Anakin often had no idea what his Master felt or thought. Sometimes he seemed to respond to the beings they met on their travels simply as ways to get something accomplished. A scrappy pilot with hair-raising stories of smuggling tech parts through the Outer Rim systems was just a means to get from the Manda spaceport to Circarpous Major. A tavern owner who kept pet dinkos was a contact to discover the location of a possible weapons cache.

A young brother and sister bounty-hunting team was taken along just to provide an answer to the mystery of who was behind a Jedi's kidnapping.

It wasn't that Obi-Wan lacked compassion, Anakin mused. It was just that there was a little more distance between him and other living beings.

Qui-Gon had not been able to pass along his connection to the Living Force to his Padawan, Anakin felt.

Anakin treasured his Master. But sometimes he wondered what it would have been like to have Qui-Gon as a Master instead. Would Qui-Gon have shared his feelings more easily? Anakin had felt a connection to Qui-Gon from the start. It had taken more time with Obi-Wan. It was still taking time.

He reached the hills, which were covered with thorny green bushes and small, squat trees. Anakin followed the hillside until he spotted scorch marks, then an abandoned hydrospanner. He was close.

He strode forward ten meters, pushed aside a dense covering of leaves, and found the cave opening. He walked inside, already feeling the presence of living beings. The cave opened out as he walked. There were two security guards, but they were unaware of Anakin's silent tread. Soon the ceiling soared a hundred meters over his head.

He heard the clang of metal. The muffled sound of shouts and curses.

The whine and sputter of engines being tuned and tweaked. The roar of powerful turbines. Someone whistling off-tune and someone else shouting at him to stop or he'd shove an oily rag down his slimy throat.

Anakin smiled. It sounded like home.

The cave opened out and he saw a makeshift pit hangar set up ahead.

Podracers were parked haphazardly while beings of every size and description and varying degrees of oil-soaked clothing worked on them. Pit droids scuttled about, hauling huge lubricant hoses and tugging power cell chargers.

He stopped at the edge and watched for a moment. Hydrospanners clanged and macrofusers flew. Someone yelled for a fusioncutter. Some of the Podracer pilots sat on elaborate folding chairs, sipping grog or tea and keeping a watchful eye on their mechanics. Other pilots, not yet rich enough to have someone else to tweak their engines, worked steadily and with enormous concentration. The smallest mistake could cause a Podracer to turn a fraction too sluggishly, resulting in a spectacular crash.

Anakin recognized Aldar Beedo, a Glymphid he had raced against several times. He was surprised Beedo was still alive, let alone racing. Beedo had never been particularly skillful, but he'd been cunning and fearless and willing to cheat, and that had made him more successful at Podracing than he had any right to be. Anakin would have thought he'd have crashed or been run out of the Podraces by this time. Then again, there wasn't much policing of Podracing. Race officials attempted to keep some sort of control, but Podracers schemed to get away with as much as they could.

Anakin noticed a Podracer mechanic nearby. He could only see a pair of short legs sticking out from underneath while another mechanic stood near the console, pushing buttons in what appeared to be a random fashion. The two mechanics were Aleenas. He recognized their three-toed feet and bluish scaly skin. The Podracer looked familiar. It had been re-painted and buffed, but he was sure he recognized it. He took a couple of steps closer.

"Doby, hand me that hydrospanner, will you? I've almost got this fused. Then we can start her up again."

A hydrospanner twirled through the air, nearly taking off the tip of Anakin's nose. A hand reached up from underneath the Podracer and caught it.

"Go ahead and use it, but I'm telling you, Deland, it's not the joint, " the mechanic at the console said. "No chance, never ever. If the engine overheats during gear switches, it's got to be a sensor problem."

"But the sensor doesn't show a problem, blope-head."

"That's the problem, bantha-breath. If you'd just let me finish checking out the sensor suite…"

"I've been doing this longer than you have, baby brother, so slap your flapping lips shut."

"You're only fourteen months older…"

"Fourteen and a half. And I'm the pilot. You're the mechanic."

"My point exact — "

"Got it!" A face stained with grease appeared in a pair of grimy welding goggles. Deland sprang to his feet in one motion. "Let's fire her up."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Anakin said.

Doby and Deland peered at him from behind their goggles.

"And we should listen to you because?" Deland asked.

Anakin took a step closer. "Because if your engine is overheating during gear changes, the problem could be in the current filter. Have you used an impulse detector?" The words flowed easily, like a native language he had not spoken in years but would never forget.

"Not that it's your business, but yes," Doby said. "It didn't show anything wrong."

"Then it's definitely the current filter," Anakin said. "It's clogged.

" "Slap it shut, you son of a durkii," Deland warned his brother. "This guy could be working for another Podracer. He's just trying to spook us."

Doby leaned toward his brother and said in a whisper, "Haven't you noticed? He's a Jedi."

"He's a fraud and a fake," Deland hissed. "Sebulba probably hired him.

" Anakin felt a rush of heat that made his face flame. Back on Tatooine, Sebulba the Dug had tried to cheat his way to victory in the Boonta Eve race and nearly killed Anakin in the process. They had always sparred, though Sebulba had never taken him seriously enough to worry about him.

Until the race on Boonta Eve, when he'd beaten him in an extremely close race. "Sebulba is still racing?"

"Everybody knows that," Deland said. "Now I know you're lying. Doby, fire up that engine!"

"You're going to blow out the intake valves on the turbines," Anakin warned.

In answer, Deland reached over and flipped on the engine. Anakin had already stepped out of the way. Aloud explosion blew Deland back onto the ground. Doby was almost blasted by a roar of fire from the left turbine.

Anakin reached over and shut off the engine.