She fumbled for words before finally settling on three. “Who are you?”
Ben laughed. “Ben. We’ve been over this.”
No joke. Annileen shook her head. “Freelance philosopher of the desert, doctoring and rescuing!”
“I don’t think it happened that way. You’ll remember it differently, later.”
Annileen stood at the foot of the hill and put her hands on her hips. “Well, you’re wasting your talent out here. Someone like you—you ought to be doing something.” She paused, before going ahead with the impetuous addition: “Or you ought to have a family to watch over.”
Ben paused. He looked over his shoulder at her, the little smile back on his face. “Well, you never know. Perhaps I already have a family to watch over.”
Annileen rolled her eyes. She turned and climbed onto her speeder bike.
“Oh,” Ben called suddenly. He reached into the folds of his cloak and retrieved something rectangular from his pocket. “I just realized, in the commotion—I still have your datapad.”
“Keep it,” Annileen said, grinding the throttle. “Souvenir of a crazy day.”
“But the safari. Your application—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “There’s a new species to study right here.” She released the brake and soared away.
As stressful days for Annileen went, this one already ranked only behind Jabe’s difficult breech birth. And it wasn’t over.
After Ben’s, she stopped by Doc Mell’s place. Learning that Bohmer was sedated and resting in Bestine, she returned home, anticipating a mess of a store—and another war, when she found Jabe. He’d skipped out on work, taken up with trashy friends, and defied her by going after Tuskens. Twice! It was one thing to arrive butt-first into the world, but Jabe was going for the endurance record.
She wasn’t surprised to see lights on inside the Claim, with landspeeders scattered about. What did surprise her was the Claim itself, once she stepped through the door.
Yes, there were drunkards celebrating; more than she’d ever seen in the place before. But the store itself was spotless. The gun counter and shelves had been repaired, the nasty smears on the floor were gone, and products were back on their shelves reasonably close to where they belonged. The smell was even gone.
Raising a drink from within a gathering of mostly male revelers, Leelee smiled at her. “Everyone who didn’t go with the posse pitched in,” she said. “It gave us something to do.”
Annileen looked around, suspicious. She didn’t trust anyone to be in her store without a Calwell present. “Everything’s still here?”
“We might have fed ourselves a little off the shelves—but it’s a small price, no?”
Annileen walked up to her friend. Even for a Zeltron, Leelee looked flushed; the party had been going for a while. Annileen recognized her friend’s husband, Waller, in the mix, telling his own tales from the assault on the Tuskens. “Who’s with your kids?”
“The guard droids,” Waller called out, toasting with an empty mug. “Plug-eye’s finished. The droids are all we need!”
“All we need tonight,” Orrin said, clearing his throat loudly from behind the bar. He was a startling sight, having donned his spare set of fancy city clothes from the office—and an apron over them. Host and bartender, he refilled glasses with a smile. He spotted Annileen and nodded to the empty bottles. “I’m keeping track.”
“No, you’re not.” Annileen approached. “Give me whatever’s left,” she said, settling wearily on a stool at her own bar.
Orrin was already pouring. “You were out there, weren’t you?” He laughed. “Annie, you’re a marvel. What was it Dannar said? You can’t spell adrenaline without Annileen.”
“Dannar never could spell,” she said, taking the glass. “That’s why he hired me.” She downed the drink in three seconds and deposited it on the bar in front of him. “Now what did you think were you doing, taking Jabe out there?”
Orrin’s smile crumpled for a moment before a young voice saved him. “Don’t blame him, Mom. It wasn’t his idea!”
Annileen glared as Jabe stepped in from outside. The boy paused before Orrin. “Wyle Ulbreck’s gone, sir.”
“Blast,” Orrin said, shaking his head. “I’d hoped to rub the big victory in his face.” He looked around the room and raised his voice. “Everyone knows the Settlers’ Call works now, right? This place is the proof!”
A ragged, drunken cheer went up. Annileen ignored it. She slid off the stool and blocked Jabe from reaching the happy crowd. “Jabe. You have to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“I’m too tired for the list,” she said, clutching at his shirt. “But let’s start with the gorge. You were killing!”
“Killing Tuskens!” The boy waved his hands theatrically. “They’re not civilized, Mom. They’re not anything!”
“You don’t know that,” Annileen said. “They’re not womp rats that you can shoot for fun!”
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 an
d 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 putting 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 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 dashed 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.”
Kenobi: Star Wars Page 18