Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 01_ Jedi Search - Kevin J. Anderson [72]
Skeptical, Gantoris closed his eyes; but as he concentrated, he could indeed see vague outlines of what he had just looked at, tiny afterimages imprinted on the Force with tendrils reaching out and connecting them to everything else.
He reached out with his fingers to make the flicking gesture again but hesitated. He realized he did not need that either. Flicking the fingers was simply an example for Skywalker to make his point. Whatever actions he made, waving his hands or muttering spells were just so much mumbo jumbo. Understanding the Force was what allowed him to do what he needed.
Pleased with this sudden insight, Gantoris kept his eyes closed and folded his arms. He flicked out an imaginary finger, feeling the metal, picturing his fingernail striking the hard surface. In his head he heard the hollow bong as it struck, then opened his eyes to watch the five rawwks burst into flight, cawing at each other as if casting blame.
“Good!” Skywalker said. “I’m impressed. I thought this was going to be much more difficult.” Still grinning, he looked at Streen, who had been watching them in silence. “Would you like to try it? You have the potential. I could show you how.”
Streen balked. “No, I … I don’t think I could do that.”
“It isn’t as difficult as it looks,” Gantoris said. “You’ll feel a different strength come into you.”
“I don’t want to,” Streen said again, defensively. Then he lowered his eyes and patted his pockets, as if looking for something he didn’t expect to find. Gantoris thought he was just making distracted movements.
The old man swallowed, then looked back at Skywalker. “If you teach me how to use this … sense I have—can you also teach me how to switch it off? I want to learn how not to feel the people around me, not to be bombarded by their moods and prying thoughts and sour ideas. I’m tired of having only rawwks for company. I’d very much like to be part of the human race again.”
Skywalker clapped him on the shoulder. In his dark jumpsuit he looked like a benevolent god. “That much I can show you.”
Luke watched as Streen cut loose the fiber-chains holding his floating hodgepodge ship to the Tibannopolis docking area. Standing on the docking platform, he gave his ship an unnecessary shove out into the breezes. The empty barge of platforms and balloons, propellers and gas storage tanks, drifted out to be caught up by swirling air currents.
Streen had emptied the pockets in his jumpsuit and now looked at Luke. “I know I’m not coming back. That old life is over.”
The three of them climbed aboard Luke’s passenger shuttle and made ready to depart Bespin. Luke felt a glowing satisfaction, not just to be leaving the gas planet that held so many dark memories, but to have both passenger seats filled, to have two new candidates for his Jedi academy.
He raised the shuttle off the landing platform, then began a steep climb toward orbit. Below them, in the opposite direction, Streen’s abandoned platform continued drifting on its own, widening the gap between it and the derelict city.
Streen looked out the passenger window, staring with a bleak sadness that struck Luke’s heart with pity. Below, the ghost town of Tibannopolis was truly empty again.
Then Luke watched something amazing happen. The city came alive with movement, swarming as tiny black figures took to the air. Thousands and thousands of rawwks that had made their home with Streen suddenly took flight, departing the abandoned metropolis in a huge flock that kept coming and coming and coming, spreading out among the clouds in a farewell salute to Streen.
Looking out the window and watching this, Streen smiled.
13
Skynxnex inserted a new charge pack into his double-blaster, smiled at the weapon, then thrust it into the holster. “Thank you, Moruth,” he said. “You won’t regret this.”
Doole tapped his spongy fingers on the former warden’s desk. One of the loose iridescent insects fluttered around the room, battering