Paul Kemp: Crosscurrent

"There's no pay in it, Khedryn," Jaden said, and immediately wished he had not.

Khedryn winced as if slapped. "I am not a mercenary, Jedi. I just try to get by. But I value my friends."

Jaden noted the plural. "I do, too. Hunting those clones will be dangerous work."

"Yeah," Khedryn said, and stared off into space.

"How about some caf?" Marr said to Khedryn, lightening the mood.

"Sure," Khedryn said. "Jaden?"

"Please."

Khedryn patted Marr's arm, rose, and left the room. The moment he exited, Marr spoke.

"Relin taught me how to use the Force."

Jaden was not surprised. "I wish he had not."

Marr's brow furrowed. "Why?"

"Knowledge can be painful, Marr. It just raises questions."

Marr looked away, his eyes troubled, as if remembering a past pain. "Yes. But what is done is done. I am not sorry he taught me."

"Then I take back my words. I am not sorry, either."

Marr studied Jaden's face for a moment. "Will you teach me more?"

The question took Jaden aback. "Marr, as I explained-"

Marr nodded. "Yes, my age. The narrow focus of my sensitivity. I understand all of that. But still I ask."

Jaden heard the earnestness in Marr's question. "I will confer with the Order."

"I can ask nothing more. Thank you."

Khedryn's shout carried from the galley. "A spike of pulkay?"

Marr nodded at Jaden, and Jaden shouted back to Khedryn.

"Yes. For both of us."

"I knew I liked you, Jedi," Khedryn called, and Jaden smiled.

"Relin asked me to tell you something," Marr said.

Marr's tone made Jaden feel like an ax was about to fall. "Say it."

Marr closed his eyes, as if replaying the encounter in his mind. "He said that there is nothing certain, that there's only the search for certainty, that there's danger only when you think the search is over." Marr paused, added, "He said you would know what he meant."

Jaden digested the words, his mind spinning.

"Do you know what he meant?" Marr asked.

"He thinks-thought-that doubt keeps us sharp. That we should not consider its presence a failure."

Marr chewed his lip. "I saw what happened to him, Jaden. I think he was wrong."

Jaden had seen what happened to him, too, and thought he might be right. And as his thoughts turned, Marr's observation became the gravity well around which the planets of recent events orbited, aligned, and took on meaning. In a flash of insight Jaden surmised that events had not been designed to rid him of doubt; they had been designed for him to embrace his doubt. Perhaps it was different for other Jedi, but for Jaden doubt was the balancing pole that kept him atop the sword-edge. For him, there was no dark side or light side. There were beings of darkness and beings of light.

He smiled, thinking he had found his answer, after all. He looked at Marr, seeing in Marr so much of himself when Kyle Katarn had agreed to take Jaden as Padawan.

"I will teach you more about the Force, Marr."

Marr sat up on an elbow. "You will?"

Jaden nodded, thinking of Kyle. Had his Master known that breaking down certainty was the only thing that might save Jaden from darkness in the long run? He suspected Kyle had known exactly that.

"You may come to wish you'd never learned from me."

Khedryn walked in, cursing, hot caf splashing over the rims of the cups. He distributed the caf, took a long sip, sighed with satisfaction.

"This is the life, gentlemen," he said to Jaden and Marr. "An open sky filled with opportunities for rascals."

Jaden chuckled, looked out the viewport, and grew serious. "There be dragons."

"What does that mean?" Marr asked.

"We will see," Jaden answered, and drank his caf.