Inheritance
11.
There is something amiss here.
I felt it before we even set down upon Outer Gola's most extensive spaceport docking pad – a slab of cracked duracrete poured with casual indifference to symmetry or evenness, located in the middle of a non-descript stretch of tundra. At this time of year, the ice pockets have all but thawed, revealing intrepid clumps of native flora that have taken shelter beneath them all the long months of winter – hardy flowering things, just peeking out beneath a watery sun, shy of being discovered. Our ship's back thrusters inevitably wilt a good swath of them as the pilot sets down. Alas, that my former master is not here to mourn the passing of these pathetic life forms….
And I find myself mourning in his stead, out of a strange filial piety.
But mourning is the shadow of attachment, of greed. I must be more mindful.
Anakin is still hovering underfoot, seemingly oblivious to the unspoken rules of personal space. One moment this child is dashing headlong into the fetid pits of lower Coruscant, without a backward glance; while the next, he is hanging on my proverbial apron-strings the way Bant used to cling to Master Troon's fur in the crèche. I take a discreet step to the left and backward, but he gravitates in the same direction, a small blond moon determined not to leave its ordained orbit.
But of course, he can feel it too. This place is off-kilter. The Force is disturbed.
And Anakin is very young – all but untrained.
We descend the passenger ship's ramp alone; this is the last destination on its far-flung itinerary, a mere refueling stop at the end of a jagged series of hyperspace jumps. Besides the crew, we are the only ones left aboard the massive vessel; and I doubt the pilots will wait much beyond the time requisite to replenish the fuel cells before they depart again. After all, there is no settlement in sight, not a scrap of building or storehouse beyond the pump-station and its droids, and certainly no spacer's lounge with the customary cantina.
This is the middle of nowhere, by anyone's definition. It makes Mos Espa on Tatooine look like a bustling center of commerce. I glance down at Anakin, trailing behind me a pace, to see what his reaction to this desolate landscape might be. His wide eyes are surveying the empty horizons with an innocent wonder.
"Where are the Feorians, master?" he asks, when we reach the cracked platform. The ship's drives provide ambient warmth, but already the chill air is cutting beneath that artificial balminess. I pull my cloak tighter.
"Eastward, about a hundred klicks," I answer, squinting at the dully-textured rise of hills in that direction. The morning sunshine is painfully bright – reflected on melting ice and in the pale dome of the atmosphere. Tundra and scattered glacial rock outcroppings – nothing more.
Beside me, Master Windu releases a sigh. "Our welcoming committee appears to be late," he observes dryly.
Well. That's not good; but then, it certainly is preferable to a welcoming committee armed with blasters and grenades. Much depends on one's point of view, with respect to such inconveniences.
"I'm cold," my Padawan complains, taking up the litany which he began many hours ago in transit. This could be a very long wait, and I don't fancy being stranded here once the passenger freighter leaves.
"Perhaps the ship has a small ground transport on board," I suggest, though it's doubtful I will be able to convince the crew to let me appropriate it – not without a bit of mind influence, anyway. And that's a touchy subject at the present moment.
"Skywalker," Mace rumbles, withdrawing a pair of macrobinoculars from his belt pouches, "Why don't you scan the horizon- see if you can locate any vehicles coming this way."
The boy eagerly accepts this unnecessary task, and for a moment I wonder why Master Windu has assigned him such a pointless endeavor. After all, we will sense the approach of any incoming craft; and looking for something in the distance does not make it arrive any faster. But Anakin eagerly sets to adjusting the 'noculars to his small face, and then fiddling with the focusing controls. And I have to admit that the ploy keeps him happily occupied and quiet.
And the pleased gleam in Master Windu's dark eyes tells me that this was all he intended, anyway.
I see.
There is more than one way to skin a gundark, particularly when it comes to younglings. I'll remember that, for future use. It's not as though my many years of Jedi training included preparation for this. Diplomacy is one thing; childcare quite another. I'm beginning to cultivate a new and profound respect for the crèche-masters, my own former caretakers not least among them.
Anakin moves to the edge of the solid docking pad, in order to gain an unobstructed view of the eastern ridges. I suspect he might actually be watching some native springers bounding among their slopes, but that keeps him occupied, does it not?
I hate to say it, but… "I have a bad feeling about this," I confide in Master Windu.
He issues no decrees about constraining one's focus to the at-hand. "I feel it, too," he says, in his deep baritone." A moment's consideration, in which he dwells in the Force, inhaling Light with the frost-laden air. "It is good we came," he decides.
I nod. Yes. If there is something wrong here, then it is indeed good that Jedi should stumble upon it. In this star-forsaken wilderness, how many would have the initiative or resources to call halfway across the galaxy for help?
"They're coming! They're coming!" Anakin hollers, as though heralding the advent of some celebrity podracer and his entourage. He trains the macro-nocs on the tiny cloud of approaching dust and watches the grav-sled train meander its way across the intervening plains.
And when the ramshackle conveyance – a sort of bedraggled convoy of salvaged sleds and hover barges – does come to a halt beside the duracrete platform, Anakin is too engrossed in examining its magnetic coupling mechanisms and primitive repulsorlifts to be of any use. I glance at Master Windu, but he seems unconcerned by the boy's distraction. Already more than once, Anakin's inherent mechanical genius has saved us from certain… complications… on a mission; and so, permitting him this moment of curiosity may not be an unwise thing in the end.
The driver of this ingenious and dilapidated contraption is a Feorian. I have not set eyes upon one of his people in five years, since the last time Qui-Gon and I were able to visit them, before they were manipulated by unscrupulous politicians into moving here to their permanent "Cultural Reservation" on Outer Gola. But his drooping posture and haggard face seem even more pathetic than I recall. Surely freedom should not weigh so heavily upon its possessors?
"My lord Jedis," this tall, gangly fellow addresses himself to us. "Sorry, I am, to be so tardy in fetching thee. But the jabbuur-weki struck again last night, and all is in an uproar. There are several more of the empty ones among us, and the village must be purged of evil spirits yet again."
Oh. So it's going to be one of those sort of trips, is it? … Just lovely.
