Star Wars_ MedStar 02_ Jedi Healer - Michael Reaves [67]
“Your brow furrows in thought,” she said.
He sighed. “A few regrets in my old age.”
She grinned. “Not that old.”
“I thought I reminded you of your grandfather.”
“You do—but our family started young. He’s still fit and active, my grandfather. Six wives, fourteen children, twenty-six grandchildren, and he took a new spouse just two seasons past. She’s already with child.”
“Impressive.”
“Do you ever think about returning to the homeworld?”
He nodded. “I have. More and more, lately. Chasing after wars does get old. I’ve considered quitting the field, getting a local news beat back on Sullust, and trying to find a few ancient fems desperate enough to consider me as a husband.”
“They wouldn’t have to be desperate,” she said, looking down at the tops of her feet. “Or ancient.”
Den stopped walking and looked at her. “Uh …perhaps my ear dampeners are malfunctioning. What are you saying, Eyar-la?”
Eyar glided to a halt as well, and turned to face him directly.
“After this war ends, and my tour breaks up, I plan on returning home and finding a cohabitation cave.”
“What? And leave show business?”
She laughed again—it sounded like a cascade of tone-crystals—then continued. “The prospects I know are young, but serious mascs. Don’t get me wrong; they’d be good fathers, and I hope to collect one or two more like them, but they’re maybe lacking a bit in the sense-of-humor department. There would always be room for a Sullustan of your cut, Den-la.”
Den was astonished. He grinned at Eyar. “That’s the best offer I’ve had in a boukk’s age.”
“Then consider it formal,” she said. “Younglings need fit and strong fathers, but they also need older and wiser ones. You would honor my cave if you chose to live in it.”
Den blinked against the sudden welling in his eyes. Impossible that they could be tears—not for a crusty old cynic like him. Marriage? A family? A cave full of in-laws and younglings? He had thought all that was too far in his past, out of reach. Not for him. A hard-bitten reporter, decades away from the homeworld, he had always figured he’d die on a battlefield, or drunk in some pesthole hive of scum and villainy.
But now, to be offered an alternative, especially by one so young and sweet…
“Please consider it,” she said, mistaking his hesitation for a possible negative response.
“You know what? If I live past the end of this war, I believe I will try to find my way home.” Den paused, took a deep breath, then said, “It would honor me to join my cave with yours.”
She smiled, a broad, delightful expression. “Really? It would?”
Her enthusiasm washed over him, full of energy and cheer. “I can’t wait to tell my family! Den Dhur, the famous reporter, joining us!”
“Not so famous.”
“You hide your sconce under a shield, Den-la. I’ve been reading your stories for years. Everybody on Sullust knows who you are.”
“Not nice to mock your elders,” he said with false severity.
“Nonsense. It’s true. In my home-warren there are younglings who want to grow up to be you.”
“No mopak? Uh, I mean—”
She laughed. “No mopak,” she said. She reached out and caught his hand. “Perhaps you’d like to come back to my cubicle and seal the vow? Unless, of course, you’re too busy with your story …?”
Den smiled. “The story can wait. It’s not that important.” And even as he said it, he realized it was true. In the end, there really were things more important than tomorrow’s newsdisc, or even easy money.
Who would’ve thought it?
As Den left Eyar’s kiosk, it was already getting dark. He saw I-Five standing outside the OT, talking to Jos. The surgeon said something to the droid, then turned and went back inside.
“I-Five, old buddy!”
The droid turned and saw him. Den swaggered up to him and punched him playfully in one arm. “Good t’see you. What’s up?”
“Besides you?”
Den giggled as the two of them walked