Chapter Eight—Part 2
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer-
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
The Hollow Men (second stanza) by T.S Elliot
Obi-Wan kneels on the floor of the hydroponic station, removing the control panel to the food storage unit. The blasted thing is broken again and he must reset the temperature controls manually. It is not a very difficult task but it is time consuming and he dreams of the day when he can afford to buy a monitoring droid to do this for him. The machine has at least decided to break now rather than next month, when the crops will be in in, so it is something to be grateful for.
He looks up as he sensed Luke attempting to contact him through their bond. They are too far apart to communicate with words but he can feel the boy's concern for him. He sends a wave of comfort and attempts to ask what is wrong, uncertain if he will be understood without words. He gasped as, seconds later, he feels a flood of panic and then pain from the bond.
"Luke!" he yells into the empty hydroponic station.
He reaches out but their link has gone dark. Luke is not dead; he would be able to feel it if he were. Obi-Wan still remembers the terrible pain he felt when his bond with his Master was untimely severed. But he cannot sense the boy, probably because he is unconscious. For the first time he curses the amulet Luke wears.
He has made certain that the boy always has the amulet on a chain around his neck because he fears Anakin sensing his son through the Force. Without it, Obi-Wan would have been able to sense Luke's location. The amulet is made from parts of a taozin, and renders the wearer invisible to Force-sensitives. Because of it he would not be able to sense his son in the Force at all, were it not for their bond.
Dropping his tools, he sprints out of the hydroponic station and to the house stopping in his bedroom to grab his lightsaber. Has Anakin discovered the boy? Their bond is strong but Luke is already so far away they cannot communicate verbally, any farther and they might not be able to connect at all. Obi-Wan ran to the garage and jumped into the land speeder, hastily pushing a combination of buttons to start it.
Fear grips his heart. What if Anakin has discovered he has a son? Luke might already be off planet. The repulsor lift's groan as he pushes the land speeder as fast as it can go, heading east. Perhaps he should change direction. If whomever has taken the boy is intending to leave the planet then he should head north for the spaceport in Mos Eisley.
He continues east and reaches Anchorhead in half the time it usually takes. Luke's classroom is empty and he has to go to the administration building before he finds someone. The human woman is sitting behind a desk, looking at a datapad. She looks up when she sees him.
"My son, Luke Lars, did not come home today after school. I was wondering if you know where he could be?" he tried to infuse his voice with a calm he does not feel.
"Luke Lars?" the woman asks. "Are you his father?"
Obi-Wan nods. Tapping her datapad the woman reads for a few moments before speaking.
"It says here that you sent a message you were picking him up, but I take it that didn't happen?"
So they knew where Luke goes to school. He clenches his hand around the saber hidden beneath his tunic.
"This is odd," the woman says, frowning.
"What is it?"
"Look at the location the message was sent from," she shows him the datapad screen where at the bottom of the page the time and location of the message were stamped.
The location said 'Jabba's Palace'.