Archive: Master_Apprentice - all others please ask Category:
AU, non Q/O, Angst, Romance (Qui-Gon/Curt Wild)
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers - minor for Velvet Goldmine only
Summary - Crossover: Star Wars:TPM/Velvet Goldmine. It probably
helps to have seen Velvet Goldmine. This story takes place
around 1975.
Feedback: yes, please
Disclaimers - Lucasfilms owns the Star Wars characters, Todd
Haynes owns the Velvet Goldmine characters. I didn't ask
permission to borrow them, and can only hope no one noticed
they're missing until I'm done playing with them. I'll put them
back - honest.
Author's notes on altered timelines, etc., following the story.
Part One
CURT
I was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room of
my London townhouse, with four assorted household objects
circling me like satellites - one ashtray (full of butts), one
rubber duck wearing a barbie wig (long story, okay?), a can of
Comet cleaner levitated in from the kitchen, and an almost full
glass of wine. The wine glass was really conceited of me - I'd
topped it up before I added it to the orbit. I was thinking
about adding a fifth object, maybe the big gaudy crystal
cigarette lighter on the coffee table - get it out of my reach,
you know? I was already on my fourth pack today, and my throat
was killing me.
The first four were easy to me now; I'd never successfully
added a fifth before. The ability to divide my focus wasn't
quite there yet - I just wasn't fast enough to turn my
attention to a fifth thing while still dealing with the four I
was already handling. Weird way to juggle, but it was something
to do, and it kept me off the streets.
Always in the back of my mind was that nagging hunger. It
distracted me, annoyed me. I'd been clean for two years,
almost, but the want never goes away - it's always there in the
background, a living thing, just waiting for me to weaken. I
heard someone else's voice in my mind then - the man I had come
to think of as the Master. It used to spook me that he could
talk to me without saying a word, but by now I was used to it.
I even liked it; it made me feel less alone. He was telling me
'Strength isn't the point of this exercise. Control is. Control
the strength you have.' He's told me that before.
I gave the lighter a nudge and felt it rise a few inches. I was
thinking about how to move it into my array of orbiting objects
when I felt something snap, and everything dropped to the
floor. Fuck. Wine and cigarette butts everywhere. Story of my
life.
I turned to look at the master, who was standing with his back
to me looking out the window down to the river. He turned
towards me and gave me a questioning look, while I searched for
the source of the mental snap that had broken my concentration.
And found it not in something that was there, but something
that was no longer there... the craving for smack that was a
constant part of my mind for the past seven years was simply -
gone.
"Huh?" I looked back to Qui-Gon for an explanation.
"It was distracting you - holding you back, interferring with
your training. We don't have a lot of time.' That was it - no
apology, no nothing.
I could tell the training was having some effect, though; I
didn't flare up in anger at his interference, as I would have
even a mere month ago. Instead, I was the voice of calm reason
when I said "you mean YOU don't have a lot of time. You ever
think maybe I didn't want your help?" No raised voice, just a
question.
"I know you didn't. That's one of the ... discomforts of the
powers you're being trained to use. Sometimes you'll have to
make decisions for other people, decisions that they would
prefer to make for themselves. It's a lonely path." He turned
back to the window, but not before I saw the pain on his face,
felt it in his thoughts. "There will be other wants you can't
satisfy, if that's what's bothering you."
Oh, I know there will be. There always are. I was looking at
one right now.
QUI-GON
The Republic's scouts found the labs on a remote world in the
Outer Rim well over a year ago; it was more than a month before
the first of the Jedi Intelligence Officers got there, and
they'd been working for several weeks before Obi-Wan and I
arrived to assess the situation at the behest of the Council.
There were no signs of the owner of the lab, although plenty of
signs of a hasty departure - the scouts' approach must not have
been as surreptitious as they had thought. Fortunately, enough
of the equipment remained intact for the scientists to
determine what the lab had been used for - illegal cloning of
sentient life-forms, the highest crime in the galaxy.
Further investigation through incompletely destroyed records
showed that not only had sentient beings been cloned, they had
been distributed to locations throughout time and space. And
the beings chosen for cloning had all been... Jedi.
It wasn't clear how the mysterious cloner had harvested the DNA
needed to make genetic copies of some of our most powerful
Jedi, but it needn't have been extraorinarily difficult - nerve
cells were the most generalized and the best reproducers and
would have been preferred if available. But this lab didn't
need nerve cells - a drop of sweat, a clipping of fingernail or
a scrap of skin could have been grown into a man here.
Someone, somewhere, was manufacturing an army of Jedi, and
seeding them throughout space and time for reasons we did not
yet understand. The Council determined that we needed to find
them, and if not absorb them into our society, then neutralize
them as a source of future threat to us.
It took another pair of months before all the records were
analyzed and the transit device that sent the clones to their
destinations was marginally understood - understood well enough
that the scientists thought that they could use it to send
teams to the known distribution sites. It was Force-powered -
odd, that, since it proved that the owner was an adept; either
Jedi or ... something the council wouldn't even consider,
although I suspected it was the only explanation, Sith.
Several teams used the machine to travel to locations that
ordinarily would be unreachable - some outside our universe
altogether - to bring back beings whose power in the Force
would have proved unstoppable if gathered together and deployed
by a single mind.
I was sent to a place far into our universe's future, and very
far away.
Obi-Wan was hurt that I refused to allow him to come with me.
Sometimes I wonder what he thought I did before he was my
Padawan. Sit on Coruscant writing and filing briefs and waiting
for him to find me, I think. The thought of my apprentice
brings a smile to my heart as well as a deep stabbing ache -
when we said goodbye, I could feel his anger and pain, but my
mind was fully shielded from him. I could not express my
affection for him and I may never see him again. But I couldn't
tell him my destination or my mission; I took to myself the
task of finding the only clone of himself in existence.
Some memories should never be. If I were to have to destroy the
duplicate of the one I hold most dear, I could not bear to do
so in his presence, and before his eyes.
CURT
Some days, especially days when I've been moving inanimate
objects by the sheer power of my will, I wonder if I'm living
in a perpetual acid flashback. The only problem with this
theory being that I had never touched the stuff - I was always
a connoisseur of the poppy derivatives which, while they had
drawbacks of their own, at least never repeated on you.
Another popular theory is that I've finally lost my mind
entirely, and am actually sitting in a rubber room somewhere
drooling and shitting my pants, a fate many of my old friends
confidently projected for me. I sometimes think I ought to try
to find out if I'm really sane, but then I think 'what if I'm
not; what if I've hallucinated the whole thing and there's no
Qui-Gon Jinn, no Jedi Knights, no Force in the universe'. I
don't much want to live in that universe - I've been there and
it's boring, so I leave well enough alone.
First time I saw him, I was about to have my future erased out
in back of a SoHo bar.
I'd gone there looking for love, or at least a reasonable
substitute - a perpetual quest of mine; I was rich, and could
have paid for it, but my ego, as usual, was my downfall... I
still like to pretend to myself that it's really the essential
me they're interested in. And I can usually find some barely
legal kid who had some important coming-of-age moments to a
sound-track supplied by my later hits, who will recognize me
and be thrilled to be screwed by a Rock Star, however much a
Has Been he may be.
This time, the kid was a plant; the sweet-faced younger brother
of a particularly nasty skinhead whose hobby was fairy-bashing.
When I followed the apparently willing young man out to the
alley for some quiet conversation, I found myself facing a half
dozen really ugly guys who were looking forward to showing me
the error of my ways.
The leader of the pack had gotten a couple punches to my
kidneys and the only thing holding me up was the wall, when I
heard the distinctive snick of switchblades being opened and
thought: oh shit... if I survived this evening, I was quite
likely to at least wind up missing some of my favorite body
parts.
That's when I saw him. I wondered if I'd actually prayed to my
mother's primitive god, since someone had sent an Archangel to
me. Flaming sword, flowing robes, long Old Testament hair - the
works; I'd always just assumed the flaming sword was, like, a
metaphor for something, like the wrath of god or divine
tribution, you know? Was it Gabriel who had a flaming sword?
The sword burned green and hummed; it changed notes as he moved
it. The Skinheads had all turned away from me at the sound (and
I took that as my cue to slide boneless to the ground) to look
at this intruder, wondering if he could be taken. Fucking
morons. You don't take on an Archangel - this would be what you
might call a bad move. Seeing their hesitation, the Angel
casually took a swipe at a trash-bin, and sliced it into two
halves that glowed molten at the edges. Cool... I wondered
where I could get a sword like that.
I shook my head to clear it, and noticed that all the punks had
left behind were the echos of their departing boots. But the
Archangel remained, and he was holding out a hand to help me to
my feet. The sword was now nothing but a flashlight-looking
thing hanging on his belt.
"You're Curt Wild", the Angel said, and I admitted that I was
before I stopped to consider that being recognized by an angel
(and an Archangel at that) was probably a sign of my impending
death.
"I'm Qui-Gon Jinn", he went on, "and we have to talk."
QUI-GON
I could have let one of the other teams collect the Obi-Wan
clone - My old master Yoda wasn't the only one who thought I
was too close to the situation. A more impartial knight would
find it easier to be able to deal with what I would probably
have to do. But I had my reasons.
Most of the other clones were relatively nearby, and could be
retrieved young enough that perhaps they could be trained at
the academy and become full Jedi, but this one would be,
according to our best estimates, somewhere between twenty and
thirty at the nearest space/time node available to send the
retrieval team. And he had a Force-strength equal to Obi-Wan's.
Training such a one in the Jedi arts would be almost sure to
result in a very powerful, very dangerous rogue.
I believed, though, that none of the other few Jedi cleared for
information of this operation would give the Obi-Wan clone a
chance; he'd be dead the moment they assessed his powers, and
his unavoidable lack of control over them. I knew I was the
only one who would at least try to ascertain if he was
salvagable.
Yes, I was too close to the situation, but it couldn't be
helped.
It was clear from the moment I met the man that he had an
amazing amount of strength, and also clear that he had no idea
that he did. Having frightened off a gang of cut-throats who
had some kind of grudge against him, I draped his arm over my
shoulders and helped him to the main street where we could find
transportation, and allowed him to give the driver directions
to his home. And I climbed into the vehicle with him, whereupon
he sagged against my shoulder, buried his face in my neck, and
didn't move again until the cabby pulled up at the address he
had been given.
I had to haul the young man out of the vehicle, and fumble in
his pockets looking for currency with which to pay the driver;
this set him off in a fit of laughter and some fortunately
unintelligible speech.
Piloting him to the door and searching him again for keys to
the house seemed to wake him up, at least enough for him to try
to pin me to the wall, but I was quicker and got the door
opened and retreated within. He managed to make it as far as
the main room, at which point I applied a little mind-balm and
he collapsed onto a long, ornate sofa, and promptly fell
asleep.
CURT
Well, he'd certainly given me the cue I needed. I arose from
the floor, stepping over the litter to grab my cigarettes, and
lighting one, said "Since you brought it up... making other
people's decisions for them..."
He turned resignedly to face me, and waited - he'd clearly been
expecting this.
"I was just wondering. Were you planning on ASKING me if I
wanted to wind up back in your galaxy after we manage to set
off this switch thing? Or were you going to surprise me?"
I looked for signs of guilt on his face, and wasn't surprised
not to find any. The man was impervious - was he even human?
"You must have known that I couldn't give you this kind of
training and then leave you here." His voice was mild.
"Well, sure; that's what made me ask. I mean, it looks like I'm
doing you a favor, helping you work the trigger thing, and you
didn't even tell me what it would mean. It's selfish, and you
don't strike me as a selfish man." Something was still not
right - I still lacked some piece of information that would
make it all make sense. "What aren't you telling me?"
He sighed, and looked away. A sign of guilt, maybe, at last?
"You're right, of course. The fact is, you were going to have
to return with me even if I didn't need your help to do it. You
see, you came from where we'll be returning to - you never
should have been here in the first place, on this world where
the indigenous race has no Force sense whatsoever."
Oh, that was low. Every adopted kid's secret fantasy - you do
not really belong here. Your real parents are royalty and you
are just hidden here for your own safety, but once the danger
is past, Mommy and Daddy will send a powerful wizard to bring
you back to them. I couldn't speak for a few minutes.
"Okay, assuming for a minute that I did come from wherever it
is you are from. That doesn't necessarily mean I want to GO
there." I was really pushing with this - I'd kill to see this
other place. But I didn't like not being given the choice.
He saw right through me, of course. He always did, damn him.
"You don't want to go?" he asked innocently.
"I didn't say that, I just said that it didn't have to follow."
I hadn't heard it all, though. "So what else aren't you telling
me?"
He smiled at this, rather proud of my intuition, I thought.
"It's getting harder and harder to keep things from you, Curt;
you've learned a lot in a relatively short period."
"Uh-huh?" I prodded impatiently. "What's the rest of it?"
That's the first time I'd ever heard the word 'clone'.
QUI-GON
I would never have recognized him in the smoky tavern if he
hadn't been wearing the Force like a tattered but glorious
cloak; with long blond hair obscuring his face and a brooding
expression, his resemblance to Obi-Wan wasn't readily apparent.
But the Force wrapping him in gilded splendor was so strong as
to be almost visible to the naked eye. He ought to have been
surrounded by adoring disciples, but he appeared unaware that
something set him apart from his fellow drinkers.
I looked in vain for something that would remind me of Obi-Wan;
it was only when he collapsed against me in the cab and twined
his arms around me that I felt, not saw, the similarity. So too
would a much younger Obi-Wan have slept in my arms on long
journeys, before his maturity gave him too much dignity to hug
his master.
I had known before I managed to locate the man that I was going
to have to try to train him; at least if I ever wanted to see
my home again. The transit device that the retrieval teams had
used was rapidly decaying, and I was the last to risk the
journey. Yoda counselled against my making the attempt, arguing
that this last seedling was at least far enough from the
Republic that if he were to pose a threat to us, it could be
centuries, even millenia, before we had to face it. But I
wasn't to be reasoned with.
It was the thought of MY Obi-Wan coming of age in inhospitable
soil that drove me, although reason told me this was not
Obi-Wan, but a different individual all together. Looking at
him lying relaxed under my induced sleep, I could now trace the
physical similarities. But for the rest - I felt sick at heart
at what life had done to this one. I couldn't help but ask
myself: what would have happened to Obi-Wan if I had continued
to stubbornly resist taking him as my apprentice. Would he now
be encased in a bitter shell of cynicism and distrust, instead
of showing his heart in the open for all to see?
Running a thumb over the sleeping man's cheekbone, I sent a
thought to gently feel along the surface of his mind and
quailed at what I found there. Completely feral, no discipline
and almost no hope. I wondered: would I be committing a crime
to train this one? Would future generations use my name as a
curse for the gift I was going to reveal to this stranger?
I eased myself down into a meditative position to think.
Options were few. I either killed him as quickly and humanely
as possible, and spent the rest of my life here, or I allowed
him to remain in ignorance of his powers (again spending the
rest of my life here) or I trained him to control his natural
talents, allowing us both to escape this place, to who knows
what future.
A Jedi is always prepared for the possibility that he must
sacrifice himself for the good of the many. But which path led
to the best outcome? Could I make myself see down each road? I
entered the seeing state, and tried to follow each possibility
to its conclusion. I wandered a long while down turnings too
numerous to count, but each option presented far too many
outcomes; it was impossible to be able to tell for sure what
was the best thing to do.
"Don't think, feel", I finally told myself. And my heart told
me what to do.
CURT
I'd heard the name Obi-Wan before, of course. Not right away,
although I did question the guy closely when I woke up almost
six months ago to find the 'angel' had pretty much taken up
residence. He didn't mention his apprentice then, though.
No, it was after we'd been training for several weeks that I
finally got up the nerve to probe further. I sometimes caught
him studying me closely like he was trying to figure out who or
what I was; it made me nervous, and excited at the same time.
So I finally worked up the courage to ask.
He told me then that I reminded him of someone dear to him. His
'padawan' or apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi. That was all he said
then, that I REMINDED him of Obi-Wan, not that we were
identical. It was clear that this Obi-Wan guy meant a lot to
him, and I'd been really disappointed at my lack of success (so
far!) in getting Qui-Gon into bed with me, and figured this was
probably why.
"You guys lovers?" I asked, trying to pretend I didn't care one
way or the other.
Qui-Gon smiled and shook his head. "No, Curt. He's my padawan,
and it is forbidden. I hope that when he passes his trials,
though..." I could feel the wistful hope; it made me feel both
sad and unbearably turned on.
Ah. An opening? I moved a shade too close to him and said "I'm
not your padawan."
I could not have been mistaken - there was desire in his eyes
when he looked at me. And he didn't step away. Instead, he
touched my face lightly and said "but it would be a violation
of a trust relationship just the same, Curt, and that I cannot
do."
Well, he was clear on what I was asking, anyway. I can't say I
was ever very subtle. "Look, I'm here and he's not, and even if
he was, you apparently have this rule that says you can't have
him. But you can have me. I'm willing enough, and there's sure
nothing sacred about MY ass." I was running my hands over his
chest now, trying to figure out the fastenings of the tunic,
leaning in to kiss his elegant and tempting throat. "So settle
for once. Pretend I'm him if you want to - I won't care."
Oh fuck. He recoiled like I'd slugged him, and turned away from
me. "Master!" For once I was using the title without being
ironic. "What did I say? What?" I was holding on to his arm,
trying to turn him back toward me so I could see his face.
He resisted with ease, instead pulling my head to his chest
with one hand and putting his other arm around me and holding
me tightly against him. "If you wouldn't care, my dear, you
should. But you're lying, you know." And of course he was
right. He allowed me to wrap both arms around his waist, and we
stood like that for a good ten minutes, with his cheek pressed
to my forehead, while I listened to the steady calming beat of
his heart and tried to emulate his control. Then he
disentangled himself gently from me and left the room. And left
me to recognize that I'd only imagined I had any idea what love
was before that day...
So, yeah, I knew who Obi-Wan was. At least in general. But that
wasn't the same as knowing that I was just a copy of him. And
that Qui-Gon's concern was not for me per se, but for the one
whose genes that I represented.
Still, I think I was being pretty cool with a fairly disturbing
concept. Until I finally did some simple math...
Qui-Gon said Obi-Wan had been his apprentice for ten years, and
was now twenty-three. Well, I was twenty-five. So just who WAS
the copy, anyway? For some reason, I got all excited at the
prospect that I was the original and his beloved Obi-Wan
was nothing but a copy of ME. As if that would mean anything.
Like I'd inherit Obi-Wan's life or something, by sheer
primogeniture. But then he pointed out that since time-travel
was involved, cause and effect were no longer linear, and it
was pretty clear that it was the copies that were distributed,
and so on. So I had to give up on the idea of being the
original Obi-Wan, which was just as well, since it wouldn't
have meant anything anyway. It was the other one who'd spent
ten years with Qui-Gon, not me.
Ten years; and twenty-three. That meant that Obi-Wan had
apprenticed to Qui-Gon when he was ... thirteen. I started to
feel a dark emotion growing within me. THIRTEEN. Obi-Wan was
starting to learn to be a knight in his thirteenth year, while
I... It was sheer self-pity that was engulfing me, with a black
and terrible fury following close behind.
I could feel my throat tighten as unshed tears made my vision
swim. "Obi-Wan became your apprentice when he was thirteen?" I
managed to ask.
He nodded, puzzled at my admittedly-extreme reaction. "A few
weeks shy of his thirteenth birthday... why?"
I could feel the storm about to break, and it frightened me
almost as much as it thrilled me. "You wanna know what I
was doing when I was thirteen, MASTER? Huh? While you were
drilling your little twit apprentice in laser sword-play and
mind-tricks?"
I was hissing my words in his face, the angry tears finally
spilling over to run down my face. "You know what I was doing
with every friend my older brother brought home? Every high
school teacher and football player who said I had pretty eyes?
You know what I was doing?" He said nothing, but his eyes were
sad. "I was looking for YOU, that's what the hell I was doing.
Looking for YOU in every lying son-of-a-whore who told me he
loved me. Where the fuck WERE you?" I was screaming now, nearly
blind with rage. "Where the fuck were you when I was
thirteen?"
He reached out to touch my face then, but I batted his hand
away. I was scaring myself now - if I stayed there, I'd hit
him, and if I hit him, I'd kill him. So I ran. Out the house
and into the night, running away from the man I loved, and the
man I hated ran with me.
QUI-GON
I'd never had the experience of training of an adult adept
before - no Jedi had, Master or otherwise. Midichlorian testing
was universal for infants in the Republic, and even in the
Outer Rim and less civilized parts of the galaxy, parents were
quite willing to test their children, since a Jedi in the
family is usually a path to a better life.
Some things I expected - certain Force manipulation skills are
better taught to very young children, as they learn their gross
and fine motor coordination, since the skills are analogous. So
Curt's ability to manipulate things at a distance would never
achieve the dexterity of those taught in childhood. Other
skills, such as the Seeing, that were thought to be best taught
as an infant's language acquisition center was at its most
active (usually starting at six months of age in humans), Curt
picked up almost immediately. I wondered if his musical
abilities had left his language acquisition active, and would
have liked to have the resources of the Academy to test him
during training - there was a lot we didn't know about
Force-skills acquisition, apparently.
I was mistaken about his lack of discipline, though. If
something mattered to him, he would concentrate on it for hours
at a time, sometimes needing to be reminded that sleep and food
were required. What mattered to him appeared to be his music
(he could sit on the floor and pluck strange, and to my ear,
dissonant chords on his guitar for an entire day) and what
little computer technology that this civilization supported; I
often discovered him keying messages into a primitive keyboard
to send to remote 'bulletin boards' where others like him
touted their favorite brands of equipment and argued over whose
reputation at 'picking' was the most undeserved. He seemed to
enjoy these pointless arguments enormously, and after reading a
few of the dialogues, I was reminded of the endless debates on
the council on the exact translation of various parts of the
code, such as the meaning of 'serenity'.
I shamelessly made use of his burgeoning affection for me to
inspire him to wish to learn what I needed to teach him.
Shamelessly? No, in fact, I felt a great deal of shame at how I
was manipulating the boy. But it couldn't be helped, and
perhaps he would someday forgive me, whether or not I would
ever forgive myself.
He had one quality that Yoda would certainly have approved of -
he was absolutely without fear. Fear was Yoda's major bugbear,
although I found his insistance on its dangers overstated. Fear
is a useful emotion; it keeps us from doing foolishly dangerous
things. Uncontrolled fear, of course, and fear that is baseless
- these are the most perilous emotions. But to have no fear -
that is a pathology in itself. I have only seen the lack in
very young children who believe that they are immortal, and
now, here, in a man who knew very well that he was mortal and
was glad of it.
Although his physical resemblance to Obi-Wan was now to me
quite extraordinary (and quite troubling to my senses, given my
long-held feelings for my apprentice), he was clearly
individual, separate and apart. I had taken on the duty of
dealing with Curt out of concern for my padawan's potential
feelings of misplaced responsibility for his genetic double; my
own feelings soon took the lead. There was a great deal to
admire in this lost Jedi, and a great deal to fear. But it was
impossible to remain untouched. My goal became to instill
within my new student the sense of his own worth that his
life-experiences had robbed him of. But I was making a complete
botch of it, mainly due to the impossibility of giving him the
physical love that was all he wanted from me, the only
affection he understood.
CURT
I wandered for what must have been miles along the river,
alternating between an urge to lose myself in the murky waters,
and an equally strong urge to set London ablaze and laugh and
sing while I watched it burn. Eventually, I found myself
cooling, and I could think again. It wasn't fair, I knew that,
to blame Qui-Gon for my miserable life - he wasn't its author.
This led me to wonder who was, and what his plans for his
ill-gotten children had been. I paused for a moment to wonder
how I was so sure that Qui-Gon's story to me was true - he
could have invented the whole thing, and if he'd been anyone
else, that would have been my default assumption, given how
outlandish the tale was, although it was clear to me now that
there was something to this whole Force thing, at least.
But something in Qui-Gon made me trust him implicitly and
completely, and I was ashamed of how I'd blown up at him. By
this time, my wandering feet had led me back to my own quiet
neighborhood, so I took myself to my local pub for a beer and
some thinking.
Now it's a strange thing to contemplate, but I'm a very rich
man, much richer than you would think, if you had followed my
career - richer than the Beatles, if you can believe that. I
keep expecting my wealth to draw the greedier element from my
past back into my life again, but so far, I've been lucky, in
that at least.
The whole money thing is another proof that Qui-Gon's story is
true, now that I think back on it. See, I knew, somehow I just
knew, that I was probably not going to be a major star for much
longer - my moment was almost past, my kind of music being
overtaken. I was as surprised as anyone when the record Jack
and I cut in Berlin went platinum, and that my older albums
started selling briskly to the new fans it gave me. And an
interesting by-product of Brian's fake assassination stunt was
that fans furious with him for what they saw as his betrayal of
them rallied around ME as another victim of Maxwell Demon's
ego. Which translated into buying my records, attending my
concerts, and in general transferring their affections, however
temporarily, to their fallen idol's discarded lover. It was
sort of cute, when you think about it.
And it did make for very healthy royalties checks for a few
quarters. After a few of these found their way into my bank
account, I made a point of visiting a stockbroker the next time
I was in New York. And here's where the Force-thing comes in. I
had intended to buy into some of the more established record
labels and maybe take a chance on some newer ones; something to
provide some income when I was no longer selling records.
Old-man thinking, maybe, but who wants to be looking for work
after having been a rock-star?
I thought I'd buy into Decca, my own label (very shortly to
dump me, though I didn't know that at the time) and see if the
Beatles' label was being publically traded. But when I went to
make my wishes known to the supercilious guy at the brokerage
whose name, alarmingly, was Trevor, I found myself asking him
'Can I buy shares in a company called DEC?' I did not then know
what caused me to say DEC rather than Decca, although I think I
get it now.
His expression changed from superiority to suspicion. "Digital
Equipment Corporation? Good choice - they're rated a best buy,
and are still considered undervalued," he told me. "Their
PDP-11 series is dominating the mini-market right now; they'll
go up quite a bit in the next few years." I got the feeling he
wasn't talking about skirts.
"Okay, get me some of that," I instructed, scribbling orders on
an order sheet he'd earlier provided me - it just felt right,
even if I didn't understand it. "How 'bout 'Apple'?", I went
on.
Now he was looking at me with something bordering on awe; I
probably wasn't what he was used to seeing sitting in the guest
chair in his swank yet depressingly dreary office, but suddenly
my artfully threadbare bluejeans, leather jacket and long hair
was less important than what I was saying. "Their Initial
Public Offering has been announced and will be available in two
weeks," he told me. "They're going to be a very important
player in the home computer market. If you'd like to risk some
funds in more aggressive investments, they're a very good bet
to make significant returns."
"Okay, throw half the stash at them - I'm up for a gamble," I
instructed, and a fortune was born. During the past year or
two, Trevor has decided that he has stumbled across the idiot
savant of Wall Street, and has made his own fortune following
my lead. I think he tips his friends when I come up with
another 'fortuitous guess'; some guy from the Wall Street
Journal has been trying to interview me about the 'high-tech'
market for months.
But so far, I'd been able to keep my affluence from my
acquaintances in the music industry - I've been around that
block enough to realize what a mistake that would be.
But tonight, of all possible nights, my luck ran out. I was on
my third beer and thinking about how to apologize to Qui-Gon
when someone sat in the chair across the table from me, and
said gently "hello, Curt", and I looked up to find Brian Slade
looking at me with a definite come-on in his bedroom-blue eyes.
QUI-GON
I had to significantly amend the traditional training a youth
would receive at the Temple to fit the altered circumstances;
some things drilled into the young trainees from early infancy
on I simply dropped for lack of time. I made one very
significant deviation from the standard curriculum for other
reasons - I never alluded, in any of my teachings on using the
Force, to the perils of the Dark Side.
My omission was quite deliberate. Having assessed Curt's
personality in the first few days of our acquaintance, I
realized that the Dark Side would in all probability prove to
be considerably more seductive to one who was not noted for his
ability to withstand temptation. I also feared that his
complete lack of self-regard would lead him to experiment too
close to the dangerous edge between light and dark if he knew
that the edge was there.
So I chose to delete all reference to the dangers when
discussing the use of the Force, and kept a close watch on his
emotions, meaning to intervene if I felt him stray too close to
the drop-off.
And now, after his angry explosion and precipitous departure, I
was closely following his progress through the mental link we
maintained, praying to all the gods that ever were that he
would not think to assay the Force while his emotions were so
unruly. I could tell when the black mood began to lift, and
could feel his progress back towards me. I debated remaining
where I was and allow him to remain ignorant of my
watchfulness. But I couldn't be easy in my mind, and set out to
intercept him.
CURT
I closed my eyes for a second, but when I opened them again, he
was still there, apparently wondering whether or not I meant to
acknowledge him or totally ignore him. I briefly considered
just standing up and walking out the door, but instead said
"hello, Brian" in less than welcoming tones.
"What are you drinking? another?" he asked, but he was already
moving towards the bar to pick up a pair of beers before I
could protest that I was just on my way out.
I sent a tiny 'radar' pulse down the mental link to Qui-Gon;
just a sounding to see where he was. I was glad to note that he
was apparently headed this way, and I sent hey, I may need
bailing out here to him, and felt his mental nod.
Then Brian was back with the beer, making himself at home and
lighting up a cigarette before looking back at me and saying,
"So. Curt. You're looking good. REALLY good... What's your
secret?"
I took a long swallow of beer to give myself some thinking-time
before answering. "Yoga, man. I'm really getting into it - you
ought to try it."
He really seemed puzzled by something, so I took the
unwarranted liberty of sending a thought-tendril to track down
the source of his surprise. And there it was on the surface of
his mind - a rumor reported in Variety a few weeks back that
had me on my deathbed in a hospital in Bonn. Hepatitis-related
liver-failure, the strangely-specific gossip item reported. I
hadn't kept up with the music media - this was news to me.
I did my best impression of a Qui-Gon-Mystery-Smile, and said
softly, "Don't believe everything you read."
"I guess not." Brian clearly thought I had read the rumor,
perhaps even planted the rumor. "When someone told me they
thought they saw you here once or twice, I thought maybe I'd
just.. you know, stop in and see if you really were back in
Blighty."
I said nothing, just looked at him with a 'yeah, here I am -
so?' look. What was I doing sitting here? I wondered. Did I
actually expect to live the fantasy - you know the one I'm
talking about - the one where the old lover returns and begs to
be taken back? Just so you can, kindly or cruelly, spurn their
offer and walk away?
"So... you up to any good music lately?" Brian tried valiantly,
I'll give him that. We were going to have a conversation
whether I actively participated or not.
"Uh... Going in a lot of different directions, actually. I'm in
a growth thing right now... still studying." Well, this much
was certainly true.
He was leading up to something, but so far, I wasn't sure what
it was. There were definite sexual undertones, but that was
just the subtext. The main theme was still obscured, but Brian
was nervous and excited about something.
"I've been thinking it's time I got back to the studio," he
said, nonchalantly. I wondered what he'd think of the lavish
rich-man's playground of a studio I had installed in my
basement last year. "You got anything going you'd like a
collaborator on? Your stuff with Jack was really good, and I
feel really stupid to have let Jack get you on vinyl rather
than me."
Man, he was really going for it, wasn't he? "Um. Well, Bri...
my music is sort of in a state of flux right now - I'm trying a
lot of things, but nothing's 'studio-ready', you know? Messing
with strings, and with some weird asian scales and stuff...
Probably too experimental for the mainstream market. And I
don't even have a label now."
Brian assumed a blissful expression. "Oh, for the freedom to
experiment. You inspire me, Curt, really you do." Yeah, like
his whole career wasn't just one long experiment - in
marketting. "And everybody knows YOU don't need a label to back
you."
"Oh yeah?" This was bad. This was really bad. "Just what does
everybody know?" While I was talking, I was scanning the other
patrons of the bar, looking for someone... yeah, there, at the
corner table where no light penetrated, invisible to someone
not using a Force-eye to search, sat Jerry Devine, clearly
following our conversation.
People usually don't bring their business managers along when
looking for an old friend or a hot date. Just to confirm my
suspicions, I did something Qui-Gon had told me was deeply
unethical - I probed deeply into Brian's thoughts to see what
he was really up to.
And there it was. Money, of course. He was deep in debt, and
needed backing if he was ever going to record again. He'd come
looking for me thinking to find a drunk, drugged (but rich)
recluse who would welcome his attentions. But now not too
shabby at all I heard him thinking, eying me speculatively.
definitely in better shape that expected; taking this boy to
bed isn't going to be as bad as I thought.
He was leaning across the table saying slyly "You know what I
mean" when I felt the black and terrible fury return all at
once, without notice - the fury I thought had dissipated
harmlessly over the Thames. And it felt good! It felt really
FUCKING good.
I leaned back in my chair and without laying a hand on him,
started to crush his windpipe, smiling a delighted smile as I
watched him gasping for breath. What a rush this Force-stuff
was turning out to be.
QUI-GON
I was still a few blocks from the local when I felt the
darkness descend on him, and then suddenly, I could no longer
feel him; the only link in my mind was my far-too-tenuous
contact with my Padawan, too tenuous for communication, just a
thread that continually reassured me that he still existed. The
link I had forged with Curt was suddenly gone - I couldn't feel
him at all.
I ran pellmell down the street towards the pub, hoping I'd get
there in time to still be able to draw him back, ignoring all
the looks, smiles and shouts caused by my unusual behavior and
attire. As I entered the smoky den, I saw a cluster of patrons
hovering nervously about one of the tables.
Parting the crowd with a wave of my hand, I saw: one young man
with parti-colored hair, gasping vainly for breath, his eyes
bugging out in the effort. One stout middle-aged man crouched
beside the choking man, loosening his collar, shouting for a
doctor...
And across the table, slumped back in his chair, his eyes
half-closed, a dreamy yet somehow feral smile on his face, was
Curt. Still alive, thank the Force, but clearly already walking
on the Dark Side.
I put my hand on his shoulder, sinking into the vacant chair
beside him, calling his name both physically and mentally, but
he didn't hear me, he didn't turn to me, or look at me. I took
his face between my hands and forced him to face me, but his
unfocused eyes were not tracking. Still the physical contact
helped - now I could faintly discern his mind with mine, but he
was quickly fading beyond my powers to reach. So I took a
desperate chance, and threw all the love I bore for him down
the link towards him, knowing he could then easily, if he
chose, pull me in after him. I increased the strength of our
connection by covering his mouth with my own, and sent wave
after wave of love and respect and desire...
I was almost immediately rewarded - the man across the table
gave a great gasping whoop as air rushed back into his lungs,
and I felt Curt's hands tangled in my hair, his tongue suddenly
caressing mine, and I wanted nothing so much as to fall to the
floor with him underneath me, take him then and there,
penetrate him, claim him.
But of course I couldn't. I reluctantly broke free, and
captured both his roving hands in mine, and immediately
addressed the issue that had sent him running furiously from
me. "Curt, listen to me. In objective time, we only found the
labs a year ago. I only learned of your existence seven months
ago. I immediately made plans to come for you. I did not desert
you - I came as soon as I knew."
The love in his eyes, in his thoughts, threatened to overwhelm
my hard-won restraint. "I know you did. I really do. It's not
you; it's all the rest of it. It's just... it's all so shitty,
you know?" He brought our joined hands up to his face and
nuzzled the backs of my hands, kissed them. I freed one hand to
stroke his hair.
Curt sat up in his chair and addressed the man across from him.
"Hey, Brian - you really ought to quit smoking if you can't get
that asthma under control." He was grinning.
This brought the attention of both men back to Curt and I. The
older man was still working on the younger one - offering him
water, supporting him upright. He glared at Curt and I and said
"What did you DO to him, you creepy little faggot?"
I could feel Curt gleefully reaching to the other side again,
so I put an arm around his shoulders while sending him a very
stern no! He looked puzzled, but fortunately obeyed me,
dropping his head to his shoulder to rest his cheek on my hand.
The choked man was sitting up on his own, now, pushing the
other man away. He looked at me, trying to figure out how I fit
into the picture - I'd left the house in my Jedi tunic, rather
than the bluejeans and jacket Curt had bought and insisted I
wear when in public to prevent just this kind of reaction.
Rubbing his throat, he croaked "Who's this?" to Curt.
Curt looked up at me and laughed; he was so beautiful I had to
briefly close my eyes. "This is .. uh, this is my guru,
Qui-Gon," he said. "Qui-Gon, meet old 'friends'" (and I could
hear the quote marks) "Brian Slade and Jerry Devine."
"Thrilled, I'm sure," the man called Jerry said disgustedly.
"Now if you don't mind, Brian, can we get out of here? You need
to see a doctor."
We watched their stumbling progress towards the door, and as
the older man was opening it to usher his charge outside, Curt
let loose a manic laugh, and exaggerating his American accent
to the point of parody yelled after them "Y'all stay in touch,
now, y'hear?"
CURT
This was definitely going to rate up there as one of the most
schizo days I had ever lived through. I was still reeling from
the undisputable knowledge of Qui-Gon's love for me, and was
not quite ready to wrap my head around what he was saying.
We were back at last at the house, and I was sitting at his
feet in the library, like a good little apprentice, while he
was trying to explain to me why I couldn't use this great new
source of power I'd just tapped into.
"Wait a minute," I begged. "I'm not following you here. There's
this enormous reservoir of power just sitting there and you're
telling me I can't use it? You can't use it? What's the sense
of that?" I was starting to think that the Jedi as a group,
however unbearably sexy the representative before me was,
weren't the universe's greatest in the brains department.
Qui-Gon looked sad; it really bothers me when he does that, and
I think he knows it, too. "Curt, you were angry when you found
the source, weren't you?"
"Damned right I was." I still get pissed just thinking about
that asshole Brian and his ass-wipe manager.
"Using the Force to pursue your anger is a direct path to the
Dark Side," Qui-Gon told me. "Other paths exist, but anger is
the easiest, the most seductive, the most powerful. You have to
be on guard at all times; if you use the Force in anger, you
will be lost to us forever."
"That old eternal damnation schtick?" I rolled my eyes. "You're
still not telling me what's WRONG with it."
Qui-Gon sighed. "We know so little about the Dark Side. People
who venture there never return to us, and all we have to judge
by are the effect they have on the rest of society. But that is
enough. Hatred, greed, anger, blood-lust; these are the only
realities on the Dark Side."
I snorted, unimpressed. "Sounds like New York... Or Hollywood.
The music industry. Wall Street. Come on - scare me, already."
Qui-Gon was most definitely not in the mood to be amused. "If
you were to be lost to the Dark Side, I would have to kill you,
Curt. I don't want to have to do that."
Whoa! That's some serious shit! Especially coming from a guy
who presents a really mild facade, when he's not kicking butt.
"But why? I still don't understand what's so BAD about it?" I
was starting to suspect he didn't really know; that he was just
repeating what he'd been told.
Rather than answering, he said, "Tell me what it was like, on
the Dark Side. You were angry, and reached for power in the
Force, is that right?"
"Yeah. I was seriously P.O.'ed - I wanted to make Brian look
silly and feel like the shit he is. But when I grabbed a
handful of that stuff, it was like.... " I thought back. "...
like I could do anything, go anywhere, KNOW anything, just by
wanting to. Brian was just a bug I could crush if I felt like
it. And it felt really good! Like a rush, you know? Better than
sex. Better than heroin, even." Damn, now I was getting a
craving for another hit of that dark side stuff. Better stop
thinking about it.
"Could you feel anyone else there?" Qui Gon asked. "Could you
feel me in your mind?"
This was harder - I thought deeply, but all I could remember
was: "No, I only felt you there at the end, when you... you
know, kissed me." Now THAT had felt good too. Better? I wasn't
sure...
Now Qui-Gon was bending down, looking at me, taking my chin in
his hand to make sure I was looking at him. "Curt, this is
serious. If you are trapped on the Dark Side, you will be all
alone. Can you understand this? There is no one else there, you
are cut off. Other people, even others with you on the Dark
Side, will only exist as shadows that you can interact with but
can't feel. Do you know, can you imagine what that's like?
There is no love there. There can't be. No love at all."
I was stunned by his vehemence. And I really didn't feel much
like arguing about it. "Okay, look - I'll stipulate that your
... order, or whatever, probably has more knowledge, or at
least more 'lore' about this Dark Side stuff, and there must be
some reason why it's verboten. So now that I know it's a bad
thing, I'll avoid it. Okay? I just wish you'd warned me about
it before." Qui-Gon looked somewhat suspicious at my easy
capitulation. He was probably right to be suspicious. I knew
that if I had to, I'd quickly overcome my readily-given
half-promise.
"So." I sat back on my feet, steeling myself to launch a new
attack. "Can we move on to Topic B?"
Qui-Gon looked, if possible, even more wary. "Topic B?"
"Topic B. Comes after Topic A. Look... I ... um..." I could
feel that I was blushing like a virgin. "That kiss. I want to
talk about that kiss."
"Yes?" God, he wasn't going to help me a bit, was he?
"And the feelings that went with it... you couldn't fake those,
could you?" I was holding my breath.
"No, Curt. You can't fake those." Qui-Gon smiled. "Those were
real."
"Then you do love me." I was trying not to appear too pathetic,
but I don't know if I was succeeding.
"Yes, I do love you." Period. Man, it's like getting blood from
a turnip...
"Okay; you love me - I could feel that. And you want me. That
was there too."
"All there," Qui-Gon agreed.
"Then... You're going to have to explain to me why we can't...
because I want..." I stumbled to a halt. Damn, I'm smooth.
Qui-Gon sighed, and did that sad-look thing again. I HATE that.
"Curt, when our lips met, what did it feel like?"
What did it feel like? Was he even THERE? or was this one of
those learning moments? I hate the Socratic method. "It felt
like... it was the most wonderful... it was like you were all
around me and inside me and we were everywhere together. I
can't tell you how much I liked it - I want MORE." I captured
one of his hands and buried my mouth in his palm.
Qui-Gon used his free hand to stroke my face gently. "When two
Force-adepts share a physical bond, it creates or strengthens a
mental bond. It's a very powerful, very wonderful thing." He
paused, and appeared to be considering his words very
carefully. "If we two were to share ourselves completely with
one another..." and didn't THAT quaint phrase make me hot? "...
we would create a soul-bond between us - a connection that
would tie us together mentally, somewhat like the training bond
we now feel. Only rather than just directed thoughts, we would
share emotions and sensations at the deepest level."
"That sounds pretty cool, actually. What's the down-side?"
Damn, I wanted to kiss him in the worst way.
"There is no down-side, love." The endearment made me shiver.
"But the bond is permanent. Eternal. Insoluble. And you can
only form one soul-bond, ever."
I felt the sun go out, the roof cave in, all manner of madness
and sadness descend on me in a heap. Suddenly I got where he
was going with this. "And you are saving your one soul-bond for
Obi-Wan." He just nodded. Then he was stroking my hair as I
buried my head in his lap.
Did you ever have one of those days where you wish you'd just
died in your sleep the night before?
QUI-GON
I slid off the chair onto the floor and scooped him into my
arms, murmuring meaningless words of comfort in a fruitless
effort to sooth the tormented man sobbing against my chest. We
had to do something soon, or both of us would go mad.
I sent a sleep tendril into his mind, curling it tenderly
around his pain, while wishing there was someone who could
perform the same service for me. I tugged gently at the thread
connecting me to my Padawan, just to remind him of my continued
existance, wishing I could send my thoughts to him, and he
could send his to me. 'Obi-Wan', I sent the thought pointlessly
into the vacuum, 'what will you make of this dark brother? Will
you love him, or resent him? Pity him, or scorn him? And how
are you going to deal with my feelings for him? How am I going
to deal with my feelings for both of you?'
I had briefly considered the prospect that a soul-bond with one
might encompass the other, but I quickly recognized that this
was wishful thinking - the soul-bond doesn't join at the
genetic level, but mind-to-mind, and minds are the products of
lives and experiences. And there could not be two people with
more widely differing lives and experiences as Curt and
Obi-Wan. There was to be no easy penance for me - I had located
Obi-Wan's duplicate only to wound him more than his life
already had, although I hadn't intended to. I could only hope
that when we were back on Coruscant, surrounded by Force
adepts, he would discover someone more worthy of his love than
I was.
"Tomorrow", I whispered in Curt's ear. "We'll make transit
tomorrow."
But twelve hours later, we were sitting cross-legged on the
floor in Curt's basement studio, staring at the recalcitrant
device we had proved unable to trigger.
The device was a simple tip, like the mercury thermostat that
regulated the temperature in Curt's house, although it operated
through the fabric of space/time, and the 'mercury' in this
case was Floriana. It was the use of Floriana which made clear
that the device was designed by, and designed to be used by, a
Force adept, since the only way it could be manipulated without
it becoming inert was to touch and shape it with the Force
alone. The retrieval switch was connected through space/time to
a massive counterweight, also of Floriana, at the lab which
triggered the device to retrieve whatever was in the vicinity
of of the switch.
The counterweight was slightly out-of-balance when the lab was
discovered - explosions set off by the mysterious operator of
the lab that were meant to destroy his records had made it
slide a fraction in its force-field casing, and the Order
didn't have enough Floriana in stores to bring the weight back
into balance. Each use of the device had thrown the weight more
and more out of true, so that each sending and retrieval had
taken more Force to budge it. It was almost a certainty when I
made the transit that I would not be able to operate the
retrieval switch on my own; something I neglected to tell my
apprentice, since I knew he would then have prevented me from
making the journey alone, if at all.
I'd gone knowing I was going to need help, Force-full help, to
return. And Yoda had not been at all confident that I would be
able to locate, recruit and train the help in question. But I
had, and I did. And for all that, it appears that even with two
of us, we didn't have enough Force-strength to tip the switch.
Curt didn't seem to understand the issue; he asked "Can we just
train harder and then try again?"
I sighed. "It isn't a matter of skill, but of strength. And
strength in the Force isn't something you can build up - you
have it or you don't. We've thrown everything we had into this
and it's just a shade under what we need."
Curt nodded. "I could feel it almost tipping over to the other
side - we just need a tiny bit more oomph..." And he furrowed
his brow as he pushed again at the balky switch. Something dark
swirled through the room then, and I cried out in stark terror
as I flung a hasty shield around Curt, slamming him to the
floor.
"Sith take it all!" I shouted at him, panic fueling my anger.
"Did you not understand a THING I said yesterday? Do you know
how dangerous that is? Do you actually want to make me kill
you? Do you know what it would DO to me if I had to kill you?"
I was surprised to discover tears, compounded of equal parts of
shock, fear and anticipated grief, streaming down my face. Curt
looked stunned.
"I thought I could just steal a little to get us there - if I
got lost again, you could pull me back." He looked as
remorseful as a man can look; I must have looked like hell. He
touched my face gently, erased a tear with his fingers. "You
pulled me back the last time."
"Last time was your first experience; if you go there again,
you'll sink like a stone - I'll never be able to reach you. You
must NOT give yourself over to the Dark Side again. I will not
allow it." I tried to sound stern, but I only succeeded in
sounding terrified. So I gave up on ordering, and resorted to
pleading. "Please, Curt. You must believe me. I know it seems
so very easy, but you have to resist it. It would destroy me if
I lost you to the Dark Side, too."
"Too?" He picked up on that right away. "Who? What?"
"Never mind that. Just promise me, if you love me, never go
there again." I was holding his face in my hands, staring into
his eyes, trying to divine his intentions.
"Well, if we don't use the Dark Side to get back, I don't see
how we do it. Or do you just stay here forever?" He looked
somewhat intrigued by that idea.
"There is another way," I admitted tiredly.
CURT
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It was funny, in an
ironic kind of way, that after all his denial, I was going to
get what I wanted at last. And yet it was sad too, that this
man could be so intrinisically, unalterably good, to be willing
to give up a life of love with the love of his life, just to
save me from his notion of a terrible fate, when it wasn't
clear, even to me, that I was worth his sacrifice.
Because the other way he knew of, the way to increase our
Force-strength to be able to work the transit device, was to
form a Jedi soul-bond. One little detail he'd left out of his
earlier explanation - soul-bonded Jedi see their strength
increase, sometimes as much as double their original ability.
And it isn't a matter of just being able to call upon the
strength of their bonded; each individual is empowered with
more ability to use the Force, and together the pair can become
quite formidable. It makes soul-bound Jedi very useful to the
Order, I would imagine, but that certainly wasn't my motive for
wishing such a bonding - I just wanted him, in every
conceivable way.
But neither tears or laughter were foremost in my mind when I
took in the vision of Qui-Gon, naked and fully erect, standing
in my bedroom seeming slightly amused as I stalked, fascinated,
in a complete circle around him, drinking in his striking
beauty, the way his silhouette narrowed from broad shoulders to
slim hips, those hips, my god, and those muscled legs that
stretched on and on, the dimples above the bite-able buttocks,
the muscles curving over the shoulder-blades... Beautiful!
Pious prayers of thankgiving to whatever god was currently
favoring me were more like it.
Standing now in front of him, I timidly reached out with the
fingers of one hand, but stopped before I touched his chest,
afraid, somehow, that this was a particularly vivid fantasy.
And my fantasy crooked one finger into the neckband of my
t-shirt and quirked a questioning eyebrow at me, and then I did
laugh - I had only gotten as far as removing my boots before I
got distracted at watching the god-man before me shedding his
clothes with the grace of a dancer.
Well, you don't need to tell me twice - I was out of shirt and
pants in a heartbeat. And then I moved in close to Qui-Gon, too
timid still to touch him, and asked hesitantly "Is there a
ritual or something?"
His hand behind my head tipped my face up to his, and he
brought his lips down to a centimeter from mine, so that lips
grazed lips as he whispered "Oh yes. A very elaborate and
formal ritual. We make love, my own. We make love until we
can't move or speak or think. Our bodies' joining will tell our
minds and souls what to do." His arm around me pulled me in to
him, and I groaned at the feel of his skin all along my body.
"I think I can handle that," I gasped, and then found myself
flat on the bed with a hot Jedi pressing me down, growling in
the back of his throat as his lips and teeth and tongue began
an exploration along my neck and shoulders. I would never have
guessed that Jedi bite.
I found myself surprisingly passive; laying back and being done
to. And wonderful things were being done to me. It was when I
felt his long hair tickle my inner thigh as his warm breath
washed over my cock that I started feeling my thoughts gently
infiltrating his mind. When he took me into his mouth, I
thought I was going to fall off the planet, and I cried out "Oh
MASTER!" And I realized that I loved to call him Master. He was
my master and he was mastering me, taking me, making me his
own, binding me to him, and himself to me.
Swirling his tongue around the head of my cock, he lowered his
head abruptly and took me deep into his throat and I felt a
scream building up somewhere far inside my diaphragm. Now he
was retreating, slowly, so slowly, and his tongue found the
sensitive seam at the tip and gently strummed it, grazed his
teeth over it, dipped the tip of his tongue into the slit and
tasted me, then his mouth was engulfing me entirely again.
Over and over he took me deep and then slowly retreated,
stroking my scrotum, fingering my anus, until I was gibbering
and sobbing, begging to be allowed to climax. Eventually, he
took pity, and settled into a steady pumping that quickly
brought me to what seemed to be an endless orgasm - I felt like
I was spasming pints of creamy fluid as I arched into his
mouth, shouting.
Then came the last shudder, the last sob, and I fell back
boneless to the bed. He lowered his head a moment over my
quivering stomach, and opened his mouth, letting a thick stream
of my own seed drizzle out to pool onto my abdomen. When I
tried to rub it into my skin, he stopped me and said, "No. I'm
going to need that" and I felt the implications stir a spark of
interest in my ought-to-be-depleted cock.
Then he was lying beside me, covering my mouth with his and I
tasted myself on his tongue. That's when I fell into his open
and inviting mind.
Now I understood his earlier terror, for now I knew Xanatos. My
master's second apprentice, the little shit that turned, and
ripped his heart to bleeding shreds. I felt a moment's bitter
amusement for my master's blindness - how he could have been
fooled by that nasty little queen for as long as he was! But
what Xanatos had done to Qui-Gon was far from funny, and I
mourned over his long-ago but still painful heart-wound.
But here was not-quite-thirteen year old Obi-Wan, knocking at
Qui-Gon's heart, demanding admittance, refusing to go away. And
I cheered his success when he won through, when Qui-Gon quit
fighting him and allowed him entry, and I watched as he
snuggled down and made himself a secure place in Qui-Gon's
healing heart.
And here in a very secret and guarded corner, I found Qui-Gon's
shocked realization, when his apprentice had not yet turned
fifteen, that his affection for Obi-Wan, having deepened to
love, was shot through with a growing sexual desire. It was
touching to see how carefully he had built the sturdiest
shields around his inappropriate lust, so that he could
continue to allow his apprentice full access to his Padawan
bond, and display his love without the danger that his
too-young apprentice would get even a glimmer of an inkling of
feelings he was too immature to deal with or understand.
Given that, it was with awe that I saw how gently Qui-Gon had
deflected his Padawan's first crush on him. How he had refused
the boy without either hurting his feelings and damaging their
loving relationship, or revealing the depths and direction of
his own desires.
Now, closer to the present, and Obi-Wan approaching his own
knighthood, Qui-Gon finally began to allow some hint of more
than a mentor's affection to appear. And was starting to feel
some growing measure of confidence that his love was returned,
all of it.
I was suddenly swamped with grief - I had just overthrown a
relationship more than a decade long, and short-circuited the
dream my dearest love had cherished for years! I tried to sit
up, but Qui-Gon held me down, shushing and petting me. "Shhh.
It's alright, love - it's going to be alright."
"But maybe we can stop it, if we stop now," I said, although a
quick mental inventory showed me that we were already tied
inextricably together.
"It's too late - it has begun," Qui-Gon murmured into my lips.
"We must finish it; nothing can part us now. Nothing this side
of the pyre."
And with that, he dragged his fingers through the semen cooling
on my stomach, and thrust his slick hand between my legs. Which
pretty much put an end to any ideas of noble self-sacrifice I
may have been entertaining.
QUI-GON
I was somewhat surprised at Curt's sudden grief over my lost
future with Obi-Wan; I had really not expected so much empathy
from him, all things considered. For while he was familiarizing
himself with my memories, I was recoiling from some of his.
First the shallow, ineffective, uncaring adoptive mother and
father, and the manipulative older brother, who taught Curt
early to submit to anyone older, stronger or more powerful than
he.
Then the State Mental Institution his 'parents' had confined
him to when he was fourteen. And here were the two sadistically
salacious orderlies who thought sharing an attractive and
reluctant young boy between them was just one of the perks of
the job.
Now I saw the pathetic parents visiting and heard his
inarticulate pleas to come home, yet they heeded instead the
doctor, who said Curt still had 'quite a ways to go'. And when
the doors had closed behind the people who ought to have done
anything to protect this child, the doctor - the DOCTOR! - had
bent the boy over his desk, saying casually "I understand you
really like this." Suddenly I could understand why the Dark
Side called so strongly to him; I only wished that were an
addiction as easily cured as more chemically-based ones.
Then there was the lead guitarist in the band Curt joined at
eighteen. While certainly not evil, he was a careless hedonist
who thought "Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll" was a life philosophy.
It was he who introduced Curt to heroin and group sex. And it
was a toss-up as to which was the most mind-numbing; heroin at
least had the benefit of killing pain. The meaningless sex with
strangers who didn't care for him furthered the downward spiral
of his sense of his own worth.
In all his memories, I could only find one wholly positive
relationship, and that was a brief transient encounter with
someone whose surname he never discovered. It was a miracle, I
thought, that he was left with the capacity to feel love at
all. And yet he did. His love was washing over me now through
the new bond we were forging, filling my heart to overflowing.
I knelt between his legs, sliding one semen-slick finger into
his rectum, testing his willingness, given his experiences, for
this deep, intrusive and often threatening or painful joining.
He responded with pure trust, opening his legs wider and
angling his pelvis upward, wordlessly asking for more.
Permission having been granted, I slid an arm under a knee to
raise his leg to my shoulder, drawing a fingernail down the
inside of his thigh and watched him shiver. As I raised his
other leg, I took a palmful of semen from his belly and then
drove my straining cock into my slicked fist to ready myself.
His eyes, those huge blue-grey Obi-eyes, never left mine as I
positioned myself and pressed slowly into his body. Then I was
the one gasping and crying out, as the heat and the tightness
and the squeezing of his interior muscles all took their toll
on me - only Jedi-control kept me from coming the moment I
entered him.
To some societies, Jedi no doubt would seem promiscuous, and
it's certainly true that most will have many partners
throughout their lives. Every Jedi hopes to find the one to
whom their soul will speak, though few find them. I had formed
any number of lovers' bonds over the years, but none since the
day my heart told me to wait for Obi-Wan to grow up and attain
his knighthood, over eight years ago.
So my sensation-starved body was begging for release. I knelt
there with my belly flush with Curt's buttocks, fully sheathed
in his body, and fought for control. After several minutes,
during which time Curt's thoughts and mine darted rather
timidly around one another, I began to thrust into him. Slowly
at first, but soon I was pumping rapidly into him, stroking his
cock in time to my thrusts, pressing my face into his thigh and
groaning his name.
And as my orgasm swept over me, our sharing took him over the
edge again as well, and we were both shivering and sobbing as
we kissed again and again, savouring the wonder, the
indescribable togetherness of knowing the other's thoughts as
they felt them and feeling the other's sensations
simultaneously with one's own.
I knew I would not be able to hide anything completely from my
new soulbound mate, not like I was able to hide my early sexual
desires from my Padawan, but I made a vow then to do everything
in my power to disguise, in as much as I was able, the fact
that he was not my heart's first choice.
I wasn't able to keep my vow even twelve hours.
CURT
I don't think I've ever had that much sex in one day, or even
one week, in my life. We loved, and fell asleep tangled up
together, and woke to love again, and wandered downstairs to
feed each other bits of food out of the pantry, and then made
love on the patio, on the kitchen table, on the stairs. Both
lost in a sexual haze, not speaking - why speak when your minds
are in such total contact? - just touching, and kissing and
feeling and fucking.
When we finally fell into a deep sleep, it was fortunately back
upstairs, on a bed - I'd hate to think what kind of shape I'd
have been in if exhaustion had caught us on the stairs.
I woke up a few hours later to a mind full of grief and terror!
I started up, my heart racing, looking for Qui-Gon. Some of my
fear subsided when I located him sitting on the windowsill, but
most of the terror was external - it was coming from my master.
I went over and laid a hand on his shoulder. "What is it?"
He raised his head and in the early pre-dawn light showed me a
face as grey and drawn as a ghost's. "I can't feel him, Curt.
My Padawan. I can't feel him any more." His voice was a husky
whisper.
I gentled his mind, and cast about for some explanation. And
found him worrying one particular spot in his mind - the place
where he used to feel the training bond with his apprentice.
The bond that was no longer there.
"Oh, for Pete's sake," I was rough out of relief. "He's not
dead." It was his greatest fear I was talking to.
A touch of color was returning to Qui-Gon's face. "But I can't
feel him," he insisted.
"That's not because he's dead. It's because our bond is taking
up... well, all the available bandwidth." I felt him searching
my mind for an understanding of bandwidth, and then he nodded.
"But I can't know that, can I? He COULD be dead and I'd never
know." His fear was subsiding, but I could feel him facing the
realization that he would never be able to touch his Padawan's
mind again. I felt like shit. Now that I knew what such a bond
felt like, even the lesser bond we shared before the soul-bond,
I knew that I too would grieve to give up the connection to one
I loved. I hadn't realized how much it meant to him, just being
able to touch the link and comfort himself that his apprentice
still existed.
Then something occurred to me. "If you can't feel Obi-Wan, then
he can't feel you either, right?"
"Of course," he said. "It's two-way."
"Then he's cut off from you." I felt even shittier than I had
before. "So he thinks YOU'VE died."
"Probably." He seems so listless I wanted to shake him.
"Well, come on then. We've got to get back." I did shake him
then, just a little jar to his shoulders. "You'll have people
all over the galaxy in tears; let's go break up the wake."
He looked at a table he'd drawn up on a piece of paper several
days ago, which was laying on the sill beside him. "Seven
hours," he said, and his voice was starting to regain some of
his old commanding tones. "Next available transit node is in
seven hours. But... maybe I should just let him go on thinking
I'm dead..."
I was aghast. "You mean you think he'd RATHER you were dead?
Than alive and unavailable to him? Give me a break! Nobody
YOU'd love is that selfish. If he loves you, he'll want to know
you're alive. Whatever the circumstances. So cut it out."
"I have to deal with this," he was talking more to himself than
to me now. "I've got to do something about this unreasonable
fear." He looked up at me and asked, "Do you need to ... say
goodbye to anyone? Or have things to close down?"
I grokked where he was coming from - he wanted to do his mental
control thing without having me hovering over him, hurting me
with the knowledge of how much our joining had hurt him. God, I
loved this man. As if he could keep it from me, now.
I'd already mailed the letter to my lawyer instructing him to
implement the trust arrangements we'd discussed several months
ago; that pretty much took care of my obligations. I think I
left the lawyer with the impression that I was suffering a
potentially fatal disease. Probably where the hepatitus rumor
came from, now that I think of it. But since he asked, he
reminded me there was someone I'd like to talk to before I left
this galaxy for good.
"Yeah," I said, "I've got some phoning around to do. You do
your Jedi thing and I'll see you in a bit." I stroked his cheek
gently, and he pulled me to him and buried his face in my
stomach.
"I do love you, you know," he mumbled into my shirt.
"I can't help but know," I said. "Bonded, remember. Heart,
mind, body and soul." I brushed aside his hair to kiss the back
of his neck and left him to his meditations.
I stopped by the frig and grabbed a six-pack of Coke before
heading down to the basement. And there, past the studio, was
my 'den', and my newest baby, a DEC PDP 11/35. I popped the top
of a Coke, and booted up the minicomputer. Not a lot of these
owned by individuals. I wished I could take it with me, but
what would be the point? I mean, did they even use alternating
current where I was going?
Once my display told me the system was ready, I put the
telephone receiver into the modem's rubber cups, and dialed in
to my favorite bulletinboard, MUDU, on the west coast of the
US. Scrolling through several days worth of postings, I found
one a mere half-an-hour old from The Phantom Sysop From Hell,
saying that he'd be working on the database in StarMUD all
afternoon and would welcome company. Excellent.
I called up telnet and told it to take me to StarMUD, where I
logged on as my character and called up the listing of who all
was online. And there was 'Luke', back in the Wizard's Den.
I had to page him to get him to come out - only MUD (that's
'Multi-User Dungeon', if you don't speak geek) Wizards were
allowed in the Den, and I wasn't one. But he met me in our
usual hangout, Guido's Bar and Grill. He was already there when
I got there - as a wizard, he could teleport throughout the
MUD, but I had to walk through every room between here and
there. So on his terminal screen, he would see:
HANS SOLO ENTERS THE ROOM.
I'd told him before that I hated that name - the trailing and
leading 's' made it awkward to pronounce, and I thought the
description was corny - a space pirate? But he just told me to
make my own character if I didn't like the one he made for me.
I typed "Hi, Luke" on my terminal, which I knew would display
on his as:
HANS SOLO SAYS: HI, LUKE.
He said (well, typed, and I read) "Hey, Hans. Haven't seen you
in weeks. What's up with you - I heard you were sick?"
"Nah, false rumor - just busy." I replied. "Lots of stuff going
down. Hey, you know, I think I'm ready to make my own
character."
"Bout time", Luke said. He'd always been a little disappointed
that I'd shown so little inclination to help him create
characters, settings and adventures in his little domain - I
was content to use the MUD to visit with him and several other
regulars whose online conversation was entertaining, and offer
my uninformed critique of his own efforts.
"Be right back" 'Hans' said, and I disconnected, and
reconnected to 'create character' rather than 'connect
character'.
When I was satisfied with my character description, I 'walked'
back to Guido's, where Luke would see:
OBI-WAN KENOBI ENTERS THE ROOM
"Hey, kewl name," Luke said. "A touch of the Orient?"
After a few moments, he added "Kewler descript! I may have to
hire you after all" and I knew that meant he'd typed 'LOOK
OBI-WAN' on his terminal and seen:
YOU SEE BEFORE YOU A JEDI KNIGHT, ONE OF THE GUARDIANS OF PEACE
AND JUSTICE THROUGHOUT THE GALAXY. HE IS DRESSED IN A HOODED
BROWN ROBE WHICH SWEEPS TO THE GROUND, AND CARRIES A
LASERSWORD, OR LIGHTSABER, THE JEDI'S TRADITIONAL WEAPON.
We spent a while elaborating on how such a 'fictitious' order
of knights might be organized, and he was really taken with the
concept of the lightsaber. And I had fun for the next several
hours feeding his fantasies with concepts such as The Force,
and the Dark Side.
He had a tendency to take off on tangents with evil warlords
and things, but I kept insisting that the Jedi in the days of
the Republic kept evil at bay. He didn't even like the concept
of a Republic - he thought it should be a galactic empire; more
scope for adventures. I held out that an advanced civilization
would not support a dictatorial emperor, and that debate lasted
us another half hour.
I'd had to make two pit-stops and go upstairs to get more Coke
and cigarettes before I was confident that I'd succeeded in
giving the brother I'd yet to meet some measure of immortality
in the world I was leaving, and decided to finally broach the
subject I had been avoiding.
"Man, this stuff is so great," I could tell he was gloating
over his printout. "Please don't tell me you read this all in a
book somewhere..."
"No, no book," I assured him. "Hey, Luke. I wanted to tell you
that you probably wouldn't see me around much any more." Much.
Yeah. Like at all.
"What?" I could practically feel his outrage in the single text
word on my screen. "Hey, Obi, you're just finally
getting into this, and you're bailing? What's up with that?"
"Obi-Wan," I insisted. "Not Obi, Obi-Wan. It's all one name."
"Okay, Obi-Wan. But what's the deal? Phone bills getting to
you? We could highjack a line - I know guys." I grinned - I
just bet he did.
"No, it's not that, Luke. It's just that I'm going away, and I
don't know when I'll be back again. And where I'm going, it's
not like I can just lug a modem around."
"Where are you going? How long will you be gone?" Curiosity was
battling disappointment.
"I don't know how long I'll be gone, Luke. I may not be back."
So I was sugar-coating. I knew I wasn't coming back, but how
did I tell him that? "Where? Let's just say it's a long time
ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." The 'story' we'd just spent
hours spinning together.
There was a lengthy 'silence' online. So long, in fact, that I
was about to send a ping to the server to see if I was still
connected. Then I saw:
LUKE STARKILLER SAYS: CURT, YOU'RE SCARING ME HERE, MAN.
Yeah, I could tell. He called me Curt. One 'night' last year
(it was day for me, but the middle of the night for 'Luke'),
during one of our marathon conversations, we'd exchanged 'Real
Life' names. And we had established the protocol that if you
wanted the other to know you were being very, very serious, you
dropped out of character into real-name.
I thought about trying to reassure him that I wasn't
entertaining the thoughts he must be assuming I was
entertaining. But what could I say? That I was following a
beautiful magician that I loved more than anything to another
galaxy in the far past? Somehow I didn't think that would
reassure him very much.
I typed, "George, stop worrying. I'm going to be fine, and I'm
going somewhere I really want to be."
"I'm logging this, Curt," he blustered. Like I didn't know he
always logged our talks.
"Log away, George. I just wanted to let you know I'll miss
you."
"Are you in New York? Or London?" Good grief - was he going to
send the cops to check up on me?
"Never mind where I am. Now this is important, man. You're
going to get a call some day soon from my lawyer. Listen to
him, do what he says, and have fun." I could feel Qui-Gon
upstairs, looking for me.
"Curt, please. Whatever it is, it's not that bad." From three
thousand miles away and with only text characters on a
crt-display, I could tell George was close to tears, and very
badly frightened.
"I know it's not, George. Nothing's going to be bad again. Take
care of yourself. You've got a lot of great ideas - just have
faith in yourself."
"Come to the US - get away from whatever it is. Come on, Curt,
you can't just give up."
I heard Qui-Gon in my mind, telling me it was almost time to
try the transit.
I used the 'emote' command so that George would see on his
screen:
OBI-WAN KENOBI GENTLY TOUCHES LUKE'S FACE IN FAREWELL.
"Goodbye, Luke," I typed. "And may the Force be with you."
Then I 'homed' my character and disconnected from the line, and
went to the studio to join my master on his own journey home.
QUI-GON
I arose from my meditations with a little more acceptance, but
hardly at peace with myself. I would not have believed that a
person's heart could simultaneously encompass so much joy and
pain.
I could tell it was going to be a very difficult and lengthy
process for me to give up any hope of being able to share a
future with my Padawan. It was clear that the soul-bond I now
shared with Curt would not allow something as basic as a
lovers' bond with another, since it superceded even the
tenuously stretched thread of my and Obi-Wan's training bond.
I wished now that I had not allowed Obi-Wan to begin to see the
depths of my feelings for him until I was able to offer him a
bond. Perhaps his heart had not been totally engaged until he
learned that mine was. Perhaps he would never have formed a
deeper attachment to me, and would now be free to love another.
I even momentarily considered the possibility of begging
Obi-Wan for a merely physical relationship, but the prospect of
two Jedi engaging in a physical joining without any
accompanying mental and spiritual connection was too degrading.
I would never ask my dearest love to accept such a cheap love,
even if he were willing to consider it.
Still, I couldn't regret my actions, although I could certainly
regret the consequences. Now that I'd come to know and love
Curt, leaving him in ignorance of his true nature and potential
was as impossible for me to consider as abusing a child would
be. And given his background and experience, it was perhaps
fortunate for all concerned that the situation drove us into a
soul-bond; it was going to be much easier to curtail his
predeliction towards the Dark Side from within a soul-bound
relationship, where I could have instantaneous warning of any
temptations.
I heard Curt moving about down the hall from the studio where
we had established the transit trigger, and sent him a reminder
that the node window was only an hour long, and that we should
be moving soon.
He was there in a moment, but not quite ready to leave - he
scanned the walls looking for something, and then selected one
of the many guitars hanging on racks; he looked at me and said
"acoustic", as if that explained something, and found a case to
put the instrument in. Then sitting cross-legged on the floor
and holding the case across his knees, he said "okay, I'm
packed. Let's go."
I admired his sangfroid. If I were giving up every familiar
person, thing and place forever, I rather doubt I could do it
with the calm he was displaying. There was a tinge of
anticipatory nostalgia in his mind, but only someone soul-bound
to him would have known it. I did sense some trepidation over
what would come, and resolved that I would spend some
considerable time, once the journey was completed, in
introducing Curt to the new reality he would be living in. And
there was something more lurking in his thoughts... an
uncertainty that wasn't about either reality, but was about...
Amazing! Whatever it was, he was successfully hiding it from
me, his soul-bound mate. For someone who had only begun to
learn to deploy his skills, it was a remarkable achievement.
Something to investigate further when we reached the safety of
friendly territory. I felt a moment's grim amusement at the
thought of what the Council was going to make of all this, and
not a little proprietary pride in the Jedi I had been
instrumental in releasing.
From the hallway above us, the doorbell chimed. Curt gave a
guilty start, and then leaned over the cube that held the
transit device to press an urgent kiss on my lips. The kiss
seemed to speak of some hungry yearning, and when I broke free,
I saw desperation and longing in Curt's eyes. "We have the rest
of our lives, love," I gently reminded him.
"Oh. That's right." He snuggled down to sit beside me, tucking
his head on my shoulder and wrapping an arm around me. "Let's
get this show on the road."
The doorbell chimed again as the two of us twined our hands
together and then together we flipped the switch to the other
side as easily as we might turn the page of a book.
When I'd left the labs, over half a year ago, they had been a
bustling hive, the corridors teeming with every scientist from
the Jedi Council's Research Cadre who could be spared to help
with the investigation. With the transit damaged, and I the
only traveller still in the field, I wasn't sure what I would
find when we returned. At least a skeleton staff, surely, to
keep the transit as operational as possible for as long as
possible.
I wasn't totally surprised, however, to see the great room
housing the recovery platform was deserted; I was presumed
dead. But the mechanism made a significant amount of noise -
that ought to bring someone to investigate.
So I was somewhat prepared. Still, when my Padawan came into
the room at a flat run, and I saw the joy that replaced the
lines of anguish on his face when he saw me, I knew in that
instant that his heart was truly mine. The elation he sent
through the Force was palpable even without a bond; it must
have radiated throughout the facility, and perhaps to nearby
star-systems. A better man would have felt shame or sorrow at
being loved under these circumstances - I knew only a fierce
and possessive exultation.
He only stopped running when he flung up against my chest, and
my arms were tight around him. He was babbling, "Master, I
thought you were dead" and "where WERE you?" being the only
phrases that actually parsed. He turned his face up to look at
me, and I could see in his expression that he was still
puzzling over the silence of our bond, and reaching out to me
with his mind.
Without thinking, I kissed him. Then kissed him again, thinking
"First things first - I'll feel like a slug-of-a-Hutt later."
And he finally noticed that I wasn't alone, and I could tell
from his expression when he began to realize that the silence
on our bond must have been caused by a superceding one. But
Curt was right about him; his burgeoning despair in no way
overtook the sustaining joy.
Before I could open my mouth to say a word, however, I was
suddenly bearing his whole weight, as he slumped boneless
against me. I felt panic spike through me, and was turning to
Curt for assistance when
CURT
I had given Qui-Gon the tiniest of Force-shoves as I took him
down, to tip him back towards me; thus I was able to slow the
two Jedi's sudden descent to the floor, though I wouldn't
actually say I caught them. Still, I managed to get them out of
commission without damaging them - the sudden sleep would last
until I or another Force-user countermanded the order.
I could feel the minds of a number of people headed in this
direction, spurred to investigate the sudden powering on of the
transit, and no doubt sped by the blast of emotion that Obi-Wan
had sent throughout the force. I thought for a moment and then
sent out a contrary message, which would have them all feeling
that 'now what did I come into the kitchen for?' sensation
before wandering back about their business. Then I constructed
a bubble of similar kind about ten feet from the door, so that
anyone intending to walk in would suddenly find that the second
thing on their list of things to do had suddenly become much
more important than they had previously thought. I hoped that
would give me the time I needed.
It was Obi-Wan's joy at seeing Qui-Gon, and my Master's
reaction to that joy, that had decided me finally - I had been
wavering in my resolve up until then. If I had discovered that
his happiness at seeing Qui-Gon alive was just the relief of
knowing that the teacher he cherished a fondness for was not
dead as he had believed, I would have had no qualms about
continuing my usurpation. As it was, something had to be done.
I sat down beside the sleeping pair to consider my next move.
Qui-Gon has said that the soul-bond was insoluble, but I wasn't
quite sure; I was willing to bet that there were some things
the Jedi did not know about both soul-bonds and the Dark Side.
And having an experimental nature, I was only too willing to
try and see what I could do.
Anger - that had been the path before. But when I went into my
mind to get some anger to work with, I was surprised to
discover I couldn't find any. I tried every memory of every
abuse anyone had ever offered me, without being able to dredge
up a spark of anger - it had all been burned away by Qui-Gon's
love.
This was rather unexpected. So I looked into Qui-Gon's mind,
and found him as a tiny young Padawan learning to recite 'Fear
leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to
suffering...' Somewhere in there was a tool I could use. I
slipped into a semi-trance - what Qui-Gon called the Seeing.
And found myself looking straight into the future.
I was holding a lightsaber, and my Master was fighting a horned
demon. I was trapped behind some kind of light-barrier and
unable to reach him, even with the Force. And I saw that the
demon had the advantage. Before he could strike down my Master,
which I could tell he surely would at any second, I unloaded my
fury, and was suddenly full of the Dark. Ripping through the
red field, I was on the demon and destroying him instantly with
a blast from my mind. And then there we two stood, I on the
Dark Side, and Qui-Gon in the Light. Then one moment and my
Master was beside me. In the Dark and in terrible burning pain.
I knew this was the true future I saw, the sense of it at
least, if not the specifics. Perhaps not the horned demon per
se, but sometime in the future, I would have reason to fear for
my Master's life, and I would take that one step over the line.
And either out of the hope that he might be able to call me
back, or just a sense of responsibility and love, my Master
would follow me. And there we would be.
This knowledge, I realized as I stirred from the trance, was
useful. Because it brought me something I needed - fear. I
nursed it, and fed it, and felt it grow. I thought I had known
what fear was, but apparently I was wrong - this dread for what
his bonding to me would mean to Qui-Gon was devastating and
chilling. And suddenly the Dark was accessible to me, and I
took it.
The surge of power I felt was incredible, and I just wallowed
in it for a few minutes, before recalling myself to my mission.
Obi-Wan first, I decided, since he'd be the easiest. I only had
to erase a few minutes of his memory; I was going to have to do
major reconstructive surgery not just on Qui-Gon's memories and
thoughts but on his feelings as well.
I looked at my exemplar at last, realizing I'd been avoiding
the necessity. Did we look much alike? I couldn't see more than
a passing resemblance myself, but they say that true twins
always think they're more different than they really are. In
sleep, he looked much more than two years younger than me -
life had been good to him, and you could tell. I envied his
serenity and his sense of his place in the scheme of things. I
wondered if I could develop that kind of serenity, but rather
doubted it - our personalities were poles apart. But I was
putting off what I had to do.
I eased into Obi-Wan's mind and assessed the task. As I
thought, it would be simple enough to quickly erase all memory
of me; his most recent memories hadn't had a chance to
integrate in with his knowledge yet. So I lightly took out the
events of the past few minutes. I hesitated over his memories
of finding his training bond silent and thinking Qui-Gon was
dead, but left those intact; when they awoke, the training bond
would probably need to be rebuilt, and anyway, I thought the
experience of thinking he'd lost his Master might possibly goad
my genetic brother into some kind of action, once he realized
he had another chance.
That done, I got up and walked around the pair, to kneel beside
my sleeping Master. Forced myself to overcome my reluctance to
look at him. And was almost blasted into unconsciousness by
pain. The same kind I'd felt in him, in my vision of the
future.
I gritted my teeth, and muttered 'get a grip', examining where
this agony was coming from. And suddenly it was making some
kind of sense - this was what love felt like, on the Dark Side.
Which explained my Master's misunderstanding about the
non-existance of love over here.
Because people being self-protective creatures, it stood to
reason that they would shy away from the source of pain. And if
love was felt as pain here, then you would avoid it, until you
couldn't recognize it or feel it; your own natural defenses
would train you to not love. This was certainly going to make
my job more difficult.
Fortunately, I either had a high pain threshold, or a touch of
masochism; I found that I could look at and think about Qui-Gon
for a few minutes at a time, before I had to do or think
something else. So in little increments, I started to examine
what all I still had to do. First the bond itself - it was
daunting. Stretching between us, linking almost the entirety of
our minds together, the strands were apparently inextricably
interlocked. I couldn't see how it could be easily removed -
simply snapping it in the middle would cause a recoil that
would leave us both hopelessly brain-damaged.
So I decided to work on his memories first - I'd just had the
experience of doing Obi-Wan's and felt sure that I could
accomplish something at least. And maybe erasing his memories
of me would erase the bond itself, although I hoped this
without a lot of confidence.
His memories were buried farther in his mind, of course, and
more deeply woven into other knowledge, so it was going to be a
long process. I started in with the first memories of me I
could find, and just kept following links, deleting as I went.
I hoped that I wasn't making too much of a hash of his most
recent thoughts, but it was clear I could erase huge swathes
without touching his basic cognition, so I'm afraid I dashed
ahead rather ruthlessly.
I had to stop after twenty minutes or so, when I felt on the
verge of blacking out - I got up and wandered around the room,
investigating the technology, the writing (which I discovered I
could read, courtesy of my familiarity with Qui-Gon's
memories), the general layout, the feel of the other minds in
the facility. After I caught my breath, I went back to work;
this was clearly going to take a lot of time.
This time I could handle almost thirty minutes contact with
Qui-Gon before I had to back off. I still had a lot of memories
to deal with, but I was gaining confidence in my abilities, and
getting better at mind manipulation. Which was probably going
to be a useful skill here in this universe.
I wandered to the door while waiting for the pain to recede to
managable levels, and actually walked out into the facility to
look around, wearing a 'don't notice me' field while I checked
out where everything was and how many people I had to fool. I
even went into what seemed to be a canteen or cafeteria and
found something to eat. No cigarettes anywhere, and I realized
that I had unintentionally quit smoking at last. Shit.
Back to the transit room, and to the agonizing pain of total
immersion in the mind of the man I adored.
It took hours, and any number of pauses, before I felt like I
had eradicated all traces of myself in my Master's memories. I
knew I was leaving some puzzling fragments of Earth, at least -
the memory of the taste of a good lager, or the sight of the
fog rolling in up the river, but these didn't point to me
particularly, so I called it done and moved on.
Back to the soul-bond itself. Either the memory work had
simplified it some, or my 'mental vision' was improving - I
found I could now resolve individual strands of the bond, and
isolated one to follow. It ended up in my master's mind at a
now blank memory cell, and in my mind at a specific passage of
music. The connection escaped me, but I tried pulling the
strand gently out of my mind, and found it came easily. Once
freed at one end, the strand simply evaporated. I could still
remember the passage of music, too.
So this was the drill; isolate a strand, follow it to the end,
and pluck it out. It was going to take quite some time, but
would leave both of us undamaged. Detailed work was always
rather absorbing to me - I almost passed out several times
before forcing myself to stand back from the work for a while.
At least twenty-four hours had passed since I'd put the two
Jedi to sleep - I was starting to feel pressured to wrap it up
and get out of here. I knew eventually the simple
don't-think-about-it field around this chamber would not be
strong enough to overcome someone's curiosity or sense of duty.
Now I was down to a few threads that formed the core of our
original bond, three or four at most, connecting my mind to
Qui-Gon's and I stopped to look at them. I discovered that they
ended in Qui-Gon's mind in a mental image of me that I had
overlooked; just me looking at him and calling him Master.
The memory didn't link to anything; I'd already removed the
contextual memories. So I left it there, and the connecting
strands untouched. The tiny tenuous threads were already less
than the strained and attenuated bond that bound Qui-Gon to
Obi-Wan through millenia and billions of lightyears during my
Master's tenure on Earth. And like he with his bond to Obi-Wan,
I found that I didn't want to forgo the ability to reassure
myself of his existance. The one remaining memory of me might
resurface in odd dreams, but I knew that I had successfully
broken the soul-bond and left Qui-Gon free, so I gave myself
this one little painful gift as a reward, and left the
remaining strands alone.
Now I was done, and there was no reason why I shouldn't leave
at once, and every reason why I should, but I found myself
motionless, still kneeling beside my Master. I let the pain of
loving him wash over me in waves while I sat and studied his
sleeping face. Took his hand in both of mine to caress and
kiss. Raised his head onto my lap, and stroked his face and
hair. Leaned down to kiss his lips, wetting his face with
unnoticed tears. Then pressed my forehead to his and sat there
crying.
I don't know how long I was lost like that, but a tremor in the
Force called me back to myself. Someone was approaching this
place in a small ship - someone incredibly strong in the Force.
I recognized the signature from my Master's memories of his old
Master, and knew that I would not be able to hide for long from
Master Yoda. So I began to gather together my things.
I helped myself to Obi-Wan's lightsaber. I didn't know how to
use it, but I had all the time in the world to learn. And all
things considered, I figured he owed me considerably more than
that. And I left this little thought in his mind, brother,
you'd better deserve this.
I figured I'd slip out and hide somewhere, and wait until
Master Yoda, who I knew wouldn't be deterred by my amateur
dissuasions, had found Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, and in the ensuing
confusion I could take off in the small ship that Yoda had come
in. I could remember, from my memories of Qui-Gon's memories,
roughly how to fly the thing, and I knew it would be a fairly
nice vehicle, since he was a pretty important person. I was
going to regret not getting to meet Yoda.
I grabbed one last kiss from my Master's sleeping lips; it
wasn't enough, but nothing would be now. And with my brother's
lightsaber and my oldest guitar, I started for the door. My
next challenge - figuring out what to do with the rest of my
life. But I'd think about that in space.
Goodbye, Qui-Gon. You'll always be my Master.
Author's Afterword: Lost Jedi
This story is the first and longest of two (or possibly more)
'Dark Jedi' stories.
I set this story in 1975 because I wanted it to have taken
place before the original Star Wars movie was released
theatrically, for obvious reasons. I recognize that with Brian
Slade's assassination hoax occurring canonically in '74, that
means a lot of water had to flow under Curt's bridge in fairly
short order; the Berlin record, the wealth accumulation, and
then six months with Qui-Gon. Just consider it a temporal
anomaly, or relativistic time dilation.
I took my grossest liberties with computer technology. The PDP
11/35 was indeed commercially available when our story is
supposed to take place. However, Apple Computer did not go
public until 1980 - I just wanted to make use of the
coincidence with the name of the Beatles' record label.
MUD technology matured significantly later, by a decade at
least, than depicted here. The first tinyMUD server software
wasn't released until the mid-eighties, although some primitive
multi-user capabilities did exist in the mid- and
late-seventies. MUDs were for years pretty much the sole domain
of the university computer nerds. The characterization of 'Luke
Starkiller' as an Ur-geek is the purely fictitious product of
the author's overheated brain.
I beg Marguerite Muguet's forgiveness for borrowing her
concept, introduced in her _Shaping the Present_, of the
force-shaped substance Floriana without her prior approval. I
hope she likes how I used it.
I have one planned sequel to this story, in which we will
discover, among other things, why the Dark Side has been
negatively stereotyped by the Light Jedi as such a Bad Thing.
And if anyone is keeping these kinds of records, I think this
story marks the first use of the phrase "little twit
apprentice" in a non-parody. Correct me if I'm wrong. (g)
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