Страница 13 из 25
Questions were still forming in his mind when the rock beneath Qui- Gon's feet shuddered. For a split second the Jedi Master considered diving into the swirling waters to find his answers. With a glance at his apprentice his sanity returned. If the Jedi could not recover the Holocron it was unlikely that anyone else could, either.
"I'll carry him," Qui-Gon told his Padawan abruptly. He did not want to waste his strength explaining himself.
Before Qui-Gon could lift Lundi from the chasm floor, a second rush of water hurtled out of the gap. Obi-Wan saw it coming and steadied his Master, helping him get the Quermian onto a shoulder. But now the water was halfway up their calves.
Obi-Wan led the way, holding his glow rod out in front of them. They had to walk carefully along the rocky shelf, back to the crevasse wall.
The water around Qui-Gon's legs made it difficult to know where to step, and Lundi was continuously flailing several arms and raving in his ear.
"The Holocron!" he screamed, struggling against Qui-Gon's firm grip.
"I must get the Holocron! It's mine. Mine!"
Qui-Gon tried to ignore the professor, which wasn't easy. Finally he could see the place where they'd descended. But how were they going to get back up to the top with a maddened Quermian and only one anchored cable launcher?
"I can climb up and toss the cable back down to you," Obi-Wan suggested.
Qui-Gon wasn't sure they had time for that — or that he could make it while holding onto Lundi. But he didn't see a better option, and he couldn't think with Lundi screaming in his ear.
Obi-Wan had just hoisted himself off the rocky shelf when a small ship appeared overhead. Dropping back to the floor, he and his encumbered Master pressed themselves against the crevasse wall for cover. There was no way of knowing who was inside, or what they were after.
The ship descended as close to the crevasse as it could, and a long ladder dropped down in front of the Jedi. The vessel looked vaguely familiar, but in the darkness it was hard to identify it. Obi-Wan looked at his Master with uncertainty. Qui-Gon was not clear about the ship, either.
But he was not one to refuse help that they truly needed.
The Jedi grabbed hold and climbed. Even with the evenly spaced rungs, getting the struggling professor safely to the ship was no easy feat. About halfway up, Lundi passed out. When Qui-Gon finally pulled himself into the ship, he was exhausted. Holding Lundi with one arm Qui-Gon gripped each step with his teeth in order to move his free hand to the next step. Twice his boots slipped on the wet rungs, nearly sending him and his heavy load into the waters below. At last he reached the ship's hatch and dragged himself and his burden aboard.
"Nice to see you again," came a gritty female voice from the cockpit.
Qui-Gon was surprised to see Elda. She gri
"Didn't expect to see me, did you?" she asked.
Qui-Gon shook his head. "But it's a pleasure," he told her sincerely.
"Thank you for coming."
The pilot turned back to her controls and lifted the ship into the air. "You don't have to thank me," she replied. "Something about you or this place got under my skin, and I came back shortly after leaving. I just couldn't leave you here. After all, you saved my ship from being blown up.
I wanted to return the favor."
"We're grateful," Obi-Wan remarked as he slumped into a chair.
Qui-Gon set Lundi down in another seat and secured him to it with a length of cable. He didn't think the old Quermian would have much strength when he woke, but he didn't want to take any chances.
Suddenly the professor's head snapped up.
Qui-Gon stepped back, but Lundi craned his long neck forward, forcing the Jedi against the ship wall.
The Quermian's good eye rolled around in its socket as he closely examined the Jedi. "Peacemakers!" he spat. "You have begun a war." Lundi whipped his small head back and forth on the end of his slender neck. "War!
War!" he repeated over and over, each time his voice growing louder and more shrill.
Qui-Gon opened his mouth to speak but saw that it would be of little use. He could only watch as the once brilliant historian whipped himself into a frenzy. The power of the dark side had corrupted him. It was clear to the Jedi Master that Lundi was insane. He would be escorted back to the Temple and evaluated. Qui? Gon felt quite certain that he would need psychiatric help. And there were also questions for the Galactic Republic regarding what he'd intended to do with the Holocron.
This was not the way Qui-Gon had hoped to return from this mission.
He did not have the Holocron. His apprentice seemed rattled. There was also still the question of who, besides the Jedi and Professor Lundi, knew it was down there. Who had unfastened Obi-Wan's cable launcher? Had anyone else been able to get down into the chasm? The best they could hope for was that the Holocron was still at the bottom of Kodaian sea — at least until the tide dropped again in ten years.
"You can't handle it! You don't know what to do with it! You don't deserve it!" The professor raved on. Qui-Gon wasn't sure if Lundi was even talking to him any longer.
Taking a deep breath, Qui-Gon tuned out Lundi's mad rants. He tried to quiet his mind, consoling himself with the fact that the Holocron was not in Lundi's possession. Still, he knew this mission was far from over.
***
Ten years later.
***
Chapter 13
"Pathetic weaklings," Lundi spat. His uncovered eye rolled in its socket and a line of drool dribbled down his chin. "The power was mine — within my grasp. But you… you snatched it. You stole it away."
Obi-Wan watched the insane Quermian struggle in his bindings. The anger seething inside him was tangible, and the Jedi felt certain that Lundi would kill him if he could. But aside from the lucid declaration of the power he'd nearly had and then lost, much of what the professor said was incomprehensible.
Professor Lundi had almost lost his life on Kodai when he'd attempted to go after the Sith Holocron buried under the planet's vast sea. He'd survived, but his sanity was gone — eaten away by the ancient device lurking under the pounding waves.
Lundi writhed in his seat, trying to get free.
Since that fateful night on Kodai he'd been tried for the crime of attempting to bring a great evil into active existence in the galaxy. Not only was he trying to obtain the Holocron, there was significant evidence that he'd intended to use it for evil purposes.