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"We'll go here first." M'kim released the harness and gestured ahead in the direction of the thranta's flight.

Behind an obscuring veil of white mist, a heavy green-brown cloud floated like a mat above the other layers of vapor. The dark island in the sky seemed solid enough, and as the thranta brought them closer, Jacen saw that the sludgy raft-cloud was actually a huge cluster of algae nodules.

The airborne sacs of gas-filled plant life drifted at an equilibrium level in the clouds and photosynthesized by soaking up sunlight, water vapor, and chemicals from the clouds.

"Amazing!" Jacen said. "It's like a living island."

The thranta flapped its sail-like wings and drove them closer to the spinning, bobbling raft in the sky. "This is a place of solitude," M'kim said. "We can talk here and rest without fear of being discovered.

There's no hurry. You're not at risk with me."

Jacen nodded. He was still deeply concerned about his friends, though, and worried about what else might be happening to them while he wasn't there to help. He didn't even know for certain that the two Jedi Knights had managed to rescue themselves from their precarious perch beneath Cloud City, but he believed his friends were resourceful enough to get themselves out of a fix like that.

The thranta hovered over the floating algae island. Uncertain, Jacen looked down at the squishy surface. But M'kim deffly danced off the back of his flying creature and landed on the soft clusters of algae sacs, bouncing on the surface of the green-brown nodules as if he were swim ming.

The thranta rider lay back, gesturing for Jacen to join him. "Come on.

We can watch the clouds go by and talk about what's really happening over there in Cloud City." His face turned grave. "I have a feeling you need to know this."

Still holding the harness, Jacen stood up on wobbly legs and balanced on the back of the thranta. Then he jumped.

)acen fell for the second time that day, but this time he landed on the soft, squishy mat of tangled algae clusters. It was like a damp organic mattress that floated aimlessly, carried by the winds. The bumpy green masses made a soft, uneven surface, like a cluster of lighter-than-air pillows.

Watching him, M'kim lay back laughing as Jacen stumbled, then fell on his face into the wet algae nodules. The greenish clusters shifted like a living mass of solid bubbles. One greenish-brown bubble popped with a splat in front of him, spraying Jacen with the strong, earthy smell of compost.

He struggled to wipe away the sticky juice, but finally lounged back and forced himself to relax. He could change his clothes later, and he desperately needed a rest.

Rootlike tendrils dangled from the bottom of the algae island to soak up moisture droplets and nourishing chemicals. Jacen listened to the breeze rustling the tendrils. He heard the little fluttering noises of small flying creatures darting in and around the tangled organic mat.

He spotted tiny insects and colored plantlike things that made up the island complex, forming an entire ecosystem.

"I'm surprised there's so much life around here," Jacen said. "I thought Bespin was just... just an empty gas giant."

"Nothing in the universe is really empty," M'kim said. "Our troupe has traveled all over, and I've found very few places that are truly dead.

Life is... tenacious."

"Yeah, I sure didn't expect to still be alive after that fall."

Bespin had many different levels where life clung, whether in artificial cities, gas-storage refineries, or - temperate-layer algae islands.

Thunderheads gathered in the vast sky overhead.

Jacen crawled to the edge of the squishy algae platform and looked over the edge toward the soup of clouds far below. He saw flashes of lightning and deep glows that skittered beneath the surface. Large storms rose up as deep heat currents in the lower layers of the gas giant stirred and shifted. It still looked impossibly far down.

Jacen gulped. If M'kim hadn't rescued him on his thranta, he would still be falling....

Free of its rider,