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The first youth shook his head. “That’s not right, Dr. Pace. The Jedi have visions. They can see into the future. That’s how they knew we’d found it.”

Corran glanced at Ganner. “You want to take it?”

“If I must.” The taller Jedi shrugged, spilling dust from his shoulders. “That ability is rare, and one we have little control over. Logically, if we could peer into the future, don’t you think we would have come here before you found whatever you found and would have removed it?”

The young man frowned. “Well, I don’t know.”

Corran winked at the kid. “Don’t think too long on it, or you’ll figure we’ve planted the memory of this conversation. You’ll end up going around and around in your mind and drive yourself to distraction.”

Dr. Pace patted the youth on the shoulder. “Vil, you and Denna go back to your posts. I think the slashrats are all tied up in a killball, but they might come for us, so you’ll discourage them.”

“Yes, Dr. Pace.”

Pace looked at Corran. “So, why are you here?”

“We’ve had reports of some raiding along the Rim. The university hadn’t heard from you and asked if we could check in on you. We were afraid you’d been raided, so we came out.”

Dr. Pace frowned. “What sort of raiding? Humans?”

Ganner shifted his shoulders. “Nonhuman, we think.”

“Interesting.” She turned toward the cave, then waved Corran and Ganner in her wake. “Come with me.”

They followed and passed between tarps that had been hung to seal the mouth of the cave. Beyond the first set Corran saw another about five meters deeper into the cave. The area between them had been set with a number of buckets filled with a dark, frothy liquid that reminded Corran of engine coolant. It stank horribly. The cloying scent wafted easily through the rebreather’s dust filters and coated the back of his throat.

Pace unsealed the second tarp wall, then closed it behind them. She pulled off her rebreather and took a deep breath. Corran did the same, and even though he could still smell some of the liquid, the air tasted much sweeter.

He jerked a thumb at the tarps. “What is that stuff in the buckets?”

Pace looked over at a knot of students deeper in the caves. “Trista, come here, please.”

A slender, black-haired woman that Corran judged to be half his age came walking over. She had a pert nose and just a touch of dirt on her face that somehow enhanced her beauty rather than detracted from it. “Yes, Dr. Pace?”

“These . . . Jedi are interested in your theories about the ecology of Bimmiel.” Pace waved her forward. “This is Trista Orlanis, one of my graduate students.”

“Pleased to meet you.” The young woman smiled, letting her smile linger more in Ganner’s direction than Corran’s, which Corran found a minor annoyance. “Are you familiar with the Imperial survey?”

Ganner nodded. “I read it and briefed Corran.”

Trista’s smile broadened. “Well, then, you know that the Imperial team came here as Bimmiel was inbound in its elliptical orbit. As the planet nears the sun, it warms up, naturally, and the ice caps begin to melt. The resulting moisture triggers an abundance of plant growth. The heat also brings the shwpi out of hibernation. They are herbivores, so they eat, multiply, and eat more. They don’t digest most of the seeds, so they excrete them, sheathing the seeds with organic fertilizer.

“Certain other animals cannot tolerate the heat, so they retreat toward the polar regions while the shwpi population explodes. Then, as the planet begins to move away from the sun, the planet cools, which frees these creatures from their ranges to sweep into the equatorial areas. The shwpi have overgrazed the world, allowing the storms to pick up and redistribute a lot of soil through wind erosion. Moisture collects in ice caps at the poles as the world cools, which is why it is so dry now. The predators, most notably the slashrats, are adept at moving through the resulting dunes. They hunt the shwpi that have not found burrows in which to hibernate.”