Inheritance


33.

"Veer north-east," I instruct the taciturn pilot of this creaking planetary security ice-speeder. The man obligingly alters our trajectory, his doughty companion scanning the horizons with a pair of high power 'noculars.

We'll find them, sooner or later. I'm confident of it. I only hope we find all or most of them in one piece, especially the brash Skywalker boy. After all the scrapes from which Kenobi has saved his apprentice, I would rather my first attempt at doing the same not end in disaster. It's not a point of personal pride so much as a concern for Kenobi: I'd like him to see that the Order, and the Council, have not abandoned him to his task without hope of aid or support. I feel a personal responsibility in the matter.

And he trusts me. Blast it! Kenobi has a way of insinuating himself into others' affections, just as he wriggled his way through that cave fissure. As a young Padawan, he had that stubborn gundark Jinn wrapped around his little finger in a matter of months, though the old rebel would have denied it to his dying day. Even Yoda can be fairly accused of a special liking for Obi-Wan, which explains why the ancient master is so seemingly harsh in his edicts and reprimands. I can see through that by now. And I seem to have fallen into the same trap myself. I'm anxious about Skywalker, on his master's behalf. Fierfek. I'm growing soft in my old age.

"Something over the next ridge – minus two degrees," the scout reports, still peering through the optical enhancers. I exhale; that something might be our missing expedition.

Kenobi had some cheek to ask me what dark visions I experienced in that cave. Qui-Gon must have been lax about such points of discipline, probably outright inviting both familiarity and debate - even occasional disrespect, if it was veiled thickly enough in wit. I knew him well. And he raised his last Padawan with a strong hand of authority he would never have tolerated from the Council relative to his own person, and yet also with a sly indulgence better suited to a doting grandfather than a Master of the Order. I'll admit it seems to have worked: Force knows Kenobi turned out far better than Jinn's other Padawan, the one who Turned and left the Order young to embrace hereditary wealth, and later the lust for sheer power. So there might be something to be said for bending established tradition to suit individual cases.

Though it's still dangerous.

"Looks like a crash site," the eager security officer informs us, adjusting his macronoculars' focus. "Yes – might be a hover train. But there aren't any life forms, just a dead tadon."

"They might be beneath the wreckage," I supply. If the Padawan has any sense, he will have taken shelter in the most obvious location. He's been trained in basic survival techniques, and he hails from a harsh world. The pilot swerves round a projecting ridge of stone and speeds onward.

Kenobi's question was relevant, however. I'm relieved he didn't press for an answer. Because in the jabuur-weki's presence I encountered a perfect mirror of inmost dread. The thing is a golem fashioned of fear and memory, of anger and pain. I've studied such things – in theory, in the sterile fortress of abstract knowledge. A vergence is indeed capable of producing illusions – mirages of an almost substantial intensity. The Dark works in mysterious ways, just as the Light does. And this jabuur-weki…. It is the form of the Feorians' collective fears, their racial memories of loss and oppression and confusion and despair. It was given shape by their presence, given life by that cave.

In a way, the jabuur-weki has indeed followed them here… and in a way, it was always here on Gola waiting.

And now it is greater, for the fears of two Jedi have been woven into its shadowy nimbus, threaded into its shifting pattern. It would be arrogant and foolish to presume that the creature – for a knot of energy or Force-projection is still a kind of creature – was destroyed when the crystals were damaged. That whole cave glittered with ithyll, and I felt the Dark still centered there, a black hole in the Force.

To unmake the vergence, we would have to obliterate that entire cave. And that poses its own set of problems.

The speeder comes to a skidding halt, strewing a fine dusting of ice over the frost-slicked form of a mangled tram. The other two in our convoy halt a short distance away, waiting upon our signal. I take one glance at the wreck and know that this vehicle will never run again. It is now a mere scrap-pile rusting in the tundra. A ring of hungry predators scatters at our noisy arrival, and then creeps forward again, their steaming jaws as blood-spattered as the tadon corpse lying nearby. The leaders warily return to their prize, while sentinels watch us with hollow orange eyes.

"Skywalker!" My voice cuts across the wind.

A stir of motion beneath the wreckage, and here is the missing Padawan's fair head emerging from the shadows. The band of predators growls and moves in, eager to make another kill. I raise a hand, pressing into their minds that we are dominant, not to be trifled with. All but the alpha slink away – and he is easily convinced to follow his kin when my saber blade leaps from its hilt.

"Master Windu?" the boy calls. He seems…hesitant to approach. I have the distinct impression he was expecting somebody else, and I am not a suitable replacement.

Too bad. "Get out of there," I order him. "Where are the other Feorians?"

"Where's Master Obi-Wan?" the boy demands.

As usual, no sense of protocol or propriety. His first priority is to report on the condition of any survivors, or to direct our attention to unknown dangers. On a mission, personal concerns come second, third, or never. "Where are the Feorians?" I repeat, scowling down on him.

And blast it if the little scamp doesn't scowl right back up at me. I would swear that exact expression on his impudent face has been passed down generation to generation in Jinn's teaching line, like some kind of star-forsaken family heirloom. It's provoking.

But before I can issue any censure, a dozen or so of the bedraggled younger tribesmen haul themselves from beneath the ice-crusted tram corpse. They look singularly sullen, and half-frozen. But – thank the Force- they appear to be more or less unharmed. I'll credit both the wreck and the lack of acute injury to Skywalker's skill – paradoxically, it takes a master pilot to handle a collision so beautifully. Not that I'll ever utter such praise in the boy's hearing; approbation of his recklessness is the last thing he needs. The planetary security officers round up the stragglers and chivvy them into their vehicles' passenger compartments without much trouble- Yonso's incendiary spirit seems to have been temporarily doused by his recent misadventures. The only one not slumped and shuffling is Skywalker himself.

"Where's Master Obi-Wan?" he demands yet again, steeling his nerve to address me boldly. A potent blend of alarm and suspicion swirls in the Force between us. "Why didn't he come with you? Is he okay?"

So. Our resident Chosen One is already so attuned to the Force that he can sense his master's distress at such distance? I suppose I should not be surprised. It's the attachment underlying his question that is far more worrisome… but none of us is wholly immune from that temptation. "He will be." A terse answer will have to suffice; the speeders' drives are already revving, ready to carry us back to the relative warmth and safety of the Cultural Reservation. "Now get on board."

In another minute, we have left the defunct hover-train behind. Our craft's whining drive intakes and the Feorain's combined mutterings drown out the possibility of further conversation with my young charge.

That's just as well. I have much to think about.