She didn't want to quarrel with him, or accuse him. She wanted to help. But in order for her to be of any use, he would have to open up. If not to her, then to Obi-Wan. Clearly, there was much on his mind beyond a desire to do a good job and to eventually be promoted to the status of full Jedi Knight.
Perhaps with the passage of time, he might choose to confide in her more. Until then, she would try her best to monitor his shifting emotions, and to be there if he needed someone besides his teacher to talk to. Meanwhile, he would remain a bit of an enigma. She moved to join him and the others. If nothing else, he was certainly unique. That uniqueness gave him something to build on. But if he hoped to ever be promoted to full Jedi, he was going to have to sort out those problematic inner uncertainties.
She had never met such a thing as a conflicted Jedi. But then, she had never before met one who had been raised by his mother.
Chapter 11
The chawix outbreak did not last long. Only long enough for a snack, a quick drink, and a brief rest, following which the travelers prepared for departure. It was when she was preparing to climb back onto the saddle of her mount that Barriss noticed the creature digging through the supply pack that was tied across the suubatar's second back. Momentarily startled by the unexpected sight, she froze.
It looked very much like any other Ansionian. The bright, convex eyes, the bipedal build, and the long, nimble fingers and toes were identical. But instead of the narrow mane that ran from the top of the head down the spine to terminate in a short tail, this intruder was completely covered in short, dense, dark brown and beige fur striped with dull yellow markings. Instead of a twitchy stub, its weaving tail was as long as her arm.
Most striking of all, it barely came up to her waist.
"Hey, stop that!" she yelled in all-purpose Ansionian.
Both arms laden with a trio of flexiwrapped foodpaks, the startled intruder looked up in response to her sudden shout.
Emitting a defiant squeal, it turned and leapt off the back of the indifferent suubatar. Unhesitatingly, she raced around her mount's front end. If the creature stayed where it was, it would be trapped against the rear of the overhang. If she failed to intercept it and it ran outside, it would be highly visible and therefore easy to track down on the slopes that bordered the gully.
As she rounded her mount's head, it lifted its snout to sniff lazily at her, then closed its eyes and resumed its resting posture. She expected to see the prowler huddled against the back wall, or racing for the gulch beyond. What she saw instead was a pair of legs vanishing beneath a protruding shelf of rock near the rear of the overhang.
A quick backward glance showed her companions chatting or preparing for departure. If the little thief thought he could hide in a hole, he was very much mistaken. She was not so easily deceived. Dropping to her knees, she went in after it. If she could get a hand on one of those small feet, she was sure she could drag the intruder back out.
Unexpectedly, the hole opened into a fissure that ran back into the hill. Light filtered down from above. At that point she hesitated. Cornering the thief in a dead-end recess was one thing; chasing it down a slot canyon of unknown extent quite another. But-they needed every bit of their supplies. And every second she lingered put more distance between herself and the thief.
Determined not to let the prowler get away, she rose to her feet and raced after it. If the rocky cleft branched off into multiple passages, she would have to terminate the chase and return, defeated, to her companions. On the other hand, if it dead-ended somewhere not far ahead, she would have the furry bandit cornered.
Though clearly cut by running water, the crevice cooperated by not splitting into different branches. Agile though he was, the intruder was slowed by his ill-gotten burden. He never managed to slip entirely out of her sight. In fact, she was gaining on him noticeably when he suddenly turned to confront her. Jumping up and down, he proceeded to unload on her a series of furious squeals that she struggled to translate. The dialect was far more difficult to decipher than the comparatively sophisticated speech of the city, the idiom spoken by Kyakhta and Bulgan, or even the rough variant that was employed by the wandering Yiwa.
"Get back, get back, go away, go away, leave alone, leave alone!" In addition to these straightforward exclamations there were also numerous rapid-fire individual phrases that proved beyond her capacity to interpret, but whose general implication could be inferred from the vaguely obscene gestures that accompanied them. On careful consideration, Barriss did not believe any were intended to be flattering. Such imprecations and insults didn't bother her.
What did were the dozens of echoing comments and cries that emanated from the thief's cohorts, who by now lined both sides of the crevice's upper rim. Yelling and screaming, they hurled, exceptionally inventive epithets down at her while their absconding colleague stood his ground and assumed a posture of unmistakable triumph.
The sight of them was as astonishing as it was unexpected. Despite their diminutive stature, proportionately slightly larger eyes, and full fur body covering, the similarities to the dominant Ansionian race were unmistakable. Her little thief and his comrades clearly represented a distinct branching of Kyakhta's and Bulgan's species, a dwarf genetic offshoot. Already she'd recognized their speech as a variant of the Ansionian norm. Every one of them, she noted, boasted a different pattern in its fur.
The cleft in the hill was a dead end, all right. For both thief and pursuer. But he was the one with the swarm of allies. It occurred to her that not only did her companions not know she was in trouble, they didn't even know where she was. Master Luminara would be displeased. Cautiously reaching for her lightsaber, Barriss hoped fervently that she would be able to accept that displeasure in person.
"Hahaheehee!" With unflagging energy and enthusiasm, the thief was jumping wildly up and down. "Tooqui fool you, fool you! You trapped good now, you big back-bald bully-goo! Squinty-eyes! Syrup-stink! What you do now now?"
That depended entirely, she knew, on what the thief's com rades did next. If she backed slowly down the crevice, retracing her steps, would they track her retreat from above? Or would they immediately lose interest in lieu of scrambling down to fight one another over a share of their successful colleague's plunder?
The answer came in the form of a hail of stones. None was particularly big, but she would only have to catch one fist- sized rock between the eyes to be knocked senseless. Derived from her training, her response was pure reflex. Raising a hand, she concentrated hard, hard.
The flung stones hit the sides of the narrow cleft. They struck the floor at her feet. But none made contact with her. She was too busy focusing on deflecting the missiles to wonder how long she could maintain her concentration. Sweat began to bead on her forehead. She couldn't spare the energy to yell for help. Given the twists and turns in the cleft and the distance she'd come, she doubted her shouts would be heard by her friends, anyway.
She was on her own.