Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 07_ Conviction - Aaron Allston [137]
What had it been? Allana looked around for the stray air-conditioning outlet that might have blown some chill air across her, for the exposed electrical cable she might have brushed against to cause her to vibrate. But there was nothing like that near her.
There was just a man walking away from her, his head bowed in thought. He wore garments consistent with the others in the camp, anonymous and practical. He was tall, lean, probably a human—though from the back, with his features concealed by the sun hood he wore, she could not be sure.
He reminded her a little of her father, alone and resolute and, yes, somehow dark.
Perhaps it was that comparison, that realization that did it. Now a little twinge in the Force told her there was something in this man to worry her.
“Amelia? Is something wrong?” Javon was suddenly standing over her, his shadow spilling across her.
She looked up at him, shook her head. “Just thinking. Let’s go this way.” Without giving him time to object, she darted down a side path, a walkway between close-set tents, then turned ninety degrees and trotted in the same direction the man had been traveling, paralleling his course.
Javon kept up. She heard him murmuring, his tone unconcerned, into his comlink, directing the travel of the other members of his detail.
Allana continued at a brisk pace across a quarter of the encampment, then turned rightward again and stopped at the intersection with the main path.
It was only a few moments before she saw him, that introspective figure. From the front, he was definitely human, fair-skinned, but he did not look so much like her father. He was older, his face more creased. His eyes automatically moved over everyone crossing his path, but Allana did not think he was looking at them, except to register their movements in case they should turn out to be threats.
There was something more to him. She didn’t know whether it was something supernatural, as though he were a wicked wizard from a children’s holodrama come to life, or whether she had felt his presence in the Force. The Force made more sense—it was real, and it was always around her.
Her father and her grandmother could always tell when Allana was staring at them, and she knew she was staring at this man. So she tried to make herself small in the Force, a tiny dot, not worth seeing. It was the same as hiding during hide-and-go-seek but without the happy anticipation of the game itself. She also wrapped her desert cloak around herself and gestured to Anji to stay close.
The man passed where she stood. He glanced at her, a look that took in her presence but did not seem to fix on her, and up at Javon. Then he was past.
Allana tried not to react. When he had looked at her, she had felt something. He wasn’t on fire, but she thought he was perhaps the man from her nightmares, or someone related to that man. And he was strong in the Force. She could tell.
Javon cleared his throat.
She looked up at him. “I’m doing exercises.” It was almost the truth. What she’d been doing was an exercise in the Force. Now she worked to maintain it, her smallness, as she turned after the man she was studying. She followed him.
She did not look at him, not directly. She knew he might feel her eyes on him. She looked around him and concentrated on remaining a tiny little thing.
He walked toward the east, angling a little to the south, and reached the edge of camp. He passed beyond its borders and walked by one of the big tracked shield generators, heading along the path beaten by many feet that led to a gentle series of rises that would take hikers to the top of the eastern ridge.
Allana stood at the edge of camp. She couldn’t keep going; she would be too conspicuous. She half watched the strange man as he ascended that slope and disappeared over the ridge.
She looked up at Javon. “I think I need to go back for my lesson.