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Qwi strapped herself into the plush vegetable-fiber seat and looked into the sunshine. “Why didn’t you want Momaw Nadon to guide us?” she asked, studying the topographic information and the scenic highlights Nadon had suggested. “He seems very proud of his world.”

Wedge concentrated on the control panel, though the vehicle looked rather simple to operate. “Well, because he’s very busy, and because …” His voice trailed off, and he looked up at her with a faint smile. “I kind of wanted to be alone with you.”

Qwi felt a giddy elation rising within her. “Yes, I think that would be nicer.”

Wedge lifted their skimmer off the pad, and they soared away from the great disk of the Ithorian eco-city and across the treetops. The Tafanda Bay had drifted many kilometers during the course of the night, and Wedge had to recalibrate the skimmer’s coordinates. Daylight warmed their faces as the wind breathed cool drafts against their skin.

They headed for a low ridge where the dark-green jungles fell away into a paler forest. “What are you taking me to see?” Qwi asked.

Wedge leaned forward, staring at the horizon. “A large grove of bafforr trees that was half-destroyed by the Imperials during their siege many years ago.”

“Is there something special about those trees?” Qwi asked.

“The Ithorians worship them,” he said. “They’re semi-intelligent, like a hive mind. The greater the forest grows, the more intelligent the trees become.”

As they skimmed closer, Qwi could see that an aquamarine crystalline forest glowed faintly in the sunlight, covering part of the hillside. Wedge let the skimmer hover as they bent over the sides to gaze down at the glassy trunks, at the smooth yet sharp webs of bafforr branches. Scattered around the perimeter, large, dark cylinders had toppled to the ground and broken like tubes of burned transparisteel. It reminded her of the debris scattered around the site of the smashed Cathedral of Winds on Vortex. Tiny saplings like inverted icicles protruded from the rocky earth.

“The forest seems to be growing back,” Wedge said. The thin saplings glowed a whiter blue than the rest of the forest.

“I see people down there!” Qwi said, pointing off to the side. The smooth grayish forms of four Ithorians dashed for the cover of the thick undergrowth on the side of the ridge. “I thought they weren’t supposed to set foot in the jungle.”

Wedge stared down at them, baffled. He raised the skimmer higher, but the four renegade Ithorians had already vanished into the tree cover. His brow furrowed as if searching for an answer. He drew in a quick breath.

“I seem to remember something about the Mother Jungle summoning certain Ithorians. It’s a rare calling that no one can explain. They leave everything behind and live in the wilderness, forbidden to return to their eco-cities. In a way, they become fugitives. Since the Ithorians consider it such sacrilege to touch the forest, the calling must be pretty strong.”

Qwi looked down at the burned glasslike trunks of the bafforr trees destroyed by Imperial turbolaser fire. “I’m glad to know they’re tending the forest, though.” She wondered how much of the bafforr forest’s collective intelligence had returned. “Let’s go somewhere else, Wedge, so they can get back to their work.”

Wedge took Qwi to a high plateau studded with flat gray and tan rocks, covered with vermilion scrub brush and black vines. A confluence of three rivers came together in a great sinkhole on the edge of the towering cliff, pouring into a spectacular triple waterfall that plunged into the plateau’s deep pit. At the bottom of the plateau, water spilled out of a thousand broken caves, flowing into a turgid, foamy marsh filled with swaying reeds and leaping fish.

Wedge circled the open-air skimmer above the enormous sinkhole on the plateau, and Qwi gaped at the fabulous waterfall. Curtains of spray rose from thundering echoes of plunging water. Rainbows sparkled against the lavender sky.

Qwi turned her head this way and that, trying to look