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Family Portrait
(Part 5)
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Join the Family Portrait Discussion on the Feedback Board.
Family Portrait
(Part 5)
Back to Fan Fiction.
Star Wars belongs to LFL.
Chapter 10

The morning after Shapoi's escape, Obi-Wan came into Anakin's room and told him in a low, disappointed voice, "We should be prepared to leave on short notice.  Take take all things which you must not leave to school with you."

Anakin shrugged, and took his lightsaber from the bedside drawer where it had waited since their arrival.  He buried it at the bottom of his packsack, beneath the scoot and his schoolbooks.  He tried to figure out if there would be an unobtrusive way to pack a few changes of clothes, but realized that would be a waste of space.  If they had to leave Malkiri suddenly, Kit Tachi's wardrobe would lose what marginal usefulness it had.  Beyond the lightsaber, only his datapad really remained to pack, as far as necessities went.  It was more than he'd left Tatooine with.

Obi-Wan gave him a sharp look as he left, apparently a reminder not to engage Tomik's gang in a duel, or perhaps dismember Madam Dysto.  What does he think I'm going to do?

(Be honest with yourself. He saw what happened with Krayn. He saw you keep attacking when your opponent was down. And are you any more sure than he is that Krayn actually still had a blaster when you killed him?)

Anakin frowned and fixed the scoot onto his boots.  He didn't care for that particular voice inside his head, mainly because it was unapologetic about the implications of what it was saying.  Krayn had had a blaster.  Otherwise, Anakin wouldn't have killed him, wouldn't have kept fighting.

(Does it matter?  He was a slaver and a brutal criminal.  The galaxy is better off without him.)

"Oh, shut up," Anakin muttered to himself, and stood up to guide the scoot to school.

He was almost there when he started to notice the armed guards lining the streets.  He reached out into the Force.  It felt jumpy and nervous, and he drew away from it.  He went through the arch under the forcefield with a bit of a flourish, and guided down to Tomik's gang, which was gathered around the school door.  "This because of Shapoi?" he asked.

Tomik nodded, looking delighted.  "Yeah.  He got out.  They got the launch pads locked up, and they figure he might try for a hostage here."

Anakin raised an eyebrow.  "Yes.  I hear that all the time about the Jedi.  Taking kids hostage, right under their teacher's noses..."

That bit of sarcasm went unnoticed.  Tomik raised his fist and gave a whoop at a man on patrol, who returned the gesture.  "My brother," he explained.  "He's been in the militia for a long time.  This is the first time they called him out."

"Oh."

When they got in, they found the atmosphere of the school radically changed.  Madam Dysto went on at length about not letting anything disrupt lessons, but all the lessons were quite disrupted.  Literature was all but hijacked by a hysterical girl who was sure that Shapoi was going to steal her away and force her to go to Coruscant.  Rumor had gone around about Shapoi kissing Siri -- funny that neither she nor Obi-Wan had bothered to mention that before -- and Anakin found himself called upon to add to the hysteria by swearing revenge.  After a very brief moment of considering his persona and reflecting on what the real Kitster would do, Anakin just frowned and said something about time balancing it out in the end.  It didn't seem to impress anyone much, and he supposed that was the effect he was after, though it just didn't feel right to have people thinking he was a coward.

In art, Madam Kam asked them to express their feelings about the escape through art.  To this end, she gave them all paint today.  Anakin hadn't ever worked with paint before, and had no idea what he was doing, so he just smeared dark colors onto the paper she provided, and swirled it with the brush into deep whirlpools and smaller eddies.  Since there was a good amount of time left after this bit of fakery, he added dark red highlights here and there, and finally, just because it seemed to want something, put two bright points of light in the upper right corner.

All the paintings were left on the wall to dry.  Anakin scanned most of them while he got his things together.  They all seemed to show people more than feelings, mainly a stylized Jedi stealing a wide-eyed child.  His own mess looked very conspicuous, and he had the nasty feeling that Madam Kam would decide it was deep and meaningful.

After school, he slipped out before Tomik's gang and started to head toward Daj's.  A soldier stopped him outside the gate.  "Straight home, today, boy," he said.  "There's a criminal on the loose."

Anakin just blinked, momentarily unsure how to respond.  Part of him wanted to just brush the man off, push him aside, and go on, but that would be rude.  "I'm sorry?" he said. "I...I have a job."

"You can do without it today."

"My boss will worry if I don't show up.  He'll think the murderer got me."

The soldier shook his head.  "Nice try.  Communications are still up."

"Come on, man."

"Not my choice, little friend."

So Anakin wound up walking home with Tomik's gang after all, scoots tucked under their arms, escorted by soldiers.

Obi-Wan and Siri were both home when he got there.  He could tell from their faces that they'd made no progress with Shapoi.  Siri's electronic surveillance detector was out again, sitting on the kitchen table.  It was still showing clear house, but Siri kept looking over her shoulder at it anxiously.  Obi-Wan simply sat at the table, watching the detector calmly over steepled hands.

They said almost nothing that night, meditated separately, and began the same routine the next morning.

School the next day seemed to be no more than a repeat, a feedback loop.  By lunch recess, Anakin felt as though he were drowning in sugar water, maybe laced with some mild intoxicant.  He felt like he wasn't even present.

So when he saw Tomik standing beside the weak spot in the forcefield, he kept a close eye on what was happening.  The patrols went by once every ten minutes or so, and Tomik waited carefully for a lull, then slammed his scoot into the beams.  Four of five of his gang slipped out.  It seemed like Brinje was with them.  Anakin moved closer.

Another patrol went by, and Anakin counted the seconds, using the time to tighten his pack.  The back of the soldier disappeared around the edge of the forcefield.

Anakin picked up his scoot, fired it, and tore a hole through the energy.

He followed Tomik into the woods.

**********

"All right," Siri said.  "Where would you go?  If you'd just escaped from jail, on a world that you'd only spent a little time on?"

Obi-Wan sighed.  "I'd find a way out.  Look for an underground movement with some transportation.  There clearly is one here.  But the presence of his parents skews the equation.  He will find them first."

"Are you sure?  He told us to find them."

"He won't delegate."

"Delegate..."  Siri bit some comment back.  "You told him we would take care of it, I told him we would.  And he was bound and determined to stand trial.  Now, he looks guilty."

"It's unlikely that the people of Malkiri consider him any guiltier today than they considered him two days ago."

Siri frowned at him.  "Will you stop playing Jedi master with me and just register some kind of reaction?  I'm not your padawan."

"Would you prefer it if I started behaving like an adolescent again?  Or are you reserving that privilege for yourself?"

She recoiled as if he'd slapped her, but brushed it off with a flick of her hand before he could apologize.  "Well, I asked for that, didn't I?"

Obi-Wan didn't bother to contradict her.  "My reaction isn't that different from yours," he said.  "I simply feel a need to contain it.  I've gotten in the habit around Anakin.  If he sees me being impulsive, he'll take it as permission to do the same."

"And if he finds out what a wild padawan you were?"

"He knows my story relatively well, so you have no extortion threat."  He winked, hoping that she was joking and trying to return the jest in kind, though he didn't feel it.

"And here I thought I'd be set for life."  Her voice was dry and tired, but it didn't have much of an edge to it.  She took off the short jacket she was wearing and tied it around her waist.  Under it, she was wearing something sleeveless, tight fitting, and low cut.  She didn't seem to take any notice of it, so Obi-Wan decided not to take any notice of it, either.  "Back to Shapoi," she said.  "If we can't make a guess as to where Shapoi himself would go, what sort of place do you think his parents would go?"

"I'd guess they would seek the underground, of which I have no doubt they were a part.  But..."

"But what?"

Obi-Wan shrugged.  "I think they're nearby.  I think I think they wouldn't want to be too far away from him while he's in trouble."

"Why do you say so?"

"Because I..." He shook his head.  "Never mind."

"No, tell me."

"Because I would stay close to Anakin," he said after awhile, surprised to actually hear it aloud.

"You're his master and he depends on you.  He's a child.  Shapoi --"

"If Anakin were to take his Trials today and pass them with no difficulty, I would still feel an urge to watch over him, as I always felt that Qui-Gon would watch over me.  And as Adi watched over you while you were undercover, I might remind you."

She shifted uncomfortably.  "I seem to recall you being the one to rescue Qui-Gon as often as he was the one to rescue you."

"You and Adi would only have been sent when Qui-Gon was in trouble and I needed...guidance.  Of course that's what you remember."

"Shapoi."

"Yes."

"If you're right, then his parents are probably somewhere near the town.  The woods?"

"I would think the woods would have been searched."

"Anakin says the children often play truant there," Siri said, "so clearly, the surveillance isn't constant.  And the forest would provide food and a semblance of shelter."

"A resistance movement would need more than trees and berries."

"Are you sure it's an organized movement?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're taking for granted that these people who dislike the way things are going are some kind of cell."

"Aren't they usually?  How many secret bases have we found?  Hidden labs?"

"Underground schools," Siri added with a faint smile.

"Exactly.  People will always try to organize..."

"I'm not sure about that.  The slaves on board the ships -- granted, they were controlled, but almost none attempted to circumvent those controls.  And anyone who seemed to be forming coalitions was dealt with severely.  I'm not certain that people here would actually form a cell."

"It would be difficult to accomplish anything without some kind of support."

"How much do you see having been accomplished?"

"I see your point."

"And when something did happen, it was one spectacular crime, carried off by an individual, with no apparent repercussions."

"Apparent may be the key word, Siri.  The death of the royal family --"

"Has no particular benefit to people who hold the views we've heard from what you would call the Resistance.  It only serves to increase the power of the Trade Federation here.  So if any strategic goal is being served, it's theirs.  Or it could be the act of a single, enraged man.  Either way, nothing we've seen points to an organized opposition.  If we waste time trying to track down a phantom syndicate, we may walk right past people lurking in the woods."

Obi-Wan nodded.  "All right.  We'll search the woods."

"Good."  She headed down the street, and Obi-Wan followed her.  They entered the woods together.

The sweet smell of the evergreens was overbearing this close, cloying and heavy.  Light came down in strange, speckled patterns, and needles from the trees made the forest floor almost slippery.  Somewhere close by, Obi-Wan could hear the gurgling of the stream, and a slight hiss that suggested it went over a waterfall somewhere ahead.  Thinking in an unfocused way that the clean, aerated water at the bottom of a fall, coupled with the possible sound-masking value, might make it an attractive place to hide, he nodded to Siri and they struck off along the water.

They seemed to have been going for quite awhile when Siri spoke, though Obi-Wan's chrono said that not much time had passed.  "Who do you think really killed them?" she asked.

"You really think it's Shapoi, don't you?"

To his surprise, she didn't snap at him.  Instead, she sat on a moss covered rock beside the stream.  He could feel the Force around her; she was not idle -- she was searching in a way that made more sense than simply following the stream.  "I did think so," she said.  "I didn't think it was definite, but I thought there was a possibility.  Jedi can go bad, you know.  You thought I had, why wouldn't I think it about Shapoi?"

"You were careful to cultivate the image of it, Siri.  Shapoi has shown no signs of --"

Her eyes burned for a moment, then she looked over her shoulder, back toward town.  "But when I met him...no.  He's as solid a Jedi as you are."

Interesting, Obi-Wan thought.  Not "as solid as I am," but "as solid as you are."

"What are your thoughts, Siri?"

"I think his lightsaber was used.  Try as I might, I can't get past the coincidence of a rarely-drawn weapon losing a charge on the same day a weapon of similar type was used to commit a murder.  Someone had access."

"His parents?"

"Maybe."

"That wouldn't suit their cause and it would certainly hurt their son.  I don't see it."

Siri leaned back on the rock, stretching out in the sunlight like a cat.  Obi-Wan was suddenly very aware of the shape of her body.  He reached to her waist, untied her jacket, and threw it across her.  She gave him one of the irritated frowns that he had associated with her since crèche, and that brought his mind back to where it belonged.  She closed her eyes again.  "Someone they trusted."

"Or someone who could control them."

"Obi-Wan, you're trying to see Sith everywhere.  I find it somehow unlikely that the remaining Sith Lord would come to Malkiri just to mind-trick Pojul and Daha Shapoi into framing an obscure Jedi for a political assassination."

"But here on Malkiri, it's never going to be about a Jedi, Siri.  It's about all of us.  The hate was here, and someone threw a flame into it."

"I'm not sure that we can assume -- "  Her eyes opened and she sat up, the jacket pooling around her waist.  "He's here.  I just felt him."

**********

Although Anakin had been fascinated by the smell of the forest on Malkiri, he had not found a time to go into it until now.  To his surprise, it was warmer under the canopy -- apparently, the geothermal warmth held in compensated for the solar heat kept out.  It was a comfortable warmth, a blanket wrapped around him.  The scent of the trees was completely pervasive here, almost painfully wonderful -- it was the full and tantalizing smell of bread baking in a kitchen, almost ready to bring out to cool, making him hungry and homesick at the same time.

He drew his knees up and hovered over the forest floor on his scoot, closing his eyes and letting the sensory input rush over him like the wind.  Obi-Wan said he was too easily distracted by his senses, and it was true -- he knew it was true -- but sometimes, he just wanted to give himself to all that sweetness, and let himself drown in it.

Instead, he just breathed deeply, once, twice, three times.  He opened his eyes.  The forest was just trees, and his senses retreated and let him think.

He knew a little bit about tracking; it was one of several subjects in which Jedi students were given a passing education, as they might well need to follow someone or avoid being followed themselves.  But it took no training to follow Tomik's path.  There was a rough mud trail, and along it, limbs had been broken, and trees bruised and cut by a carelessly swung branch.  Food containers and other garbage made a rough path back into the shadows.

Anakin pulled the scoot up higher, straining the limits of its repulsors.  On a whim, he pulled closer to a tree, found that he could pull himself up even further, using the wood as a base.  He was perhaps ten meters up now, looking at the thin trail winding away.  He could see motion in the canopy about half a kilometer ahead.

From here, he could see that a lower canopy stretched midlevel in the forest.  If he moved slowly, he could probably stay at this height.  He didn't know why he wanted to, but his instincts told him that he should.

Anakin, you must learn to separate your instincts from your desires.

He frowned, unsure, and decided to stay high anyway.

The canopy provided a strange, soft feel to the scoot's repulsion, and Anakin felt as though he were traveling over gentle waves as he made his way from one tree to another.  It would have been more efficient, he supposed, to stay on the path, but --

"Hey, that hurts!"

Anakin grabbed the trunk of a nearby tree and looked down.  Tomik and his two larger friends (a slow boy whose name was either Irzi or Urzi and an even slower one whose name Anakin had never been told) were waving sticks in the air, closing in on Brinje, who was backing into a bush, his hands raised over his face.  Irzi-or-Urzi took another swing at him and Anakin heard the wood slap against Brinje's knee.

"We're gonna take you back to Coruscant!" Irzi growled.  "And once you're there, you belong to us!"

"Yeah," the slower one said, apparently unable to think of any new threat.  "That's just what we're gonna do."

Tomik jabbed at him in a cruel move that drove the stick into Brinje's breast bone.  Brinje grabbed at his chest and went down.  "Only he'd be a pretty pathetic Jedi.  We'll just have to find some other use for him," he leered.

Okay.  This has to be stopped.

Anakin debated just diving on them, swinging the two henchmen into the nearest trees, then taking on Tomik and beating him to a pulp.  It wouldn't be very hard, he thought.  And maybe I'll give him a couple of whacks with that stick.  Maybe more than a couple.

Obi-Wan's voice came into his mind like a cooling draught.  You are too angry to attack.  You will do more damage than you can live with.  But you must do something.  It is right to do something.

Anakin sighed with relief.  It did feel like something Obi-Wan would say.  He liked to do things quietly, but he did do things sometimes.  Anakin rose higher in the tree, and he saw Brinje's head tilt up.  Tomik started to turn and follow the gaze, so Anakin ducked behind the trunk.  After a few seconds, he looked around again.  Tomik was advancing on Brinje.

Anakin caught Brinje's eye deliberately, and put his hand over his mouth.  Be quiet.  He reached into his pack, and drew his lightsaber from the bottom.

Then Tomik took another swing, this one directly at Brinje's shoulder.  Anakin heard the crack as either the bone or the stick broke.

He ignited his saber and sliced the thin top of the tree off, then pushed it down toward the path.  Brinje saw it coming and scrambled away.  Tomik and the others saw that motion, and jumped backwards, until they were almost directly below Anakin.  It hit none of them.

Brinje just stared up, and Anakin realized he was in plain view, lightsaber ignited.

He turned it off and hid it in the pocket of his coat, moving as he did behind another tree.

"Better go, Tomik," Brinje said.  "Before the whole forest falls on you."

"Yeah, right," Tomik said.

But he left.  His buddies went with him.

Anakin glided down, using the branches in a zigzagging pattern to get to the forest floor.  He landed beside Brinje.  "You okay?"

Brinje was staring at him openly, his eyes drifting to the braid buried in the extensions on his hair.  "Lots of guys at your school wear that, huh?"

Anakin shrugged.  "Well, it wasn't a lie."

"Guess not."

"Lean forward."  Brinje obliged, and Anakin checked a long welt on his neck.  "Someone hit you on the neck?"

"Irzi.  Tomik told him not to be dumb, but that's like telling the waterfalls not to smoke."

"Let me see your knee."

Brinje rolled up his trouser.  The knee was a deep purple, and a bruise was swelling up from it, but it didn't look broken.

"And your chest, where Tomik hit you?"

"I'll let my mom look at it, if it's all the same to you," Brinje muttered.

"How's your shoulder?  Are you okay to get home?"

"I'm not walking on my shoulder."

"I'm trying to help you here."

"I just sometimes heard that you guys...well, you know..."

Anakin fought to conceal his irritation, and didn't quite succeed.  "No, I don't know, unless you're planning to finish that with, 'Sometimes you guys help ungrateful little kids for no reason.'"

"I'm no younger than you.  Don't talk to me like I'm a little kid."

Control.  Control.  "All right.  I'm sorry.  Look, are you okay to walk?  Really okay?  They were slamming you pretty hard."

"Yeah.  I am."

"Okay."  Anakin reached down and helped Brinje to his feet.  "You know not to say anything, right?  You know...  Come on, you know that, right?"

"I'm not stupid, either.  But if you guys are sneaking around to cause trouble..."  His eyes widened.  "You broke Shapoi out of jail!"

"And then decided to stick around for art class?"

"Just so we wouldn't be suspicious!"

"No, Brinje.  I didn't break Shapoi out of jail.  I never even saw him.  Will you please promise not to tell?  You only know because I was helping you.  It's a fair trade.  I could've just let Tomik keep hitting you."

"No you couldn't've."  Brinje sighed.  "And I guess that's why I'm not going to tell."

"Thank you."

"Are you coming back into town?"

Anakin considered this.  There was no reason to stay in the woods, but...

That outer-sense, the tickling at the edge of his consciousness, awakened.  He felt something like a buzzing in his head.  He wanted to see where it was coming from.  "No.  I'm going to see what else is out here.  I hardly ever get a vacation, and it smells nice here."

"Smells like my mother's closet."

"Whatever.  I want to stay.  You go home and get checked out.  What are you going to tell your mother?"

"What does it look like?"

Anakin examined him.  The part of him that was Obi-Wan's Padawan suggested that he should tell Brinje to be honest with his mother, who might then be of assistance in keeping him away from the dangerous situation.  But the part of him that remembered going home to his mother with scrapes and bruises obtained practicing with his podracer or fighting in the street, and telling her something that would make her less worried...part of him answered.  "I don't know.  Maybe you could tell her you were climbing a tree and a branch snapped.  You got slapped by a couple on your way down.  It definitely looks like branch bruises, though, so don't say you fell.  And watch out for Tomik on the way back.  He could be laying for you."

"Nah.  He never does that."  They smiled cautiously at each other, then Brinje turned and headed down the path back toward town.

Anakin looked up the path as it went further into the woods and became less defined.  He could feel that other sense again.  And...Obi-Wan?  Was Obi-Wan here someplace?

Maybe there was something going on here.  He decided that he'd better find out.

He drifted into the shadows, and the sense grew larger as the ground began to rise and grow stony.  Needles from the trees made a carpet here, and he could hear the sound of the stream not far away as it went over a waterfall.  He looked to the top of the hill, and was surprised to see a low wooden house, built facing away from town.  From here, he saw the side of it, triangular.  The back of the house sloped literally under the hill.  From the front, it would look as though the hill had a façade.  From the back, it just looked like the forest.

Neat.

Something glinted among the trees, catching Anakin's eye -- something metallic.

His eyes scanned the trees on the house's roof again.

They were tall and straight, lined up, perfect...

Too perfect.  The rest of the trees in the forest grew any old way, wherever they could get sun.  These were in a half-circle, and each tree was perfectly straight.

And the metallic flash had come from one of the trunks.

A perfectly round shrub with high edges.

A small, squat shrub, with sharp corners.

Anakin crouched low, and headed for the round shrub.  When he got there, he let the scoot rise until he could see over the edge.

Deep in the shrub was a shallow metallic bowl -- a broadcaster.

It's a communications array.  It's --

His other-sense suddenly seemed to scream and fill his head.  Someone was here, someone was right here --

Then there was a heavy thud, which he heard before he registered the pain on the back of his skull.  He was barely able to recognize that someone had hit him before the world swam into grays and finally black.

**********

Siri was a few meters ahead, and Obi-Wan managed to stifle the urge to race with her.  That part of their lives was left behind -- he could allow her to reach the top of the hill first.

He spotted a quicker route, somewhat steeper, and took it.

They arrived at the top of the hill at the same time, to find nothing but a rather striking vista of an apparently endless forest.

Siri bit her lip, but not before the edge of a curse escaped her mouth.

"I don't know what you were expecting."

"I felt Shapoi's presence," she said.  "He's here in the woods."

"I agree.  Though I didn't feel what you did."

"You haven't breathed his used air up close."

"No, but I have talked to him at greater length."

"Are you telling me that you don't trust my perceptions?"

"No."  Obi-Wan sat down on a large boulder.  "Why would you jump to that conclusion?  You know perfectly well that we won't always sense the same things."

"Well, you didn't trust me to let me talk to him in the first place."  She blew air out of her mouth in an explosive gesture, and several flyaway strands of her blond hair flew up in a cloud.  "Of course, I did seem to make a bit of a mess of it, didn't I?"

"I think he might have gone anyway, Siri.  He didn't want the Order involved, and the longer we stayed here, the more convinced he would have become that we would."

"I sped the process up a little."

"Well, patience was never your strong suit."

Siri clenched her fists and planted them on her slender hips.  With the breeze tugging at her hair, she looked like the heroine of a grand adventure.  "I don't know where he is," she said.

"The Force is not a compass," Obi-Wan answered.  "It can --"

"Will you stop it? Will you stop talking to me like I'm your padawan?  I'm not!  I was a knight before you, and I functioned very well on my own for almost three years!"

"I'm sorry..."

But she wasn't listening.  She was pacing.  "I managed to go without the Council, without my Master, without Yoda...without you, even.  I maintained my cover..."  She stopped, closed her eyes.  "Do you know what I had to do, Obi-Wan?  Do you have any idea?"

"I imagine you were thorough in your persona."

"Thorough.  Oh, yes.  I was thorough." She sat down on the ground, her legs crossed.  "Now that I think about it, there were a hundred excuses I could have used, you know.  Lots of reasons not to...I mean, other than being in the Order.  It's a stupid thing for a woman to do to get close to power.  I learned that later.  Took a different approach and did better, but at first...I don't even remember his name, he wasn't even anyone placed too highly to refuse --"

Obi-Wan started to ask, "What are you talking about?"  But he understood before the question fully formed, and asked instead, "Siri, do you really want me to know this?"

She didn't answer for a long time.  Finally, with a slow, rolling motion, she rose to her feet.  "Look at me, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan glanced up at her.  The sun picked out her shapes and caressed them, and the breeze pushed her clothes against her.  He looked down.  "All right.  What do you want from me, Siri?  What have you been asking me for since this began?  I am not going to --"

"I want you to look at me like this, to know what I just told you, and still think of me as a Jedi knight."

"What?"

"I thought if anyone could, you could.  But even you...you see this, you cover it up.  You hear what I told you, and you look away."

"Siri, I've never thought of you as anything but a Jedi."

"Then why did you throw my jacket over me?"

"Because you were distracting to me!"  Obi-Wan ran a hand through his hair.  This was not the time to be having this conversation.  "If you wanted me to see you as a knight, why were you treating me like a schoolboy to be teased?"

Siri turned around, a look of honest surprise on her face.  "It never occurred to me that you felt...well, teased.  You've never wavered, not since Melida/Daan, anyway.  I just...it never occurred to me.

"It appears we've been operating at cross-purposes."

"Apparently so." Siri sighed.  "I'm sorry, Obi-Wan.  It wasn't fair to you."

"No, it wasn't.  But if it helps in any way, Siri, I have always thought of you as a Jedi.  No one needed to tell me you were undercover.  When I took the time to think about it, I simply understood that you would not betray the Order.  I was right."

"But I --"

"Did what seemed right in an unusual situation."

"I feel like such a fraud when I go back to the Temple.  They want me to take a padawan, and I just keep expecting someone to scream, Don't you know what she did?"

"Have you talked to Adi about this?'

"No.  I couldn't tell Adi.  I couldn't stand the idea of what she would think of me.  I couldn't stand the idea that she wouldn't forgive me."

Obi-Wan stood up and went to her.  He didn't embrace her or offer her a place for tears; that wasn't what she needed.  Instead, he simply stood beside her, a colleague, an equal.  "She'll forgive you, Siri.  I have a Padawan now, and I can tell you on some authority: your Master will forgive you.  It would hurt too much not to."

Siri turned and gave him a half-hearted smile.  "We're not getting very far in finding Shapoi here, are we?"

"No, we're not.  And we should return to the task at hand."

"All right.  Yes."  She looked over the rise again, toward the valley beyond, where the thin, sparkling line of the stream broke the vast forest.  "We should head toward the water."

"Yes, I think we --"

Obi-Wan stopped, a rush of fear suddenly washing over his mind, then vanishing.

No, not vanishing.

Being cut off.

"What is it, Obi-Wan?"

"Anakin," he said.  "Something's happened.  I need to get back to him."

Siri checked her chrono.  "He should still be in school.  Go. I'll keep looking for Shapoi."

"Good.  Do you have your comm-link?"

"Yes."

"Then we'll keep in contact.  I don't like this."

"I'm not fond of it myself.  Do you want me to come with you?"

"No.  We need to find Shapoi.  And then I want all of us off this world.  Something is going bad here."

"Going?"

"Figure of speech."

She nodded.  "Go."

He went.


Chapter 11

"What do you mean he's not here?"

Madam Kam blinked her large eyes slowly, three times.  Obi-Wan thought he had time to count each striation in the color of the irises.  "He didn't appear at the beginning of my class, Baklee Tachi.  You should perhaps speak to your charge.  He seems to have left school grounds."

"How can that happen?  I thought the school was supposed to have some responsibility for the children here."

"This is not a prison, sir.  Our shields are not set to show alarms if a student determines to cross one.  If your brother-in-law has any affinity with mechanics, he may have been able to damage the field.  We've known for years that there is a flaw, but..."

Obi-Wan clenched his teeth and held up one hand.  "Very well.  I will report Kit's absence to Madam Dysto, then I will attempt to find him."  He took a deep breath.  "Do you know of any...perhaps not entirely sanctioned diversions in the area?  Particularly races?"

Madam Kam shook her head in bewilderment.  Obi-Wan scanned the room, saw no apparent secrets in the eyes of Anakin's classmates, and nodded his thanks to the teacher.  He left, not bothering to stop in Madam Dysto's office.  It would do little good to put the school's machinery in motion -- if Anakin had left, he had done so without consulting the school, and without an adult per child, the school would have no way to actually track him.

And, as Anakin was ultimately Obi-Wan's responsibility, it was hardly fair to waste annoyance on the school.

But where would Anakin have gone?

He almost tripped over a small boy sitting on the wide steps in the school lobby.  The boy's bag tipped over, spilling datapads, drawings, styli, and a hoverscoot onto the hardwood floor.

Hoverscoot.

Obi-Wan bent down.  "I'm sorry, child.  But do you know where Daj Orti's shop is?"

The boy smiled widely, apparently pleased to be spoken to by an adult.  "Oh, sure.  Everyone knows Daj's.  It's down the street, then a left turn through the old town, then out until you're almost in the new town.  It's all clean and there's a ramp on it."

"Thank you.  You've been quite helpful."

Obi-Wan left the school grounds, unable to keep a slow and measured pace.  He was concentrating now, trying to feel Anakin's presence in the Force.  As he'd told Siri, the Force was not a compass, but it could be used to track, and Anakin was usually, quite frankly, a gravitational force.  But now, Obi-Wan could only feel a vague tugging at his mind, a small hook pulling him in no direction.  He could only trust his knowledge of Anakin, and the problem with that was that the most likely thing for Anakin to do was something new that hadn't occurred to him before, which left Obi-Wan with nothing at all to go on.

He supposed that objectively, it only took him ten minutes to get to Daj's store, but it seemed at least an hour, maybe more, before he saw the odd building with the scoot ramp outside.  His feet only hit one riser on the porch steps.

Daj Orti was alone in the shop, behind the counter, and he stood with a welcoming smile.  The smile faded abruptly into concern when he saw Obi-Wan.  "You are Kit's guardian."  It wasn't a question.

Obi-Wan nodded.  "He isn't here?"

"No.  I assumed he was still in school."  Daj came around the counter and pulled a stool out from an aisle.  "Sit down.  You look upset.  Has something happened?"

"I don't know.  I went to the school, and he wasn't there.  I don't know where he's gone, and I am concerned."

"He may have simply slipped away..."

Obi-Wan didn't know how to address the issue without giving away some skills he didn't want to discuss, so he just shook his head and repeated, "I am concerned."

Daj drew back and looked at him in an appraising way.  "You sense he is in danger?"

"I can't find him."

"But he often runs off, doesn't he?  Back on Coruscant?"

Obi-Wan nodded.  He raised his hands to his temples and rubbed in small circles.  "Yes.  Yes, he runs off.  If he isn't here, I need to go now, to find him."

Another appraising look.  "You really are concerned.  Your worry is for the boy."

"Of course it is."

"He is difficult for you."

"He is difficult for everyone, but at the moment he is lost, and he is therefore my difficulty to deal with."  He stood up.  "I really must go."

"They go to the woods," Daj said abruptly.  "I am not supposed to know, but I repair their scoots.  They are gummed with resin and clogged with leaves and needles.  I walked the woods not long ago.  There is a path of sorts from the school to the mayor's home."

"The mayor's home?"  An alarm seemed to sound in Obi-Wan's mind.  The mayor -- the one who wouldn't see him, the one who had never made an appearance.

"Yes.  He lives near the waterfall."

Back where I started, with all this time wasted.  "So far from town?"

Daj sniffed.  "He does not bother himself with our everyday concerns, you know.  His business is with galactic trade.  But it is an attractive spot.  I believe the children may approach it."

"Thank you.  I --"

"Go fetch him."  Daj gave the forced and unusual smile that Anakin had told him about.  "He's the best assistant I ever had."

"I'm afraid you can't keep him."

"I knew that from the first.  But collect him anyway."

Obi-Wan nodded his thanks and left.

It would be the woods.  That's why it had been so strong there in the first place.  Along the stream to the waterfall.

He didn't bother looking for a path to the school or to the waterfall itself.  He just ran through the woods toward the sound of the water; he could pick up the path going back.  He didn't need to bother to hide his skills here; he could sense no one nearby, and he leapt easily over stumps and other obstacles.  He reached the stream quickly and followed its course toward the ever-growing hiss of the waterfall.

**********

Anakin dreamed of home.

He was cold, as he often had been at night, though it felt oddly damp.  Mom was cooking breakfast, baking bread.  He had to wake up now, or he'd be late to the shop, and Watto would be furious.  He didn't want Watto to be mad, because there was a big race coming up, and maybe Watto would let him fly again, even though he'd crashed last time.

He started to roll over, but it hurt his head.

Mom!  Hey, Mom, I'm sick!

No answer.

Mom!

Anakin pulled himself to his hands and knees, ignoring the pain in his head.  It wasn't awful.  It just made him a little unsure on his feet.  Mom!

He tripped over something on his floor, something that looked like a tree root, but couldn't be, as there were no trees in Mos Espa.

The kitchen was shadowy and green.  He couldn't see Mom anywhere.

He blinked his eyes into the sun.

I'm on Malkiri.  I haven't been on Tatooine in four years, and I can't find Mom because she's still back there.

Anakin swayed in the circle of trees, feeling completely lost.  He had been by the strange house that looked like a hill.  How had he come here, and where was here?

His head still hurt, and he still felt unsteady on his feet.

Someone hit me and dragged me.

A horrible thought occurred to him, and became a certainty before he even thought to check.  Someone had found him and knew he was a Jedi padawan.  Someone had seen his pack.  His lightsaber.

He pulled his pack around to the front.  It was undisturbed.

Why?

Why wouldn't someone have opened it?  Why knock him over the head and then not take what he was carrying?

Forget that for a minute.  Go back to 'Someone hit me.'  Go back and think about that closely.  What are you going to do about that?

"Shut up," Anakin hissed at the voice in his head, and for once it did.  Maybe it knew as well as he did that there were more important things right now than worrying about payback.  Like finding out who had found out what.  And finding out where he was and how to get back home.  "Think," he whispered to himself.  "Just think.  There has to be a way."

He looked around himself.  He was in a circle of trees that could be anywhere.  He couldn't see any glint of the windows of the house he had been at.  It could be anywhere in the woods.  The stream burbled away not far from here.  He could hear the hiss of the waterfall.  It hadn't been too far, then, unless he had been taken to an entirely new place, but he didn't think it had been that long.  The sun hadn't moved very far.

The stream.  It goes behind the house.  Follow it upstream into town.

Anakin rolled his eyes.  He must have been hit harder than he'd thought.  He'd found his way home from the open desert by the shapes of rock formations, and that was a lot more complex than this.  He turned toward the stream.

And promptly fell forward, the world spinning around him at an alarming angle.  His hands hit the damp ground, and he stayed there on his knees, long hair hanging in his face, trying not to vomit.

After awhile, the dizzy spell passed.  He reached for a tree and pulled himself up slowly, stopping each time the vertigo tried to take him.  He would need to remember to move slowly.

Using the trees for support, pausing now and then to get his equilibrium, he made his way toward the sound of the rushing water.

**********

Obi-Wan ran along the stream, darting around trees easily, leaping over roots.  He could see the place where the land dropped off, and he knew he was getting close.  Anakin's presence was growing stronger, but he was lost and disoriented.  But for a moment, he'd felt a surge of impatience and anger that -- for once -- had done his heart good.  Anakin with enough energy to be angry was Anakin not badly hurt.

It didn't make his impatience any less. He had been worried and

(frightened)

concerned, and he wanted to actually have the boy in sight, in easy reach.  Once he was there, he wasn't sure if his instinct was to embrace his Padawan or cuff him -- neither was precisely the approved method of dealing with a Jedi padawan -- but such choices were irrelevant until he was actually there.

The path ended abruptly at the top of a steep incline beside the waterfall.  He could see the flashing light on the windows of the house Orti had told him about.  Below, the stream bent sharply toward another part of the woods.  He looked out over the trees, preparing for the inevitable frustration, and saw motion.

He opened himself up to the Force, felt Anakin's presence and nearly cried out in relief.  But the boy was moving strangely, listing from tree to tree as though he were on a water-ship and didn't have his sea legs.

Obi-Wan started to nearly fly down the slope, then remembered that it could be seen from the windows of the house.  He made himself slow down and pick his way over the rocks to the stream below.  "Kit!" he called out, when he was close enough to see Anakin's face on the other side of the stream.

Anakin looked up in a dazed way, then smiled.  He took a stumbling step toward the stream, and Obi-Wan put on a burst of speed, splashing across the shallow water.  Anakin had taken a few uncertain steps in, and was swaying with the current when Obi-Wan caught him and held him.  To keep him from falling down.

"Are you all right?"

"Someone hit me.  I wasn't paying enough attention."

"We'll talk about that later."  Obi-Wan picked him up -- barely noticing that Anakin's legs were long enough to dangle almost to the ground when he did so -- and carried him over to the side of the bank he'd been running on.  He set him down on a boulder.  "Let me look at your head."

Anakin obediently bent forward, pulling his long hair up from his neck.  An ugly welt crossed the base of his skull, but it didn't actually look like a bruise.  More like an energy burn.

"Did you sense anyone nearby, Anakin?"

"At the last minute.  I should have been paying more attention."

"And you should have been paying more attention when I said we'd talk about that later.  Did you sense someone who was in tune with the Force?"

"Maybe.  I'm not sure.  It wasn't there, and then it was there.  Why?"

"This looks like a wound from a lightsaber in training mode.  You've had them before on your arms and chest.  Inflicting one near the base of the brain would cause temporary unconsciousness."

"Somebody snuck up on me with a lightsaber?  Why didn't they kill me?"

"I don't know.  What were you doing before it happened?  For that matter, why weren't you in school?  What did you think you were doing?"

"I was following Tomik.  Then I decided to see what was down here.  There's a big comm array.  That's what I was looking at.  I thought it might be important.  It's all hidden."

"You should have come straight home when you found it, and let Siri or me come to investigate."

"Who do you think hit me?  Was it a Sith?"

Obi-Wan frowned.  "No.  A Sith would have killed you, probably taken your lightsaber.  The same is true of whoever killed the royal family."

"Then who?"

"There's only one I can think of.  Shapoi.  Siri sensed him in the woods just before I felt you hurt.  And he was careful not to do any serious damage to you.  He didn't want you wherever you were."

"Is he on our side or not?"

"He is on the side of the Jedi," Obi-Wan answered.  "That I am confident of.  But he doesn't necessarily interpret that in the same way you or I would."

Anakin didn't answer.

"We need to find him.  It's time to leave."

"Why would he hit me?  Why not just say, Stop it?"

"I don't know."

"I want to know.  And I want to hit him back."

Anakin looked up through narrow eyes, and Obi-Wan realized that he was fighting with his temper.  His tone had not been defiant.  It had been rather miserable.  He wanted Obi-Wan to help him not want to hit Shapoi.

Obi-Wan found that help a bit difficult to offer, since he himself would have liked nothing better at that moment than to do precisely the same thing.  But he was older and wiser, and knew better.

"Anakin, whatever Shapoi's motives were, I think they were not malicious.  I believe he may have been trying to protect you from something he has already discovered."

"He surprised me."

"He frightened you."

"No."  Anakin shook his head.  "Well, a little. But mostly...it's embarrassing."  He blushed and looked down.

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about.  However gifted you are, you are still a padawan, and Shapoi is a full knight."

"I should have felt him there."

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow.  "Ah, so there was a permanent injury after all.  Anakin Skywalker's pride has been wounded."

He had tried Qui-Gon's wry tone, the one that had always felt was to him when he was a padawan, and was surprised when Anakin turned and glared at him.  "All right, yes, okay?  I'm embarrassed.  I screwed up.  I didn't do it right.  I --"

Obi-Wan put a hand on his arm.  "Anakin, be calm.  There is no shame in a mistake, and you should not be shamed by this."

Anakin drew in a deep, shaky breath. "Yes, Master.  Does this mean I'm going to have to have special lessons where I have to make mistakes and be embarrassed?"

Obi-Wan thought about it very hard.  He had made up what Anakin called his "special lessons" to deal with some of the baggage Anakin had carried from Tatooine, and because they hit directly on his weaknesses, they were rarely pleasant, but he learned from them.  At the same time, while Obi-Wan had been able to deliberately provoke Anakin's temper, consciously force him to sit out his impatience, and make him see the results of his impulsive behavior, he found that he simply could not make himself deliberately humiliate the boy.  Not for anything.  That lesson wasn't worth the price.  "No," he said.  "No special lessons.  But be aware of your pride, Anakin."

"I'm aware."

"Are you?"

"I am."

"All right then."  He pulled out his comm-link.  "Siri?"

She answered immediately, also sounding put out.  "What?"

"I have Kit."

"Good.  Then I can stop looking."

Obi-Wan almost asked where Shapoi was, then remembered that the comm-link was not untraceable.  Instead, he tried something he hoped was obvious enough for Siri to follow.  "You're sure you've found the datapad you misplaced?"

"No.  I'm sure I've actually lost it."  She sounded discouraged.  And embarrassed.  Obi-Wan wondered if she and Anakin would benefit from discussing the subject of pride with one another, or if they would just exacerbate the situation for each other.

"We'll be at the top of the waterfall," Obi-Wan said.  "Meet us there -- you'll see a large house in the hill with full size windows looking out -- and then we'll go home."

"Fine.  Siri out."

The comm-link emitted a hiss of white noise as it was turned off on her end, and Obi-Wan thumbed the control on his own.  "Can you climb the hill?" he asked.

Anakin got to his feet, swayed, looked at the top, and squared his shoulders. "Sure."

"Are you certain?"

Anakin stood swaying for a moment longer.  He turned to Obi-Wan, his lips pressed firmly together, and shook his head, looking very angry with himself for doing so.

"Very good," Obi-Wan said.  "You passed this one and only special lesson on your pride."  He squatted down in front of the rock.  "Now put your arms around my neck and I'll carry you on my back."

A few more seconds passed than really needed to, but Anakin's strong arms wrapped themselves carefully around Obi-Wan's neck from behind, the hands clasping opposite elbows above Obi-Wan's breastbone.  Obi-Wan hoisted him up, making his arms into stirrups, and started to climb up the hill.  Anakin didn't talk as they went, but when Obi-Wan set him down at the top, his expression was merely neutral.

They sat quietly together, leaning against tree trunks, while they waited for Siri to join them.


Chapter 12

Obi-Wan wanted to keep carrying him all the way back to town, but Anakin drew the line when they got to the edge of the woods.  The idea of what would happen if Tomik saw Obi-Wan toting him around like an infant was enough to convince him not to let it happen.

"I'm okay.  Honest.  If we walk slowly, I'm okay."

Obi-Wan lowered him to the ground and looked at him suspiciously.  "Anakin, there is no point to be made by pretending that you aren't injured."

"It's an energy burn.  I've had worse.  You should've seen me a month or so before you and Qui-Gon found me.  Sebulba flashed me with his vents and the pod went crazy.  I was bleeding all over."

Siri grinned.  "Well, that's a charming image, Ani."

Anakin ignored her.  She wouldn't let Obi-Wan carry her into town, either, so he wasn't going to let her distract the conversation.  "So I can handle walking a few more meters into town.  Okay?"

Obi-Wan sighed.  "I'll be walking right behind you.  Siri will be beside you.  She is allegedly your sister in this scenario.  She can hold your arm.  You may complain about that all you like; it will look realistic."

And so they made their way back into town, Anakin feeling a bit stronger with each step.  Obi-Wan stalked along behind, looking annoyed.  Siri walked at Anakin's side, leaning over every now and then to appear to scold but actually winking and whispering things like, "Baklee's turning into an old woman."

Anakin knew she meant well, and knew that she was trying to tell him that she understood where he was coming from, but it still didn't sit right with him.  When Obi-Wan had caught him in the forest, all he'd wanted was to just fall into that hug and stay there a good long time, and for the first time, it had felt like Obi-Wan wanted the same thing.  The distant master-padawan dynamic had gone away, just for a minute, and it had felt like really being in a family again.  Siri hadn't been part of it.

They got to the house without incident.  Siri let them inside and did a quick surveillance check -- it appeared no one had been in with listening devices since they'd left -- then Obi-Wan steered Anakin into the kitchen, sat him down at the table, and grabbed a cold compress from the freezer.  He pressed it to the back of Anakin's neck and held it there until Anakin reached up to hold it himself.  Anakin had to admit, it did feel soothing.

"I'm okay," he said again.  "But thanks."

"I was somewhat concerned about you," Obi-Wan said mildly.

"He ran back to town, then all the way out to where I found you," Siri said, sitting down across from Anakin.  "We were most of the way there when he sensed that something had happened to you."

Anakin glanced up at Obi-Wan, not surprised that his Master had done such a thing, but surprised to find himself unsurprised.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to scare you."

"I'm aware of that."  Obi-Wan sat down in the third chair, his back to the window over the sink.  "And it does beg the question of why you were not in the place you were meant to be."

"I told you.  I was following Tomik."

"From what you've told me, Tomik Cral is a bully and an unpleasant young man, but unless there is something you're not telling me, he is hardly a key to the disturbances on Malkiri.  You would have done better to remain in school."

"And get the same stuff again?  That's all they do.  Just go over and over and over the same stuff, whether you get it or not."

"And what have you learned from Tomik that is different from day to day?"

Anakin frowned and rubbed at the compress, making a cool bulge roll over the swollen area at the base of his skull.  "I just...  Well, I did find out that they think..."  He bit his tongue, suddenly realizing how much trouble he would get in once he told Obi-Wan everything about the afternoon's excursion.  And besides, what Tomik had implied to Brinje about what the Jedi did to padawans was...he didn't even know how to say it.

"That they think what?"

"Well, they were making fun of Brinje and they said he wouldn't be a good padawan and the Jedi would...find other things to do with him."  He looked down at the table.  "I couldn't...I had to do something."

"Anakin, that's a slur that has been made before.  You can't let it enrage you.  You are well aware that it is untrue."

"They were hurting Brinje, too.  Hitting him with sticks.  Hard."

Siri and Obi-Wan glanced at each other, and Siri leaned forward.  Her voice was gentle, but it demanded an answer.  "Anakin, what did you do?  Did Tomik find out who you really are?"

"No!  No.  Not Tomik."

"But someone did?" Obi-Wan asked.

"I was up high.  Tomik didn't even know I was there.  But...Brinje saw me."  He looked from one to the other, trying to gauge their expressions.  It didn't matter what Siri thought, really, but they were equals on this mission, and he had compromised it.  "I had to help him," he said.  "They were hurting him.  I thought you'd think I was right to help."

"I do think you were right to help, Anakin, but --"

"I did it as quietly as I could.  I thought I could do it without him seeing what I did."

"What did you do?"

"I dropped a limb on the path."  Anakin sighed and made himself finish.  "I cut it off with my lightsaber."

Obi-Wan closed his eyes slowly, then opened them again.  He looked deeply disappointed.  "What is done is done.  Was Brinje with you when you were hurt?"

"No.  He went back to his mother."

"Well," Siri said.  "We didn't come home to a mob or an arrest warrant.  Maybe it did no harm."

"We should be careful.  I spoke to Daj Orti while I was looking for you, and I think he also suspects that you are not what you seem."

"I haven't said anything to Daj."

"I didn't think you had.  He merely suspects.  He came from Coruscant.  Perhaps he's seen you somewhere there.  At any rate, I think our time may be running out."

"I think the game has changed," Siri said.  "All we've found out undercover is that there are a lot of lies floating around this planet.  My theory is that someone chose this world to work mischief on because of a pre-existing prejudice, not that one was created for a particular purpose.  The Council is not going to like that report."

"Well, I'll back you up," Obi-Wan told her.  "The question is, who?  And why?  Anakin, what did you see in the woods?  What were you looking at when you were attacked?"

Anakin paused for a moment before answering, not sure whether or not the reprimands were past.  But he supposed they both had more important things to worry about than scolding him, and he had more important things to worry about than being scolded.  "There's a house up near the waterfall."

"It's the mayor's house.  Orti told me about it."

"Really?" Anakin blinked.  "He's the one you can't talk to, right?"

"Yes."

"Then maybe..."  He stood up.  The world wobbled a little, but he ignored it.  "He has a comm-array up there.  A big one.  And it's all camouflaged to look like the forest."

"Really?"  Siri stood and guided him back to his chair.  "That's very odd --"

Obi-Wan shook his head.  "He is the local contact for a galactic trade organization.  Communications would be expected."

"And disguised?"

"I don't want to jump to any further conclusions, Siri.  He may have simply wanted the array to blend into the surroundings for aesthetic reasons."

"So why would someone attack your Padawan for showing up there?"

"I think it was Shapoi," Obi-Wan said.  "He didn't seem to be trying for any permanent wound."

"Which only reiterates the question.  Why would Shapoi want to keep Anakin away from a standard communications array?"

**********

It was suspicious, Obi-Wan knew.  Hiding a communications array so carefully and so far from town was in fact quite odd.  If he were alone, he would go there immediately, ascertain what the purpose of the array was, and report back to the Temple.

But Anakin put a crazy skew on things, particularly since the other candidate to care for him was Siri.  Siri would insist on going along, probably armed, and Anakin would either doggedly join them or agree to stay and then follow.

I have to teach him better discipline, but there isn't time for it today.

If he were alone...

But Shapoi was alone.  And Shapoi had done exactly what Obi-Wan would have, right up until the point that he'd incapacitated Anakin.  It wasn't precisely Orthodox, but it wasn't in Qui-Gon's league of rebelliousness, either.

So, if I were Shapoi, why would I sneak up on a padawan -- one whom I do not know at all except by the magnetic presence he projects -- attack him and inflict a mild injury, then leave him alone in the woods?

Obi-Wan felt his anger rising at Shapoi.  He recognized it, evaluated it, then shunted it to one side.  It wasn't going to help.

"Obi-Wan?"

"I'm thinking, Siri."

"You know we're right.  You know that's not normal."

He didn't answer her.

Think.

Why would Shapoi be there?

(He's observing.)

All right.  Why move Anakin?

(To keep him out of danger.)

But why do it secretly?  Why not simply talk to him, tell him to leave?  Shapoi doesn't know that Anakin won't obey orders.  Why keep out of sight?

"Because he doesn't want the Order involved," he muttered aloud.

"What?"

"Anakin, Siri and I have both spoken to Shapoi.  He wanted the Order to stay away from the case.  He thinks it would be disadvantageous for us to be involved."

"Yeah?"

Obi-Wan looked at Siri.  "He was planning to do something this afternoon, at that house.  He not only wanted Anakin away from the scene, he wanted to make sure that the Jedi genuinely had no knowledge of his presence there."

"Do you think he was going to kill the mayor?"

"He's already been all but convicted of murder," Siri said, raising an eyebrow.  "He might have decided that it was the wisest course."

"Or he may have decided to disassemble the comm-array, or place surveillance devices on it, or play sabacc with the mayor's guards."  Obi-Wan shook his head.  "But I think it was something drastic.  I think he was trying to bring an end to whatever is happening here."

"Doesn't he realize that it doesn't matter whether or not we're there?" Anakin asked.  "Anything he does, they're still going to figure he's doing it as a Jedi, and that the Council put him up to it."

"He knows it in his mind," Obi-Wan said.  "But I don't think he really believes it, not on a deep level, any more than I do."

"How can you say that after everything --?"

"I know it in my mind, Anakin.  But all my core beliefs rebel against the existence of this sort of hatred.  It is so senseless.  I find myself assuming that surely someone will come forward and speak rationally, and that as soon as that happens, the crowd will recognize the superiority of that approach."

"Wow.  And Mom used to say I had a vivid imagination."

"Sarcasm is not appreciated.  I told you that I am aware of the flaw in my thinking.  I simply think you both need to be aware of it."

Siri nodded.  "I am quite aware of it, Obi-Wan.  I always was."  She smiled.  "It's one of the things I like best about you, to tell the truth.  You'll stand in the middle of a crisis and argue philosophy, and you honestly can't understand why people get impatient with you.  It's very endearing."

Obi-Wan had a sudden, clear memory of Naboo, standing before Boss Nass.  He had begun to argue about the nature of symbiosis, and Qui-Gon had put a weary hand on his shoulder -- weary and familiar, with a smile to match.  He supposed it was something of a lifelong pattern.

Anakin, however, just looked puzzled by it, as he often did.  He preferred action to discussion, and despite his injury, he seemed ready to go back into the woods right now.  Obi-Wan didn't doubt that Anakin's recommendation would be to fan out, find Shapoi, and cart him back to Coruscant, against his will if necessary.  The knowledge that Siri would side with him was annoying, but beyond doubt.

So Obi-Wan asked for neither opinion.

"I want the two of you to stay in town.  I'm going to --"

Siri was already opening her mouth to object and Anakin looked ready to run for cover, but Obi-Wan never finished the sentence.

The screech of an alarm split the air outside, and Siri stood up, her eyes focused on the window.  "Everyone's going outside."

"Is it a storm?" Anakin asked, getting to his feet and grabbing his packsack.  "Sometimes --"

"Clear skies," Siri interrupted.  "It's something else.  An emergency.  A fire, an accident --"

"An escaped prisoner," Obi-Wan said firmly.  "I think we'd better go."

There was no argument, and they had no trouble blending into the curious crowd on the street.  They seemed a bit more hurried, but Obi-Wan's cover as a journalist made that seem natural.  If there were news happening, of course he'd want to get to the front of it.  Siri and Anakin slipped along easily to either side.

The crowd got thicker and more emotional as they neared the center of town, going up the hills, past the pyramidal houses, and toward the jail and courthouse.  The mob stopped here -- and it truly had become a mob.  People on every side were shouting curses.  Many had rocks or sticks in their hands.  It seemed not to matter how technically adept a society was...when they reverted to this level, they instinctively grabbed for the most primitive of weapons.

Obi-Wan wove through them until he could see the courthouse steps.  Four men were dragging a bound and blindfolded figure.  They didn't seem to be moving very fast.  In fact, they seemed to have deliberately stopped.

The blindfolded figure looked up, his hidden gaze focusing directly on Obi-Wan.  Shapoi.

Blood soaked the blindfold around his ears and seemed to have flooded from his nose.  As Obi-Wan watched, one of his guards kicked him again, in the side, causing him to double over, but not cry out.

He did not fight back.

Obi-Wan understood this.  It was a situation where any response would have to be lethal, and a lethal response would confirm every bad thing these people believed about the Jedi.

"Stop it!" Obi-Wan shouted, but it was lost in the general din.

A stone flew out of the crowd and hit the side of Shapoi's face.  Blood spilled from a new cut under his eye.

Another rock sailed toward him, and Obi-Wan reached desperately for it with his mind.  It swerved away and clattered harmlessly on the steps.  Good, that was...

The crowd was dangerously quiet.  Then someone called out, "The Jedi did that!  He's attacking!"

"I have attacked no one," Shapoi said.  His voice was not loud, but it carried -- he was using a variant of the mind trick that many of the diplomatic teams employed for crowd control. " You are all very mistaken.  The Jedi have no interest in interfering with your affairs.  We --"

And that was when his guard shot him.

The movement was quick, and Obi-Wan had not anticipated it.  Neither, it seemed, had Siri, though Obi-Wan could see that Anakin had been struggling to get forward.  The boy reached for his pack.

For his lightsaber.

Obi-Wan grabbed his wrist.  "No, Anakin.  You can do Shapoi no good in this way."

"But --"

"He died to protect the honor the Jedi Order.  Would you waste his life by dishonoring his sacrifice?"

Anakin glared at him, and Obi-Wan half-thought that his Padawan might bolt anyway, but the moment passed.

"Stay with Siri," he said.  "I'll go up with my press badge and find out what happened."

He put Siri's hand on Anakin's shoulder, noting only vaguely the look of disorganized anger on her face.  She was a Jedi.  She would control it.

Obi-Wan pushed his way to the front of the mob, flashing his press pass as he went, trying to reach the fallen knight before any more harm was done to the shell that was left of him.