Star Wars - Changing Seasons - Part 1 - Guardian of the People by Timothy Zahn

Author:Timothy Zahn [Zahn, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2004-06-19T02:59:19+00:00

If the battle droids did indeed pass through the area again that night, they were considerate enough to be quiet about it. Obi-Wan slept soundly, not waking up until Kit arrived a little after sunrise to bring him in to breakfast.

The meal was quick but pleasant, with little of the underlying tension he’d sensed the evening before. Apparently, a good night’s sleep - perhaps, more importantly, an uneventful night’s sleep - had helped calm some of their fears.

After breakfast, Kirlan took Obi-Wan back to the barn to a huge stack of ten-centimeter-long grain stalks piled beside a bin made of wire mesh. “Crop stubble,” he identified it. “The lower sections of the sargheet stalks. By the time we’ve finished the harvest, we’ll hopefully have enough of this to feed the zeles for the rest of the year.”

He picked up one of the stalks and pointed at a dozen fine blue bristles attached to the base and sticking up about half the stalk’s length. “But only if we pull these bristles off first,” he went on. “If the animals eat them, they accumulate in their digestive systems and you end up with a dead animal.”

Obi-Wan picked up a stalk and experimentally tugged at one of the bristles. It came off in his fingers with far less effort than he’d expected. “Yeah, they come off real easy,” Kirlan agreed. “Which is why they’ll come off in a zete’s gut, too. Anyway. That pail right there is for the bristles - Trissa makes a nice soup stock out of them. The clean stubble goes into that wire bin. Got it?”

“Got it,” Obi-Wan said, suppressing the reflexive urge to suggest that a droid might do the job more efficiently. Obviously it could. Just as obviously, Kirlan couldn’t afford to buy one.

“Great,” Kirlan said, moving toward the door. “The kids and I will be out in the fields all day, but Trissa will bring you some lunch when it’s time.”

“Will you be taking your lunch out with you?”

Kirlan hesitated. “I’ll have something for the kids,” he said. “Trissa and I usually don’t bother with more than two meals a day,”

Clearly another cost-cutting move. “Sounds very Jedi,” Obi-Wan told him, keeping his voice casual. “Please tell her not to bother with any lunch for me either.”

For a moment Kirlan’s eyes seemed to search Obi-Wan’s face. “In that case, I’ll send the kids to bring you in when it’s dinnertime,” he said. “Have fun.”

Rather to Obi-Wan’s surprise, he did. It seemed sometimes like his whole life since the Battle of Geonosis had been nothing but combat, life-or-death decisions, and long days of hyperspace travel. To do work that was useful yet took little mental effort was a welcome change of pace, soothing and satisfying. By the time Kit and Zizzy came to get him, he had the bucket half full of blue bristles and the kind of inner contentment and peace he usually got only from a period of Jedi meditation.

“How’d it go?” Kirlan asked as the children led their guest toward a large wooden table on one side of the kitchen.

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