Thrawn looked past him at the stars now tracking slowly across the sky. “We need to allow the Vigilant to escape and the blockade ships to return to their picket positions. A few hours, no more.”

Samakro nodded. And then it would be time for Thrawn to slip over to the abandoned mining station floating halfway across the asteroid cluster.

Where they would find out if this whole gamble had been worth the effort.

The Vigilant’s sky-walker was named Ab’begh, and she was only eight.

But she had some interesting moldable play figures and some really nice colored graph markers. And she had a lot of building snaps. Way more than Che’ri had.

They were starting to play with them when Ab’begh’s momish told them to stop.

“It’s reading time, girls,” the woman said. “Put away the snaps and get your questises. Come, come, come. Toys away; questises out.”

“Do we have to?” Ab’begh asked in a whiny voice. “We want to play.”

Che’ri made a face. A whiner. Great. She hated being around whiners.

Still, Ab’begh had a point. “We just did some trips,” Che’ri spoke up. “We’re supposed to get to rest now.”

“Oh, fissis,” the momish said, wiggling her fingers like she was throwing away Che’ri’s words. “You did two trips, maybe two hours each. I’ve seen sky-walkers do ten hours at a stretch and come up smiling and ready for more.”

“But—” Ab’begh started.

“Besides, reading is resting,” the momish said. “Come on, come on—questises and chairs. Now.”

Che’ri looked at Ab’begh. If they both insisted, maybe they could talk themselves into at least another few minutes. Che’ri had started a really neat design with her snaps and wanted to finish it before she forgot where all the pieces were supposed to go.

But Ab’begh just sighed and put down her own snaps. She stood up tiredly and went to one of the chairs.

“Che’ri?” the momish said. “You, too.”

Che’ri looked at her snaps. This woman wasn’t Che’ri’s own momish. Maybe she wasn’t allowed to tell another momish’s sky-walker what she had to do.

But Che’ri had had a couple of momishes like her. Arguing with them hadn’t usually gotten her anywhere.

Besides, Ab’begh was looking at Che’ri with pleading in her eyes. Che’ri might get away with defying the momish, only to have that annoyance come back to dump on the little girl after Che’ri was gone. She’d had a couple of momishes like that, too.

Nothing to do but go along with it. Making a face, she went over to where she’d put her things, dug her questis out of her pack, and climbed into the chair next to Ab’begh’s.

She would never admit it to Thalias or anyone else, but she hated reading.