Star Wars_ The Approaching Storm - Alan Dean Foster [57]
At last nearly everyone had eaten their fill. The spiraling squeal from the local band faded away, losing itself in the vastness of the prairie night. Sipping on the needle-thin tube of a bulblike stuicer, Mazong turned expectantly to his company.
“And now, my friends, the time has come for you to prove to us that Jedi have not just ability, but inner essence, unlike the representatives of the great but soulless Senate.”
“If I may suggest—” Kyakhta began. The chieftain shut him down with a sharp gesture.
“You may not suggest, clanless vagrant. The Yiwa remain uncertain about you.” Looking back to the Jedi, he smiled. “Rest assured no matter how badly you do, we will not eat you. We do not keep every tradition.”
“That’s nice to know,” Obi-Wan murmured. He wasn’t concerned about whether or not he and his companions were considered suitable for consumption. He was worried about a dearth of information. If the Yiwa refused to help them, they might waste weeks searching for the Borokii. During that time, the mischief makers and would-be secessionists among the Unity were not likely to be idle.
It was also important that everything they did not only found favor with their hosts, but did not offend any of their inscrutable and closely held customs. Not knowing the details of these in advance, the Jedi could only proceed as best they could, while watching for any indications that their calculated response might be offending the Yiwa.
“I’ll go first.” Barriss rose abruptly to her feet. Moving to the center of the open space, which had been carpeted with a fresh flooring of clean quartz sand taken from the beach that fronted the lake, she turned to face her friends. There was a stir among the watching Yiwa. What would the flat-eyed, many-digited, maneless female visitor do? No one waited with more curiosity than Anakin.
Luminara gestured encouragingly at her Padawan. Nodding, Barriss reached down and removed the lightsaber from her belt. Immediately, several of the armed Yiwa went for their own weapons. Seeing that the other visitors remained seated and calm, a confident Mazong waved off his agitated sentries.
In the chill, still air of early night, Barriss’s lightsaber blazed. She held it aloft, glowing perpendicularly, its soft hum rising above the approving murmurs of the watching Yiwa. Not exactly a dynamic performance, Anakin reflected, but certainly an arresting image. He wondered if their hosts would consider striking a pose sufficient to satisfy their requirements.
And then Barriss began to move.
Slowly at first, darting from left to right and back again, then north to south, her footprints laid out a design in the sand that marked the four points of the compass. The Yiwa saw right away what she was honoring with her movements. As a nomadic people, they were particularly appreciative. The Padawan moved faster and faster, gradually increasing the speed of her jumps until she was bouncing from point to point as if dancing atop a concealed trampoline. All the while she held her flaring lightsaber aloft, the spear of luminance piercing the night. The athleticism of the performance was a tribute to her conditioning. It went, Anakin decided admiringly, well beyond basic Jedi training.
Then, just when it seemed she could move no faster, she began to twirl the lightsaber. Spectators gasped softly, and there sounded the first hisses and whistles of genuine admiration.
It was a revelation to Anakin, who until now had never thought of the conventional Jedi lightsaber as anything but a weapon. That outside the fencing arena it could also be a thing of beauty had never occurred to him. But in Barriss’s hands it was transformed from a lethal tool into an instrument of effulgent splendor.
Spinning rapidly now as she continued to skip between the four points of the compass, the beam of spectral energy fooled the eyes into seeing a solid ring of light above her head. She