Star Wars_ MedStar 02_ Jedi Healer - Michael Reaves [7]
Still, it was interesting to observe her work. And he was in a position to observe it quite well, since he was standing near enough to touch her in the postop chamber. Hidden, as it were, in plain sight.
Normally, Kaird would stick out in just about any crowd of sapients, for those of his species were not well known in the galaxy; Nedij was one of the more outlying worlds, and quite insular. Only those who had forsworn the fellowship of the Nest tended to wander the space-ways. His sharp face, stubby beak, violet eyes, and skin covered with pale azure down would definitely draw stares, were he dressed in his usual garb. But now he was effectively invisible, having chosen for this assignment a perfect disguise for a medical facility.
The siblinghood known as The Silent were ubiquitous throughout the galaxy. They never spoke, they usually kept their features and bodies hidden inside flowing, cowled robes, and for the most part they did nothing except stand and be. They believed that their meditative presence in the vicinity of illness or injury somehow aided in the recovery of afflicted patients. And the amazing thing about it—the thing that reputable scientists and doctors were at a loss to explain—was that The Silent were right. Statistical studies showed without question that sick and wounded people recovered faster and more often when the shrouded figures were around than when they were not. Apparently it had nothing to do with the Force, either; the order’s adherents came from all species and social strata, and exhibited none of the biological markers that sometimes indicated an affinity with the mystical energy field. Nor could the phenomenon be totally attributed to the placebo effect, because patients who had never heard of the order benefited just as much. It was a truly inexplicable marvel.
Kaird didn’t know how such a thing could be, and didn’t particularly care, although he did sometimes wonder if his presence was having the same palliative effect, since the thoughts usually passing through his mind were about as far from the serenity of a Silent as Drongar was from the Galactic Core. No matter. He was pretending to be one of the siblinghood because it let him become part of the background in a way no other role in this Republic Mobile Surgical Unit—“Rimsoo”—could. He had earlier ingested an herbal concoction brought from his homeworld, which effectively masked his distinctive scent from most species’ senses. Together with the shrouded robes, his anonymity was thus assured—quite necessary for an agent of Black Sun, whose business here had nothing to do with either the war or the treatment of those injured in it.
Kaird was here because of the bota, pure and simple. The rare plant would be a heavyweight addition to any physician’s armamentarium; it could be an antibiotic, a narcotic, a soporific—all manner of things, in fact, depending on the species using it. It was a more effective curative than cambylictus leaves or bacta fluid for the Abyssin, a more potent psychotropic than Santherian tenho-root if you were a Falleen, and an anabolic steroid that could help Whiphids attain their personal bests. Black Sun could make a fortune moving as much bota as they could get their hands on—it was a product with true universal appeal.
Ironically, use of the wonder plant here in the Rimsoos on Drongar had been interdicted. The official word claimed it was in order to discourage black marketeering, but it was generally felt that the real reason was economics—the farther one traveled from Drongar, the more valuable bota became. Why waste