Kenobi

by John Jackson Miller

  Jabe wrenched away from her grasp. “They killed Dad. They tried to kill all of us, today!”

  “I know, but—”

  “But nothing. I at least did something.” Anger flared in the young man’s eyes. “Did you do anything after Dad died?”

  Annileen froze, staring at her child. He looked more like Dannar every day, even as he acted like someone she’d never met. “I did do something after he died,” she said, finally. “I opened the store the next day.” In a chillier tone, she added: “Like he would have wanted.”

  Jabe pushed past his mother. She didn’t stop him. He paused at the bar to speak to Orrin in a loud voice, for the benefit of his mother. “With Zedd laid up, you’ve got an opening on your lead vaporator team. I’m available.”

  “No, he’s not,” Annileen called out from behind him.

  Drying his hands on a dishtowel, Orrin smiled awkwardly at the boy. “She calls the tune, son. Sorry.” Orrin nodded to Annileen, who didn’t respond. A moment later, Orrin leaned over and spoke in lower tones. “There’s other ways you can help me, I’m sure.”

  Annileen threw up her hands. “You can help him by cleaning up whatever’s left of this place tonight. I’m done.” Grabbing a pre-packed meal from behind the counter—and an open bottle—she pushed past her son and trudged through the crowd to her living quarters.

  The sound from the celebration continued to reverberate throughout the Claim and into her household most of the night, but she didn’t hear much of it. She ate wearily and dragged herself to bed. As her head hit the pillow, Annileen had one last thought: that she had not seen Kallie since her return. But her body rejected any further worries for one day, and her mind surrendered itself to sleep.

  Meditation

  I don’t know what you can see from where you are, Qui-Gon, but I doubt you missed today’s trip.

  No, once again, I wasn’t intending for it to be a big production. You don’t have to tell me what our mutual teacher used to say. I don’t crave excitement or adventure—or rather, I crave them not, as he would have put it. I was going to the store for water, on a day when nobody was supposed to be there. That’s all.

  I thought my tricky moment for the day was running into the little old man from the incident at Anchorhead—he seems to be a regular at the Claim. When he didn’t remember me, I thought I was free.

  Instead, I got into a riot and a range war. And I forgot all about the water. And my eopie.

  Will there be a galactic incident every time I want to get out of the house? Because I can stay home, in that case. Really, it won’t be a problem!

  Then again, it was certainly good I was there, given what happened at the store. I’m not so sure about the second part of the afternoon, though—heading off after Jabe. There wasn’t any stopping what occurred there. It’s so difficult seeing things like that and doing nothing.

  But I guess I’d rather see, and do nothing, than not see at all. I’m missing so much of what’s going on in other places. I can’t live blindfolded. It’s not really the Kenobi way.

  Speaking of what I saw, I’m not so sure I liked the side I saw of Orrin Gault today. He had to save face after the compound was attacked; that much I understand. But he wields an awful lot of power here. These people listen to him—he must know that. There’s responsibility that goes along with that.

  Maybe I’m being too harsh. He acted the way he did because his family and friends were in danger. But we both know where that particular excuse can lead.

  The Tuskens—well, that was another surprise. But maybe it shouldn’t have been. I’d met the man A’Yark knew, long ago, and heard the story about him later on. I’m straining to remember more details about that. Maybe later.

  Then there’s Annileen.

  I was tempted to call her “the Intrepid Annileen” just now—because she seems to be able to deal with whatever horror this planet can imagine. That’s what I need to become: absolutely familiar with all the dangers here. She takes them in stride. Not because she’s fearless, but because she knows she has to go on, to take care of all the people in her life.

  That’s not a bad role model to have. I guess I can become “the Intrepid Kenobi” if I must.

  If I’m going to go on—and we both know I must—I’m going to have to find a way to stop tearing myself up over what happened. There’s pain, yes, but a lot of it lately is self-inflicted.

  Like this. You see what I’m holding here—again. A last remembrance, I’ve told myself. But I’m locking it away now. And I would be a lot better off if I put it away once and for all, and tried to go on.

  Like Annileen has had to do. I can learn something from her, I think.

  And yet, when I think about her, I have to consider …

  … wait.

  Hold on.

  …

  Someone’s here!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “KENOBI.”

  Annileen rubbed her eyes. “What?”

  “Kenobi,” Kallie said, beaming across a cup of blue milk. “That’s his name.”

  “What?” Annileen glowered at her daughter. Annileen had risen at the usual deathly hour, remembering Kallie’s absence from the night before. But the girl was here, now, at the breakfast table in the family quarters. Wide awake—and positively quivering with excitement.

  “It’s his name,” Kallie said.

  “Name? Whose name?”

  “Ben’s name!”

  Annileen stepped forward. “How do you know that?”

  Jabe called from the larder. “She went to his house!” Annileen turned toward the counter, where Jabe had thankfully prepared her high-test meltdown caf. She downed a swig and turned back to the table. “Now. What?”

  “She went to his house,” Jabe repeated, bringing a plate to the table. Bleary-eyed, he looked as if he’d slept in his clothes. “Ben’s house.”

  Annileen gawked. “Before I took him home yesterday?”

  “No.” Kallie dug into her breakfast as if nothing was wrong. “It was after he got back—while he was there. After you left.”

  “Wait. You were there at night?” Annileen asked.

  “Alone,” Jabe added, drawing a glare from his sister.

  “At night. Alone.” Annileen’s whole body shook. “With Ben?”

  Kallie smirked. “Calm down, Mom. Your eyes are going all Rodian on me.”

  Annileen fought the urge to go outside and scream. Instead, she refilled her cup and sat down at the table beside a snickering Jabe. “All right,” she said, rubbing the back of her hand against her forehead. “From the beginning.”

  Subdued, Kallie explained. “I took the LiteVan out, like you’d said. To get rid of the bodies.”

  “I meant we’d get Orrin’s hands to help do that—not for you to go alone!”

  “It was horrible, Mom. The smell was driving the dewbacks berserk. And it wasn’t good for me, either.” Kallie’s small nose crinkled. “Once I got out there, I just unhooked the hoverpallet and left it. Believe me, you’ll never want to use it again.”

  One more expense. Annileen frowned. “And then?”

  “Then I swung past Hanter’s Gorge—but it was all over by then. The landspeeders were leaving. And I saw the two of you, heading for Ben’s place. I wanted to make sure you were okay—”

  “So you followed us?”

  “I tried—but your bike was a lot faster than the LiteVan. When I got there, you must’ve already left.”

  “If I was already gone, how did you know you were even at the right place?” Annileen asked.

  Kallie pointed behind the counter. “You circled his place on the map the other day after you came home.”

  “I could’ve been marking a sarlacc pit to avoid!”

  “But you weren’t,” Kallie said. “And you told me about the curtain on his door.”

  Annileen scowled. “And you talked to him? I can’t believe you bothered him at—”

  “Oh, he didn’t know I was there,” Kallie
said. “At least, I think he didn’t. I was kind of … hanging around outside.”

  Annileen stood up abruptly, her chair squeaking against the stone floor. “You peeked in on him?”

  “I couldn’t see much—”

  “I don’t care!” Annileen looked at the ceiling, mortified. “You invaded the man’s privacy?”

  Jabe shook his head between bites. “Glad it’s not me this time.”

  Kallie sneered. “Shut up.”

  “Wait,” Annileen said, turning. “You thought I was in there, didn’t you? In this man’s house!”

  Kallie blushed. “The thought did cross my mind.”

  “So you listened at his door!”

  “It’s not a door. It’s a curtain. And I didn’t stay long,” her daughter said.

  “How long?”

  “A couple of hours.”

  Annileen gawked. “A couple of hours?”

  “I needed to make sure you weren’t in another room,” Kallie said, smiling meekly. “And it got interesting—”

  “I don’t care how interesting it was,” Annileen said. “You could have gotten killed out there at night!”

  “But I didn’t.”

  Annileen shook her head. There was never any good answer to that where her kids were concerned. They’d had the safety argument again and again. A danger survived was no danger at all, to hear them tell it.

  Moreover, intrusion on this scale was an entirely new entry in the portfolio of her children’s misdeeds, and that made the episode all the worse. What made Kallie think that was acceptable? Annileen found her chair and let gravity take hold.

  Kallie took her mother’s vacant expression as a signal to go on. “His name’s Kenobi.”

  “Someone called him that?”

  “He called himself that,” Kallie said. “I couldn’t see who he was talking to—but he said it. He was just sitting there, talking about his day, and the people he’d met, and the Tuskens.”

  Annileen looked at her with skepticism. “You’re not just making this up?” She tried the name out. “ ‘Ben Kenobi.’ ” She’d known other customers by the surname over the years, and seen it spelled several different ways on her receipts.

  Jabe dabbed up the last of the gravy on his plate. “Lot of Kenobis around. There’s the couple near Bildor’s Canyon.”

  “There was that podracer pilot,” Kallie interjected, excitedly.

  “No! He was a Muun!”

  “Please don’t start this,” Annileen said. “I already have a headache. Just tell me what he said. All of it.”

  Kallie’s smirk returned as she wiped off a blue milk mustache. “I thought you wanted to protect his privacy.”

  “A little late, now. Speak.”

  Kallie told, as best she could, what she could remember. “Ben Kenobi” was upset about his trip to the Claim, upset that he kept walking into disruptions. He was troubled by what he’d seen at the Gorge—who wouldn’t be, Annileen thought—and he wasn’t thrilled with how Orrin had led the assault. Jabe rolled his eyes at that. And then he talked about the Intrepid Annileen.

  “And then?” Annileen asked.

  “And then, nothing,” Kallie said. “He heard me—or heard something. I ran back over the hill to where I’d left the LiteVan.”

  Jabe snorted. “Did he come out after you with a big metal cleaver?”

  “No!” Kallie shrugged. “Well, if he did, I didn’t see.” She bit her lip. “But now that I think about it, earlier I did see something …”

  Annileen was almost afraid to ask. “What?”

  “Well, he was sitting, like I said, with his back to me. And he was in front of this trunk. And I think he was holding something—something special, I think. He talked about putting it away—and then he did.”

  Jabe stared. “What was it?”

  “If I knew that, I would have told you,” Kallie said. “Idiot.”

  Annileen sat, back underneath the spell. “ ‘And yet, when I think about her, I have to consider—’ ” She looked up and sputtered. “What in the Great Pit is that supposed to mean? You sure he didn’t say any more?”

  “Any more about you, you mean?”

  “Kallie!”

  “No,” Kallie said, leaning dejectedly with her elbow against the table. “And he didn’t say anything at all about me.”

  Jabe smirked. “The ingratitude. After you’d let him save you, and all.”

  Kallie grumbled. “Yeah!”

  Annileen struggled to take it all in. “And you say there was no one else there.”

  “I don’t think there was—but I don’t know.”

  Annileen thought. He could have been speaking to someone on a comm system, yes—although transmissions from the Jundland were often problematic. Or he could have been dictating.

  Or he could have that secret family he was talking about. Was that what Kallie had seen him holding—some possession that reminded him of the family he’d left behind? That might explain some of the sadness that seemed to hang over him at times.

  Jabe had another explanation. “He sounds deranged,” he said, rising with his dishes. “Crazy kook, sitting in the wilderness, talking to himself.”

  “You don’t know that,” Annileen said. “And that crazy kook helped save us here—and helped me track you down to the canyon.”

  “Where I was in no danger at all,” Jabe said, wiping his hands. “I’d worry you’re in worse trouble being alone with him.”

  Annileen looked down. “We weren’t very alone when the Tuskens showed up.”

  “I mean besides that,” Jabe said. “What do you know about this guy?”

  “Not enough, evidently.” Annileen stopped to reflect. After a few moments, she laughed. “Don’t you see, Kallie? He heard you. He knew you were out there. That was all for your benefit!”

  Kallie rose from the table. “Think that if you want. But I think Ben Kenobi thinks about you.” She patted her mother on the back as she passed.

  Annileen put her head in her hands. “I can’t believe this. I’ve raised a sadist and a voyeur! Are both my children insane?”

  Standing in the open doorway with his sister, Jabe answered. “I don’t know, Mom. You’re the one who took off after the Tuskens with the crazy man.”

  As her kids headed off to work, Annileen sat motionless at the table. “He’s not crazy,” she said, her face twisting into a frown. “He just … talks to himself.” Setting aside her cup, she decided the matter deserved more thought.

  Then she promptly fell asleep in the chair.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “KING OF THE JUNDLAND!”

  Orrin just nodded and waved as the family of four cruised past, cheering him as they departed the oasis. There was no use being modest, now. The vigilantes had won a historic battle the day before, and word had spread across the region. Orrin would see that it reached the Devaronians in Mos Eisley, too. They’d know he’d avenged their partner without delay, and there might yet be hope for the hotel contract.

  Even after the late-night celebration, Orrin had risen early in anticipation of starting his good day as soon as possible. So far, it had exceeded his hopes. Everyone around knew this was the day of the week he kept his office hours in the Claim, and many had visited him. The plaudits from his neighbors were nice, but—more important—people he’d intended to make calls on were arriving to subscribe to the Fund’s protection services.

  Success sells.

  He hadn’t let anything get him down today. Not when Ulbreck had arrived at the Claim after breakfast, armed with a new batch of stories with which to bore the clientele. Orrin would wait to pitch him again on the Settlers’ Call after the man had run out of people to torture.

  Nor had his expensive meeting with Gloamer the mechanic bothered him. It was funny that, while most of the damage the Tuskens had done to the Claim had already been repaired, the most lasting harm had been caused when his spoiled daughter put Annileen’s X-31 into the stone wall. Repairs would park A
nnileen’s landspeeder for weeks. Orrin would happily loan her a vehicle from his work fleet. But he’d let Veeka—whose Sportster was in even worse shape—find her own rides for a while. Maybe slowing down would be good for her.

  No, the only thing that had tested his smile was Old Number One. His technicians were finding what he had realized, earlier. The vaporator mechanism had survived—tough things, these Pretormins—but Dannar’s precious settings had been lost. The first test vial had produced what Orrin judged an absolutely pedestrian cocktail of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Later tests yielded no better results … and sickened his heart.

  But sorrow would wait today. Every visitor had brought him something: business, congratulations—even a sugar cake. And now, as he saw another figure approaching on foot from the southwest, he wondered what good tidings this person brought.

  Orrin squinted. Well, I’ll be, he thought. He stood tall and waved. “Hey, Kenobi! Ben Kenobi!”

  For a moment, the hooded man appeared to disappear back behind the dune. But when Orrin charged up the rise, he found Ben kneeling to adjust his boot. “I thought that was you,” Orrin said.

  Ben stood. As Orrin shook his hand vigorously, Ben said, “I’m sorry. I thought I heard you say—”

  “Ben Kenobi—that’s your name, isn’t it?”

  Ben looked down, around, and back to Orrin. “Yes, but—”

  “But what?” Orrin smiled.

  “I was just curious how you heard it.”

  “Oh!” Orrin laughed loudly and slapped Ben on the back. “You’ll find out when you go inside.” He turned toward the store, coaxing Ben along.

  “Perhaps another day.” Ben pointed past the store. “I wasn’t going inside. I’m just here for my eopie—”

  A high-pitched shout came from the Claim. “Ben!”

  The men looked over to see Kallie in the open doorway of the store, waving frenetically. Annileen stood behind her, looking a little embarrassed.

  “I think you’re going in, brother.” Orrin put his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Kenobi. There was a Kenobi down around Arnthout, sold damper coils for repulsorlifts. You any relation?”