Etain was propped up on pillows, eyes closed and hands clasped in her lap, and there was no obvious sign of the shapeshifter. She looked past him at the droid, then sighed.
“Hello, Ordo,” she said quietly. “Sorry you had to be dragged all this way. I know Kal’s worried about me when he sends you.”
She could always tell one clone from another even without looking, just from the impression he made in the Force. Ordo knew she found him disturbing. Maybe it was the waking nightmares and the frustration that swirled around in his unguarded thoughts: he could keep a lid on it, but she knew it was there just as surely as Kal’buir did.
“And how are you, General?” It was as good a place to start as any. “Are you still bleeding?”
“I think I should be asking those questions,” the droid said. He pushed past Ordo and leaned over Etain, ejecting an array of sensors and probes from his chest. She stared at him in disbelief. “Any pain? I have to examine you…”
Too-One’s arm came to a sudden halt, and Ordo thought he’d malfunctioned. He seemed to be struggling to move.
Etain gave him a narrow-eyed stare. She’d apparently declined help from the other med droids, but this was the equivalent of the chief of surgery. “You better warm those appendages of yours first, tinnie …”
“Ah. You’re a Jedi. Of course.” There was an ominous grinding whine from his servos and the faintest smell of overheating. “The sooner you release me, the faster I can complete the examination.”
“I’m glad we understand each other.” The droid’s arms suddenly jerked, and he tottered slightly. Etain’s use of the Force seemed to be a lot more precise these days. “I’m about ninety days’ pregnant.”
“I wasn’t informed of that.”
“Well, now you know. I’ve been accelerating the pregnancy with a healing trance, so I’m probably in the fifth month in terms of development.”
“My data banks make no mention of Jedi being able to do that. How?”
“It’s not a precise science. I just meditate, really. He’s been kicking, so I’m guessing how far things have progressed.”
“He. So you’ve been under a physician’s care, had routine scans…”
“No, I’m a Jedi, and we can detect that stuff.” Etain glanced at Ordo as if appealing for support. “The baby’s reacting strongly and I know he’s been upset by the fighting, or at least to my reaction to it.”
“Impossible,” Too-One said. “Higher brain functions don’t appear until twenty-six weeks, and even with acceleration…”
“Look, you’ll just have to take my word for it. And I’m still losing a little blood, and having cramps.”
Ordo stood back to watch the show. The droid and Etain seemed to be having a standoff, staring at each other as if she was daring him to lay manipulators on her. Then Too-One took out a scanner and passed it over her belly.
“Oh my,” he said primly. “My database suggests this is the equivalent of a six-month fetus.”
“Told you so…”
Too-One hesitated and then parted the heavy cloak that Etain was still clinging to. There was a visible bulge under her tunic, but nothing that would make anyone stop and stare.
Ordo found himself suddenly fascinated in a macabre kind of way. There was no mother’s heartbeat in the artificial womb of the transparisteel tanks on Kamino, and no comforting darkness. Ordo knew that he should have begun his life like the child within Etain, and why the atmosphere of silence, isolation, and unbroken light-with only his own heartbeat to cling to-had helped make him the way he was.
He remembered too much. Maybe it was a bad idea to hang around while the details were being discussed. But Kal’buir had told him to ensure Etain was safe and well, and that meant waiting.
“Ordo…”
How did we ever learn to be human at all? If bloodlines and genomes don ‘t matter to Mando’ade, what makes me a human?
“Ordo?” Etain gave him a meaningful look.
“What?”
“I know nothing fazes you, but… well, I’d prefer you to wait outside while the med droid completes the examination. Do I have to draw you a picture?”
Ordo took the hint and stepped outside the door, still in earshot in case something went wrong. There were times when he realized just how far adrift he was from normal humanity, and Etain’s pregnancy, a universal human condition that showed how mundane and constrained by biology even a Jedi could be, simply reminded him how much of an outsider he really was.
He didn’t even have a mother.