Rhinann merely tilted his head and shrugged.

Jax had turned and started for his room when every hair on his body stood on end. Something was happening within the confines of his room-something so anomalous he couldn't grasp it. He had heard a blaster overload once-had heard the sound of it grow from a staticky buzz that made his teeth itch to a piercing whine that threatened to remove the top of his head. This was like that, but it was in his brain, in his hones, in his blood.

It was a buildup not of sound, but of the Force.

Jax leapt for the door to his room and flung himself inside. Kajin Savaros lay in the middle of the floor in a fetal position, hands to his head, eyes squeezed tightly shut, rocking back and forth while the Force built up within him like water behind a dam.

In all his years of training with Master Piell, in all the time he had been on his own, Jax had never encountered anything like this. He had no idea what to expect, no idea what to do. On the opposite side of the room the items atop his storage bench began to vibrate. Even as he watched, a hairbrush, a chrono, and a book of Camaasi poetry jigged their way to the edge and fell.

Jax was in motion again before they hit the floor, pushing the Force ahead of him as he dived for the writhing teenager. He wrapped Kaj in soft folds of the Force, projected soothing, velvet calm. Then he grasped the boy's shoulders, his grip firm but gentle. He felt a backlash almost immediately-a kick like a repulsor field. He pushed back.

A bottle of depil cream abruptly cracked, its viscous contents oozing free.

"Kaj!" Jax said, then more sharply, "Kaj! What's wrong?"

The boy let out a wail that penetrated all the way to Jax's soul. "Alone ... alone!"

Grasping at straws, Jax said, "You're not alone, Kaj. You have me now. You have Dejah and the others. You have the Force."

"The-Force-is doing this-to me!" The words came out in painful bursts, the anguish behind them breaking on Jax's mind like storm-driven wave and wind. "And Dejah-Dejah went away. She doesn't like me!"

Is that what this was about-Dejah? Had she been feeding the boy so much emotional stimulus through her pheromones that her absence brought this on?

"Dejah likes you a lot, Kaj. And she'll be back soon."

There was the tiniest letup in the mounting tension- the screaming of Jax's senses muting to a mere roar. Then the boy shook his head, his fisted hands pulling at his hair.

"Not soon enough. Not-soon-enough." His eyes flew open and he reached up to grasp the collar of Jax's tunic. "Make it stop, please, make it stop! It's burning me!"

"What's burning you?"

"The anger."

"Who are you angry with?" Jax asked desperately. "What's made you angry?"

"They sent me away ... sent me here." He shook his head. "I didn't want to come. If I'd stayed, maybe this wouldn't have happened to me."

"You're angry with your parents for sending you away?"

"No ... not them. Him."

"Who? Tell me."

"The Emperor. He took everything. The farm, my life, my parents, my world. Everything. Everything!"

Jax felt it then-the huge gaping hole of loss and loneliness that lay beneath the anger. He had lost his parents, too, but not like this. Where he had grown up in the embrace of the Jedi, Kajin had simply been thrust out on his own, alone, to be overwhelmed by a power he didn't understand.

The Jedi put his arms around the boy and held him tightly, falling into his rocking rhythm as if they were in a boat on water.

"Not alone," Jax told him. "You're not alone. And if you really want to ruin the Emperor's day, don't let the anger rake you. Don't let it win."

"But I can't hold it in."

" Then let it go, Kaj. Don't give in to it. Make it give in to you."

The boy gritted his teeth and drummed his heels on the floor. "I don't know howl"

"Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Say it, Kaj: There is no emotion; there is peace."

"Peace," Kaj whispered.

"There is no ignorance? there is knowledge." Jax saw the boy's lips move in time to his. "There is no pa.s.sion..."

"There is serenity," Kaj whispered, then repeated, "there is serenity."

"There is no death; there is the Force."

They finished the credo in unison, Kaj's tightly wound body finally relaxing a bit in Jax's arms, the white-hot press of rage cooling. Tears slid from the boy's eyes and dripped to the meditation mat. A moment later he was sobbing, and the threads of anger at last loosened and released him.

Jax felt a trickle of perspiration race down his back beneath his tunic and realized he had broken out in a cold sweat. He heard a m.u.f.fled noise and looked up to see Rhinann standing in the doorway, a well-pulped domrai fruit in one hand and a sodden spot on the front of his weskit.

"Will he be doing that often?" he asked. "If so, I suggest we store the fruit in an enclosed s.p.a.ce."

Jax smiled humorlessly. If Kaj did that often, the fruit would be the least of their worries.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Two steps from the cafe. Den looked up to find I-Five regarding him placidly.

"And you were looking for me, why?" Den asked.

"I was a bit . .. concerned about your sudden disappearance earlier. It seemed as though you and Rhinann had a disagreement about something," I-Five said. "Don't tell me you were eavesdropping, too?"

The droid's photoreceptors brightened. "Someone was eavesdropping on your conversation with Rhinann?"

Den shrugged. "I'm not sure, to be honest. But Dejah seemed to know what we'd been talking about, and she would neither confirm nor deny."

"Ah."

The unspoken question, Den figured, was: What would she neither confirm nor deny!

I-Five started walking toward the amorphous center of the sprawling marketplace, and Den fell into step. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"To send a message to a friend." In other words, a Whiplash operative.

"Yeah? Which one?"

"Someone who knows a great deal about the UMI."

The UML, or Underground Mag-Lev, was a route of egress the Whiplash had used for some time to ferry at risk individuals to facilities within several of the nearby s.p.a.ceports where they could he smuggled offworld. Its chief a.s.set, oddly enough, was that it was public enough to be private. You simply melted into the crowds, and if you knew the lay of the tunnels that made up a large part of it, you could disappear and reappear somewhere else in the system in such a way that even surveillance could be defeated.

The secret was a series of secondary tunnels and access tubes that had lain in long disuse and whose very existence had been erased from the engineering records of the world-city. A late high-level Whiplash operative had made certain of that erasure and paid for it with his life. Since the Imperial Security Bureau thought he had been after something else altogether-as had been his intention-they simply a.s.sumed they had stopped the a.s.sa.s.sin and saboteur before he could perform whatever dastardly act he had been contemplating and used his demise as a PR coups Pity Emperor Palpatine-these black-hearted so-and-sos just kept coming after him like madmen. Would they never learn?

"Travel plans for our Togrutan client?" Den asked.

"Yes. Orto is lovely this time of year."

Den glanced sideways at the droid. "Some part of Orto is lovely at any time of year."

I-Five gave an irritated click. "Don't be dense."

"I'm not. It's just that that sort of inaccuracy sounds really strange coming from you. Why Orto?"

"The music. Our friend feels that the fact of the Ortolans' seemingly universal talent for producing highly affective music would be of great benefit for the young lady in question."

Den thought of Kajin Savaros and felt a little bird of guilt with tiny, sharp talons roost in his conscience. He said, "Look, there's something I need to ask you about."

"Tuden Sal." The droid looked down at the Sull.u.s.tan. "I know how you feel about this . . . enterprise. But think about the payoff if I were to succeed."

"Fine, if you'll think about the payoff if you don't. And think about why you want to do it."

"I should think that was perfectly clear."

It's not. Not considering the risks.

- Why do you think I want to do this?

- Vengeance.

That stopped the droid in his cracs, Den was pleased to note. His optics glowed bright with surprise.

"No."

That was it. Just no. The droid turned on his heel and continued walking.

Den trotted to catch up. "That sounded an awful lot like denial."

"It was the truth."

"Are you sure?"

I-Five kept walking; Den had to stretch his legs to keep up.

"Whatever else you may think me capable of," the droid said, "I am not given to lying. Who put that idea into your head?"

"What-now I'm not capable of acquiring ideas to put in my own head?"

I-Five mimicked the sound of a supercilious sniff.

"Okay, it was Dejah ... via Rhinann, or so I gather," Den said.

I-Five slowed his pace. "That's interesting. So they think I'm plotting vengeance on . . . this person ... because he murdered my partner-my friend?"

"That's the long and short of it, yeah."

"And it hasn't occurred to them that while the work we're engaged in now is annoying and costly to the per son in question, this new plan will cut right to the heart of the situation and remove him completely?"

"It's occurred to them. But I guess the question is: why do you in particular have to do this?"

"I stand the greatest chance of success simply because of who and what I am."

"Really? I'm thinking they're thinking that maybe Jax has the best chance of success because of who and what be is, and because of that extra little something he has. Which has the potential of becoming a much bigger something extra, thanks to you.'7 The droid stopped to stare-there was no other word for it. "What are you talking about?"

"That vegetable juice c.o.c.ktail of yours."

"What have they said about it?"

"Not so much said as asked." Den glanced about, then took a step closer to the droid. "They were interested in where it's gone, and seem to have come to the conclusion that you've given it to me."

"Did they say why they were interested in it?"

"I think it basically came down to a fear that when the sky fell, Jax wouldn't have it at his disposal."

"They think I would prevent him from taking it? Why?"

The thought that popped into Den's head unbidden filled him with cold horror. "For the same reason you've taken on the mantle of martyrdom so readily-because you're afraid of what Jax might do if he gets the vengeance bug and the bota at the same time. You're afraid he might take it and get sucked into the darkness. This way, he might be thinking about vengeance, but you'll be the one acting on it."

There was a long, tense pause during which the sounds, colors, and smells of the bazaar seemed to come to Den through thick wads of padding. In all the universe he could see only this droid-this gleaming metal being - this sentient who was willing to sacrifice himself in a last, lethal act of protection.

I-Five put a hand on Den's shoulder . . . and yanked him out of the main thoroughfare into a dark, grimy corner behind a kiosk that smelted of machine lubricant and dust.

"Kark!" Den squeaked. "What in chaos are you..."

A metal hand clamped over his mouth. "Inquisitors," the droid hissed. He released Den's mouth and allowed him to turn within the confines of their bolt-hole.

The skin at the nape of Den's neck tightened and his dewlaps quivered. There were inquisitors all right-three of them, moving together in well-rehea.r.s.ed ch.o.r.eography. Three of them.

"I've never seen them travel together like that," I-Five murmured.

"That makes me feel so much better," Den said.

As they watched, the Inquisitors paused to speak to the weapons dealer across the alley. The booth appeared to be selling domestic water vaporators and distilleries, but everyone who frequented the area knew that that was only a sideline. The Inquisitors were settling in for a thorough interrogation of the visibly terrified Sull.u.s.tan proprietor, when one of them suddenly lifted his cowled head and turned to peer down the street.

Den felt a wave of chill pa.s.s over him. He thanked every Sull.u.s.tan deity he could think of that he wasn't Force-sensitive.

The itchy Inquisitor then turned and said something to his cohorts, and suddenly all three of them were agitated. They moved off swiftly, almost seeming to float above the pocked duracrete of the bazaar, and disappeared into a lift tube at the nearest corner.

Den shivered. Eerie.