Star Wars: The Jedi Academy Trilogy I: Jedi Search

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Behind it the next two blobs managed to ascend to the second level of chain loops.

  Back at the first blobstacle, the last of the blobs squeezed through the mesh and began creeping at top speed toward the ratline.

  Blob 11 reached the top of the ratlines and, coiling its mass, shot onto the steep, greased slide, rolling and spinning and tumbling. Its holographic number remained upright all the while. The blob reached the high banked curve at the bottom of the slide, rebounded, and gushed toward the next blobstacle.

  The crowd was roaring and shouting now. Lando felt exhilaration burst through him. He decided he’d have to return to Umgul when he had more time to relax, to make a few real bets.

  “Excuse me, sir, but are we expressing enthusiasm for Blob Eleven?”

  “Yes, Threepio!”

  “Thank you, sir. I just wanted to be certain.” The droid paused, then amplified his voice. “Go, number eleven!”

  The second and third blobs reached the top of the ratlines simultaneously, and both leaped onto the lubricated slide, squirting down at an alarming rate. Many of the spectators jumped out of their seats and screamed with excitement.

  The two blobs tumbled next to each other, grappling with pseudopods and rolling. The steep, banked curve rose up in front of them like a wall.

  “Oh, I can’t watch!” Threepio said. “They’re going to crash!”

  The two blobs both struck the corner at the same instant and splattered into each other, forming one giant ball. The crowd roared with absolute delight.

  “Total fusion!” the announcer cried.

  The spectators continued to cheer. The two blobs had combined into one much larger mass, and they seemed to be working at cross purposes, trying to lumber over to the side of the track and out of the way of other oncoming blobs. Meanwhile, the amethyst blob increased its lead.

  “Those two are out of the race,” Lando muttered.

  Artoo returned, bleeping with excitement. “Excuse me, sir,” Threepio said, “but Artoo has located our man Tymmo. He has indeed come to the races and placed a very large bet. We have his seating assignment. We can go see him now if you wish.”

  Lando was startled to be interrupted during the race; then he jumped to his feet. “We found him already?”

  “Yes, sir. And as I said, he has placed a very large bet, if you take my meaning, sir.”

  “Let me guess,” Lando said. “On Blob Eleven, right?”

  “Correct, sir.”

  “Looks like he’s done it again,” Lando said. “Let’s go.”

  They pushed past other spectators who had not bothered to take seats, then emerged into the flagstoned halls. Lando allowed Artoo to lead, puttering down near-empty interior corridors. Lando was reluctant, wanting to see the outcome of the competition. “Hurry up, Artoo.”

  The little droid hummed downhill toward the lower levels of the sinkhole stadium. Through a graffiti-scrawled archway they passed into the section of least expensive seats filled with desperate-looking people, the ones who had staked everything on guessing the winner of just one race. Somehow Lando hadn’t expected a winner as lucky as Tymmo to be in the low-rent section. Maybe he was trying to keep a low profile.

  Though support pillars and debris screens crowded the view this far down in the crater, Lando could see that Blob 11 had increased its lead substantially, a full obstacle ahead of the remaining nine blobs. Farther back on the track two blobs lay motionless and rubbery in a bed of desiccant, too slow to cross the deadly obstacle before they suffered terminal dehydration.

  The surviving blobs worked at stringing themselves through a sequence of metal rings dangling on ropes, each swaying and trying to extend a pseudopod to the next ring before the pendulum motion stretched it to the breaking point.

  The amethyst blob had already crossed the desiccant trap and the rings and was now oozing precariously over a long bed of sharp spikes that continually poked through its outer membrane. Tireless, Blob 11 threw itself forward with wild abandon, not heeding the spears jabbing through its body.

  Artoo whistled, and Threepio pointed to a man three benches down. “General Calrissian, Artoo says this is the man we want.”

  Lando squinted at Tymmo. Young and attractive, but with a fidgety, furtive look, he had a disreputable air. Though his blob was winning by a wide margin, he did not seem elated. The other people around him cheered or wailed, depending on where they had cast their bets, but Tymmo just sat and waited, as if he already knew the outcome.

  Blob 11 dragged the last of itself off the bed of nails, tugging to remove a few clinging strands from the spike points. The nails had slowed it to a crawl just in front of the next obstacle—a slowly turning propeller blade with razor edges.

  The amethyst blob poised itself but seemed too panicked to plan the best way through the spinning blades. It squirted forward, elongating to gain speed, then shoved its body into the gap between the whirring fan blades. About a quarter of the blob made it through before the sharp edges slashed through, bisecting it.

  Mucus squirted but clung in one long, liquid thread on the propeller blade. One segment of the blob waited safely on the other side of the blobstacle. The remaining three quarters hunched, then lunged through the next gap in the blades. This time half of its mass passed successfully through, and the second segment oozed forward to rejoin the first small mass. The rest of Blob 11 made it through with only a nick in its posterior portion, but as the fan blades spun around again, droplets of slime on the edges congealed into a small lump and dropped off, rolling to safety, where all the portions conjoined once more.

  The crowd cheered. Some of the losers in the lower levels began throwing drink containers against the guard mesh in front of them. Blue sparks flickered from the electrified wires. Tymmo hunched forward in his seat, keeping one hand in his pocket. Lando wondered if he carried some kind of weapon.

  Tymmo looked around, blinking his eyes in alarm as if he suspected he was being watched. Lando winced, knowing that his fine clothes and rich cape made him appear painfully out of place in the lower levels. Tymmo noticed Lando and the two droids, tensed, then forced himself to watch the end of the race.

  Blob 11 approached the final blobstacle, hauling pseudopods over the rungs of a ladder as it dripped down. It seemed burned to exhaustion, but still it pushed on as if demons were chasing it. Its bright amethyst tracings had faded to mere speckles.

  Reaching the top of the ladder, the blob descended into an array of wide funnels that had exit holes of varying sizes, many of which were sealed shut. The amethyst blob thrust extensions of itself into various funnels, poking around until it found one with a large enough hole in the bottom.

  Behind, the nearest other blob began negotiating the bed of nails in front of the whirling propeller.

  Choosing an acceptable funnel, Blob 11 dumped itself into the cone and pushed. A pasty stream ribboned out the narrow end, rolling and piling on the ground as the blob re-collected itself. The thin strand of blob went on and on, coming out in spurts near the end until finally the tail plopped out of the funnel.

  Blob 11’s entire body shimmered as it trembled with exhaustion. It charged toward the finishing circle and looked as if it intended to keep going.

  The crowd continued to cheer, but the race was clearly over. Lando watched Tymmo. The other man adjusted something in his pocket.

  Blob 11 came to a sudden halt in the finishing circle. Blob wranglers in coveralls rushed onto the track with wide shovels and a levitating barrow to scoop up the exhausted thing and return it to the blob pens for rehydration and a long rest. The audience then began to root for which blobs would place and show.

  Tymmo slid out of his seat and flicked a quick glance from side to side, but Lando had already stepped behind a support pillar. Tymmo jostled the spectators still watching the rest of the race, making his way toward one of the cashiering stations where other winners had already queued up. Most of the winners jumped up and down, chattering with shared excite
ment; even the more reserved ones wore broad grins. Tymmo, though, showed only a metallic, unreadable expression. He seemed very nervous.

  Lando and the two droids eased themselves into the line, butting through the crowd. Tymmo kept glancing back, but he did not see them again. Over the loudspeakers the announcer listed the order of winners in the blob race.

  Lando pulled the cable jacks to the sheet-crystal Jedi detectors out of his sleeves and plugged them into the power pack on Artoo’s body. He slid the flat paddles into the palms of his hands, ready for a chance when he could scan Tymmo to confirm whether or not he had the bluish aura of a possible trainee for Luke’s academy.

  Threepio seemed very excited. “Why don’t we just go up to him and tell him the good news, General Calrissian?”

  “Because something’s fishy here,” he said, “and I want to make sure before we get ourselves in too deep.”

  “Fishy?” Threepio asked, then looked around as if to locate any aquatic spectators at the blob races.

  “His turn is next at the terminal. When he keys in his betting chit, it’ll take a minute to process and cash in his winnings. He’s effectively trapped until the transaction is done, unless he wants to throw away a lot of credits.”

  Of course, Lando remembered, cheating was punishable by death on Umgul, and Tymmo might be happy enough just to get away with his life. What had he been hiding in his pocket?

  As Tymmo stepped up to the terminal and inserted his chit, the announcer broke through the background noise to remind everyone once again of the next week’s races in honor of the visiting duchess from Dargul. Tymmo flinched visibly, but keyed in his ID code and inserted his account card to collect his winnings.

  “Come on,” Lando said, stepping out of line and moving toward the cashiering station. He flicked the power switch on the scanning pack; its warm-up hum vanished in the background noise.

  Tymmo looked intently at the display on the cashiering station, punching in his access code and transferring his winnings as quickly as he could. Lando stepped up beside him and swept either side of the man with the detector paddles before Tymmo realized what was happening.

  Tymmo looked up, saw Lando holding something that might have been a weapon, saw the two droids that might have been armed mechanical bodyguards, and panicked just as the terminal ejected his account card and called for the next customer. Tymmo snatched his card and fled, scattering a pack of Ugnaughts as he ran into the crowded stands.

  “Hey, Tymmo, stop!” yelled Lando. The man was swallowed up in the surge of spectators exiting the stands after the race.

  “Sir, aren’t we going to follow him?” Threepio asked.

  Other spectators had turned to stare. The next winner, grinning and oblivious, stepped up to the cashiering station.

  “No.” Lando shook his head. “We’ve got a reading for now. Let’s check it out.”

  In a shadowed corner, not caring if anyone saw what they were doing since nobody would understand it anyway, Lando watched the power pack of the Imperial detector reconstruct a holographic aura mapping of Tymmo.

  As Lando had unfortunately expected, Tymmo’s reading showed a perfectly normal outline: no bluish haze of Jedi potential, nothing at all out of the ordinary. “He’s a fraud.”

  Threepio seemed disappointed. “Can you be certain, sir? I should point out that many people were standing around, and they could have disturbed the readings. You also scanned him very quickly, and none too closely. Remember, too, that the detector itself is extremely old and may not be completely reliable.”

  Lando gave the protocol droid a skeptical frown, but Threepio’s arguments did have some merit. He should take the trouble to be sure. Besides, Lando was enjoying himself on Umgul so far. “All right, we’ll check him out a little further.”

  Relieved that the New Republic would pick up the tab, Lando relaxed in his spacious hotel accommodations. From the dispenser he ordered a cold punchlike drink popular on Umgul and went to the balcony to watch thick evening mists curl along the streets. He sipped the drink, unable to remove his perplexed frown or smooth his creased forehead.

  “Could I get you anything else, sir, of shall I power down for the time being?” Threepio asked.

  “Please do!” he said, realizing how nice it would be to keep the protocol droid quiet for a while. “But leave the circuit open in case Artoo tries to get back in touch.”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  Posing as a maintenance droid, Artoo had gone poking around the blob stables to see if he could uncover anything out of the ordinary. The little astromech droid had tuned his communication frequency to Lando’s comlink so he could send a message.

  Now with Threepio quiet Lando could finally think. He went over to the room’s courtesy terminal and punched in a request for information. The screen automatically displayed a complete schedule for the next three weeks of blob racing, but Lando selected another menu.

  The Umgullian Racing Commission was fanatical about being forthcoming with all information relating to the races and the blobs themselves. A sample of protoplasm was taken from each blob before and after any race, then subjected to rigorous analysis, the results of which were available to the public.

  With help from the information assistant built into the terminal, Lando was able to collate the before-and-after tests for all of Tymmo’s high-stakes winners. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he suspected some drug used to urge the blobs to greater speed, some incentive that would affect only the winners.

  “Run a correlation,” Lando said. “Is there anything unusual about these particular winners? Something found in these blobs, but not in the others?”

  Tymmo bet only once in a while, and if his manipulation was subtle enough, Lando could imagine that the Umgullian racing commission might have missed a tiny modification. But Lando knew that one variable tied these particular winners together apart from the other blobs. Since hundreds of people bet and won on each race, the commission would have no reason to look at only those particular races where Tymmo had cashed in.

  “One minor anomaly found in all cases,” the information assistant said.

  “What is it?”

  “Faint traces of carbon, silicon, and copper in the postrace chemical tests of each winner in this subset.”

  “This wasn’t noticed before?” Lando asked.

  “Dismissed as irrelevant. Probable explanation: minor environmental contaminants from the blobstacles themselves.”

  “Hmmm, and these same traces show up on every one of the winners?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do they show up on any of the other blob tests, winners or losers, in any race?”

  “Checking.” After a pause the terminal answered, “No, sir.”

  Lando looked at the test results. The amounts of contaminant were absolutely trivial, nothing that should have had any effect. “Speculation on what might have caused this?”

  “None,” the terminal answered.

  “Thanks a lot,” Lando said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Threepio sat bolt upright, startled out of his recharging state. “General Calrissian! Artoo has just contacted me.” Threepio bumped the comlink with his golden finger, and bleeping noises burst through the speaker. “Mr. Tymmo has appeared at the blob corrals, disguised as a blob wrangler. Artoo has verified his identification. What could he be doing there?”

  “Let’s go,” Lando said. “I didn’t expect him to try again so soon, but now we’ve got him, whatever he’s doing.”

  Lando grabbed his cape and slung it over his shoulders before he swept out of the room. Threepio raised his hands in alarm but shuffled off as fast as he could, his motivators whirring.

  The two ran through the darkened, misty streets of Umgul City. Around them blockish limestone dwellings rose high, stacked upon each other like cracker boxes, lacquered to a high gloss with moisture sealants. Streetlights hung at the street intersections, shedding a pearly halo into the mist.
Workers climbed on scaffolds, tearing down old banners that advertised the visit of one dignitary and putting up new ones welcoming the Duchess Mistal to Umgul City.

  Lando sprinted up the cobblestoned streets with Threepio scurrying stiffly behind. Steep thoroughfares climbed the bluffs. Ahead and adjacent to the sinkhole arena, they could see a large lighted structure where the blobs were kept and monitored.

  Lando ducked through a service entrance to the blob corrals, and Threepio followed. Strange smells, damp and musty, filled the air. Cleanup droids chugged through the halls, while others checked temperature controls for the blob pens. The lights had been dimmed for the evening, encouraging the blobs to rest.

  “Threepio, do you know where we’re going?”

  “I believe I can locate Artoo, sir,” Threepio said, and turned in slow circles before he pointed the way.

  Down another level they reached a shadowy chamber cut into the limestone. The lights inside had been set to their lowest illumination, and moisture generators kept the room damp and clammy. “Artoo is in here, General Calrissian.”

  “Okay, be quiet. Let’s see what’s going on.”

  “Do you really think Mr. Tymmo could be cheating, sir? Even with the threat of capital punishment?”

  Lando frowned at him. “No, I’m sure he has a perfectly legitimate reason to be wearing a blob wrangler’s uniform, slipping into the blob corral late at night, and skulking around in the darkness.”

  “What a relief, sir. I’m glad to hear he may yet be a Jedi candidate.”

  “Shut up, Threepio!”

  They crept through the entrance into a room lined with blob pens. Banks of about twenty small enclosures blocked his line of sight in the shadowy room. Within each pen a gelatinous blob burbled and vibrated as it rested.

  From the far side of the room came a rattling noise: a blob pen being eased open. Lando crept silently down the rows of blob enclosures, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness.

  In the shadows of the far row of pens, Lando spotted a human form. He recognized Tymmo’s build, his furtive movements, his lanky dark hair. Tymmo hunched over a cage, reaching inside, doing something to the blob in front of him.