Mace Windu seemed about to violently disagree with this, but Thracia gave him a radiant smile, brows high on her wrinkled forehead, and his shoulders drooped. Thracia was one of the few who could outjape Mace Windu, and he knew it.
Anakin looked around the room, realizing that whatever the mood at the beginning of the meeting, there was little chance now of his being expelled from the Temple. Thracia had made her point, as only she could, by lightly stinging them all.
'I need a job, a mission,' he said, his voice cracking with emotion. 'I need something to do. Something real.'
'How can we give you our trust?' Mace asked, leaning forward and staring at the boy. Anakin did not avert his eyes. The power of his spirit, of his personality, was almost frighteningly apparent.
'Indeed, Padawan, how can we trust you, after all these errors?' Thracia asked, her voice level. 'It is one thing to be what you are, quite another to drag others into danger.' Anakin stared at her for long seconds, searching her face as he might look over a map, trying to find his way home.
'I never make the same mistake twice,' he finally said, blinking slowly. He faced the other Council members. 'I'm not stupid.'
'I agree,' Thracia said. 'Mace, give these two something useful to do, rather than stewing in the Temple pot.'
'I was approaching that conclusion,' Mace said.
'Taking all day and terrifying the boy!' Thracia exclaimed.
'Anakin is not easily frightened, not by us,' Mace said wryly. 'Thracia, there must be another reason you honor us today.'
'How observant!' she said. 'The danger grows daily, and our enemies, whoever they are, within the senate or without, may again try to target our students before they are ready to defend themselves.' Thracia flapped out her sleeves and sat in an empty Council seat beside Mace. 'You sent my former apprentice Vergere, on a mission, and we have heard nothing from her in a year. Vergere is self-reliant, as Jedi are trained to be. It is possible she has extended her mission, or found another. In any case, I request that Obi- Wan Kenobi be sent as backup.'
'With me?' Anakin asked, his face eager. He remembered Vergere, an intense, trim, and diminutive female who had treated him with polite reserve-as if he were an adult. He had liked her. He had especially liked the patterns of feathers and short whiskers around her face and her large, quizzical eyes.
'Would this be a long mission?' Obi-Wan asked.
'To the far side of the galaxy, far beyond the rule of the Republic,' Mace said thoughtfully. 'If we agree.'
'A chance for adventure and growth, away from the seethe and intrigue of the capital world,' Thracia said. 'Obi-Wan, you are not enthusiastic?'
Obi-Wan stepped forward. 'If the Temple is in danger, I would rather stay and defend it.'
'I see the path we all tread,' Mace said. 'Thracia is concerned about her apprentice, even now that Vergere has become a Jedi Knight. This mission involves mystery, long journeys, and an exotic world-all things that could focus the attention of a young Padawan.'
'We must not encourage adventurism for its own sake,' Obi- Wan protested. Anakin looked up at him, dismayed.
Mace's somber face showed he shared some of Obi-Wan's concerns, but not all. He raised his hand. 'Matters are not yet at crisis on Coruscant. That may be decades away. While you are gone, Obi-Wan, we can probably fend for ourselves.' Mace's lips cracked the faintest of smiles. 'A Padawan must attend his Master. Anakin, do you agree?'
'Absolutely!' Anakin squirmed with the hope of being out from under so many critical eyes. 'Is the meeting over?'
'In due time,' Mace said, eyes languid once more. 'Now, explain to me again how you got involved in this race.
Chapter 4
Anakin lay on his cot in the small room, twirling a droid verbobrain in his hands. His face was utterly intent in the pool of light from his small glow lamp. His brows cast deep shadows over his eyes. He ran his hands over his short hair and peered deep into the unit's connectors.
He did not like the fact that he had won. It seemed wrong that he had stepped so far out of line, and yet had been retained as a Padawan. He did not like the unease this victory, if victory it was, produced in him. Above all weaknesses, arrogance was the most costly.
They keep me here because I have potential they've never seen before. They keep me in training because they're curious to see what I can do. I feel like a rich man who never knows whether his friends are true-or whether they just want his money.
This was a particularly galling thought, and certainly neither true nor fair. Why do they put up with me, then? Why do I keep testing them? They tell me to use my pain-but sometimes I don't even know where the pain comes from! I worried my mother-and I tested her, again and again, to make sure she loved me. She sent me away so I could be brought up by stronger people. So I could control myself. And I still haven't learned.
He sat up in a squat and plugged a test wire into the verbobrain. Small criticality lights flickered to dull red on the perimeter of the knobby sphere.
A compact protocol droid filled a corner of the room. Anakin stood and lifted the droid's access panel, inserted the verbobrain, and arranged the leads again at different test points. Criticality lights showed that this unit could direct its own actions once more. With a flick of his finger, Anakin started the verbobrain spinning. It rolled back and forth on high-speed gimbals faster than even his quick eyes could track, seeking inputs from the many sensor brushes arranged within the droid's head.
