Two years had passed since the attack on the Lars homestead.
I never learned how I ended up back in the house, where the Inquisitor had disappeared to, or why the Larses had reacted so calmly to the attack and forgotten about it so quickly.
There was, of course, an answer.
It was probably sitting somewhere in the caves of Tatooine right now, meditating beside a Jedi lightsaber.
And for some reason, I had absolutely no desire to talk to him.
Especially since Qui-Gon showed no intention of ending my training.
After my contact with the Inquisitor, many things had become easier, particularly mental techniques.
It was almost as if I were remembering knowledge instead of learning it.
Qui-Gon noted my progress but never gave a complete explanation for what had happened, merely saying that the Force was strong within me.
Hopefully, he had thoroughly chewed out his former Padawan for providing inadequate protection to Skywalkers who were apparently of great importance to both the Force and the future of the galaxy.
For now, all I could do was continue as before.
Vuz Kazm caught my attention the moment he arrived on Tatooine.
Everything about him screamed outsider.
Not just any outsider.
An interesting outsider.
The sort who stood out from local society so completely that it was impossible not to notice.
First of all, out of all possible employment opportunities, he had chosen to work at the Agricultural Academy.
He filled the recently vacated position teaching the academy’s single humanities course, a bizarre subject that combined history, planetary studies, social sciences, and cultural studies into one academic monstrosity.
On Tatooine, that position carried no prestige whatsoever.
The problem wasn’t even the pay.
The salary was decent enough.
The problem was status.
There wasn’t any.
Of course, I had to admit that I was directly responsible for the sudden vacancy.
The previous teacher, an elderly Twi’lek addicted to spice and obsessed with boys far younger than himself, had become the perfect laboratory rat for my experiments in mental manipulation.
Almost everything worked.
Almost.
The only failure involved my attempt to tamper with his aggression.
Instead of quietly helping me learn current freighter prices, the old pervert had charged headlong into one of Jabba’s crews and been hacked apart by Gamorrean guards before he could even reach them.
Still, the accident didn’t diminish the success of my experiments.
Both subtle influence and direct mental manipulation through the Force had produced excellent results.
One less spice-addicted pedophile in the galaxy.
No great loss.
Second, Vuz behaved incorrectly for Tatooine.
Having memories from another life, I understood him fairly well.
He was a citizen of a civilized society instinctively trying to blend into frontier culture.
The problem was that he was accomplishing the exact opposite.
Who on Tatooine carried a weapon concealed?
Especially when they clearly didn’t know how to draw it quickly.
I suspected that in the original timeline someone would have quietly slit his throat for looking entirely too intelligent for the Outer Rim.
That said, I was interested in talking to a genuinely educated person for once.
After warning the Larses that I would be home late and separating myself from my usual group of followers, who had fully accepted me as their leader and were gradually becoming more loyal thanks to subtle Force influence, I quietly followed the teacher.
Technically, I was the second tail.
The first was One-Eye Vigko’s Rodian gang.
They were going to attack him sooner or later anyway.
A little correction and supervision wouldn’t hurt.
Vigko and his thugs were useless regardless.
I had no need for cannon fodder yet.
Kazm’s apartment was also located entirely in the wrong part of town.
Maybe he had money problems.
Otherwise, who in their right mind would rent a room in a building where one half was occupied by a brothel and the other half housed a laboratory producing the cheapest synthetic narcotic imaginable, proudly marketed as “Pink Spice”?
The average customer survived less than a Tatooine year after becoming addicted.
A Tatooine year was roughly three hundred standard days.
Perhaps he thought the location would help him disappear.
Instead, everyone remembered him.
The Rodians attempted to rob him in an alley leading to his apartment.
Needless to say, a man without proper training failed to draw his concealed holdout blaster before they reached him.
Vigko dropped him with a punch to the stomach and immediately pressed a knife against his throat.
The life of a civilized man on Tatooine was truly difficult.
A stone struck One-Eye Vigko squarely in the temple.
He collapsed instantly.
Several seconds later, both of his Rodian companions joined him.
To his credit, Kazm didn’t scream.
There was nobody nearby anyway.
At least nobody who cared.
Two years of training had produced results.
Telekinesis in its knock your neighbor unconscious configuration remained highly effective.
“It seems you’re not particularly comfortable on Tatooine,” I said as I stepped out from behind a garbage container, casually keeping a fresh knife floating beside me with the Force.
“Wouldn’t you invite me inside?” For some reason, I hadn’t expected my cloak to conceal my identity.
Still, Kazm didn’t have much choice.
So he invited the mysterious stranger into his home.
His apartment occupied a single room on the second floor and looked depressingly poor.
Judging by the empty bottles scattered around, he had also taken up drinking.
Most appeared to contain the local swill proudly sold as a cocktail called Tatooine Sunset.
At least it wasn’t Jawa beer.
“Rather modest accommodations for an aristocrat,” I remarked as I pulled back my hood.
“Who exactly are you hiding from, Mister Kazm?
Or should I ask what your real name is?” Vuz Kazm, whose actual name turned out to be Vugaritakon De’Arkab XVII Min-Go Kazumoto, was a short man with distinctly Asian features, though whatever equivalent term existed in this galaxy was probably very different.
He carried himself like a noble.
Everything from his posture to his mannerisms suggested someone who had never performed hard physical labor in his life.
The surprising thing was that I didn’t even need to break him.
The fugitive was simply exhausted.
Defeated.
Completely disillusioned with whatever choices had brought him to Tatooine.
Without resistance, he walked to the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of cheap Ardees liquor, a beverage only marginally better than Jawa juice or Jawa beer, uncorked it, and began drinking.
Then, abandoning all notions of hierarchy, professionalism, or teacher-student boundaries, he started complaining about his life to one of his own students.