Kenobi

by John Jackson Miller

  “Yeah. I—I want to thank you for helping us. And for saving me last night.” Jabe looked down, shamefaced. “I didn’t deserve it—”

  Ben shook the boy’s hand. “You were only a few steps down the wrong path.” He looked Jabe in the eye. “You were desperate for something to do. But someone I respect once told me that wise people never make desperate decisions.” He reflected for a moment, then smiled. “Actually, he phrased it a lot differently from what I just said. But the advice is sound.”

  Jabe smiled. Annileen beamed.

  She looked back at the landspeeders. “It’ll be dark soon. Should we unload?”

  “No,” Ben said, turning toward the pouch on the ground. “That can wait until Mos Eisley.”

  Kallie’s eyes widened. “Mos Eisley?”

  “I know we were just there yesterday,” he said, lifting the backpack. “It certainly doesn’t seem like yesterday. But there’s a transport preparing to leave from Docking Bay Fifty-Six the day after tomorrow, and passage is booked.”

  Annileen gawked. “How is that possible?”

  Before Ben could answer, Kallie hugged him—just hard enough to cause him to drop the pouch again. He laughed. “Don’t you want to hear the destination?”

  “Not really!” Jabe said, stepping back and slapping hands triumphantly with his sister.

  “The first stop is Bestine,” Ben said. “The planet, not the city.”

  “First stop?” Annileen echoed.

  “That’s right.” Ben smiled and looked over at the single sun that remained. “It should be safe going to Mos Eisley, tonight of all nights. With all the posse activity out there today, Tuskens will be avoiding the north for weeks.” He gestured to the second landspeeder. “If you would, kids, please wait at the bottom of the hill. I need to talk to your mother for a moment.”

  Dazzled, Kallie looked back at her mother. “You never said we’d be leaving Tatooine!”

  “I didn’t know,” Annileen said, mind still reeling. It seemed to fit, though: just one more impulsive act in a day of them. She felt as if gravity would give way next.

  Jabe was already behind the controls of the second landspeeder, waving. “Kallie, come on!”

  Kallie leapt up, kissing Ben on the cheek. “We’ll see you soon!” She spun and dashed to the vehicle, dust flying beneath her feet. In a moment, the siblings were driving to the foot of the hill, cheering audibly over the engine.

  Annileen looked at Ben and marveled. “You don’t give a woman a chance to catch her breath, do you?”

  Ben smiled wanly for a moment before turning away to his eopies. “I want you to know something,” he said, reaching for Rooh’s lead. “I … would have liked to have saved Orrin.”

  “He wasn’t your responsibility,” she countered, watching him place the animals in their pen. “You didn’t live around him for years, not knowing what he’d turned into.”

  Ben smiled back. “But once you knew, you did something. And you didn’t wait.”

  “You’re giving me too much credit. The only reason I did anything was because of you.”

  “No, I think you deserve quite a bit of credit. And a new start,” he said. He walked to the backpack. Opening it, he drew out a datapad.

  Annileen recognized it in the dimming light. “Hey, that’s my old one. The one I gave you!”

  Ben activated it. “I had to take the speeder bike to a village to get a signal oftworld this morning. And I rode on Rooh this afternoon to get a response. But it’s official,” he said, passing the device to her. “You’re in.”

  Annileen’s eyes scanned the words. She staggered backward, as if struck by a great weight. “You sent my application?” She gawked at him. “But that was twenty years old!”

  “Alderaan still exists, right? So does the university system.” Ben stepped beside her and pointed to an entry on the screen. “They’re still doing the exobiology expeditions, launching from their branch on Naboo.”

  Annileen remembered the advertisement by heart. Ten worlds in two years, studying a thousand species, most little understood by science. She looked at it again. “Accepted? How is that possible?”

  Ben crossed his arms. “That’s one of those things I can’t let you ask me about. Let’s just say you had strong references on Alderaan.”

  She wasn’t sure whether to believe it—or him. The whole thing seemed impossible, incomprehensible. “Going to university at my age! I just can’t believe it. It doesn’t make any sense!”

  “It makes more sense than someone of your abilities serving caf and shelving feed,” he said. “There’s a slot for Kallie to get in this season, too. And there will surely be more opportunity out there for your son than there is here.”

  Annileen looked at the screen and laughed, in spite of herself. “I see you couldn’t get me into a school on Coruscant.”

  “My powers are indeed limited.” Ben took the datapad back from her and walked with it to her landspeeder.

  She glided after him, barely feeling the ground under her feet. He placed the datapad safely inside the vehicle. Almost giddy, she cracked a joke. “Are you sure you’re going to be happy being the traveling companion of a middle-aged student?”

  “I can’t deny I miss the stars,” he said, his hands resting on the door of the landspeeder. “And in another life?” He nodded gently, his mouth crinkling into the tiniest smile. Then he looked up at her, solemn. “But I’m afraid I can’t go.”

  Annileen froze. “What do you mean?”

  “I have responsibilities here. Things to look after.”

  “What kind of responsibilities?” Annileen looked back at the house. She spied Rooh in the pen. “If it’s the eopies, we can drop them at a ranch on the way!”

  “That’s not it.” Ben shook his head and started walking away from the landspeeder.

  “Wait. You did all this. You saved us. You led us all here!” She stepped after him. “We’re who you’re looking after!”

  “You don’t need looking after, Annileen,” Ben said, his back to her as he walked up the hill. “You’re quite capable. Extremely capable.”

  Annileen stood in the swiftly falling night, bewildered. Since her talk with Ben in the bedroom, momentum had carried her through the events of the day. That, and the knowledge that he was part of the next chapter. “I don’t want you to stay,” she implored. “I want you with me!”

  “Annileen—”

  “Annie! I told you, everyone calls me Annie!”

  “—you know that’s not possible. It’s not even sensible—”

  “Sensible? What’s sensible?” She kicked at the sand. “Working with someone for twenty years only to find out they’ve been defrauding half the oasis?”

  “This is just a fantasy—”

  “Like Tusken Raiders you can reason with?” She grabbed at his shoulder and spun him around. “Or a man who arrives out of nowhere, who risks his neck to help people he’s never met, like he’s some kind of …” She stopped, searching vainly for the next word.

  Ben took a step back. It was a small step, almost imperceptible. But to Annileen, totally aware of him, it seemed like a light-year, and she lost her train of thought.

  It made her take a breath.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, struggling to control her emotions. “But we want you with us.” She reached for his hand. “I want you with us. With me. Now just—”

  “I have a family already,” Ben said, abruptly pulling his hand back.

  His eyes shone at her in the fading light.

  “You—you have …”

  “You once asked me if I had a family to look after,” he said. “I do. It’s why I am here.”

  Annileen looked around, laughing nervously. “Not the eopies?” she asked in a small voice.

  “No. There’s a child,” he said, looking as if he’d given her his most secret truth. “It’s my responsibility.”

  Annileen shook her head, tears finally arriving. Yes, she’d imagined this possibility o
nce, but had put it out of her head. It didn’t make sense that it would trap him here forever. “You can make provisions,” she said. “Families do it all the time. You can look after the child and still—”

  “No, I can’t,” Ben said, firmly. “I must be here.” He turned to leave.

  She looked about at the shadows. “Then we’ll stay! We don’t have to go offworld!”

  “You have your destiny, Annileen. I have mine.”

  Annileen looked back at the landspeeder. “That’s what this was all about? The university? You’re sending me away?”

  “I can’t have you here,” Ben said, walking back to his house. “And you can’t stay.”

  Annileen stared blankly at him as he opened the curtain that covered the front doorway. None of it made sense. Since before dawn, it had been the vision of a life with Ben in the picture that had gotten her through the craziness. Events had been so extreme that the lifeline he represented had taken on the feeling of a long-held dream.

  And that made it all the worse.

  “You lied to me,” she said, her words barely audible.

  Ben turned in the doorway. “What’s that?”

  “You lied to me,” she said, feeling numb. “You lied to me. It may have been for fifteen hours rather than for years, like Orrin—but you lied to me. Like Orrin said.”

  Ben’s eyes widened. “I never—” he started to say, before stopping. After a moment, he spoke again. “Yes, I guess I have been lying to you.” He looked off to the side. “And not just about tonight, or the child. I’ve been lying to you about other things. A lot of other things. From the beginning.”

  Annileen closed her eyes. “Well,” she said quietly, “I think we can both agree on one thing.” She opened her eyes and looked directly at him. “I don’t need that. Not anymore.” She turned and started walking. “I feel sad for you, Ben. Good-bye.”

  Stiffly, she climbed into the landspeeder. She paused only for a single look back to see Ben, alone and watching from the doorway.

  Then she drove down to where her children awaited and beckoned for them to follow. Together, they sped across a desert already covered with stars.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  THE YOUNG WARRIOR SWUNG his gaderffii, impaling the Jawa. The little beast squealed and shook, and life left his body.

  A’Yark looked on the carnage with approval. The change was working. Two days earlier, settlers had been threatening to overrun The Pillars. Now, attacking at sunset rather than dawn, her little band had conducted its first raid in the Western Dune Sea, south of the Jundland. The region was sparsely populated, and tonight’s catch was nothing more than a caravan of Jawas late for a rendezvous with their sandcrawler. The clan of Yark and Sharad Hett would never have bothered with such rodents. But tonight, they’d made excellent prey for a people robbed of confidence.

  A day at a time had always been the only path forward for the Tuskens; there seemed no other way for those who lived under a curse. Something, however, had changed, and it had changed in A’Yark. The war leader wanted her whole clan to reach the future. That meant selecting targets in the proper order. Attrition was unacceptable. Strikes had to be more than an expression of Tusken hate and dominance. They had to be useful. They had to teach the warriors something.

  And her desire to survive had required something else.

  The one called Orrin had taken to mewling weakly at all hours. They had tied a guard massiff to him, to make sure he didn’t try to drag himself away, but there seemed no danger of that. A’Yark doubted he would live much longer. But he’d gotten the vaporator working in his hours on the bier, and that was all that was important. Alone among clans this season, A’Yark’s people would drink and grow mightier.

  Taking water from the sky was forbidden, yes. But A’Yark had paid little mind to other superstitions in the past. Neither skybrother was worthy of respect. Why should their sky be protected? A metal knife to the clouds was no less than they deserved.

  The water began transforming the remnants of the tribe within hours. It was sweet to the taste; magical, the elders said. Little children on the edge of death began to revive. Banthas were working longer. Even the few remaining warriors seemed readier to fight. A’Yark would take any improvement. Sometimes, a little sacrilege came in handy.

  They would live. And they had to live, because for the first time, her people were daring to care about tomorrow.

  The other Tuskens had seen Ben’s defense—had seen the monstrous cloud he raised in The Pillars, had seen the corpse of the krayt. There had to be some reason these powerful figures kept arriving amid the Sand People. Some role their clan was intended to play, in the next cycle of the story of the suns. More vocally than ever, her people spoke their longings for a powerful outsider to help them destroy their enemies.

  Ben would never be that person. A’Yark would warn the other Tuskens away from his home; he had nothing to take, and there was little value in irritating a wizard. It didn’t matter, the believers said: someone would come. But while A’Yark welcomed any hope that encouraged her people to strive once more, she herself now looked to a different day.

  A day when the clan would realize that it didn’t need a mystical outsider, after all—that it already had the leader it needed.

  With that thought, A’Yark plunged her gaderffii again into the Jawa leader’s back. Existence was a curse. But it was not without its pleasures.

  * * *

  The Lady of Bestine hung in orbit over the glistening golden crescent of Tatooine. Annileen stood at the giant observation window in her cabin and looked down. It seemed so strange to see her world like this for the first time. Tatooine had more clouds from this angle than she had ever seen from the ground.

  Ben’s Alderaanian patron, whoever he or she was, had come through not only with the university fellowship, but with first-class accommodations. Lady had not been expected to launch until early that morning, and Annileen had figured on taking the kids to the Twin Shadows Inn. But Lady’s compartment dwarfed any room to be had on Kerner Plaza, and so, after dropping off their cargo, the family had simply stayed aboard.

  They’d left only to close her bank account and to dispose of Gloamer’s snazzy landspeeders. One, they’d abandoned with a note of apology in Garn Delroix’s lot. The JG-8 he’d leased to Orrin wouldn’t be coming back, after all. The other, they’d sold to a dealership close to the spaceport. They’d deposited the proceeds, along with what extra she could afford, in a parcel addressed to Leelee at the Claim, for distribution to the Settlers’ Fund members.

  It wasn’t enough. But it was necessary.

  Annileen had barely felt the ship’s launch, refusing to stand glued to the window as her children had. She’d wandered the inner halls for hours as the vessel orbited, awaiting rendezvous with a shuttle bearing more passengers. Annileen looked like she belonged, in the fancy Chandrilan gown her husband had bought her; she finally had a place to wear it. But she didn’t feel as though she’d gone anywhere yet.

  No, her thoughts had remained on the ground, still back at the little hut on the edge of the mountains. Kallie had been devastated by Ben’s refusal to join them; Jabe, simply confused. Annileen had been both. She had walked and wondered, replaying every short moment she’d spent with him. Trying to see how she’d misunderstood.

  She didn’t know if she believed Ben’s family story at all, and she wondered again and again if she’d left too abruptly. Orrin’s deception had stung her, and Ben’s words had struck her hard. But clearly the man was genuinely committed to something that kept him there, and that was what mattered.

  In the end, she’d been left with a puzzle as impenetrable as the Jundland Wastes themselves. And now, in her cabin at last, she could see that rugged land as it began to slip behind the terminator into night.

  Down there, the suns would be setting on Mos Eisley, with the scoundrels freer to work their mischief. Dewbacks on the ranches would settle down and snooze. Sand People in the hills woul
d be on the move, preying on the helpless. And patrons of the Claim would come to terms with the new ownership and drink to forget their workdays. She hoped someone was keeping Bohmer’s carafe full.

  Her children joined her at the window. “We’ll be going into hyperspace soon,” Kallie said. She looked at her mother. “Thinking about Ben?”

  Annileen shook her head. “The store,” she said. “When your father died, I swore to myself I wouldn’t let the store go under, if it was the last thing I did. It was all I could do for him, to remember him.”

  “You did fine, Mom,” Jabe said.

  She looked at him, so handsome in his dress clothes. He looked just like his father. “I did do fine,” she said, putting her arm around him. “And I pushed you to help me, and I’m sorry. That wasn’t your dream.” She smiled weakly. “It wasn’t mine, either. But I felt like I had to stay for it.”

  Kallie moved closer, and Annileen embraced them both.

  “I think … I think maybe Ben’s doing the same thing,” Annileen said. “He’s not staying on Tatooine because he wants to. I think he thinks he has to. Maybe somebody entrusted him with something, something he feels he has no right to abandon. Someone else’s dream, maybe—like Dannar and the store.”

  Sniffling, Kallie looked up. “But you’re leaving.”

  Eyes glistening, Annileen gave a crumpled smile. “I did my time,” she said. “Ben hasn’t, yet. But who knows? Maybe in five or ten or twenty years, he’ll have done his time, too.”

  Her children at her side, she looked down from space as the ship’s engines revved up. “Good-bye, Ben,” Annileen whispered. And thank you.

  Outside, the world blurred and vanished.

  Meditation

  It has been a long couple of days. But I don’t feel tired.

  This was another test, Qui-Gon, wasn’t it? When you finally answer, you must tell me what you thought of my solution.

  I know where I am now. I’m in the rain shadow. Being near all the big events in the galaxy—I was on the mountaintop for many years. Now I’m on the back, on the lee side. It’s supposed to be dry here.