"Well, if she's got one, she's not going to fill it tonight," Keely commented as Jinzler turned and left the room. "C'baoth's not going to be happy withher."

"If you ask me, I don't think C'baoth's ever happy with anything," Uliar said, picking up his mug. "I've never met anyone so full of himself."

"I had an instructor at the institute just like him," Tarkosa said. "One night some of the students sneaked into his office, disassembled his desk, and reassembled it in the refresher station down the hall. I thought he was going to pop every blood vessel in his face when he saw it."

"But I'll bet it didn't solve anything," Keely commented. "People like that never learn." He turned to Uliar. "Speaking of solving things, Chas, did you ever figure out that line fluctuation problem you were having yesterday? We had to shut down the whole portside turbolaser system."

"Oh, yeah, we got it sorted it out," Uliar told him, dragging his mind away from Jedi and dull dining rooms. "This'll kill you. You know b'Crevnis, that big terminally cheerful Pho Ph'eahian who's supposed to be in charge of fluid-flow maintenance? It seems he managed to mislabel one of his own gauges. ."

It took until the fourth D-4 messroom she visited, but Lorana finally found the Pressor family. "Hello," she said, smiling as she walked up to their table. "How are you all doing tonight?"

"We're fine," Pressor said, his eyes suddenly wary as he looked up at her. "Is anything wrong?"

"That depends on how you look at it," Lorana said, kneeling down between Jorad and his mother. "I wanted to tell you, Jorad, that your retest again came up negative. I'm sorry."

The boy made a face. "That's okay," he said, clearly disappointed. "Mom and Dad said it probably wouldn't change."

"Moms and dads are smart that way," Lorana said. "I hope you're not too disappointed."

"I'm sure he'll get over it," the boy's mother said, a note of relief in her voice. "There are lots of other things he can do with his life."

"Yes," Lorana murmured, her brother's face flickering across her memory "We all have to accept our strengths and talents, and go on from there."

"Though sometimes with a little push," Pressor said grimly. "I hear you Jedi had some sort of standoff over on D-Two yesterday."

"I heard something about that," Lorana confirmed. "I wasn't there, so I can't say whether it was a standoff or not. I understand it was resolved peaceably, though."

"I heard the boy was hustled off to Jedi school," Pressor countered.

"Yet if that's his birthright, how can anyone deny it to him?" Lorana asked. "The life of a Jedi can be hard-and, yes, it requires sacrifice, from the parents as well as from the child. But anything that's worthwhile does."

"I suppose," Pressor said, clearly not convinced.

"Well, I'll let you get back to your meal now," Lorana said, getting to her feet again. "Thank you for your time."

"Thank you for stopping by," Pressor said.

"Good-bye, Jedi Lorana," Jorad added. For a moment his eyes seemed to linger on her lightsaber before he returned to his meal.

Lorana made her way back through the messroom, trying to get a sense of the people around her. Most of those along her path looked up casually as she passed, then turned back to their food and conversations without any detectable change in their mood. Most of the ones seated farther away didn't even notice her. Everyone seemed more or less content, aside from the inevitable few working through annoyances from their shift work. If there was any growing resentment toward the Jedi, she couldn't detect it.

So perhaps her fears were for nothing. After all, they would all be aboard Outbound Flight for a long time yet, and even those who were upset at the way the children had been taken would eventually realize that more Jedi translated into a smoother and safer voyage.

But for now, it was time to get back to work. Some of the last-minute equipment that had been packed into the storage core needed to be shifted around to other areas. The crewers had enough hands and lifters for the job, but there was always the chance that one of the stacks of crates would shift unexpectedly, and it would be safer if a Jedi was present to keep that from happening. There would undoubtedly be injuries and deaths along the way, but Lorana had no intention of letting such incidents begin this soon. Not if she could help it.

Stepping out into the corridor, she headed toward the aft pylon turbolift. One of these days, she promised herself, she would see about getting a hold of one of those swoops Captain Pakmillu had said were aboard.

. . And this is the engine compartment," Thrawn said, stepping aside to let Thrass look through the access hatchway into theBargain Hunter 's engine room. "You'll notice it has a radically differently layout from those of Chiss vessels this size."

"Yes," Thrass said. He peered inside a moment, then turned to Car'das. "What's the vessel's sublight range?"

"I'm not sure," Car'das said, looking over at Qennto. The other was standing off to one side with Maris, who was whispering a running translation to him. "Rak?" he invited in Basic.

"Why?" Qennto growled. "Is he looking to take it for a test run or something?"

"Come on, Rak," Car'das cajoled, carefully avoiding Thrawn' s eyes. Qennto hadn't been happy about letting Thrawn give his brother this private tour of his ship, and he'd been wearing that annoyance on his sleeve ever since they'd arrived.

The problem was that either he didn't remember that Thrawn could now understand Basic, or else he just didn't care.

So far the commander hadn't responded to Qennto's snide comments, but that restraint was bound to have a limit. If he got tired enough of this and tossed Qennto back in the brig, even Maris might not be able to sweet-talk him out again.

Qennto rolled his eyes. "We can do six hundred hours of sublight before refueling," he said grudgingly. "Six fifty if we're careful with our acceleration."

"Thank you." Switching back to Minnisiat, Car'das translated for Thrass.

"Impressive," the syndic said, taking another look at the engine compartment. "Their fuel efficiency must be slightly better than ours."

"Yes, but their hyperdrives appear to be more fragile," Thrawn said. "Our shock net attacks disabled both theirs and their attackers' without difficulty."

"Weaponry?"

"Simple but adequate," Thrawn told him. "The equipment is difficult to get to, but my experts have studied it at length. Their energy weapons and missiles are less sophisticated than ours, and they don't carry any shock nets or other disabling equipment. On the other hand, bear in mind that this is merely a small private freighter."