"I-you-we-we can't have a future together."

Tolk blinked, as innocent as a newborn. "Future? Who said anything about that?"

"Tolk..."

"We're in a war zone, Jos. Remember? Our protec-tive field might malfunction tomorrow, we could take incoming fire from the Separatists, and we could all cease to be, just like that. Or the spores could mutate and kill us. Or we could be hit by lightning. In short, this is a dangerous place. Prognosis dismal. Any future for us is purely theoretical."

Jos stared at her. Somehow he retained enough muscle control to close his gaping mouth.

Tolk said, "You know the Bruvian saying, 'Kuuta velomin'?"

He shook his head.

"'Seize the moment.' It's all we have. The past is gone, the future may never arrive. What exists is now. I'm not asking for marriage, Jos. I know that you can't travel that path with me. But we could share what com-fort we might have together, here and now. Two people who care for each other. The future, if it comes, will at-tend to itself. As should we.

Where's the harm in it?"

He shook his head again. "I'm-I wish I could do that. I'm just not wired that way. I need to commit to something this important."

"Am I that important to you, Jos?"

He looked at her, and she smiled again, a sad smile. "You needn't say it aloud. Your expression tells me." She paused.

"All right, then. I'll be your friend and your co-worker, because it seems that's all we are allowed. More's the pity." She reached out and touched his hand, and he felt an electric thrill run through his whole body.

She withdrew her hand. She wasn't smiling now. "Oops, I've contaminated you. Sorry. You'll have to wash your hands again. I'll see you in the OT."

When she was gone, he found that he was shaking.

He hated this. The war, the deaths, his culture, and in that moment, he was very glad Tolk had left and could not see the despair that he knew must be showing on his face.

He had to get out.

Not for long, and not far, but he could not face the OT right now, especially with Tolk in it. He'd sooner face an entire platoon of droidekas armed only with a trochar than see that look in her eyes again, at least to-day. He wouldn't be able to concentrate; likely as not he'd wind up replacing a kidney with a gallbladder or something equally bad.

He commed Zan.

"You owe me," the Zabrak said darkly as Jos watched him scrub up. "I just finished my own rotation two hours ago."

"Sleep's overrated."

"I wouldn't know."

"Just give me an hour or so," Jos said. "I've got to clear my head."

"So you're going for a walk? Have you been outside lately? The air's so thick you could swim to the cantina."

"One hour," Jos said. "I'll be back."

He left the building and struck out across the com-pound, angling away from the marshes and toward the relatively drier bota fields. Zan hadn't exaggerated - ten minutes of walking and his clothes were already sweat-soaked. He would have to decontaminate all over again.

He didn't care.

He stepped through a small stand of broad-leaved trees, waving away the wingstingers and fire gnats swarming around him, and saw the bota fields. Twenty or so parallel rows of growth stretching into the misty distance. Bota grew low to the ground; actually, the ma-jority of the plant was underground, with only the fruit-ing bodies exposed. The rows were being tended by the usual a.s.sortment of droids; he didn't see any organic handlers at the moment.

He made no attempt to pinch off a bit of the plant, knowing that the rows were protected by a low-level zap field. This innocuous growth was a precious com-modity-understandable, since its adaptogenic cells could serve a variety of purposes, everything from po-tent broad-based antibiotic to hallucinogen to nutrient, depending on the species. If it could be cultivated off-world, it would give the spice traders considerable cause to worry, because it could literally be all things to all people.

All things to all people. It suddenly seemed to Jos that he'd spent a goodly part of his life-entirely too much, perhaps-trying to be the same thing. As far back as he could remember, it had been a.s.sumed that he would be a doctor. It wasn't a decision he regretted-he was proud of his profession-but that was only one of many ways that he had endeavored to be the Good Son. He'd studied hard, always toed the line, been a child of whom anyone could be proud. And his family had been proud of him, no question of it. They had never stinted in their praise. He had no desire to hurt them or to see them hurt. And he knew that espousing an ekster would probably put them in early graves.

But-he seemed to be hearing the voice of Klo Merit in his ear: Are they your customs?

Are they?

It didn't take a Jedi to see that Tolk would shine out amid an entire planetful of women.

And he couldn't deny that her offer of wartime comfort was tempting, very tempting.

But he couldn't.

What are you afraid of?

"I'm afraid I'll fall in love with her," he said aloud.

"I think it's too late to fear that," a gentle voice be-hind him said.

Startled, Jos turned, expecting for an instant to see Tolk, to wonder if he should be delighted, angry, afraid, or something for which he likely had no name-But it wasn't Tolk.

It was the Padawan, Barriss Offee.

33.

Barriss had been initially surprised to encounter Jos this far from the base. After a moment, however, she re-alized there was nothing to be surprised about. She had been wanting to talk to him, to offer him some solace for the mental and emotional turmoil she knew he was going through. It was not just her desire as a friend; it was her duty as a Jedi.

And now, here he was.

The Force does work in mysterious ways, she thought.

He didn't seem overly pleased to see her, but she could tell he wasn't keen on anybody's company right now. She reached out with the Force, found the tangled skein of his distress, stretched taut beneath his mind's surface. He was wrestling with a very different problem than his feelings about clones, but no matter-he needed quietude, and that she could provide.

Flowing with the Force, very lightly, she touched the tight, knotted strings of his dilemma, quieting their thrumming as a finger pa.s.sed over the strings of a que-tarra could subdue a chord.

He seemed surprised. He looked up, meeting her gaze with his own uncertain one.

Barriss smiled. "You are troubled, Jos," she murmured. "You are fighting your own internal war, on as many different fronts as the Republic is on Drongar. I can't solve your crises, but I can guide you to a more se-cure place, from where you can deal with them."

"Why?" he asked. "I mean-what's so special about me?"

Barriss smiled. "I could say I want to ensure your ability to perform well in the OT, and there is some-thing of that in my purpose. But mostly it's because I'm a Jedi, and a healer as well. My purpose is to aid and comfort."

Jos was silent for a moment. Then he said, "What did you mean when you said it was too late to fear falling in love with Tolk?"

"Exactly what I said. It's obvious you love her and she reciprocates. I would see it even without the Force's aid. If you don't believe me, ask any of your friends."

Jos lifted his arms in exasperation. "So everyone sees it but me?"

"One is usually blind when one is in the eye of the storm."

"But she's ekster," he whispered. "My family would be devastated."

"Most likely true."

"I'd be giving up everything-my family, my friends, my practice... and for what?"

Barriss looked at him. "For love," she said.

Jos was silent for several long minutes, his eyes down-cast. Then he heaved a great sigh and looked at Barriss.

"I can't," he said.

She nodded. She could sense his anguish, and that he spoke the truth. Perhaps it was the right decision. It was not her place to judge him, only to aid him.

"Choices of the heart are never easy," she said. She looked at the sky, saw that the sun was setting in a blaze of reds and oranges, its light reflecting off the spores in the upper atmosphere.

"It will be dark soon," she said. "Best we return to the base."

Jos glanced at his wrist chrono and nodded. "Yeah, I promised Zan I'd be back in-"

A light brighter than a dozen suns seared Barriss's vi-sion. An instant later, a giant hand lifted her, then smashed her full length into the mud.

The attack took Jos as much by surprise as it did the Jedi. At first he was not sure what had happened; only that there had been a brilliant flash of light, a deafening explosion, and when he regained his senses he found himself lying across Barriss's still-unconscious form, both of them half buried in warm mud. Not far away, in the grove of broad-leaved trees, one tree was now a shattered, smoking stump, its sap having been instantly superheated by the energy of a powerful laser blast that had turned the tree into an organic bomb. Jos's face tin-gled painfully, and he realized that his skin had been peppered by tiny splinters. It was a miracle he hadn't been blinded.

He looked up. His vision was blurry, and he was nearly deaf from the explosion, but he could see well enough to realize that a battle droid was standing on the other side of the bota field, its telescoping chest cannon still extended. It looked like it was lining up another shot.

Jos scrambled to his feet-or tried to; Drongar sud-denly seemed to be rotating in several directions at once, and he fell again, this time landing alongside Barriss. His face wound up in the mud, only a few centime-ters from hers.

He saw her open her eyes.

Another cannon blast scorched the ground a meter in front of them, ripping up rows of bota and raining frag-ments of the plant down around them.

Barriss rose to her feet-just how, Jos could not have said. She seemed to levitate-one moment she was sprawled on the ground, and the next she stood upright. Impressive as that was, however, it was nothing com-pared to her next action.

As Jos watched in astonishment, the Padawan leapt across the bota field, covering a distance of at least ten meters in a single bound. As she arced through the air toward the droid, Jos saw another flash of light. At first he thought the droid had fired again, but then he real-ized the glow came from Barriss's hand.

She had drawn her lightsaber.

Jos had seen images and holos of the Jedi weapon in use, but he had never before seen one in real life. Bar-riss's energy blade was an azure streak about a meter in length. It made a sound like a nest of angry wing-stingers, and, even over the noisome stenches borne on the breeze from the nearby swamp, he could smell the acrid scent of ozone it produced.

He watched, openmouthed, as Barriss landed next to the battle droid. Before it could fire again, she struck a single blow with the energy weapon that sheared halfway through the droid's torso. Sparks erupted, and the droid collapsed.

Jos managed to get to his feet and stay there as the Padawan deactivated her lightsaber.

Hooking it to her belt, she walked back to him, taking care to go around the bota field to avoid causing any more damage to the precious growths.

"That...," he said, at a loss for words for one of the few times in his life. "That was...

you're amazing."

She made a grimace of annoyance. "I'm an unwary amateur," she replied. "Had I been more mindful of the Force, that droid would never have gotten close enough to attack us.

"We'd better get back. I think that was a single scout that managed to penetrate our lines, but there might be more." She started back toward the base, and Jos hur-ried to keep pace with her.

"I can't believe it missed us," he said.

"It appeared to be battle-damaged; perhaps its target-ing computer was malfunctioning. In any event, I doubt such luck will be ours more than once. Best we hurry. Also, we need to get you treated-you look like you've been shaving with a raven thorn."

Jos was in ready agreement with that. Suddenly fac-ing Tolk in the OT didn't seem nearly as traumatic. This was an aspect of the war he had not been exposed to un-til now. It wasn't one he was eager to experience again.

And, of course, Zan was not impressed when he did get back.

"You're ten minutes late," he said.

"I nearly got killed by a battle droid," Jos said.

"No excuse. It didn't kill you, didn't even burn off a leg or anything."

Jos only half heard him. His mind was occupied with the memory of Barriss Offee battling the droid. She had been spectacular using that lightsaber. So far, most of the ekster women were a lot more exciting than the en-ster women he remembered back home...

34.

Jos had enough on his mind that he was paying scant attention to the chip-cards. The coins, flasks, sabers, and staves upon them held no real meaning for him. Around the table, the other players looked at their hands, brooded, or made cla.s.sic comments: "Son-of-a-bantha, who dealt this mess?" This from Zan.

"That would be me," Den said. He glanced at Jos. "I tried to cheat in your favor, Doc-didn't you get a pure?"

"Very funny," Jos replied. "If this bomb was any big-ger, they'd be calling this the Drongar asteroid field."

"Spoken like a being trying to up the bets," I-Five said.