Star Wars: Fate Of The Jedi: Omen Part 12

Ben felt slightly light-headed the moment they stepped down the ramp, but the sensation wasn't extreme. They approached slowly, giving the Aing-Tii plenty of time to exit his own vessel. Several large, gray rocks were cl.u.s.tered within a few meters of the s.h.i.+p. Ben wondered why the Aing-Tii had chosen such a landing site when a few hundred meters to the north there was a large area that was completely clear.

Luke slowed the pace even further the closer they drew. He frowned a little, revealing that he was as puzzled as Ben. "Perhaps this is part of the challenge," he murmured slightly.

And then one of the rocks near the s.h.i.+p moved.

It uncurled slowly, languidly, extending a long tail, two powerful lower limbs, two smaller forelegs, and a large head on a sinuous neck. It fixed them with large, dark, unblinking eyes as it curled its tail beneath it and sank back on its hind legs. Ben instinctively knew that the slow revelation of its presence was deliberate and for their benefit. This creature could probably transform from appearing to be a simple rock formation to a deadly threat in a heartbeat. Even now that it was not curled up but rather sitting, it still blended in with its environment.

It was much more imposing than the holographic image Ben had studied. Something about its plating and its stillness was unsettling. Ben glanced at his father.

Luke bowed politely and Ben followed suit. "I am Jedi Luke Skywalker. This is my son, Ben. Thank you for being willing to meet with us. We have come as requested to accept your challenge."

Ben and Luke waited. The being did not move. Ben took in the geometric designs on certain pieces of the jointed plating that covered its body. He recognized a few of them as being the same as some of those he had seen on the Sanhedrim s.h.i.+p. This close to the creature, he could see now that the patterns were not simply painted on but were etched into the Aing-Tii's sh.e.l.l and then stained. Ben wondered if it had hurt, or if, as it appeared, the plating was more like armor or some kind of exoskeleton than like skin.

"I don't think he understands Basic, Dad," Ben said quietly after a few minutes.

"Doesn't look like it, no."

Ben glanced at the vessel. "They seem to be highly advanced technologically. And we know that they've been able to communicate with humans before. So why is he not making use of his equipment? How's he supposed to tell us what our challenge is?"

Luke smiled slightly. "Because I'm willing to bet that our challenge is to figure out a way to communicate with him without the use of technology. Which is going to be a fine challenge indeed, as the Aing-Tii communicate among themselves by tasting, smelling, and touching one another with their tongues," he added.

As if it had heard and completely understood everything that had been said, the stone-still creature suddenly opened its mouth. Six thin, bright green tendrils shot out and flickered about wildly.

"Oh gross," said Ben.

Then he wondered if the Aing-Tii actually had been able to understand everything they had said, and he blushed a little.

The Aing-Tii withdrew its glistening green tongues and was as still as if it had never moved at all.

"How are we supposed to learn that kind of language?" Ben asked, his voice slightly sharp. He would have died before admitting it, but the sudden movement of the previously motionless being-particularly when that movement involved green tongues-had startled him.

"We don't," Luke said quietly. His gaze was locked with the dark, s.h.i.+ny, fist-sized orbs of the Aing-Tii. "We don't learn his language, and he doesn't learn ours."

"But we have to communi-" Ben blinked. "Wait a minute. How do you know it's a he?"

"The same way I intend to communicate with him," Luke replied. His voice was softer, slightly deeper, and although he was still regarding the Aing-Tii, Ben realized that his father wasn't really seeing the being. Luke took several steps forward, closing the s.p.a.ce between himself and the Aing-Tii, and then eased himself to the rocky ground to sit facing it. Him.

And then Ben got it.

Without another word, he followed his father's example, moving to sit cross-legged beside Luke, turning his face up-for even seated, the Aing-Tii was taller than they-to the alien. He let his gaze soften but did not close his eyes, and slowed his breathing despite the thinness of the atmosphere.

He felt a touch on his hand, and turned it so that his father and he were clasping hands. Luke needed physical contact if he was to extend the ha.s.sat-durr technique to protect both himself and Ben. Ben wasn't accustomed to holding hands with his dad, but he felt a slight tingling and was grateful for the s.h.i.+elding Luke was offering.

He sensed his father in the Force immediately, of course. Luke Sky-walker was a bright, s.h.i.+ning presence to anyone who was Force-sensitive, and his bond with Ben enabled the youth to connect with him at once.

Ben did not sense the being before him, and wondered if the Aing-Tii knew the same technique for masking his presence in the Force as he, Ben, knew. He felt a little puzzled. He was certain his father had gotten it right. But if this being truly wanted to communicate with them in the Force, then why the- And then suddenly he was there, s.h.i.+ning as bright as Luke Sky-walker but in an entirely different way. Tadar'Ro, for suddenly Ben knew his name, was a completely different type of Force-user than any Ben had ever encountered. His presence felt-splintered somehow, but not in a negative way. This was not a splintering caused by being broken, but by choice, by design. It was as if Tadar'Ro's Force self was a sort of fabric, woven of many threads, and he was now permitting the Skywalkers to see and comprehend this.

Ben had felt it when people's life essences had winked out of the Force. He was accustomed to the sickening sensation. He had been told that his namesake, Obi-Wan "Ben" Ken.o.bi, had staggered and appeared faint when Alderaan had been blown to bits by the Death Star. So many deaths all at once had to have been traumatic.

What Ben experienced now, though, while overwhelmingly intense, was not horrifying, not at all. He realized his breathing had speeded up, and that the air that he was sucking into his lungs wasn't quite doing the trick, and the s.h.i.+mmering, many-stranded being that was Tadar'Ro had somehow gotten hold of him in the Force and- He had no option. Ben abruptly withdrew from the Force and slammed the door shut.

He realized he was sweating heavily and shaking. He turned to look at his father, who had lifted a hand in a dismissive yet gentle gesture.

"Go back to the Shadow, Ben," Luke said. He was still gazing raptly at Tadar'Ro. "I'll be there soon."

Ben felt his face flush a second time. He hadn't been able to handle it-whatever it was.

He rose and walked back to the s.h.i.+p. As he started to ascend the ramp, he turned and looked back to see Tadar'Ro's long, thin green tongues flickering and caressing his father's upturned face.

BEN WAS GLAD TO RETURN TO THE MORE FAMILIAR, COMFORTABLE ARTIFICIAL atmosphere of his mother's s.h.i.+p. Once back on board, though, he threw himself into his studies of the Aing-Tii as a sort of penance for what he perceived as a failure, only to realize how very little specific information there actually was. He therefore amused himself with a holodrama, embarra.s.sed that he was doing such a thing but too agitated to bestir himself to do anything else.

He was lying back in the flowform chair, going over what he had experienced with one part of his mind and observing the acting with the other, when he heard the door slide open and Luke's voice calling him.

"Ben?"

Ben turned off the holodrama quickly. "Dad ... How did it go? What was he doing? I'm sorry I couldn't-"

"You did just fine," Luke said rea.s.suringly. "Even I've never experienced anything like what Tadar'Ro tried to share with me."

He did look a bit drained, Ben thought. The knowledge mitigated his own feeling of falling short.

"Did you communicate with him in an acceptable way?"

Luke got a gla.s.s of water, gulped it down, refilled it, and dropped into the chair beside Ben. Ben seemed to notice, really notice, the creases in his father's face and the gray in his blond hair. The fingers that curled around the gla.s.s were strong and calloused and nicked. Luke Skywalker looked quite mortal at the moment, and Ben realized that the revelation made him uneasy. Then he thought about how wiped out he'd felt after a much shorter stay in the thin atmosphere, and convinced himself his father was just fine.

Almost.

"Yes, though it was quite exhausting."

"They're a very ... alien species, aren't they?" Ben said.

Luke chuckled slightly and took another swig of the water. "Very. It's absolutely fascinating. I can see why Jacen was so intrigued by them. They're ... like no other species I've ever met."

"So," Ben asked with fake casualness, "are we going to have the opportunity to meet more of them, or am I going to be stuck watching second-rate holodramas while we head on to the next possible clue?"

"Let me put it this way," Luke said. "Get used to being licked."

ABOARD THE JADE SHADOW.

"IT'S NOT TELEPATHY, IS IT?" BEN INQUIRED AS HE PLOTTED OUT THE jump according to the information Tadar'Ro had transmitted to the Jade Shadow.

"No. But there's more of an understanding of specifics than you and I are accustomed to experiencing when we touch someone through the Force," Luke said. "And it seemed to be enough for them to understand Basic."

"But how are they going to talk to us?" Ben inquired. "I mean ... those tongues don't look like they'll operate the way ours do."

"Tadar'Ro didn't seem to think there would be any problems once we arrived," Luke said. Ben frowned a little. He knew that sometimes you simply needed to accept the way a circ.u.mstance was, but his father was sometimes so cryptic. Luke caught his expression and said, "Don't look at me this time. That's as much as I know, too."

The jumps were easy and precise. Tadar'Ro had given them directions as to not only where to jump, but also when. It had been calculated down to the second.

"So that's how they manage it," Ben said. "They know when it's safe to jump into one of the corridors. You think it has to do with flow-walking?" Ordinary Jedi could touch the future to a greater or lesser degree, enough to give them a slight edge in combat, but Ben was thinking about Jysella Horn knowing exactly where the hidden security droids would emerge ... and exactly when.

"Possibly," Luke said. "I'm sure we'll find out. Right now we need to focus on making those jumps."

Ben sighed inwardly. Luke was still obviously not ready to continue their interrupted discussion on flow-walking. But he felt he was right. If Tadar'Ro thought it useful to calculate the timing of the jump so precisely, they'd be wise to follow his instructions.

They emerged from the last series of jumps to see a plain that was strikingly similar to the moon that Tadar'Ro had selected for their challenge. The atmosphere was similar, but the EMR from the Rift was slightly less and there was at least life on this world. Ben could see bodies of water and patches of green here and there amid the stretches of rock.

"Well, we're here," he said. "Now what?"

As if in immediate answer, coordinates began flowing across the screen on the console.

"Set down there and we'll find out," Luke said.

THE HABITATIONS OF THE AING-TII WERE DEFINITELY RECOGNIZABLE AS cities, but it was also immediately obvious that the beings they had come here to request aid from strove to be in harmony with their environment. Just as their bodies had evolved to blend in physically with the landscape, the Aing-Tii sought to have their cities do so as well. The landing site, located a short distance away from one of the smaller cities, was in a canyon, surrounded on all sides by steep, almost vertical stone walls. Luke was reminded of Tatooine as he regarded the forbidding landscape, harsh and inhospitable. The patches of green-fertile river valleys-were few and far between and, curiously, seemed not to be where the Aing-Tii chose to dwell. It was as if these beings deliberately sought the harsher areas, as if the challenge was something they desired. If Tatooine was a hot, desert world, this was a colder, rockier one. But as they descended and sped over machinery and homesteads, Luke recognized equipment that he immediately knew was designed to farm moisture. It was not quite the same machinery that he had grown up with, of course, but it was sufficiently similar. He sat with the conflicting emotions of nostalgia and unease for a moment, letting both flow through him.

He sensed them all in the Force as they settled the Jade Shadow down on a rocky plateau. Accustomed as he was to experiencing the vast, luminous variety that was the presence of many lives, this staggered him for a moment. As he had said to Ben, there was something unique about the Aing-Tii presence in the Force.

Tadar'Ro was waiting for them. He stood with that inherent stillness as they lowered the ramp and disembarked from the Shadow. In each foreclaw, he held a long, cylindrical metal object that flared to a rounded bulb at the end. A third device, a flat circle about the size of Luke's fist, was affixed to his chest. Small lights blinked and chased one another around the face of the circle.

Luke and Ben approached him, nodded acknowledgment, and stood quietly, waiting. Tadar'Ro held up one of the strange metal wands and indicated the bulb at the end, bringing it to his mouth, then handed it to Luke.

"It looks like a microphone of some sort," Ben said quietly. Luke nodded, lifting the device to his mouth and watching Tadar'Ro.

"Is this how we will be able to speak to you?" he said, holding the instrument up to his mouth as the Aing-Tii had indicated.

Tadar'Ro's head bobbed up and down on his long, plated neck. It did not look like it was a natural gesture, but it was definitely a nod. He lifted his own wand to his mouth, opening his jaws and extending his tongues. Each one was capped with a small, glowing mechanism; they flickered over the end of the "microphone."

"Yes," said Tadar'Ro in a completely human, masculine voice. The sound had a slight mechanical tinge to it, like a droid's, and it issued from the circular device on his chest rather than his now closed mouth. But it was unmistakably human, and Ben and Luke exchanged glances.

"We tended one of your species. His knowledge of your language enabled us to create this device, so that we might speak with you."

"I am very glad of this," Luke said, speaking into the device. He was, indeed, quite relieved. He'd wondered how they would be able to bridge that barrier.

"How does it work?" Ben asked, peering at the device.

"We communicate through pheromones," Tadar'Ro said. "It took time, but the device is able to a.n.a.lyze the pheromones we emit and find corresponding words in Basic for them. Now. You are expected. Follow."

He turned and began striding across the rocky ground at a brisk pace, heading for the single means of egress, a narrow tunnel through the sheer stone face. Luke and Ben broke into a trot to keep up with him. The thinner air of this planet made the short run harder than it should have been, and Luke found himself tapping into the Force to enable his body to absorb more oxygen. Beside him, Ben was panting, just a little.

As they emerged on the other side of the tunnel, Luke realized that the jagged rocks they were approaching were artificial constructs-the city he'd glimpsed from above. There was no structure to their arrangement; it appeared as random as if nature itself had created them.

But there was a long, long line of motionless Aing-Tii, standing like the stone themselves and fixing the two strangers with their large, unblinking black eyes.

"They will say something to you. Respond with the phrase the Wounded One used," Tadar'Ro said. "As Those Who Dwell Beyond the Veil will it."

Luke and Ben both nodded. Luke stepped up to the first Aing-Tii in line, observing that neither this one nor, as far as he could tell, any of the others held a translation device. This one was a very large male. His plating was chipped, and the geometric patterns etched on them were obviously very old. Sensing that this was a respected elder of the group, Luke bowed graciously. He waited for a name to come into his head, but it did not. Apparently, Tadar'Ro was the only one willing-so far-to disclose such information.

Luke stood still as the Aing-Tii's tongues flickered over his face. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation; the tongues were not particularly wet, and the touch was light and gentle. Without the translation device, Luke had no idea what the being was saying, but he did not sense hostility, only the caution that an elder of a group would be wise to display.

The elder retracted his tongues and stood waiting for Luke's reply. "As Those Who Dwell Beyond the Veil will it," Luke said, bowing slightly. He moved on to the next. Also an elder, this one was female, and Luke got a very strong hit that she was not at all happy he was here. Beside him, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ben flinch infinitesimally as the first elder's tongues danced across his features. Poor Ben. Luke wouldn't have appreciated the gesture when he was that age, either, and he was proud of Ben, who endured it with only the vaguest ripple of discomfort in the Force.

The touch from the female elder's tongues was strangely cold-not physically, but in the Force. No, she was definitely not pleased that he and Ben were here. Nonetheless, he repeated the phrase with all the respect and courtesy he could summon, bowed, and moved on.

It took a long time, but at last Ben and Luke had officially introduced themselves to their new hosts. Some of them were welcoming, some hostile, some entirely neutral in their att.i.tudes. Luke wondered uneasily what he and Ben might have stumbled into, but he kept that thought carefully shuttered. When the last Aing-Tii had finished with Ben, the two Jedi turned to Tadar'Ro.

Tadar'Ro beckoned them to follow him. Like the nod he had given the two Jedi previously, this seemed to be a forced gesture on his part, but one that was easily understood. They obeyed, following him as he took them around a large, jutting rock outcropping.

Luke was surprised by what he saw on the other side. He hadn't been sure what to expect, but it wasn't this. Rather than another one of the rock-shaped dwellings, it was a small, single-story house, with four straight walls, a roof, and a door. While clearly constructed with materials native to the planet-also obviously designed for human aesthetics.

"Jorj Car'das," Ben said, then realized he hadn't spoken into the translation mechanism. Taking it from Luke, he inquired, "This was Jorj Car'das's home during the years he spent here, wasn't it?"

Again the nod. "Yes," said Tadar'Ro. "We used what we learned of human needs and comforts, and created this dwelling to accommodate him."

Luke pushed open the door.

It was surprisingly cozy inside. A small mattress, lumpy looking but not uninviting, was nestled in a corner. A rug, woven of colorful dried fronds of some sort of plant, covered and insulated the floor. There were two tables, and one wall was filled with shelves. The floor, tables, and shelves were pleasantly cluttered with knickknacks so familiar that Luke felt an unexpected tug on his heart: repair parts for an astromech, spare parts for a blaster, datapads. Mixed in with these were colorful stones and carved wooden statuettes of various vaguely recognizable images-a small bantha, an astromech, and one he suspected was intended to be Tadar'Ro. It had obviously been a hobby rather than a true artistic calling for Jorj Car'das, whom Luke suspected of having many empty hours to while away.

"Jedi may stay here, if they wish."

"Thank you, we would like to visit here, and perhaps stay here during the day. At night, though, we will return to our s.h.i.+p. Your atmosphere, while tolerable, is not ideal for us."

"So Jorj Car'das told us as well," Tadar'Ro said. "Such is acceptable." He indicated the mattress. "Sit. We will speak of why you have come ... and what it is you expect to find here."

Luke and Ben sat on the mattress. As Luke had expected, it was fairly comfortable, if a little awkward to settle into.

"You know why we have come," Luke said. He'd been scrupulously polite, enduring all the face-licking and mystery. But now it was time for him to learn something from Tadar'Ro, rather than the other way around. "I sense that not everyone here is as welcoming as you, Tadar'Ro. Can you tell me why?"

The being considered, then gave the forced nod. "It is best that you know. You are less likely to give offense."

Ben made a soft snorting noise, but-thankfully, Luke thought-did not speak. Tadar'Ro continued.

"You have said you studied what Jorj Car'das brought back of our people. Then you will know that for long and long, the Aing-Tii have believed that certain things are a certain way. We deeply respect the Force, but do not use it. Not the way others do. To us, it is a thing to be respected and experienced. It is not a tool, a weapon, for us to use to make the universe what we wish it.

"We believe we are being guided. Events are not predetermined, but they flow, gently, to a certain place, in a certain manner."

He was sitting back on his haunches, his tail tucked under him like a built-in chair. As he spoke, he moved his short forearms in a surprisingly graceful manner, the claws seeming to trace patterns in the air, and his eyes were half closed. Luke felt him even more strongly in the Force, and again wondered at these strange beings' relations.h.i.+p with it.

Tadar'Ro opened his eyes and his hands stilled, then lowered again to his chest. "So we have believed for long and long. But over the last few years, a Prophet arose and spoke many things."

"Do you believe in him?" Luke asked. "Do you think he prophesies truly?"

"It is such a strange concept, to prophesy," Tadar'Ro replied, his voice, unnaturally created as it was, nonetheless conveying his confusion. "To think that events are so firm. Like stone, rather than like wind and water and thought. And yet-he has seen things, and they have come to pa.s.s."

"Coincidence, or misinterpretation," Ben said at once. "People hear what they want to hear. Keep it vague enough, and a prophecy or prediction'll fit pretty much anything."

"The young one speaks wisdom. And yet these are very specific. It could be, as you say, coincidence. Or it could be foreknowledge. The future is not unknown to my people."

No, it wouldn't be, not to flow-walkers, thought Luke. "Could it be that the Prophet simply has had good luck, or good judgment, in determining which of the possible futures will come to pa.s.s?"