The Approaching Storm (звёздные войны)

by Alan Dean Foster

  "It is a fair price." The mane of the Ansionian trader had been painted with alternating silver and black chevrons that ran down his spine to disappear beneath his low-cut collar. Convex lavender-hued eyes studied his clients blankly, giving away nothing. "Nowhere else in Cuipernam, or on the Sorr-ul-Paan Plateau, will you find six such splendid steeds of such grace and quality! Not for thrice the price!"

  "Be not overinsistent," Kyakhta told him, "lest your inces sant haranguing curdle the stomachs of my masters." Turning away from the broker, he lowered his voice as he and Bulgan conferenced with their new employers.

  "He is right, Master Luminara. The price he asks is a fair one. Slightly high, perhaps, but the animals are in excellent condition."

  "To ride such mounts!" Bulgan could hardly contain his anticipation.

  "Give us a moment." Turning away, Luminara left the two Alwari to continue with the negotiations, although by now these were no more than a matter of trying to shave minuscule amounts off the broker's final offer. "What do you think, Obi-Wan?"

  He surveyed the surrounding market, ever alert for signs of impending aggression. "I think we should rely on the native expertise of our new guides. After what your Padawan did for them, I believe they would cheat themselves before they would take advantage of her." A glance back showed the two Alwari still arguing agreeably with the seller. "Besides, I'm rather looking forward to riding one of the beasts. One of these days, I have a feeling I'll have no choice but to ride around in old skimmers and beat-up landspeeders." Looking up, he studied the clear blue sky.

  Luminara eyed the Padawans. "There is still tension between Barriss and Anakin."

  "Yes." Obi-Wan sighed. "I've noticed it, too. But they appear to be getting on better since her ordeal. A fine student, Barriss. The Force flows strongly within her."

  "So it does, but not like it does in young Anakin. He is a wild river, your Padawan, full of repressed energy that needs channeling."

  "He came unreasonably late to training, and was raised by his mother to a greater age than the usual apprentice."

  Luminara looked again in the Padawans' direction. "He knew his mother? That is a bond Jedi apprentices do not normally bring with them. It presents all manner of potential com plications and difficulties."

  "I know. For that reason alone I would have not accepted him, but he was taken up by my own Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, whose dying wishes I vowed to respect. Among other matters that had to be dealt with subsequent to his passing, that meant dealing with and bringing along this unusually volatile youth."

  "How has it gone?" she asked earnestly.

  Obi-Wan stroked his beard absently. "He's often impetuous, which is worrying. Sometimes it carries over into impatience, which is dangerous. But he has gone through and survived a great deal, and he is an avid student of Jedi lore. There are subjects in which he excels, such as lightsaber combat. And he's a natural pilot. But he has little time for the intricacies of history or diplomacy, and politics positively make him ill. Yet he perseveres. A trait he gets, I believe, from his mother, whom Qui-Gon knew but briefly as a quiet yet strong-willed woman."

  She nodded thoughtfully. "If anyone can turn such unwieldy raw material into a polished Jedi Knight, I suspect it is you, Obi-Wan. Many have the knowledge, but few the patience."

  "You could do it, I think."

  She regarded him straight on. Face to face, the two Jedi gazed into each other's eyes. Each saw something different but worthy there. Each saw something distinctive, even exceptional. When they finally looked away, it was simultaneously.

  Turning, Obi-Wan moved to consult with the gently bickering Alwari. She watched him for a long, contemplative moment before turning back to resume her scrutiny of the crowd.

  At Obi-Wan's urging, Kyakhta and Bulgan concluded their negotiations for the six animals. At the shoulder, the magnificent suubatars stood thrice the height of a human. They were six-legged, with long-splayed toes that seemed wholly out of place on a creature designed for running through open grasslands.

  When Anakin pointed out this seeming evolutionary disparity to Kyakhta, the Alwari laughed.

  "You'll see what they are for, Jedi Padawan!" Pulling back on the double set of reins, he effortlessly turned his own newly acquired mount.

  The lightweight but thickly padded saddle was cinched be tween the front and middle shoulders. Between middle shoulders and rear haunches, a second swayback would accommodate a sizable pack of supplies. Having been negotiated for and priced, these were in the process of being loaded onto the complaisant animals by the merchant's busy underlings.

  "Food, water, accessories: all has been acquired and ac counted for, Master Barriss." Bulgan had his own booted, long-toed feet thrust forward in stirrups that were slung on either side of the suubatar's neck, instead of hanging downward. The smooth arch of the saddle behind him cradled his crippled back. "Ahhhh-haja!" he exclaimed with evident pleasure. "To sit like this brings back many memories."

  Following Kyakhta's instructions, Luminara straddled her own mount. Despite its height, she had no trouble doing so. First, because it was presently crouched down awaiting its rider, and second, because the body was lean and narrow. The reason for the saddle became immediately apparent. Without it, one would be seated directly atop the line of protruding vertebrae.

  "Elup!" Kyakhta barked. Starting from the front, the suu- batar rose one set of legs at a time: front, middle, and finally rear. The reason for the high-arching leather curve at the back of the saddle was now clear. With no support behind her, the angle of ascent would have sent Luminara bouncing down the creature's spine all the way to the ground.

  Though each boasted its own pattern of dark green stripes set against short soft fur, all six animals were the same underlying light bronze color. The combination would allow them, despite their size and visibility, to blend in well with their prairie land surroundings. Expecting the suubatars to be typical grazing herbivorous creatures, Luminara was surprised to learn that they were in fact omnivores, able to survive on a wide variety of foods. Their long, slim jaws were hinged at the bottom, allowing for an enormous if narrow gape that could swallow astonishingly large fruits or prey in a single gulp. The four front canines protruded above and below the jaws, giving their owners a fearsome appearance that belied their placid nature.

  "Of course, these are domesticated individuals," Bulgan told her, divining her thoughts. "Wild suubatars have been known to attack and destroy entire caravans."

  "That's reassuring." Bobbing from side to side atop his pa tient mount, Anakin was struggling to maintain his balance. Kyakhta noted the trouble he was having and came alongside.

  "You're sitting up too straight, Master Anakin. Lean back into the viann, the saddle support. There, that's it. See how your legs now thrust naturally into the forward stirrups?"

  "But I can't see as well in this position," the Padawan com plained, struggling to hang on to the double set of reins.

  "I think we're high up enough to see anything of impor tance," Obi-Wan told him. He lay back in the saddle as one to the manner born. "Look on this as another unexpected episode in your education."

  "I'd rather be educated in a late-model landspeeder," Anakin grumbled. But Kyakhta was right. The more he leaned back and trusted the saddle, the sturdier and more stable he felt. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

  Could he trust himself to a strange, alien animal? The suu batars were certainly handsome creatures, with their protruding silver-flecked eyes, single wide flaring nostril, and smooth skulls. Their ears were set flush against their skulls and unlike the Ansio-nians, they had no manes. The striped fur was short and dense, evolved to provide maximum insulation with minimum wind resistance. Tails were leg- length but as slender as the rest of the beast. Everything about the creatures spoke to one end.

  Speed.

  "Everyone ready?" Holding his steed's reins effortlessly in one hand, Kyakhta looked back at his companions. Bulgan sig naled that the last of the
supplies had been loaded. "Then let's go and find the Borokii!" Facing forward, he slapped his mount on the smooth back of its neck and shouted sharply, "Elup!"

  The suubatar seemed to rise from the ground. In reality, it had simply launched into the requested gallop. The six- legged gait was extraordinarily smooth, Luminara noted delightedly. There was little sensation of jouncing or jolting. Leaning back in the saddle's viann, her fine, strong legs thrust calf-length into the deep leather stirrups, she watched the city fly past. Sluggish pedestrians had to scramble to get out of their way.

  Far sooner than she expected, they sped beneath the high- arching Govialty Gate of the old city and found themselves on a dirt road leading westward. Kyakhta came pounding up alongside her. Despite what struck the Jedi as an extreme pace, she noted that his mount was not even breathing hard.

  "Are you comfortable, then, Master Luminara?" The guide shouted to make himself heard.

  "It's wonderful!" she yelled back. "Like riding on a cloud made of spun Dramassian silk!" Outside the city walls, they were exposed to the near-constant winds that circled the planet endlessly. Cool air rushed past her face, the suubatar's long, narrow, slightly triangular skull parting it like the prow of a ship.

  A glance back showed Barriss hanging on for dear life, while Anakin's expression alternated between grim determination and youthful alarm. She would have laughed, had it not been unseemly. As for Obi-Wan Kenobi, he sat serenely in his embroidered saddle, arms crossed over his chest, eyes closed. His reins lay secured to the pommel-like brace in front of him. He might as well, she thought with some astonishment, have been sitting in a first-class seat on a starliner. She had known many Jedi, but never one so composed in the face of the unexpected.

  "Kyakhta!" she called out to the rider galloping alongside her. "It's good to leave the city behind so swiftly, but aren't you concerned about overexerting our mounts? Won't this pace tire them quickly?"

  "Overexerting? Tire?" From his saddle, he eyed her quizzi cally. Then realization dawned. "Ou, you do not understand. But that is reasonable. None of you have ever seen a suubatar before, much less ridden one." Pulling his slim legs and feet free of his stirrups, he stood up on the back of his pounding steed and looked back the way they had come, holding on to the crest of the viann for balance. "No one pursues us, but of one thing I'm sure: Bossban Soergg is not snoring this business away." Sitting back down and resuming his former riding posture, he smiled at her anew. "You're sure you are comfortable?"

  "It feels almost natural. As I told you, I'm enjoying it."

  He performed the Ansionian equivalent of a nod. "Then there's no need for us to continue dawdling here." Raising his voice and freeing his feet from the stirrups, he leaned forward once again and shouted, "Elup!" At the same time he kicked his mount sharply with his heels, making contact simultaneously on both front shoulders.

  "By the Force!" Anakin exclaimed as he grabbed for something to brace himself with. Barriss started laughing wildly, the acceleration sending her cowl and the folds of her robes streaming backward like flames. Obi-Wan deigned to wake up.

  Until then, it seemed, the suubatars had only been trotting. At Kyakhta's command, they broke into a six-legged sprint of such speed that their long-toed legs seemed not to touch the ground. When they did, six long powerful clawed toes dug into the hard-packed dirt and flung it backward. Thirty-six such digits propelled each ground-thundering suubatar forward at a velocity that left a thoroughly exhilarated Luminara momentarily breathless.

  Which was not surprising, since they were now outpacing the wind.

  Far behind them, a motley coterie of assorted thugs, brutes, and ruffians assembled atop the city wall by the very gate through which the Jedi and their guides had departed. Off in the distance, a very faint cloud of dust could be seen dissipating atop a low, rolling, grass-covered hill. To Ogomoor it might as well have been poison gas.

  "That must be them." He turned to the hulking Varwan stand ing at his side. "Get your people together. We're going after them."

  "At that speed? You heard what the people in the market said. They're riding suubatars. Purebloods, at that." Behind them, the other members of the hastily assembled troop of cutthroats had begun to mutter among themselves.

  "We'll take an airtruck. No suubatar can outpace an airtruck."

  "Not outpace, no. But outmaneuver. ." The Varwan's eyes leaned closer to Ogomoor's. "You ever try to corner an Al- wari mounted on a good suubatar? A quick way to die."

  "Bastasi!" the impatient Ogomoor exclaimed. "As you will. What besides an airtruck will persuade you to follow my order and go after those six?"

  The Varwan considered, rubbing one eye as he studied the wispy remnants of the distant dust cloud. "Heavy weapons," he finally declared.

  "Don't be stupid!" Ogomoor barked at the hireling. "Not even Bossban Soergg can engage heavy weapons in Cuipernam! There are some limitations that even he-urk!"

  Clutching the squirming majordomo by the collar, the Varv- van had lifted him off the ground and was holding him in that position. "Don't-call-me-stupid."

  Aware that he might have let his anger and annoyance get a teensy bit the better of him, Ogomoor hastened to calm the mercenary. "It was just a blurted exclamation-I meant nothing personal by it-now please let me down and-could you perhaps retract your eyeballs? They're oozing."

  With a hiss, the Varwan set him down. Straightening his jacket, Ogomoor turned to gaze longingly at the distant rise over which his quarry had disappeared. "Why the worry, anyway? The visitors are being led by a couple of clanless morons!"

  Shouldering his compaction rifle, the Varwan hissed again and turned away. His kind were brave, even fearless-but despite Ogomoor's assertion, they were not dumb.

  "Say you. But I, and my associates, know only what we see. And what I see are four visitors and two escorts who do not ride like clanless morons." He started down the steps that led back to the city streets. "They ride like Alwari."

  Frustrated beyond words, Ogomoor turned his attention away from the useless mercenaries and back to the beginnings of the endless grasslands beyond Cuipernam. Where, he wailed silently, could he find assassins worthy of his orders? Where could he find beings willing to take up weapons against the unmentionable Jedi? Where could he find the kind of quality help that, at every turn, seemed to be denied him?

  Most importantly of all, where could he find someone else to tell Soergg the Hutt that the Jedi and their Padawans had, once again, flown free of his intentions and beyond his reach?

  Much to Ogomoor's surprise, Soergg listened quiedy to his majordomo's report. "Once again, too late. Punctuality is the hallmark of the successful assassin."

  "There was nothing I could do, Bossban. Those I had hired refused to pursue the fleeing Jedi."

  "Yes, yes, so you told me." Soergg waved a dismissive hand. "Riding suubatars, you said. Given that, I'm not surprised at the lack of enthusiasm on the part of your puerile hirelings." He rubbed his vast chin, the flesh quivering like the sulfurous outfall of some particularly noxious thermal vent. "First a bungled killing, then a bungled kidnapping. The Jedi are on their guard now."

  "They cannot be taken by surprise," Ogomoor added, unnecessarily.

  "Perhaps." Huge slitted eyes looked past the assistant, toward distant places. "Certainly not by us."

  "I don't understand, master."

  Soergg did not reply. He was still gazing at that distant place, thinking Huttish thoughts.

  Chapter 7

  It was not merely beautiful out on the endless prairie that covered much of Ansion's landmass: it was magnificent. At least, Lu-minara thought so. Barriss agreed with her, while Obi-Wan was impressed but noncommittal. As usual, Anakin wished himself elsewhere, but refrained from saying so more than once a day.

  "A year ago he would have been bemoaning his situation two or three times a day," Obi-Wan pointed out that evening to Lu-minara. "I suppose it's a sign that he's maturing."

  Nearby, Kyakhta and Bulg
an were busy with the camp, preparing food and making tea. Behind them, a ways off, the six splendid suubatars had been set down for the night. Their legs folded beneath their powerful, slender bodies, the graceful steeds busied themselves browsing the grasses and grains that grew in abundance all around them.

  The prairies of Ansion were not all unbroken fields of grass. Rivers cut erratically through the yellow-green flatlands while rolling hills occasionally interrupted the monotony of the terrain. There were clumps of forest filled with strange, intertwined trees and brachiating fungi. Higher ridges were the bones of old volcanic vents and plugs. It was a strange landscape, an odd combination of different geologies jumbled together in a way Lumi-nara had not encountered previously.

  "Why is he so stressed all the time?" Leaning up against the viann of the saddle that the guides had uncinched and removed from her ruminating mount, she chewed on the stick of nut-flavored nutrient and waited for her tea to get hot.