Ke Daiv glared at Raith Sienar. "This is true?"

"It is what I have been told, by an old friend and classmate who seems to know."

"Tarkin?"

Sienar nodded and, using his most persuasive voice, trained by years of speaking with armament and ship agents and fleet buyers, said, "Examine your memory of Tarkin and disagree with me if you must."

Ke Daiv closed his eyes, opened them, said nothing.

"Let us talk some more," Sienar said, "and see if there are plans on which we can agree."

Sienar, of course, did most of the talking.

The great stone and lamina doors swung open again, as quietly as the little hush of current that crept down the open bowl of the room beyond. The celebratory crowd had pulled back to the periphery of the great room, leaving only Sheekla Farrs near the door. She was now joined by Gann.

They peered curiously into the big round chamber. The spikeballs once more covering the walls were as still as the stone to which they clung. At the bottom of the bowl, a slight descent from the big doors, a pile of debris rose two meters above the stone floor.

A sigh came from the crowd.

Farrs called out two names.

Obi-Wan Kenobi got to his feet first and touched himself with quick gestures. Three spikeballs clung to him, one on each arm and one on his chest. Their grip was tenacious, and he did not try to dislodge them, much as he wanted to. He looked around the piles of shed spikes and shells littering the bottom of the bowl, the detritus of the terrifying cascade, and saw an arm poking from the thickest mound. He stepped over with a grunt and grabbed Anakin's hand and pulled him up.

Anakin, from head to foot, was cluttered with spikeballs twelve of them. His pulse was strong, but he had gone inward to conserve oxygen and avoid the shock that might come with physical injury, and his eyes were closed.

"Great skies!" Farrs cried. "Is he all right? We've never seen such a-"

Gann ran down the dip to the bottom of the chamber and helped Obi-Wan carry the encumbered and unwieldy boy through the doors. They laid him out on a cushion brought by two young female attendants. All were careful not to dislodge the seed-partners. Once again, seeing the clients, the crowd let out a breath, some muttering little strings of words as if in prayer.

"Great is the Potentium, great the life of Sekot."

"All serve and are served, and all join the Potentium."

Obi-Wan held his anger and concern in tight check, lest he reveal his lightsaber and ask more than a few tough questions. "Did you know this would happen?" he asked Sheekla Farrs through clenched teeth.

Her face was heavy with dismay. "No! Is he alive?"

"He's alive. Do they take sustenance from us?" He reached down to touch the spikeball on his chest. It had pushed a spike through his tunic and coat to reach the skin beneath, but he felt no wound there, merely an uncomfortable adhesion.

"No," Gann said, kneeling beside Anakin. "They don't suck your blood. So many! The most partners we've ever seen on a client-"

"Three is normal," Farrs interrupted and finished for him. "You have the normal number. Your student must be an extraordinary young man!"

"What made them do it?" Gann wondered.

Anakin's eyes fluttered, then opened, and the boy stared up at Obi-Wan from the depths of an utter calm. Somehow, he had maintained that inner stillness even when confronted with extreme danger.

"You're not injured," Obi-Wan told him. "They cling but do not wound."

"I know," Anakin said. "They're friendly. So many wanted to join us. .all at once!"

Obi-Wan turned to Farrs. "You avoid a truth," he said.

Gann looked suddenly guilty, but Farrs shook her head and told the attendants to carry the boy into the postpartnering room. The two females, little older than Anakin, helped him to his feet, avoiding the spikeballs, and the group walked toward a narrow door near a corner. Anakin gave the girls a shy grin.

The crowd's heads turned as one until they were through the door.

The stone walls of the low-ceilinged and smaller room be yond had one opening, a narrow window that showed a scut of sky and the green and purple of the outside growth.

"I need to verify something…" Farrs murmured. She guided them toward a low table illuminated by a broad lamp.

Farrs and Gann took brass and steel instruments from a cupboard and measured Anakin's spikeballs first, then pinched the clinging spikes until they released their grips with small sighs. Each spikeball was placed in a lamina box, and the attendants labeled the boxes with a circle. They then removed Obi-Wan's seed-partners and placed them in boxes marked with a square.

"There will be a ship, a very dense and marvelous ship, I think," Farrs murmured as she checked her measurements against a chart on a scroll mounted on one end of the table. She conferred in whispers with Gann for a moment.

"Three of these seed-partners have chosen a client before," Farrs said when they stopped their whispering. "One of them chose you, Obi-Wan, this time. Two chose you, Anakin."

"Who did they belong to before?" Obi-Wan asked.

"We do not reveal the names of our clients," Gann said.

"That is right," Farrs said. "We did not want to deceive, but. ."

"This client did not stay with us long enough to grow a ship," Gann said, and exchanged another look with Farrs. "The seed-partners returned to the Potentium."

"Pardon us," Sheekla Farrs said. "We need to confer again, in private. Please, rest, relax. The attendants will bring food and drink."

"All right," Anakin said. He lifted his arms and clasped his hands behind his head. The boy grinned once more, even more broadly, as Farrs and Gann left through the narrow door. The girls stepped back, their faces solemn.

"I see you're amused," Obi-Wan said.

"I'm glad to be alive," Anakin explained. "And I got more than you," he added. "More even than Vergere!"

Obi-Wan pressed his finger to Anakin's lips-enough about Vergere. "We do not know the other was her."

"It had to be!" Anakin said. "Who else?"

Obi-Wan let this pass. He suspected the boy was right. "At any rate, how do we know more is better'?'" he cautioned.

"It always is," Anakin said.