Barriss smiled, a small and sad expression. “Of course not. Decent folk don’t want to travel that path. Good people, people who love and care, would rather not have those feelings.”
“So how do I get rid of them?”
“You don’t. You acknowledge them, but you don’t allow them to control you. Feelings don’t come with ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ labels, Uli. You feel how you feel. You are only responsible for how you act.
“That’s where choice comes in. Even the Force, a great power for good, can be used for ill.”
“That’s the ‘dark side’ I’ve heard mentioned?”
Barriss frowned. “Jedi refer to the ‘light side’ and the ‘dark side,’ but really, these are only words, and the Force is beyond words. It is not evil, just as it isn’t good— it simply is what it is. Power alone doesn’t corrupt—but it can feed corruption that already exists. A Jedi must constantly choose one path or the other.
“Tell me, if you actually had a chance to meet Count Dooku, face to face, and you had it within your power to kill him—would you?”
He reflected on that for what seemed a long time. Barriss could hear the rhurp-rhurp of the nearby croaker bushes, the high, thin buzzing of fire gnats swarming around her, the leathery slap of an Ishi Tib’s bare feet striding through a nearby mud puddle.
“Probably not,” Uli said.
“There you are.”
“But I’m not certain I wouldn’t. After all, he’s been directly or indirectly responsible for planetary genocide, the destruction of things like the Museum of Light on Tandis Four…”
“This is true. On the other hand…are you familiar with the Vissëncant Variations, by Bann Shoosha?”
He nodded. “Less than two years old, and already considered one of the great musical works of the millennium.”
“They were a great favorite of Zan Yant’s. The music was written to celebrate the Shoosha family’s escape from Brentaal. Had that battle not taken place,” Barriss said, “the Variations might never have existed.”
Uli looked troubled. “But is any work of art worth thousands of lives?”
“Probably not. I’m not saying it is—I’m just saying things aren’t simple. That’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? Making choices and living with the consequences?”
“I guess…” He still sounded doubtful.
Barriss relit her lightsaber. “Well,” she said to Uli, as she resumed her practice, “that’s all we’ve got.”
12
Seated near the top row of the hastily constructed bleachers, Jos, Den, and Uli, along with several others of the trauma team, watched as various species filled the rest of the seats rapidly. It was evening, and the short tropical twilight was rapidly darkening into night. The area was lit, brilliantly but without glare or shadows, by powerful full-spectrum LEDs. Doctors, nurses, assistants, techs, workers, and other Rimsoo staff personnel had one set of staggered plasticast row seating for themselves, while the troopers and other enlisted personnel occupied two others.
Uli watched as the clones filled the rows, dozens of identical faces and forms. “It’s one thing to see them one at a time on repulsor gurneys,” he commented to Jos. “But all lined up like that… well, it’s pretty remarkable. Like they came out of a holoduplicator.”
Jos nodded without comment. He, too, was watching the clones. They sat next to each other, laughing, chatting, some boisterous and outgoing, others quieter, more preoccupied. He could see no real difference in their behavior from that of a group of soldiers anywhere in the galaxy who were anticipating being entertained for a couple of hours. True, many were eerily alike in their mannerisms and gestures, and they also had little reticence in sharing drinks or bags of cracknuts, but such behavior, he knew, was common among monozygotic twins as well. Still, identical whorls of DNA did not necessarily mean identical personalities, even if those personalities had been geared toward certain similarities since birth—or decanting, in the clones’ case.
Jos bit his lip thoughtfully. He knew now that he had come to think of the troopers as being interchangeable mostly because their organs were—because transplantation could be performed without the need to pump them full of immunosuppressants to prevent rejection syndrome. Klo Merit had been right: his training as a surgeon, however benevolent its intention, had conditioned him to look upon the vat-born as less than human. Now that he knew the truth, he wondered how he ever could have seen them any other way.
The bleachers were full now, with some latecomers sitting on the ground. There was no structure on the base big enough to hold the troupe of entertainers, so a half-rotunda stage had been set up in the large center compound. Now, abruptly, the white-noise audience sounds were stilled by the announcer’s voice: “Gentlebeings of all species, please welcome your host, Epoh Trebor.”
On one side of the stage, the Modal Nodes, with their leader Figrin D’an, struck up the well-known theme music for Trebor, a Bith composition that translated into Basic as “Appreciated Reminiscences.” Trebor, a human, was one of the HoloNet’s most enduring entertainers. Revoc was the current younger and popular holovid star whom HoloNet Entertainment had insisted have top billing, but Trebor had been doing this in various venues for decades. Since the beginning of the current conflict, he had been one of the driving forces behind these tours to various battle fronts to entertain the troops and, as he put it, “the other unsung heroes of the war.” Jos had never particularly cared for Trebor’s brand of humor; he found it overly sentimental and a bit too party line. But there was no denying his popularity, judging by the applause.
“Good evening, fellow sentients—and a special greeting to our troops.” This brought renewed applause and cheers from the troopers. “Y’know, I hear the Kaminoans feel that the entire clone army project has been so successful, they’re thinking of branching out into other areas. They’re planning on cloning Falleens as marriage counselors… Zeolosians for farm and gardening aid…and Gungans to teach elocution.”
The laughter and applause continued as Trebor delivered his opening monologue. Most of his quips were somewhat funny, but Jos’s mood continued to be somber. He wished Tolk were here with him, instead of high overhead on MedStar enduring some ridiculous and unnecessary tutoring—and possibly well-meant but equally unnecessary interrogation by Admiral Great-Uncle. He found it difficult to get into the festive spirit with her circumstances weighing on his mind.
He wondered how long this war was going to continue, and what their lives together would be like afterward— always assuming that there would be an afterward. Like Erel Kersos, if Jos espoused an ekster he could never go home again. He had no worries about making a living— with his skill as a surgeon he could find work just about anywhere there was a medcenter, as could Tolk. They could even have children, since Lorrdians and Corellians were both basically human.
But to never see his homeworld, his friends, his family, again…
That would be hard. Brutally hard.
Erel Kersos had lived the life of an exile, and Jos could read the regret in the lines of the man’s face. He felt his mood growing darker. He wished Merit were here so that he could unburden himself to him, but the minder was also away from the Rimsoo on some errand. No, he would have to deal with these sorrows himself.
And the only reliable way he knew to do that was, of course, to drown them.
The cantina was probably close to deserted, but Teedle would be on duty, and his mood would be best served by drinking in solitude anyway. Thank the stars he didn’t have to worry about becoming addicted to alcohol—five hundred milligrams of a new drug called Sinthenol before the first drink prevented the potent concoctions from having long-lasting effects on the brain. It also sometimes helped alleviate hangovers, and the times that it didn’t he could always go to I-Five. The droid had recently discovered in himself the ability to soothe headaches and other postparty symptoms with sonic tones.
“Two clones walk into a cantina…”
&n
bsp; Jos felt suddenly impatient. The show seemed to him pointless, or worse: a classic case of whistling past the pyre. The chances of it being interrupted by more incoming patients were even higher than usual, since the Separatists were currently aggressively extending their front lines. Abruptly he stood, made his way to the steps, and left.
Den and Uli watched Jos leave the bleachers. Uli scratched his head. “I thought he was looking forward to this.”
“Probably so did he. After you’ve been here a little longer, you’ll realize that our good captain, while not exactly bipolar, can sometimes be a little…moody.”
“I think he misses Tolk.”
“Of course. But he’s also been waxing existential of late about the whole war effort. I get the feeling Jos was pretty much apolitical when he was conscripted, maybe even leaning toward war a bit. But I’d say his sensibilities have taken a sharp turn away from the party line since he’s been on Drongar.”
Uli snorted. “Show me one person who hasn’t made that turn.”
“I could have, but he’s dead now. Went out in a blaze of glory, mowing down Separatists and probably, it looks now, preventing an assassination attempt that might have cost the Republic dearly.” Den shrugged. “But he was definitely in the minority. Around here, in fact, he pretty much was the minority.”
“Phow Ji,” Uli said. “The Martyr of Drongar, they’re calling him. HoloNet News is doing a documentary.”
“Of course they are.” For a moment, Den thought about joining Jos in the cantina, for that was surely where the captain was headed. But then Epoh Trebor introduced Eyar Marath, a most comely Sullustan singer and dancer, and he decided to stay for a while longer. Nothing wrong with watching a good-looking fem wearing next to nothing, was there?
Nevertheless, it was hard not to brood on the cosmic injustice of it all. True, Ji was dead and thus unable to enjoy his brief notoriety. But that only deepened the irony as far as Den was concerned.
Ah, well—all fame is fleeting. He watched Eyar Marath prance about the stage, belting out the lyrics of one of the songs that had recently made it onto the Galactic Top 40,000. She was beautiful, of course. She was hot plasma now, but where would she be in ten years? And the band backing her up—what were they called? The Modal Nodes?—were also rocketing high now, but if, twenty years later, they wound up playing for pouch change in a dingy spaceport bar somewhere, he wouldn’t be at all surprised. It was the nature of the business. No matter how bright the spotlight on you, sooner or later it went out.
At that point all the lights in the camp went out.
A surge of panic enveloped the crowd. Den heard cries of shock and surprise, and the uneasy babble of questions. Both he and Uli were small enough to hunker down and roll under the bench, and he was about to tell the young human to be ready to do so if the crowd around them panicked. Better an uncomfortable squeeze than being trampled.
But before he could open his mouth, the emergency generators kicked on, washing away the darkness. Den could see Trebor, Marath, and some other members of the troupe looking about in puzzlement and apprehension.
The collective stir of fear ebbed with the light. But then things got really interesting. Den felt a cold draft touch the back of his neck. Then, in the somewhat-dimmerbut-still-sufficient-to-see lighting, fat white flakes began to drift down upon the gathering. One of them landed on Den’s hand. He stared at it, watched it melt.
Snow.
Holy milking Sith! Snow?
13
Jos had just settled himself at a table in the cantina—he had plenty from which to choose, since nobody else was in the place except the serving droid Teedle—when the lights blinked off. The emergency generators rumbled online and quickly replaced the darkness with a slightly dimmer, more hard-edged lighting.
Now what? he wondered.
Teedle rolled up on her gyroscopic single-wheel platform. “Hey, Doc. What’ll it be? The usual?”
“Sure. Keep ’em coming and—” He stopped, staring at one of the windows. Outside the transparisteel there was some kind of chaff falling. Spores? No, these were too big, and there were too many of them. Anyway, they didn’t look like spore colonies …these were white and flaky, like ash or like…
“Snow?”
Teedle said, “That’s what it looks like, don’t it? And my sensors tell me that the temperature in here is going down faster than an off-duty Ugnaught.”
At her words, Jos noticed it himself. Son-of-a-raitch, it was getting colder. A lot colder.
He stood and headed for the door, Teedle rolling along just behind him.
Outside, he looked up. The force-dome, high overhead, was usually transparent, though sometimes a slight crescent of pale bluish ionization was visible after dark. Not this time, though. Instead, the camp glow reflected back from what looked like low, thick clouds.
Sometimes, on a particularly hot and humid day, they would get some condensation under the dome, but nothing like this. The osmotic exchangers were fairly efficient, letting in air and even rain, while keeping out a lot of less desirable things. But for it to be snowing, the temperature differential had to be far outside normal limits. Short of parking a battery of refrigeration units on null-grav sleds up there, he had no idea how it could happen.
Zan would have known. Zan had worked for a relative on force-domes when he’d been young.
“Never saw anything like this before,” Teedle said, adding that gum-popping sound her vocabulator sometimes made. “Of course, I’ve only been operational for six weeks, so it’s not like I’ve seen all that much.”
Jos walked away from the cantina, toward the OT. The cold was increasing, and the snow continued to drift down. The ground and most of the other exposed surfaces were still too warm to allow it to pile up, but if the temperature kept dropping like this, it wouldn’t be long, he estimated, before they would have to start shoveling the stuff.
He remembered hearing or reading somewhere that the dome was in fact a spherical bubble, rather than a hemisphere, with half of it underground. He wondered if that would have any effect on the soil temperature.
Jos shivered. He needed a jacket. Had he even brought one to Drongar? Had anybody? The sticky wet heat that had hit him like a personal insult the moment he’d stepped off the transport had never stopped—it had remained body heat and hotter during the days, maybe three-quarters that at night, and a humidity factor of less than 90 percent was big news.
Even so, the current ambient temperature, in defiance of all the laws of thermodynamics, was fast approaching freezing. He needed a coat, at the very least. A heavy-weather parka would be even better…
“Attention, all personnel,” came Vaetes’s voice over the public address system. “There has been a heat-exchange malfunction of the camp’s osmotic force-dome. There is no cause for alarm—the shielding aspect of the dome remains in effect. Technicians are working on the problem and will have it repaired shortly. Until they do, you are advised to don warm clothing or to remain indoors.”
Jos stared around him. The flakes were turning to slush and mud upon contact with the still-warm ground—even so, the sight was pretty unbelievable. He’d seen this place in the lowlands practically every day for the past year and a half, and it had looked no different after the move here. Yet it now seemed completely transformed. He wondered what it would look like with the buildings covered with snow, with it piled up in drifts on the roads and against the sides of structures.
Jos couldn’t help but smile. Zan would have loved this. Almost a pity things’ll be back to normal before it has a chance to accumulate, he thought. I’d like to get in one good snowball fight with someone …
“Hey, look at that,” he murmured aloud. There’d been less residual heat than he would have thought—the snow was starting to pile up already.
He might get his wish after all.
Barriss stood in the falling snow, which was coming down quite heavily now. It lay piled at least finger-length deep, turning the ca
mp into a glistening white tableau that was quite beautiful. She’d always loved the sight of a snowy landscape. It transformed even the ugly durasteel and plasticast structures of the Rimsoo into something fresh and clean and new. The temperature was near freezing, cold enough for the stuff to keep falling, and, somewhat to her surprise, the ground was now cold enough for it to stick.
Along with her appreciation of the snow, Barriss also felt vindication. That cold draft she had felt, the impossible chilly breeze that had contributed to her accident, had been real. And, she knew, if the force-dome’s power had fluctuated at just the right frequency, the resulting pulse could have affected the crystal of her lightsaber.
Such events were rare, but the crystals that powered the center of a force-dome were similar to those at the heart of a lightsaber—though much larger, of course. The energies involved were more powerful, and the arc wave was focused differently to produce a dome instead of a blade. Thus, Barriss reasoned, it was just possible that a warble in the force-dome’s more powerful field harmonics generator might have resonated with her weapon’s focusing crystals, causing a sympathetic reverberation, just as thunder could sometimes cause the strings of a musical instrument to vibrate. Normally, the shielding in a lightsaber was proof against such interference—enemies had tried to short-circuit Jedi weapons before. But perhaps one of the dome’s crystals had a hidden flaw in it, impossible to spot in a normal inspection, but sufficient to cause the field to pulse just enough to shrink the blade a hair. Or to grow just a hair longer…
Barriss felt a relaxation of a tension she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Perhaps it was not so, but that at least made more sense than the idea that she had cut her own foot doing a move she should be able to do in her sleep.
The snow continued to fall, and she smiled into it. The colonel had said that this anomaly wouldn’t last long, so she planned to enjoy it while it was here.
Star Wars®: MedStar II: Jedi Healer Page 8
