Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [46]
Regardless, even that information didn’t bring me any closer to feeling the Force.
“Can I ask you a question, Streen?”
“You just did, but I’ll give you another.”
“Thanks.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “What does the Force feel like to you?”
“It feels like ten kilos of life in a five-kilo box.” His voice gained in strength and lightened in tone. “I can only feel a trickle now, like dust motes floating in a sunbeam, one by one, just moving through me, but it’s just so right there’s no describing it. It tickles a bit, feels like a first kiss, or the jolt you feel when the flux in sabacc just makes your hand better than what you were already betting.”
I wanted to quip that I’d had dates like that, but the pure wonderment in his voice would have made the joke sound bitter. “Wow.”
“What’s it feel like for you?”
I shook my head. “Don’t know. I’m not feeling it. I think the Force in me is strong enough to let me do little things, but I’ve not felt what you describe. Nothing even close.”
“You will.”
“I hope so.”
“You will.” Streen’s voice sank back to its lower tone. “Let me ask you a question.”
“Fair trade.”
“Master Skywalker’s talked a lot to us about the dark side and how it’s selfish and evil and cruel.”
“Right.”
“Okay, now you remember them rawwks I mentioned, how I never could teach one a trick? Well there was this one time there was one that seemed to be smarter than the others. Just a bit, not a whole lot, but a bit. And I thought he had real promise, so I tried to teach him to unfurl one wing, then the other and hop up and down in time with a tune I was whistling. I just wanted to see him dance a little, just a little.”
The loneliness in Streen’s voice started to squeeze my heart. “I’m with you.”
“Now I thought, maybe, somehow, I didn’t know how, that if I could just convince him to do it once and reward him, he’d do it more. I was getting real frustrated and even angry. And I guess I used the Force to make him do the dance to the music. Just once. And I didn’t hurt him and I gave him food and all.” Streen’s voice died amid a cacophony of stintaril howls. “Was I using the dark side? Was I doing evil?”
“I’m not sure that’s a question I can answer.”
“Give it a try.”
I nodded and sighed heavily, watching my breath congeal into a cloud of white vapor. “In an absolute sense, based on what Master Skywalker has told us, yes, you might have brushed up against the dark side. In a very real sense, though, what you did was selfish, but so minor, that on a scale of one to destroying Alderaan, it doesn’t even rate a decimal point.”
The older man’s nodding silhouette eclipsed stars. “And where would you rate your fabrications about your past?”
“What?”
“I’ve been told you’re from a Corellian Jedi family and that you fought with the Rebellion.”
“That’s all true.”
“But that pride in you, that’s the sort of pride built up from having done something. The story being told about you doesn’t back it well.”
“I can see that. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.” I climbed back to my feet again. “Fact is, what we were before probably isn’t that important. I could tell you all sorts of things about myself. Some you might believe. Some you won’t believe. Ultimately, though, not a one of them will help us become Jedi Knights. I’m proud of what I have done, but I’ll be more proud to be a Jedi.”
Streen laughed a bit. “So you’re not lying, you’re just not telling the whole truth because it won’t mean much right now.”
“I guess that’s about it, yes.”
“I can live with that.” Streen hauled himself up to his feet and pointed to the turbolift. “Well, we might as well show the others we’re smart enough to head in when it gets cold.”
“Wouldn’t do to have Jedi Knights seen as that stupid, would it?” I asked as I fell in step with him.
“Nope, wouldn’t do at all.”
Over the next several days we rotated through