Jedi Apprentice(13)

Qui-Gon passed a weary hand over his forehead. “And no one has heard of a student who has recently been angry or upset. Just the usual things - a bad performance on an exercise, or a petty disagreement…” He drummed on the table, thinking. “Yet Bruck was angry once.”

“Yoda says he’s made great improvements,” Tahl said. “And Bruck acknowledged his problem used to be anger. He admitted it must look bad for him that he was the last one to use the room. I got no sense of darkness from him. A boy so honest couldn’t have done this.”

“Unless he was very, very clever,” Qui-Gon remarked.

“Do you suspect him?”

“No,” Qui-Gon said. “I suspect no one and everyone …”

“Master Tahl!” TooJay suddenly appeared in the doorway of the interview room. “I am here to lead you to the dining hall.”

Tahl gritted her teeth. “I’m busy.”

“It is dinnertime,” TooJay said in a musical tone.

“I can find it,” Tahl snapped.

“It is five levels down -“

“I know where it is!”

“There is a datapad three centimeters to your left -“

“I know! And in another second, it will be flying at your head!”

“I see you are busy. I will return.” TooJay beeped at them in a friendly way, and scooted off.

Tahl dropped her head in her hands. “Remind me to get a pair of vibro-cutters, will you, Qui-Gon? I really need to dismantle that droid.” With a heavy sigh, she raised her head. “This investigation will try the nerves of everyone at the Temple. I feel a serious disturbance in the Force.”

“I do as well.”

“I fear it is not a student who is doing this. I think it’s an invader. Someone who hates us. Someone who wants to see us fractured and distracted …”

“Someone who could have a larger plan in mind, you mean? Is that what you’re afraid of?”

Tahl turned her worried emerald and gold eyes to him. “It is what I fear the most,” she said.

“As do I,” Qui-Gon softly replied.

Obi-Wan walked through the city streets, exhausted. He had just finished three solid days of Security Squad duty. It had been hard, but they had managed to disarm whole quadrants of the city. There were only isolated pockets left. Most of the weapons had been collected. They were stored in a heavily guarded warehouse. It would be safer to get them out of the city completely until the council decided whether to destroy them. He needed to bring up the issue at the next council meeting.

A few flakes of snow trickled down from a metallic sky. Winter was almost upon them. People needed fuel for the upcoming months. Nothing had been done about it yet.

Instead, Nield had recruited more and more workers on his mission to destroy every Hall in the city. Since Obi-Wan was on the streets most

of the time, he had seen the anger of the people. They had turned from thoughts of war to thoughts of survival. The Young were not helping them rebuild their homes or feed their families. The unrest was growing. The Middle Generation had helped them win the war, but the Young were losing their support. What they lacked in numbers they made up in influence. The Young couldn’t afford to alienate them.

We must do something, Obi-Wan thought.

He saw a group of Scavenger Young hurrying down a side street with a sense of purpose. Obi-Wan called to one of them.

“Joli! What’s going on?”

A short, stocky boy turned. “Mawat called us. Another Hall of Evidence going down today. The one on Glory Street near the plaza.” He hurried on after the others.

Obi-Wan felt a pang. That Hall of Evidence held the holograms and markers of Cerasi’s ancestors. He remembered how wistful she’d been about her lack of family. Perhaps he should let her know what was about to happen.

He forgot his weariness as he hurried to the tunnels. He climbed down the grate near the mausoleum and hurried into the vaulted space. Cerasi sat at the scrubbed tomb the Young had used as a meeting table.

“I heard,” she told Obi-Wan.

His steps slowed as he approached her. “We can ask Nield to stop -“

Cerasi brushed a strand of her short coppery hair out of her eyes. “That wouldn’t be fair, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan sank down on a stool next to her. “When was the last time you went to the Hall?”

Cerasi sighed. “I can’t remember. Before I came down into the tunnels…. Long enough so that I can’t really remember my mother’s face. Her memory is fading.” She turned to Obi-Wan. “I believe that Nield is right. I hate the Halls of Evidence as much as he does. Or at least I did. But I don’t hate my family, Obi-Wan. My mother, my aunts, my uncles, the cousins I’ve Jost… they’re all there. Their faces, their voices … I don’t have any other way to remember them. And I’m not alone. So many on Melida/Daan have nothing to remember their loved ones by except the Halls of Evidence. We’ve bombed our homes and libraries and civic buildings … we have no records of births and marriages and deaths. If we destroy all the holograms, our history will be lost forever. Will we end up missing part of what we destroy?”