He came closer. He rested his hand on her flat stomach. "And for
the child you carry."
She blinked. "You know?"
Obi-Wan smiled. "A strong one, I think. And he'll have a name,
not a number."
"Not a number."
"No."
They stood in an empty cavern. The eels had gone. What had
driven them away? Groundquakes? Rumors of war? No one knew.
Perhaps they would return. Perhaps not. But humans had abused
their precious gifts, and humans and X'Ting alike could wait for the
Guides to make up their own minds. Here, for a hundred years and
more, in love they had offered the greatest gift imaginable: their own
children, that their new friends might prosper. And that gift had almost
killed them all.
Best they be gone.
Among the rocks outside their second camp, Obi-Wan and Kit
witnessed the death ceremony of an ARC for one of their own. It was
as simple as could be imagined.
The three dug a shallow trench and gently placed Jangotat's body
within. Each added a handful of sand and dirt. Then Forry said,
"From water we're born, in fire we die. We seed the stars."
When they were done the Jedi helped the commandos build a rock
cairn, taller than it was wide, like a single declamatory finger pointing
to the stars. They stood for a time, looking at the cave, the rocks,
the sky, absorbing a bit of this place that had cost them so dearly.
Then they were done, and there was nothing left to do.
And so they left.
81
Trillot tossed and turned in her bed, deep in a recurring vision of
blood and destruction. Mountains fell. Planets exploded. The space between
the stars ran black with blood.
She awakened suddenly, relieved. It was only a nightmare. Just
another of an endless stream of horrid sleep-fantasies . . .
Her vision cleared, and her sense of relief evaporated. More substantial
than any nightmare, Asajj Ventress stood over her.
"You strode my dreams," Ventress said. "And as you did, I saw you."
At a spot only thirty kilometers from ChikatLik, two guards lay
broken in the shadow of Ventress s ship. She tucked her lightsaber
back into her belt, mounted the ramp, and began to check her instruments,
preparing for takeoff.
"Obi-Wan," she said quietly. She wished to see him dead. But in
the water, when she could have followed him down into death, he
had remained firm. He was . . .
She focused on her hands. Why did they shake? This was not like
her. She knew who she was. She had made her bed long ago, and was
more than prepared to lie within it.
Asajj Ventress turned her mind to the hundred small preparations
necessary for flight. Halfway through the preparations, she realized
that her hands had stopped shaking. Action. That was what was
needed. That was what she hungered for. She would accept Count
Dooku's scathing approbation, then volunteer for the most dangerous
assignment General Grievous could devise, and on whatever
planet that was, in whatever maelstrom of wrack and ruin she could
immerse herself, she would find cleansing, and peace.
Ventress lifted off into the clouds above ChikatLik, and was gone.
82
Night had come to the Dashta Mountains. Sheeka Tull had
waited for the Jedi and the ARCs and everyone else to leave, then
knelt at Jangotat's cairn, saying her own very personal good-bye.
She looked up, watching twin streaks of light in the sky, where two
very different ships headed in very different directions.
Sheeka touched her belly, still flat but nestling her child. Their
child. Hers and Jango s.
No, not Jango. Jango would never have died to save strangers. Jangotat
was a different man. A better man.
Her man.
A name, not a number, Jangotat. A-Nine-Eight.
I swear.