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With luck, and if all went as planned, they would have the results they sought in a week or two.

The water was wide, deep, and clear, but to Luminara’s eyes the current was not threatening. Sitting on his mount alongside her, Kyakhta let its head drop the considerable distance to the ground to snag a few mouthfuls of the spotted zeka grass that grew there, and a pair of rodentlike coleacs as well. The bones of the latter being efficiently crunched provided a noisy counterpart to the guide’s words.

“Torosogt River,” he announced proudly. “We’ve made good time. Once across, we will truly be in the realm of the Alwari. No towns beyond this place. No fault-finding, arrogant ‘Unity.’ ”

“How long till we reach the Borokii?” she asked him.

Black pupils stared back at her out of dark-hued, protuberant orbs. “Impossible to tell. They have their traditional grazing grounds, but like any clan, the Borokii are always on the move.”

“Too bad we couldn’t find them with a seeker droid and put an aerial tracker on them,” Anakin observed from behind them.

Kyakhta flashed sharp teeth in the Padawan’s direction. “The Alwari choose to retain many of the old ways, but they are ever ready to make use of new developments that do not contradict tradition. Having always had weapons, they are happy to make use of better ones. They would use these to instantly shoot down any device sent to try to monitor them.”

“Oh.” Anakin accepted this explanation without argument. When, he thought to himself, will I learn to see beyond the obvious? While the latter might be an admirable trait in a Podracer, it would not do much to qualify him as a Jedi.

The party started forward again, Kyakhta’s mount spitting out small bones as it walked. “You see the problem Unity emissaries face. How can they make treaties and commerce with the Alwari if the clans will not stay in one place long enough to talk to them? Yet it is these same traditional rights of the nomads that Republic law protects. No wonder the cities are considering banding together to join this proposed secessionist movement. If they succeed in pulling Ansion out of the Republic, then they can deal with the Alwari as they choose.”

“And yet the Alwari think we may be here to support the claims of the Unity,” Luminara responded.

Kyakhta eyed her with an intelligence unsuspected prior to Barriss’s healing ministrations. “Isn’t your primary task here to see that Ansion stays in the Republic?”

“Of course,” she replied without hesitation.

“Then the Alwari are entitled to question the means by which you might choose to make that happen. They’ll know that they and their interests are not your priority.”

“So do the delegates of the Unity.” She sighed tiredly. “You see, Kyakhta? Both sides are already united by their common suspicion of our motives. Not exactly a firm foundation for mutual understanding, but it’s a beginning.”

The slope leading down from the last grasses to the river’s edge was not acute enough to slow a crawling infant, much less the towering suubatars. The group paused on the bank while Kyakhta and Bulgan studied the flow with an eye toward picking the best place to cross. Finally, Bulgan started forward while Kyakhta directed their charges to hold back.

“The Torosogt runs deep, but Bulgan thinks he has found a sandbar shallow enough for the suubatars to walk most of the way. From there we will swim.”

Luminara leaned forward in her saddle. “I suppose we could all do with a bath.”

“No, no.” A smiling Kyakhta hurried to correct the misunderstanding. “We don’t swim. The suubatars will carry us.” Ignoring the considerable distance to the ground, he leaned way over to indicate his steed’s middle legs. “See—a suubatar’s fur is short, but runs all the way to its feet and down between the toes. With six legs and long toes, suubatars are very good swimmers.”

Luminara had to admit that a vision of swimming suubatars was one that had not occurred to her. As Kyakhta had pointed out,