
Work had always come before play in Morgan's life, and some habits are hard to break. He
instructed the on-board computer to run a routine diagnostics check on the floater's power plant and
tugged, snapped, and swore the awning into place. It was then, and only then, that he took time for lunch.
The cooler, which had its own power source, was extremely efficient. The beer was cold, the locally
grown fruit juicy, and the sandwich filling.
Having eaten his fill and restowed his gear, Morgan decided to circle the rock. The landmark was so
prominent and so close to the road that it was certain to have been noticed. Maybe, just maybe, he'd find
something of interest.
Gravel crunched under his boots, an insect buzzed in his face, and beads of sweat dotted Morgan's
forehead. A wave of hot, sultry air swept in from the plains, ruffled the low-growing bushes, and lost its
will to live.
Fissures appeared in the rock. Some were large enough to stick his hand into, though he didn't.
Patches of lichen clung here and there, and an animal scurried into its burrow. Interesting but not what he
had hoped for. No graffiti, no pictographs, and no tool marks.
Finally, having circumnavigated three-quarters of the rock and concluding that it had no secrets to
conceal, Morgan found the very thing he'd been looking for - signs of life.
The first thing he noticed was that while the blue-green ground cover grew fairly evenly everywhere
else, this patch of earth was bare. So bare, and covered with strange, striated tracks, that he concluded it
was subject to ongoing use.
of equal interest was the fact that twenty-five or thirty holes had been excavated in the area. All were
shallow, and some contained scraps of semitransparent tissue that produced an unpleasant odor and
dwindled in size as insects carved the treasure into bug-sized servings and carried them away. What was
the stuff, anyway? And, more important, what created it? And why?
At first, Morgan thought the holes were too symmetrical to be the work of animals, but that was
before he remembered the nearly identical nests that Sulon's flatwings liked to construct and realized his
assumption was wrong. He had no reason to believe that sentients were associated with the holes, but
that was the way it felt. Such feelings Morgan had fought to suppress his entire adult life.
Morgan had always been aware of the Force. As a child, with no one to guide his actions, he had
used his abilities to animate toys, to entertain his baby sister, to nudge people in the direction he wanted
them to go and, finally, in an act that changed the rest of his life, to push a bully off balance. Not much,
just a little, so his first blow would be more effective. And the stratagem had worked. How could
Morgan know that the bully would stagger backward? Would trip over a root? Would fall ten meters to
the rocks below? Would die as a result?
No one knew what had actually taken place that day, and no one ever would, except for Morgan.
And what he knew, or thought he knew, was that he was too weak, too flawed to be trusted with such
an ability, a talent that never ceased to plague him, to convey information he didn't want to receive, to
remind him of that terrible day.
Suddenly paranoid, Morgan looked up and scanned the horizon. The desert shimmered and, with the
exception of a single wind rider, was empty of life. Or so it appeared. But the Force said otherwise.