“I’ve been assigned to the Agricultural Corps,” he said, hoping she’d understand hoe humiliating it was for him. “I wanted to say good-bye, but… “

She shook her head. “I heard you were going to a planet called Bandomeer.”

So everyone knew already. Obi-Wan nodded dully just as Bant lurched forward to give him a clumsy hug.

“Yes, that’s where I’m going,” he said. He hugged her. So, my fate is decided, he realized in despair. I will be a farmer. Because this first good-bye would be followed by others. He couldn’t avoid them.

Bant frowned and stepped back. “It will be dangerous. Did they tell you it would be dangerous?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “It’s just the Agricultural Corps. How dangerous could it get?”

“We are not to know,” Bant said.

“We are to do,” Obi-Wan added softly. It was a phrase they had heard many times from the Masters, when they were asked to do tasks that they could not understand the significance of.

“Miss you, I will,” Bant said, echoing Yoda’s strange way of talking. She blinked back tears.

“So sorry, I am,” Obi-Wan answered. He tried to smile, but could not. In answer, Bant hugged him again swiftly, then hurried away to hide her tears.

Chapter 3

With the help of Jedi healing techniques and the Temple’s marvelous ointments, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s burns and bruises were healed by morning. But the pain in his heart had not eased. He slept briefly, then rose well before dawn.

He said good-bye to Garen Muln and Reeft, two boys from different sides of the galaxy who had become inseparable in their years in the Jedi Temple.

All through morning meal, Reeft, a Dresselian with an abnormally wrinkled face, kept saying to everyone at the table, “I don’t mean to be sound greedy, but may I have your meat?” or “I don’t mean to sound greedy, but…” as he looked pointedly at some puff cake or drink. Though Obi-Wan had not had dinner the night before, he shared everything. Bant kindly handed over half her puff cake. With his leathery gray skin and all those wrinkles, the Dresselian could look awfully sad if he did not get everything he wanted to eat.

“It won’t be so bad,” Garen Muln told Obi-Wan. “At least you’re going on an adventure.” Garen Muln had always been restless. Yoda had often given him extra stillness exercises.

“And you’ll be around food,” Reeft added hopefully.

“Who knows where each of us will end up?” Bant added. “The missions to come will be different for each of us.”

“And unexpected,” Garen Muln agreed. “That’s what Yoda says. Not everyone is meant to be an apprentice.”

Obi-Wan nodded. It was good that he had given Reeft most of his food. He couldn’t eat. He knew his friends were trying to make him feel better. But they still had plenty of chances to become Jedi. That highest honor was what they all wanted, all they worked for. No matter what they said, they all knew his lost chance was crushing disappointment.

Around him, Obi-Wan heard the swirl of conversations at the other tables. Students looked over at him, then looked away. Most gazes were compassionate, and some tried to cheer him. But he sensed that the overwhelming feeling in the room was that everyone was glad that what had happened to Obi-Wan had not happened to them.

At Bruck’s table, the voices were loud and reached their ears. “Always knew he wouldn’t make it,” Bruck’s friend Aalto said loudly. Obi-Wan’s ears burned as he heard Bruck’s high snicker. He turned, and Bruck stared at him, daring him to pick another fight.

“Don’t mind him,” Bant said. “He’s a fool.”

Obi-Wan turned away and finished his meal, just as a huge black Barabel fruit plopped on the table near his tray. Juice from the fruit splattered on Bant and Garen Muln. Obi-Wan glared over at Bruck, who had come halfway across the room to throw it.

“Plant it, Oafy,” Bruck said. “I hear they’ll grow just about anywhere.”

Obi-Wan started to rise from his chair, but Bant put a hand over his and held him down, trying to calm him.

Obi-Wan smiled at Bruck, keeping himself in control. He want to anger me, Obi-Wan knew. He hopes to anger me. How often in the past have others played me like this, making me lose the chance to become a Padawan?

Obi-Wan held his anger, and merely smiled at Bruck. Yet a white-hot fury was building inside him.

Just then, Reeft muttered, “I don’t mean to sound greedy, but are you going to eat that Barabel fruit?”

Obi-Wan nearly burst out laughing. “Thank you, Bruck,” he said, scraping the fruit off the table and placing it in a cup. “The people of Bandomeer will be honored when I share with them your gift — the gift from one farmer to another.”

In the upper room of the Jedi Temple, Master Yoda argued with the senior members of the Jedi Council. They were meditating in a huge greenhouse, the Room of a Thousand Fountains, where fountains and waterfalls streamed through an emerald forest

Outside, the surface of Coruscant was hidden by black storm clouds.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi must be allowed to fight before Qui-Gon Jinn this day,” Master Yoda said, just as a bolt of lightning snarled through the clouds below. “I have foreseen it.”

“What?” Senior Council Mace Windu asked. He was a strong, dark-skinned man with a shaved head. He studied Yoda with eyes that could pierce like blaster bolts. “What would be the point? Obi-Wan has proven once again that he cannot control his anger or his impatience. And Qui-Gon Jinn is not ready for another impatient Padawan.”

“Agreed,” Yoda said. “Neither Obi-Wan nor Qui-Gon ready are. But the Force may yet bring Master and student together.”

Mace Windu asked, “And what of last night, the beating Obi-Wan gave to Bruck?”

Yoda waved his hand and, as he did so, a referee droid appeared from behind the bushes.

“Advanced Jedi Training Droid 6, last night the fight you saw,” Yoda prompted.

“Obi-Wan’s heat was beating at sixty-eight beats per minute,” the droid reported. “His torso was faced northeast at twenty-seven degrees, with his right hand extended down, clutching his training saber. His body temperature was —“

Mace Windu sighed. If allowed to continue, the training droid would take an hour just to describe how Obi-Wan crossed the room.

“Just tell us who provoked the fight,” Mace Windu said. “Who said what, and then what happened?”

The training droid AJTD6 gave an indignant buzz at being curtailed. But after a glower from Mace Windu, it began the story of how Bruck had provoked Obi-Wan into the fight.