Приключения Сантала.

Chapter 16. Ilum

By revealing a secret, you strengthen trust.

A terrible accident! Master Yang Dooku, after the death of his disciple Qui-Gon Jinn, decided to leave the Order, thereby breaking his promise to take Santal as a student. Wanting to get to the truth, the girl finds him, but in the end she is driven away. But she meets the hunter Jango Fett, who made a deal with her failed teacher and gave her a strange warning...

— Are you an Angel too?

Santal was surprised. She would never have thought that someone would get to know her, starting with such an unusual phrase.

— You're An Angel. Starship pilots talked about them. They are the most beautiful creatures in the universe. They live on the moons of Iego, it seems.

— Have you read about it?

- no. I listened to the traders and pilots who flew to Tatooine. You know, I'm a pilot myself.

— You 're just...

— And I can already, even though I'm only ten.

— Wow! — Santal sincerely did not understand how a child could be so smart at just ten years old!

The newcomer was clearly different from the others. Like her in her time, he also knows life outside the walls of the Temple. But this is different. He knows more. And he also knows the same things that adults can do.

— I thought you could become a pilot only when you grow up, — the girl honestly admitted.

— No, you can do it earlier, — the boy replied with a smile. — It's not that difficult there. I used to drive racing cars, and recently I got on a fighter for the first time. Do you want me to tell you?

— Come on.

The boy began to talk about his life on Tatooine with his mother (hearing this word, Santal felt a pang of envy) and working in the shop of Toydarian Watto. Santal was surprised again. She thought the children were playing, studying, but not working. When she told the boy about it, he replied:

— When I was little, three years old, probably, Gardulla the Hutt bought me and my mother. But she lost us in the race.

Santal shuddered. For the first time in a long time, a mechanical voice spoke in my head: "We are already approaching Tatooine. Someone will definitely buy you. I'll sell it to the highest bidder."

— What happened? the boy asked.

The girl wondered if she should tell him something. Shaking her head, she answered, trying to smile wider:

— Nothing, everything is fine, — if only the boy would believe. "You'd better tell me something else," she didn't want to pull unpleasant memories. Both your own and others'.

The boy began to talk about his hobby of making all sorts of mechanical things. He especially boasted about the construction of a robot secretary, who knows many languages, for mom. And at the end he told me how he got to the Temple.

"That's a boy! Santal thought. — He's ten, and already a mechanic, a racer, a pilot. Against his background, it's like we're all going to go into the shadows." And, frankly, she didn't like it.

— But I'm a complete zero in mechanics, — said the girl.

— I can teach you.

— No, thanks. I like the other one better.

— What exactly? — the newcomer persisted.

"Anything but that.

Indeed, Santal did not like mechanics, physics, mathematics and other exact sciences at all. Therefore, she decided that having learned the simplest things, she would not take on the more complex ones. Not for any awards.