by Sean Stewart
of the ship. She put her hand on his arm. "Whie, listen to me. Sometimes
pretending is all there is."
An hour later, Fidelis was setting ship's stores into the pantries of the
freighter's tiny galley. Yoda had told him to buy enough food for a feast, and
he had done his best. Programmed to please, he was distressed at the idea of
cooking without knowing his guests' preferences—but, he philosophically reminded
himself, all life was improvisation, and anyway the only cuisine Whie had ever
known was what they served in the Jedi Temple cafeteria. If Fidelis couldn't
exceed that standard, he deserved to be left behind with the rest of the scrap
on Jovan Station. Besides, although his exposure to Whie per se had been slight,
he had cooked for twelve generations of clan Malreaux, and of course he had the
boy's complete genetic scan available. Gustatory development was still more art
than science, but armed with this much information, it would be strange if he
couldn't come reasonably near the mark.
As he set out his ingredients, he could hear Yoda in the forward cockpit,
grunting and snuffing as he peered over the ship's manifest and owner's manual.
Creaks, gasps, and bangs came from aft, where Master Whie and the girl were
stowing the great casks of water.
Fidelis poked his head into the cockpit. "Pardon me, Master Yoda, but I would
like to delay cooking for the time being and help stow the water. I shall be
back in a matter of moments."
"No," the old Jedi grunted.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Go not. Padawans' job it is, to load the ship."
"Being considerably stronger, however, it would surely be more efficient for
me to do the heavy lifting, particularly as it would eliminate the risk of
muscle strain or injury on the young people."
"Use the Force they must. Good practice will it be."
"But neither of them has slept in more than a day."
Without bothering to look up from the ship's manual, where he was studying
the B-7's rather odd protocols for coming out of hyperspace, Yoda reached back
and whacked Fidelis on the leg with his stick. The droid made a pleasant ringing
sound, like a brass bell. "Missing the point, are you, toaster-thing. Padawans
need to work. If not working, think they will."
"Oh," Fidelis said.
Yoda turned, looking over his humped shoulder so their eyes met, sentient and
machine. "Old are we, and strong; trees that have survived many frosts. But for
these two, their Masters' deaths a first winter are. Work, let them," he said
gently. "And eat. And cry. And maybe, just maybe, sleep after all."
The droid regarded him. "You are wise, Master Yoda."
"So they tell me," Yoda grunted. "But since here you are, tell me more of
Count Dooku's quarters."
"They are hardly that," the droid said stiffly. "I trust the Count is staying
as a guest of House Malreaux. The exact nature of the situation is unclear, as I
have been on Coruscant for many years, and my communication with Lady Malreaux
has been somewhat erratic."
Yoda studied the droid. "Jai Maruk mentioned to me a lady he saw in the
house. A Vjun fox followed her."
"That would be Lady Malreaux. The fox is her familiar."
"Familiar?"
Fidelis shrugged. "So the servants call it. I do not care to speak to
superstition, although certainly the Force is reputed to be very strong on Vjun,
and House Malreaux, of course, has produced the finest adepts of its arts."
"Strong it is . . . in the dark side," Yoda murmured.
Fidelis shrugged. "Count Maireaux's attempt to apply genetic manipulations to
the midi-chlorian bodies was, with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps overly
ambitious. And yet, one must admire his scope and vision!"
"Must one?" Yoda said dryly. "An old saying is there, about playing with
fire, gentleman's personal gentle-thing. But of your Lady Malreaux—Dooku's mad
housekeeper is she now."
Even Yoda had rarely seen a droid look shocked: but shock was exactly the
expression on the droid's metal face now. Shock, mortification, and something
else that in a sentient one might almost call anger. "That cannot be."
"Washes the floor, Jai said she did. Also cleans refreshers," Yoda said. "Is
it the wrong word, housekeeper? Servant would be better? Scullery maid?" he
asked innocently. "Slave?"
"Lady is the appropriate term," Fidelis said sharply. "Or Mistress."
"Like to meet with Dooku, would I," Master Yoda continued blithely. "Convince
him to come back to Coruscant I must. Not easy, though. Guards will be there.
Followers, perhaps. Soldiers. Know you any private ways into Château Malreaux?"
"I do indeed," Fidelis said.
Three hours later, the Nighthawk was lumbering out of Jovan Station,
beginning the long, slow run she needed to warm up for the jump to hyperspace.
Her motley crew was gathered in what the B-7 owner's manual optimistically
called "the crew lounge," a small bubble in the ship's throat between the
cockpit and the galley, just wide enough to fit a small projector table suitable
for playing hologames or screening holovids as long as they had been encoded in
one of two Hydian Way formats, neither one of which was the Coruscanti standard
for Republic pictures.
The lounge's other amenities included two not-quite full decks of cards; four
secondhand bar stools of the sunken-middle design that had been fashionable
twenty standard years before and made one feel as if one was sitting in an inner
tube; and a foldout clothes-pressing board. Master Yoda was currently sitting on
the ironing board, swinging his dangling legs. He was too small to sit on the
stools without the risk of getting stuck in the hole in the middle.
From the galley, Fidelis emitted a surprising chime. "Dinner is served."
Whie set the projector table to the ship's external sensors, so the middle of
the tiny lounge was now a starscape, deep blackness pricked by pinpoint suns,
and their little freighter a glowing dot in the center. The boy's face was gaunt
and exhausted, his eyes ringed with dark circles. "I'm not hungry," he said.
"Ah, but I have made crepes Malreaux," Fidelis said, bearing two gently
steaming platters of food into the lounge. "A recipe I created for the ninth
Count. My gentlebeings have been so good as to commend it warmly these last
eight generations."
"Smells delicious," Scout said.
"Obviously there were no acid-beets to make the customary side dish; indeed,
I do not know that Vjun exports them any longer. I was, however, able to
purchase a string of dried whip-smelt and some rather excellent cheese as an
appetizer, along with a few Reythan crackers and a souse-mustard tapenade from
an old Ortolan recipe that I hope will give satisfaction."
Fidelis placed the trays of food on the projector table. Whip-smelt in
toasted cheese steamed gently amid the stars. "I took the precaution of
supplying linen," Fidelis said, handing out napkins. "These are all finger
foods; there's little room in the galley, and I thought it best not to ship much
in the way of dishes."
"Tastes d'l'cious, too," Scout said thickly, through a mouthful
of cracker
and tapenade. "Stars, I didn't know how hungry I was."
"For you, Master Yoda, a bowl of the bottom-feeder gumbo." Fidelis supplied a
bowl of sticky, black, acrid stuff, with nameless pale blobs the color of tree
lichen floating in it. It smelled extraordinarily like burning lubricant. "I did
follow the recipe," the droid added anxiously.
Yoda leaned over the bowl and snuffed. His eyes rolled up in pleasure. "Most
excellent!"
Scout's eyes were half closed in dreamy appreciation of a cheese-toasted
whip-smelt. "Whoa."
Master Yoda held up his bowl. "Asked the toaster to make this feast I did,"
he said, nodding benevolently at Fidelis, "that we might share our food, and
remember our lost Master Leem and Master Maruk."
Fidelis handed the Padawans beakers of a rich purple liquid that tasted like
candleberries and rainwater and the smell of sweet stuff. It fizzed on Scout's
tongue as she drank a toast. "Master Leem and Master Maruk."
"That's it?" Whie said angrily. "That's what you want to do? Eat? Maks and
Jai Maruk dead, and all you can think about is filling your bellies?"
Scout looked up guiltily, licking cracker crumbs off the edge of her mouth.
"What about finding Ventress?" Whie demanded. "What about making her pay for
what she did? Are the Jedi about justice, or dessert?"
"Profiteroles Ukio," Fidelis said quietly. "With a caramel ganache filling."
Yoda savored a spoonful of gumbo. "Honor life by living, Padawan. Killing
honors only death: only the dark side."
"Well, much has the dark side been honored, then," Whie said bitterly.
"Kid, it's been way too many hours since you've slept," Scout said.
"Don't call me kid," Whie said dangerously. "I am not your little brother. I
look out for you, not the other way around, Tallisibeth. Jai Maruk was right
about you. If I hadn't been taking care of you back in the spaceport, I might
have been able to get down to the floor in time w stop her from killing them
both."
"Taking care of me!" Scout cried, outraged. "Who was pinned to the railing by
his butler droid while I was trying to get down there? Who snuck off to hear
stories about his so-called real family in the first place?" she said, white
with anger.
Yoda set his bowl of gumbo regretfully aside. "Hear it working, do you?"
"Hear what?" Whie snapped.
"The dark side. Always it speaks to us, from our pain. Our grief. It connects
our pain to all pain, our hurt to all hurt."
"Maybe it has a lot to say." Whie stared at the starscape hovering over the
projector table. "It's so easy for you. What do you care? You are unattached,
aren't you? You'll probably never die. What was Maks Leem to you? Another pupil.
After all these centuries, who could blame you if you could hardly keep track of
them? Well, she was more than that to me." He looked up challengingly. Tear
tracks were shining on his face, but his eyes were still hard and angry. "She
was the closest thing I had to a mother, since you took me away from my real
mother. She chose me to be her Padawan and I let her down, I let her die, and
I'm not going to sit here and stuff myself and get over it!" He finished with a
yell, sweeping the plate of crepes off the projection table, so the platter went
sailing toward the floor.
Yoda's eyes, heavy-lidded and half closed like a drowsing dragon's, gleamed,
and one finger twitched. Food, platter, drinks, and all hung suspended in the
air. The platter settled; the crepes returned to it; Whie's overturned cup
righted itself, and rich purple liquid trickled back into it. All settled back
onto the table.
Another twitch of Yoda's fingers, the merest flicker, and Whie's head jerked
around as if on a string, until he found himself looking into the old Jedi's
eyes. They were green, green as swamp water. He had never quite realized before
how terrifying those eyes could be. One could drown in them. One could be pulled
under.
"Teach me about pain, think you can?" Yoda said softly. "Think the old Master
cannot care, mmm? Forgotten who I am, have you? Old am I, yes. Mm. Loved more
than you, have I, Padawan. Lost more. Hated more. Killed more." The green eyes
narrowed to gleaming slits under heavy lids. Dragon eyes, old and terrible.
"Think wisdom comes at no cost? The dark side, yes—it is easier for them. The
pain grows too great, and they eat the darkness to flee from it. Not Yoda. Yoda
loves and suffers for it, loves and suffers."
One could have heard a feather hit the floor.
"The price of Yoda's wisdom, high it is, very high, and the cost goes on
forever. But teach me about pain, will you?"
"I . . ." Whie's mouth worked. "I am sorry, Master. I was angry. But ... what
if they're right?" he cried out in anguish. "What if the galaxy is dark. What if
it's like Ventress says: we are born, we suffer, we die, and that is all. What
if there is no plan, what if there is no 'goodness'? What if we suffer blindly,
trying to find a reason for the suffering, but we're just fooling ourselves,
looking for hope that isn't there? What if there is nothing but stars and the
black space between them and the galaxy does not care if we live or die?"
Yoda said, "It's true."
The Padawans looked at him in shock.
The Master's short legs swung forth and back, forth and back. "Perhaps," he
added. He sighed. "Many days, feel certain of a greater hope, I do. Some days,
not so." He shrugged. "What difference does it make?"
"Ventress was right?" Whie said, shocked out of his anger.
"No! Wrong she is! As wrong as she can be!" Yoda snorted. "Grief in the
galaxy, is there? Oh, yes. Oceans of it. Worlds. And darkness?" Yoda pointed to
the starscape on the projection table. "There you see: darkness, darkness
everywhere, and a few stars. A few points of light. If no plan there is, no
fate, no destiny, no providence, no Force: then what is left?" He looked at each
of them in turn. "Nothing but our choices, hmm?
"Asajj eats the darkness, and the darkness eats her back. Do that if you
wish, Whie. Do that if you wish." The old Jedi looked deep into the starscape,
suns and planets and nebulae dancing, tiny points of light blazing in the
darkness. "To be Jedi is to face the truth, and choose. Give off light, or
darkness, Padawan." His matted eyebrows rose high over his swamp-colored eyes,
and he poked Whie with the end of his stick. Poke, poke. "Be a candle, or the
night, Padawan: but choose!"
Whie cried for what seemed like a long time. Scout ate. Fidelis served.
Master Yoda told stories of Maks Leem and Jai Maruk: tales of their most
exciting adventures, of course, but also comical anecdotes from the days when
they were only children in the Temple . They drank together, many toasts.
Scout cried. Whie ate. Fidelis served.
Yoda told stories, and ate, and cried, and laughed: and the Padawans saw that
life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and
death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star
shining in the black eternity of space.
10
Château Malreaux st
ood on a high bluff on the north side of the Bay of Tears
, a deep-water harbor guarded by sudden shoals. The River Weeping, which ran
into the bay, had hollowed out a fantastic labyrinth of caves through the
coastal cliffs. These features—a harbor friendly to those who knew her secrets,
and death to those who didn't, and the chained galleries of caves that
honeycombed the shore—had made the Bay of Tears the perfect smuggler's port. The
first Count Malreaux had been a pirate, extorting his grant of nobility from the
surrounding territory in exchange for a promise, only occasionally broken, to
stop plundering passing ships.
The view from the bluff had a kind of bleak grandeur: the windswept point,
bare but for the ubiquitous covering of Vjun moss, glowed a venomous green
between leaden skies and a pewter sea. The wind blew hard, driving long rollers
before it to smack heavily into the cliff face. Thin strings of rain bent and
whipped in the air, mingling with spray blowing off the sea. A few pirate gulls,
black with silver markings, wheeled and screamed over the little inlet.
The system of caves and tunnels that led up from the beach had exits
everywhere, including, of course, the cellars of Chateau Malreaux. One of these
underground passages opened into the side of a tall hillock, crowned with
thorn-trees, half a kilometer inland. From the cover of these thorns, an
interested observer watched as an old B-7 freighter, accompanied by two
wasp-winged Trade Federation fighter craft, came lumbering in, apparently
intending to set down on the deserted landing pads in the ruins of Bitter End, a
city on the far side of the bay from the château. Bitter End had numbered some
sixty thousand souls before plagues and madness had rendered it a ghost town a
decade before.
The freighter lurched suddenly, as if experiencing a problem with its
attitude thrusters. It slipped rapidly sideways, spinning convincingly, and
disappeared into a cleft between two rocky hills. A nicely judged performance,
the observer thought. The Trade Federation fighters balked, jerked, and finally
finished their descent into Bitter End.
One hundred twelve seconds later, the first landspeeders came screaming down
the road from Bitter End to the cliff across the bay from Chateau Malreaux. The
