Reunion (24 page)

“The idea of a dissident group is preposterous,” Rowel said. “There hasn’t been any unrest on Zonama for decades!”

“Well, there is now! I’m telling you: that attack was well planned and organized. Look,” she said, “I’m not trying to be critical of you or your way of life here. I just want to know what’s happened to our friends. The fact that you don’t seem to care annoys me.”

“But we
do
care,” Rowel said. “We care that strangers are wandering loose on our planet doing untold damage. We care—”

Luke didn’t give him chance to finish; he was only going to anger Mara further. “Perhaps Sekot could help us,” he said. “Is it possible to ask it if it knows of their whereabouts?”

The Ferroans exchanged glances. “Sekot has been regenerating after the attack of the Far Outsiders,” Darak said. “Its attention has been elsewhere, so it is unlikely to know the whereabouts of your friends.”

“We could at least ask,” Mara pressed. “What about the Magister? She could ask for us.”

“She is resting.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want to put her out, would we?” Mara said dryly.

“Please wake her for us,” Luke said, his calm tone a counterpoint to Mara’s growing irritability. “After all, I’m sure she would want to be informed about a development as important as this, don’t you?”

The Ferroans exchanged another glance, then Darak hurried off to do as the Jedi asked.

Luke felt little satisfaction at having accomplished that much. It was only the first of many hurdles. The rain was still falling, dripping down from the trees in a steady,
fat-dropped stream. Somewhere deep in the tampasi, Jacen, Saba, and Danni remained hidden from his senses. If they didn’t return of their own accord, he would be hard-pressed to find them without Sekot or the Magister’s help.

“You are mistaken to believe that Sekot is aware of all things taking place on its surface,” Rowel said. “It is no more capable of this than you would be of tracking every cell in your body.”

“It seemed to find us easily enough when we arrived,” Mara said.

“Out in space it is different. A grain of sand is immediately noticeable if it gets in your eye, but that same grain of sand would be almost impossible to find on a beach.” The Ferroan looked uncomfortable. “We have notified surrounding communities to be on the lookout for anyone moving through the tampasi. Darak will also try to coax the airships into flying in this weather. Perhaps they can discern something from above that we are missing on the ground.”

“That’s a good start,” Luke said. “Thank you.”

“Please don’t believe that this kind of behavior is normal for my people. We
are
peaceful. This sort of thing simply doesn’t happen here.”

“Fear of that which is new or different can make people act irrationally,” Mara said, putting on a conciliatory tone. “But all that concerns us now is finding our friends.”

“I can assure you that they
will
be found. We will make every possible effort.”

A sudden feeling came through the Force. Luke closed his eyes in order to focus on it. It was coming from some distance away, but the intense life energies of the tampasi made it impossible to tell which direction it came from.

Mara touched his arm. “You feel it, too?”

He opened his eyes, nodding. “It’s Jacen. I think he’s safe for the moment. I sensed no immediate danger.”

“Are they on their way back?” Hegerty asked.

“I’m not sure,” Luke said. “I don’t think so.”

“What about the others?” Hegerty pressed. “Are they all right?”

“I can’t tell,” Luke said, reaching into the Force in an attempt to understand the message that Jacen was trying to send. “But I think they’re all okay, for the moment.”

“We should still try to find them, though,” Mara said.

Luke nodded. “Yes.”

Rowel opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by the sudden return of Darak. Her expression was one of profound alarm.

“She’s gone!” she exclaimed.

“Who?” Mara said. “Who’s gone?”

“The Magister!” The panic in her voice gave her an air of vulnerability Luke hadn’t seen before. “She’s been taken from her rooms!”

“What do you mean ‘taken’?” Rowel asked, aghast. “Why would anybody do that?”

“I think I know,” Luke said. “The kidnap of Danni was just a distraction. She wasn’t who the kidnappers were after. It was Jabitha. While you were busy here trying to sort things out, they moved in on her.”

The alarm in Darak’s and Rowel’s eyes increased tenfold at the suggestion.

“First Danni,” Mara said, “then Jacen and Saba, and now the Magister. Could anyone else possibly go missing before tonight is over?”

Jag reached Tahiri’s room in record time. There he found
Pride of Selonia
’s chief medic, Dantos Vigos, and Selwin Markota, Captain Mayn’s second in command. Both looked up, startled, as he skidded through the doorway to a halt.

On the bed beside Tahiri was Jaina, her outstretched
form dressed in the clothes she usually wore about the ship. Her eyes were shut, her face expressionless, and her breathing was fast and shallow.

“What happened?” he asked, wrenching off his flight helmet. He was unable to take her eyes from her face.

“Relax, Jag,” Markota said. He put a hand on his shoulder, but Jag shrugged it off.

“I’ll relax when I know what’s going on.”

“That’s the problem,” Vigos said. “We don’t
know
what’s going on. We found Jaina unconscious shortly after arriving around Esfandia. No one noticed before then because of all the confusion and the fighting. She was slumped beside Tahiri, having collapsed onto the bed. Their hands were locked together. We’ve scanned them both and found no signs of physical abnormalities, but their minds are furiously active.”

Jag faced the medic with a frown. “How do you account for this?”

Vigos shrugged. “I don’t.”

“But you must have an idea,” Jag said. “You must have a theory, at least!”

Vigos sighed wearily. “Okay, but it’s only a theory based on what I’ve been told of Tahiri’s background and recent behavior. In my opinion, Tahiri has retreated into herself. She has a split personality that is fighting for dominance over the body. I think Tahiri has deliberately internalized that conflict—she’s keeping it in her head so that neither personality has access to the outside world.”

“I can understand that,” Jag said. “But what does this have to do with Jaina?”

“I think they’ve melded,” Vigos said. “I’m not a Jedi, but I suspect that Jaina may have attempted this in an effort to assist Tahiri. She’s helping Tahiri survive.”

Jag studied Jaina’s face. Despite the appearance of being asleep, she looked exhausted.

“So why won’t she respond?” he asked. “If she’s in
there voluntarily, why doesn’t she just wake up and tell us what’s going on?”

“It’s impossible for me to say for sure,” Vigos admitted. “I’m sorry.”

A bizarre image came to Jag then—one he couldn’t quite get his head around. He pictured Tahiri’s mind as some sort of animal trap, snaring anyone who ventured within it. Jedi after Jedi could throw themselves in and be lost forever. But how could this possibly serve Riina?

The three men stared at the two unconscious women for a long, frustrated moment. Jag didn’t want to let the matter lie there, but he wasn’t sure what he could do about it. Had he been Force-sensitive, he wouldn’t have hesitated to try to join the meld. The woman he—

His mind retreated from the admission, then grasped it and kept going. Yes, the woman he loved was in danger. There had to be
something
he could do.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe you have done everything you can to help her. But
I
can still try.”

Vigos glanced uncertainly at Markota, then back to Jag. “What did you have in mind?”

“I’ll talk to her,” he said. “If she is in there, she’ll be able to hear me.”

“Colonel, we’ve tried—”

“Just leave me alone with her, okay?” Jag interrupted.

Markota hesitated, then nodded to the medic. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”

Vigos acquiesced. “Okay. But call if there’s any change in her condition.”

“I will,” Jag promised.

When they were gone and the door had shut behind them, Jag put his flight helmet down on the end of the bed and sat beside Jaina. He took her free hand in both of his. It was limp and lifeless, and cool to the touch. Despite his determination to want to help her, now that he was alone he had to admit that he really didn’t know if
there was anything useful he
could
do. There was no enemy he could line up in a targeting reticle and fire upon; there was just Jaina, locked in the mind of a very sick young woman who also needed help.

“I’m here,” he whispered close in to her ear. “And I’m not going anywhere, Jaina. Not until you wake up. You know what that means, don’t you? It means that Twin Suns Squadron is unattended. And we can’t have that, can we?”

He stared at her face in silence. He hadn’t really expected his words to have an immediate impact upon her condition, but he couldn’t help hoping they would—that just hearing his voice would be enough to make her come back. But when he searched her expression for any sign of recognition, he found none. She remained still, emotionless, sleeping …

He squeezed her hand between his. Although he knew the room was probably being monitored, he didn’t care who saw him, who heard him, or who might disapprove of his sentiments. All he cared about right now was Jaina. And from the way his heart ached, that’s all he felt he could ever care about.

“I love you, Jaina,” he said. The words came easily for him. “Please come back to me.”

Saba kept all her senses alert as she matched her pace to that of the Ferroan kidnappers. The path they’d been following had run out half an hour earlier, and they were now moving through unbeaten wilds of the tampasi. Despite the lack of any obvious trail, though, the Ferroans seemed to know where they were going. They moved as one with silent determination through the dense undergrowth. Every now and then they gave directional orders to her or Jacen, but never allowed themselves to enter any conversation. Nor were they prepared to come within a meter of her—although Saba had no doubts that this
would change once they reached the camp where Senshi and the other conspirators were meant to be located. Security of numbers would inevitably make them feel less intimidated by the Jedi Knights.

The farther they traveled, the more uneasy Saba became—mainly because of Danni’s condition. She knew that Jacen would never knowingly put Danni’s life in jeopardy, and the fact that the young scientist remained unconscious was obviously weighing heavily on his mind, but Saba still felt compelled to take the girl and try to find a way back to the others in the hope of getting her some medical attention. The only thing that stayed her urges was her trust in Jacen’s judgment. He saw things differently from her, on a deeper, more fundamental level, and for that reason she was prepared to bow to his command.

They came to a bridge formed from a massive tree trunk that stretched across a swollen river. Three of the Ferroans crossed first, then waved for Saba and Jacen to follow. Once they were on the other side, the remaining four Ferroans crossed also, then the trek continued through a dense thicket of wild, red-leaved bushes. Sharp thorns slashed at Saba’s tough green skin. She did her best to avoid the worst of it, and to keep Danni from being scratched, subtly using the Force to push the thicket branches aside.

Finally they came to a cliff face that was hidden from view by a stand of enormous boras. At the base of the cliff was an overhang five meters high and stretching a dozen meters into the rock. Jacen and Saba were directed under its shelter, where a larger group of Ferroans waited.

They gathered around the new arrivals as they entered the shaded, sandy area, parting only to admit a very old Ferroan male to the front. His face was as heavily lined as Jabitha’s, but his rich, deep black hair was short to the
scalp. The pale blueness of his skin made him look as though he were composed entirely of ice, and his gold-and-black eyes regarded the new arrivals with ill-disguised contempt.

His gaze flickered across Saba, Jacen, and the comatose Danni. “I ask for one of the visitors as a hostage, and you bring me the entire group. What is the meaning of this?”

A look of confusion passed over Tourou’s face. “Three seemed better than one, Senshi …” The residue of the implanted suggestion from Jacen had faded, and the kidnapper’s sentence trailed off uncertainly.

“You fool,” the old man said. “The outsiders have ways about them—ways to make their words seem reasonable.”

“It’s true that I influenced their decision to bring us here,” Jacen said, “but I only did so because I wanted to speak with you. It’s important that you see reason. We didn’t come to your planet to cause trouble; we came because—”

Senshi’s laugh cut him short. “Don’t try to win
me
with your words, Jedi! I respond to actions, not empty words or promises. The recent actions against our world speak volumes!”

“Those attacks came from the ones you refer to as Far Outsiders,” Jacen said. “They had nothing to do with us.”

“You are all outsiders in our eyes,” he argued. “The actions of one reflect intentions of the other.”

“And what about
your
actionz?” Saba asked. “What does kidnapping say about you?”

Before Senshi could reply, a peal of thunder rumbled through the tampasi, and rain began to crash down with renewed strength outside the overhang. As the thunder died in the distance, Senshi looked triumphantly at his hostages and ignored Saba’s question completely.

At that moment, another group of Ferroans stumbled in from the rain, bearing another body on a stretcher, covered from head to foot with a tarpaulin. Her first thought was that the kidnappers had returned for Soron Hegerty and somehow snatched the elderly woman from the care of Master Skywalker and Mara. But when the new arrivals set down the stretcher and pulled back the tarp, Saba’s concern quickly changed to puzzlement. It wasn’t Hegerty at all; it was the Magister.