Legacy 4
Chapter 6
At nightfall, the Jawa women clustered round their visitor, a frantic gaggle of crudely-robed figurines clucking and squawking in distress. Surrounded by a sea of small, pestering hands and glowing optic filters, Torbb Bakk'ile stood like a monumental rock amid a dark and churning sea. She could not claim fluency in the native tongue – but the Force conveyed more than sufficient images and emotions for her to piece together the urgent entreaties.
The sandcrawler had chugged to a standstill for the night, its power generators cycling down for a cooling phase – but the massive conveyance was still far from its intended destination, the rim plateau on the desert's southern side. Mental pictures of migratory camps – Tusken, Jawa, human, a mélange of outcasts and hermits – flashed across the tall Jedi's mind. Among those who habitually dwelt upon the edge of the waste was a haggard old woman who helped the mothers in their time of ordeal.
And her services were needed this night.
Torbb found herself unceremoniously shepherded inside the crawler's cavernous interior. A long ramp led up into the vast hull, a warren of storage bays and connecting passages with ceilings so low she barely cleared them even at an acute stoop. Deeper and deeper the Jawa women herded her, until she had wound up through the working levels to a cramped residential deck on the upper reaches. In this echoing cave of metal and recycled plastoid paneling, light was dim and sound skittish, difficult to track. The broad-framed Knight crawled on hands and knees to the place her insistent hosts showed her, and then arranged her lanky limbs into a compact-ish knot, meditation lotus.
It was still a snug fit.
One or two of the males appeared in a hatchway and were banished amid shrieks of disdain and outrage; the assembly drew close together surrounding the rag-strewn palette and the tiny figure that lay moaning and thrashing amid its twisted covers. Without the obscuring protective robes, a Jawa was more frail and shriveled than one might imagine; Torbb imagined her grip breaking this poor creature's bones, inadvertently. The mother to be was no more than a girl, really – though it was impossible to gauge her age by appearance, the Force fairly rang with childish terror and no small degree of protective concern from the crones in the gathering.
Torbb's stern mien softened, as she leaned in closer, spreading one hand on the struggling girl's taut belly, round and swollen with child. A tiny new life fluttered valiantly beneath her touch, a fire mingled and twined with the mother's pulsing signature. All was well – the labor pangs were simply what they were. Some had it easier, some harder; nature was not fair in this regard, whether among species or individuals.
"There is nothing wrong," she told the anxious onlookers. One or two of the elders translated to their sisters, evoking a textured medley of mutters and chattering. The girl screamed and rolled her head, vainly seeking to escape her own body. Torbb's dark brows contracted. She was neither a trained healer nor obviously an expert in this field - but the universal Life energy would guide her well enough. And if it was the Force's will that she buy the cooperation of these diminutive nomads with an act of compassion, then she would do what she must.
The Jawa girl's screams hit a panicked crescendo.
"Peace, little one. Own it – it is yours, your work, your strength. Let the pain flow through you."
Uncomprehending, the wailing mother merely threw back her head and moaned piteously, a wavering ululation of distress. The crones dithered and gabbled among themselves, poking tiny gloved fingers into Torbb's back and shoulders, thrusting exotic unguents and reeking smudge pots beneath her nose.
The enormous Knight coughed and waved the offerings away, smoothing the afflicted girl's brow with one hand and a nudge of the vivifying Force, and stalwartly ignoring the drone-like chant initiated by her audience.
It was going to be a long night.
Qui-Gon found himself intercepted en route to the slave quarter.
"Mister Qui-Gon sir! Wait for me!"
The tall Jedi slowed his ground-eating pace to accommodate his young acquaintance. Anakin's face was smudged with dark oil, or rust, and his unruly mop of golden hair ruffled by the incessant desert wind.
"You're late getting home," he observed.
The boy pattered up beside him, shrugging his slender shoulders. "I had to talk to Watto about something," he said, an undercurrent of defensiveness now tainting his otherwise innocent tones.
The Jedi master extended a tentative mental probe, wondering what skullduggery the Toydarian might be about; the threat of financial ruin was almost as powerful a motivator as greed – and the junk shop dealer hadn't the faintest scrap of honor about him. To his surprise, the subtle inquiry was rebuffed, with the reflexive ease of a trained master. The boy's mind was like the surface of a dark lake, reflecting light and shadow but revealing nothing of its own depths. The effect was startling in one so young; at this age – no, older than this even- Obi-Wan had been an open holo-book, spitfire eloquence and bravado poorly concealing whatever thoughts and feeling seethed beneath the surface.
But then, Anakin had been born and raised a slave. Life was preeminently adaptable.
"I'm gonna be nine this year," the boy informed him, non sequitur. "Do you think that's old enough to travel to all the stars?"
Caught off guard yet again, Qui-Gon raised both brows and spared the eager urchin a smile. "You have plans to go spacefaring?"
"Well, I'm gonna be the first person to see all the star systems. The ones with people on them, anyway. How many are there, Mister Qui-Gon sir?"
He chuckled at the sheer audacity of this plan. "Ten thousand inhabitable in the Republic alone," he mildly answered. "To see them all would be a feat indeed."
"Have you been to a lot of them? I bet you have. I bet you've got like souvenirs and stuff from all over the galaxy."
"I have memories, and those will suffice. "
They entered the central courtyard, a barren stretch of hard-packed earth about which hardened clay dwellings clustered in a protective circle. The slaves here on Tatooine did not fare much worse than their owners; the need for proper shelter from sandstorms meant that they were accommodated in thick-walled huts, insulated and heavily roofed. Most the poor farmers in the wastelands could not brag such domiciles – on such a harsh world, bondage could often mean a degree of security unavailable to the impoverished free. Anakin's mother was fortunate to be owned by a merchant such as Watto; her life here was kinder than that she would suffer at eth hands of the HUtts, and less peril fraught than a pioneer existence on the desert frontier, where hostile marauders roamed and the elements themselves conspired to stamp out tenacious life.
"Mom! Moooooooooom!" Anakin hollered, with a lack of decorum never seen within the Temple's hallowed halls.
Shmi – for the dark haired women who appeared in a backlit doorway must be she - wiped hands upon her frayed skirts. Her lined face melted in relief at the sight of her offspring. "Oh, Ani! I was worried… it's past dark and – oh."
"This is Mister Qui-Gon, Mom. He's a Jedi. And he knows that other guy I told you about. That came a while back."
The woman's limpid eyes gleamed momentarily, but they did not hold the same wild hope that Anakin displayed. She was a being who had bent in the tempest winds of fate, mastered acceptance and patience early in her life. The appearance of a legendary warrior-monk upon her doorstep inspired nothing more than mild curiosity. "You are welcome, sir."
The tall man laid a hand on Anakin's shoulder. "Your son was kind enough to ask me to dine with you tonight." At the look of alarm this produced, he swiftly added, "I have brought a few things from the marketplace, if your hospitality will permit."
"Please, come in," the lady of the house said, accepting the intrusion upon her downtrodden existence with a rare equanimity. "Guests are always welcome."
Obi-Wan chuckled at the Hutt overlord's notion of guest accommodations.
His allotted suite was admirably escape proof, being outfitted with two small grilled windows well above eye level, and outfitted with a heavy pressure seal door opening onto a dank hallway. The accommodations reflected a Hutt-ish tatse in luxury – a single enormous rolling trundle clearly meant as sleep platform dominated the small chamber. Synthsilk pillows and velvetar cushions were piled high atop this dais, a hecatomb of comfort and decadence. Chandrilan incense burned inside a small brazier, perfuming the already stifling air; a single chandelier cast warm splashes of orange and gold upon the worn flagstones and flaking frescoes.
An inspection of the least damaged artwork revealed what might be a creation scene from the B'Omarr sacred texts. Bodiless intellects represented by winged eyes roamed amid a lush paradise antithetical to Tatooine's arid expanse. All manner of creatures crawled among the painted foliage and earth – including some fancifully depicted worms that might be Jabba in his grub phase. The young Jedi's mouth twisted wryly – how far from this idyllic scene did the present historic moment fall. The B'Omarri had long ago been reduced to grotesque mechanized cyborgs, while the frolicking worm in the painting was now a bloated and malevolent crime lord, before whom many being groveled and squirmed in submission.
Art did not always imitate nature.
He cast a contemptuous eye upon the decanter of dark liquid left for his delectation, and tossed the least effete of the cushions upon the floor and settled atop it, pulling his legs up under him. He still had much to learn – but he was not so foolish as to risk sleeping under a Hutt's roof. He closed his eyes and reposed in a light meditative trance, mind expanding outward to embrace the whole palace and the impalpable pulse of desert life beyond it.
It was going to be a long night.
"It's been a long night, Ani.. why don't you get to bed?"
The snub-nosed boy turned pleading eyes upward to his mother. "Aw, Mom – pleeeeeeeease?"
Shmi's gentle visage hardened into a mild frown. "You need to mind me," she said. "Go. Go."
Crestfallen, Anakin licked his fingers – Qui-Gon had not neglected to provide honeyed barkalva for dessert – and shuffled away to his tiny bedchamber, a closet-like alcove at one end of the snug dwelling.
"He can be very stubborn at times," Shmi apologized.
"A common trait in boys his age," the Jedi master assured her. Or any age. "He is a very bright lad. You are lucky to have such a son."
This praise elicited a warm smile, the Force warming with maternal pride.
And now the more difficult part of the negotiations. "He is strong in the Force."
Shmi smiled, hesitantly, clearly not comprehending the implications. Strong was an understatement; the boy fairly throbbed within the universal energy, a pulsing nexus ready to explode into supernova or collapse into a black hole at any moment. Untrained talent was like a live bomb; and Anakin possessed more than mere talent, though it was clear he lived in ignorance of his true gift. Slavery had ironically saved him from arrogance- born into oppression, he accepted his precocity as a means of survival, nothing more.
"He is very special," the lady agreed, struggling to express the same idea in familiar language. "I feel as though he was born for a purpose.. something greater than this life I have given him." Her head dipped in shame.
She had no cause for such shame, but there was a more pressing question at hand. Qui-Gon opted for the direct approach. "Who is the father?"
The dark-haired woman's eyes shadowed over. She shook her head, in bemusement. "There was none."
Pity welled in the tall man's heart. The Force rang sonorously with Shmi's sincerity; the rest was a story he knew all too well, in its myriad forms.
"I… I bore him, I birthed him, I raised him," the mother insisted. "I'm sorry. I can't explain."
And she needed no further explanation, either; hers was a bone-deep wisdom, the instinctive and ruthless acceptance of a desert creature, a psyche honed to survival and looking only forward, never back.
Qui-Gon nodded, accepting that this was the truth to which the woman must perforce cling, the only sane and salutary point of view available to her. Compassion bade him hold his tongue. "I see," he replied, gently.
And with the broaching and answering of this awkward question, the audience came to an end. "I must retire," the lady mumbled. "We rise early to work, and … you sir surely have important tasks to be about."
He thanked her gallantly for her hospitality and departed, bowing low upon the threshold and retreating into the rapidly cooling night, where he could wander at leisure beneath the crisp stars, and contemplate the enormity of the present moment, the timeless now pregnant with a trembling, incomparable epiphany.
It was a long night, but he did not notice the slow-wheeling procession of the stars, nor count the passing hours.