"Let's knock heads and helmets and wield our scribers as if they were. . lightsabers, no? Let's dream in the air. It will all come out on the change flimsi. New designs will replace the old. It will be like magic, young Anakin Skywalker."

"I don't need magic," Anakin said solemnly.

Shappa laughed a little nervously. "Neither do you, I bet," he said to Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan smiled.

"I forgot. You're Jedi. No magic, then. But of mystery there will be plenty. I doubt the shapers and forgers will reveal all their secrets, even to you, dear Jedi."

He handed Obi-Wan and Anakin drafting helmets pulled from a drawer, and pulled up stools around the periphery of the table. As they sat, he perched on his own, taller stool, clapped his hand on the table in front of him, and said, "Your turn!"

"A solid, sturdy design is what we're after," Obi-Wan reminded Anakin. Anakin wrinkled his nose.

Shappa held his own helmet above his head and regarded them each in turn for several seconds, face blank. Then he twitched his lips, said, "It's all in the mind of the owners. Sometimes we just have to find out who we truly are, and the ships, the beautiful ships, will just be there, like visions of a lost love."

"You have no lost love," Sheekla said, amused. "Just me. We were married when we were very young," she said to Obi- Wan.

"A figure of speech," Shappa said. "Allow me my enthusiasms."

The rest of the morning passed quickly. Obi-Wan found himself deeply absorbed in the design process, as absorbed as his Padawan, whose involvement was intense. He also found himself more and more impressed by the architect. Beneath Shappa's blithe surface lurked a powerful personality. He had seen this several times in his life, strong artists who in some sense seemed to gather the Force around them, collaborating on a deep and instinctive level.

Yoda had said, once, in a training session with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, "An artist the Force is. Not to be happy about that- look what artists do! Unpredictable they are, like children."

Under the skilled, though eccentric, guidance of Zonama Sekot's master architect, Obi-Wan's own sense of freedom and boyhood came back, and he found himself alternating between the inner structure of the beautiful craft coming together in the space accessed by their three helmets, and the space of his own memory.

A memory of a time before he was apprenticed to Qui-Gon Youth: painful, awkward, brighter than a thousand suns. A youth filled with dreams of travel and fast ships and endless glory, an infinite futurity of challenge and mastery and, all in good time, knowledge, wisdom.

No different from Anakin Skywalker.

Not in anything that truly mattered.

If only I could believe that! Obi-Wan thought.

The Blood Carver made his report to Raith Sienar on a cat walk overlooking the bay that contained most of the squadron's battle droids. They were still too far from Zonama Sekot to make detailed observations, so Sienar had sent Ke Daiv down in a fleet two-passenger spy ship with banked engine flares, part of Admiral Korvin's complement of small craft. Ke Daiv had gone in with a pilot Sienar had picked from the most experienced of the Trade Federation personnel.

"We made our way in, and returned, without being scanned," Ke Daiv said. "The planet is half covered with clouds."

"You made no attempt to see below the clouds?"

"We looked at what was immediately visible, and nothing more," Ke Daiv confirmed.

Sienar nodded. "Good. From what I've been told, the whole planet is sensitive."

"There is little detail visible in the southern hemisphere," the Blood Carver continued. "A single mountain pushes through the clouds, an ancient volcano-nothing more."

"Yes," Sienar said. He nodded as if this was familiar to him.

"The northern hemisphere is comparatively cloud-free, though storms migrate from south to north, dropping great quantities of rain and some snow."

"Naturally," Sienar said, lip curling.

Ke Daiv paused indignantly, as if concerned he might be boring the commander, but Sienar lifted his hand. "Go on."

"There are signs of a recent struggle. At least fifteen deep slashes in the crust, over three kilometers wide, not natural. They are mostly hidden by the southern clouds, but I saw long, straight dips in the clouds along the equator, signifying clefts many kilometers deep. Perhaps these are the effects of large orbital weapons, though of a power and type unfamiliar to me."

Sienar's face went blank. He was thinking. "Are you sure they're not an excavation? Some massive construction project?"

"No," Ke Daiv said. "In the slash visible above the equator, there are jagged edges, scorch marks, jumbled terrain. But there were many large elevations in the northern hemisphere, rectangular in shape, and far from the inhabited regions. All these elevations are uniform in size, four hundred kilometers by two hundred, and densely covered with growth."

Sienar cocked his head to one side and poked his thumb into his chin. He waggled hand and thumb, as if trying to find something behind his jawbone. "Did you see the factory valley?"

"Yes," Ke Daiv said. "Although at this point, we thought it best to return, to avoid being observed." "Good. Tell me about the valley."

"It is a thousand kilometers long, three kilometers deep, and lined on both sides by huge growths, much larger than anything else we could see."

"Jentari," Sienar breathed. "What I would not give to have that valley installed on another world, some more practical location," he said wistfully. "Did you see any ships?"

"No. The valley was engaged in some manufacture of large objects, not ships, but like pieces of ships, or equipment. Some were being carried to the southern end of the valley, where it debouches on a wide river. Transports were waiting there, some already laden. And then-without warning-the valley was covered by huge limbs, growths, hiding it from view. I believe we were not observed, but this concerned me enough that I decided we should return."

"Excellent, excellent," Sienar said.

Ke Daiv did not react. Among Blood Carvers, compliments and insults were very little different-either one could lead to a duel. He had placed Sienar in a special category, however, outside normal Blood Carver etiquette.

"Now for the next step, and this one is crucial. We must move quickly. Tarkin informed you we would attempt to capture a ship, did he not?"

"Yes."