Rogue Planet

Chapter 17

Anakin was disappointed by both the reception and his first glimpse of life on Zonama Sekot. He had hoped for scale, spectacle, something to fit the vivid preconceptions of a twelve-year-old boy. What they saw, entering the first dome, was an empty shell, its interior so cold their breath clouded.

Obi-Wan, however, had carefully kept preconceptions from taking hold. He was open to anything, and thus found the reception and the spare quarters-if quarters they were-interesting. These people did not feel the need to impress.

The woman removed her helmet and mask and shook out a thick fall of gray-white hair. The hair quickly arranged itself into a neat spiral that hung with a springlike flex down the back of her suit. Despite the color of her hair, her face was free of wrinkles. Obi-Wan would have thought her younger than he, except for the cast of wary resentment in her deep blue eyes. She seemed very experienced, and tired.

"Rich, are we, and bored?" she asked curtly. "Is this your son?" She pointed to Anakin.

"This is my student," Obi-Wan said. "I am a professional teacher."

She shot off another question. "What do you hope to teach him here?"

Obi-Wan smiled. "Whether or not we are rich, we have money to buy a ship. What the boy learns here will begin with your gentle answers to our questions."

Anakin tipped his head in her direction, showing respect, but unable to hide his disappointment.

The woman looked them over with no change in expression. "Bankrolled by somebody else, or a consortium, too locked in luxury to come by themselves?"

"We are given funds by an organization to which we owe our education and our philosophical stance," Obi-Wan told her.

The woman snorted in derision. "We do not provide ships for delivery to research groups. Go home, academics.'"

Obi-Wan decided against any mind tricks. The woman's attitude interested him. Contempt often veiled bruised ideals.

"We've come quite a long way," Obi-Wan said, undaunted.

"From the center of the galaxy, I know," the woman said. "That's where the money is. Did they tell you-the traitors who do most of our essential advertising-that you must prove yourself before you come away with whatever prize Zonama Sekot will offer? No visitors are allowed to stay more than sixty days. And we have only resumed accepting customers in the last month." She flung her hand out at them. "We've seen all the tactics here! Customers… a necessary evil. I do not have to like it!"

"Whatever our origins, we would hope to be treated with hospitality," Obi-Wan said calmly. He was about to try a subtle bit of Jedi persuasion when the woman's whole aspect changed.

Her features softened, and she looked as if she might have suddenly seen the face of a long-lost friend.

She stared over their shoulders.

Anakin turned his head to look. The three of them were alone in the shelter.

"What did you do?" he whispered to Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan shook his head. "Pardon me," he said to the woman.

She looked down from a vague distance and focused on Obi- Wan again. "The Magister tells me you are to go south," she said. "Your ship can remain for four more days."

The abrupt turnaround caught even Obi-Wan by surprise. She did not seem to be equipped with an ear-receiver. Some other comlink was concealed in her clothing, he surmised.

"This way, please," she said, and gestured for them to go through a small hatch on the opposite side of the empty dome. There, they found themselves again outside, in the middle of a biting, almost horizontal blast of snow.

Obi-Wan looked up at a ghostly shadow descending through the storm. Though the woman showed no concern, his hand slipped automatically through his jacket to his lightsaber.

What had alerted him? What stray bit of clue from the future had made him feel threatened by the expected arrival of a transport, of all things?

Not for the first time, he regretted this mission and its possible impact on his Padawan. The danger he felt came from no specific source but from all around-not threat of physical harm, but of a possible imbalance in the Force so drastic it overshadowed anything he had ever imagined.

Anakin Skywalker was not so much at risk as he was a possible cause of this imbalance.

For the first time since the death of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi- Wan felt fear, and he quickly drew up the discipline instilled by long Jedi training to control and then quash it.

He reached out to grip Anakin's shoulder. The boy looked up at him with a brave grin.

"Your ride south," the woman announced over the wind as a broad, flat, disk-shaped transport landed in the blowing drifts of snow.

Obi-Wan lifted his own small comlink and opened a channel with the Star Sea Flower. "We are leaving the plateau," he told Charza Kwinn. "Stay here as long as they allow, and after that. . maintain a position nearby."

Given that Obi-Wan felt he could trust no one, flexibility was essential.