enormous balloon- like wings darkening the sky. Anyone could have been excused for thinking that the huge flying creatures, with their long, rapierlike beaks and bright yellow eyes, represented a threat. At the sight of them commencing their dive, Anakin drew his lightsaber but did not activate it while Barriss made sure her own weapon was ready to draw.
The flock came steadily closer, making no attempt to swerve around the loping suubatars. Anakin's forefinger nervously caressed the on switch of his lightsaber. Unable to stand it any longer, Barriss urged her mount forward until she drew alongside her teacher.
'Master Luminara, shouldn't we be doing something?' She indicated the oncoming flock. 'Those things, whatever they are, are heading straight for us.'
Luminara gestured, not at the plummeting ongun-nur, but at Kyakhta. 'Look at our guides, Barriss. Do they look apprehensive?'
'No, Master, but that doesn't mean they are unafraid.'
'You need to study different sentients more, my dear. Ob serve the intelligent natives of any world and see how they react to possible danger. Trust your own senses. By all means, keep alert. But there is no need to jump to conclusions, either.' Raising a hand, Luminara indicated the dark flock that was almost upon them. 'Just because something is large and intimidating in appearance does not mean it is dangerous. Look how the wind buffets them about.'
It was true, Barriss saw. For all their great size, the ongun-nur were riding the wind, not manipulating it. They were rushing toward the band of travelers not intending to attack, but hoping they would get out of the way. At the last instant, the great flying creatures were able to alter their angle of descent just enough to carry them past the oncoming riders. So close did they pass that Barriss and Anakin found themselves ducking involuntarily. As they did so, she saw that the wings were paper-thin and the huge bodies swollen with air instead of muscle. The ongun-nur went where the wind took them, unable to fly against it. Seeing the suubatars and their riders heading in their direction, the members of the flock had probably been more frightened of them than the riders had any right to be of the ongun-nur.
It was an instructive visitation, one whose lesson Barriss immediately committed, as always, to memory. From then on, she paid more attention to the reactions of their guides than to whatever phenomenon manifested itself in the sky or in the grass. Similarly, she felt justified in increasing her vigilance when Kyakhta and Bulgan began to slow while sitting up straighter in their saddles.
Topping a rise, they found themselves looking down at a slight depression in the prairie. A sizable but shallow lake had formed there. Except for the center, it was rilled with a peculiar spotted, multijointed, bluish reed. At one end of the lake an encampment had been established. A temporary corral held domesticated dorgum and larger, heavy-humped awiquod. Smoke rose from collapsible huts fashioned from imported composite materials. Each hut was tiled with anamorphic solar material that converted Ansion's abundant sunlight directly into power.
Luminara and Obi-Wan rode up to flank Kyakhta and Bulgan. Their guides were leaning forward to peer around the heads of their mounts as they contemplated the camp.
'Borokii?' Luminara asked hopefully.
'By the style of their camp, I would say they are Yiwa,' Kyakhta informed her, 'of the Qiemo Adrangar. Not an unim portant clan, such as the Eijin or Gaxun, but not an overclan like the Borokii or the Januul, either.'
'If they have power,' Obi-Wan wondered as he examined the solar huts, 'why the need for campfires?'
'Tradition.' Bulgan swiveled his crooked form around to fo cus his good eye on the man mounted next to him. 'By now you should know, Jedi, how important that is to the Alwari-and to the success of your mission.'
Obi-Wan accepted the mild reminder gracefully. A correction added to one's store of knowledge. It was a thing to be grateful for, not something to take offense at.
Kyakhta pointed. 'They come to greet us. The Yiwa are a proud clan. They are constantly on the move, even more so than many of the Alwari. They may have news of the overclan Borokii for us-if they are willing to part with it.'
'Why wouldn't they?' Luminara asked directly.
Bulgan blinked his one eye. 'The Yiwa are a touchy people, quick to take offense.'
'Then we'll be on our best behavior.' Obi-Wan turned in his saddle. 'Won't we, Anakin?'
His Padawan frowned uncertainly. 'Why are you all looking at me?'
The Yiwa came pounding up the slight slope mounted on sadains. Stocky and powerful, the four-legged steeds had round faces with four eyes. In contrast to the suubatar, they boasted long, high ears that flared widely at the top. Unlike the swift suubatar, the sadain was built for pulling and for endurance, not for speed over distance. Those remarkable ears, Obi-Wan reflected as he saw the sunlight shine redly through their blood-rich membranes, would also serve to detect the presence of stalking shanhs and other potential predators of the Yiwa herds.
The welcoming party slowed. There were a dozen of them, decked out in suitably barbaric finery. Homemade bells and polished teeth taken from some of Ansion's less benign fauna alternated with flash colorpans and the latest glowals imported from other worlds of the Republic. The riders had painted their individual manes in a riot of colors and patterns, and the bare skin on either side at the top of each Yiwa head was tattooed in intricate traditional Ansionian patterns. Their appearance was a vivid melange of the long-established and the contemporary-exactly what one would expect on a world like Ansion.
Two of them held comlinks that doubtless kept them in con stant contact with the camp, while several of the riders pointedly displayed weapons that were anything but primitive.
Having the advantage of a much higher seat, Kyakhta nudged his suubatar forward a couple of paces and identified himself and his companions. The Yiwa listened stonily. Then one wearing a cape fashioned from two arc-striped shanh skins kicked his equally well-decorated sadain forward. His bulging red-brown eyes traveled suspiciously between Alwari and off-worlders. Luminara expected initial comments to be directed at her or her fellow humans. She was wrong. The crash training in the most frequently spoken local vernacular she and her companions had received prior to being dispatched to Ansion now proved its worth. The Yiwa dialect was harsh, but not incomprehensible.
'I am Mazong Yiwa. What are clanless ones doing riding suubatars?'
