“I feel afraid when I realize that Sora Bulq has a point. That the Republic might well need bringing down.”
“I don’t think we can do that, either. All we can do is take responsibility for ourselves, and help the victims of this war.”
Altis looked back at the ship. There was now a steady stream of Jedi and their support teams ferrying supplies to the refugees. “Like these wretched people.”
“And those.” Geith indicated the dead trooper. “They’re victims, too.”
“Let’s make ourselves useful,” Altis said. He needed to compose himself before he dealt with the bodies, and a little honest labor, even with a bad back, was a good way to do it. “Just getting the generators going will save lives. Is it my age, or is this place as cold as death?”
“It’s cold, Master.”
They walked back to the camp. Altis’s heart broke; it wasn’t the injuries he saw among the civilians so much as the look on their faces that tore at him. It was bewilderment. Why us? Why had the war come to them? A woman with a small child clinging to her legs held out a cup to him, steam curling from its rim, and he realized she wasn’t asking for it to be filled, but offering him a hot drink. She probably saw an old man, his face pinched by the cold, in need of something warming. She was, frankly, thin and ugly, worn out by poverty; but he’d never seen such beauty and radiance in his life. It was perfection; a simple act of generosity, love in its raw and natural state.
Serenity, my backside. Passion. Passion and anger and love. That’s what this galaxy needs, not serenity. Passion for change. Anger at this brutality. Love—buckets of it, for everyone, love between child and parent, between spouses, between brothers and sisters, between friends. We need more attachment, not less. Attachment can stop us from tearing ourselves apart.
Altis had a gift. However these things worked, he had been given rare abilities by the galaxy, and it was his duty to use them. He just didn’t always know how best to apply them.
Altis took the cup, drank, and embraced the emaciated woman. He found a few candies in his pocket for the child. One of his non-Jedi students, Gali, trotted over to him with an armful of blankets.
“We thought we’d lost you, Master,” she said. What he thought was a blanket on the top of the pile turned out to be a coat, and she thrust it at him. “For goodness’ sake put this on.”
Altis pulled the overcoat around him to humor her. There was no rule against a Jedi Master teaching those who had no Force powers. If there was—bah, he’d ignore all that nonsense. The ordinary men and women in his community taught him more daily than he could possibly teach them in a lifetime. Like his dear late wife always said—not sensitive to the Force at all, prone to using his lightsaber to cut stubborn branches—there was more to wisdom than being able to move a table with the power of your mind.
Yes, Margani. I hear you. I hear you still.
Geith paused among the tents to make notes on his datapad. Everyone in the community knew their role in an emergency. Geith was noting how many refugees needed medical care; the urgent cases were already being treated by first responders, but there were others who would need drugs and special care when the first rush was over.
“Am I letting my doctrinal pride get in the way, Geith?” Altis said. He picked up a little boy who tottered up to him, and examined the child’s runny eyes. A woman came running as if to find the kid, and Altis handed him back. “Tell me straight. Is this just vain ideology on my part, some idiotic schism with Yoda?”
Altis wanted it to be. He really did. Two old fools arguing over theories, academic vanity. It would have been so much easier to swallow than feeling he could avert a disaster if he only argued harder.
“No, Master,” said Geith. “I wish it were. It’s about living the belief. I think our ascetic brethren have been co-opted by government. And government is usually about the exercise of power.”
Ah, the little revolutionary firebrand; Geith had never trusted power. He didn’t even enjoy using his own. That was what made him admirable. “And if the government had come to us for help instead of Yoda, would we have refused? We’ll never know.”
“This will end in disaster for all of us; you know that, don’t you?”
Altis felt his stomach knot. Geith was always the one who thought the unthinkable. Someone had to.
“Then let’s do the maximum good that we can while we still have breath in our bodies,” he said.
Altis heard the crunch of boots behind him. Someone was steering a repulsor pallet, whistling tunelessly. Hallena Devis seemed a lot more at peace today than she’d been when he first met her. Had it only been a matter of days? They said a spy’s life was nowhere near as glamorous as the holovids made out, but he doubted she’d ever set up field refreshers before. She seemed perfectly happy with the task.
Smart woman. Takes guts to walk out on the Republic. I do hope she remembers to take time to be with her gallant captain, though. In the meantime… she’s safe with us.
“Where do you want this, then, Master?” she asked. The pallet was full of pails, drainage pipes, and duraplast containers of disinfectant. “We’re setting these up outside the camp, yes?”
“Better make it thirty meters from the perimeter,” Altis said. “Callista’s in charge today. Perhaps we can reroute the water supplies from the town.”
Hallena nodded and walked on with the pallet. Altis closed his eyes for a moment, remembered the intense passions he’d felt in Anakin Skywalker, and hoped that someone would have the sense to channel those passions rather than try to suppress them. He felt… foreboding. Anyone with that amount of raw power in the Force needed to be carefully directed, not put in harness.
Skywalker would have an unhappy future. Altis felt it. It was clear he already had an unhappy past. What that meant for the galaxy… but then one man couldn’t change a galaxy.
I hope. Not even me.
There were no trees, just as Geith had said. So there was no firewood; funeral pyres were out of the question. The dead had to be buried, not only for disease control, but because Djinn Altis felt everyone had a right to end their time with dignity—even if in the rest of life it had been denied them.
“Please, fetch me a shovel, Geith,” Altis said. “I have work to do.”
Karen Traviss, The Clone Wars: No Prisoners
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