Lineage IV
17.
"Stay here, Obi Wan." Qui Gon held up a warning finger, effectively freezing his Padawan in place. The young Jedi's grave expression deepened into a silent rebuke which the older man ignored. "I'll send a medic your way in a moment."
He lingered another moment to be sure his admonition would be obeyed, and then strode away down the housing unit's drab hall. He found Adi in a small room at the end of the corridor. The Tholothian had laid aside her cloak, and even her headdress. Without the ornamented head covering, Adi Gallia appeared more delicate, the first scattering of grey appearing among the close-cropped curls of her dark hair, her well-carved features drawn into subtle lines of concern. She crouched, eyes closed, beside her Padawan, tending to the young woman's hurts. One of the Ord Fromag medics waited patiently beside her, a curious if stultified look stamped upon his face.
Eventually, Adi opened her eyes, perhaps sensing Qui Gon's patient presence in the doorframe. She stood, drawing the coverlet up over Siri's still form.
"How is she?"
Adi brushed a hand over her apprentice's forehead and nodded to the medic, relinquishing her role and steeping deliberately back. "She will recover. Thank the Force, none of the flechettes penetrated too deeply. But she has lost a great deal of blood. If you had not found her, Qui Gon…" she left the thought trailing, lapsing into a grim silence.
He inclined his head. "It was the will of the Force. I am grateful that both of them survived the ordeal. Carthag might have done much worse to them. He must have been very off-balance to have fled the rendezvous in the first place."
Adi solemn visage was lightened by a small smile. "I am grateful as well. Your Padawan acquitted himself well; perhaps I was mistaken in regard to his worthiness."
It was an understated retraction, but Qui Gon understood its sincerity, and its extension to include himself. He bowed.
"And was Obi Wan injured?"
The tall Jedi master hesitated. "Nothing serious, I think," he answered. "But… we must discuss Carthag's death later."
Adi 's shocking blue eyes softened. "Yes," she sighed. "That time comes for all of us. You will be a wise counselor," she added, laying a hand upon his arm. "May the Force be with you, Qui Gon."
He sighed, and intercepted the medic on his way out, escorting the harried man back down the hallway to the room where Obi Wan reluctantly awaited his attentions. The time had indeed come, and there was nothing he could do to unmake the cold forging of destiny that had been wrought upon Ord Ursolon's lonely hillside.
Qui Gon took the incoming transmission in the comm center. The newly repaired signal amplifiers provided him with a far superior holo-image to that previously generated by Alepo's outdated equipment. Jedi Master Even Piell appeared over the plate in shimmering blue effigy.
"Yollo vas incarcerated in the Illixi Detention center this morning," he informed Qui Gon. "Dat vas good vork. And I von't pretend I'm sorry to hear that Carthag vas slain."
Qui Gon's mouth thinned, in grudging agreement. He might have wished that the circumstances of the killer's demise had been different; but it was not his to dictate the destiny of any other being, or even his own.
"Vell, dat's the last of those wretches," the diminutive master grunted. "Vat a vild bantha chase. Next time, I'm going to volunteer somebody else for the grunt-vork."
"Somebody else?" Qui Gon inquired innocently. "Master Gallia and I have had our share of troubles, I assure you."
Even Piell snorted, his black topknot swishing against his long, pointed ears. His one good eye squinted balefully at his interlocutor. "Don't tempt me, Qvi Gon. Ven are you and dat boy of yours coming home to the Temple? I'm running out of decent sparring partners."
"So soon as you can arrange transport for us," Qui Gon replied. "I think the Council will agree that our term of service here is ended."
"For vonce, ve are all in agreement vit you. Ve'll send a courier to the spaceport out there as soon as possible. By the vay, I read your Padavan's preliminary report."
The tall man nodded, warily.
But Even Piell was in a light and teasing mood. "Tell Obi Van dat next time he gets in trouble, I vant to personally oversee the conseqvences."
Qui Gon managed a thin smile. "That should intimidate him into conformity for some length of time."
"I doubt it,' Piell scoffed. His scarred face sobered, and he added, "And tell dat boy he'll be fine."
"I'm confident he will, and I'll convey your message," Qui Gon promised.
"Good." The tiny Jedi master bowed. "May the Force be vit you." And he was gone, leaving Qui Gon among the glimmering consoles of the control center. With a deep breath, he rose and went to help Adi coordinate the remaining evacuation effort.
It took the Agri-Corps staff and the Jedi much longer than anticipated to make certain that every last one of the crashed liner's passengers was safely stowed aboard the evacuation ship and had clear instructions for continuing their various journeys homeward from Ord Fromag. When the stragglers had been loaded up and the emergency crew closed the boarding ramp at long last, Alepo Sator heaved a hearty sigh of relief.
"All's well that ends well," he chuffed. "You Jedi are more trouble than yer worth. I'll not be taking any more of these disciplinary interns again in a hot hurry."
Qui Gon brushed off his rant with a small shrug. "We come to serve."
The horticulturalist wagged a knowing finger at him, chuckling darkly, and huffed away toward the main Agri-dome to tend his orchards in peace.
The two Jedi masters were left alone in the cold afternoon air outside the protective bubbles. Siri remained resting inside the housing unit, rebuilding her strength; Obi Wan had begun the traditional meditative vigil observed after the occasion of a first kill. Qui Gon felt for his Padawan along their bond, and sensed a relative quiescence; unwilling to disturb the young Jedi's focus, he withdrew, studying the bleak horizon, where the hills etched a ragged line across the cold sky.
Adi seemed to follow both his steps and his straying thoughts as they both folded their hands into their robe sleeves and proceeded toward the Agri-Corps buildings at a slow and contemplative stroll. "Siri has related to me how they managed to convince Carthag that he was going to be betrayed by Chucabra Yollo," Adi told him. "Did your Padawan tell you the details?"
"No," Qui Gon replied. "He merely said that he played upon Carthag's insecurities until we arrived. I did not press for more specific information."
The Tholothian raised her chin a trifle and smiled, keeping her gaze straight ahead. "Well," she said, "Apparently you, Jinn, are a raving lunatic and an unpredictable madman, one whom even Soll Carthag would do well to avoid."
Qui Gon stopped. "Obi Wan said that?"
Adi, a master diplomat, kept a straight face and kept walking. But the Force conveyed her ironic amusement. "He's very imaginative. I believe monster was the exact phrase Siri remembers."
He caught up to her again in three long ground-eating strides. "Monster."
"Indeed." They reached the curving outside wall of the nearest dome. "After you, Master Jinn."
They parted ways inside the protective curve of the shelter, Adi's shapely lips curving upward at the corners, Qui Gon's eyes twinkling with humorous affront as he made a direct line toward his highly imaginative protégé.
Obi Wan had chosen the smallest greenhouse – one stationed on the outskirt of the Agri-corps facility, a seldom-used dome housing nothing but several shelving units full of potting materials and seeds. The floor had once been paved in an intricate labyrinthine pattern, now cracked and overgrown by a tenacious moss. The floor did bear some resemblace to the tilework gracing much of the Temple; perhaps this was the motive behind the Padawan's choice; or perhaps he had retreated here because of the dome's remote location and privacy.
Qui Gon did not intrude immediately; he paused upon the threshold, touching the boy's mind gently through the Force.
Obi Wan turned, still kneeling in the center of the quiet space. The Jedi master moved forward and lowered himself to the hard floor beside him. He sensed the exhausted calm after a tumultuous storm, the dwindling clouds of grief and shock rolling away over inner horizons. A tenuous light played over the surface of the eddying Force, a ray of peace and acceptance smoothing away dread and horror. The young Jedi looked a bit wan, and great weariness edged his presence, but in his eyes there was a new calm, a gravity anchoring him deep in the Force's wisdom, a new ballast steadying his last tottering steps out of childhood.
"Carthag was a monster," he said, abruptly, breaking the silence.
"Yes."
Obi Wan's hands relaxed minutely, where they rested upon his knees. "But he was also a living being. A sentient with free will and understanding."
Qui Gon nodded. "True."
The Padawan inhaled deeply. "I killed him, master."
There. The words had been uttered, the truth accepted. "Yes." Qui Gon offered no condemnation, nor false comfort. This was a trial faced alone, even in the midst of a great company, all those who had gone before, the bearers of a double-edged blade, a tradition of peace bought at great price.
"It was the will of the Force," Obi Wan continued,. "…But I still chose it."
They were silent, standing together at the edge of an awful mystery, where the ocean of hidden purpose and intertwined meanings lapped against the shores of their limited, mortal understanding. An ethereal wind coursed around them, through them. They breathed, in unison, feeling the pulse of this invisible tide ebb and flow within their own hearts, their very blood. They were Jedi; and this was the nature of their willing submission.
"Master?'
Qui Gon felt the question take form within his own thoughts; and when he spoke, it was that same primordial ocean of light that answered through him. "What gives you the right?" he said softly. "Nothing. You have no right. It is the Force which deals out life and death. It will someday claim your life as well, and you will relinquish it as willingly as you obeyed its command to take Carthag's. .. and perhaps others', in the future. This is our path."
"But what I am not worthy of that path? Then… my actions would be reprehensible. No better than his."
"You will be worthy, then. The alternative is unacceptable."
"And there is no turning back," Obi Wan ended.
There was not. This was a bridge which could be crossed but once, and past which there was no possibility of retreat. He waited, silently, as Obi Wan unclipped his 'saber and held it reverently in two hands, frowning over its sleek, elegant lines as though seeing the weapon for the first time. At last, he solemnly retuned it to its place, face stilling into a grave resolve.
"I understand," the young Jedi said in a rough voice, the last buoyant minutes and seconds of childhood evaporating, dissolving into thin air, into light, even as the tall man watched, helpless to intervene even if he had so willed.
In the end, they were left in the close confines of the half-sphere, both together and each alone, the Force's painful mercy winnowing future from past, wisdom from innocence, man from Jedi. And none disturbed their quiet vigil, nor observed whether either or both of them wept.
Qui Gon finished twisting the strands of hair together, weaving the record of their shared history, replacing the markers one at a time until he came to the end of the thin plait. Here, he wrapped a black thread three times around the braid, signifying the first taking of a sentient life by free volition, for the cause of peace, without hatred. He tied off the last marker and smoothed the tuft of auburn beneath it, allowing the braid to drop into place over Obi Wan's shoulder.
"We are done here," he murmured.