I have to know, he finally decided. He at least had to know. If Master Barriss and the others had been killed, then he could start for home with a clear conscience. On the other hand, if they were still alive …
If they were still alive, he suspected that his life was going to get even more complicated than it already was. He should be looking forward to that, he tried to tell himself. Hadn’t he said as much to the humans? That Tooqui was the bravest, the fiercest, the smartest, the most most of all the Gwurran? At the time, he’d wondered if any of them had believed him. Certainly those two miserable dim dim stucky-up clanless Alwari, Kyakhta and Bulgan, had not. Imagine to see their faces—if they were still alive, he reminded himself—when Tooqui, the very same Tooqui they had mocked and derided, showed up to rescue-save their sorry short-tailed ugly behinds! The image filled him, if not with courage, then at least with nerve.
Tooqui would show them! Tooqui would show them all. Determined now, he prepared to track the roving Qulun clan. He would shadow them from afar, waiting to see what there was to see, waiting to learn whatever could be learned. It was just as he’d said. He was the boldest, the toughest, the most resourceful of all the Gwurran!
Alone and weaponless against an entire Qulun clan, with only a debilitating feeling of helplessness for company, he knew he would have to be even more than that.
She sensed that her head was still attached to her shoulders, but that was about the only good thing Luminara could be certain of when she finally regained consciousness. Her arms were tightly tied behind her, and her legs bound at thigh, calf, and ankle. Daylight was all she could detect through the soft, permeable hood that covered her head. She could breathe, but only through her nose, as the gag that had been expertly positioned in her mouth kept her from enunciating anything more eloquent than a grunt.
Still, that was enough to provoke answering grunts from nearby. She thought she recognized Obi-Wan, and Barriss. Anakin she wasn’t certain about, but the muffled, high-pitched Ansionian noises most likely originated from Kyakhta and Bulgan. Evaluating different tones finally convinced her that Anakin, too, was among the imprisoned.
A voice that was not smothered by a gag quieted the communal mumbling.
“Good morning, my honorable guests. I have to thank you for what is going to prove a most profitable evening. For me, not for you,” Baiuntu concluded contentedly. “The Borokii overclan you seek lies but a few days’ ride north of here, but you won’t get to meet with them. Instead, we’ve embarked on a leisurely journey to the city of Dashbalar, where my clan always does good business.” Luminara could hear him striding back and forth in front of them, preposterously parading his triumph before prisoners unable to see.
“I’m sure you’re wondering what’s going to happen to you. You should relax. Haja, I would not think of harming you! To do so would be to violate every tenet of Qulun hospitality.” Luminara could sense, if not see, him grinning. “There are many means by which word can travel quickly over the plains. It is said that if the return to Cuipernam of certain offworld visitors could be delayed for two parts of a breeding cycle, a great reward would be paid. These visitors were carefully described. You can therefore imagine my surprise and delight when you appeared outside our camp, asking for directions to the Borokii. I was overjoyed when you agreed to accept my hospitality. You will now have the opportunity to experience it at length.”
She felt him approach. His musky body odor grew stronger, and his tone darkened. “While I was told not to harm you, but only to delay your return to the city, I must warn you: don’t make me angry by trying anything that might impact on my profits. As we travel, you will be kept comfortable. But several of my best people will be watching you at all times. At the first sign of Jedi tricks, the perpetrator will be shot. Yes, we ignorant people of the plains know about the Force. Don’t make me have to do anything we will both regret.” Luminara sensed the return of the smile as he stepped away from her. “It would devalue my clan’s reputation as traders.”
Somewhere close by, she could hear Anakin growling incomprehensibly through his gag and hood.
“Now, now,” Baiuntu protested, “I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Though I think the essence of it is clear enough. I am something of an expert on essences, as you by now must appreciate. When the time comes for the giving of food and water, you will be taken care of one at a time. Believe me, I respect the abilities of the Jedi as much as anyone. My people and I will take no chances with you. To that end I have seen to it that the comlinks you brought with you have been destroyed beyond any hope of repair. So even should you succeed in freeing yourselves, there will be no calling for help from the despised, if profitable, city folk.” Luminara could feel his heavy footsteps receding as he turned to exit the room.
“Very soon now this visitors’ house, the last of our camp still standing, will be taken down and packed on its transport. Another mobile facility has been reserved especially for you. While I regret that I cannot trust you to enjoy the passing scenery, you will at least be able to smell it. Enjoy the cool breeze of the prairie, my valued guests. And please, no theatrical attempts to escape. I would take it personally.”
As soon as one of us gets loose, you’ll take something personally, Luminara thought furiously. She forced herself to remain calm, to fall back on her training. Every Jedi knows that anger muddies clear thinking, and that revenge is, at best, an archaic waste of energy.
Someone didn’t want them returning soon to Cuipernam. How long was two parts of a breeding cycle? What would be the point in holding them captive and then letting them go? Behind the blinding cloth, her eyes widened slightly.
The Unity Council! She and Obi-Wan had promised them an agreement with the Alwari. When they failed to return within a reasonable period of time, the position of those on the council in favor of secession would grow steadily stronger. Would they vote for secession without waiting for the Jedi to report? Like any politicians, the council representatives had constituencies to answer to. They wouldn’t wait forever. They might not even wait longer than two parts of a breeding cycle.
Certainly someone thought that was the case. Who stood to gain the most by preventing the Jedi from completing their mission? Who, besides the already committed secessionists? Who had sponsored the attack against her and Barriss, and then had directed the Padawan’s abduction?
Though her nostrils were not as sensitive as those of a suubatar, she felt sure she smelled the distant presence of essence of a Hutt.
Once they returned to Cuipernam, they would have to have a few words with this Soergg individual, she thought grimly. Some rather harsh words. What particularly interested Luminara, as it was sure to interest the Jedi Council, was the ominously greater question of who was behind the Hutt. But before they could confront Soergg, they had to free themselves from the gilded captivity of the avaricious Qulun—and do so quickly.
Tooqui watched from within the high grass as the Qulun broke camp. Houses and the couple of trading buildings were neatly folded in upon themselves, goods stowed, the miscellany of a nomad clan carefully packed away. Trailing the procession were spare sadains and, more importantly, the six riding suubatars that were owned by his new friends. When the caravan began to move out, he moved with them, tailing the procession from a distance. Gradually, he became bolder, slipping progressively closer to the convoy. Greater proximity enabled him to pick out individuals while still keeping under cover.
He recognized a number of the clanfolk. Foremost among them was the rotund Baiuntu. The chieftain rode in the front of the procession, borne aloft on a platform decorated with colored streamers that snapped briskly in the steady breeze, handmade wind organs, Qulun pennants, and gaudy advertisements for the clan’s trade goods. So occupied was Tooqui with monitoring the clan’s movements and keeping hidden that he almost forgot why he was risking his life to do so.
But he jumped for joy when, later that afternoon, his friends were brought out of a transport
pulled by eight sadains. One at a time, they were exposed to the wind, sun, and fresh air. After a modest interval, each was returned to the concealment of the transport, and his or her place on the front bench seat taken by another. Trembling with excitement, he watched and counted patiently. They were all there: the four Jedi as well as the two spiteful-talky Alwari. Based on what he could see from his hiding place in the grass, none of them appeared to have been harmed. They were hooded, gagged, and bound securely enough to control even a Jedi. Blob-butt Baiuntu might be a lie-liar and a sneak, but he certainly knew what he was doing.
How in the name of the rain gods was he going to free them? Tooqui wondered. First he would have to slip into their camp. Then he would somehow have to deal with guards. Qulun guards, bigger and stronger than himself. He had nothing to use for a weapon except rocks. Assuming he could manage to reach their transport undetected and take care of any sentinels, he would still need enough time to free all four of his friends, and maybe maybe the two Alwari as well. Afterward, they would have to recover their special personal things, take back their suubatars, and ride off intact and unharmed into the grasslands. Ten Tooquis would not be enough to do such a thing, and there was only one of him.
Wishing for more would gain him nothing, he knew. The Gwurran were a tough tribe. They had not survived inhospitable country and forbidding fauna through dint of heavy wishing. Where resources were lacking, they found acceptable substitutes, or devised their own.
That was it, he knew. He had some hasty devising to do. Reason and logic might all seem to lead toward inevitable failure, but Tooqui was able to compensate for his small self with an outsized ego. If nothing else, his own boastfulness would not let him fail.
Now, if only he could find a way to make the Qulun understand that.
Every step, every forward lurch of the plodding sadains he was following took him farther from home, from the safety of familiar hills and the warmth of the Gwurran tribe. He tried not to think about how far he was from everything he knew. Water was not a problem, rain having collected in small pools and depressions in the hard-packed prairie dirt. But he had to spend time searching for food, and then would have to hurry to catch back up to the steadily advancing caravan. Days passed in this fashion, then another, and another. Tired and filthy and homesick, he nevertheless somehow managed to keep up with the procession.
Yet another evening saw him no closer to a possible way of rescuing his friends than when he had hidden in the kholot burrow. As night fell, tired and hungry he once again sought shelter from marauding predators, and found himself having to move farther and farther away from the encampment. He regretted the loss of light from the camp’s glowpoles, even if they could only be safely viewed from a distance. But safety was more important than a cheery glow in the night. If not a burrow, or a high tree, he would have to find some big rocks he could squeeze between before he allowed himself to rest.
What he encountered instead was a distant rumbling and booming. “Ou, pifgot!” he mumbled. As if his present situation wasn’t bad enough, now it was going to rain. Pretty hard, too, judging by the smell of it. Wind swirled around him as if suddenly unsure of what direction to take, and the taste of impending moisture was heavy on the night air. Kapchenaga boomed off to the north, announcing his advance with steady earthward thrusts of the Light-That-Burned.
Behind him, the camp would be bracing itself for the arrival of the approaching storm: sealing house joints, fastening windows, securing livestock, and rolling up pennants and advertisements. The Qulun and their prisoners would wait out the storm safe and snug within sturdy shelters, warmed by hot food and imported offworld heaters. Meanwhile he, Tooqui, would be lucky to find a dry burrow not already occupied by some inhospitable creature.
An overhang beneath a rock would be better, he knew as he continued searching. Not as warm as a burrow, but far less likely to already be claimed for the night. Unlike an Alwari or a human, he had his coat of fur to keep him warm. At least the rain that was coming would mask his scent from roving meat eaters.
There, in front of him in the darkness—an unexpected ridge of hills. Just in time, too, judging from the rising wind. Already, fast-moving clouds were beginning to block out the stars and the light of Ansion’s first ascending moon. Thunder was sounding more frequently now, and the first fat raindrops began to slap at the grass. Blinking away drip-drops, he headed for a gap between the nearest hills. A flash of Kapchenaga’s breath briefly lit up the sky. Tooqui froze. These were not hills he was silently approaching. He knew that was the case not only because of what he had seen in that split second of illumination, but because the hill he was nearest to had turned a baleful eye in his direction.
Lorqual.
So startled was he that he couldn’t decide whether to curl up on the ground, turn and run, or simply topple over unconscious. As a consequence, he did none of these. Instead, he just stood where he was, staring, as the rain began to fall in earnest. The sound of it pattering against the grass was familiar and soothing, but did nothing to remove the threat of the moaning mountains that loomed massively before him.
And he had almost gone strolling blithely in among them, he realized in shock.
The lorqual were, at least insofar as the Gwurran knew, the biggest inhabitants of the plains. Though they stood only slightly taller at their two sets of shoulders than did the suubatar, the lorqual were far more massive. A single mature adult would weigh as much as four suubatars. Their strange, stiff, brown and beige fur stuck straight out from their sides, giving them a bristly appearance. Half a dozen solid, bony knobs protruded from each massive skull. In rutting season, the sound of adult bull lorqual smashing into each other head to head could be heard across vast sweeps of prairie. Each of six feet terminated in an equal number of powerful horn-shielded toes: three facing forward and three back, a design perfectly suited to supporting the creature’s great weight.
In contrast to their immense size, they had only two comparatively small eyes, one on either side of the blocky skull. But the single nostril opening was large enough for a Gwurran to hide within. Mounted on the end of a short, flexible snout that was constantly testing the air, it provided all necessary warning of possible danger.
Not that anything could really threaten a herd of lorqual, Tooqui knew. Even the young, once they were a couple of weeks old, were too big and powerful for anything less than a full pack of prowling shanhs to attack. Usually they were intolerant of intruders in their midst. But they ignored him. Huddled together as they were, he realized, they must be preoccupied with the impending squall. The rain that was falling would also serve to conceal his presence from them, masking his smell.
Lightning was flashing more frequently now, allowing him a better view of the herd. He judged it to be sizable, though it was impossible to gauge its full extent. He could not see over or around a single lorqual, much less the dozen or so immediately in front of him. These might constitute the entire herd, or there might be a dozen more animals lined up behind them, bony heads pressed against bristling flanks and hindmosts.
That was when he had the idea. It could as easily kill him as make him a hero. But after three days of hard scrambling through high grass, over rocky places, and down clammy mud holes, it was the first idea he’d had. That it might also be his last weighed heavily on him. It very likely might not even work.
Bending, he made a Gwurran gathering basket out of the driest grass he could find. It was something taught to every young member of the tribe, so he had no trouble performing the task in the dark, his nimble fingers weaving the grass stems together with the effortlessness of long practice. Advancing slowly and carefully through the falling rain so as not to disturb the highly sensitive lorqual, he began searching for something else. Even in the rain, it did not take long for him to find what he wanted: a basketful of stones, each somewhat rounded, and each of a size to fit comfortably in his long-fingered hand.
The easy part of his idea fulfilled, he now ha
d no choice but to proceed to the much more difficult—and dangerous.
Still moving slowly and patiently, frequently wiping rainwater from his protuberant eyes, he tried to pick out one lorqual that looked a little drowsier than the others. In the darkness and rain, it was impossible. It might have been just as difficult in the daytime, he knew. One lorqual looked, and acted, pretty much like any other lorqual. If he kept dithering, though, he might abandon the idea entirely, and then where would he be?
With the nearest animal as likely a candidate as the next, he crept as close as he dared. Slipping the basket of stones over one arm, he grabbed hold of the lorqual’s wet bristles and pulled himself up off the ground. When the creature did not react, he began to climb. The closer he got to the top, the greater his confidence in his chances of reaching the monster’s back without getting stomped.
Then he was there, on top, balancing carefully on the animal’s wet middle shoulders. Keeping his step as light as possible, he made his way forward between upthrust bristles that were not unlike prairie grass until he found himself in the natural saddle between the creature’s first and second set of shoulders. It still had not reacted in any way to his presence. Damp and cold, soaked by the now pounding rain, Tooqui found himself encouraged by his not-so-insignificant triumph. He did not waste time congratulating himself. What he had accomplished so far was nothing compared to what still had to be done.
Assuming a standing position behind the lorqual’s neck, he braced his feet as best he could, took one of the stones from the basket, and prepared himself. He did not have to wait long. Two shafts of the Light-That-Burns brillianted the underside of fast-moving clouds. More nervous than usual because of the now raging storm, the herd stirred uneasily. Thunder boomed. As it did so, he took careful aim and threw the first stone.
The Approaching Storm Page 21
