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Gardulla the Hutt had grumpily accepted to leave palanquin and bodyguards outside Hego Damask's study at his fortress on Sojourn. But she wasn't inclined to let go the single Human member of her entourage too - "She's my handmaiden!" Gardulla complained. And "Are you afraid of me, Magister Damask?" with a nod toward the Muun's own companion, the droid 11-4D.
It only needed a gaze of Hego Damask at his iron-clad Sun-Guards and the Hutt wallowed relaxed chatting into the study, her servant in tow: "Well, better called 'old maiden' you may think. But she is very useful. Bought her quite recently and didn't regret it since."
Hego Damask had sensed the slave transmitter inside the female already. She was indeed no girl, late in her twenties and looking a good deal older with her drawn, pale features, an artless wound knot of dark hair and the uncut grey garb. A frightened gaze from brown eyes lingered shortly on his disfigured face only in parts covered by a respirator mask, but she did hold herself brave.
"Magister Damask," sighed Gardulla after the door was closed by the Sun-Guards, "Magister Damask! I don't know how to say it. It is embarrassing. Em-bar-ras-sing." There was the false tremolo of desperation thickly in her voice and she didn't even care to complete the cheap stage play with wringing her tiny hands. Instead the Hutt gestured as frequently as she was breathing to her handmaiden for some spicy smelling bits wrapped in fresh green leafs to gulp them down between her words.
"Indeed I did wonder, what brought you in person to Sojourn. A fortnight before schedule. Of a holo-meeting." If Hego Damask's deep and respirator-amplified Huttese sounded annoyed, then rightfully so. He had neither time nor the nerve for any intrusion into his scholarly retreat. He wanted to go back to his studies. The midi-clorians still rarely complied to his call. There left so much to learn, to test, to endeavour... In moments like these there was a devastating feeling of his life running prematurely dry like a brook in the sandy canyons of Gardulla's planet, Tatooine.
"Well," sighed Gardulla, "I have to say it. I really have. I owe you so much." She shook a finger against the Muun: "You know, that is a hard thing to admit for a Hutt."
"Don't mention it," declined Hego Damask indifferently. Longing he looked at the pile of flimsy papers, datacards and blood-samples on his desk.
"But it's true," insisted Gardulla. "And I thought to bring you something to reduce my debt. Come here, give it to me," with a fast turn she took the basket with the remainders of the morsels from the woman's hands.
For a moment of disgust Hego Damask thought the Hutt was in an almost Human pretence of fraternisation about to share with him the food he neither wanted nor could even digest. The customs of her subjects had coloured off on her in other aspects too, he had witnessed in the past.
Gardulla however gave her handmaiden a poof: "Go. A few steps. Just show yourself in the light and don't hide behind me." Not waiting for the Muun's reaction she added cunningly: "I knew what sort of experiments you do, Master Damask. And I knew too, you never experimented on a Human before. You can have her until --- how long do you think you'll need? Ah, perhaps I don't want to know ---" The Hutt produced for someone of her size a remarkably high-pitched giggle.
The woman did still hold herself brave, yet through the Force Hego Damask felt how numbness and cold rose in her limbs while the heart hammered at a hurried beat. She looked straight on, but could not bring it over herself to look into his scarred face. Much more interesting however was, that there must be a leak somewhere. Yet with his staff reduced to loyal Sun-Guards and a single droid and no big fête at Sojourn since ages, the alternatives where limited... "11-4D, you will find an accommodation for --- her." Turning to the Hutt the Munn asked: "Does she have a name?"
"A name? Why of course ---"
"My name is Shmi Skywalker," a soft voice said in plain Basic.
Only the droid was not baffled by this sudden display of self-reliance on the side of the slave: "Follow me, Shmi Skywalker."
As the two where gone, Gardulla switched to a businesslike tone: "Despite your reclusion into this pretty cave, you certainly keep track of the events on Tatooine, don't you?"
The Muun looked down on his walking stick and a ragged breath brought his respirator to its limits. The attempted assassination more then a decade ago has rendered me unfit to mingle with the people and take part at the developments within the Galaxy. However, I never lost interest in it. Contrary to his measured words, Magister Damask revelled in a feeling of glee. So this unexpected visit was no complete wast at last. This was the first sign, the seeds of discord he had planted a long time ago and his apprentice's political work had nursed an equal long time, began to bear fruit.
A rhythmical sweep-sound sneaked into his thoughts. At first Magister Damask tried to dismiss it as an hallucination born out of the murkiness of the arcane journal he was reading. He adjusted the lamp and bend deeper over the sheets of Rancor skin. Yet what he sought, an inspiration for his next experiments, continued to elude him. And there still was the sweep-sound, obnoxious like an insect.
Eventually Hego Damask shook his head and rose from the chair. He followed the noise through an open window-door of his study. Outside was a balcony surrounding this tower of the fortress. When the Muun leaned over the broad stone balustrade to look down into the bailey, the sound had ceased.
He saw the woman, Shmi Skywalker, confronted by three Sun-Guards. She held what seemed to be a broom in her hands and behind her was part of the yard cleaned of all the debris that had accumulated over the years of non-use. What was visible of the pavement showed a fragment of a volute and several lines which might resemble tendrils. Hego Damask was bewildered for a moment, but then he remembered that he had ordered when building the fortress to lay out the cobbles in this yard in an ancient Sith pattern.
The Muun rose a hand. Nudged through the Force the three guard-men looked up, then retreated wordless. The woman had turned her head too. Within the Force he felt that she was as frightened as she had been when introduced to him, so he nodded. Gripping the broom harder Shmi resumed her work. Reluctantly at first and erratically, she soon fell into the rhythm he had heard before.
Suddenly she stopped and looked up to the balcony.
Magister Damask took a step back.
Moments later there was again the sweep-sound. Approaching cautiously the balustrade and leaning over, Hego Damask reached this time more gently out with the Force. He sensed how with each cleaned square-inch Shmi's mind came more to peace. Actually her spirits began to rose...
Also with the lines on the paving seemed to happen a transformation. An unreal motion, the mirage of a twitching here and an uncoiling and recoiling there. And slowly it dawned on Magister Damask what the ancient Sith pattern said. He recalled why he had chosen this layout of all for the yard. In his first design the spot had been a cistern. But then the thought of stagnant waters had repelled him. A mural he found on etchings of Khorriban mausoleums appeared much more animated in comparison.
Hego Damask leaned deeper over the balustrade. He felt the energising jolt when seeing the pattern coming to life on the cobble-stones like he had felt it in the past. In lack of lips to form the syllables, the words of the century old spells build noiselessly in his throat. Pictures of deep meaning arose before his inner eye.
It was not before in his back 11-4D whirred discretely, that Magister Damask realised how much time he had spend watching Shmi Skywalker sweeping the ground of the bailey. The ancient Sith pattern was now almost completely revealed. "Who had ordered her to do that?" Asked Hego Damask gesturing into the yard.
"Nobody. The Sun-Guards said she simply began."
"Most remarkable 11-4D."
"Yes, and clean and orderly too, Magister."
Under his breath Hego Damask said: "She is just a slave and angst her permanent and only companion. But by doing something on herself she conquered it. However," interrupted the Muun his reverie, "the sun has proceeded, we should go into the laboratory. I do have a new idea."
"Shall I summon Shmi Skywalker?"
"No ---," the Muun hesitated, "not yet."
Usually the Muun and his electric servant didn't talk when relocating from the laboratories to the study and vice versa. Usually the time was too short, because they took the turbolift. But since a few days Magister Damask felt strong enough to climb stairs. And unaided so.
Enjoying his regained stamina, Hego Damask became talkative: "What did she say?" After learning from his droid, Shmi Skywalker had been accommodated in a windowless chamber close to the laboratories, he had corrected that by assigning to the Human female a room above the ground level of the fortress.
"Nothing, Magister Damask. But she smiled."
"Smiled? Echoed the Muun."
Interpreting this as an request to be more specific, 11-4D tried to explain: "She went to one of the windows, looked out and smiled. Not like young master Palpatine. And not like your honourable guests at the annual fêtes in the past. Calm. I think you would call it calm. And I think she didn't intend me to see it."
"Of course not, she is a slave. Did she ask for cleaning utensils?"
"Yes, and I let her have them as you requested."
Whatever the Muun was to say more about this matter left unheard, because this moment he almost stumbled. The Force enhanced jump, which forestalled a fall and carried him several stairs up, was a reflex, not a conscious action. A sharp, cold pain seized the one of his three hearts which had been affected worst by the attempted assassination over ten years ago.
Catching his breath Hego Damask looked down the staircase.
From beyond Shmi Skywalker looked up. She knelt on the old and worn stone, naked arms red and wet up to the elbows. The water in a bucket aside her was already dirty like the piece of cloth she gripped.
Wordless Hego Damask turned and rushed for his study.
In front of his desk he stopped abruptly. His eyes wandered aimless over the mountains of notes and other remainders of unsuccessful experiments. With an fast gesture the Muun swept the table clean. Sheeny wood surfaced, mirroring a grotesque, dark image when he leaned heavily on the desk.
Was it that how the Human female saw him? Haggard, wild-eyed, disfigured and dirty? Magister Damask laboured to breath evenly. Involuntarily he said aloud: "Is that how you see me?"
11-4D, which had almost bumped into his master in the hurry to follow him and now waited for an order to remove the clutter from the floor, adjusted its optical units at the Muun's face: "It seems, the tissue has gained volume. Your respirator-mask is not sitting how it should."
Hego Damask sunk into his chair, fingering for the disobedient piece. "Leave me alone," he managed. But finding that too small an order to provide him the needed solitude, he added: "Have the next line of subjects prepared for manipulation."
"Shall I summon Shmi Skywalker?"
"No," the Muun hesitated like some days before. "Not yet."
Once alone, Magister Damask removed his mask with a slow and deliberate move. Should this swelling be a pallbearer of a final, deadly necrosis? He was now collected enough not again to speak out his fear aloud. There was almost no tremble in his fingers when he felt the old scars. Hego Damask opened himself to the Force, ready to accepted whatever he would find.
At first there was a faint crackle like lightning far, far away. Then his study did fall apart. Desk, shelf, boards and walls vanishing sidewards, downwards into the dark, while at the same time he slowly ascended. Like a bud on a twig he rose, and in the rise he caught fire, soon burning in a brilliant and mighty flame. So radiant the flame was, it did ignite the black void too.
For a long time he floated in such a perfect bubble of burning darkness, listening to its cacophonous choirs, he almost forgot to care to continue his ascension. It was like sitting in a tree top in the thick of Sojourn's jungle. Yet instead the beasts of the wild rallying around him, people did. Most of them clad in the black, light-defying robes of the Sith.
A motion at his left side, slightly beyond his levitated body, made Darth Plagueis turn. Palpatine! The shine of the flame reflected on the young man's reddish locks he wore in Naboo custom at shoulder length and open. But stronger the fire was reflected in the pair of yellow eyes. Darth Sidious, his apprentice! Awe and adoration Darth Plagueis read in the gaze of his disciple. A smile was on the young man's lips. He lifted his hands in salute to his master.
Feeling even more elated than before, Darth Plagueis looked back to gauge how far he had risen. But under him was nothing. No trunk, no branch, no twig. In an ear-breaking crescendo of crackling he did fall down, seeing in this downfall from the corner of his eye that his apprentice' smile had reverted into a sneer. The hull of flames around him fought, but became suffocated by the speed of the fall.
When Plagueis hit the ground the last amber shine died noiselessly. He tasted something metallic. Groaning he rolled on his back, opening his sightless eyes wide. From the crowd in the complete darkness a faint but regular melody sounded. A light figure emerged and bend over him. He realised it was a female, then a clot of blood in his throat choked him.
Shaken by a hard cough Hego Damask throw himself forward from his chair over the sheeny brown plate of the table in his study. Blindly the Muun groped for the respirator, struggling for air.
For a longer string of days Magister Damask avoided Shmi Skywalker. He didn't even mention her against 11-4D, his droid. But he did register quite vividly the subtle changes outside his study. A statuette polished, a window cleaned, a wall washed. Or just some litter vanished which had lain since unknown times on the floor of a hallway.
His experiments Hego Damask continued to plan, carry out and evaluate but with a feeling of interim. He didn't expect them to yield any new results. Yet he had to be prepared. More important for him where his meditations in the Force. And these where also a place were the Muun allowed himself some vanity, when he again and again mirrored his physical progress in its virtual counter image. The other place was the abandoned neglect in dressing.
For 11-4D and the Sun-Guards not much had changed. Their master was as usually either striding through the laboratories or turning pages at his desk or laying motionless yet not sleeping for hours on the divan in his study. And if they wondered about his appetite for dishes beyond mashed food, they didn't show it. The Muun have had changed his diet in preparation for some rituals in the past.
However eventually Hego Damask knew that, within the transformation necessary, it was not only inevitable, but the right time to surrender the last border, the threshold of his study: "Summon Shmi Skywalker."
The Muun didn't rose his eyes from his writings when hearing the door open and close and a light step ceasing shortly before his desk. "I wish you to clean this room."
"Are you sure, Magister?"
Hego Damask found the sound of the soft Human voice pleasant but the question bafflingly fresh. Irritated he looked up: "Why yes, I am."
Shmi's stance neither spoke of defiance nor caution, only of placidity. Her hands were loosely clasped in front of her and her brown eyes did not avoid his masked face. "I might bring your scientific work into disorder, Magister."
"Maybe. But I'm here to tell you if. And ---" Her small and round face had a certain grace and her wrists were almost as delicate as the ones of a Muun woman. Delicate yet strong...
When the break stretched for too long, Shmi ventured politely: "And, Magister?"
"My name is Hego."
Amusement curled Shmi's lips about this revelation for a splinter of a moment, but then she responded calmly: "Where do you want me to begin, Hego?"
"Remove my respirator-mask." That was not what he had planed to say in the first place. But he was so keen how she would react.
Carefully Shmi did, keeping this time her gaze intently on the device. However eventually she dared to look into his uncovered face and surprise lit up her features.
In shock Magister Damask closed his eyes as Shmi reached out and gentle touched the tender flesh of his regrown cheek.
When she withdraw her fingers equally shocked by his reaction, he caught them without lifting the lids and placed her hand again on his cheek.
Her fingers trembled and where cold now. He did send soothing signals through the Force. But suspecting she could not decipher them, Hego said aloud while pulling Shmi on his lap: "Don't be afraid. I will not hurt you ---" After that, he was sure, the midi-clorians would more readily divulge the secret of life.