20

Jos, my friend. How are you feeling?”

Jos looked at the minder. “Well, if truth be known, I’ve had better days. Better months. Decades.”

“Oh?”

Jos squirmed uncomfortably—a difficult task in the formchair that fought to match his every move and make the position comfortable. “You, uh, know about me and Tolk.”

The Equani steepled his fingers. “Fortunately, I have not gone blind or deaf recently.”

“Yeah, well…I thought we were flying like a landspeeder with custom harmonics. Only lately she’s… cooled.”

“How so?”

Jos sighed. Everything about Klo and his office was designed to be calming—his manner, the decor, the patient’s formchair—but Jos had yet to be able to relax when he came here. It wasn’t that he felt distrustful of Klo, or of the whole minder process, the way many of his family did. Even though he came from a long line of medics, many of his immediate ancestors looked askance upon the concept of healing through mental therapy. Though his father would never come right out and admit it, Jos knew that the senior Vandar was much more comfortable curing depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and the like with adjustments of dopamine, serotonin, and somatostatin levels, rather than by empathetic feedback. Jos told himself he didn’t share this bias, but even so, he was always tense in Merit’s office.

He wasn’t sure why he had come this time. He hadn’t had an appointment, he’d just taken advantage of Merit’s free time. He needed to bounce this problem off somebody, and his kiosk mate was not as old as some of Jos’s boots.

“Tolk and I were doing fine…then she went up to take a CME class on MedStar. She was there when the decks blew—and since she’s gotten back, she’s been frostier than the snow outside your window.”

Merit nodded. “Why do you think that is?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be here, now would I?”

“Did you two argue about anything?”

“No.”

Merit nodded, and leaned back in his own formchair, which adjusted to match his new balance and contours. “Well, the accident was distressing to a lot of people.”

“The way I heard it,” Jos said, “it wasn’t an accident.”

Merit shrugged. “I’ve heard those rumors as well. Of course, the powers-that-be might want people to think that way—after all, if it was sabotage, that lets Security off the hook. The Republic is not immune to watching-your-backside disease.”

Jos knew that. He shrugged. “Barriss says it was deliberate. I believe her.”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter for the purposes of our discussion. Whether the blowout was an accident or on purpose, it seems that the trauma of it may have hit Tolk harder than she’s letting on.”

“I’ve thought of that. But I don’t see how. We have more people die in this Rimsoo in any given month—in a week, sometimes—than died in the MedStar blast. Tolk is often working on them when they go, looking them right in the eyes. Why wouldn’t that bother her more than a bunch of people she didn’t know, and didn’t have to deal with?”

“I can’t say.” Klo paused, as if considering something.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m not a face reader, a Jedi, or a minder, Klo, but I didn’t just fall off the melbulb freighter, either. What?”

“How well do you know Tolk? I mean, yes, you’ve worked with her during your tour here, and you have established a relationship that, I assume, is physical?”

“You can assume that.”

“But—what do you know of her background? Her people, her politics, her social development?”

“What are you getting at?”

“Perhaps she has reasons to be upset that you can’t see. Perhaps there’s something in her background she hasn’t revealed to you.”

“I don’t think I like the way this conversation is going.”

The minder raised a pacifying hand. “I meant no insult to Tolk,” he said. “I’m merely suggesting that, as you point out, there would seem no ostensible reason for her to be more upset about an explosion on the MedStar than she’d be in the day-to-day goings-on here in the Rimsoo. Therefore, there could be another reason.”

Jos blinked at him. “Are you suggesting that she had something to do with it?”

“Of course not, Jos. Only that there is apparently something going on with Tolk about which you seem to be in the dark. If you had any idea what that might be, maybe you could resolve this. At the very least, you’d have more tools to work with.”

Jos brooded. “So far, I haven’t been able to get her to talk to me about anything of substance.”

“And therefore you lack enough information to make even an educated guess. You might see if you can find out more. It could be nothing serious—some past trauma connected to her family or friends that triggered old memories, for example. But until you gather more data, all you have is speculation,” Klo said. “There’s no future in that.”

Jos nodded. Klo was right. He needed to talk to Tolk about this, find out what was really bothering her. They could deal with it together, whatever it was.

Unless, of course, Tolk had had something to do with the bombing…

Jos shook his head. No way. He wasn’t sure of much these days, but he was sure that Tolk could never have anything to do with such a horrendous crime, no matter what. What healer could? Their job was to save lives, not take them.

“Thanks, Klo. I won’t take any more of your time.”

“They’re still playing cards in the cantina. I-Five was winning. Cleaned me to my daily limit,” Klo said with a smile, “which is why I’m back here.”

Jos stood. “Maybe I’ll go have a drink and play a few hands.”

“Why not?”

Jos smiled and left.

He didn’t make it as far as the cantina.

When he was halfway there, crossing the open area referred to as the Quad, he and several others braving the cold stopped in their tracks, momentarily paralyzed by an ear-smiting crack of something very much like thunder. What the—?

A moment later, the temperature began to rise. It was easy to tell the difference because it was happening so quickly.

Jos knew very little about how weather worked, but he knew that when warm air collided with cold air, things happened. And things were definitely happening now. A thick mist formed almost immediately, making it impossible to see more than a few meters ahead. He was buffeted by microbursts of wind from different directions, some hot, some cold, that whipped up flurries of melting, spore-tinged snow. Hard spatters of rain hit the ground in staccato bursts. Through the mist he could see eerie flickers of light—electrical discharges that he’d heard referred to in the past as Jedi’s Fire. It glimmered on the tips of his fingers. He stood still. The voltage required to break through the air was high, obviously, but his capacity to store a charge was relatively small. He was in no danger. He hoped…

The mist began to clear after a few moments. Jos felt the air becoming charged with moisture as the temperature continued to rise. He began to sweat, and started doffing layers of clothing: coat, vest, his outer pair of pants. Mud squished under his shoes.

“Looks like Teedle’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain,” Den Dhur’s voice said. Jos looked about, and saw the diminutive Sullustan slowly materialize as the fog thinned.

“Winter seems to be going away at a good clip.”

Jos nodded. For better or worse, the malfunctioning force-dome had apparently been repaired. And already he was missing the cold.

Another humanoid form took shape a few paces ahead. It was I-Five. The droid was looking up. Jos followed his gaze. For the first time in weeks the relentless glare of Drongar Prime was visible.

“Guess things are back to normal,” he said to I-Five.

“Indeed.”

Jos looked about the base. Icicles were dripping and disintegrating, the mud was getting deeper, and the ripe and fecund smells of the Jasserak Highlands were back with a rancid vengeance. All that was needed was the sound of incoming medlifters to provide the finishing touch.

Even as the thought crossed his mind, the heavy air began to pulse with the distant throb of repulsors.

“They’re playing our song,” he said to the droid as he turned back toward the OT. He felt unaccountably content. For better or worse, things seemed to be back to normal. No more surprises for a while, perhaps. Was that too much to ask?

Probably…

I-Five hadn’t moved. “Come on,” Jos called to him. “We’ve got jobs to do, remember?”

The droid turned and looked at Jos. The subtle light shadings of his photoreceptors gave his metallic face a look of wonder. “I remember,” he said.

Jos stopped. “You remember what?”

“I remember everything.”