The Gwurran eyed the three foodpaks uncertainly. "Tooqui work hard for to steal this stuff."

"Take my word for it, you wouldn't like it anyway. At least, not until it's been properly rehydrated. If you'll come back with me, I'll see that you're the first one who gets to taste it."

"First one? Tooqui be first?" His single nostril sniffed at the pak he still held. "Tooqui always first."

In your own mind, anyway, you sly little sneak. "It's settled, then? You'll come back with me, we'll be friends, and we'll have a party?"

The Gwurran vacillated only a moment longer. Then he con fidently placed first one foodpak and then the other two in Bar-riss's waiting arms.

"Tooqui consent to join you." Leaning back, he regarded his comrades on the rim above. "It okay okay now. Tooqui make stranger harmless. All Gwurran can come down safely safely now. We go to see what nasty ugly outlander strangers got to offer Gwurran."

Smiling to herself at the little brigand's bravado, Barriss waited while the rest of the chattering Gwurran, agile as spiders, scrambled down the walls of the fissure to join them. Tooqui's blustering notwithstanding, they largely ignored him as they pushed and shoved to get close to her, feeling her feet, her exposed lower arms, and her protective clothing. She put up with their innocent, wide-eyed curiosity for several minutes, until it threatened to become more intimate than she was prepared to tolerate. Then she shrugged them off and started back down the cleft, the three foodpaks slung over her left shoulder, accompanied by the entire tribe of chattering, jabbering, energized Gwurran.

Slender but strong ringers continued to tug at her as she walked, along with a continuous flow of questions.

"Where humans come from?. . Why you so silly-tall?. . What happened to rest of you hair?. . How can you see see out of such small small flat flat eyes?. . What this shiny-pretty on you waist?…"

"Don't touch that." She slapped the probing fingers away from her belt. The notion of a lightsaber in the hands of an unruly, combative, slightly rowdy Gwurran was more than a little unsettling. In the constricted confines of the fracture in the hillside, the riotous babble of the diminutive Ansionians was deafening.

"She can't just have disappeared into thin air!" For the tenth, or maybe the twentieth time, Luminara ran through the list of possibilities. Barriss had gone walking outside the protective overhang and had managed to get herself lost. She had found something of interest and wandered off into the hills. Something vast and voracious had swooped down out of the sky and carried her off. She was attending to personal needs that were taking more time than usual.

The last seemed the most likely, but even allowing for a se vere gastrointestinal upset, the Padawan ought to have reported back in by now. If nothing else, she should have used her com-link. That she hadn't done so suggested a number of possible explanations. The device was broken, its power pack had inexplicably gone dead, she had lost it off her belt somewhere and was even now searching some hillside for it, or-it had been forcibly taken from her. Who or what might be responsible for the latter Luminara could not imagine, but in the absence of solid facts, any and all possibilities had to be considered.

Movement made her turn. Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Kyakhta returned from searching the slopes outside their little refuge. "No sign of her anywhere." Anakin's tone was full of concern. "Would she have run somewhere instead of walking?"

"That would depend on the circumstances, wouldn't it?" Luminara was hard-pressed to keep anger and sarcasm out of her voice. She knew that Barriss's absence had nothing to do with Anakin. But the Padawan was Luminara's responsibility. If anything had happened to her. .

Anakin had bristled at Luminara's tone, but held his peace. It was not his place to question a Jedi Knight, not even if she was being unreasonably abrupt. He could not yet talk back to someone like Luminara Unduli as an equal. Soon, though. Soon. .

Bulgan looked up at her out of his one good eye. "We'll take the suubatars and make a spiraling sweep of these hills and gullies, Master Luminara. We can cover much more ground that way. Perhaps she has fallen into a hole in the rocks and hurt a leg."

A worried Luminara nodded absently. Sitting high up on the back of a suubatar would certainly provide a better view than was available from searching on foot. The implications of the Alwari's observation were distressing. If Barriss had fallen into a hole, and if the hole was big enough, and if she had been knocked unconscious, they might never find her.

That was when they heard a voice hailing them.

"Hey, everybody. I'm over here."

Racing around a pair of resting suubatars, they saw the object of everyone's present concern emerging on all fours from beneath a projecting slab of rock. The crawlway it concealed was exceedingly well hidden from anyone not standing directly in front of it and bending to look under the jutting stone.

"Barriss! Are you al-?" Slowing as she drew near, Lumi- nara's expression quickly changed from open concern to a re proving scowl. "Where have you been, Padawan? We've been looking all over for you. And-are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine." Rising from the crawlway, Barriss brushed dust from her hands and stretched. "And so are our new friends."

Luminara was not alone in taking a couple of surprised steps backward as a veritable deluge of noisy, jabbering, furry bipeds spewed from the concealed crawlway. In an instant, they were investigating Barriss's companions with the same candid zeal and lack of discretion they had shown toward her.

"Suubatar," one shouted as it clambered up onto the back of Kyakhta's mount. Glowering his irritation, the guide hurried toward it.

"You, little fella! Get down from there! Get down just now!"

Sitting atop the unconcerned suubatar's middle shoulders, the brown and blue Gwurran made energetic faces down at the aggravated guide. "Nyngwah noojjlik, goofy-talking no-hair out-lander darling! You make make me!"

"Why you little!…" Kyakhta would have started up after the taunting pygmy, but Luminara called him back.

"Never mind that one now, Kyakhta."

"But Master Luminara, it is-"

"I said, never mind. Come and meet these people."

"People?" Muttering under his breath, Kyakhta reluctantly complied with the Jedi's order. "These are not people. These are dirt crawlers."

As Barriss proceeded to explain the reasons for her extended absence, Luminara was soon mollified. The Padawan's tale was brief but intriguing.

"… and so I convinced Tooqui here to return what he'd taken, and to bring along his whole tribe with him." Barriss eyed her teacher hesitantly. "I promised them a kind of a party."