Farrs pish-poshed his stodginess.

"The ritual must bend," she said. "We'll use a bigger airship."

"But the colors-!" Gann protested.

"Everyone will know, and everyone will understand."

Gann did not find this reassuring. In the end, he called ahead on a small comlink and arranged for a bigger gondola to be hung from the red-and-black airship balloon.

Anakin managed to hook and carry all of his partners, though a few fell off as they passed through the doorway. They trotted after him, mewling and whickering. Obi-Wan, with only three, had fewer problems, though they scrambled unceasingly around his clothes, climbing his pants and tunic, pausing on his shoulders or head, clamping their hooks painfully around his ears, to peer with their tiny eye- spots.

Obi-Wan had gained insight, watching Jedi youngsters play with their pets, into how the children would behave around others later in life. He had never seen his Padawan happier. Anakin, he thought, would be loving and patient, a real contrast to the often harum-scarum youth he was now.

The boy spoke soothingly to his seed-partners, and finally, following his example, Obi-Wan managed to calm his, as well. There would be one more separation, Sheekla told them, before they boarded the airship.

The ship's architect, Sheekla's husband, Shappa, had cleared an appointment for them this morning. "We'll go there now," she said. "He thinks his time is very valuable, and to keep the peace, I humor him."

"Let me guess," Anakin said, eyes sparkling. "He spends most of the day thinking about ships!"

"Not thinking," Sheekla said with a sniff. "Dreaming. They're his life. The Magister made him a happy man with this job."

Obi-Wan and Anakin walked along a narrow walkway outside the broad windows of Shappa Farrs's office. They pushed through a lamina and glass door and entered the small, cramped design room, perched on the edge of a terrace overlooking the canyon and flooded with light from the midmorning sun.

Shappa Farrs sat on a tall stool in the center of a half- circle drafting table, his head enveloped in a drafting helmet, ascribing broad arcs with a repliscribe clenched in his left hand-the only hand he had, since his right arm was missing. Anakin noted that the hand sported only two fingers and a thumb.

"Working with Jentari must be dangerous," Anakin whispered to Obi-Wan. Shappa looked up and surveyed the room for a moment, though blinded by the helmet, as if searching for whoever had spoken. He grinned toothily and removed the helmet.

"Not the Jentari," he said with a quick, melodic laugh. "It's forging and shaping can knock a few limbs away. The forgers and shapers never did teach me how to handle their tools. So here I stay now. They won't let me come near the pits, lest I lose a leg or my head." He stood and bowed deeply. "Welcome to my domain. Shall we fashion something unique and beautiful today?"

Shappa Farrs was a small, slender man, immaculately dressed. His face was narrow and flat, his nose barely projecting from between prominent cheekbones, and his hair was almost black with age. He stood up from his stool, stepped from behind the desk, and looked the Jedi over with a wide-eyed, amused expression.

He saw Sheekla lurking beyond the door, talking with Gann, and bent forward suddenly, neck outthrust. He flapped his arm and made a sharp squawking noise. "Lurking, my dearest?"

"Stop that," Sheekla said with a wry face, entering the room. "They'll think you're crazy. He is, you know. Completely crazy." Gann followed reluctantly, as if entering a shop full of feminine undergarments.

"She knows me, yet she loves me" Shappa said smugly. "I'm twice any other man in brain and body, in her heart, even when mangled. As for Gann. . my liaison with all that is practical on Zonama Sekot! So timid! So fearful of the dark secrets of Sekotan life! Like looking back into the womb, for him."

Gann's face grew longer, but he kept his silence.

"Come in, all," Shappa crowed. "All are welcome."

The desk was piled with broad stacks of flimsiplast and ancient information disks, not seen on Coruscant for centuries except in museums. Shappa turned to Anakin, then glanced at Obi-Wan.

"You pay, he flies, is that it?" he asked Obi-Wan.

"We're buying the spacecraft together," Obi-Wan said. "And he will fly."

"I'll bet your seed-partners are chewing up the upholstery in my waiting room right now," Shappa said. "Can't let them in here. They love to eat flimsi, throw disks. But we won't keep you more than a couple of hours." He focused on Anakin once more. "Would you like to see what's possible?"

Anakin's face glowed with enthusiasm. "It's why I'm here," he said quietly.

"Possible, I mean, in ships, young man, ships only," Shappa added, drawing back a little at the boy's response. "The boy has an appetite. Very well, let's feed. Here!" He flung out his hand and grabbed a broad, crackling sheet of change flimsiplast. "Hold this," he told Gann. Gann held one edge, and Shappa unrolled it with deft, fast fingers.

On the flimsi was precisely sketched in red and brown lines a lovely starship, all compound curves and gentle swellings, the engines nestled within graceful fairings, the surface shaded with marvelous artistry to look smooth and taut as the skin on a crisp shellava. Judging from the scale, the length was thirty meters, the beam or wingspan-the wings were indistinguishable from the fuselage-over three times that.

"I've wanted to make a ship like this for some time, but it was only a dream," Shappa said. "No seed wants to get this complicated, and clients bring me only three or four seeds. But for you…" He smiled and swept his fingers over the drawing. At his prompting, the flimsi produced different perspectives, each new sketch stored in the porous surface and emerging at the artist's command.

Anakin whistled. "This is ferocious," he commented.

"High praise indeed," Obi-Wan translated for a puzzled Shappa.

"Yes. You bring me fifteen seeds, the largest complement ever for a ship."

"Can you work with so many?" Gann asked.

"Can I?" Shappa said, and his body twitched with energy. "Just watch! The best Sekotan ship ever made. A marvel."

"He says that to everyone," Sheekla warned them.

"This time, I mean it." Shappa handed Obi-Wan the edge of the change flimsi and tapped Anakin on the shoulder. "Can you draft?" he said. "I have a second helmet. And a third. Come, clients. I'm sure you have your own ideas."

"I'm sure," Obi-Wan said, with a nod to Anakin.