Jedi Healer

by Michael Reaves

  would at least be a barb in the beast's side worthy of a painful howl. It

  was tragic that many of the staff of this and of other Rimsoos would surely

  die as a result of this action. But it was done now, and there was no

  turning back. Best start getting prepared to exit this venue. There would be

  other places, other identities, wherein an agent of Column's skill and

  capability would be useful. Chipping away at the foundation of the Republic

  a bit at a time was slow but, over long enough a period, effective.

  All this the spy knew to be true, of course. But the bottom line was

  that it was still going to be extremely difficult to look these people-one,

  in particular-in the eyes and pretend to know nothing about the impending

  doom,

  It had to be done, however. To not meet their eyes, to act in any way

  departing from normal, any fashion that might cause the slightest bit of

  suspicion, could be disastrous. Column turned to the door. It was time to

  mingle with them, share their friendship, joy-and love-now, while there was

  still a little time left.

  26

  Of all moments, the instant of realization came to Bar-riss as she was

  washing up to join the sabacc table over at the cantina. She reached for a

  towel to dry the water from her face and hands-she preferred

  water-washing.to ultrasonic, even when the latter was working in her kiosk.

  And, as she caught sight of her wet features in the mirror above the small

  sink, it abruptly came to her:

  The answer is in the Force.

  This shouldn't have been a revelation. It was something she had been

  told a thousand times, at least, a litany that every Jedi student grew up

  hearing: When in doubt, trust the Force. You may not always interpret it

  correctly, but the Force never lies.

  She knew that. Had learned it early, had had it come to mean more and

  more to her as she had grown older, and had, at a very basic level, never

  doubted it. The Force doesn't let you down-it is eternal, infinite, and

  omnipresent. If you can figure out what to ask, where to look, how to get to

  it, the answer you need is always there.

  How many times, after all, had Master Unduli said the words to her,

  gently and with the calmness of complete conviction?

  Use the Force, Barriss.

  Don't think, don't worry, don't get caught up in the small details, the

  nagging concerns, of it. Just use the Force, trust it, embrace it. Because

  that's where Jedi live. Not in the past, or the future, but in this eternal

  moment of joyous realization, this everlasting now. Don't let fear of

  failure keep you from taking the chance.

  Barriss dried her face, hung up the towel, and looked into the mirror.

  Her face, calmer and more composed than it had appeared to her in a long

  time, looked back. Yes, of course. It was so simple, really: a perfect

  example of those enigmatic riddles that Master Yoda liked to pose as ways to

  help your mind let go of linear thoughts and concepts. The question was: how

  should she determine whether or not to use the bota again to increase her

  connection to the Force? Ask the Force.

  And what, so far in her life, had been the strongest, the most

  powerful, the best connection she had had to the Force? The bota.

  She could see Master Yoda, smiling and nodding gently, in her mind's

  eye. The bota was a key, a key that opened a door to new modes of

  perception. Beyond that door was a path that she could follow, to a place

  where she could find the'answers she needed.

  And there was no point in waiting. Barriss opened the lockbox next to

  her bed and removed one of the remaining poppers of bota extract. She took a

  deep breath, pressed it to her forearm, and triggered it.

  As if her first experience had somehow attuned her, opening her

  receptors, as it were, the rush was almost immediate this time. That amazing

  sense of familiarity, coupled with awe and wonder at the newness of it, the

  astonishing, held-breath feeling, the breadth and depth of it, stretching to

  infinity . . .

  She thought she was prepared for it, but she wasn't. It was just too .

  . . big. She couldn't see how anyone could accept it, take it all in,

  process it. It wouldn't fit into her limited comprehension; it was like

  trying to confine the blazing, multifaceted glory of a firestone into a flat

  2-D image. Her senses, corseted into only three dimensions, couldn't even

  begin to make sense of it. But she didn't have to make sense of it, she

  realized. She had but to accept it, to be one with it. It was glorious,

  uplifting, and terrifying, all at the same time . . .

  Her fear that this was an illusion vanished. There might be those who

  would say this was not a true connection to the Force because it had been

  induced by something outside herself, not arrived at through inner peace and

  meditation. She might even have said that at one time-but not now. This

  cosmic oneness could not be anything else but true-she could feel it to the

  core of her being.

  It didn't matter how she got there. What mattered was being there.

  It was if she were hungry, and, upon realizing this, was given a

  boundless table set with every kind of food imaginable. Choosing one dish

  over another was hard to do, and yet, on another level, she knew that she

  could.

  Abruptly, the "table" swirled and shifted, melting into variegated

  colors like the mingling threads of spore colonies in Drongar's night sky.

  It become a giant, galaxywide tapestry, a woven fabric so intricate and

  complex as to bring tears to her eyes. A perfect piece of art, beautiful

  beyond description, beyond belief-

  But wait. Yes, there was perfection here, but there was something else

  as well. She could sense flaws in the pat-

  tern, tiny, almost insignificant defects scattered throughout its

  immeasurable expanse. Barriss knew, instinctively, that these tiny mistakes

  were somehow necessary, that they were stitches in the skein of

  existence-imperfect ones, maybe, but nonetheless essential. Without them,

  the fabric would not hold together.

  She reached for one of these small twisted threads with her mind, saw

  it expand and shift, so that it became readable, somehow . . .

  The concepts revealed to her were not words, or images; neither smells,

  tastes, sounds, nor touch. They were instead some kind of wondrous amalgam

  of all of these, plus senses no being of flesh had ever had . . .

  In that moment, Barriss, herself a part of the grand pattern, knew the

  flaw in the tapestry:

  The camp was in danger. There was a spy among them, the same one who

  had been responsible for the explosions of the shuttle, and on MedStar. Not

  dead, us they had thought, but still alive. This spy had initiated events

  that would, if left unattended, cause the destruction of all those who were

  there.

  For the briefest of times, less than an eyeblink, she had more-she had

  the how and why and where and when of it-but then that was gone, swirled

  away in a burst of energy that she could not control. She couldn't remember

  the details.

  She strained to regain t
hem, aware of how supremely important it was.

  But now something somehow stood in her way . . .

  Barriss abruptly found herself floundering, as if swept away by a

  raging, swollen river. She was tossed helplessly, like a twig-in it, but not

  of it.

  It was the flaw, she realized. She had seen it, reached for it, but she

  had not had the power or the skill or whatever was needed to control it

  properly. And now, by trying, she had somehow disrupted the flow of the

  Force. She had lost her footing, her stance upon the firm ground that her

  serenity had given her. The roiling current had her now, was sweeping her

  along . . .

  No. She had power. Great power. She would use it!

  She tried to anchor herself, but there was nothing to grasp, nothing

  solid that she could perceive. She was caught in a flood, a gale, an

  avalanche that spun and disoriented her. Deep within, she knew that she was

  desperately seeking metaphors for that which could not be described,

  searching for some kind of mental analog that would enable her to separate

  herself from this chaos. She fought for calm, struggled to center herself,

  but she could not. Like a flood, it seemed to splash into her mouth,

  threatening to drown her; like a gale, it flung her in all directions,

  snatching the very breath from her lungs; like an avalanche, it threatened

  to crush her. It was like all those things, and none of them.

  It was the Force.

  She thought she heard someone speak then, a quiet and familiar voice,

  which she couldn't quite place.

  Let go, it said. Don't struggle against it. Take a breath and sink

  beneath it. . .

  No! I can control this, use it, wield it-/

  Or-you could die.

  Barriss felt the care and concern in that voice, and on some level

  below her conscious mind she knew it was right. Even as she inhaled a breath

  and relaxed into the mighty current, she recognized the speaker:

  Master Unduli.. .

  Barriss found herself sitting on her bed, blinking as if she had just

  come out of a deep sleep. She didn't need to check the room's chrono to know

  that time had passed. She had taken the bota injection at midday. She now

  sat in the dark.

  She stood, walked to the window, cleared it, and looked out. The faint

  glimmer of the force-dome was not enough to hide the stars in the clear

  night sky above. The constellations were halfway through their nightly

  dance; it was around midnight. She had been . . . gone .., for twelve hours,

  at least.

  Gone to a place where she had never been. Where, she suspected, few, if

  any, had ever been.

  She turned away from the window. She felt refreshed, as if she had

  slept soundly. She was not hungry, or thirsty; nor did she feel the need for

  the 'fresher. She smiled. The memory of the experience was still potent,

  pinwheeling in her mind in a glory of light and sound and smells and tastes

  and touch . . .

  This was what her relationship with the Force could be. This was how it

  should be, all the time . . .

  She frowned, feeling a tiny tug at her memory. The flaw. The coming

  disaster to the camp. In the cosmic totality of what she had just

  experienced, it was nothing, utterly insignificant when compared to the warp

  and woof of the whole; still, it was there, along with the uncountable other

  flaws. And she knew that, while they were somehow necessary in their total

  number, and they couldn't all be eliminated, in some cases individual ones

  could be-and should be-repaired.

  The camp was in deadly danger. She had been shown this for a

  reason-this she knew. Just as she knew she had to do something about it.

  27

  I he cantina was about as full as Den had ever seen it. After a moment,

  he realized why: the HNE troupe members were about to dust, as spacer lingo

  had it-they were on the morrow leaving Drongar to finish the remnants of

  their tour, and they were partying the night away.

  As Den and I-Five entered, the reporter nearly staggered back, as

  though struck a physical blow. The sweet scent of spicestick and gum, the

  tang of various alcoholic beverages, and-most of all-the combined odors of a

  dozen or more species, all mixed into the heavy, wet air, produced a miasma

  as thick and strong as Gungan bouillabaisse. He glanced at I-Five. "You're

  sure you want to go through with this?"

  "It seems the perfect atmosphere to me."

  "To me it seems more like the kind of atmosphere you'd find twenty

  klicks or so down under the clouds on Bespin."

  Den eyed the place askance. Many of the performers were dancing-or

  attempting to-egged on by the Modal Nodes doing a variety of favorites loud

  enough for the high notes to injure ears on MedStar. Den had been in a great

  many loud, crowded, and unruly bars over the course of his career, and he

  felt safe in ranking this one right down there among the worst.

  I-Five seemed undisturbed. "Tradition, remember?" he said to Den. Then

  he squeezed between two dancing Ortolans and vanished.

  Den sighed. I'd better keep an eye on him, before someone or something

  decides to use him for a toothpick.

  How he was going to manage this was a good question: Sullustans were

  among the more height-challenged sentients in the civilized galaxy.

  Nonetheless, he pushed ahead, weaving and dodging legs, spurs, tentacles,

  and various other supporting limbs. He saw no sign of I-Five. Concerned

  about his own safety-at least as far as the issue of mashed toes went-Den

  finally climbed up on a table, next to a clone trooper who had passed out.

  This action put him about at eye level with those who were of average

  height. Several species who were taller were mixed into the group as well,

  most notably a Wook-iee member of the troupe he'd noticed at the first and

  only show. That one stood head and shoulders over just about everyone else.

  He seemed to be enjoying his ale very much, and was perfectly willing to

  share it with others, mostly by sloshing it on them from above.

  A drunken Wookiee. That would no doubt make things. more interesting at

  some point in the evening.

  Den shifted his gaze, noticed Klo Merit near a wall, a drink in one

  furry hand and an introspective expression on his face. Equani weren't

  particularly tall, maybe half a dozen centimeters above most folks, but they

  were massive; Klo probably outweighed the Wookiee, with an Ugnaught or two

  tossed in. Den started to shout a greeting, then decided not to. From his

  expression, the minder looked like he could use a dose of his own medicine.

  "Den?"

  Surprised, he turned and saw Tolk le Trene by the table he was standing

  on. She, too, looked entirely too serious for such a party.

  "Have you seen Jos?"

  Den shook his head. "Just got here myself a minute ago."

  "I need to find him," she said, more to herself than to him. The rest

  of her words were lost in the general vocal noise.

  "What?" he shouted. But she just turned and disappeared into the crowd

  without another word.

  There had been something in that look-Den wasn't sure just what it had

 
; been, but it put him in mind of the old Sakiyan saying about a flensor

  flying over one's bonepit. It made his dewflaps horripilate. Brrr!

  Finally, he spotted I-Five.

  The droid was standing not too far from Epoh Trebor, speaking to the

  human entertainer. He was gesticulating with far more emphasis than was

  customary with him. Den couldn't tell what I-Five was saying-even Sullustan

  hearing couldn't help when there was this much ambient noise in a room-but

  whatever it. was, Trebor was laughing at it.

  Seems pretty obvious that the elemental's out of the magnetic bottle,

  he thought. I-Five had obviously already implemented what the reporter had

  already come to think of as the "inebriation algorithm."

  I-Five was, not to put too fast a spin on it, drunk.

  It was also quite apparent that the droid hadn't shirked on the writing

  of his program. Den could see that his friend's photoreceptors were shining

  more brightly. That, coupled with the excess body language, and the laughs

  I-Five was getting out of a veteran entertainer,

  made it obvious that the droid was anything but a surly drunk.

  Den grinned. Mission accomplished. He'd wanted to do his friend a favor

  by helping him find a way to cast off the shackles of propriety, to loosen

  up. Good. I-Five deserved no less. After all, if organic sentients chafed in

  those shackles, how much more must the artificially intelligent suffer?

  And the really good news was that I-Five wouldn't even wake up with a

  hangover.

  Den decided it was high time he joined the party.

  He jumped off the table and began to weave his way to the bar. "Excuse

  me. Coming through here. Low being walking. Pardon, citizen. Hey, watch the

  ears, floob . . .

  Jos sat on his cot, staring at the wall, feeling as miserable as he

  ever had in his life. His days were spent wading in blood, up to his armpits

  in the mangled bodies of clone troopers who were little more than particle

  cannon fodder. His one real friend, a brilliant musician and surgeon, had

  been killed by the war, snuffed out in a heartbeat. The only other bright

  spot in this sea of bleakness, the woman he loved, had pulled away from

  him-and she wouldn't even tell him why.

  Jos stared, unseeing. He was a surgeon, he had seen people die before

  the Republic had called him into its service-he'd dealt with it. He'd just