Palace you would be required to stay on the disk until you fell through, on the chance that your opponent would misstep first. I'd rather we spent our time with proper fights, than cat-and-mouse games." He went to reset the disks, having gestured to Obi-Wan to step down, while the boy considered the irony: that he could have retrieved the whip with the Force if he wanted. But this was not the time or place to play that trump.

"It was clever of you to use my trick against me. Usually I only try that when my opponent's disk is nearly gone, because it's a difficult maneuver, and you can lose a lot of ground when you try it and fail. You managed it well, for only a bit of practice." He indicated that Obi-Wan should take his place again, and returned to the red disk. "Entanglement, now, that's a risky maneuver. If your timing is off, you can find yourself losing your own whip, instead of taking the opponent's. Try it now: I've set the force field so you won't lose any segments. Turn off the charge." So saying, he flicked the switch at the base of his whip, so the red light winked out. Obi-Wan did the same.

Sitaris swung his whip toward Obi-Wan, aiming for the force-field as usual, though no segments disappeared. On Obi-Wan's first few dozen tries, his whip missed the red one entirely: his spiral was not tight enough. Then, once he had mastered how to flick his wrist properly, he kept losing his whip when Sitaris snapped it away from him before he could take the red one. But Sitaris only returned the blue whip to him. After an hour of such practice, Obi-Wan was able to take the red whip successfully about once every three times, while he lost it about as often, and both kept their whips the rest of the attempts.

"Good enough," said Sitaris. "It's a technique of last resort. Most of your opponents won't be able to defend against it as well as I can, but enough have practiced it that you shouldn't risk trying unless you're losing badly." He allowed Obi-Wan to rest on the circle, giving him water to drink, while he reset the circles once more, and had a drink himself. Then they began again.

Obi-Wan was improving rapidly. Each match, he held Sitaris off for longer; was quicker to take the red force field apart. But as Obi-Wan improved, Sitaris matched him: Obi-Wan realized that the man had been holding back in his own skill to keep the matches more even. He wondered: how good is Sitaris really? But it was not until the sky lightened in the hour before dawn that he found out. It was that final match, when Obi-Wan was striking faster, with more control than ever, that he realized he had pushed past the point that Sitaris could best him: that his strikes were pushing Sitaris' abilities to the limit: that he was now the better fighter. With that realization he tasted success. Almost lazily, he distracted Sitaris with a series of blindingly quick feints and strikes, taking several segments of the disk. Then he enticed Sitaris into the most whole area of the red disk -- where he had left one large segment purposefully -- with a feint to the front of that segment; and, with a flick and twist of his hand, he curved the tip of the whip behind Sitaris and took the segment from under him as he was about to land on it. The man could not stop his fall, then, to the earth. He stood on the bare ground beneath the near-empty disk, and shook his head, grinning.

"I have never seen anyone learn so quickly, so thoroughly," he said. He stepped away from the remainder of the red force field and walked to the generator to shut it down, then took the whips and put them away, taking up the crate and indicating that Obi-Wan should follow him to the boulder where he spent his days. Obi-Wan wrestled with himself as he returned the kazaba and allowed Sitaris to chain him: should he try to speak? What should he say?

Sitaris pulled a flat disk of sun blocking cream from the crate; as he had every morning since he arrived, Obi-Wan turned and knelt so Sitaris could rub it into his back. Watching with his peripheral vision, he saw an openness to Sitaris' face that he had never seen before.

"When you fight at the Palace, you must not show all your skill at once. Play to your opponent. Keep him guessing, keep him overconfident. They will pit you against the least skilled players first; if you are to last through to the end, you must keep the other players off balance. Their trainers will be watching you, to determine your style, your weaknesses: don't give them anything more to see than you have to."

Sitaris had never spoken to him like this in the daytime before. Obi-Wan opened his mouth to ask about the Palace, but was forestalled.

"Soon your owner will return for you. I never believed him when he said five days would be sufficient to train you, but he paid well enough for me to overlook it. Now I know better. I wish I had the money to buy you myself!"

The words exploded from Obi-Wan in his shock and anger: "Xanatos is not -- not --" He grabbed at the collar in anguish and sprawled to the ground. Still he held on to his voice: "No! He's not!"

"Calm down, boy, and be quiet!"

Obi-Wan stopped yelling, and the pain immediately subsided. He burst into angry sobs and tried to ignore Sitaris, who was rubbing his back and legs and speaking in a soothing voice: Like I'm some half-broken equus he's trying to tame! He thought angrily. The indignity of it only infuriated him more. He covered his ears, but was not able to stop his hearing.

"Now, lad, you must not struggle so in your heart. The gods have put you in this place: whether to punish or test you I do not know, but fighting them will bring you nothing but ill luck. Perhaps it was your pride as brought you to this: by the sun, you are as proud and fierce as a wildcat!" Sitaris' voice was filled with admiration. "As was I, when I was bonded: nine, ten years old? Probably the same as you were. And I struggled, as you do now, for years, with the collar. My owner was strict, and he taught me much, and trained me to my full strength himself. By the time I was twelve I saw his care for me, and obeyed him gladly, and he did not need to be so fierce to control me." Here Obi-Wan found his anger lessening, horror replacing it. What kind of world had Xanatos brought him to?

Sitaris continued: "You must learn to accept your owner, as I did: then you will learn from him as you did from me: a humble heart accepts the wisdom of the gods and grows to its full strength. The Mozelle taught me so, and left me strong, and with some small wisdom, I hope! When the period of your bondage is done, you too will go free, with the respect of your clan. Come now, boy, how many years do you have left?"

"I don't know," Obi-Wan whispered, breath catching in his throat. "I don't know what you mean."

"The proscribed period of bondage is thirty years for males, twenty for females. Your owner must have told you this at the rituals -- when were you taken?"

Obi-Wan clenched his fists at the memory. "Eleven days ago, Xanatos took me hostage, and kidnapped me from my master."

Sitaris was silent for a long moment. Locked in his own grief, Obi-Wan paid him no mind. When the man spoke again, his voice was once more cold, and hard, and distant: the man was standing now, looking down at him.

"I see. I should have better minded your owner: he told me you would lie if given the chance, and not to let you speak if I could help it. I thought from your behavior that he must have been mistaken, or that perhaps he handled you poorly: it is often true that owners not of the Mozelle are either lax or heavy handed with their bonders. In my pride and pleasure at your skill I have allowed your discipline to slip." Obi-Wan lay frozen in shock, and did not comprehend at first Sitaris' next words: "Get in position for your punishment." He lay still, not knowing what to do, though it was evident something was expected of him. Sitaris sighed. "Three strokes for lying, bonder, and two more for not obeying me immediately. Now kneel and bend your head!"

This time Obi-Wan understood. He rose slowly to his knees. But I'm not lying! He wanted to protest. How could he make Sitaris understand? But he could not: that was the problem. Whatever he tried to say would only make the situation worse. He put his face to his knees; covered his head with his hands; hatred for Xanatos grew in his heart.

Smack!

It was the hand-made whip of twisted cable that Sitaris had pulled from the crate, and was using against him. The muscles of his back screamed protest.

Smack!

Obi-Wan gasped. Let it pass, he told himself. Let it flow past and beyond. Hatred and anger: they will flow over and through and past and I will be cleansed of them. The words brought little comfort. With every strike his anger grew. He hid his face and hid his anger, and it grew white hot and his muscles tensed with it, and the strikes hurt ever more, and still his anger grew.

Five strikes: Sitaris did not hold back his strength for any of them. When he was done, he left in silence. Alone, Obi-wan struggled with his anger, his blood hot where it ran along his back, to pool on the bare earth around him. Master, where are you? By the stars, Qui-Gon, I need you now!

Half an hour after Sitaris left him, the man returned. With the medkit he had brought, he cleaned and taped the wounds he had made in the boy's back. Obi-Wan had not moved: he still huddled over his knees: his anger had burned itself out, leaving him with a feeling of hopelessness. Seeing he had not yet used the sun-blocking cream, Sitaris pushed him over and finished coating him. He did not speak, and Obi-Wan lay limp and unresisting. He could not bring himself to care.