Mazong conferred with his advisers. The two elders appeared to have lightened up considerably, Barriss decided. As the chieftain finally turned back to his guests, she drew her clothing tighter around her. Though the winds of Ansion tended to diminish along with the daylight, they did not always cease entirely, and she was cold.

"We concur." He gestured magnanimously at Kyakhta and Bulgan. "We will give your guides such directions as will enable you to find the Borokii soonest. Clanless these two may be, but they raise themselves high by their choice of employers."

"How long until we reach their outlying factions?" Obi-Wan inquired.

"That cannot be foretold." As Mazong stood, his guests rose with him. "The Borokii are also Alwari. They may be encamped, as are the Yiwa. But if they are on the move, you will still have some tracking to do. We can only point you in the direction of their last known campsite." He smiled reassuringly. "Do not despair. With our directions you will find them far sooner than if you continued searching on your own."

"We thank you for your kindness, and for your hospitality," Luminara told him.

He responded with a gesture she did not know. "You have more than repaid us. Indeed, we are shamed by our suspicions."

"One never need apologize for caution." Obi-Wan stretched. A Jedi could go without sleep for an amazing length of time- but would not by choice. He was tired. They all were.

Anakin in particular could not get the Jedi Luminara's presentation out of his head. It kept him preoccupied as he prepared for sleep and awake well into the morning hours. He thought he had seen or read everything that could be done with the Force. Once again, he had been shown the error of his assumptions. He could not imagine the amount of study and control it took to realize such a feat. The complexity of it, the skill needed to simultaneously control one's body as well as thousands of individual grains of sand, was quite beyond him.

For now, he thought as he lay on his back in the visitors' house. Though aware of his present limitations, his confidence in his abilities was boundless. It was the same confidence that had allowed him to survive a difficult childhood, had gained him the skills necessary to master the intricacies of droid repair that had made him so valuable to that winged reprobate Watto, and had permitted him to participate in the liberation of Naboo from the subjugation of the Trade Federation. It was the same confidence that would one day enable him to achieve anything he wished. Whatever that might be.

There was no celebration when they departed the following morning. No chorus of young Yiwa lined up to serenade them on their way. No line of mounted clanfolk escorted them northward, banners flying and horns tootling. The visitors were simply given the requisite directions and sent on their way.

As they trotted off on their well-rested suubatars, Luminara asked Bulgan about this absence of a departure ceremony. The one-eyed Alwari gestured diffidently.

"The life of a nomad is a full one, though not so hard as in the old days. There is little time for frivolities. There are animals to care for, young to instruct, houses to be erected or broken down for travel, elders to see to, food and water to be distributed to Alwari and animal alike. That's why rites like last night's are so important. Diversion is necessary, and respected, but only when there is time for it." He rode on in silence for a bit, then added, "You certainly left the Yiwa with a favorable impression of the Jedi Order." A long-fingered hand waved at the other mounted suubatar. "All of you did."

"We enjoyed it ourselves," she told him. "It's not often we're asked to reveal that side of our personas. Most of the time we find ourselves explaining Republic policy, or defending it, or preparing to do both. Believe me," she added forcefully, "few in the galaxy would better understand or sympathize with what you just said about the life of a nomad than would a Jedi."

The guide nodded gravely, then brightened. "But like the Alwari, you also know how to have fun!" When she failed to respond, he added hopefully, "Don't you?"

She sighed, shifting her position high atop the loping suubatar. "Sometimes I wonder. There are times when the words fun and Jedi seem to be mutually exclusive." Remembering something, she smiled. "Though I do remember a joke Master Mace Windu once played on Master Ki-Adi-Mundi. It had to do with three Padawans and the number of available eyeballs in the room…"

She proceeded to relate the tale to the interested Bulgan, who listened attentively. When she finished, he could only gesture helplessly, his face showing the strain of trying to comprehend the unfathomable.

"I'm sorry, Master Luminara, but I find nothing amusing in your story. I think maybe Jedi humor is as mysterious as Jedi strength." He was very earnest. "Perhaps one has to know the Force to understand the humor."

"I wouldn't think so." She rode on in silence for a while, then sniffed slightly. "Well, I thought it was funny."

They continued to make excellent time. Everyone's spirits had been raised by the encounter with the stolid but ultimately cooperative Yiwa, and they now had something in the way of a specific destination. At least, Barriss reflected as she relaxed in the saddle of her suubatar, they weren't galloping aimlessly over open prairie in the hope of accidentally bumping into the migrating overclan. Mazong's directions had been quite specific, though they still had to take into account his admonition that the Borokii might be on the move. She wondered how their habits and rituals would compare to those of the Yiwa. Within the numerous clans of the Alwari, Kyakhta had told her, there existed much differentiation.

They were traveling steadily north when their guides unex pectedly called a halt. Sitting up in her saddle, Barriss scanned their surroundings. The horizon was the same in every direction and had been for several days. Endless grassland, waving fields of native grains only rarely interrupted by clumps of small trees, an occasional depression holding water or mud, and the isolated hillock. Not a building of any kind, nor anything higher than a suubatar standing up on its rear and middle legs. So it was with interest she wondered why Kyakhta and Bulgan had brought them to a stop-and why they appeared more than a little apprehensive.

"What is it?" Luminara and Obi-Wan trotted forward to query their escorts. Attentive inspection of the four horizons left them no more enlightened as to the reason for the halt than it did their equally confused Padawans. "Why have we stopped here?"

"Listen." Both Alwari were leaning slightly forward in their seats, obviously straining to hear-what?

Luminara and her companions went quiet. Only the muted munching of the suubatars nibbling the tops off the ripe wild grains, the constant rustle of wind through the grasses, and the occasional querulous hooting of a kilk stalking soft-shelled arthropods broke the silence.