Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 04_ Backlash - Aaron Allston [47]
Vestara smiled. “So. Better? Worse?”
“The same.” Ben struggled not to show the irritation he was feeling. “I’m not here to watch the races. I’m here to talk to you—”
“—without my adoptive mother seeing—”
“—about your pack of lies from last night.”
“Oh. What did you think of them?”
“So you admit you were lying to us, to Olianne?”
“Happily. Come on, let’s watch the long race.” She turned and moved back to the front of the crowd.
Feeling awkward, Ben followed, pushing himself up to the front beside her. “What are you actually doing here?”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Vestara gave Ben a scornful look. “You haven’t told me which of my statements were lies.”
“They all were.”
“No. First, my name. Vestara Khai. A lie?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t care. If Vestara’s not your name, it’s a convenient tag. Anytime I say ‘Vestara,’ my father will know who I mean.”
She nodded. “That’s a good point. And an even better dodging of my demand. So, what was my next lie?”
Ben thought back to the previous night’s conversation. “You denied being a Sith.”
“No, I said that I had been a Sith, and that I was now of the Raining Leaves.”
“You’re still a Sith.”
“From a certain point of view, perhaps. But by the laws of the Raining Leaves, I am not. So, no lie. What’s next?”
The athletes participating in the long race were lining up. Luke and Halliava were among them. The blaster sounded and they began to run, their pace somewhat less ferocious than in the short race.
“You said you wouldn’t talk about your friends and family because it would get them hurt.”
“Another truth. You certainly want to hurt them. Where, exactly, is my pack of lies?”
“You just admitted they were a pack of lies.”
“Perhaps I lied.”
Ben found himself gritting his teeth. Her smart-mouthed evasions were really getting on his nerves. He wondered what Luke would have done if he, Ben, had ever—
The realization that he’d given his father precisely the same sort of responses on innumerable occasions hit Ben like cold water in his face.
Above the sound of onlookers cheering, he heard Vestara laugh at him.
“You lied about where you crashed.” Ben knew this was true; he put the confidence he felt into his voice.
She considered, her head tilted to one side. “You know, I think you’re right. I did.”
“Where did you crash?”
“Oh, I’m too good a pilot. I’ve never crashed in my life.”
“Another lie.”
She laughed again. Then she pointed. “Your father’s doing quite well.”
She was correct. Again, Luke and Halliava were at the head of the racing pack. They were first to reach the starting line and round the post there. They headed back toward the far post, another lap completed.
Vestara looked contemplative. “These are a fine people, Ben. I think my kin could learn from them. Would you prefer that not happen?”
“I’d prefer that the Sith not learn anything except how not to be Sith.”
“And what have you learned from me?”
He considered. “The Jedi have a saying. The future is always in motion. Sometimes it’s said garbled because of one eccentric old Master. From you, I calculate that the Sith equivalent is The truth is always in motion.”
“Interesting. And if I say, I hope your father wins, am I telling the truth, lying, or just aiming at a moving target?”
Ben shook his head and turned away.
LUKE WON THAT RACE, COMING IN METERS AHEAD OF HALLIAVA, WHO in turn was meters ahead of the third-place finisher. Halliava was less than half Luke’s age, but his ability to draw on the Force at a consistent level clearly surpassed hers, and he raced across the finish line, his pace undiminished, to the cheers of the onlookers.
Luke rejoined his son at the fringes of the crowd and toweled off with a cloth from the cargo speeder. He gave his son a significant look. “Anything?”
Ben, back in his customary black—he did not want Olianne or others to become accustomed to seeing him in more concealing garments when he was with his father—shook his head. “She’s the conversational equivalent of a monkey-lizard on too much caf. Here, there, everywhere, and it’s impossible to pin