Legacy IV
Chapter 3
A vergence is an event within the Force itself – a gathering of potential about a specific center, a concentration of that which penetrates and binds the galaxy together. The sages have observed such things – recorded them, described them – centered about a certain time, a certain place, and on rare occasion about a particular person.
The Force moves in mysterious ways. Qui-Gon Jinn understood this, and therefore also knew that there was no guarantee at all, no reason to suppose that he would be able to find that same singular phenomenon that his former apprentice had discovered here on Tatooine a few short months ago. Indeed, it may have been the will of the Force to reveal this strange warping in the fabric of destiny to Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan alone. Which would imply that the vergence was not centered about a place, or even a person, but about a relationship.
The Jedi master's stride lengthened. Leave it to Obi-Wan to ignore, to doubt, the bright heraldic trumpets of fate. His innate sense of unworthiness, of humility, forbade the man to entertain any such notion. But that did not mean that his closest associate and former mentor had to be so willfully blind. Indeed, Qui-Gon felt it incumbent upon himself to seek out the truth, to answer that ethereal summons his student was too modest to pursue aggressively on his own behalf.
All Obi-Wan knew was that he had missed a step somewhere, failed to hear the Force's subtle promptings. Disturbed meditation and restless nights were, to him, a symptom of further failure – indications that he was a wayward servant of the universal Light. Never would he dare to see such promptings for what they were: the Light cajoling, urging, whispering in his ear, gently enticing him back to this unlikeliest of places, to meet ….whatever it might be. The young Jedi still had much to learn of the Living Force, though his heart was willing and open. He had returned to Tatooine, but blindly, stumbling in the dark, unsure of his path or its goal, naïve and hesitant as a callow groom brought to an arranged marriage ceremony.
Qui-Gon was not so inexperienced in the ways of destiny. And he was not above playing intermediary.
The settlement was typical of such places: a reeking, ramshackle convocation of adobe huts and outbuildings sprawling about a central pit-style spaceport. The streets were nothing but packed earth; fleis buzzed noisily about heaps of animal droppings; beasts of burden and rickety grav-transports shared the disorderly thoroughfares; pedestrians were swathed head to toe against wind, and possibly recognition; and the desire to be forgotten, unnoticed , hung like a seductive incense in the air.
In Mos Espa the gaalxy's most infamous ne'er-do-well could hide in the open. The township was full of those who would rather fade into the anonymity of rock and sand: broken hearts, refugees, wanted men, gunslingers, the destitute, the weary, the malicious and opportunistic. They swirled and eddied along the banks of their dry riverbed, like the dust storm's vanguard still blustering along the cracked byways.
There was a marketplace in the center of town; a crooked labyrinth of alleys just beyond held more permanent vendors' shops. The tall man nipped into the shade of one such artificial canyon and then turned, suddenly, a flicker of motion at the periphery of vision arresting his attention. The Force sparked warning and then quieted.
Perhaps he was over-wrought by expectation, but he did not think so. Closing his eyes, he reached deeply in to the invisible plenum, beneath the merely sensory, seeking a familiar trace, an echo of another's passing. And there – though many standard weeks had passed – he felt it, the faint lingering aura of a bright presence. Here, where the Force was thin-drawn like artisan glass, even such impressions lingered, footsteps stamped upon the finest of clays.
Obi-Wan had been here, in this alley, at …. That door.
He ducked beneath the drunkenly sagging lintel into a disorderly junk-dealer's shop. Light shafted from deepset skylights; rusting components sat stacked in barrels and crates; a deactivated pit droid slumped in one corner. The warehouse was redolent of sweat and grease, the floor tracked over with prints and stained heavily. A small bell on the counter chimed prettily when he pressed it for service. The Jedi master chuckled a bit at the placard promising that this establishment did not cheat, and charged fair prices.
Unlikely. He knew the Rims well.
"Whoa! Whoa!"
The Jedi master looked down, down down at a pair of startling blue eyes looking up, up, up. The moment spun out, quiet and unhurried.
The boy blinked, staring unabashedly with mouth slightly agape, dirty blonde hair sprouting from his head in a tousled mop. The child's psyche was a defensive wall of adamantine strength – the scarred citadel of life-long slavery, or of… great strength in the Force. "You're a Jedi Knight," the waif blurted, in awe.
Awe, but not fright. No, the boy was… self-possessed. "You must be Anakin," Qui-Gon concluded. It was obvious.
The boy's eyes widened further. "Choobazzi! You can read my mind?"
The tall man squatted down, to bring himself more on a level with his interlocutor. "No. Not in the way you think, anyway. A friend of mine met you already, however."
Anakin's eyes darted here and there, and lit upon the 'saber hilt peeking out from the Jedi's dark robe. "I knew it!" he exclaimed. "He sent you, huh? To free me and mom? He acted all cool and stuff but I knew he was pretending. Did you bring lots of Jedi? Did you bring like a whole-"
The tumble of questions ceased when the visitor held up a warning hand. "I am not here to stage a slave rebellion."
Disappointment precipitated in the Force, a cold windfall. Anakin crossed his arms. "Well, but what about Mom and me? Aren't you here for us?"
Qui-Gon stood. "I should like to meet your mother, if that is possible," he cautiously responded. "But I cannot promise you anything. You must understand this."
Anakin shrugged, youthful confidence outweighing any dampening effect these words might have had. "Okay. But you're gonna have to wait till nighttime, when the shop closes. If Watto catches me not working he'll flay me. "
"Very well. I'll return at closing time… in the meanwhile, is there a cantina where the locals prefer to congregate?"
"Sure. Flaky's. Over by the eopie pens. That's where everybody goes, all the spacers and merchants and stuff. They don't mind ootmian there, but don't take any droids with you. And I dunno if a Jedi would be very popular. Just saying."
"Thank you for the advice." With a nod, he turned and headed for the door.
"Hey, mister! What's your name? Cause Mom's gonna ask."
"Qui-Gon Jinn."
"Okay, Mister Qui-Gon sir. See you later!"
Once safely outside the shop again, he scanned the alley for signs of danger, for that elusive presence he had sensed before. There was nothing but dust and the stink of eopie dung. And a distant chiming in the Force, a haunting suggestion of melody, minor chords both sweet and tremblingly portentous.
There was…. something…. about the boy.
He headed for the cantina at an easy, loping gait.
Torbb Bakk'ile turned out to be an unrepentant speed demon.
Obi-Wan gritted his teeth and doggedly followed in her wake, veering to left and right in a sinuous wave to avoid the tumultuous hurricane of sand and dust kicked up behind her swoop's drive. A landspeeder – purely repulsor magneto propulsion – would have been a wiser choice for this terrain. The intake valves on the bikes were going to need to be cleaned with a calligraphy brush and some strong solvent after this misadventure.
Vast tracts of emptiness opened to either side of them, the reds and golds of Tatooine's virgin wastes like a surreal mirror-world, an ocean of dryness, a sea washing against baren shores, sculpted islands of lifeless rock. He glimpsed geological strata, fantastic wind-carved pillars, ugly pustules of hardened lava. And everywhere the beating kiln of sun-drenched air, of cloudless naked sky and biting sand.
The duster was an indisputable blessing – as were the protective goggles and helmet. Their speed sent them plummeting headlong through a gusting dust-storm, a perpetual artillery of grit battering against their faces and bodies over the swoops' meager forward shielding.
At last Torbb skimmed to a halt at the crest of a mighty cliff, a place where tectonic uprising had thrust the desert plateau up at a wild angle, towering abysmally over the blood-dyed plains below. They dismounted and drank greedily of the tepid water-canteens.
The huge Knight gestured out over the ruddy landscape below, gloved finger tracing over the cratered and cracked expanse until it wavered in a northern direction. "Over there. In that canyon."
Obi-Wan trained macrobinoculars upon the dark cleft she indicated. A silver curve seemed to rise from its shadowed depths, an artificially perfect shape glinting dully in the twin suns' maniacal glare. "It could be a ship," he tentatively agreed, handing over the device.
Torbb had a leisurely look at the suspect object herself, then nodded. "Uticus' flagship. Good spot- sheltered, defensible, naturally insulated from extreme temperatures. He knows what he's about."
It was difficult to know with Torbb, but there might have been a note of pride in the tone. Obi-Wan raised a brow. "Well, so long as he's a worthy opponent," he quipped.
The tall woman gave him a very odd look, then turned back to studying the desert, long robes whipping in the hot breeze, black top-knot curling and streaming behind her. "And there's a kind of transport creeping up the far ridge. Might be a rendezvous."
But the younger Knight shook his head. "I had a look at the indigenous cultures database while we were in transit. There are native scavenging nomads out in the desert- junk dealers. Your friend Uticus would need a better client than that."
"I should have known you'd do your homework," Torbb grunted.
"The Hutts are a far likelier business partner," Obi-Wan pressed. "I would wager his first move will be a meeting with the local crime lord."
His companion pointed in the opposite direction. "Old B'Omarr monastery over there. Hutt owned?"
"Almost certainly. They own everything of interest here."
Torbb tossed the 'nocs back to him with a curt gesture. "Right," she decided, asserting the natural right of seniority. "We split up and reconnoiter. I'll take the native traders – you talk to the Hutts."
Obi-Wan rested one hand on his 'saber's pommel. "Your Huttese is better than mine," he objected.
A snort. "Your manners are better than mine. It's a draw. And you're looking sun-burned already."
Grimacing, he pulled his goggles back into place. The planet had a hellish climate, that much was certain. Why anyone, even the galaxy's most desperate and destitute, would throng to this ruinous excuse for a world, was mystery beyond his ken. "Fine. Stay in comm contact."
He slung one leg over his bike's saddle and revved the compensator up, running a bit high. The drain on the power cell would be compensated for by the reduced risk of kicking up a stone into the undercarriage, and he would take stability over speed any day. Torbb saluted him and plunged headlong over the cliff, riding her own vehicle down the nearly sheer face at a daredevil's angle.
"Force," her mission partner breathed, turning his own swoop in a sedate semi-circle and setting off for the ancient monastery's squat cluster of domes. He hadn't bargained for making an impromptu social call upon the Hutts.. . how did he always manage to land himself in these uncivilized sort of situations?
He skimmed down the long incline toward the ragged folds of rock where the redoubtable fortress comfortably nestled, trying to remember whether ch'upeemee paka meant "honored ambassador" or "bantha's areshole" in common Huttese idiom.
Such subtleties of connotation were crucial in many diplomatic settings – but here, he sardonically reflected, It probably wouldn't make much difference at all.