Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 06_ Balance Point - Kathy Tyers [18]
She pursed her lips, frustrated to catch herself thinking that way. She was healthy again. She liked maturity. She respected strength.
But youth had privileges, hopes she still hadn’t fulfilled, and maybe never would. She’d seized Vergere’s elixir because her instincts said it would work. She had no instinctive leading on when, if ever, she might safely conceive a child.
On the far side of the circle, little Tekli cleared her throat. Fur trembled on her large round ears.
As Luke’s eyes opened, Mara felt hers widen a trace. The Chadra-Fan apprentice had never spoken up during a meeting.
“I debated whether to even report this,” she began, her voice a musical whisper.
Anakin’s lips twisted sardonically. Mara made a mental note to speak with him about his attitude toward the marginally gifted—if Luke didn’t do it, first.
“Go on.” Cilghal gave an assuring wave with one webbed hand.
Tekli glanced at her mentor, then continued. “Two days ago, I was down near Dometown, in a new strip called JoKo’s Alley. Looking for a friend,” she added hastily, as if embarrassed to admit she’d been prowling such a riotous area of Coruscant’s understory.
“Yes?” Luke gave Tekli a sober, attentive stare. Overseeing the Jedi academy had taught him patience. They keep learning, he’d told Mara, as long as someone encourages them.
“I heard someone talking in a tapcaf, about—”
“Which one?” Anakin demanded.
Luke extended a hand, palm down. “Wait, Anakin. Go on, Tekli.”
She raised her head and stroked her long whiskers. “It was the Leafy Green, actually. Two Rodians were talking about one of the employees, and how if that was a human, he’d eat his … I couldn’t hear the next words, but we’ve all heard about ooglith masquers, and how the Yuuzhan Vong can pass as human. Maybe it’s just general jumpiness, Master Skywalker, but it would be easy for … for one of your more gifted Jedi to check out.”
“Do you want to go back?” Luke asked gently.
Tekli shook her head. “I’m no fighter, sir.”
Mara caught a side glance from Anakin. He raised one dark eyebrow at her. She pursed her lips.
Luke glanced toward her, then Anakin. “That’s all right, Tekli. I just had two capable volunteers. The Jedi will always be strongest,” he added, “when everyone uses their full talents. Whatever you’re given to do, do it with all your ability.”
Tekli’s broad nose twitched with pleasure.
“You’re sure you feel up to this?” Luke demanded.
Mara walked beside him down the open-air mezzanine. Along one grand edifice, a gardener droid clung to the trunk of a singing fig tree, pruning away last year’s erratic growth.
Luke’s cloak billowed behind him, drawing stares. The stares bothered her, after so many years as a shadow agent—and she never wore Jedi robes unless she absolutely had to.
“Of course I’m up to it. I haven’t felt so obnoxiously healthy since …” She trailed off. “Well, in a while.”
“Or I can send someone else with you.”
Mara laughed. “Anakin’s fine.”
She’d asked for a few minutes alone with her husband, so their nephew followed at a polite distance. Without even stretching out through the Force, she felt Anakin’s alert mental state. He took his sentry role as seriously as he took everything else.
“He feels terrible about Centerpoint,” she added. “That’s a load, on top of blaming himself for Chewie’s death. He’s doing better with that, but he’s carrying some serious baggage.”
Luke knew it, of course. Luke caught people’s feelings just as quickly as she got leadings from her instincts.
“He feels even worse about listening to Jacen,” Luke pointed out. “That rift between them worries me.”
“Jacen worries me,” Mara countered. He hadn’t left Coruscant in a good frame of mind, and they hadn’t heard from him in two months.
They crossed a side passage.