The Evil Experiment

10

Before Obi-Wan could speak or move, Astri stepped forward. “Why do you want his lightsaber?” she asked the boy.

He thrust out his chin. “What difference does it make?”

“What if you want it so you can use it against us?” Astri challenged. “Why should we hand it over then?”

“I don’t want to kill you!” the boy protested.

Astri studied him. “But you do want to find food for your family and your tribe. And you think if you had this weapon you could defeat the tribe on the other side of the mountain.”

The boy stared greedily at the lightsaber. “I have seen what it can do.”

“There are two problems with your plan,” Astri said calmly. “The first is that you have to train for years in order to use a lightsaber. Isn’t that right, Obi-Wan?”

He nodded. “Even then, you have more to learn.”

“So you wouldn’t get anywhere,” Astri concluded. “Except maybe you’d cut off your own foot. The second thing wrong with your plan is that it won’t solve your problem. Maybe if you fought this tribe and won—which is highly unlikely, by the way—you’d get enough food for a week, or a month. But you’d still be starving when the food ran out. You’d have to fight again. And this time the other tribe would be prepared to meet the attack.”

The boy stared at her sullenly. “So what? I would still have the lightsaber. I would fight them.”

“Still, we aren’t about to hand over such a powerful weapon so easily,” Astri said. “We’ll make you a deal.”

Obi-Wan shot her a look. We? He hadn’t said a word.

Astri ignored him. “If you tell us what you know, I’ll cook you and your family a delicious meal. I’ll show you where to find food and how to prepare it so you won’t ever have to go hungry.”

The boy laughed. “You’ll show me how to be a cook?”

“I’ll show you how to feed your tribe,” Astri corrected. “Not for a week, or a month, but always. And if I can’t do it, you get my friend’s lightsaber.”

Obi-Wan shot Astri a look. He hadn’t agreed to this. She put a finger to her lips.

The boy looked out over the vast landscape of sand. Not a living, growing thing could be seen. Slowly, he smiled. “It’s a deal.”

“Okay,” Astri agreed. “Run and get a pack to put food in and we’ll begin.”

The boy’s name was Bhu Cranna. He followed behind them as Astri and Obi-Wan trudged through the sand.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Obi-Wan murmured.

“You stick to lightsabers. I’ll stick to food.” Astri moved to the shadow of the canyon wall. Where sand met rock, she dug down into the crack. She came up with a small purple mold.

“Looks delicious,” Obi-Wan said doubtfully.

Grinning, she handed it to Bhu. “You’ll see.”

For the next hour, Obi-Wan and Bhu trailed behind Astri, following her instructions as they scraped mold off the bottom of rocks and dug deep underneath the sand to find roots. Astri cut off strips of flesh from a spiny plant and then captured the juice that flowed from its heart. They crawled on their hands and knees through a cave to find mushrooms growing in the cracks of rocks.

Obi-Wan fretted about the delay, but something told him that information about Reesa On was crucial to finding Qui-Gon. He only hoped that Astri’s plan would work.

“When I took over the cooking at the café, I had a plan,” Astri explained as she pulled the spines out from the fleshy plant she’d sliced into pieces. “Every week I would feature dishes from one world in the galaxy. Luckily, Sorrus was one of those worlds. I chose it because it’s so large and so many Sorrusians travel through the galaxy.”

“If this is their own food, why doesn’t the tribe know how to find this?” Obi-Wan asked, indicating the plants and mushrooms they had gathered.

“Because we were always able to cultivate crops,” Bhu volunteered. “It’s only recently that we’ve run completely out of water.”

Astri nodded. “In the Tira desert on the other side of Sorrus, they never had a water source, so they live off the desert. I figured that the same kinds of plants must grow here, too. And they do.” She held up a gnarled root. “This is called turu root. Tastes pretty awful raw. But if you cook it right, it can be delicious.”

Obi-Wan looked doubtfully at the plant. “I can’t believe Didi’s and Qui-Gon’s lives hang on a root. Can you really make all this taste good?”

“Just watch me.”

Astri pounded roots into paste. She spread mushrooms out in the sun to dry. She ground little bits of leaves and roots and combined them into spices. Then she began to roast this and stir that and assemble the various items into a meal.

When the meal was ready, Astri served it to the boy and his family.

Bhu turned out to be the son of the tribe leader, Goq Cranna. He was the first to taste the meal, trying each food one at a Lime and chewing without expression. The boy and his mother waited, looking at him expectantly. Obi-Wan found that he was holding his breath.

“It’s good.” Pleased, the father turned to Astri. “Where did you find these things?”

“I can show you,” Bhu said.

“And I can tell you about more,” Astri added. “But now you must tell us about Reesa On.”

The leader stood. “Her name is Ona Nobis. Bhu will show us where to go.”

Obi-Wan and Astri followed Bhu and Goq Cranna across the dunes. As they walked, Astri said softly to Obi-Wan, “Now, what was that you said about my not being able to cook us out of trouble?”

“I stand corrected.”

“We do not speak of Ona Nobis,” Goq explained as they caught up to him. He spoke in short bursts, like the rest of the tribe. “Her name is forbidden. For money, she betrayed us. A shameful thing. The government agent spoke to us of the wonders of the dam. We were skeptical. Yet she urged us to listen. She persuaded us. Later we discovered that she and this agent had conspired together. They knew the dam would turn our land into this arid place. The agent owned land across the mountain. He wanted fertile lands. So he received the water. We received the sand.”

“What happened to Ona Nobis?” Obi-Wan asked.

“She left before we realized our mistake. We know how she makes her living. Another shame.”

“Where are you taking us?” Astri asked.

“My boy found this place,” Goq said. “She kept a hideout. Cleverly hidden.”

They came to another, smaller canyon. Bhu hesitated when he came to an outcropping of a rock wall.

“When we turn this corner, the wind will be very strong,” he warned.

He raised his hood and directed them to do the same.

“It is the way the land is formed,” Goq said. “It creates a downdraft. This is a place where no one goes.”

They turned the corner. Obi-Wan was nearly blown off his feet. Astri staggered, and he reached out a hand to steady her. He pulled her forward.

The wind here was terrible. It drove the sand against their skin and in their eyes. They covered most of their faces with their cloaks.

“This way!” Goq shouted. “Stay close!”

Obi-Wan followed on Goq’s heels. The closer they got to the far canyon wall, the worse the sandstorm became. He could no longer see Bhu, who was only a few meters ahead.

When he saw Goq drop to his knees he did the same. He motioned to Astri to go ahead of him so he could be sure she would not get lost.

Obi-Wan crawled, following the others. Ahead he saw Astri disappear into a small opening in the rock face. He squeezed himself through.

Immediately, the wind stopped. Obi-Wan wiped his face and tried to shake the sand out of his hair and tunic folds. Bhu lit a glow rod.

“Follow me,” he whispered. “In a few meters, we will be able to stand.”

Obi-Wan crawled after Astri. She passed through another opening, and he followed.

Immediately the walls widened. He got a sense of air and space around him. He stood cautiously.

Bhu shined the glow rod. Obi-Wan saw a smooth floor and walls, bedding rolled up in a corner, and something covered with a tarp. He quickly reached for his own glow rod.

He lifted the tarp and held his glow rod high to illuminate the boxes.

“Med supplies. Survival rations.”

“We took a vote and decided to leave the survival rations intact,” Goq told them. “We did not want her to know that we found this place.” He gave a short smile. “We were getting close to raiding the food until you came along. Now we do not need to.”

“So she doesn’t know you’ve found this place?” Obi-Wan asked.

Bhu shook his head. “We have been very careful. I think she was here recently. One of the survival ration packs is gone.”

“Now we will leave you here,” Goq said. “We will wait for you in the next canyon. If you follow the canyon wall, you will find us.”

Obi-Wan thanked them, and Goq and Bhu left.

“Here’s a datapad, Obi-Wan,” Astri called excitedly.

Obi-Wan hurried over. He quickly accessed the file system. To his relief, the files were not coded.

“These are case files,” he said, scrolling through. “Clients. Jobs she took on.”

“Any hint of where she could be now?” Astri asked.

“Hold on. Let me access the latest file.” Obi-Wan clicked a few keys.

He read carefully through the information. “This is it,” he said excitedly.

Astri crouched down next to him. “What is it?”

“It’s the case she’s working on now,” Obi-Wan said. “I guess her work for Jenna Zan Arbor is over.” He pointed at the screen. “She’s shadowing the governor of Cinnatar. That’s in this system. It’s less than a day’s travel from here.”

“The governor must be her next target,” Astri agreed.

“I’ll contact the Temple for a Jedi team.” Obi-Wan reached for his comlink, but its indicator light was already activated. Tahl was looking for him.

A moment later, Tahl’s clear voice came through the comlink. “We’ve broken Zan Arbor’s code at last. The Jedi are extremely concerned. We know that Zan Arbor is conducting experiments on the Force. We fear that she is holding Qui-Gon in order… in order to experiment on him.” Tahl cleared her throat. “Her first experiment was on a subject with the initials RS.”

“Ren S’orn?” Obi-Wan guessed. They had known that Senator S’orn’s late son had been mixed up in the mystery of the attack on Didi. They had not known why.

“That is what we believe,” Tahl confirmed. “There is a lab notation that further experiments would be done. Yet none were. The notation is dated a few days before Ren S’orn was found dead on Simpla-12.”

Obi-Wan swallowed. Ren S’orn’s body had been drained of blood. He had been an experimental subject of Jenna Zan Arbor’s. But Qui-Gon was so strong, so clever. Surely he would not suffer the same fate.

“You know our fears, Obi-Wan,” Tahl said, her voice low.

“Yes.”

“I was hoping you had a lead on the bounty hunter. We are discussing how next to proceed.”

“I think I do,” Obi-Wan said. “We’ve found out the bounty hunter’s real name. It is Ona Nobis. I believe her next job is to assassinate the governor of Cinnatar.”

“We will warn him and send a team there to meet you immediately,” Tahl said. “Send Astri back here. Contact me when you arrive on Cinnatar.”

Tahl shut the communication. Obi-Wan stared at the datapad of Ona Nobis.

“Come on, Obi-Wan,” Astri urged. “There’s no time to lose. I’m not going back to the Temple. I’m coming with you.”

“Wait,” Obi-Wan said.

“Don’t even try to argue,” Astri said, her dark eyes burning. “I’m coming. Hurry. We don’t want to miss the last transport back to the city.”

He knew he should be hurrying to catch the transport. But something was wrong. Something inside was warning him.

Always listen to doubt. Even in times of great haste, take time to listen. Then trust it.

Qui-Gon’s words. Obi-Wan thought about his hesitancy. Something was telling him that Cinnatar was not where he would find answers.

“Obi-Wan!” Astri called in frustration.

“Tell me something, Astri,” he said. “The bounty hunter Ona Nobis is clever. Again and again she surprised us. She even outwitted Qui-Gon.”

“Yes,” Astri said impatiently.

“So why would she choose as an alias a name that we could trace to the place where she was from?”

“Because she didn’t know you would trace it,” Astri said.

“A part of cleverness is not underestimating the cleverness of your opponent,” Obi-Wan said, shaking his head. “She knows the resources of the Temple. Why would she take such a risk?”

Astri took a few steps toward Obi-Wan. “What are you saying? That she wanted us to find her?”

“No. She wanted us to find this.” Obi-Wan gestured at the cave. “And this.” He pointed to the datapad.

“But it was so hard to find. Bhu stumbled on the cave by accident…”

“It was only a matter of time before some member of the tribe found this place,” Obi-Wan said. “They wander in search of food and water. She knows this.”

He touched the datapad. “What if she wanted to send us on the wrong trail? What if she is still working for Jenna Zan Arbor?”

“You could be right, Obi-Wan,” Astri said slowly. “But we need to be sure.”

If he made the wrong choice, it could mean Qui-Gon’s life. Yet a choice must be made.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes. He filtered out haste and worry. He breathed in his fear of making a wrong choice and let it go. He listened to his instinct. If it was wrong to go to Cinnatar, where was he to go?

After a long moment, he opened his eyes. “We are going to Simpla-12, where Ren S’orn was found,” he told Astri.