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Not bad at all.

"Hey, partner," Zan said, amused. "How’s about dropping out of hyperspace and rejoining the group?"

"Sorry." He moved quickly up the rise to stand beside him, Dhur, and Barriss. "What was the question?"

"I was wondering if that storm was the start of the monsoon season," Dhur said.

"It doesn’t start," Jos said, "because it never stops. Except for the poles, the whole planet is like this."

Jos didn’t think Dhur’s eyes could get any wider, but his last statement proved him wrong.

"You mean it’s like this all the time?"

"Pretty much," Zan said.

"Actually," Tolk said as she joined the group, "this is a rather nice day. Only one lightning storm so far."

A far-off rumble of thunder came from the east. They all turned and saw a new storm front massing dark gray on the horizon.

Jos glanced at Tolk. "You really should know better than to say things like that."

The second storm subsided around midnight, though the skies remained cloudy. Drongar had no large moon, and so Barriss, standing just outside one of the doors to the officers’

quarters, was surprised to see the huts and grounds illuminated by a wan light that shifted among green, pearl, and turquoise hues, as if the clouds were somehow noctilucent.

"It’s the spores," Zan told her. She was not surprised that he had stepped out alongside her; she’d felt his presence in the Force before she could see him. "Some strains glow in the dark," he continued. "Clouds make a good backdrop for them. Though you’d think all the rain would wash them out of the air."

She nodded. The bands of variegated light, twisting slowly far overhead, were more impressive than many rainbows and auroras she’d seen on far more hospitable worlds.

It was nice to know that even Drongar had some beauty to offer.

"A lot prettier than the night sky, actually," Zan said. "We’re so far out on the Rim that you don’t see that many stars. And the whorl itself isn’t visible from this hemisphere."

He grinned at her. "Not even a full moon to walk hand-in-hand under."

Almost by reflex, she felt his aura gently with the Force, and found nothing in him but friendliness. She smiled back at him. "Did you have a moon on...?"

"Talus. No, we had something much more spectacu-lar: Tralus, our sister world."

"Ah. The Double Worlds of the Corellian system. Two planets, orbiting each other as they circle their sun."

Zan nodded and looked impressed. "You know your galactic cartography."

"I would be a poor excuse for a Jedi if I did not."

He looked at her for a moment. Barriss could hear the sounds of the night all about them: the buzzing of the scavenger moths, the dopplering hum of a worker droid as it pursued its tasks, and, far away, the occasional dis-tant crackle of energy weapons and sharper cracks of slugthrowers. She might have thought she was imagin-ing them, but she could feel the reverberations of death and destruction quite clearly through the Force.

"And who were you," Zan asked, "before you be-came part of the Order?"

She hesitated as well before replying. "No one. I was brought to the Temple as an infant."

"Have you never tried to contact your parents, to find your homeworld’s-"

Barriss looked away. "I was born on a liner in deep space. My parents’ identities are unknown. I call no world save Coruscant my home."

Zan said softly, "My apologies, Padawan Offee. I didn’t mean to pry."

She turned back and smiled at him. "It is I who must apologize. There is no excuse for rudeness. As Master Yoda says, ’If in anger you answer, then in shame you dwell.’"

"He’s your instructor?"

"I am not Padawan to him; my Master is Luminara Unduli. Master Yoda is one of the most respected mem-bers of the Council." She hesitated, then added, "He has been a mentor to nearly all the Jedi currently in the Order. One student, to his great disappointment, left the Order and turned to the dark side of the Force."

"I don’t have children," Zan said, "though I hope to change that once I’m off this damp rock. I would imag-ine that to lose a pupil like that must be almost as bad as a parent