“But does he have to be so visible?” Amie burst out. “He’s all over the HoloNet.”
“They planned it that way, I’m sure,” Roan said. “Ferus is stuck. He has to keep his position.”
“But why?” Amie asked. “Has he brought back any information we can use?”
Roan shook his head. He couldn’t explain to Amie and Wil that Ferus had a larger goal now. Ferus was looking for Jedi. He was lending his support and expertise to the resistance when he could, but it wasn’t his first priority. As a double agent, he was in a perfect position to eventually access any records the Empire would have on suspected Jedi activity. Roan knew well that Ferus couldn’t give that up. Not yet.
“At this point, we’re wondering if the danger he’s putting himself in is worth it,” Wil said. “I don’t believe that he’s on the side of the Empire, but many Bellassans do. The evidence is in front of their faces.”
“It had better be worth it,” Amie said.
“I’m sure it will be,” Roan said. “I’m sure Ferus is painfully aware of the image he’s projecting.” Roan thought a moment. “In any case, we should make contact with him while he’s here. This factory business - what’s really going on? It’s never really what they say it is.”
“And it’s rarely to our benefit,” Wil added.
“I’ll contact him,” Roan said.
“But how? He’s surrounded by the Empire. He’s practically attached to Darth Vader’s hip,” Amie said with a grimace.
“I have a way,” Roan promised.
Chapter Ten
Attachment. Ferus wasn’t supposed to have any. If he wanted to be a true Jedi, that is.
But what did that mean, attachment? Even as a Padawan it had puzzled him. He had been attached to Siri, his Master. She’d been a mentor, a big sister, a presence in his life that had protected him and, in her own way, cherished him.
What does that mean, to not be attached? He’d asked her the question on a long run to the Outer Rim. Siri had been in one of her favorite positions, on the cockpit floor. She used to like to stretch out there with the hum of the engines under her back, her booted feet crossed on the copilot seat.
It seems so hard, Master. To have so many beings who are important to me but not to be attached to them. I don’t understand what is meant by “no attachment.”
Siri didn’t sit up, but he saw her boot swing back and forth, back and forth, as she considered the question. Thinking back now, Ferus wondered at the expression on her face. There had been a play of emotion that made her look soft, then sad, and then that emotion just… went away, and what was left was simply contemplation, a Master trying to arrive at the right answer for a question that had no answer.
It’s not so hard to explain, Siri had answered finally. To love without wanting to possess or influence. To cherish without keeping. To have without holding.
Ferus remembered nodding. He had thought he’d gotten it. As usual, he had wanted to please her. I understand, Master. Siri had looked at him then and smiled. No, you don’t. It’s not something to understand. It’s something to strive for.
But here he was on Bellassa, and everything here reminded him of attachment. Attachment to a homeworld, attachment to Roan, attachment to friends. He kept bumping into memories wherever he looked.
He saw that the Jedi were right. It was interfering with his Force connection. It was interfering with his concentration. All he wanted to do was slip away and find Roan, relax into the camaraderie of the Eleven.
After what had happened with the Empire, Obi-Wan had told him that because so much had changed, perhaps the rules of the Jedi would change if there were any Jedi alive to change them. Perhaps attachment would be valued. They were up against a system that valued nothing, least of all attachment. So maybe they needed to hold what they could.
He didn’t want to let them go. He didn’t want to let any of it go. Any of the attachment in his heart.
He would have to find a way to make it all fit. His connection to the Force, and his connection to the Living Force. Not the abstract, but the particular. A particular face that brought him joy. A familiar walk he searched for among the throngs in Ussa. He could find strength in that, not weakness.
He hadn’t known how to be close to someone when he left the Temple. He had learned. Roan had shown him how. Roan had grown up in an extended family that was full of arguments and laughter and family lunches that went on through dinner and into the midnight hour. They had accepted Ferus without question, and they had become his family, too.