Which was not surprising, since they were now outpacing the wind.

Far behind them, a motley coterie of assorted thugs, brutes, and ruffians assembled atop the city wall by the very gate through which the Jedi and their guides had departed. Off in the distance, a very faint cloud of dust could be seen dissipating atop a low, rolling, grass-covered hill. To Ogomoor it might as well have been poison gas.

"That must be them." He turned to the hulking Varwan stand ing at his side. "Get your people together. We're going after them."

"At that speed? You heard what the people in the market said. They're riding suubatars. Purebloods, at that." Behind them, the other members of the hastily assembled troop of cutthroats had begun to mutter among themselves.

"We'll take an airtruck. No suubatar can outpace an airtruck."

"Not outpace, no. But outmaneuver. ." The Varwan's eyes leaned closer to Ogomoor's. "You ever try to corner an Al- wari mounted on a good suubatar? A quick way to die."

"Bastasi!" the impatient Ogomoor exclaimed. "As you will. What besides an airtruck will persuade you to follow my order and go after those six?"

The Varwan considered, rubbing one eye as he studied the wispy remnants of the distant dust cloud. "Heavy weapons," he finally declared.

"Don't be stupid!" Ogomoor barked at the hireling. "Not even Bossban Soergg can engage heavy weapons in Cuipernam! There are some limitations that even he-urk!"

Clutching the squirming majordomo by the collar, the Varv- van had lifted him off the ground and was holding him in that position. "Don't-call-me-stupid."

Aware that he might have let his anger and annoyance get a teensy bit the better of him, Ogomoor hastened to calm the mercenary. "It was just a blurted exclamation-I meant nothing personal by it-now please let me down and-could you perhaps retract your eyeballs? They're oozing."

With a hiss, the Varwan set him down. Straightening his jacket, Ogomoor turned to gaze longingly at the distant rise over which his quarry had disappeared. "Why the worry, anyway? The visitors are being led by a couple of clanless morons!"

Shouldering his compaction rifle, the Varwan hissed again and turned away. His kind were brave, even fearless-but despite Ogomoor's assertion, they were not dumb.

"Say you. But I, and my associates, know only what we see. And what I see are four visitors and two escorts who do not ride like clanless morons." He started down the steps that led back to the city streets. "They ride like Alwari."

Frustrated beyond words, Ogomoor turned his attention away from the useless mercenaries and back to the beginnings of the endless grasslands beyond Cuipernam. Where, he wailed silently, could he find assassins worthy of his orders? Where could he find beings willing to take up weapons against the unmentionable Jedi? Where could he find the kind of quality help that, at every turn, seemed to be denied him?

Most importantly of all, where could he find someone else to tell Soergg the Hutt that the Jedi and their Padawans had, once again, flown free of his intentions and beyond his reach?

Much to Ogomoor's surprise, Soergg listened quiedy to his majordomo's report. "Once again, too late. Punctuality is the hallmark of the successful assassin."

"There was nothing I could do, Bossban. Those I had hired refused to pursue the fleeing Jedi."

"Yes, yes, so you told me." Soergg waved a dismissive hand. "Riding suubatars, you said. Given that, I'm not surprised at the lack of enthusiasm on the part of your puerile hirelings." He rubbed his vast chin, the flesh quivering like the sulfurous outfall of some particularly noxious thermal vent. "First a bungled killing, then a bungled kidnapping. The Jedi are on their guard now."

"They cannot be taken by surprise," Ogomoor added, unnecessarily.

"Perhaps." Huge slitted eyes looked past the assistant, toward distant places. "Certainly not by us."

"I don't understand, master."

Soergg did not reply. He was still gazing at that distant place, thinking Huttish thoughts.

Chapter 7

It was not merely beautiful out on the endless prairie that covered much of Ansion's landmass: it was magnificent. At least, Lu-minara thought so. Barriss agreed with her, while Obi-Wan was impressed but noncommittal. As usual, Anakin wished himself elsewhere, but refrained from saying so more than once a day.

"A year ago he would have been bemoaning his situation two or three times a day," Obi-Wan pointed out that evening to Lu-minara. "I suppose it's a sign that he's maturing."

Nearby, Kyakhta and Bulgan were busy with the camp, preparing food and making tea. Behind them, a ways off, the six splendid suubatars had been set down for the night. Their legs folded beneath their powerful, slender bodies, the graceful steeds busied themselves browsing the grasses and grains that grew in abundance all around them.

The prairies of Ansion were not all unbroken fields of grass. Rivers cut erratically through the yellow-green flatlands while rolling hills occasionally interrupted the monotony of the terrain. There were clumps of forest filled with strange, intertwined trees and brachiating fungi. Higher ridges were the bones of old volcanic vents and plugs. It was a strange landscape, an odd combination of different geologies jumbled together in a way Lumi-nara had not encountered previously.

"Why is he so stressed all the time?" Leaning up against the viann of the saddle that the guides had uncinched and removed from her ruminating mount, she chewed on the stick of nut-flavored nutrient and waited for her tea to get hot.

The central campfire was reflected in Obi-Wan's eyes. "Anakin? As is common in such instances, there's more than one reason. For one thing, he feels obligated to excel. This is largely a product of his difficult upbringing, so different from that of the average Padawan. Also, he misses many things."

"Anyone who trains to become Jedi knows they will have to give up many things."

He nodded in agreement. "He fears he will never see his mother, whom he loves very much, ever again."

"That was a terrible mistake. Force-sensitive infants are re moved from their families before they can form such dangerously lasting attachments." She sounded momentarily wistful. "I sometimes wonder what my own mother is doing, even at this moment, as we sit here discussing such things. I wonder if she is thinking the same thing about me." She looked away, off into the darkening prairie. "What about you, Obi-Wan? Do you ever think of your parents?"

"I have too much else to think about. Besides, every Jedi who is given charge of an apprentice has become a kind of parent. Being one leaves me with no time to think of my own. When such feelings do intrude, I find myself thinking of my teachers or Master Qui-Gon, and not my birth parents. Sometimes-sometimes I wonder if it isn't a flaw in Jedi training to take infants from their families."