Star Wars_ The Approaching Storm - Alan Dean Foster [102]
Straightening in her saddle, she shook her head tersely. “I don’t have time to waste on political disputations. I’m too busy doing my job as Padawan, trying to secure promotion to Jedi. That’s enough work to occupy anyone. Or at least I thought so.” She stared hard at him. “You’re lucky you have room enough in your thoughts to be bothered with galactic affairs of state.”
And other things, he wanted to tell her, but did not. Although being thrown together in adversity had given him a grudging admiration for his colleague, and for her skills, he still did not trust her entirely. Anything he told her, he was certain, she was likely to pass straight on to her Master. Which Luminara would then tell Obi-Wan. So much for confiding, he thought. Some things were better kept to oneself.
Each time he engaged in such a verbal confrontation, it reinforced the belief that he was somehow different. Different from Barriss as much as from Luminara or even Obi-Wan. His mother had always told him as much. He wished he could talk to her now, seek her sage advice on a number of matters, not least of which was the one that threatened to consume him. And to think, he mused as he rode on, that there was a time when people thought serious separation meant finding themselves on opposite sides of the same planet. That was so long ago, so ancient a time, that it was almost impossible to imagine, back when people counted distances in physical lengths instead of time lengths.
They paused for the night by one of the innumerable small streams that notched the grasslands. There had been no sign of pursuit by Baiuntu’s Qulun. Either they had suffered so seriously from the nocturnal stampede of the lorqual that they were unable to mount a chase, or else they had decided that it was not worth hunting prisoners who could strike back without being seen.
“There’s another possibility, too,” Kyakhta pointed out when the matter was broached. “The closer we draw to the overclan, the less inclined a lesser clan like the Qulun would be to risk interfering.”
“What matters is that we seem to be safe.” Obi-Wan squinted at the setting sun. “Still, we’ll mount guard tonight. Just to be sure.”
Anakin was glad when his turn came to stand watch. It was late, after midnight Ansion time, when Barriss came to shake him awake. A touch was all that was necessary.
“Nothing to report.” She whispered so as not to wake the others. As he rose and donned his upper clothing, she was already slipping tiredly into her sleep sack. “You don’t see anything out there, but you can hear it moving around. This world is full of furtive night sounds that live in the grass.” He couldn’t be certain, but he thought she was asleep before she closed her eyes.
The lookout location had been carefully chosen by their Alwari guides. It was the highest point near their campsite, and only a very slight rise at that: a mere hiccup in the ground. Still, it provided the nearest thing to an actual vantage point within walking distance of the stream. Finding a firm, comfortable place to stand, he settled down to wait out his three-hour shift.
Most individuals would have found the duty unutterably boring. Not Anakin. Raised by a single parent, without any siblings, he was used to being by himself. For a long time as a child, machines had been his only company. Idly, he wondered what had happened to that protocol droid he had been cobbling together out of spare parts. And there was no telling what a certain garrulous winged merchant named Watto might be up to. He wondered what the taciturn big-nosed bug was doing these days. He found himself shaking his head at the memory. If anyone was entitled to act a little strange now and again, it was Anakin Skywalker. Who else could claim a greedy, oversized Toydarian as the nearest thing to a father figure?
Except for the absence of walls, there really wasn’t much difference between retreating to the back of a machine shop and standing alone on an alien prairie, beneath an alien sky. One of Ansion’s two moons was up and the other still rising,