"Shortly a caravan of travelers happened by.

Lost and hungry, the travelers inquired to know the whereabouts of the closest settlement, so they might replenish their meager stores.

"The human found himself in a quandary. By failing to respond, he understood that he might be sentencing the lost travelers to certain death in the sand wastes. But merely by opening his mouth and uttering a word, he would be sentencing himself to certain death in the digestive tract of the sand creature." Bondara paused. "Under such circumstances, what must the human do?"

The students knew in advance that they were not likely to hear the answer from Anoon Bondara.

Getting to his feet, the lightsaber Master added, "I will hear your responses tomorrow." The students bowed at the waist and kept their foreheads to the mat until Bondara had left the room. Then they rose, eager to compare opinions of the training session, though not a one spoke of possible solutions to the instructor's thought-puzzle.

Qui-Gon tapped Obi-Wan on the shoulder.

"Come, Padawan, there's someone I wish to speak with." Obi-Wan trailed him down the steps and onto the soft floor. There, several Jedi Masters were conferring with their Padawans. Obi-Wan knew some of the Masters slightly, but the person Qui-Gon steered them toward was not someone he had ever met.

She was perhaps one of the most exotic women Obi-Wan had ever seen. Her eyes were oblique and widely spaced, with large blue irises that seemed to favor her upper lids. Her nose was broad and flat, and her skin was the color of fruitwood.

"Obi-Wan, I want you to meet Master Luminara Unduli." "Master Jinn," the woman said, taken by surprise, and inclining her head in a bow of respect.

Qui-Gon returned the gesture. "Luminara, this is Obi-Wan Kenobi, my Padawan." She bowed her head to Obi-Wan, as well. Her face was triangular in shape, and the lower portion was tattooed in small diamond shapes that formed a vertical stripe from her lush, blue — black lower lip to the tip of her round chin. The backs of her hands also bore tattoos, atop each knuckle joint.

Qui-Gon's expression became serious.

"Luminara, Obi-Wan and I have had a recent encounter with someone who bears markings similar to yours." "Arwen Cohl," Luminara said before Qui-Gon could go on. She smiled faintly. "Had I grown up on my homeworld and not in the Temple, I'm certain I would have heard tales of Arwen Cohl throughout my youth." She met Qui-Gon?ness curious gaze. "He was a freedom fighter, a hero to our people during a war fought with a neighboring world. He was a great warrior, and he made many sacrifices. But soon after our people won their freedom, he was accused of being a conspirator by the very people on whose side he had fought.

That was their way of assuring that Cohl would not be elevated to the position of authority our people wished him to assume. He spent many years in prison, subjected to cruel punishments and harsh conditions, and those further hardened a man who already had been hardened by war.

"When he left those conditions-whichenough he escaped that awful place, with the help of some of his former confederates-he avenged himself on those who did him wrong, and he swore that he would have nothing more to do with the world that he had fought so hard to liberate.

"He became a mercenary, boasting openly that he would never make the mistakes he had once made. That he now understood the nature of the cosmos, and would always be one step ahead of those who would seek to bring him down, capture him, or in any way thwart him." Qui-Gon inhaled through his nose. "Did he bear any special grudge against the Trade Federation?" Luminara shook her head. "No more than anyone else in my home system. The Trade Federation brought us into the Republic, though they did so at the expense of my world's resources.

"In the beginning, Arwen Cohl would hire himself out only to those whose cause he felt was justified. But over time-noto doubt because of the blood he shed-he became nothing more than a pirate and a contract killer. He was said never to have betrayed a friend or an ally." She paused for a moment, then added, "It is regrettable that history will remember the criminal Cohl rather than the exemplary Cohl. I was sad to hear that he had perished at Dorvalla."

When Qui-Gon didn't respond, Luminara asked, "Did he not?" Qui-Gon appeared preoccupied. "For now, I'll grant that he vanished at Dorvalla." Luminara nodded uncertainly. "Whether Cohl is dead or alive, the matter is in the hands of the Judicial Department, is it not?" Again, Qui-Gon took a moment to respond.

"All that is certain is that Cohl's destiny is in hands other than mine."

c arbon scored and blistered by the explosion that had sundered the freighter, an arc of the Revenue's starboard hangar arm hung over Dorvalla's wan polar cap. Just outside the reach of the planet's shadow, the great curve of durasteel appeared to have been there forever. Perpetual sunlight poured in through the main hangar portal-where the arm's hand might have been- — illuminating a shambles of cargo pods and barges.

Affixed like a barnacle to the inner hull, however, sat a lone battered shuttle. Inside the shuttle, and even the worse for wear, sat her crew of eight.

"I'm still waiting for that pardon you promised," Cohl said to Rella.

She shot him a look. "If and when you get us out of this, and not a moment before." They were each in their chairs, as were the others, some of them asleep, heads pillowed on folded arms or hung backwards with mouths ajar.

Lighting was faint, the air was frigid, and the scrubbed and rescrubbed oxygen had a distinctly metallic taste.

The much-abused refresher was rank.

They had been inside the arm for almost four standard days, subsisting on food pellets and relieving the boredom by putting on EVA suits and venturing out into the hangar. Where the shuttle had artificial gravity, moving about in the arm was like exploring a deep — sea wreck. Many of the cargo pods had massed along the outer wall of the arm, but clouds of lommite and tangles of droids drifted about like flotsam and jetsam. Boiny had even discovered the body of one of the Twi'leks who hadn't made it back to the rendezvous point, burned almost beyond recognition by blaster fire.

They hadn't planned on remaining in the hangar arm after the explosion.

But once it had been determined that the arm was just outside the tug of Dorvalla's gravity, Cohl had decided that the hangar would be the best place to bide their time. The Hawk — Bat and the Nebula Front support ships had fled, and even the Acquisitor had disappeared-a fact that Cohl found curious, since it was unlike the Neimoidians to leave cargo behind, jettisoned or otherwise.

Another option would have been to race for Dorvalla's surface, to what had been their base before the boarding operation. But Cohl suspected that the base had been discovered and would probably be under surveillance.