[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Covalent Bonds

Chapter 26

Anakin could see the appeal of FlibbertiGibbit bird. The benevolent giant suffered younglings of all ages and species to crawl on him and pull his scarlet feathers. Anakin had even seen a gibbit bird, once. Along with Owen and Sabra, he watched as Beru offered a hug to the two-meter-tall bird with the striped feet. It wasn't a hologram, his senses told him; someone was actually in a suit, dispensing chittering noises that all the younglings around him seemed to understand and chortle at. Sabra held a hand each of Owen and Anakin, her face doubtful. On the HoloNet, FlibbertiGibbit bird stood a half-meter tall. FlibbertiGibbit did shuffling dances, he sang in nonsense rhymes, he clacked his beak in rhythm to a chorus of guest younglings who sometimes said things that made their parents whisk them away with words of apology to their avian host. Sabra couldn't articulate what she saw, but she did know that her mother watched the program with her and laughed loudest at whatever it was that the younglings said. Sabra took one step forward, not relinquishing the men's hands.

"Sabra." Sabra looked up at her father. "Ma wants you." Beru stood next to the thing that looked like FlibbertiGibbit, but wasn't. Beru gestured for Sabra to come to her. Sabra pulled back again. She pressed her face against Owen's knee.

"Saaaabra." Anakin winked at Owen and bent down near the ear that wasn't covered by her FlibbertiGibbit hat. "Go tell Ma a secret for me." He whispered in Sabra's ear. She looked incredulously up at him, he nodded vigorously and she walked forward. They hung back. She pulled. They didn't budge. With a toss of her head, she ran to her mother.

Beru picked her up. "Sabra, do you have a message for me?"

Sabra pressed sweet-sticky lips to her mother's ear. "Hurgik faw dinneh."

Beru frowned exaggeratedly. Sabra rarely saw Beru's frown. "We'll not have Herglic ice cream for dinner tonight, baby girl. We shall have vegetables and protein slabs and then more vegetables for dessert -- "

"No! Nono! Unka wants."

Beru batted her eyelashes. "Ohhh, Unka wants it. Well, then. Maybe. We'll see." Sabra relaxed.

FlibbertiGibbit busied himself with a Twi'lek boy who pulled out a handful of red feathers from the costume. There was a whir as Beru noticed new red feathers sprouting from the patient costume wearer. The Twi'lek boy pulled them out again, laughing.

Beru offered the boy one sweet for each hand from her bag. He accepted them and the costumed icon turned beady eyes on her. "Thank you," his vocoder chittered. Beru jerked her head to mean, "Come closer." FlibbertiGibbit bird wobbled his legs in his usual way and slid next to them with a giant step.

"Ah, ah, ah, squueeeEEEEAAAALLLLLL!" shrieked Sabra, caught between delight and terror. Delight won out as FlibbertiGibbit held out his claw with a palm-sized holoemitter nestled in it. A smaller version of himself clacked and pranced as Sabra stared. This was familiar.

"What did your parents tell you not to tell me today?" HoloFlibbertiGibbit said in perfect Basic. Beru laughed like she did at home, Sabra held out her arms for a hug from the monster and Owen made Anakin enable the automatic setting on their rental holocamera droid. It hovered, Anakin rushed to the group and FlibbertiGibbit bird flung large wings about his and Owen's shoulders. Anakin tried not to remember that a real gibbit bird ate carrion and smiled for their souvenir.

Later that day the Pleasure Dome proved unlike their expectations. Anakin couldn't see how anything like Theed's Pleasure-Rama could exist here in this ingenuous atmosphere. Was there a youngling sitting service to care for offspring while the adults enjoyed some adult time? No, that was not the idea at all. What the name meant was 'pleasure for all ages' so there were adult versions of games with adult-sized gaming pieces. Holograms of childhood heroes interacted with patrons and their offspring, handing out holovids of their exploits for souvenirs. Even the tiniest of younglings were not skimped on for advertising, and Anakin noticed bald human babies no bigger than the youngest Initiate sporting headbands that read "Safe for the tenderest stomachs ... Naturelac, your grandparents' choice. Shouldn't it be yours?"

"Owen, where's the family?"

Owen made his fifty-eighth ringer at a throwing game and gathered yet another stuffed colo claw fish from the droid prize dispenser. Owen's carryall was getting full. "Beru's feeding her in the ladies' lounge." A Gran youngling in the lane next to him was not so lucky at the game. Owen handed over his new toy to the boy, earning grateful looks and bleats from the boy's liveried nanny. She was busy with a bonneted infant who cooed for a bottle.

"Oh. I thought Beru might have given up on that by now. Sabra must be draining her dry."

"We'll do it for a while yet. It helps with spacing births, you know." Owen moved on down the promenade to wait his turn for a dance grid. The elevated platform had a Praci trying to match its slow rolling motion to the rapid series of colored flashing lights on the frosted tiles. They observed while the Praci attempted the impossible.

"No, I didn't know." And I don't need to know. I'll leave all that kind of thing up to Masters Lu and Bant and Allie.

"Next year we want another one. I think three years apart is good, don't you?"

"I wouldn't know that, either." Ick, internal stuff. "Erm, look, Owen, it's giving up. Want to try?" The Praci gurgled its distinctive laugh as it goodnaturedly gestured its pseudopod to a cleaning droid. The droid rotored on spinning cloth appendages over the damp tiles, absorbing all the moisture that Praci left behind when they exerted themselves in any way. The droid beeped in gratitude as the gelatinous being formed an arrow to point where the cloth strips had missed a spot. They are simply the nicest beings you'd ever want to meet, thought Anakin, smiling until his jaws ached as the Praci exuded a customary farewell bubble in their direction in pure goodwill, resorbing it as it undulated down the steps and away. Four minutes later, the inviting clean tiles flashed to a beginner's beat as Owen and Anakin felt their way into the rhythm.

"Up?"

Owen rolled up his sleeves as his feet continued to dance. He nodded. Anakin said clearly, "Advance one half level." They matched each other in stepping, Owen's height being closer to the Galactic norm actually an advantage on the generic grid. Anakin had to consciously curb his impulse to widen his stance during the escalating tempo. It took another five minutes for them to stabilize.

"More?"

Owen broke out in a sweat. "Yes. Just getting started." He pulled his neckline down as far as it could go.

"Advance one full level." Lanky clumped hair bobbed as Owen matched Anakin beat for beat. The next level would have them full out in a brotherly competition that Anakin wasn't sure he wanted.

"More!"

"Why, when ... we don't ... have to ... " Anakin panted.

"More fun than ... I've had ... since the ... last Grange ... picnic ... " Sweat streamed down Owen's face as he waved his arms to counterbalance his weaving feet, swaying like a gyroscope about to fall. He shot a look at Anakin, a laugh erupting. "Brother ... go ... for it ... "

"Ad ... vance ... one ... full ... le ... vel ... " was the last thing Anakin said for three more minutes. They were in a dead heat.

"Pa! Pa!" Sabra's treble pierced the mutter of the crowd that had gathered.

Owen stopped and bent over, hands on knees. Anakin stopped at the same time and they both searched for Sabra and Beru. The two stood next to the Praci, whose sticky surface formed five pairs of applauding palms. Beru's eyes widened at the sight of the two overheated men. She glanced at the multitude around her and her daughter but stepped up anyway to be the center of attention along with the two dancers.

"Here now, this is supposed to be a vacation." Sabra started to laugh and Beru joined in. The men did look exhausted, though they grinned like fools and slapped each other's backs when they had regained their strength. Beru led them to the Comestibles Court. "Sit and watch Sabra. I'll get you something. Owen?"

"My usual."

"There's no liquor or ale here."

"Well, there goes the fun out of Hologram Fun World!" burst out Anakin. He and Owen got their breath back. "Water, please." Hunger took over after they slaked their thirst. Anakin allowed the Lars family to treat him to a string of entrees, bivoli tempari with extra sweet sauce followed by a hearty serving of grayweave, in deference to their budget. Long draughts of water filled him up. There was the promised Herglic ice cream for dessert. A stupor overtook Anakin as he sat there digesting and if it weren't for Sabra's yawns and Beru's heavy lids he might have fallen into a meditation, or a light doze.

"Was the gap filled?" queried Owen, sounding just like Cliegg.

"Ohhh, yes. Thanks."

"Time for bed. I'm done in." A lifetime of hard work lay ahead of Owen, yet he was having fun this vacation. Anakin thought his visit to his family was a success.

"Tomorrow is another day."

Owen took a drowsy Sabra from Beru and stood. "Onward, brother. You lead the way."

Anakin regretted his last helping of Byss cheese as he covered his mouth. "Excuse me. Good food, good meat, good stars, let's sleep."

The Koann Kondominiums had enough charm for visitors' short stays and not enough to live in them. Anakin thought he had a full stomach, but the cupboards had been stocked with gand cake and glazed glucose paté. They made a bedtime snack he would always remember. It was a souvenir, in a way.   He shut down the holocam droid for the night.

Meanwhile, orbiting the Kaer Orbital Platform array...

Obi-Wan plucked the plastifoam out of his bellybutton and sighed. Grievous had escaped again. Though Obi-Wan did not believe in luck, the alternative was to credit Grievous with more intelligence and prescience than the Jedi and that he simply couldn't do. But Jedi are not infallible. We can do things like rewrite the Code. We recognize ourselves as unfinished work. That was the place to which his most recent meditation had delivered him. He told himself that he was content with that revelation. On the other hand -- Obi-Wan swiveled the co-pilot's chair to form a visual barrier between his lower nudity and the highly reflective viewport -- Siri seemed to possess a higher degree of luck than he did. He discounted surviving the trip to Olanet's upper atmosphere. That had been the Force moving though him. Didn't his amplified midichlorian count prove it? So how do you account for today? Lucky we escaped the worst of the cloning radiation, lucky the radiation shot its load in one burst and blew out its generators, unlucky to have been in the vicinity at all. He pulled on his regular uniform, still thinking about the conundrum. "Ready?"

The rustling behind him continued. "No. Lost the kriffing plastifoam somewhere -- uhhhn -- oh, there it is. Yes, now I'm ready." Siri kicked the discarded suits to the back of the shuttle and forgot about them. "Let's look at your cut."

"No cut, just a bruise, see?"

"Push your waistband lower. Eh, that could use some help to begin healing. Allow me, sir."

"I'll join you, starting ... now." Obi-Wan coasted down the part of Siri's aura that reached out to his and rolled a surge of health to his middle. When the contusion stopped aching, he smiled.

"What are you doing?" Siri withdrew her Masterly touch, but Obi-Wan's remained on her body, warming her hand as he held it firmly against him. A roaring wave of energy overran her elbow, arm socket and shoulder. "Ooooh, Obi-Wan! I want ... I w-want ... oh, more ... yes ... oh ... oh! ... that's, that's ... nice." She flexed experimentally. "Yes, greatly improved, thank you."

They switched on the autopilot and separated to rest as much as they could in the small craft. The trip to Tunroth Colonial Valley seemed shorter than the outward bound one.

TBC

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Brother-in-Law, who passed Monday. He was the one who declared that we all should see Star Wars, a "movie with great visuals," and so Mother, Step-father, Sister, Brother-in-Law, Nephew and pronker stood in a long line for a 9 a.m. Sunday showing in 1977 to enjoy a "movie with great visuals" that captivated all of us. But I was the only one who went the next day to see it again. To Brother-in-Law, photographer of flowers and connoisseur of genre films and art films. You also ensured that Nephew made the long trip to Disneyland in my care. Skoal!

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