True Colors

  “I wasn’t informed of that.”

  “Well, now you know. I’ve been accelerating the pregnancy with a healing trance, so I’m probably in the fifth month in terms of development.”

  “My data banks make no mention of Jedi being able to do that. How?”

  “It’s not a precise science. I just meditate, really. He’s been kicking, so I’m guessing how far things have progressed.”

  “He. So you’ve been under a physician’s care, had routine scans—”

  “No, I’m a Jedi, and we can detect that stuff.” Etain glanced at Ordo as if appealing for support. “The baby’s reacting strongly and I know he’s been upset by the fighting, or at least to my reaction to it.”

  “Impossible,” Too-One said. “Higher brain functions don’t appear until twenty-six weeks, and even with acceleration—”

  “Look, you’ll just have to take my word for it. And I’m still losing a little blood, and having cramps.”

  Ordo stood back to watch the show. The droid and Etain seemed to be having a standoff, staring at each other as if she was daring him to lay manipulators on her. Then Too-One took out a scanner and passed it over her belly.

  “Oh my,” he said primly. “My database suggests this is the equivalent of a six-month fetus.”

  “Told you so…”

  Too-One hesitated and then parted the heavy cloak that Etain was still clinging to. There was a visible bulge under her tunic, but nothing that would make anyone stop and stare.

  Ordo found himself suddenly fascinated in a macabre kind of way. There was no mother’s heartbeat in the artificial womb of the transparisteel tanks on Kamino, and no comforting darkness. Ordo knew that he should have begun his life like the child within Etain, and why the atmosphere of silence, isolation, and unbroken light—with only his own heartbeat to cling to—had helped make him the way he was.

  He remembered too much. Maybe it was a bad idea to hang around while the details were being discussed. But Kal’buir had told him to ensure Etain was safe and well, and that meant waiting.

  “Ordo…”

  How did we ever learn to be human at all? If bloodlines and genomes don’t matter to Mando’ade, what makes me a human?

  “Ordo?” Etain gave him a meaningful look.

  “What?”

  “I know nothing fazes you, but… well, I’d prefer you to wait outside while the med droid completes the examination. Do I have to draw you a picture?”

  Ordo took the hint and stepped outside the door, still in earshot in case something went wrong. There were times when he realized just how far adrift he was from normal humanity, and Etain’s pregnancy, a universal human condition that showed how mundane and constrained by biology even a Jedi could be, simply reminded him how much of an outsider he really was.

  He didn’t even have a mother.

  He had a father, though, and Kal’buir made up for everything.

  The buzz of conversation and the occasional raised voice—Etain’s—suddenly stopped. The droid opened the door.

  “You can come in now.”

  Ordo wasn’t sure what he was going to see, but Etain was just sitting on the edge of the bed rubbing the crook of her arm. “Well?”

  “I have problems with the placenta,” she said. “And my stress hormones are sky-high, which isn’t helping.”

  “She shouldn’t be fighting a war in her condition, and she shouldn’t accelerate this pregnancy any further,” Too-One said, addressing Ordo as if he was somehow both responsible and her keeper. “I’ve given her medication to stabilize her, but she should let nature take its course and find a less stressful environment for the duration.”

  “Understood,” Ordo said. That was clear enough. “Does she require more medication?”

  “For the next seventy-two hours, yes.” Too-One produced a pack of single-use sharps from his bag. “Normally I wouldn’t leave an untrained being to administer these, but you’ve had emergency medical training, have you not?”

  “Oh yes.” Ordo took his collection of electrical disruptors and data slicing keys from his belt pouch. They dangled from a plastoid cord like an untidy necklace. “Battlefield first aid.”

  Too-One wasn’t expecting it and he never saw it coming. Ordo thrust the disruptor into the droid’s dataport and Too-One stopped dead, unable to process any signals or data.

  “What are you doing?” Etain looked aghast. “You can’t just deactivate him like that.”

  “Uh-huh.” Ordo checked the diagnostics on the slicing key and found the time point in Too-One’s memory where he was first told he was being taken to Qiilura to treat a female Jedi for unspecified gynecological problems. That was all he’d needed to know to download the appropriate data resources. Now he didn’t need to know that at all, and he certainly didn’t need to know he’d been here and treated a pregnant Jedi. “This is not data you want hanging around in the system, General.”

  Ordo hit the DELETE & OVERWRITE command with his thumbnail. Too-One had never been here, as far as the droid was concerned.

  “He’s a doctor, droid or not. Patient confidentiality is part of his programming.”

  “Sadly, it’s not part of anyone else’s, ma’am. Data stored is data that might one day be found. Your child’s existence has to remain a secret. If you need more treatment—we’ll start over.”

  “Ordo, he’s self-aware, even if he’s inorganic.” Etain had that expression of professional piety that really annoyed Ordo when it came to most of the Jedi he’d met. Politicians had that same look sometimes. It said that they knew better and that he didn’t understand. “You can’t just remove a chunk of his memory against his will. It’s violating him.”

  “No, it’s like not telling him about classified information, only retroactively. Happens to troopers every day.” Ordo checked that the segments of memory were truly erased. “Are you going to mention the irony of clones mistreating droids, ma’am? Because I always find that amusing.”

  “It’s tempting.”

  “Have you ever memory-rubbed an organic being? I know some Jedi can. Bard’ika told me.”

  “Only in training, for practice, and then only with consent, and—”

  “Well, then.”

  “You’ve never forgiven me for messing around with that stop command, have you?”

  “If you mean do I trust you not to misuse it again when it suits you and effectively switch me off like a droid for a fraction of a second, no. If you mean do I harbor a grudge—no, I don’t.”

  Ordo now had to move Too-One to a plausible location to reactivate him. That was going to be hard unless the tinnie walked, because he was too heavy to lift.

  “I suggest you go and hide in another room while I fire him up again and fill in the gaps.”

  “And afterward?”

  “I’m removing you from Qiilura for the time being. Get your kit.”

  “Can’t I just take it easy here?”

  “And what are you going to do when you hear the artillery, and Levet comes back to report to you on the day’s casualties?”

  Etain looked over Too-One as if seeking inspiration, then nodded. She got to her feet and disappeared along the landing to another bedroom.

  “Okay, Doctor, wakey-wakey time…” Ordo rebooted Too-One and stood back to watch his reaction.

  “Did I malfunction?” asked the droid, clearly disoriented. “I have an unreadable sector in my memory.”

  “Corrupted data,” Ordo said casually. It was true, from one perspective anyway. He’d definitely corrupted it, so much that it was unrecoverable. “I rebooted you. You’re on Qiilura. They’re a little short of medical support, so I assigned you to Commander Levet. You might have to deal with the local militia’s casualties, too.”

  “A patient is a patient, Captain.” He pressed the diagnostic panels on his arm. “Most disturbing. I hope I haven’t lost any significant data.”

  Too-One sounded a little humbler than he’d been prewipe. If Ordo hadn’t known b
etter, he would have said the droid was worried about his lapse of memory—scared, even. Everyone said droids couldn’t feel fear.

  What’s fear anyway? A mechanism to save you from danger and destruction. All droids were programmed to avoid unnecessary risk to themselves, and only the level of necessity varied according to model. If that wasn’t fear, Ordo didn’t know what was.

  He’d have to think about droids differently from now on. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t blow them to shrapnel if they got in his way.

  He handed Too-One over to Levet, who was still waiting downstairs, and the commander dispatched the droid to the landing area to await incoming vessels.

  “I’d like to keep the general’s condition between the two of us, to spare her embarrassment,” Ordo said. “The droid’s been wiped. You can never be too careful. Funny people, Jedi.”

  “Indeed they are.” Levet projected the holochart above the table in the cramped room he used as an office. It still smelled too strongly of Trandoshans for Ordo’s liking. “Now, what was this about the general? Sorry. I have a terrible memory.”

  Levet knew, and there was only one way of permanently scrubbing a human memory that Ordo trusted. But his conscience, the rules of decency that Kal’buir had instilled in him, said to leave the man—this brother—alone.

  “I’m going to have to remove her for a while. I assume you’re happy to continue the removal of the colonists here on your own.”

  “Oh, I think we can blunder along…”

  “How long until the planet’s cleared?”

  “Another week, maybe, depending on how they react. We’re losing too many men to mines. The locals are very good at concealing them from sensors with metal chaff, so we’re adjusting our tactics.”

  “Either they come out quietly and board the transports—”

  “Or we’ll call in air support.” Levet traced his fingertip through the three-dimensional representation of the Tingel Arm and the northeast quadrants. “The Thirty-fifth is due to take part in the assault on Gaftikar, so we need to clean up here, even if that means getting a little heavy-handed.”

  There wasn’t a better time to move Etain. Once she knew how tough things were getting for Darman, she’d be tempted to seek him out. Gaftikar was relatively close to Qiilura.

  Ordo paused in the hallway to check the messages on his datapad. Jusik had reported Delta’s latest position on their way to Da Soocha; Kal’buir was on his way to Dorumaa.

  Ordo thought of calling Besany, but it seemed a selfish indulgence while Etain and Darman were denied routine contact. And Kal’buir had left one more message:

  Suggest that the name Venku is quite nice, son.

  Naming the child seemed to be a harmless concession to Etain’s anxiety. If Darman or the child himself didn’t like the name in due course, then it could always be changed. Ordo tried to imagine how Darman would react when he found out that nobody had told him about the baby, and that he was the last to know. Ordo was sure he would have been upset if he’d been in the same situation, however necessary it might have been.

  “General?” Ordo thudded up the stairs. “Are you ready to leave?”

  Etain emerged with a rough bag over her shoulder that looked like it had one change of clothes in it. Jedi didn’t have much by way of possessions, just like clones.

  “I need to say good-bye to Levet,” she said.

  “He knows you’re pregnant, by the way. He’s not blind or stupid.”

  Etain paused on the stairs for a moment. “Oh.”

  “And…” Come on, the name’s important to her, and it’s important to Kal’buir, or he wouldn’t have passed it to you. “Kal says Venku is a good name.”

  Etain looked totally distracted for a second and her lips moved. “Venku,” she said at last. “Venku. Does it have a meaning?”

  “It’s derived from the word for ‘future,’ vencuyot.”

  “In the sense of…”

  “A positive future.”

  “Ah.” She nodded and managed a smile. The future was obviously as tantalizingly fragile for her as it was for any clone. “Tell Kal it’s an excellent name.”

  Ordo waited by Mereel’s shuttle and took in the clean silence of the snow while he waited for Etain to say her goodbyes. Every time he tried to be civil to her, he couldn’t seem to make it work. It wasn’t as if he even disliked her. He just couldn’t find any common ground, despite the parallels in their lives.

  She emerged from the building and trudged through the snow, seeking out the path already worn down by boots.

  “Where are we going, then?”

  Ordo opened the hatch. “A resort beach.”

  “You’re winding me up, aren’t you?”

  “No. It’s what I believe they call a tropical paradise. I’ll acquire a change of clothes for you.”

  Etain settled into the copilot’s seat and looked like she was having trouble taking it all in. Ordo suddenly had an insight into the mind of a Jedi who wasn’t comfortable with authority like Zey, or happy being one of the ordinary people as Jusik was.

  She’s never done this. She’s never been somewhere purely for relaxation. She’s as institutionalized as any clone trooper. And there’s no Kal’buir to look out for her.

  Yes, he pitied her, as he’d told her once before. It surprised him that he could, if being grateful that he wasn’t her was pity.

  “I don’t feel right about going to a resort when men are still fighting, Ordo.”

  “And indulging in self-flagellation when you’re pregnant and in danger of losing the child serves no purpose at all.”

  “I suppose that’s your unique way of telling me to be kinder to myself…”

  It was so much easier to have a conversation with Besany. She was a precise woman, and endlessly patient when he didn’t understand some finer point of civilian etiquette.

  “Dorumaa,” Ordo said, trying hard for Darman’s sake. “Mereel says it’s an excellent place to relax.”

  Kal’buir had only told him to make sure Etain was safe and well. He hadn’t told him not to return to the hunt for Ko Sai.

  Like Etain, Ordo didn’t like sitting on his shebs while the people he cared about were facing danger.

  Chapter Nine

  Millions of us were wiped out when the seas rose and engulfed Kamino. We survived as a species because we were willing to think the unthinkable. Some genetic characteristics helped us survive the starvation and overcrowding, and some did not, and there was no room for sentiment or for weaklings. We culled; we refined; we selected. The prospect of extinction forged us into the species we designed ourselves to be, the purest expression of the Kaminoan spirit, and at a level of social maturity that weaker mongrel species will never attain, because they lack the courage to cull. We are the masters of genetics and sole arbiters of our fate, never to be at the mercy of chance again.

  —Draft memoirs of former Chief Scientist Ko Sai, on Kaminoan eugenics and the desirability of the caste system; never published

  Eyat City, Gaftikar,

  Outer Rim,

  477 days after Geonosis

  The bodies of the two covert ops troopers were much heavier than Darman expected.

  The wait for Niner and Fi to show up—two hours—was the longest of his life, and every creak and click made him think the Eyat police were surrounding the apartment. When his brothers finally arrived, he felt inexplicably guilty, as if he had to explain himself.

  Niner stood staring down at the two troopers.

  “Have you tidied them up, Dar?”

  Darman had done his best. Apart from the damage to the one he’d shot in the face, they both looked quite peaceful now. They looked like him, but dead—and he was having a hard time dealing with that. Their arms were neatly at their sides, legs straight.

  “I felt bad leaving them lying around like meat. What are we going to do with them?”

  Fi shrugged. “Can’t leave them here as air fresheners…”

  “Fi, the
y’re our own.” Darman couldn’t bear looking at the faces any longer, and grabbed a blanket from the bedroom. “We have to dispose of them properly.”

  “We’ve got their armor,” Fi said. “Sergeant Kal will want the tallies. He’s funny about that.”

  “Okay, let me put it another way—what if that was your carcass lying there? What would you want done with it?”

  “I’d want someone to shake their head and say, What a waste of such a fine-looking and stylish young man! and then give me a big state funeral,” Fi said, taking the blanket out of Darman’s hands and rolling one of the covert ops troopers in it. “With loads of women weeping that they never had the chance to sample my charms. But apart from that, I wouldn’t give a mott’s backside by then, would I? It’s just a temporary shell. Only the armor lasts.”

  Niner sneaked a glance out of the window. “It’ll be dark in an hour or so. We’ll take them back to camp and bury them. Dispose of the armor somewhere remote.”

  “And tell the lizards not to dig them up and eat them.”

  “Dar, Marits don’t eat other sentients. Just their own dead.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, then.”

  “Dar, these guys tried to kill you—”

  “No, they came for Sull, Sarge, and that’s just what you were ready to do not so long ago—remember?” Darman had no problem killing. It was his job, he’d grown used to it, and he didn’t even get the bad feelings and nightmares afterward that they said humans usually had. But he’d killed his own comrades, not an enemy. The circumstances didn’t make him feel any better. “I don’t think I could ever go after my own like that, no matter what. Not unless it was personal and they’d done something terrible to me.”

  He realized he was blathering. Even Fi gave him an odd look. Niner bundled the second trooper into a blanket, and Darman helped him. The dead troopers’ muscles hadn’t stiffened yet, and when Darman bent one of them over, the movement forced the air from the man’s lungs; he emitted a distressing sighing noise that made him sound as if he’d come back to life. Darman had seen some unpleasant things in battle, but that moment was seared into his memory as one he knew he’d never forget.