The theory of the Potentium had long since been judged by the Council to be in error, and abandoned. It was no longer even mentioned to Padawans.

"I'll be curious to discover the meaning myself," Obi-Wan said. And how and why it is being used, here!

The courtyard was filled with a brightly dressed crowd of celebrants, standing in clusters of five and six throughout, all silent. Anakin and Obi-Wan advanced slowly at the urging of Sheekla Farrs. A woman's low voice began singing-the same song they had heard coming from the other airships.

In Ferroans, maturity darkened the hair of males, but not females. Two older men with jet-black hair stepped forward, carrying sashes hung with bloodred, gourdlike fruits. The taller of the two slung a sash around Obi-Wan's neck, and the other slipped his over Anakin's head. Now all joined in the song, and the chorus of voices echoed from the courtyard's stone walls.

Farrs smiled broadly. "They like the way you look and smell. You aren't afraid."

The taller man backed away a step, walked in a circle, thrusting his chin at three points of the Zonama compass, and then turned back to Obi-Wan and held out his hands.

"Your offering to the Potentium," Farrs suggested.

At a gesture from Obi-Wan, Anakin slipped his hand through his loose tunic and drew out the pouched belt containing the bars of old Republic aurodium. He passed it to Obi-Wan, who passed it in turn to the elder, who accepted it with a smile and a slight bow.

"Now, we introduce you to Sekot," Farrs said, rewarding them with a beaming and most unmercenary smile. "I am so very, very optimistic!"

The lengthy journey through hyperspace was beginning to wear on Raith Sienar. He sat in a chair facing a blank bulk head in the commander's quarters aboard the Admiral Korvin, shifting a small metal cylinder from hand to hand, lost in thought.

While the theory of hyperspace fascinated him-and while he was always interested in designing ships that could travel more and more swiftly by means of this mode of extradimensional travel-Sienar was much less interested in so testing himself. The routines of command held even less interest. He much preferred working alone and had always structured his life so that he spent most of his time by himself, to think.

Now, that tendency was just one more weakness. There had been three inspections so far of the Admiral Korvin and the holds that carried the greater part of their armament. With some plan forming, as yet embryonic, he had ordered a personal and individual inspection of the various weapons systems-the walking droids, the flying droids, those that could both walk and fly, the large droids and the small droids, many no larger than his hand-so tedious, when he wanted little to do with these machines. He knew their limitations, whatever puff talk Tarkin had delivered.

He could not forget the droids that had stood around like sticks on Naboo, slow to think, slow to fire, centrally controlled by their organic idiot counterparts. The droids that had essentially brought down the Trade Federation.

However much Sienar tried to muster enthusiasm for his tools, he could not stop that intellectual itch that told him he was being set up. He just could not figure out why he was being set up. Who would benefit from the failure of this mission?

The time was approaching-if time could be called any such thing on a ship hurtling above time-when he would have to meet with his appointed "assistant," the Blood Carver, Ke Daiv. Ke Daiv gave him the creeps, but at least he seemed intelligent and, despite his failure against the Jedi, competent enough. Strangely, as Sienar got up from his chair and paced his spacious and well-appointed cabin, he was not disturbed by the possibility that Ke Daiv was the one assigned to execute him should he fail.

He needed more armor, and he needed an ally whose motives he understood and could at least partially trust.

He drew himself up. It was time to probe Ke Daiv's armor. He would do it ahead of schedule, and while they were still incommunicado in hyperspace.

That would require some preparation.

He pulled a small box from his locked and coded luggage case and examined it in a bright light that descended from the ceiling at the touch of a button. A small table and set of tools rose from the floor before the closed forward- facing port that filled most of a wall in the commander's sitting room.

The tools on the table he had requisitioned from ship's stores the day before. His fingers were less than steady, but the work of preparing the box was not exceptionally delicate.

One of the reasons he had little faith in droids was that he had long ago created ways to subvert them. For reasons of his own-and because he had always been convinced battle droids would fail on their own-he had never marketed these items.

Inside the box was a custom droid verbobrain of his own design, carrying his own programs.

He fingered a communications button, and an image of Cap tain Kett flickered to low-resolution "life" before him. He could see Kett, but Kett could not see him.

"Send me a Baktoid model E-5, fully operational and armed, to my quarters." Baktoid Combat Automata had designed and manufactured these heavy, unwieldy droids as Trade Federation replacements after Naboo, before assimilation into the Republic. He would have preferred a lighter model, but the E-5s had more than enough power and their motivators were quite good. They were, in Sienar's opinion, the best of a mediocre lot, their greatest weakness being their lack of intelligence. Their verbobrains were as slow as any tank's. But then, that is what Baktoid specialized in: transports and tanks.

Sienar knew the chief designer well. The dunderhead just loved tanks.

He opened the box, removed the verbobrain, and inserted a new programming cylinder into a vacant slot. Immediately, the spinner within the unit began to whir and seek data from its radiance of inputs.

With this, Sienar believed he could make an E-5 dance like a female Twi'lek.

And with the modified E-5 a fixture in his quarters, he would meet with Ke Daiv, and tell him a thing or two about the people-the humans-he was working for.