shoulder blades. He stayed loose and balanced, ready to spring in any direction should the lor pelek lunge for his back.
Instead, he only heard a snarl and a growl and several short, deep yips: Vaster had said something to one of the Akk Guards who watched the prisoners. With one last glare that Mace could feel as though a lens focused sunlight on his skin, Vaster whirled away and plunged into the jungle, loping up the line of march.
Mace watched him go, bleak satisfaction on his face. He thought: So much for being the welcome guest.
The Akk Guard whom Vastor had spoken to gave Mace a dire look, echoed by the three akk dogs nearby. Mace ignored them all, and a few seconds later the Akk Guard stomped off to find his partner and the other akks. Mace caught Nick Rostu's eye and beckoned. Nick turned the children's grasser over to one of the Balawai and trotted over to the Jedi Master, keeping one eye turned toward the departing Akk Guard. 'Shee. Those guys give me the creeps. Looked a little tense there, Master Windu. What did the big guy say to you?' 'Here, hold him.' Mace handed the grasser's reins to Nick. 'How much did you hear?' 'Some of what you said. Got some guts, you do.' Nick stretched up to scratch the grasser on the side of its neck. 'But Vastor-maybe you've noticed? You can only understand him when he's talking directly to you. When he's talking to somebody else, he always sounds like he's growling or whistling or making some other kind of animal noises and stuff.' 'Yes, I had noticed something like that,' Mace said slowly, nodding. 'But I'd thought it was just me. Back at the outpost. things were confusing.' 'That's why it's kind of like you're talking to yourself, you get it? In my head, he talks like a Pelek Baw curb- monkey. So what did he say to you?' 'He was,' Mace said dryly, 'trying to impress me with his sense of duty.' 'So: what now? You didn't dust off the most dangerous man in the Korunnal Highland just to come and have a chat with the president of Rostu Jungle Nannies Inc. You have a move to make.' Mace nodded. 'We have a move to make. Mount up. You're going to lead these prisoners to the steamcrawler track so that the militia can find them and pick them up.' iL Nick's mouth dropped open. 'We. me? Why would I want to do something like that?' 'Because I gave them the word of a Jedi Master that if they surrendered I would keep them from harm. I will not be made a liar.' 'What's your word got to do with me?' 'Nothing at all,' Mace said. 'I'm sure you enjoy thinking about Keela being disemboweled by a vine cat. When you think of Pell, do you see her starving to death in a gripvine nest or having her eyes pecked out by jacunas?' Nick looked sick. 'Hey, easy with that tusker poop, huh?' 'You think the boys will be gored by tuskers, or shredded by brassvines? Maybe they'll get lucky and fall into a death hollow. At least that is relatively swift, as their lungs are eaten by caustic fumes, and their own tears scald their faces like acid.' The young Korun turned away. 'You have any idea what Kar and Depa will do to me?' 'You've been over the ground in this region. If I lead them myself, I'll end up losing us all in the jungle. Mount up. Right now.' Nick snorted. 'Shee, still pretty free with the orders, aren't we? What if I just don't wanna?
What if I do like thinking about all that stuff? What if I want those people dead? What then?' Mace went still. He stared off into the jungle, his eyes filled with its darkness. 'Then I will beat you into unconsciousness,' he said quietly, 'and ask someone else.' He looked at Nick.
Nick swallowed.
Mace said, 'I won't tell you again.' Nick mounted up.
'Kar Vaster,' the Jedi Master said, looking again into the jungle, this time up the line of march where the lor pelek had vanished, 'is not the most dangerous man on the Korunnal Highland.' Nick shook his head. 'You only say that because you don't really know him.' 'I say that,' Mace Windu replied, 'because he doesn't know me.' O
A JEDI' S WORD T, he prisoners limped along in ragged knots, holding each other up and nervously eyeing the pacing akk dogs. Mace forced his way through the tangled undergrowth toward them, Nick close behind on the grasser.
'Am I missing something here?' Nick leaned over to speak softly, one arm bent across the back of the grassers thick neck. 'Last night these ruskakks were trying to carve off a hunk of roast Windu.' 'This tan pel'trokal.' Mace's voice was equally low and far more grim. 'You approve of it?' 'Sure.' Nick glanced at the grasser that the children rode, and swiftly looked away. 'Well, in principle, anyway.' His vivid eyes went narrow and cynical. 'Wasn't too long ago Kar used to just kill them all. Can't afford to feed 'em. What else should we do? Givin' them the justice was Depa's call.' 'Oh?' 'Makes sense, don't it? If the Balawai think we'll kill 'em anyway, why should they surrender? Every one of them'd fight to the death. That gets expensive, y'know? So we give 'em to the jungle. At least they got a chance.' 'How many survive?' ome.
'Half? A quarter? One in a hundred?' 'How should I know?' Nick shrugged. 'Does it make a difference?' Mace Windu said, 'Not to me.' Nick closed his eyes and leaned his head against the grasser's ear as though exhausted, or in pain. 'You've gone bats, haven't you,' he said. 'You're completely insane.' Mace stopped. A twitch of frown drew a vertical crease between his eyebrows. 'No. Just the opposite, in fact.' 'What's that supposed to mean?' But Mace was already walking away.
Nick muttered a curse on all fraggin' Jedi who used nikkle nuts for brains, then goaded the grasser along after him.
When the prisoners saw them coming, a man's voice said, 'It's the Jedi. No, the other one.
The raz,'Jedi.' Mace thought this voice might belong to the man he'd spoken to in the steamcrawler this morning: the gray-faced one with a chest wound and a missing hand, who would not believe in a Jedi's word.
Mace chose not to ask what he meant by the real Jedi.
Some few of the prisoners clustered toward him, straightening their clothing and forcing their faces into expressions of hope; most just stopped where they were, swaying with exhaustion or stumbling against the great gray trees. Some grabbed handfuls of vines to lower themselves slowly to the ground.
A few tens of meters downslope, the two Akk Guards stared up at Mace with undisguised hostility. Two of the six akk dogs on prisoner duty slouched sullenly nearby.
The children's grasser was led by a man whom Mace recognized as Urno and Nykl's father.
The only clean spots on his dirt- and blood-smeared face were the twin tracks from his eyes to his chin, rinsed white by tears. He dropped the reins and threw himself on the ground at Mace's feet. 'Please-please, Your Honor-Your Highness-' he sobbed, facedown into the jungle floor, 'please don't let them kill my boys. Do what you want with me-I deserve it, I know, I'm sorry for what I done, but my boys. it's not their fault, they didn't do nothing-please, I don't-I never met a Jedi before-I don't even know what I should call you-' 'Stand up,' Mace said sternly. 'Jedi are not to be knelt to. We are not your masters, but your servants. Stand up.' Slowly, the astonished man pulled himself to his feet. The back of his hand smeared a streak of mud below his nose. 'Okay,' he said. 'All right. What's coming to me-I can take it like a man. but my boys-' 'What's coming to you is your life, and possibly your freedom as well.' The man blinked, uncomprehending. 'Your Honor-?' 'Call me Master Windu.' Mace swept past him and opened his arms, beckoning to all the prisoners. 'Gather 'round. I'll need you all to stick closer together. There will not be enough of us to look after stragglers.' 'Sir?' Keela said as the children's grasser caught up. She had twisted sideways in the lower saddle to stare at Mace with damp, bloodshot eyes. 'Sir, what are they going to do with us?
