the proceedings in bad-tempered silence, tolerant of the tribe's antics but less than enthusiastic-to the point that Luminara felt compelled to question them about their reticence.
'Why the attitude, my friends?' she asked them. 'Is it that you've had bad dealings with people like this before?'
'I've never seen creatures like this before.' Kyakhta re mained scrunched up against his softly breathing suubatar, as if he was afraid a bunch of the Gwurran were going to hoist the huge animal up onto their shoulders and walk off with it. 'Don't know their kind, don't think I want to know.'
'Alwari keep away from hilly places like this,' Bulgan added, 'so it's not surprising my clan has never encountered such as these.'
'But they're not so very different from you,' she pointed out. 'They're much smaller, true. That should make them less of a threat, not more. So what if their eyes are slightly bigger in proportion to their faces than yours are, and unlike the Alwari they're completely covered in fur? They speak a variant of your language, and they look and act like the representatives of many other tribes we saw in Cuipernam.'
'Not Alwari,' the normally equable Bulgan argued. 'Ignorant little savages is what they are.'
'Ah, I see.' She turned to watch the merriment as Obi-Wan demonstrated how a self-heating foodpak worked. Squeals of delight followed by energetic conversation rose from his furry audience. 'So the Alwari are educated, sophisticated, forward-looking beings, while these Gwurran are primitive ignoramuses? ' The guides' ensuing silence was answer enough.
Nodding knowingly, Luminara eyed each of them in turn. 'Isn't that how the city folk of Ansion look upon the Alwari?'
Kyakhta looked confused. As for Bulgan, his face contorted as he struggled to get a handle on the concept. Then he looked at his friend and companion. If it was possible for an Alwari to look sheepish, both guides succeeded.
'You are a good teacher, Master Luminara.' Kyakhta rose from his resting position. 'Instead of yelling and screaming, you let those you are instructing come to the truth at their own speed, by their own road.' Looking past her, both he and Bulgan contemplated the frenetically active but good-natured Gwurran from a new perspective. 'Maybe you're right. Maybe they are just curious, and not a tribe that lives by stealing.'
'Give them a chance. That's all that's being asked here. Like Barriss gave you and Bulgan a chance.'
'That is fair enough.' Gesturing positively, Kyakhta moved off to see if they could help with Obi-Wan's demonstrations. Watching them go, Luminara felt she had struck a small blow for the kind of tolerance and understanding that would be needed to make for a just and strong planetary government.
And for a durable Republic as well, she told herself as she watched Barriss at work.
'But we're not nomads.' The Padawan was trying to explain the nature and purpose of the Jedi Knights to a small cluster of attentive but obviously confused Gwurran.
'Sure sure you are,' argued one of the tribe. 'You tell us what Jedi folk do: travel travel all the time, go from this place to that place to next place, always on the moving, never staying same place very long.' She looked to her multihued companions for support. 'That a nomad.'
'It's true that some of us do seem never to put down any roots,' Luminara admitted. 'But others do live for a long time in one place. If you rise to a position on the Jedi Council, for example, you find yourself spending most of your time on Coruscant.'
'What a Coruscant?' one of the other Gwurran asked.
'Another whole world, like Ansion,' Barriss explained.
The tribesfolk exchanged puzzled looks. 'What an Ansion?' one finally inquired ingenuously. With a resigned sigh, Barriss did her best to try to explain the concept of multiple worlds. It would have been easier at night, with stars in the sky. Clearly, the horizons of the Gwurran were far more limited than those of the Alwari.
Much of the remainder of the day, when the travelers should have been galloping through the hills and across the open prairie beyond, was spent educating and entertaining the Gwurran, who were passionate in their desire to learn, to explore every new object and idea. What they needed, Luminara decided, was not a casual visit but a permanent school, to at least bring them up to the educational level of the taller nomads they so disliked. Starting with physical and intellectual disadvantages, they needed proportionately more help. When they returned to Cuipernam, she resolved to mention it to the proper authorities. Failing local interest, there were societies and organizations within the Republic specifically designed to help isolated ethnic groups like the Gwurran.
Also, she and Obi-Wan determined that, despite the genuine affability exhibited by the little Ansionians, the onset of night might prove just a tad too tempting for the more acquisitive among them. Better for all concerned to remove any opportunity to stray by leaving while the sun was still up. While the overhang in the gully offered an appealing campsite, they would find a way to manage out on the open prairie.
So they bade their farewells and promised to send others to teach and assist the Gwurran. It was as they were making final preparations for departure that Luminara felt a tug at her pant leg. Looking down, she saw a Gwurran she recognized. It was Tooqui, the enterprising and unusually bold would-be thief who had led a persistent Barriss to his tribe.
'What is it, Tooqui?' she inquired politely. 'We're almost ready to go, you know.'
'Tooqui know.' He slapped both long-fingered hands against the striped brown and black fur that covered his chest. 'Tooqui bravest of all Gwurran. The best fighter, the smartest, the most handsomest, the-'
'Yes, you're a fine representative of your tribe, Tooqui.' Luminara agreed absently as she checked the supply pack harness of her patient suubatar. 'I'm sure they're very proud of you.'
'Pifgah!' he exclaimed sharply. 'Gwurran multiple stupids! Got no dreams, no purposes, no goals. Happy living in holes in hills.' The little thief managed the difficult task of appearing to strut while standing still. 'Tooqui want more. Tooqui got to have more.' Bulbous red-orange eyes gazed up at her. 'I want go with you.'
That put pause to her inspection. Squatting, she gazed apologetically into those oversized, staring eyes. 'Tooqui, you can't come with us. You know that.'
'Know what? Don't know that.' The Gwurran was not in the least intimidated by the much bigger Jedi. 'Tooqui know
