Personally, Ogomoor didn"t see the significance of it one way or the other. In the Republic or out, what difference did it make to him? All he cared about was the size and integrity of his pay transfer.

With luck, and if all went as planned, they would have the results they sought in a week or two.

The water was wide, deep, and clear, but to Luminara"s eyes the current was not threatening. Sitting on his mount alongside her, Kyakhta let its head drop the considerable distance to the ground to snag a few mouthfuls of the spotted zeka gra.s.s that grew there, and a pair of rodentlike coleacs as well. The bones of the latter being efficiently crunched provided a noisy counterpart to the guide"s words.

"Torosogt River," he announced proudly. "We"ve made good time. Once across, we will truly be in the realm of the Al-wari. No towns beyond this place. No fault-finding, arrogant "Unity." "

"How long till we reach the Borokii?" she asked him.

Black pupils stared back at her out of dark-hued, protuberant orbs.

"Impossible to tell. They have their traditional grazing grounds, but like any clan, the Borokii are always on the move."

"Too bad we couldn"t find them with a seeker droid and put an aerial tracker on them," Anakin observed from be-hind them.

Kyakhta flashed sharp teeth in the Padawan"s direction. "The Alwari choose to retain many of the old ways, but they are ever ready to make use of new developments that do not contradict tradition. Having always had weapons, they are happy to make use of better ones. They would use these to instantly shoot down any device sent to try to monitor them."

"Oh." Anakin accepted this explanation without argument. When, he thought to himself, will I learn to see beyond the obvious? While the latter might be an admirable trait in a Podracer, it would not do much to qualify him as a Jedi.

The party started forward again, Kyakhta"s mount spitting out small bones as it walked. "You see the problem Unity emissaries face. How can they make treaties and commerce with the Alwari if the clans will not stay in one place long enough to talk to them? Yet it is these same traditional rights of the nomads that Republic law protects. No wonder the cities are considering banding together to join this proposed secessionist movement.

If they succeed in pulling Ansion out of the Republic, then they can deal with the Alwari as they choose."

"And yet the Alwari think we may be here to support the claims of the Unity," Luminara responded.

Kyakhta eyed her with an intelligence unsuspected prior to Barriss"s healing ministrations. "Isn"t your primary task here to see that Ansion stays in the Republic?"

"Of course," she replied without hesitation.

"Then the Alwari are ent.i.tled to question the means by which you might choose to make that happen. They"ll know that they and their interests are not your priority."

"So do the delegates of the Unity." She sighed tiredly. "You see, Kyakhta? Both sides are already united by their common suspicion of our motives. Not exactly a firm foundation for mutual understanding, but it"s a beginning."

The slope leading down from the last gra.s.ses to the river"s edge was not acute enough to slow a crawling infant, much less the towering suubatars.

The group paused on the bank while Kyakhta and Bulgan studied the flow with an eye toward picking the best place to cross. Finally, Bulgan started forward while Kyakhta directed their charges to hold back.

"The Torosogt runs deep, but Bulgan thinks he has found a sandbar shallow enough for the suubatars to walk most of the way. From there we will swim."

Luminara leaned forward in her saddle. "I suppose we could all do with a bath."

"No, no." A smiling Kyakhta hurried to correct the misun derstanding. "We don"t swim. The suubatars will carry us." Ignoring the considerable distance to the ground, he leaned way over to indicate his steed"s middle legs. "See-a suubatar"s fur is short, but runs all the way to its feet and down between the toes. With six legs and long toes, suubatars are very good swimmers."

Luminara had to admit that a vision of swimming suubatars was one that had not occurred to her. As Kyakhta had pointed out, six churning legs would provide plenty of propulsion.

She had time to fill in the image while Bulgan made progress. Halfway across the river he stopped, turned in his saddle, and waved. By this time the water was up over his knees despite his high seat on the suubatar. Luminara wondered how deep the river ran on either side of the "shallow" sandbar. Giving her mount a perfectly enunciated "Elup!," she found herself starting forward in tandem with Kyakhta.

Water rose gradually until it was up to her stirruped feet. As her mount was slightly larger than Bulgan"s, she remained dry. Barriss and Anakin were not so fortunate. She could hear them both grumbling quietly behind her. As for Obi-Wan, when the water reached his feet, he simply pulled them out of the stirrups and crossed them atop the saddle. A spectator would have thought he"d been riding suubatars all his life.

Bulgan waited for them to catch up before resuming his own forward movement. There was a brief sensation of dropping, a quick bob upward, and she realized the suubatars were no longer walking. If anything, their swimming motion was even smoother than their remarkable gallop. While paddling effortlessly forward, they held their long, narrow skulls just above the surface. That did not mean no exertion was involved. The snorting of their single, wide nostril was clearly audible.

The water lapping against her feet and calves was cold and bracing.

Looking down, she could see schools of streamlined, multilegged backswimmers riding the wake generated by her mount. The finger-length water breathers had their multiple limbs folded flat against their sides to conserve energy.

She was already focusing on the opposite sh.o.r.e when Bulgan"s mount was suddenly thrown sharply to the right. The two Alwari let out a simultaneous, though different, curse and drew their weapons. Her hand went automatically to her lightsaber, but search as she might, she could see nothing like an enemy.

Then her own steed was slammed violently sideways. If not for her feet being jammed firmly into the stirrups, she would have been thrown right off the saddle and into the water. Despite her concentration, she was aware of everything that was happening around her-especially Kyakhta"s sharp but inexplicable warning cry of "gairks!" What was a gairk ? she wondered.

Then a warty, misshapen olive-green face emerged from the water entirely too close to her left foot, and her curiosity was instantly sated.

Full of bulges and protrusions, the maw of the gairk was un like any oral cavity she had ever seen. There was no symmetry to it at all. The thick, blubbery lips seemed to wander all over the pebbly-skinned face. From behind these gaping lips rose a pair of large, protuberant, gray-green eyes. Lightsaber raised high, she swung at the bloated, bottom-dwelling monstrosity, but it had already dived back beneath the surface before the blow could make contact. Another of the ugly creatures surfaced a short distance away.

She found herself drowning not in water, but in a rising din. The hum of Jedi lightsabers was interspersed with the bellowing of kicking, snapping suubatars, the shouts of her companions, and the intermittent crackle of their guides" newly bought blasters. She ought to have been more afraid, she knew, or at least felt a greater degree of apprehension.

Most peculiar of all, as near as she could tell, the gairk had no teeth.

If they weren"t carnivores, then why were they attacking the crossing party? Did they rely on some other less apparent mechanism to catch and devour prey? Certainly, she saw as her mount reared sharply to kick out with both clawed forefeet at a gairk that crossed its path, their mouths were large enough to swallow a human whole. But she saw no biting apparatus, no sharp talons, not even potentially poisonous spines. Yet Kyakhta and Bulgan were treating them as if they were nothing but fang and claw.

Then she heard a yelp. Whirling in her saddle without regard to her own safety, she looked back at Barriss"s suubatar. It was still behind her, holding the same position as when they had started to ford the river.

There was only one difference.

The animal"s embossed saddle was empty.

Barriss surfaced not far away, easily visible in the swirling tide because she was waving with her activated lightsaber. Kyakhta cursed violently. It struck Luminara that the Padawan was being carried downstream faster than the turgid current warranted. She pointed this out to Bulgan.

"It"s the gairks!" the despondent Alwari told her. "They"re dragging her away!"

Luminara"s expression twisted. "Dragging her? With what? They have no hands."

By way of answer, the guide opened his mouth to form a wide, gaping O.

Suddenly chilled by more than the river water, Luminara understood.

The instant he"d seen Barriss knocked off her mount and swept downstream, Anakin had gone in after her. He hadn"t thought about it. The action was entirely reflexive. He knew that if the circ.u.mstances had been reversed, she would now be the one swimming hard to catch up with him. When he saw that she was unaccountably receding away from him, he redoubled his stroke. He was a strong swimmer, having grown fond of the skill when he had been confined indoors during winter months. Before long he was close enough to exchange words.

"You okay?" he called out to her. "How are you, Barriss?"

"Wet," she shot back. "Very-wet."

"Can you swim with me to sh.o.r.e?" Raising a hand, he pointed to where the others were already beginning to emerge on the far bank.

"I"m afraid I can"t," she told him. "This situation sucks." At his look of incomprehension, she gestured downward with her free hand. "I mean literally."

Taking a deep breath, he ducked under the surface. The crystal-clear water offered little in the way of obstruction to his vision. He saw her legs, kicking hard but driving her nowhere. Behind her in the water was a single gairk, mouth agape, gills expanded to the maximum. It was taking in water in a steady stream and expelling it through its gills as it applied suction to drag her steadily downstream. Bursting back to the surface, he gestured rea.s.suringly.

"Hang on. I"ll take care of this." Taking another deep breath, he dipped back down and swam straight toward the creature, ignoring her legs in pa.s.sing.

It did not try to dodge. It didn"t have to, since he found himself intercepted in midwater. Looking back, he saw that not one but three of the creatures had taken up positions behind him. No two of the twisted maws were exactly alike, but when the three put their heads together, the differently shaped jaws fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. They were now applying suction to him-in unison. A fourth joined in. He felt himself being drawn inexorably back toward that unified dark maw. It now struck him, as it had Luminara, that they had no teeth. They didn"t need them. By joining their jaws together to create greater and greater amounts of suction, they literally inhaled their prey.

The technique was uncomplicated. Jolt travelers off larger, inconsumable crossers like the suubatars, get them in the water, drag them downstream away from help, and then ingest them at leisure. Only, he and Barriss were not helpless gra.s.s grazers. The need for air was becoming imperative. Kick as he might, he found himself unable to free himself from the force of that quadruple suction. What was it Obi-Wan had often told him? If you can"t defy the storm, go with it.

Turning, he kicked not away from his a.s.sailants, but directly toward them. Dark maws yawned expectantly. Lack of oxygen was beginning to blur his vision when he drew close enough to strike out with the lightsaber.

As their flesh was parted, the four conjoined gairks separated, and the drag on his body evaporated. With the last remaining oxygen in his lungs, he kicked for the surface, breaking it with a gasp and sucking gratefully at the fresh air. Nearby, he saw Barriss swimming not for the nearby sh.o.r.e, but toward him.

"You all right?" she inquired. She seemed unjustly composed.

"I was coming," he wheezed, wiping water from his face, "to rescue you."

"I appreciate the gesture," she responded courteously while continuing to tread water, "but I was really in no trouble."

Aware that their Masters and the two guides were watching from sh.o.r.e, he forced down the first retort that sprang to mind. "You didn"t look like you were in no trouble. You were being pulled downstream."

"I know that. It was just a matter of getting turned around so that I could strike at the gairk." Her eyes bored unflinchingly into his own as she deactivated and resecured her lightsaber. "You could have stayed on your suubatar. Did you hear me yelling for help? Did I ask you to come in after me?"

His reply was curt. "I see. Well, now that I understand you a little better, I promise that you won"t have to worry about it happening again."

He started to kick toward sh.o.r.e.

She kept pace with him easily. "Don"t misunderstand, Ana-kin. It was a gallant gesture, and I appreciate your willingness to risk yourself on my behalf." She chuckled softly, her laugh far more restrained than that of her Master. "Not to mention your willingness to get yourself soaked for me."

Stroking smoothly on his side, he looked down at himself. "I certainly did that, didn"t I? You swim well."

She laughed again. "The Force is with me. Race you to sh.o.r.e."

"You"re-" Before he could say "on," she had burst forward like an eel. He almost caught up to her, but her hands and feet touched the sandy beach an instant before his own.

Two solemn-faced Jedi were waiting to greet them.

"Well, you two are certainly a pretty sight." Luminara stood with hands on hips. "What happened, Barriss?"

Barriss looked away. "It was my fault. I leaned too far to one side to try to see what was going on up front, lost my balance, and fell. Then something started pulling at my back and clothing, and I found myself being dragged downcurrent. I could see that it was some kind of water creature, but in falling out of the saddle my robes became twisted around me. Wet, I had a difficult time unwrapping them before I could get to my lightsaber."

"Very good, Padawan," conceded Obi-Wan. He turned his attention to the other apprentice. "What"s your excuse, Anakin?"

Moving one foot slightly in a nervous gesture his mother would have recognized instantly, the taller Padawan muttered uneasily, "I went in to help her. Once I reached her, I realized she didn"t need my help. But I didn"t know that at the time." Looking up, he met his Master"s gaze. "All I had to go on was the evidence of my senses. They told me she"d been dumped in the water and might need help. I"m sorry if I did something wrong, or violated yet one more unfathomable Jedi rule."

Obi-Wan held his silence and his expression for a long moment-before breaking out into a wide grin. "Not only did you not violate any rules, Padawan-you did exactly what you should have done. You had no way of knowing your colleague"s condition. Under such circ.u.mstances, to a.s.sume that she might need a.s.sistance is always the wisest course. Better to be berated by a live friend than absolved by a dead one."

For a moment, Anakin looked uncertain. Compliments from Obi-Wan were as rare as snow-crystal on Tattooine. When he realized that it was meant, and that both Barriss and Luminara were also smiling encouragingly at him, he finally relaxed. Anyway, he did not have much choice. It"s hard to stay tense when one is dripping wet. Something about being soaked to the skin, with one"s clothes hanging limp as seaweed from sodden limbs, is desperately debilitating to one"s dignity.

"I just wanted to help," he muttered, unaware that had been his mantra since childhood.

"You can help yourself," Obi-Wan told him, "by getting out of those wet clothes and into your spare set." Turning, he regarded the line of waving gra.s.s that marched to the edge of the riverbank. "The wind"s no warmer here than on the other side, and I"d rather you didn"t get sick."

"I"ll try not to, Master."

"Good." Obi-Wan stood squinting at the cloudless sky. "We don"t have time to waste on illness, no matter how educational the experience."

Stripping off their clothes while their Masters unpacked their small personal kits, Anakin and Barriss dried themselves in the sun. The two guides attended to the patient suubatars and studied the visitors with academic interest.

"Haja," exclaimed Bulgan softly, "just look at them. They have no proper manes. Only a little fur on top of their heads."

"They have no true biting teeth," Kyakhta added. "Only those short, chisel-like white chips."

Bulgan stroked the snout of a resting suubatar. It snuffled appreciatively and pushed its muzzle harder against the guide"s ministrating hand. "Look at their fingers. Too short to do any real work.

And their toes-utterly useless!"

"And there are too many of them," Kyakhta noted. "Five on each-almost as many as on a suubatar! To look at them, one would think them more closely related to such animals than to thinking beings." He shook his head in an odd, sideways fashion. "One feels sadness for such deficiencies."

Bulgan sniffed through his single nostril. "It may be a good thing. The Highborn of the Borokii cannot help but pity them. The perception of pity is always a good place from which to begin negotiations."

His companion was not so sure. "Either that, or they will see them as abominations against the natural order and give orders to have them killed."

"They had better not try anything like that!" His one good eye blinking, Bulgan waxed indignant. "We owe these visitors, or at least the one called Barriss, for the restored health of our minds."

"Not to mention the fact," Kyakhta added as he rubbed the place where his artificial right arm joined his own flesh, "that if they die prematurely we will not get paid for this journey." Still eyeing the aliens, he wondered whether he and Bulgan might have time enough to dig in the beach for some vaoloi sh.e.l.ls. Poached vaoloi would make a wonderful supplement to their supper.

Bulgan grunted and adjusted his eye patch. "I would rather sacrifice all our pay than the life of one friend."

Kyakhta"s heavy eyelids closed halfway. "Bulgan, my friend, perhaps Barriss did not complete her Jedi healing on you. Perhaps you would benefit from seeking another treatment."

"It doesn"t matter." Giving the suubatar he had been caressing a fond chuck under its sharp chin, Bulgan let the reins dangle down to his hand and started to lead it toward the best gra.s.s. "No one on this trip is going to die, anyway. We journey with Jedi Knights."

"That much cannot be disputed." But even as he agreed, Kyakhta thought back to how easily the one called Barriss had been dumped into the water by the aggressive gairk, and found himself wondering just how resilient and tough the aliens he and his friend were guiding were.

"They"ve left, you know."

Ogomoor relaxed in the chair. It was a fine apartment, ex pensively decorated and furnished. An apartment suitable for a long-term stay by a visiting dignitary. Its present owner poured himself a tall gla.s.s of something cold and lavender. Inwardly, Ogomoor shuddered. What perverse desire explained the human affection for iced liquids?

The member of the Unity delegation gestured with the bottle. "Can I offer you a gla.s.s? This is a fine vintage, properly fermented."

Ogomoor smiled in the human manner and politely declined. He could feel the chill from the bottle from where he sat.

With a shrug, the human put down the bottle, raised the gla.s.s, and drank.

Ogomoor felt his insides shudder in sympathy.

"I know they"ve left. We all know. They"ve gone to try to make an agreement with the Alwari. What do you think of their chances?"

"I think they"re as good as dead already. They"ve been gone for several days, with no word." He shifted uncomfortably in the human chair that made no allowance for his short tail.

"It"s in the nature of Jedi not to open their mouths unless they have something significant to say. Speaking of which," he added as he sat down on the couch opposite, "why are you here?"

"In the interests of expediting a decision that is critical to the future of Ansion. My future. Your future. Every citizen"s future."