away a flat stone pathway led to a magnificent, fortresslike palace of skewed blocks stacked around a squat central tower. Beyond the palace, four volcanic terraces spilled orange- tinted water over broad, multicolored falls. The air smelled of Zonama's depths-hydrogen sulfide-alternating with fresh breezes blowing from the south.
Each of the blocks around the tower was over ten meters high and fifty meters wide, its walls lined with windows that gleamed like rainbows in the sunset light. The promontory supported only a few tendrils, barely as thick as an arm, nestled haphazardly between the rocks and around the mineral-spring terraces like lines of red and green thread.
'The Magister lives far from his subjects,' Obi-Wan observed, rubbing his hands on the hem of his tunic, then holding them out palm up and dropping his chin. His eyes swept the horizon shrewdly. 'And he makes do with very few attendants.' Looking at the torn wisps of clouds passing overhead, and the darker masses visible to the south, Obi- Wan estimated they were a thousand kilometers below the equator. 'Peculiar customs.They seem to prefer their clients be misinformed and kept off balance.'
'At least they haven't checked us for weapons,' Anakin said.
'Oh, but they think they have,' Obi-Wan said.
'You did that. . without my knowing?' Anakin asked.
Obi-Wan smiled.
'You surprise me all the time, Master,' Anakin said with a touch of awe. 'But that's what an apprentice should expect from his teacher.'
Obi-Wan lifted one brow.
'We make a great team, don't we?' the boy said with a sud den grin. His face colored with the expectation of adventure.
'We do,' Obi-Wan agreed.
'I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're my master, Obi- Wan,' Anakin said. He gave a small shiver, then he, also, rubbed his palms on his tunic, held them out, and looked around. Obi-Wan had learned years ago that Anakin could become both expressive and imitative whenever he felt excited or ill at ease.
The boy looked up at the glowing pinwheel of plasma unwinding from the distant double-star system, obscured by rips and shreds of thin, high clouds. Zonama's own sun perched on the horizon, turning the sky above into a flaming tapestry easily the match of the astronomical spectacle beyond. 'It's out there now. It's closing in.'
'Do you see its shape more clearly?'
'It's a time of trial. For me.'
'Do you fear it?' Obi-Wan asked.
Anakin shook his head but kept staring up at the red and orange sky. 'I fear my reaction. What if I'm not good enough?'
'I have trust in you.'
'What if the Magister turns us down?'
'That. . seems a separate issue, don't you think?'
'Yeah.' Anakin said, but persisted with boyish stubbornness, focused on what seemed to him, for the moment, the most crucial of their many problems. 'But what if the Magister doesn't want us to get a ship?'
'Then we'll learn something new,' Obi-Wan said patiently. The title Magister implied someone of accomplishment, of dignity and bearing, and for all his searching the landscape, Obi-Wan received no signs of any impressive human personality.
It was possible the Zonamans could conceal themselves. Jedi Masters could hide from detection, even at close range. Sometimes Obi-Wan could manage to conceal his presence from someone as perceptive as Mace Windu, but never with complete confidence.
Did that imply that whoever lived here could deceive a Jedi for minutes at a time?
Glow lights mounted beside the pathway switched on and illuminated the way to the lowest and closest block of the Magister's dwelling. A small figure appeared at the end of the path and walked toward them with arms folded.
It was a girl, taller than Anakin but no older, and she wore a long green Sekotan robe of the kind they had become familiar with. It draped to her ankles with its own restless motion.
Anakin stepped back as she approached.
'Welcome! My name is Wind,' she said. The girl had long hair as dark as the stone on the walkway and of roughly the same hue. The pupils of her eyes were black, set in golden sclera. She scrutinized Obi-Wan with mild approval, and he returned her gentle dip of the chin. Anakin she seemed to find unworthy of much notice. This caused the boy to ball up his hands, then relax them. Anakin never liked being ignored.
'My father is bored and welcomes any distraction,' the girl said. 'Would you follow me, please?'
The daughter watched them from the entrance to the Magister's small workroom. Here, he kept only a small central desk and chair.
'I have four daughters and three sons. My sons and two of my daughters are in training around Zonama. They are concerned with defense. Who better to help us than Jedi?'
The Magister was a small man, wiry in build, with a long, narrow face and large eyes as black as those of his daughter. His hair, however, was of a pale shade of gray- blue more typical of a Ferroan. He did not wear Sekotan garments, just a simple pair of pants woven from plain beige Republic broadcloth and a loose-knit white shirt.
He had met them in the hall of the uppermost of three levels in this branch of the palace. The interiors of the three rooms they had seen thus far were plain to the point of austerity, though the furniture was well designed
