Part 43 (2/2)
He rose, and folded his hands before him, and inclined his head in the Jedi bow of respect.
The bow of the student, in the presence of the Master.
”Your apprentice, I gratefully become.”
He was well into his first lesson when the hatch cycled open behind him. He turned.
In the corridor beyond stood Bail Organa. He looked stricken.
”Obi-Wan is asking for you at the surgical theater,” he said ”It's Padme. She's dying.”
Obi-Wan sat beside her, holding one cold, still hand in both of his. ”Don't give up, Padme.”
”Is it ...” Her eyes rolled blindly. ”It's a girl. Anakin thinks it's a girl.”
”We don't know yet. In a minute ... you have to stay with us.”
Below the opaque tent that shrouded her from chest down, a pair of surgical droids a.s.sisted with her labor. A general medical droid fussed and tinkered among the clutter of scanners and equipment.
”If it's ... a girl-oh, oh, oh no . . .”
Obi-Wan cast an appeal toward the medical droid. ”Can't you do something?”
”All organic damage has been repaired.” The droid checked another readout. ”This systemic failure cannot be explained.”
Not physically, Obi-Wan thought. He squeezed her hand as though he could keep life within her body by simple pressure. ”Padme, you have to hold on.”
”If it's a girl . . . ,” she gasped, ”name her Leia . . .”
One of the surgical droids circled out from behind the tent, cradling in its padded arms a tiny infant, already swabbed clean and breathing, but without even the hint of tears.
The droid announced softly, ”It's a boy.”
Padme reached for him with her trembling free hand, but she had no strength to take him; she could only touch her fingers to the baby's forehead.
She smiled weakly. ”Luke . . .”
The other droid now rounded the tent as well, with another clean, quietly solemn infant. ”. . . and a girl.”
But she had already fallen back against her pillow.
”Padme, you have twins,” Obi-Wan said desperately. ”They need you-please hang on . . .”
”Anakin ...”
”Anakin . . . isn't here, Padme,” he said, though he didn't think she could hear.
”Anakin, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry . . . Anakin, please, I love you . . .”
In the Force, Obi-Wan felt Yoda's approach, and he looked up to see the ancient Master beside Bail Organa, both staring the same grave question down through the surgical theater's observation panel.
The only answer Obi-Wan had was a helpless shake of his head.
Padme reached across with her free hand, with the hand she had laid upon the brow of her firstborn son, and pressed something into Obi-Wan's palm.
For a moment, her eyes cleared, and she knew him.
”Obi-Wan . . . there ... is still good in him. I know there is . . . still . . .”
Her voice faded to an empty sigh, and she sagged back against the pillow. Half a dozen different scanners buzzed with conflicting alarm tones, and the medical droids shooed him from the room.
He stood in the hall outside, looking down at what she had pressed into his hand. It was a pendant of some kind, an amulet, unfamiliar sigils carved into some sort of organic material, strung on a loop of leather. In the Force, he could feel traces of the touch of her skin.
When Yoda and Bail came for him, he was still standing there, staring at it.
”She put this in my hand-” For what seemed the dozenth time this day, he found himself blinking back tears. ”-and I don't even know what it is.”
”Precious to her, it must have been,” Yoda said slowly. ”Buried with her, perhaps it should be.”
Obi-Wan looked down at the simple, child-like symbols carved into it, and felt from it in the Force soaring echoes of transcendent love, and the bleak, black despair of unendurable heartbreak.
”Yes,” he said. ”Yes. Perhaps that would be best.”
Around a conference table on Tantive IV, Bail Organa, Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi, and Yoda met to decide the fate of the galaxy.
”To Naboo, send her body ...” Yoda stretched his head high, as though tasting a current in the Force. ”Pregnant, she must still appear. Hidden, safe, the children must be kept. Foundation of the new Jedi Order, they will be.”
”We should split them up,” Obi-Wan said. ”Even if the Sith find one, the other may survive. I can take the boy, Master Yoda, and you take the girl. We can hide them away, keep them safe-train them as Anakin should have been trained-”
”No.” The ancient Master lowered his head again, closing his eyes, resting his chin on his hands that were folded over the head of his stick.
Obi-Wan looked uncertain. ”But how are they to learn the self-discipline a Jedi needs? How are they to master skills of the Force?”
”Jedi training, the sole source of self-discipline is not. When right is the time for skills to be taught, to us the living Force will bring them. Until then, wait we will, and watch, and learn.”
”I can . . .” Bail Organa stopped, flus.h.i.+ng slightly. ”I'm sorry to interrupt, Masters; I know little about the Force, but I do know something of love. The Queen and I-well, we've always talked of adopting a girl. If you have no objection, I would like to take Leia to Alderaan, and raise her as our daughter. She would be loved with us.”
Yoda and Obi-Wan exchanged a look. Yoda tilted his head. ”No happier fate could any child ask for. With our blessing, and that of the Force, let Leia be your child.”
Bail stood, a little jerkily, as though he simply could no longer keep his seat. His flush had turned from embarra.s.sment to pure uncomplicated joy. ”Thank you, Masters-I don't know what else to say. Thank you, that's all. What of the boy?”
”Cliegg Lars still lives on Tatooine, I think-and Anakin's stepbrother . . . Owen, that's it, and his wife, Beru, still work the moisture farm outside Mos Eisley . . .”
”As close to kinfolk as the boy can come,” Yoda said approvingly. ”But Tatooine, not like Alderaan it is-deep in the Outer Rim, a wild and dangerous planet.”
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