LIVING HISTORY

by ardavenport

= = = Part 3

Obi-Wan froze, his mouth open.

"You've been exposed. Even if you don't get a fully developed case of it, you can still carry it. This will stop that. We're going to need that, especially until those idiots running this place give us a real quarantine."

For an irrational moment, Obi-Wan considered refusing, just because he didn't want it. But he could hardly decline a treatment he had just helped inflict on his Master. Walking around Zhenum and his huge needle Obi-Wan slid his robe off and put it down next to Qui-Gon's travel pack. He heard Zhenum coming up behind him, so it was not a complete surprise when the man's hand reached up under his belt and pulled his pants down. But Obi-Wan still went up on his toes when the needle went in.

The liquid squirted in, cool and invasive, into his flesh.

The needle came out again and Zhenum rubbed the spot on his buttock when it had been, but Obi-Wan pulled away, turning around.

"Are there any side effects?"

The healer shrugged.

"Mild fever, lethargy for a few hours. Nothing even close to a primary Serphrada attack, but you might want to lie down for a bit."

Scowling, the Jedi looked toward the other sleeping area at the opposite end of the apartment. He did not want to be so far from Qui-Gon. He walked to the other side of the sleeping platform and after untying his Padawan's lock and putting the band on his wrist, removing his belt pouches and putting his lightsaber down next to the pillow, he lay down. The sleeping platform was large enough for three people to comfortably occupy. There was plenty of room.

Zhenum came around and slapped a scanner on his chest.

"I'll stay a bit just in case there's any reaction. I have to record a some notes on this anyway. And if you're already infected, you'll still get it, but it won't linger as long or be as bad and you won't be contagious."

Obi-Wan wondered why he hadn't said anything about that before injecting him, but he only nodded. He watched Zhenum go back to his medical case, wary that the healer might come back with something to stick up his nose, too. But he did not. Obi-Wan turned to look toward his Master.

On the other side of the sleeping platform, Qui-Gon lay more unconscious than resting, just out of arm's reach from him. Closing his eyes, Obi-Wan extended one hand toward his Master, sliding it over the cool coverings. In the hazy glow of the Force he could feel Qui-Gon's heartbeat. Slow. Steady. Strong. The control and clarity needed to draw on the Force ingrained so deeply in the older man after so many years as a Jedi Knight that it did not need conscious thought.

Relief warmed his thoughts, diminishing the memory of finding his Master ill, struggling to rise, falling and trembling, and frantically running down from the tower for help. It had almost seemed as if his Master was without the Force at all. The wrongness of that moment had pierced him with a deeper fear than he might have felt if facing his own death. He had not sensed that his Master was in danger of dying, but the effects of his illness had made him almost a stranger to him, a condition that he had been desperate to change.

Obi-Wan heard a low hum in the apartment. The lift.

"Mwassil. Z'morn. What are you two doing climbing all the way up here?" Zhenum's voice asked.

"You know the coms don't work up here unless you get special permission. And we didn't want you to have to wait to hear the bad news," a male voice said.

"Oh, no," Zhenum replied. "They're not ordering a quarantine?"

"They are, but just here. They've convinced themselves, since there have only been two cases here and the other four, that this is where the Jedi got it and that limiting access to Naardin will keep it contained," a woman's voice said.

Half-opening his eyes, Obi-Wan looked down his body toward the center of the apartment. Zhenum now stood with two other healers, similarly dressed in purple veils and brown caps. They stood together just outside the boundary of the curving wooden posts.

"How could they come to such a ridiculous decision?" Zhenum demanded angrily. "He obviously was exposed to it at the entry point. If they don't isolate all the Living History Lands that virus could be everywhere in a couple of days."

"Our new Chancellor doesn't want her plans for the big show to be interrupted by anything as insignificant as a health crisis," the man said.

"Idiots," the woman agreed. "But they at least gave us permission to bring in more staff, even though they keep insisting that we won't need them."

"Not so sure of themselves, are they?" Zhenum commented. "Well, these two will have company soon enough."

Obi-Wan closed his eyes when the three healers turned to look.

"Are those the two the Venerates from the Galactic Republic?" the woman asked.

"Yes. The big one's the one who's got the virus. I gave the young one all the contagion prophylaxis. They were together the whole day, so unless he's resistant to it, he'll come down with the serphrada, too."

"What about the big one?" the man asked.

"Pretty typical symptoms. He's got good initial response to the treatment. No reaction. And he's tough. He got to the fresher on his own before I even got up here. He'll be a lot better in another day. But they'll never get this history drama ready in time. Director Tykon is already kicking up a stink about it."

"We saw him on the way up," the man said. "Ugh, I've heard the stories; he's more upset that the History Play might be delayed. And he couldn't stop complaining about this Jedi getting sick and making him late. Didn't mean anything at all that he's a Venerate who came all the way from the Galactic Republic for his show."

"Artists like him are emotional, especially the good ones. And after those idiots didn't call for a full quarantine I think someone should be kicking up a stink," the woman agreed. "Now I saw 'The Stone Walls of Zwaeter'; it was transformative. Got the holo, too. It's not nearly as good as seeing it live, but you should see it."

"Maybe later." Zhenum did not sound enthusiastic. "I've done all I can here. These Jedi can handle one crazy director. They have the authority of the whole Galactic Republic. And the Jedi have got a continuous history line twice as long as this whole planet. That's why they're Venerates," Zhenum told his fellow healers.

"Well, we've given them a poor welcome. Oh, and you can't just leave this one all uncovered like that." The woman's voice approached, her footsteps hurrying toward Obi-Wan. Cloth rustled and then settled over him with hands patting the covering down over his shoulders.

"You can look in on them in the morning, Mwassil," the man's voice said.

"We'll be bulking up for more. And I don't want to climb up all those stairs again," Zhenum agreed.

"It's good exercise for you," Mwassil admonished, her voice moving away.

"Even better exercise for you," the man said back cheerfully.

"Let me get my things and I'll go down with you," Zhenum said.

Obi-Wan remained still while the healers conversed about the stupidity of the management of the Living History Lands. Zhenum's equipment clicked and clinked as they packed the case up. Their voices moved away and finally faded downward, the lift descending. The darkness behind his eyelids went black.

Lifting his head, Obi-Wan only saw reflected lights on the plants from other towers down below, dark shapes and faint, long glints of light on polished wood surfaces. He pushed the cover back and sat up. Feeling the promised lethargy, He did not know if he had a fever, but an uncomfortable pressure pounded in his head. Grasping his lightsaber on the pillow, he stood with only a twinge of dizziness. Fortunately the apartment was only sparsely furnished and the curved wooden pillars stood out as black shapes in the lesser darkness around them.

There was also the Force, but it felt hazy in his mind. His thoughts seemed unwilling to let go of the clutter of what the healers had said about Qui-Gon's illness enough for him to really connect. He used his eyes to find his way and, after bumping the toes of his boots only a few times, made it to the fresher.

Once inside, he found that it was a self contained unit. While the wood-paneled exterior seemed to have been made compatible with the rest of the apartment, the inside was modern and white with no sharp edges and common Galactic symbols on the walls. It even had a modest clothes fresher unit. Putting his lightsaber on a shelf, he relieved himself and looked at his reflection in the mirror as he cleansed his hands. His Padawan's braid, thin and limply hanging from behind his right ear, reached down past his collarbone. His face looked shadowed and pale, the moles on it standing out. He touched a sore spot on his chin, an emerging pimple. He washed his face. Then he carefully checked his chin again. Before they left the Temple, he had trimmed the stray hairs that had started to grow. His skin still felt smooth, but he had a small trimmer in one of his pouches for later.

He picked up his lightsaber, shut off the light, opened the door and leaned on the frame while his eyes adjusted to the dark. He carefully plodded back to the sleeping platform, his energy from earlier in the day had washed away with whatever medications the healer had given him. He sat on the sleeping platform and listlessly began pulling his boots off. He carefully put his lightsaber on the pillow again, within easy reach.

After removing his outer clothes, he lay down, pulled the covering over him. He turned on his side.

Qui-Gon had not moved.

Obi-Wan let go of all his useless speculation of when he might get ill, how they would finish their mission, how many other people would get sick. . . . .

The Force remained hazy and indistinct in the air, but present. When he fell asleep, he could still feel Qui-Gon's heartbeat.

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The night was long. Achingly long and icy cold, the air clean and pure.

Qui-Gon Jinn opened his eyes and saw a dark wooden ceiling vaulting above him - -

- - below him - -

- - turning around him.

He shut his eyes again. Not seeing a reference point to be disoriented from only helped a little with the vertigo.

He was adrift in the middle of a vast tedium, decades long, cold and draining his life away. Warmth was only a memory, too long ago.

Nothing. There was nothing.

But. . . . .

He could still feel the power, the heat of it temptingly within reach, but the desire for it was gone, drowned in sorrow.

He turned his head and saw nothing but gloom in shades of dark gray. But there was. . . . . a presence. A memory.

Obi-Wan.

Qui-Gon's random half-coherent thoughts stopped in confusion. The presence and the memory did not match, clashing in a headache-inducing double image. He floated in the dark, disconnected from anything, until the fragments settled, drifting downward into a familiar reality.

A soft pillow cradled his head. Under him. The curved dark ceiling above no longer seemed to be pressing in on him. And nearby, on the same sleeping surface. . . . .

Obi-Wan.

He only saw a dark outline, recognizable as a head, a familiar profile, and nothing more. But he saw his apprentice's presence like a blue after-image in the Force, quiescent but still pulsing with youth and life. Clear and distinct and familiar.

He slid his arm outward until his fingertips touched warm skin, Obi-Wan's hand.

Qui-Gon knew he was sick, but he would recover. He closed his eyes, a darker shade of dark against the persistent dizziness. It would pass.

In the Force, he could feel Obi-Wan's heart, and his own, beating together.

= = = End Part 3