Rogue Planet

Chapter 47

Anakin, fully recovered now, could feel the ship's immediate response, the wonderful surges of instant power, the way she cut through die air almost as effortlessly as if they were in a vacuum. The hull created subtle lift and was remarkably stable. On any world with an atmosphere, she would land sweetly. It took very little of his attention to fly the ship. Information arrived in comfortable flows through his contact with the ship's mind. She truly was a dream, alive to his touch.

But any joy he might have taken in this first flight was tainted by his concern for Obi-Wan. His face was deeply carved by a grim frown.

The Blood Carver stared at the young human, nose flaps closed, sharp as a blade. "I did not kill your master," Ke Daiv said. "It would have served no purpose."

"But you would have killed me, once," Anakin said through clenched teeth.

"I follow orders," the Blood Carver said.

"So you're an assassin. Do you even know my name?"

"You are the only one named Skywalker."

"If you're going to kill me, I'd like to know your name."

"Ke Daiv."

"I've never met a Blood Carver before," Anakin said. "I can't say it's a pleasure."

"Just fly. We need to find fuel."

"I don't know where to get any!" Anakin lied. The seeds knew-they were talking with other parts of Sekot.

And something or someone else flowed through his fingers where they were enmeshed by the controls. Anakin kept seeing misting ghosts around the cabin, like afterimages from bright sun-he had to work to concentrate on the scene around him.

"I have been busy in Middle Distance," Ke Daiv said. "I have learned where secret reserves of fuel are kept. Fly due south."

"Why would they need secret reserves?" Anakin asked. He turned the ship.

"There are mysteries on this planet," Ke Daiv said with a slight hiss. "Not long ago, there was a great war."

"We saw the damage."

"Did you learn what caused the war?"

"I really don't think I should be talking with you." But I should see how well he reacts to Jedi compulsion. I've never been trained in mind tricks, but I know I can do it. Maybe even better than Obi-Wan.

The boy shook his head, distracted by seeing a vague image wrap over the Blood Carver's features. The wraithlike form drifted with his attention to different parts of the cabin.

"Who are you, really?" Anakin asked to hide his confusion.

"I am from an old clan, an even older nation, swallowed by the Republic, taken in after our defeat at the hands of the Lontars."

Concentration was becoming increasingly difficult. Anakin fumbled to keep up the conversation, to keep it away from his main concerns."That was hundreds of years ago. The senate forced the Lontars to stop their aggression."

"Not before my people had been nearly wiped out," Ke Daiv said. "The few survivors were taken to Coruscant and kept in seclusion. We were warriors. We were called allies, but we could not be trusted. Few understood us. In time, when the rulers of the galaxy lost interest, we made our livelihoods selling crafts."

So you've lived on Coruscant all your life."

"You said you should not be talking to me," Ke Daiv reminded him.

"What else is there to do? Why didn't you get a ship for yourself?"

The wraith took on form-an oblong head, torso shifting, still too vague to be identifiable. Then he made out the feathers, the elliptical eyes. Anakin held back an exclamation, and sweat broke out on his forehead. I don't need this now!

"I am not appealing to the seed-partners," Ke Daiv said.

"Too bad. These ships are really great."

"I have always hoped for independence," Ke Daiv said.

"Yeah, me too," Anakin said sharply. "Fly all over the galaxy. . Freedom to see everything, no obligations, no. ."

"No history, no future," Ke Daiv said.

"Right," Anakin said. He's losing focus. He's weak. Now's the time to move on him. I have to keep control. No distractions.

But he could not push aside the feathered being's image. She was trying to say something, repeating something over and over, like a muted recording.

Anakin raised his hands, and the panel let go with a soft sucking sound. The image vanished. He made as if to wriggle the tension out of his fingers. "Got to get used to these controls." He looked at the Blood Carver. His fingers instantly formed the graceful shape of compulsion.

Ke Daiv seemed unconcerned.

"You should let me take you back to Coruscant," Anakin said. "I could show you the Temple where I live."

Ke Daiv regarded him, eyes small and somehow sad, his oddly handsome face almost unreadable. "We are not destined to share clan."

"No, just a visit."

Anakin moved his hand to another position, a milder form of persuasion, and felt for connections in the Force. Jedi must be in sympathy and understanding with what they seek to control. You and he are not that different.

"We're not that different."

"We are different, Jedi. You have honor. I have merely the duty to work my way out of disgrace."

"Tell me about it," Anakin said. "I was a slave."

"You are valued among the Jedi. And those who command tell me the Jedi pose a danger."

"We defend, we don't cause trouble."

"That is young talk," Ke Daiv said.

"You're young, too."

Ke Daiv looked at his set of controls. One of several displays spun into view in front of him. He tensed in the seat, which would not let him sit comfortably. "There is a ship chasing us. It is the ship that brought you here. And. . there is another. Go faster."

Anakin squinted at him.

Ke Daiv swung his flexible arm back, and the lance nearly caught Jabitha in the face. She screamed.

"Faster, to the Magister's mountain," the Blood Carver insisted, his voice chillingly calm.

"We're going as fast as we can!" Anakin cried. He did not have the training or the concentration now to compel the Blood Carver to do anything. He placed his hands on the controls.

The little creature instantly returned, filling his eyes and his mind. There was no sense fighting her. The image was crystalline. Her expression, what he could read in the piebald arrangement of feathers and whiskers, was stern, and her large, slanted eyes darted left and right, anticipating danger. Anakin recognized her now. This was Vergere.

"Jedi," she said. "Whoever you may be. I have left this message in my seed-partners, in the hopes they will find you, or you will find them. There is little time left. I am leaving with the visitors who have provoked a war here and wiped out half of Zonama Sekot. It is the only way to study them, and the only way to avoid a greater war and save this world."

Anakin tried to stay calm. The integrated seeds contained all of the message that Obi-Wan had caught only a fragment of. That the ship was delivering the message now, in the middle of his trial, when he was at his most vulnerable, seemed grossly unfair.

But fairness had never played much of a part in Anakin Skywalker's life.

"The Zonamans call these visitors Far Outsiders. They are different from all the living things we have studied. The Far Outsiders know nothing of the Force. And the Force knows nothing of them.Yet they are not machines, they are definitely alive, and they may pose a great threat to us all. They are fascinated by me, by my abilities, and they have accepted me in exchange for breaking off their attack and leaving this system.

"I go with them to learn their secrets, and I vow, as a Jedi Knight, that I will survive and report my discoveries. But also, I lead them away from a planet I have come to love. Know this, Jedi-"

Vergere's face seemed to glow with enthusiasm. "There is a great secret here, which you may discover in time. The heart of a great living creature has started to beat, and a great mind has become aware of itself. I have witnessed the birth of an amazing being-"

Vergere turned aside, and the message ended abruptly.

There was no more.

"What are you staring at?" Ke Daiv asked, thumping the lance on the bulkhead over Anakin's seat. The lance tip left a mark that quickly closed up and healed.

Anakin jumped. "Just let me fly," he said, frowning.

Suddenly, the Sekotan ship, his childish enthusiasm for machines, his resentment at the turns his life had taken, everything that had before now defined Anakin Skywalker, seemed vague and unimportant.

Vergere might have sacrificed her life to pass this information to another Jedi.

Anakin now saw more clearly the shape of his trial. He knew why he was important, and why he must defeat Ke Daiv and all the others who might try to destroy him.

The survival of the Jedi themselves could be at stake.