Qui-Gon followed closely. Manex pulled up in front of a gray stone building a few blocks away.
Immediately the doors opened and a med team rushed out.
A doctor bent over Tahl. Her eyes fluttered open. He applied a diagnostic readout to the side of her neck and frowned at the results.
'Will she be all right?'
'We will do the best we can.'
The med team transferred Tahl to a wheeled stretcher. She was gone before he had a chance to touch her hand or tell her he'd be waiting. Qui- Gon sat numbly in the pilot seat, the speeder controls solid in his clenched fists, willing his own control not to slip away.
Chapter 19
Qui-Gon sat by the shore of the lake and stared at the cliff. The rocky surface seemed completely sheer. The cliff looked impossibly big. But most things looked pretty big to him. He was eight years old.
They had already climbed the cliff face with cable launchers in class. They had learned to use their body's weight and hone their balance, correct their timing. They had done it over and over again. Next week, they would do it without cable launchers under the supervision of a Jedi Master.
It would be one of their Force exercises.
He knew he should not be thinking of climbing it freehand. But he was. Qui-Gon wanted to gobble up the challenges the Jedi teachers threw at the students. A week was too long to wait. It wasn't so very high, really.
It was just a big rock. There were handholds and footholds, even if he couldn't see them. If he fell, he would fall into the lake.
If he were caught, he would be in trouble. Then again, he wouldn't get caught. It was dawn and the lake area was deserted.
He heard the rustle behind him and turned. It was a fellow student, Tahl. She was in his class, but he didn't know her very well. She was slight, smaller than the rest of them. She looked like a little boy, he thought. He did not think of himself as a little boy.
She nodded at the cliff. 'You thinking of climbing it?'
Startled, he was about to say no. But Jedi did not lie, even for small things. 'Accustomed to the lie, you become,' Yoda had warned them.
'Easy it becomes to be false in big things, if false you are in small ones.
' So he said nothing.
To his surprise, she grinned. 'Come on.' When he hesitated, she added, 'Bet I can beat you to the top.'
She ran and launched herself at the rock face, grabbing her first handhold. He hesitated for just a moment, surprised at how eagerly she attacked the rock. Then she seemed to mold herself against it. She waited until Qui-Gon ran forward and joined her.
It was harder than he'd thought. The handholds that seemed so firm to him with a cable on his belt now seemed impossibly tiny. The rock had become his enemy. It was tricky to keep his balance. Sweat began to pour down his face. His muscles shook with effort. He forgot about Tahl's challenge and concentrated on not falling off He was three-quarters of the way to the top when he looked over at her. They were neck and neck. Her face was grimy and sweaty. She grinned.
The grin spurred him on. He found the next handhold, then the next.
She was behind him now, and he was almost there. He searched for the next handhold, his face pressed against the rough rock.
Suddenly she was beside him, climbing easily. Then she was ahead of him, her hand reaching for the top. She swung herself up and over, then sat, breathing hard.
Qui-Gon followed, feeling furious and ashamed. She had beaten him.
When he turned to Tahl, he expected to see triumph in her eyes. Instead, he saw excitement.
'I felt it, Qui-Gon! I felt the Force!' She slapped the ground, her green-gold eyes blazing. 'The rock — it was part of me. I was part of…
everything. Even the air! It was just the way Yoda said it would be.'
Now he was envious as well as embarrassed.
'I can tell you what you did wrong,' she said, nudging him with a shoulder. 'You hated the rock. You fought it. I did, too, in the beginning.
You need to love the rock.'
Love the rock? That sounded silly. Qui-Gon wanted to tell her that.
But he knew what she meant. And suddenly, he didn't want to hurt her feelings.
Tahl stood. 'Now for the reward. Come on!' She ran forward and leaped off the end of the rock, straight into the shimmering green water.
Qui-Gon followed. It was a long drop, but the shock of the water felt refreshing. Tahl waited underwater for him. She grinned, and Qui-Gon smiled back. The cool water felt so good, and he had climbed the rock. Next time he would do better. Next time, he would love the rock.
