Again, Ben raised his voice to a shout in order to be heard. “Looking for something, Dad? Why not use the town directory?”
“What we’re looking for isn’t in the directory. I know—I looked.”
That got Vestara’s attention. “What is it?”
“Theran Listeners.”
Ben shook his head. “I thought they were the planet’s healers. Why don’t they advertise? It’s not like they’re the Black Sun.”
“Computers and data grids are newfangled. Not to their liking.” Luke spotted something that must have looked promising to him. He headed in that direction. Ben and Vestara followed.
It was, to all outward appearances, an Oldtimers’ hovel, larger than most, but with light shining out through every hazy viewport. It was, unlike many such buildings, set back from the street, with a few aging landspeeders and speeder bikes parked outside, rocking in the wind.
The front door was a vault-like durasteel portal, a very old-fashioned design that swung out on metal hinges, and Ben belatedly recognized it as an ancient air lock door, doubtless transported from some crashed ship or ancient installation to this place. As the three neared it, a short man in hide garments and coat, fur lining showing at the wrists above his gloves, finished pulling the door open and stepped inside. He looked back, caught sight of Ben and his companions, did a double take, and then pulled the door shut just as the three reached it. The cycle light, scratched transparisteel inset at eye height, switched from green to red.
Ben stared at the formidable portal. “Friendly.”
Luke gestured at Ben’s clothing, which, though modest and stylistically ubiquitous in the spaceways, was clearly dissimilar to that worn by the man who had preceded them. “We’re obviously not locals.”
Vestara quirked a smile. “Are they going to gang up on us and beat us up because we’re strangers? Or because we have a vocabulary of more than twelve words?”
“Now, now.” The cycle light switched from red to green, and Luke pulled the door open.
Just inside was a small chamber—gray permacrete floor and ceiling, comparatively undamaged stucco walls. But the door opposite was the counterpart of the one by which they’d entered. Its cycle light showed red; as soon as Luke pulled his door shut against the howling wind, it went to green.
They stepped through into the main room of a pub. The floor and walls were covered in what looked like dark green vines tightly pressed into an irregular wall but, on closer inspection, proved to be absolutely flat, the appearance of roughness and depth an illusion. There were several long wooden tables and even more small round ones, but only about a dozen men and women sat among them. They were all hardy-looking customers, a bit below average Galactic Alliance human height standards, brown-haired and brown-eyed, clothed in garments of thin hide or hard-wearing cloth of brown or green.
And as Ben, Luke, and Vestara entered, their conversation stopped. They turned to look at the three intruders, their faces impassive.
They continued staring, silent, forbidding.
Automatically, reflexively, Ben opened himself to the Force. Alertness to ripples and eddies in the Force would give him an instant’s advance warning if any of these insular locals chose to attack.
But it was not their emotions he felt, not the expected combination of suspicion and perhaps growing resentment or anger.
He felt … surrounded, as if he’d suddenly realized that he was at the exact center of an amphitheater with thousands of spectators in the stands. And the observers’ emotions were cool, analytical, not heated.
It was such a jolt, to feel himself under such immense scrutiny when he thought he was in a room with fewer than twenty people, that his eyes widened. He tried to keep his sudden surprise off his face.
The barkeeper, behind the bar, wiping its surface down with a yellow rag glistening with some sort of oil or polish, was a bald man of middle years, more heavily muscled and thicker in the middle than most of his customers. He made a face as though he’d come to an unhappy decision, and then spoke. “Help you?”
Luke didn’t throw back his hood or take off his goggles. “Looking for healing.”
“You’re not local.”
“Looking for healing.”
Ben rubbed at his goggles. Despite the anti-fogging surface on them, the temperature and humidity difference between the outside and inside were causing them to fog up. Plus, the action might distract observers from his sudden surprise of a moment earlier. He glanced at Vestara and saw that she, too, was looking around as if seeking the source of all those extra, unseen eyes.
The exchange between Luke and the barkeeper had been odd. Curt, primitive. His father didn’t even sound like himself. His voice had taken on the flat, slightly monotonous character of the barkeep’s speech.
The barkeeper just kept polishing.
Luke just stood where he was.
Another Oldtimer, a young woman, her face long and weather-beaten but her eyes lively, finally spoke. “Sel.”
Another, a gray-bearded man, nodded as if that hadn’t occurred to him. “Aye, Sel.”
“Huh.” The barkeeper considered it, then nodded. He looked back at Luke and jerked his thumb toward the wall to Ben’s left. “Two streets down, three streets over to the right. Blue Newcomer dome. Ask for Sel. She’ll set you right … or send you home.”
The second man who’d spoken snickered. “I vote home.”
“Thanks.” Luke turned back toward the door.
As Ben and Vestara turned to follow, Ben felt a light impact against his back. He spun in time to see an insect the size of his thumbnail leap free from his cloak, hit the floor, and scurry away on six articulated legs to the shadowy baseboard.
None of the Oldtimers had apparently moved. The one who had flicked the droch onto Ben’s back was clearly adroit at covering up his schoolroom-style pranks.
The barkeeper smiled. “Looks like you’ve got a pet, newmer.”
Luke pulled the old air lock door open and led them out.
Back in the windy street, Ben gave his father a curious look. “I thought you said things had changed here in thirty years. From what I’ve read about this planet, what we just went through sounds like what would have happened back in the old days.”
Luke shook his head. “Things have changed. They didn’t go after us with scatterblasters and clubs.”
Vestara snorted. “Not yet. But I’m keeping my eyes open.”
“And the Force.” Ben tried not to sound as thunderstruck and naïve as he felt. “Is that what it feels like all the time?”
Luke’s smile became a little more sour. “That’s what it’s like when things are calm.”
* * *
The barkeeper’s directions led them to a small sea-blue dome, its viewports scoured to a frosty opacity. Its fold-down front steps were retracted.
Beside the spot on the foundation where those steps accordioned was a glowing green button with an intercom grille beside it. Both were inset a little, providing some protection from side winds. Luke pressed the button.
A moment later a woman’s voice, buzzy and poppy, sounded from the antiquated device. “What is it?”
“We’re looking for someone called Sel.”
The voice at the other end did not reply, but the stairs, skeletal durasteel ones painted in alternating stripes of black and yellow for high visibility, unfolded. When they were done, the lowest one was still a quarter meter above the ground. Luke led the others up into the front-door alcove, and the door slid to one side, opening for them.
Beyond was a small antechamber, and as soon as the outer door slid shut, the inner one opened.
Next was a medium-sized all-purpose room. Ben saw tight-weave green carpet, a stuffed sofa and chair in tan, a long white duraplasttopped table that could have served for family dinners or medical examinations, walls lined with shelves stacked with piles of flimsi printouts, a door in the center of the back wall. By his calculation, this chamber would take up half t
he ground floor, with a much smaller second floor, under the apex of the dome, above the door they now faced.
That door opened and a woman emerged, wiping her hands on an off-white cloth. She was lean and fit but elderly, with white hair cut in a flat-topped hairstyle. Her eyes were a light blue, her skin fair. She wore a utilitarian burgundy jumpsuit. She must, Ben decided, have been beautiful in her youth; she was beautiful now.
She gave the three visitors a smile, showing white, even teeth. “I’m Sel.”
Luke pulled his hood back and removed his goggles. “I’m—”
“Luke Skywalker.” Sel dropped her drying cloth on one end of the white table and advanced, her hand outstretched. “An honor.”
Luke shook her hand. He turned to indicate Ben and Vestara. “And this is …” But his voice trailed off and he turned back to Sel, his eyes narrowing—not in anger, Ben thought, but in consideration, perhaps suspicion.
“Sel.” Luke’s voice turned just a little incredulous. “Teselda?”
The old woman nodded, her smile half fading away. “That’s my full given name, yes.”
“You don’t remember me?”
“I know who you are.”
“No, from before. From thirty years ago. You knew me as Owen Lars.”
“Ah.” Sel gave him a blank look. “I’ll take your word for it. There are things I don’t recall.”
Finally, Luke remembered to finish introductions. “This is my son, Ben Skywalker, and our companion, Vestara Khai. Ben, Vestara, this is Teselda … perhaps the galaxy’s oldest surviving Jedi.”
LUKE ACCEPTED SEL’S INVITATION TO SETTLE HIMSELF ON THE SOFA, but declined her offer of caf or wine. With the most imperceptible of gestures, he indicated to Ben and Vestara, sitting respectively on the sofa beside him and in the stuffed chair, that they should decline, too, and they did.
Sel settled in a chair at the table and turned to the two teenagers. “Master Skywalker is stretching a point, I’m afraid. I’m no longer a Jedi. Have not been since before I can remember. If anything, I’m a Theran Listener now, and a healer. And sometimes, the one the Oldtimers send strangers to in order to see if I can sort them out.”
Ben shook his head. “You weren’t really represented in my father’s accounts of what happened on Nam Chorios all those years ago.”
Sel glanced at Luke. He thought the look carried just a touch of gratitude. “I doubt I made a good impression.” She fell silent for a moment. “But yes, I was a Jedi once. I have the faintest memories of some happy times on Coruscant … As a young Jedi Knight I was sent here with a senior Jedi Knight named Beldorian.”
“Him I’ve heard of. The Hutt Jedi.”
“This world is toxic for Force-users if they stay long enough, unless they have a very rare level of emotional grounding. Which the Listeners do, through their contact with the tsils. But Beldorian was too much of a Hutt, fighting the greedier, more self-indulgent side of his nature while a Jedi, succumbing to it here. I was too young, too ignorant, too inexperienced; I hadn’t attained sufficient skill even to make a lightsaber. I fell to the dark side … and then to insanity.” Sel’s tone was oddly light, as if she were explaining the details of a shopping trip made earlier in the day.
Vestara’s eyes flickered; it looked to Luke as though she was doing some calculation. “This would have been—what? Fifty, sixty years ago?”
Sel smiled again and offered a little shake of her head. “Much longer than that. Centuries ago.”
Vestara frowned. “But you look true human. You’d be dead.”
“I am true human. Of Alderaanian and Hapan descent. And not a prosthetic or replacement part in my body—except for my teeth, which were damaged beyond repair long ago by neglect.” She shrugged. “But even as my mind decayed and flaked away, my body was preserved. By the consumption of drochs.”
Ben’s eyebrows rose and he glanced, suspicious, at his father. “That wasn’t in your official report, either.”
“Do you imagine that I wanted anyone to think they could achieve quasi-immortality by coming here and becoming involved with the drochs?” Luke gave his son a shake of the head. Indeed, he felt as though there was considerable danger in Vestara discovering these facts. If her true loyalties remained with the Sith, if she did not gain a healthy respect and fear of the drochs and what they represented while she was here … “Besides, it’s not an issue of coming up with a dish, a recipe, that you can prepare for its health benefits.”
“No.” Sel’s voice took on a distant quality. “You have to eat them live. Pop them wiggling into your mouth. Sometimes they try to chew their way into your cheek or your tongue when you do so. You bite down on them, crunch crunch crunch.”
Ben tried to suppress a shudder. He wasn’t entirely successful.
Sel shook off the mood and looked at Ben again. “As you consume them in this way, they give off little bursts of Force energy, life energy they have consumed. These bursts, in conjunction with secretions from their exoskeletons, cause the body to perform little acts of regeneration and repair beyond what bodies normally do. Nerve tissue regenerates. Cells are replenished … But there are problems. The larger drochs, the ones with more energy, have also drained memories and thoughts from their victims. Consumption of these drochs causes you to absorb these memories in turn, fragmenting your own mind over time. And the drochs have achieved their growth in the first place by draining other living things. To benefit from them, you find yourself at the top of a pyramid scheme, staying alive at the expense of others, animals and people—dozens, maybe hundreds, maybe more over time.” She offered the slightest of shudders, matching Ben’s.
Luke, still wary because of the way he had been deceived by this woman all those years before, hoped she was telling the truth—hoped the sympathy growing within him for her had a basis in truth. “But you’ve given up consuming drochs.”
“Long ago.” Sel gestured at herself. “Look at me. Aging at a normal rate now. My life has a finite span again … but at least it is a life. Not a terrible, endless story told to frighten children.”
Ben knit his brows, still putting things together. “The HoloNet resources on Nam Chorios talk about the drochs as the source of the Death Seed plague, and talk about Nam Chorios’s new medical economy, but don’t link them. All this new development is from exploring medical by-products from study of the drochs, right?”
Sel brightened but shook her head. “No. The Theran Listeners also promote healing. They do it by convincing the patient’s body to heal itself. This is the basis of the new economy. Take someone who is ill, run a complete series of tests on his body chemistry. Then put him through a regimen of Listener healing. Run a comparison suite of tests. The patient’s body will have manifested chemicals that were not present before—for example, to diminish or eliminate a cancer. Newcomer doctors analyze those chemicals, trying to replicate them. Sometimes they can, resulting in new medicines. Not just for humans. Duros, Chadra-Fan, Gamorrean, Wookiee, Twi’lek … I’ve seen so many species helped.”
Vestara looked doubtful. “And that’s why you stay on this sad excuse for a world? So you can heal ungrateful, insular farmers and the occasional desperate visitor one by one?”
Sel gave her a wan smile. “More because there is no place for me anywhere else. I was raised in the Jedi Temple. I never knew my family. My contemporaries, all dead. Even my enemies, my rivals … dead and gone. I feared and struggled against death for longer than some planets have been settled. Now I know that death is part of life, a part I embrace. I do not rush toward it … but I might as well meet it here as anywhere.” She gestured around at her modest home. “At a certain point in life you realize how little you need. Now I enjoy days without hatred and insanity, nights without bug bites and bad dreams.”
Luke caught her eye. “How were you healed? The last time I saw you …”
“I suspect I was not a pretty holo.”
“No.”
“There is a Listener technique. I n
eeded many applications of it over many years. I apparently knew, when they explained it to me, that it would probably restore my sanity but would rob me of memories … because I was so far gone, of most of my memories. The Listeners call it vein routing, meaning that you completely grind out every memory contributing to some traumatic response or insanity. I call it mnemotherapy, a gentler term, less frightening.”
Luke nodded. “Which is why you don’t remember meeting me.”
“Yes.”
“Teselda …” Luke battled a mix of emotions as he leaned forward. Dimly remembered revulsion at what Teselda had been, anger at how she had tried to use him and Callista, warred with his native sympathy … and his need for help in the here and now. “I suspect you’re in greater danger than anyone on this planet.”
Her smile widened. “That will be a refreshing change.”
“I’m not kidding. Something is coming here, or has arrived already. A great menace that preys on the vulnerable through the Force. Before, you were too undertrained to have even the basic set of Jedi techniques. And then you couldn’t keep from falling to the dark side, couldn’t keep madness at bay. Couldn’t control me for very long even when I was a much younger, much more emotional man. Unless you leave Nam Chorios now, I doubt you stand a chance. Especially if, as you say, you’re a Listener now. I suspect their techniques of opening themselves to voices in the Force will make them especially vulnerable to Abeloth.”
She blinked, considering. “And yet, knowing me, you stand a much better chance of recognizing this Abeloth’s influence if you can witness changes to my manner. My personality.”
“That’s … very noble of you, but you don’t want to be Abeloth’s tool before you die.”
“And yet here is where I will die. I made that choice a long, long time ago. So, how can I help?”
Luke sighed. “We suspect, from asking around at Koval Station, that Abeloth has not arrived yet—she’d be in a very small, very distinctive ship. But we can’t be sure. Do the Oldtimers still operate the old weapons emplacements?”
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Conviction Page 7