Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [123]
Grandfather dispatched Tosruk to my hotel to pick up my things while the two of us went out to the compost heap armed with shovels. My grandfather directed me toward a pile of bantha dung that he used for fertilizer. He’d been getting it from the Coronet City Zoological and Botanical Gardens for longer than I could remember, in exchange for providing them with his latest hybrids.
“Dig deep and shift the pile over this way about three meters.” Leaning on a shovel, wearing bibbed splatter-slacks and knee-high rubber boots, he smiled at me. “If you can shift it any other way, feel free.”
I shook my head. “I could make you think it had moved.”
“Halcyons always have been notoriously weak in the telekinetic skill area.” He laughed. “Dice were the only game of chance in which I felt safe playing against Nejaa.”
“Someday I aspire to making dice move with the Force.”
My grandfather smiled. “The Halcyons have their strengths. The mental projection you allude to was something Nejaa did very well. He also could absorb energy. I was told this was a very rare ability among Jedi.”
I nodded. “That’s what I’ve heard as well. Well, without telekinesis, I guess I’ll have to use this shovel and elbow grease to move that pile.”
As I dug, my grandfather told me tales of Nejaa Halcyon. “We worked together for a good long time, or so it seemed, before he was called away to the Clone Wars. Our partnership was only ten years or so, as I recall. I guess I was seven years older than you are when he left. He was a bit older than me and his wife—I’d grown up living near Scerra, so I knew her quite well before they ever met. Your father was only ten at the time Nejaa left, but had been working with Nejaa for years to develop his skills.”
I swiped at the sweat on my brow. “Nejaa died in the Clone Wars, right?”
“Actually, he died shortly thereafter, before he could ever return home. He and I had joked about his going off to the Clone Wars, for it was said that a Corellian Jedi who leaves the system does so at his own peril.” My grandfather’s eyes clouded over. “Nejaa promised his wife and me that the Clone Wars would not kill him. He was right, but still suffered the fate of those Corellian Jedi who go away.
“A friend of his, a Caamasi Jedi named Ylenic It’kla, came here, bringing Nejaa’s effects home. He apologized for not bringing Nejaa’s body, but the bodies of Jedi Masters fade away upon death. He also didn’t have Nejaa’s lightsaber. He said the Galactic Museum had asked for it for their Jedi collection.” He smiled slightly. “I suppose it is still there.”
I shook my head. “Nope. It has served me well on a couple of occasions. Saved my life.”
He clapped his hands. “And mine as well. ‘Thieves run in fright from its silvery light.’ I used to kid Nejaa about that.”
I smiled, but kept digging. “He used to go out with you when you worked cases?”
“All the time. Most often he would be dressed in street clothes, just like me. He found a lot of people were wary of the Jedi and afraid of them. Without them knowing who he was, he could help victims. When it came time for us to go after criminals, he’d don his cloak and more traditional Jedi garb. Scerra used to refer to it as his hunting clothes. Criminals learned it didn’t hurt as much if they didn’t resist, so we were able to defuse many a tense situation just by having him show up as a Jedi. Of course, stories of what he had done spread throughout the underworld and became quickly exaggerated, so people reacted to his image and reputation, not reality.”
I cleared the area my grandfather had indicated and peeled back the plasticized tarpaulin that had been beneath the dung heap. I noticed, on the underside, a metallic sheen. “This is a diffuser pad?”
“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.”
I frowned. Diffusers came in all different shapes and sizes and simply channeled