MedStar_ Jedi Healer Part 11

His legs had been chewed by shrapnel up to midthigh. The solution waste outfit the soldier with cybertronic prosthetics-robotic legs that, once covered with a layer of synthflcsh, would be nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. Barriss's job was to use the Force to prepare the trooper for the circuit grafts and implants by easing systemic shock reaction. It was a fairly easy task-a simple matter of soothing the autonomic nervous system and stimulating biological response modifiers. She'd done it dozens of times before with no glitches. There was no reason to a.s.sume it would be any different this time.

Nevertheless, she could not do it.

Since experiencing that searing, that "cosmic" connection, Barriss had been afraid to reach out to the Force again. Though there was no logical reason to fear it, still she found herself paralyzed every time she attempted a link.

She was aware that this was not a good situation, especially given her position here on this war-ravaged world, Though the last few days had been light on casualties, Rimsoo Seven could be inundated again at any time, and when that happened her abilities would be needed to save lives. She couldn't afford to remain helpless.

Her mind knew all this. Her heart, however, still shied away from the bond that had been a part of her life for so long.

That couldn't be any more wrong.

She told the FX-7 droid on duty to put the clone back in short-term cryosupport. She'd be doing him no favors trying to modulate his BRMs now, given the uncertain state she was in.

She needed to get out, to clear her head. Perhaps a game of sabacc was indicated . . .

Alone in her kiosk, Barriss sat and stared at the wall. She had sought out company, but being in the presence of her friends hadn't helped to resolve matters. The power of her experience-and she was sure it had been real, not a hallucination-still thrummed in her, though it was now but a faint echo of what it had been; the drip of a single raindrop after the roar of a storm.

Even so, playing cards in the cantina and exchanging small talk with the doctors and nurses hadn't helped her do anything other than put off dealing with it. She couldn't talk to any of her colleagues-what was she going to say? Hey, Jos, I just became one with the entire galaxy. . . and how's that case of Ortolan rhinorrhea you've been dealing with?

None of them could help her, and there was n.o.body else she knew of who had experienced it-certainly not anyone at hand.

If anyone else ever had experienced it...

Barriss knew she wasn't the smartest Jedi who had ever lived, but she wasn't anywhere close to the stupidest, either. She knew what had happened. She had taken a ther-apeutic, if accidental, dose of the bota extract. There was no doubt in her mind that the unintentional injection and her sudden, overpowering connection to the Force had been cause and effect. She didn't know the why or the how, but she was certain that the panaceatic chemical concoction had produced yet another miracle, this time by intensifying her connection to the Force by an order of magnitude she couldn't even begin to tally.

When, as a youngling, she had first learned to use the Force, it seemed to her as if she had been living in a dark cave, and had finally been given a lamp to light her way, She could, of a moment, see, whereas before she had been feeling her way in the murk. It had been a most intense and profound revelation.

Compared to that, the experience she'd had after the accident in the ward had been like trading in that lamp for her own personal sun-a difference comparable to being able to see a vast plain, all the way to the horizon, in every minute detail, as opposed to the corner of a single small room. It was as if she were a hawk-bat, capable of spotting a rock shrew the size of her thumb from a thousand meters away, as opposed to being a blind granite slug, grubbing myopically at the few millimeters directly before her.

What did it mean?

Her first reaction had been to comm her Master. Lumi-nara Unduli would know, or she would have access to somebody with knowledge. In any event, there was certainly no reason to try to puzzle it out on her own, certainly not when she had the vast resources of the Temple's archives at her disposal.

And so she had tried-but her communications unit was not working. Everything seemed fine, all the circuits tested clean, but there was no signal. Something was jam-ming the frequency; she could not even get an offworld carrier hyperwave, and she had no idea why.

Possibly it was due to some military operation-it was entirely feasible that the Republic or the Separatists had recently implemented some device that could blanket a planet and stop transmissions such as hers. Or could it be a natural phenomenon? There were magnetic and flux storms in reals.p.a.ce that sometimes cast subspatial reverberations and interrupted comm signals. Drongar Prime was a hot sun; its coronal discharges were certainly strong enough . . .

Barriss made a frustrated gesture. No point in theorizing-she had to talk to somebody who knew more about the Force than she did, to pa.s.s this along and decide what-if anything-needed to be done about it. She'd tried the unit again, as soon as she'd gotten back to her kiosk, but of course it still wasn't working.

There was another way, however, an elegantly simple way: take another blast of the bota.

She was almost certain that she could figure out just about anything, once she returned to that ineffable state in which she had been before, if this time she was expecting it and prepared for St. The experience held within it all manner of knowledge; she could still feel the truth of that. Once she understood the parameters of the event, Barriss could present the Jedi Council with something of incalculable value. She couldn't even imagine the miracles that a true Jedi Master could perform while suffused with such power. Why, even the small handful of the Order remaining could turn the course of the war, could easily defeat Dooku's forces and restore galactic peace, did they but have access to the kind of power Barriss had experienced. She knew this to be true; she had felt as if she could accomplish all that by herself, so she knew that, with such mystical strength in the hands of Luminara or Obi-Wan or Yoda, anything would be possible.

But-could she prepare herself sufficiently to ride that ma.s.sive and all-powerful wave again? It seemed entirely possible that the next time it might roll over her, and she wouldn't be able to struggle free. Maybe it would claim her for itself, and never let her go, transform her somehow into something totally outside the experience of her or anyone else . . .

Barriss sighed. This was beyond her skill, her talents, her ability. She needed help, but there wasn't anyone here capable of providing it. It seemed that, until she could talk to Master Unduli, she would be better off doing nothing.

But that wasn't as easy as it sounded, by any means. The memory of the power, frightening as it was, nevertheless cried out to her. Its call was so tempting. Even though she was afraid, she longed to try it again.

It would be easy. There were several skinpoppers filled with the distillate literally within arm's reach. It would be but a second's work to take one, push it against her flesh, trigger it... So easy . . .

Barriss wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, feeling a cold that had nothing to do with the snow outside.

20.

Jos, my friend. How are you feeling?"

Jos looked at the minder. "Well, if truth be known, I've had better days. Better months.

Decades."

"Oh?"

Jos squirmed uncomfortably-a difficult task in the formchair that fought to match his every move and make the position comfortable. "You, uh, know about me and Tolk."

The Equani steepled his fingers. "Fortunately, I have not gone blind or deaf recently."

"Yeah, well ... I thought we were flying like a land-speeder with custom harmonics. Only lately she's . . . cooled."

"How so?"

Jos sighed. Everything about Klo and his office was designed to be calming-his manner, the decor, the patient's formchair-but Jos had yet to be able to relax when he came here. It wasn't that he felt distrustful of Klo, or of the whole minder process, the way many of his family did. Even though he came from a long line of medics, many of his immediate ancestors looked askance upon the concept of healing through mental therapy. Though his father would never come right out and admit it, Jos knew that the senior Vandar was much more com-fortable curing depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and the like with adjustments of dopamine, serotonin, and somatostatin levels, rather than by empathetic feedback. Jos told himself he didn't share this bias, but even so, he was always tense in Merit's office.

He wasn't sure why he had come this time. He hadn't had an appointment, he'd just taken advantage of Merit's free time. He needed to bounce this problem off somebody, and his kiosk mate was not as old as some of Jos's boots.

"Tolk and I were doing fine . . . then she went up to take a CME cla.s.s on MedStar. She was there when the decks blew-and since she's gotten back, she's been frostier than the snow outside your window."

Merit nodded. "Why do you think that is?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't be here, now would I?"

"Did you two argue about anything?"

"No."

Merit nodded, and leaned back in his own formchair, which adjusted to match his new balance and contours. "Well, the accident was distressing to a lot of people."

"The way I heard it," Jos said, "it wasn't an accident."

Merit shrugged. "I've heard those rumors as well. Of course, the powers-that-be might want people to think that way-after all, if it was sabotage, that lets Security off the hook.

The Republic is not immune to watching-your-backside disease."

Jos knew that. He shrugged. "Barriss says it was deliberate. I believe her."

"Well, it doesn't really matter for the purposes of our discussion. Whether the blowout was an accident or on purpose, it seems that the trauma of it may have hit Tolk harder than she's letting on."

"I've thought of that. But I don't see how. We have more people die in this Rimsoo in any given month-in a week, sometimes-than died in the MedStar blast. Tolk is often working on them when they go, looking them right in the eyes. Why wouldn't that bother her more than a bunch of people she didn't know, and didn't have to deal with?"

"I can't say." Klo paused, as if considering something.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I'm not a face reader, a Jedi, or a minder, Klo, but I didn't just fall off the melbulb freighter, either. What?"

"How well do you know Tolk? I mean, yes, you've worked with her during your tour here, and you have established a relationship that, I a.s.sume, is physical?"

"You can a.s.sume that."

"But-what do you know of her background? Her people, her politics, her social development?"

"What are you getting at?"

"Perhaps she has reasons to be upset that you can't see. Perhaps there's something in her background she hasn't revealed to you."

"I don't think I like the way this conversation is going."

The minder raised a pacifying hand. "I meant no insult to Tolk," he said. "I'm merely suggesting that, as you point out, there would seem no ostensible reason for her to be more upset about an explosion on the MedStar than she'd be in the day-to-day goings-on "here in the Rimsoo. Therefore, there could be another reason."

Jos blinked at him. "Are you suggesting that she had something to do with it?"

"Of course not, Jos. Only that there is apparently something going on with Tolk about which you seem to be in the dark. If you had any idea what that might be, maybe you could resolve this. At the very least, you'd have more tools to work with."

Jos brooded. "So far, I haven't been able to get her to talk to me about anything of substance."

"And therefore you lack enough information to make even an educated guess. You might see if you can find out more. It could be nothing serious-some past trauma connected to her family or friends that triggered old memories, for example. But until you gather more data, all you have is speculation," Klo said. "There's no future in that."

Jos nodded. Klo was right. He needed to talk to Tolk about this, find out what was really bothering her. They could deal with it together, whatever it was.

Unless, of course, Tolk had had something to do with the bombing . . .

Jos shook his head. No way. He wasn't sure of much these days, but he was sure that Tolk could never have anything to do with such a horrendous crime, no matter what. What healer could? Their job was to save lives,not take them.

"Thanks, Klo. I won't take any more of your time."

"They're still playing cards in the cantina. I-Five was winning. Cleaned me to my daily limit," Klo said with a smile, "which is why I'm back here."

Jos stood. "Maybe I'll go have a drink and play a few hands."

"Why not?"

Jos smiled and left.

He didn't make it as far as the cantina. When he was halfway there, crossing the open area referred to as the Quad, he and several others braving the cold stopped in their tracks, momentarily paralyzed by an ear-smiting crack of something very much like thunder. What the-?

A moment later, the temperature began to rise. It was easy to tell the difference because it was happening so quickly.

Jos knew very little about how weather worked, but he knew that when warm air collided with cold air, things happened. And things were definitely happening now. A thick mist formed almost immediately, making it impossible to see more than a few meters ahead. He was buffeted by microbursts of wind from different directions, some hot, some cold, that whipped up flurries of melting, spore-tinged snow. Hard spatters of rain hit the ground in staccato bursts. Through the mist he could see eerie flickers of light-electrical discharges that he'd heard referred to in the past as Jedi's Fire. It glimmered on the dps of his fingers. He stood still. The voltage required to break through the air was high, obviously, but his capacity to store a charge was relatively small. He was in no danger.

He hoped . . .

The mist began to clear after a few moments. Jos felt the air becoming charged with moisture as the temperature continued to rise. He began to sweat, and started doffing layers of clothing: coat, vest, his outer pair of pants. Mud squished under his shoes.

"Looks like Teedle's sacrifice wasn't in vain," Den Dhur's voice said. Jos looked about, and saw the diminutive Sull.u.s.tan slowly materialize as the fog thinned.

"Winter seems to be going away at a good clip."

Jos nodded. For better or worse, the malfunctioning force-dome had apparently been repaired. And already he was missing the cold.

Another humanoid form took shape a few paces ahead. It was I-Five. The droid was looking up. Jos followed his 'gaze. For the first time in weeks the relentless glare of Drongar Prime was visible.

"Guess things are back to normal," he said to I-Five.

"Indeed."

Jos looked about the base. Icicles were dripping and disintegrating, the mud was getting deeper, and the ripe and fecund smells of the Ja.s.serak Highlands were back with a rancid vengeance. All that was needed was the sound of incoming medlifters to provide the finishing touch.

Even as the thought crossed his mind, the heavy air began to pulse with the distant throb of repulsors.

"They're playing our song," he said to the droid as he turned back toward the OT. He felt unaccountably content. For better or worse, things seemed to be back to normal. No more surprises for a while, perhaps. Was that too much to ask?

Probably . . .

I-Five hadn't moved. "Come on," Jos called to him. "We've got jobs to do, remember?"

The droid turned and looked at Jos. The subtle light shadings of his photoreceptors gave his metallic face a look of wonder. "I remember," he said.

Jos stopped. "You remember what?"

"I remember everything.'"

21.

On Kaird's payroll was the human in charge of the xen.o.botanists monitoring the bota.