Stranger Times

Carrying a Memory

Mal Cedric? I'll never forget him. No one on Sullust will ever forget him.

If you want the story, pour me a drink first. No, the good stuff. I'm not telling this man's story on cheap beer.

Now, Mal? He first came to the outskirts of what was once our little mining town, Coalpit, oh about three years before the Imperials. Five years into the collapse of the Republic, when Chancellor Palpatine declared himself emperor. We didn't know who Mal was at the time, not even his name. He didn't tell us until the end.

I was working in the local tavern when I first met him. He came inside one evening with his hood up, sat down at a stool at the end of the diner, and asked for a bite to eat and a glass of water.

"Soup or stew, if you happen to have it, Miss," were his first words to me. "And some water, please."

Pretty sure it was the first time anyone had said 'please' to me.

Now a polite man in a cloak and a robe, well groomed, lean and fit, not drinking alcohol at this hour? Thinking about it, I should have known exactly what he was. But the news said they were all dead. And we had no reason to believe otherwise.

So being a nosy kid like I was, I asked him, "where you from, Mister?"

And he gave me the most cryptic answer I've ever heard. "A place that doesn't want me anymore," he said. And you know how sometimes you can really see someone's pain, as if it did something to their eyes?

He looked like the entire galaxy hated him.

And in a way, he was right.

He built himself a small home out in the hills, well away from the village. And you need to understand something about Sullust. We all live underground. Our entire village is underground. Then surface is volcanic ash, lava rivers and acid rain. Crazy fool had to walk for nearly an hour on the surface just to get home after he visited us to buy supplies or look for work.

The local roughnecks didn't like him very much, at first. That same evening, a band of workers on one of the deep mining projects Coalpit was built around came up to tell Mal to move on.

He doesn't lay a hand on any of them, even when one of those fools grabbed him by the collar and threatened to punch him. Mal smiled, and asked him in this weirdly gentle voice, "You really care about these people of yours, don't you?"

"Yeah?" The guy threatening him asked, but you can see the fight's been taken out of him.

"Of course you do. It does you credit," Mal replied, and he took this slow, gentle step backward. Mal pointed up at the stars, and he said, "I never saw enough of that compassion out there."

Then, despite being threatened, Mal clapped the guy on the shoulder and gives him a smile that made mine look like a scowl. And I smiled really sweetly when I was ten years old. "You can call me," Mal said, "if there's any trouble. I will come."

Fun fact, in case this makes sense to you. The guy who grabbed him? Nien Numb. Lando Calrissian's co-pilot during the Battle of Endor. In case you ever needed proof that the galaxy is a tiny place.

Right. Or that the Force works in mysterious ways.

Anyway, he kept to himself most of the time. Came to the village a few times a month, always paid his way. Never stayed overnight. He got a reputation for fixing problems. Little things, like the water purification system in the hospital, or finding an old lady's missing pet. He didn't mind doing it, and whenever he did a job, we had to barter hard to make him accept anything.

Usually Susan Lumm's pie. Pretty sure the woman was sweet on Mal.

But a few months later, a rockrender tunnelled its way into the outskirts of the village. Now, a rockrender is a big beast. Not quite an AT-AT, but it will eat one if you give it long enough.