The woman looked them over with no change in expression. 'Bankrolled by somebody else, or a consortium, too locked in luxury to come by themselves?'
'We are given funds by an organization to which we owe our education and our philosophical stance,' Obi- Wan told her.
The woman snorted in derision. 'We do not provide ships for delivery to research groups. Go home, academics.''
Obi-Wan decided against any mind tricks. The woman's attitude interested him. Contempt often veiled bruised ideals.
'We've come quite a long way,' Obi-Wan said, undaunted.
'From the center of the galaxy, I know,' the woman said. 'That's where the money is. Did they tell you-the traitors who do most of our essential advertising-that you must prove yourself before you come away with whatever prize Zonama Sekot will offer? No visitors are allowed to stay more than sixty days. And we have only resumed accepting customers in the last month.' She flung her hand out at them. 'We've seen all the tactics here! Customers… a necessary evil. I do not have to like it!'
'Whatever our origins, we would hope to be treated with hospitality,' Obi-Wan said calmly. He was about to try a subtle bit of Jedi persuasion when the woman's whole aspect changed.
Her features softened, and she looked as if she might have suddenly seen the face of a long-lost friend.
She stared over their shoulders.
Anakin turned his head to look. The three of them were alone in the shelter.
'What did you do?' he whispered to Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan shook his head. 'Pardon me,' he said to the woman.
She looked down from a vague distance and focused on Obi- Wan again. 'The Magister tells me you are to go south,' she said. 'Your ship can remain for four more days.'
The abrupt turnaround caught even Obi-Wan by surprise. She did not seem to be equipped with an ear- receiver. Some other comlink was concealed in her clothing, he surmised.
'This way, please,' she said, and gestured for them to go through a small hatch on the opposite side of the empty dome. There, they found themselves again outside, in the middle of a biting, almost horizontal blast of snow.
Obi-Wan looked up at a ghostly shadow descending through the storm. Though the woman showed no concern, his hand slipped automatically through his jacket to his lightsaber.
What had alerted him? What stray bit of clue from the future had made him feel threatened by the expected arrival of a transport, of all things?
Not for the first time, he regretted this mission and its possible impact on his Padawan. The danger he felt came from no specific source but from all around-not threat of physical harm, but of a possible imbalance in the Force so drastic it overshadowed anything he had ever imagined.
Anakin Skywalker was not so much at risk as he was a possible cause of this imbalance.
For the first time since the death of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi- Wan felt fear, and he quickly drew up the discipline instilled by long Jedi training to control and then quash it.
He reached out to grip Anakin's shoulder. The boy looked up at him with a brave grin.
'Your ride south,' the woman announced over the wind as a broad, flat, disk-shaped transport landed in the blowing drifts of snow.
Obi-Wan lifted his own small comlink and opened a channel with the Star Sea Flower. 'We are leaving the plateau,' he told Charza Kwinn. 'Stay here as long as they allow, and after that. . maintain a position nearby.'
Given that Obi-Wan felt he could trust no one, flexibility was essential.
Chapter 18
It should have been among the proudest moments of Raith Sienar's life. He had been given the rank of commander, in charge of a squadron, putting to use training he had once thought forgotten. The squadron of four ships was preparing to enter that most entrancing of places, hyperspace-entrancing for an engineer, if not a tactician-and yet he felt nothing but a cold, seedy dread in his viscera.
This was not what he wanted, and it was certainly not what he had imagined when he had purchased the Sekotan ship two years before.
Even learning the probable location of Zonama Sekot seemed a hollow triumph, since he had to share the knowledge. Sienar rarely liked sharing anything, especially with old friends. Most especially, now, with Tarkin.
Sienar was a competitive fellow, had recognized this since boyhood, but it had been a fragile knowledge, as he had realized over and over again, that his competitive nature had its limits. He had had to focus his efforts to win, and after a while, he had never failed to choose arenas in which his talents were most suited, and avoid those where they were not.
It was disheartening to be shown how much he had come to overestimate his greed, and to underestimate the infinite ambition of others. Of Tarkin.
But there was little time for ruing his precarious position. The adjutants, impatient and less than obsequious toward their new commander, had arrayed themselves on the command deck of the Admiral Korvin, and they expected dispatch.
He had to give the order for coordinated entry into hyperspace.
It was the final commitment he dreaded, leaving the system, in which he had pooled most of his armor,
