A Certain Point of View

Chapter 7: One More Season

Hardship brings change. So it was in the animal kingdoms of a thousand worlds, and so it was among the moisture farmers. It had been only a couple of years since the Great Drought, and already the condensers hawked in Anchorhead were high-efficiency, sand-proofed marvels that could be slotted into the old consumer vaporators without replacing the whole system. Ben counted his dwindling profits from the power converters, and considered whether he might replace the condenser on his own little vaporator, and how he might get the replacement unit all the way out to the hut. He had walked to Bestine, and taken the shuttle from there to Anchorhead, and even then, he knew his limitations were growing.

"Old man," the scrawny merchant shouted. "Old man! You think you can't carry it home?"

Ben looked up at him, drew back his hood ever so slightly. "How did you know?"

"Everyone asks," said the merchant. "Desert folk."

Ben smiled. "We're all desert folk."

The merchant shook his head. "You? You're very far out the desert. You live in the desert folks' desert. Anchorhead? Might as well be Mon Cala, compared to the far side of the Wastes. I say, can you afford not to carry? You won't get lucky twice."

"In my experience," said a voice, "there's no such thing as luck."

Ben didn't even need to turn around. "Hello, Owen," he said.

"Hello, Ben," said Owen Lars. "What brings you in from the Wastes?"

"Looking for news," said Ben. "Something's happening up there."

"I saw it," said Owen. "Luke saw it."

Ben hung his head. "I thought he might."

The farmer shrugged. "It's all he's been talking about for two days. Thinks it's a big battle of some kind. Is he right, Ben?"

Ben nodded. "Yes, he's right."

"It's going to light a fire under him," said Owen. "Biggs is back from the Academy now, too. That's not going to help."

"It's more dangerous now than ever," said Ben. "You must keep him on the ground."

"You obviously don't know the kid," said Owen. There was judgment in him; Ben could have felt it, if he hadn't seen it in the farmer's eyes.

"The Drought is the perfect excuse," said Ben. "Business must be very good for a moisture farmer after that."

Owen nodded. "We do all right."

"Tell him that you need the extra hands."

Owen nodded. "Then what? I've used that line before. And even if he does take it, it'll buy us a season at most."

"The Academy admissions follow the harvest," said Ben. "If he misses the next round, he'll be grounded another year."

Owen sighed. "He's not going to be happy with me," he said.

"I'm sorry," Ben offered.

The two had wandered away from the condensers into a quiet corner of the shop. Owen leaned in close.

"You could come see us," he said. "Do that thing you do. Persuade him to stay on the ground. Your way."

"I'm afraid that's impossible," said Ben.

"He's asked about you once or twice," Owen said.

Ben sighed and wiped the sand from his face. "What do you tell him?"

"I tell him to keep away from you," said Owen. "Tell him you're crazy. I'm not even sure if I'm lying anymore, Ben."

"It's for the best," said Ben. "He can have a good life here."

"Some guardian you are," said Owen. "Leave Beru and me to do all the heavy lifting."

"I'm no guardian," said Ben. "I'm nothing at all. Just a hermit."

"Someday," said Owen, "you're going to tell me why it has to be this way. Why you can't see him."

"He mustn't know about his father," said Ben.

"On that point, I agree," said Owen. "But you're not telling me the whole story. Look, Ben, I don't want him to go any more than you do. But Anakin was exactly the same. I knew his mother better than I knew my own. If you believe what they say, she was...special. And I don't mean your whole Force business, either. It broke her heart when Anakin left...when you came and took him away."

"It was a different age, then," said Ben, not unapologetically.

"Did I tell you about Cliegg, Ben?" Owen asked. "About my father?"

Ben shook his head. "I've heard some."

Owen cleared his parched throat. "People thought it was the end of him when my mother died. He said he'd never love another woman after that. Not if he lived a thousand years. He said one great love of his life was quite enough. But then..."

"Then he met Shmi," Ben offered.

"I never knew what to make of that," said Owen. "She was more like a mother to me, in the end, than my real mother ever was. I loved Shmi too, Ben. I know better than anybody what that boy would've felt leaving her. I suppose that means I would've made a piss-poor Jedi, too."

"Love is not against the Jedi Code," said Ben. "Only...attachment."

"My father had two great loves in his lifetime," said Owen. "My mother, and Shmi. Two great loves. That's two more than your monastic lot would ever understand."
Obi-Wan...

"And I love two people as well," Owen finished. "I love my wife, my Beru...and I love my boy. Mine. My boy. Not yours, and not Anakin's either, you hear me? And it's hard to watch him out here dirt farming. It's what I know. It's what I love. It was in my father's blood, and it's in mine. Cliegg Lars, moisture farmer, son of a moisture farmer. He even got off this rock one time, Ben. Hated it so much he came right back. If I'd had a right son, I suppose he'd carry on the same way. The desert sand gets in your blood, over time."

"I suppose so," said Ben.

"But Luke's not like us," said Owen. "Beru says so, every day. And he's not happy. He won't be, if I let him live and die out here as I've done. I'm more of a father to him than that old dead monster ever was. But this is my life, not his—and a father knows when it's time to let go. However much he hates it."

"Letting go is the highest form of love," said Ben. "There's more to being a Jedi than that—but you would not have failed the Jedi tests on that account. And you're a fine father, Owen Lars."

"Luke's not going to think so," said Owen. "Not when I clip his wings for another year."

"He will learn," said Ben. "When you are both old men together, he will know what you did for him."

"That's what it's about, isn't it, Ben? Fathers and sons. Always fathers and sons."

"And mothers," Ben added distantly.

"Yes," said Owen. "Mothers too. Especially them."

Ben had stopped to rest against the wall of some spacer's junk shop. He was looking frail, older than his years, and Owen didn't fail to notice it. It softened his heart a little to see the old man like this. He was sick. Owen could see it, even if no one else could.

"Look, Ben," he said, "I'll keep this routine up as long as I can. But Luke is his father's son. He slips away to go canyon-hopping with his Academy friends every chance he gets. I'll do what I can, but it's only a matter of time. I won't be able to keep him here, not for much longer. Not without something you're never going to give me."

"And what is that?"

Owen drew up his own cloak against the outside winds. "The truth," he said.