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Family Portrait
(Part 4)
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Drop FernWithy a note...FernWithy@aol.com.
Join the Family Portrait Discussion on the Feedback Board.
Family Portrait
(Part 4)
Back to Fan Fiction.
Star Wars belongs to LFL.
Chapter 9

"I really must see Zio Shapoi," Obi-Wan said.  "Our interview was incomplete."

The guard laughed.  "I don't know what you did," he said, "but Shapoi himself said you're not allowed.  Doesn't even want you in the building.  You or anyone with you, he said."

"I'm surprised that hasn't resulted in you being determined to allow me full access."

"I..."  A confused frown flitted across the guard's face.  "Well, it was..."

Obi-Wan gritted his teeth.  It was an iffy business, contradicting another Jedi's...suggestion...but Shapoi had no business shutting out the Order.  "Shapoi was mistaken.  He needs to see me, and you should allow it."

"He was...mistaken."

"Yes."

"But..."

Obi-Wan waved his hand slightly, shifting his tunic to hide the motion from the camera.  "I really must speak to him again."

The guard turned slowly, in a dreamlike way, toward the cell block.  Obi-Wan decided as he followed him that it would be unkind to risk any further tampering with his reasoning capacities.

Shapoi appeared to reach the same conclusion when he appeared at the bars of his cell, a cross expression on his face.  He started to say, "I told --" then clamped his mouth shut on it.  He waited until the guard wandered away in his daze, the looked dully at Obi-Wan.  "We've pushed him too hard."

"Why have you forbidden my presence?  And those I am with?"

"I know the Order.  I have been on missions, and I know you will attempt a rescue.  You could not do otherwise.  And I doubt you are here alone."

"I am not.  I'm accompanied by my Padawan and another knight."

Shapoi sat down on his bunk.  "Human female, I would guess.  A perfect portrait."

"A rather pretty one, actually."  Obi-Wan smiled as a peace offering.

Shapoi accepted it.  "Yes.  It's rather nice, isn't it?  In its own small way."

"Your parents have fled their home.  Where would they go?"

"They're gone?"  Concern flooded his face.  "I don't know.  I was only here a few weeks.  Perhaps they're safe.  Perhaps..."

"You seem unconvinced."

"I will remain unconvinced until they are safe on Coruscant, far from this place."

"How did they come to their political views?"

"They watched me.  They..."  He looked away, embarrassed.  "Apparently, they...loved me.  That was why they allowed me to be taken in the first place.  They believed it was better for me to be trained.  To..."

"To reach your potential."

"Yes.  I had failed to wonder about that.  It surprised me when I learned it.  It...touched me."  He closed his eyes, drew the Force around himself for calming, then breathed deeply.  "But we had very little time to get to know one another.  We had many questions for each other, but none concerned Malkiri politics."

"We'll find them."

"Put your energy into that, please.  And ask your Padawan and your partner to do the same."

"My Padawan will understand your distress.  As for my partner, I do not speak for her."

"I only ask you to speak to her."

"I'll do what I can."

"As will I."  Shapoi sat down on his bunk, and broke all eye contact, which was as succinct a dismissal as Obi-Wan could imagine.

He nodded and went back up through the cellblock and the office, and into the sunny Malkiri afternoon.  He could hear children in the schoolyard, a block or so away, and wondered idly how Anakin was doing.

He had castigated Siri for being unfocused, but she at least was trying to form a plan.  He himself had expected to simply walk in, get information from Shapoi, and solve the problem.  The truth would solve this particular equation.

But he was drawing no closer to the truth, and he was no longer entirely sure what he was trying to solve with it.

There were questions, of course.  But which ones counted?

Why did the people of Malkiri despise the Jedi?  Anakin had told them a bit of what he'd been taught in history class, but surely, they were not still truly concerned about events that had occurred nearly one thousand years ago.

But the Sith are back.  Maybe we were the foolish ones, to forget.

That was true enough, but did it matter here?  The identity of Qui-Gon's killer had not been widely publicized.  The people of Malkiri had no reason to make a connection.

Unless the Trade Federation had brought some knowledge of the Sith with them.

And did it matter?  Was there a way to stop it?  The hatred was an unbroken circle here.  Use of power would be considered intrusive, aloofness was apparently considered arrogant.

Why had Shapoi been framed for such a horrific crime?  The hatred certainly seemed to have been present without a specific cause.

And who had framed him?  Who had killed the royal family?  And why?

What was the position of the mayor, and why did he refuse visitors?

The last questions seemed to be the most pertinent to the situation, and it was certainly the ones the Council would be interested in, but Obi-Wan felt curiously distant from them.  He wanted to get to the root of the problem, not to cover some simplistic angle of it.  As he'd tried to explain to Anakin about slavery in the Outer Rim, fixing a symptom of an illness was not enough to cure the illness.  (To Anakin, of course, the symptom was the illness; he made no distinction.)

"Baklee!"

He almost didn't answer, and wouldn't have if he hadn't sensed Siri's presence through their old childhood bond.  He had nearly forgotten the name he was using.  He turned around.

She was cutting across the street, smiling fondly, one hand raised in a wave.  Unlike other days, she'd chosen to wear very casual clothing, and it was covered in plaster dust and paint.  A kerchief kept most of it out of her long blonde hair. In an odd way, she looked very much the girl she had once been (smile and wave apart, of course; Siri's more usual expression as a girl had been a strange combination of impassivity and annoyance) and that was comforting.  He waited for her.

She caught up to him and looped one arm through his.  This close, he could see that the smile was pasted on.  "We're on a public street."

Obi-Wan nodded and drew her a bit closer.  For style, he bent down and kissed her cheek.

"Be careful," she said dryly.  "I might misinterpret such passion."

"I take it you have been at the Shapoi home?"

She nodded.  "It's a mess.  The things there...you can only see part of it from the outside.  The inside has been...  Well, it appears that people took great delight in destroying their property.  Some of the mess, I handled in biohazard gloves."

"The amusing thing, Siri, is that you look happier than you did yesterday."

"I am doing something.  I can't imagine not having a mission, even if it is merely to repair a broken home."  She leaned over and opened the small sack she carried as a purse.  She drew out three silvery disks.  "I found these far in the back of a drawer in Madam Shapoi's vanity.  I thought perhaps something so well hidden would be something of importance to her."

"I would agree."

"You take them.  I don't want to be found with them while I work."

They reached a corner that led to a main street, lined with cafes.  People were out eating lunches.  A bluish hand waved frantically, and Obi-Wan belatedly recognized Thama Bercha sitting with a Neimoidian man in rich robes...presumably, her lord Ilb.

Siri forced a cheerful smile, and there was some pantomimed talk between them.  Obi-Wan thought that Madam Bercha was inviting Siri to lunch, because Siri pointed to her clothes and shook her head with an exaggerated expression of apology.

"What's that?"

"I'd best get back to work," Siri said.  "Or she will be offended that I didn't join her.  You should go greet her; you're dressed for it."  She hooked her arms around his neck and glanced furtively around.

"But she doesn't much like me."

"True.  But that is not a reason to deliberately offend her.  At least for you, it will pass quickly."  She stood on her tiptoes.  "Just kiss my head again and look like you're saying goodbye for the afternoon.  I think that should look all right.  Though we should ask Anakin what we ought to do if we meet at midday."

Obi-Wan made a show of brushing a stray hair from her face.  "Given Anakin's track record, he will not recommend the forehead."  It occurred to Obi-Wan that such a thing might not be entirely wrong, given the situation.  He put his hand under Siri's chin, tilting her face up and expecting to see the same sort of teasing he'd seen yesterday morning.  Instead, her eyes were dark with irritation at him, and that made him feel much more comfortable with her.  He kissed her forehead.  She squeezed his hand in a perfunctory way and scurried back off toward the Shapoi house.

Obi-Wan took a deep breath to prepare himself, then went over to greet the Berchas.

**********

Anakin had been homesick for the Temple most of the morning, as he turned in his first pointless assignments to disinterested teachers and sat through frequent recaps of lessons that had already been taught yesterday.  Math was the worst.  After spending nearly fifteen minutes during the morning assembly doing different twelve mildly altered versions of the same problem, he came into class only to hear the teacher lecture on the equation needed for it, and give a quiz on it.  More homework was given on the theme.  He had read his story for literature class when he'd awakened in the morning

(really need to work my evening schedule better)

and thought of a lot of different things it might mean.  Most of them were probably wrong, but it turned out that the teacher was more interested in making sure everyone got the sequence of events right than in really talking about things today.  He offered one of his ideas, and she said, "Well, that's an interesting take, Kit," but didn't really comment on it.  It hadn't been a good trade off.  Tomik and his gang had studiously ignored him ever since.  He was looking forward to art, but he had to get through recess first, and recess was the most he'd missed the Temple so far.

The Temple was not uncompetitive (no matter what the Council wanted) and play often became a bit energetic, but people were polite to one another and used their soft voices.  Anakin found now that his tolerance (and occasional liking) for yelling and crudeness had worn away, and all the posturing was irritating him.  The simple fact that he could probably send most of them to the med center without even turning to look at them while he fought did not help matters...and the notion of it kept recurring to him.

Kit doesn't like loud noises because he and Siri used to live beside a busy freeway.  He doesn't fight because he has only the vaguest idea of how to do it.  And...

But it was no good.  Whenever he let go of his Anakin-self to try and take a stab at Kit, the irritation tried to rise up and fill in the gap.  So he would have to settle for pretending to be Kit for now, rather than actually becoming him.

Worst of all, he wasn't even learning anything useful for the mission.  He'd only heard three anti-Jedi statements this morning, and none of them had an explanation.

He had to get back in Tomik's group.

They were gathered near some kind of play equipment.  It appeared to be a fluctuating repulsor, which would throw a child a meter or so into the air to do acrobatics.  The shape was irregular, and it would make the surface of the field uneven and prone to unpredictable angles, but several of the generators seemed damaged, and no one was actually using it.  Tomik himself was on his scoot, trailing over the round edges of the toy.  Brinje was hanging at the edge of the crowd.

Anakin, already on his scoot, resigned himself and floated over to join them.  Tomik didn't say anything -- including "hello" -- but there was no move to push him out.

"Hey, guys," Anakin said, slumping his shoulders a bit and trying to sound embarrassed.  He put his hand to his head and straightened the leather strap that held his hair in place (another of Qui-Gon's).

"You good at lit?" Tomik asked.

"Just thought I'd give it a stab."

"Yeah?  You wanna tell me where you got that thing about that dumb flower being that girl's mother?"

"Figured it didn't sound any stupider than a reservoir being the whole galaxy."  This, unfortunately, was a version of the truth.  He'd tried a few ideas about the flower, none exactly self-evident, and just picked one that sounded like it might be interesting to talk about.  He wanted to see what the teacher had to say about it.

Tomik smiled, apparently taking that as an avowal of disinterest.  "Yeah, well, you can fill the rest of us in on stupid stuff like that tomorrow."

Anakin shrugged.  "You guys coming to Daj's after?"

"Maybe.  What'd you do after we left, anyway?"

"Picked up a few credits helping Daj out.  I'm going again today."

"Cool.  I got a drag on my rear left thruster.  Can you fix it?"

"No problem."

"I could help in science."

They both turned around.  Brinje had moved in closer and was looking hopefully up.

"I'm pretty good in lab, right, Kit?"

"Yeah..."

Tomik leaned forward, using the rounded edge of the repulsor toy to hover at a strange angle, about forty-five degrees over the ground.  "Yeah, but mushbrain, I'm not in your lab."

Anakin supposed he could have helped what he did next, but -- as with getting Obi-Wan to kiss Siri goodbye -- he acted as soon as the idea occurred to him.  The repulsor to was not bolted the ground.  Tomik was using it to achieve his weird stance.

Anakin looked at it with as nonchalant an expression as he could muster, and pushed the Force out at it.  The machine tottered, then suddenly shot back half a meter.

Tomik lost contact with the surface he'd been repelling against, and his head fell down onto the playground's muddy surface, splattering his clothes with stagnant rainwater.  His feet remained hovering, but he'd far overbalanced, and didn't have the strength to right himself.

It had made noise, and many other children turned to look.  Some even had enough spine to laugh.  Tomik glared at them.

Serves you right, you miserable waste of oxygen.  And I hope you'll see lots more mud before I go.

The thought seemed to almost come from outside of himself.  Almost.  But not entirely.  Its vehemence surprised and sobered him.  He tried to imagine what Mom would say, found it hurt too much, and replaced that imagining with Qui-Gon.

Ani, you have not changed his point of view, and you have behaved shamefully.  Will you repair or compound it now?

Well, it wasn't exactly right, but maybe it was close enough.  He didn't bother to imagine Obi-Wan's reaction, which would make Mom's look comfortable if he found out.

He reached down and helped Tomik straighten out.  "You okay?"

Tomik swung his legs inward until he was crouching low to the ground.  His face was bright red, where it could be seen through the mud.  "Fine," he said tersely.  He lowered himself, took off the scoot, and proceed to kick the repulsor four times, muttering under his breath.  It looked like it hurt.

He turned to the gang, glancing over their shoulders to make sure none of the other students were listening.  "I'm tripping rapids," he said.  "No way I'm going back in there.  You guys up for it?"

Two or three boys, Brinje included, nodded enthusiastically, and the whole gang tromped over to a spot along the forcefield.  Tomik struck a casual pose in front of it, scoot dangling from his had. He looked around, then took a swing at it with his scoot, firing the thrusters as he moved.  The field crackled, faded, broke in an uneven ellipse.  The great scent of the evergreens spilled into the playground.  Tomik spilled out of it.

Apparently, "tripping rapids" meant leaving the school grounds.

Brinje moved to go through the hole, but Tomik shoved him backward.  "You're not invited."

Two more went through.  Anakin waited to see if it would be the whole gang.  If not, he wanted to see what the others were like without Tomik bullying them.  To his relief, four boys stayed back, saying something about having to be in class.

"Kit?" Tomik asked.

Anakin shook his head.  "My brother-in-law'd fry me if I kicked art.  Madam Kam came to our house yesterday."

Tomik gave him an understanding smile.  "Yeah, she's weirder than a drunk Wookiee.  She'd definitely spark you out on it."

Tomik and his cohorts got on their scoots, and zoomed off toward the nearby forest.

By the time Anakin turned around, only Brinje was left.  "How come you let him talk to you like that?" he asked, unable to block the question and thinking that it couldn't exactly be abnormal.  Normal people would have to wonder about it.

Brinje just looked at him for a minute, then shrugged.  "I like Tomik.  He's really tough.  I wish I was like that."

"But he's so mean to you."

"If you don't like him, how come you keep coming back?"

It's my job.

"Dunno.  No one else to talk to yet."

"I'd join your gang, if you had one.  How'd you do that with the repulsor?"

Anakin looked up far too quickly.  "What do you mean?"

"You know...  How'd you make it move?"

"Why would you think I did?"

"It never moved before you got here."

Anakin made his voice impatient and a little petulant.  "Well, did you see me move it?"

"No."

"Well, you were staring right at me, so I guess I didn't do it, huh?"

Brinje frowned.  "How come you wear that braid in your hair?"

If the alarm hadn't already been going off in Anakin's mind, he might have stumbled on that question, but he was alert now, careful.  "It's the way my friends wear it back home," he said.  "That's all."

"Are you in a scoot gang?"

Anakin, whose idea of gangs involved Hutts and bounty hunters, tried to apply it to the boys he'd seen by the Temple, and did not succeed.  "No.  No scoot gang."

"But it's, like, a sign or something?"

"Kind of.  Lots of guys at my school do it."

"Oh.  Okay."  Brinje kicked a stone.  "You going to do any more of those cool things in art?"

"Maybe."

"Soaked.  I'll see you there."  He went off thoughtfully.

Anakin let him go.  He examined the forcefield and saw where two of the generators were out of sync with the others.  A good whack with the thrusters would make for a temporary distortion of the field.  Good to know.

For now, he wanted to go back in and see what he could find out.  But it never hurt to have an escape route.

Just for future reference.

**********

Zio Shapoi sat silently in the middle of his cell, letting his eyes take in everything while concentrating on nothing.

It had not occurred to him to be surprised that his parents had not come to visit him.  Every time he thought he had the gist of the relationship, he was struck by some new thing that he realized ought to have been self-evident.  His mother, Daha, should have been here long ago, perhaps to bring him food or something to read; perhaps to complain to the guards that there was only circumstantial evidence and he should not be held...mainly just to be here.  If he'd been looking at the situation from the outside -- if he'd been on a mission and noticed a grown son jailed while visiting his parents -- it would have struck him as surpassingly odd to find that the parents in question had not been constantly beside the cell.

But because he was not at all accustomed to being anyone's son, he had failed to notice that his parents had behaved abnormally.

Even that didn't explain it, though.  He had found a rough equivalence between parents and Masters, and he knew that, if his Master, Et'hla Ra Verinan, had still been alive, she would undoubtedly have been here to offer him support, even though she'd taken another padawan after him before she died.  Why wouldn't he have expected Daha?  He'd seen all the grainy holos and fragments of his life that she had saved.  He supposed that it just didn't seem as strong a connection to him, or as permanent.  He'd only just met them.

At any rate, until Jinn's padawan had told him that his parents had gone into hiding, he hadn't noticed their absence.

Why did they run?

Zio could think of any number of reasons, the most obvious of which was that his arrest had made them targets of the strange madness on Malkiri.  Et'hla had always taught him not to disregard the obvious; it wasn't always the truth, but it pointed towards it in most cases.

And yet...

He knew that Daha would have been there.  Daha made sense to him, in some ways.  But what about his father?  Pojul was reticent with him, and awkward.  Was that the normal way about human fathers?

Zio didn't know.

More importantly, Pojul had been the radical in the household, and he had hated the way Malkiri was changing (Zio himself was indifferent to the Neimoidian presence, and actually rather encouraged by the general good will between the dominant species).  Most importantly, Pojul had been in the same house, and had access to Zio's lightsaber.

Et'hla had lectured him a hundred times, or a thousand.  Your lightsaber is your arm, your leg.  It is part of your mind, Padawan.  You do not leave it aside.

But for Zio, being a Jedi had been largely about diplomacy, and his lightsaber was so often dormant that he frequently failed to carry it.  Here on Malkiri, it was foolish to do so.

Still, you should have missed it when it disappeared.

And he would have missed it, had it been in his possession in a public place, then been gone.  It had not.  It had been in his parents' home.  He had left with Daha, to walk in the woods and talk -- how she had wanted to know about him, about his life, and how good it had been to tell her! -- and he had not had any inclination to check on his belongings when he returned.  Pojul had been home all along.

A day later, the murders, the recriminations...

His lightsaber had been in the place where he had left it when they came to search the house -- but it had been recently charged.

It was circumstantial, of course.  There was no way to match a particular power signature to a lightsaber wound.  Cauterization was too instant, and the heat caused too much distortion.  But how many lightsabers would there be on a world like Malkiri?

It was disturbing, but possible, that his father had framed him.

There is something you aren't seeing, Et'hla's voice scolded, though Zio knew it was really just his own mind, speaking from the part of itself that she had formed.  There is something else.  Something further than Pojul or even Malkiri's blind, baseless hatred.

He felt a ripple in the Force and let his eyes focus on his surroundings.  A figure was coming down the long hallway, glancing carefully over her shoulder.  She was filthy and wearing shapeless coveralls, but Zio could tell that she was quite lovely despite it -- and that she was, without a doubt, a Jedi.

The partner that Jinn's Padawan had spoken of.  He sighed and stood up to greet her.  "May the Force be with you."

She pushed her light eyebrows in toward one another in an irritated way.  "You might pretend to keep cover."

"As I told your partner, there is video surveillance only here.  It makes no difference what I say.  As I further told your partner, I would greatly prefer it if you would both put your energy into finding my parents and getting them off Malkiri.  I will resolve my own situation."

"As I told him, I don't take orders from you."

"Nor I from you."

She frowned.  He tried to place her among the children who had been in the Temple.  Like most young knights, he had occasionally visited the crèche, looking for a padawan that he had yet to take.  All he could see was a blonde girl, arms crossed defiantly, glaring at a bigger boy.  It could be her.  Or it could be another of the rebellious ones who never took no for an answer.  The crèche master always spoke to them gently, trying to break their stubbornness without breaking their spirits.  The strategy was not noticeably successful.

She was now examining the locking mechanism.

"You know," he said.  "Visual surveillance actually might catch that."

"They're playing sabacc at the desk."  But she stopped the more obvious parts of the behavior, and checked her chrono.  "And they should be having a bit of reception trouble by now."

"Don't try to break me out."

"We're not leaving you here."

"Get my parents off this planet, and get yourselves off.  Tell the Council to disavow me.  I was a rogue.  I turned on my training.  Anything."

"Did you do it?"

"No."

"Then you know perfectly well that the Council will say no such thing."  She sniffed.  "Unless, of course, there's a reason.  Then they'll say you turned and sold out to a slaver, and not even bother to tell the people whose opinion you value otherwise.  But that's neither here nor there.  You're not on a mission, and telling lies about you serves no purpose."

Zio almost didn't need the Force to feel the wave of bitterness that came off of her with this. Bitterness and...shame?

She didn't seem the type.

"Hey!"

The shout came from the end of the hall, where a guard was lumbering down the stairs, blaster drawn.

Zio was not allowed unapproved visitors.  They would immediately assume the Order had come to spring him (that they would be right would only compound the problem).  He had to give them a different idea.

Abruptly, he reached between the bars and pulled the woman forward, hoping that he had observed this properly in the few holovids he'd seen.  She managed to get as far as "What do you think" before he pressed his mouth down on hers.

She understood quickly enough, and pushed him away with a look of loathing.  He sensed a thought trying to come to him -- All right, a rogue, then -- then she spat at his feet.  "You can't even be a proper Temple eunuch, can you, killer?"

The guard had reached them by then, and she was staring at him resentfully.  (This, he thought, was not entirely faked; it had been a very big liberty to take.)  She turned to the guard.  "I've been cleaning up his miserable parents' house all morning, and I wanted to give him a good hard kick."

"You're not allowed in here."  He shook his head.  "I'd put him outside in chains if it was up to me, and you could kick him as much as you wanted, but that's not the way it works, little girl."  He turned her around, then glared at Zio.  "And if I hear of you so much as breathing at another woman, I'll drag you out there in chains myself, and to the devil with how it works."

He led the woman out solicitously.

She glanced back over her shoulder once, and Zio clearly heard, We'll get you out.

She would be back.  There was no question in Zio's mind about that.  Even if her partner was willing to go along with his wishes, this one would be back.  She would feel too guilty to leave him here with that reputation.

He decided that he'd better free himself.  Better an escaped rogue than an organized Jedi rescue.  And better not to let the Order look too closely into what might actually have happened.

**********

"I don't understand why you spend time with them," Daj said, opening the control panel of a sleek new speeder bike.  "You don't seem to like them much."

Anakin shrugged.  "Neither do you, and you let them come to your house.  And don't tell me it's business.  You're the only scoot dealer around here.  They've got no place else to shop."  He pried off the hood of a toy mini-speeder and grimaced.  The engine was completely gummed up.  "Pass me the pressure freeze.  I've got to dry this and clean it off. Don't these guys ever take care of their things?  I've seen cleaner engines from a Hutt's dungeon."  He caught himself.  "Figure of speech."

"Mmm."  Daj handed him the can of pressurized cold gas that would freeze up the gummed oil and dirt for easy suctioning.  "In backwards order...first, I have not heard such a figure of speech, but it is quite descriptive.  Second, very few children care for their machines as you do, so no, they do not maintain them well.  Third, Tomik is a natural leader. I would like very much to change his perceptions."

"He doesn't seem to want to change."

"That is why I suggest only with great gentleness."

"Do you think it's working?"

"I think he's stopped painting foul messages on my shop.  Though that could, I suppose, be simply because he tired of me painting them over.  Still, it is progress."  Daj shrugged in a resigned way.

Anakin shook his head and aimed the freeze at the outer layer of grime.  "You're not like a Neimoidian at all."

"Oh, really?  And what are Neimoidians like, if I might ask?"

Anakin felt himself go hotly red.  "I'm sorry.  That was a dumb thing to say.  I'm sorry."

When he looked up, Daj was regarding him mildly.  "You might have responded more defensively.  I accept your apology," he said.  "And no worry.  I am aware of the rather well-earned public reputation of the Trade Federation.  Most of us here are freely associated with it.  But not everyone associated with it agrees with all of its policies and prejudices.  You understand this?"

"So why not just change it?"

"Sudden changes are rarely permanent.  There would be too much...I am not certain how to say it.  Too much enforcement involved."

"I'd still do it.  Kick out Gunray and the all those guys.  People'd get used to it."

"You are an impatient boy, Kit Tachi.  And you have not answered my question.  Why do you spend your time with Tomik?"

Anakin decided that Brinje's answer was the safest.  "He's tough, you know.  Just --"

But Daj was rolling his large eyes.  The gesture, in Neimoidian physiology, involved a slight rotation of the elaborate irises, so that they appeared to be cogs turning against one another.  "You do not follow.  You are followed."

Anakin fell silent.  Daj had it partly right.  Maybe even mostly right.  But he could follow, if a leader was any good.  He only started leading when he decided that no one else could.  The decision usually took considerably less than an hour, but still, it was the principle of the thing.

He followed Obi-Wan all the time.  He'd follow Padmé if she ever called and asked him to.  And he'd follow Mom or Qui-Gon Jinn all the way to hell, even if they didn't ask.  He knew how to be loyal.

He finished drying the gummy engine, then the suctioning tool made too much noise for meaningful conversation.  By the time the toy speeder was working again, it was time to go home.

The evening was cold, and he wished for his heavy brown cloak.  The silks didn't stop even a little bit of the wind.  He'd gotten more accustomed to the fluctuation of temperatures since the flight from Tatooine, but he still hated being cold, and looked forward to slipping into his room and turning the heat up to something normal.

But when he came around the corner and the house came into view, he felt like he'd been pushed back by a hot wind.

He could see Siri and Obi-Wan through the parlor window.  She was sitting primly in the alcove seat, and he was at a computer terminal.  Nothing looked wrong...but everything felt wrong.

They were arguing, and it wasn't the usual playful teasing.

He stood absolutely still for a moment, hating the cold, the sound of his heartbeat in the quiet night, and the terrible stink that seemed to be coming through the Force at him.  He felt the wind tugging at his hair, and insinuating itself into his pores.

He took a deep breath, and headed inside to deal with whatever was happening.

Obi-Wan looked up sharply from a stilled holo.  (It showed a cheering crowd, with a Jedi and her padawan up front, receiving some kind of honor.)  "Anakin," he said.  "I'm glad you've come home.  It may be necessary for us to change our tactics."

"It is totally unnecessary," Siri said, not looking over her shoulder at them.  She had some kind of textile in her hand, and she poked a needle through it brutally.  "Shapoi is not going to turn us in just because I went to see him.  We made up a perfectly reasonable cover story."

"You should not have gone," Obi-Wan said.

"We are equal here.  You are not in command of this mission."

"So you've pointed out, but I didn't fail to note that you didn't share your plans with me."

"It was not planned."

"We had an understanding, Siri."

"To my understanding, my responsibilities here included finding escape routes.  I could hardly do so without visiting the prison."

Anakin cleared his throat.  "Umm...?"

"Please speak, Anakin," Obi-Wan said.  "Siri and I have been around this circle several times without interruption."

"Siri probably should have said something," he said.  "But it's done, right?  So now what do we do?"

"There's no reason to change our plans," Siri said.  "It was unfortunate that a guard observed me at the prison, but it was managed.  The guard did not take my name.  There's no reason it should interfere with Obi-Wan's visits as a reporter."

"I'm not concerned about the guards, Siri.  I'm concerned about Shapoi.  He doesn't want us to rescue him.  You are not subtle in your opinions on the matter."

Anakin tried to think of something to say to smooth it over, but nothing came to mind.  "What's he going to do about it?"

"He's already tried to forbid my visits," Obi-Wan said, "and we can't keep using the mind trick on his guards.  That is cruel."

Anakin was surprised to hear Obi-Wan say that.  It was an opinion that he held himself, regardless of the frequency of use, but he thought Obi-Wan disagreed with him. "Maybe we should work on finding the parents..?"

"That's what I was working on before Siri came home," Obi-Wan said.  "All I have found so far is that they have, indeed, saved many images of him that were broadcast.  It is not helpful in discovering their current whereabouts."

The stink in the air faded a bit, and Siri came over to look at the holos.  "All right.  Let's see what else there is.  If there is anyone they may have thought to contact."

"Can I go warm up for a few minutes?"

"Yes, of course," Obi-Wan said.  "I apologize for accosting you so quickly."

"It's okay."  Anakin was headed for the stairs when the lights flashed in the walls, signaling a visitor at the door.  "I'll get it," he said.

He keyed the door open to find two uniformed officers standing on the porch.  "May we speak to Baklee Tachi, please?"

Obi-Wan appeared from the parlor.  "Yes?"

The officers turned to him, and the one who had already spoken asked, "Did you visit with Zio Shapoi this morning?"

"Yes."

"Have you spoken to him since?"

"No."

One of them looked over Obi-Wan's shoulder and saw Siri.  "Is that your wife?"

Siri came forward.  "Yes. I am."

"You also visited Shapoi."

"This afternoon, yes. I wanted to express my disgust with him."

"So we heard. Quite a job, too.  But you may be in some danger, considering the manner in which he treated you there."

"I won't go back."

"You don't understand, Ma'am.  Shapoi has escaped."

**********

Obi-Wan had an opportunity to be grateful for the argument with Siri -- knowing everything that had happened helped a lot as one officer questioned him and another questioned her.  They would not contradict one another.

As far as Obi-Wan could tell, Shapoi had risked mind-tricking the guard one final time, and it had, as anticipated, a bad effect.  The man was found in a daze, humming in the middle of the open cell door.  No one else had been hurt; Obi-Wan guessed that Shapoi had made an effort to hide his actual exit from the building.

"Do you know why Shapoi may have touched your wife in the manner he did?"

Obi-Wan clenched his jaw.  Siri had not mentioned that during the argument, which might have proven a good decision, as the officer's first mention had brought genuine shock.  It was audacious, but Shapoi would know that even the bigots on Malkiri would recognize that a true Jedi would not behave in such a manner.  Whatever expression had come across his face must have been the right one, because the officer had given him a commiserating look, and had treated the subject gently. Obi-Wan decided that Baklee was not the insanely jealous type, and his concern was only for Siri's state of mind, not on some kind of half-baked revenge, which would make any decent law enforcement officer keep on eye on both of them.

"I imagine, from our talks, that he looked down on her.  That he was impatient with the hatred directed toward his Order and struck out."

"To show they could take anything they want."

"To show that he could."

The questioning went on for twenty minutes, but as neither Siri nor Obi-Wan actually had any idea where Shapoi might have gone, there was ultimately nothing to be gained from it.

When they left, Siri sank down on the front stairs with a deep sigh, and rubbed her temples with her long fingers.  "When I find him, I'll kill him myself."

"That's a healthy attitude.  I'm going to check on Anakin."

"Anakin's fine.  I saw him go into his room.  They didn't have any questions for him."

"I'm still going to check on him."

He brushed by her and went down the corridor to Anakin's room.  He knocked on the door, and was blasted by escaping dry heat when it opened.

"Are they gone?"

"Yes.  How much longer do you need to stay in the oven before you finish baking?"

Anakin offered a forced grin.  "It's cold outside.  What's next?"

"I'm not sure.  According to Siri, Shapoi wants the Council to disavow him."

"Well, that shouldn't be too hard."

"I doubt they would do so."

"They would if it were me."

"I know you think so, but I believe you're wrong.  And I would not allow it, at any rate."

A more genuine smile appeared.  "I guess we just drop the act and go get him now, then, right?"

"No.  His escape from prison will make it difficult to leave the planet unnoticed.  We will need to find other routes.  And we will find his parents."

"Because he asked."

"Yes."

"If I get arrested, will someone go get my mom?"

Obi-Wan sighed and leaned against the doorframe.  "You're in an unpleasant mood tonight, Padawan."

"So are you and Siri."

"Anakin, I am sorry I pulled you into that.  It was inappropriate of both of us to show you such...dissent."

"I'll live.  What were you looking at?"

"Siri found several holos of Shapoi that his parents had apparently kept.  We had hoped to understand the family dynamics better.  It seems somewhat pointless now."

"I think we should watch them anyway.  Maybe get an idea of what to expect when we find them."

Obi-Wan didn't think it was a particularly useful idea, but his own judgment had been poor so far today.  "All right.  Come downstairs in ten minutes or so.  I'll get us something to eat while we're watching."

Anakin nodded, and Obi-Wan went back out.  Siri was standing at the end of the hallway, at the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.  She was looking at her feet.  "Obi-Wan..."

"What?"

"I apologize.  I should have consulted with you before visiting Shapoi."

The words were measured, as though she had memorized a phrase in a language she didn't speak.  For Siri, of course, that wasn't far from the truth.  It was quite an effort for her to apologize.  "I accept," he said.

She glanced up, nodded, and looked down again.  "Then we start again?"

"Yes.  Anakin will join us in a few minutes, and we'll look at those holos you saved.  I was going to get us something to eat."

"I'll do it."  She smiled in an awkward way.  "I find I rather enjoy it.  Who would have suspected?"

"Who, indeed?"

She reached across their bond in the Force tentatively, and Obi-Wan reached back.

It would be all right.

He went to the parlor and drew the privacy shades (an oversight before; the projection itself wasn't visible from the windows, but he was giving in to some of the paranoia).

He hadn't had much of a chance to look at the images before (the one he'd been looking at was the first he'd retrieved, and he'd discontinued it shortly after Anakin came in).  He had gone for a long, rambling walk after leaving the Berchas, and only arrived home ten minutes before Siri.  Then the argument had begun.

The encounter with the Berchas had been mercifully brief.  Madam Bercha had introduced him to her husband, then fallen respectfully silent.  Since Obi-Wan had little to discuss with Ilb, a few stilted pleasantries seemed to be enough to satisfy manners.  He made a point of wishing both of them farewell, and using Thama's name.  The fact that he was trying to appear as a Coruscantian journalist did not necessarily mean he had to pretend to agree with every aspect of Neimoidian culture, and he was developing a healthy allergy to their marriage customs.

Healthy?  Should I not accept what is?

But the answer that came into his mind was Qui-Gon's face, set with the small smile that always meant he had no intention of playing by the rules.

Obi-Wan found that he could not rebel to the extent that Qui-Gon tended to.  He was quite certain that, had Qui-Gon lived, he would have found a way to get back to Tatooine and end slavery there, despite the Council's position on not acting without Senatorial approval (he was also quite certain that Anakin knew this perfectly well, and that it caused some unspoken resentment, but he guessed that there was an outside possibility that he was simply paranoid on that count).  For himself, he settled for the small rebellions.  Letting Anakin wander on Coruscant.  Greeting Thama Bercha by name in front of her husband.

In his experience, a hundred small changes made over time tended to be more permanent than a single large change, imposed in a sudden moment.  The rising tide of impatience in the galaxy disturbed him, particularly when he saw it in his own padawan.  Fix it now! was the cry.  And if you have to break something to do it, let the pieces fall where they may.

People were not considering consequences.

So thinking, he had wandered the perimeter of the city, and come to his own home from a direction he hadn't anticipated.  He'd barely settled in and gotten the holoproj set up when Siri came in, and, after washing her hands and face, told him that she'd been to see Shapoi, and he wouldn't believe what Shapoi wanted the Council to do.

After that, the tight circle of the argument had begun.

This time, he examined the small silver disks more closely, and found embedded dates on the sides.  He put them in order, and set the first one into the projector just as Siri appeared with a tray of food and set it down on the small desk.  Anakin came in a minute later, reached for bread, then sat on his other side.

He turned on the image.

An achingly familiar scene came up -- the Temple crèche, full of quiet children.  The crèche Master walked among them, speaking to them in gentle tones.  A few still kept toys with them, though it was discouraged early.  Obi-Wan remembered those days with deep fondness, bonding with Bant in particular and all the others in their turn.  Even Siri.  He remembered her, two years younger than he was, sneering at a boy who still had a stuffed toy with him at six.  She'd been a bit of a brat...but she was talented.  Even then, she'd stood out.

But this was before his time, or Siri's.  He recognized the crèche master only from a brief visit the man had made; he had chosen to leave service and spend his old age off Coruscant before Obi-Wan's childhood.  Perhaps he'd brought this to the Shapois.  It showed nothing much at all, just life.  A small boy on a bunk, thumb in mouth, was reading, and the master sat beside him.

"Is that Shapoi?" Siri asked, pointing at the boy.

"I'm not certain.  It might be."

"Did they send this out?  Like maybe to tell the parents their kids were okay or something?"

"No. I've never heard of such a thing."

Anakin frowned.  "Do you show them anything when you take the babies?  Like the schools, that send out all these pictures of how happy everyone is?  Do you think they showed your parents anything when they took you?"

"No, nothing like that.  Though it would perhaps not be a bad idea."  Obi-Wan glanced at his Padawan, but didn't say anything further.  Anakin had trouble wrapping his mind around the idea that the other children had no memories of other homes.  He had tried to imagine his own parents once, at Anakin's request, and found it nearly impossible to guess what they might be like, or what they might have wondered about when he was taken.

The image cut out.  There was a moment of static, and another came up.  It was a presentation of some sort on a world he'd never seen.  A small woman stood with a tall teenage boy on the steps of an official building.  Both wore long robes.  Obi-Wan could see Zio's padawan braid.  The woman must have been his Master.  Masters and padawans were most often of the same gender, but it was by no means highly unusual for them not to be.  Shapoi looked at the woman with the normal deep respect that would have been expected of him.  She was presented with some token, and he bowed to her.

Obi-Wan missed Qui-Gon with a sudden intensity that surprised him.

The image shifted several more times.  There were more presentations, news items.  Always, Zio Shapoi was an inconsequential figure, but always, he was there.

"It's nothing," Siri said, frustrated.