"Uh ...Kaj said. Then suddenly as if in discovery, "Yes! Yes. I can see the lake."

"Good. Let's follow the river . . ."

They went on like that for some time-hours, in fact-during which Jax was certain Kaj would become bored or sleepy or confused and impatient. He did none of those things. He followed his river, making it go here and there, rise and fall, ripple and sing, without ever allowing it to become a white-water rapid.

After a time, Jax set a Sontaran song ball out on the floor between them and had Kaj perform the placid, soothing ritual of using the merest tendril of the Force to roll the ball back and forth between them. As they did this, they recited the Jedi Code as a call and response. The ball-which was made of a rare t.i.tanium alloy of great tensile strength-was composed of a sphere within a sphere. The two touched as the thing moved, creating a low, sonorous note that rose and fell like the breathing of an immense flute.

Jax gave the ball the barest nudge with the Force, rolling it to Kaj: "There is no emotion; there is peace."

"There is no ignorance," said Kaj, rolling it back, "there is knowledge."

"There is no pa.s.sion; there is serenity."

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

The boy had hesitated at first, sometimes forgetting the words, sometimes unable to push the ball in the right direction. But he had mastered it quickly, as someone with the reflexes of a youth rather than a toddler can, and now the ball sang between them in the weaving of Jax's threads and the gentle push of Kaj's currents.

It was a safe-enough exercise; even an Inquisitor standing in the street below their aerie would have trouble reading the gentle warp, woof, and tidal surge of the schoolroom practice. But what they would do when more rigorous training was called for. Jax couldn't yet imagine. Sooner or later he would have to train Kaj to control his impulses in the heat of combat, and that would take a good deal more than gentle nudging.

Still, it was, all in all, a good start. Jax was congratulating himself when Dejah tapped at the door, then entered without waiting to be admitted. Simultaneously the song ball shot past Jax, barely missing his right thigh, and hit the wall behind him with a resounding crack and a loud thrum of the inner resonator sphere. Dejah leapt back a step with a high-pitched squeak.

"Kaj-the river. Mind the currents." said Jax, keeping his voice pitched low, but the boy was already on his feet, his composure shattered to pieces.

"I-I'm sorry," he stammered.

"No, I'm sorry," Dejah said contritely. "I was just wondering if you were hungry. You've been in here for hours. I thought maybe you could use a break."

Jax glanced from her to Kaj, whose face had gone almost as red as the Zeltron's. He knew he should send Dejah away and make Kaj resume his meditations. It's what his own Master would have done. Master Piell had not been a grim authoritarian, by any means, but had known that a Padawan must learn early how to retrieve lost composure or shattered concentration.

He opened his mouth to say the words We have more work to do, but a look at Dejah's face stopped them in his throat. Instead, he nodded. "You're right. We've been at this a long time. I'm sure Kaj could use a break and a good meal-right, Kaj?"

The boy nodded mutely, his eyes never leaving the Zeltron.

"Well, come on then!" she said pertly and curled a finger at Kaj before disappearing through the door.

Kaj scrambled after her, giving Jax an apologetic sidewise glance. "It won't happen again," he murmured.

Not true, Jax thought. With Dejah around it most likely would. And if it did ...

Jax crossed the room and picked up the now slightly dented song ball. The plasticrete wall, supposedly resilient up to a metric ton of pressure, had sustained equal damage. And who knew how loud the roar of that white-water surge had been? Jax had been deep in his own meditation and he had felt it. His thigh still tingled with the residual energy.

In the outer room Dejah uttered a throaty laugh that was followed by a diffident echo from Kaj. Something stirred uneasily beneath Jax's breastbone-something he couldn't quire put a name to. One of the first things he was going to have to teach Kajin Savaros, he decided, was how to block or at least filter Dejah Duare's heady "perfume."

Rhinann had no reasonable expectation that the droid would divulge any information about the bota, but on the off-chance that some vestige of his original programming had survived Lorn Pavan's tinkering, he asked anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as the humans said.

So when Rhinann and I-Five were alone in the workstation alcove, the Elomin decided there would be no better time. Everyone else seemed to be engaged in the current pursuit of smuggling a Togrutan female with nascent Force abilities offworld via the UML.

He thought of his travel arrangements, of how easy it would be to simply pack up and leave . .. were it not for the arrival of the Force prodigy and the fact that Rhinann had been less than aggressive in his search for the bota. It wouldn't do to be slavish in sticking to a timetable. That sort of tunnel vision could lead to missed opportunity-like the one he was now presented with.

Deciding that honesty-or something close to it-was the best policy, Rhinann seized the moment, sat back in his workstation formchair, and said, "I am troubled by the amount of attention that may soon be trained upon us."

After a moment of hesitation, I-Five disengaged from whatever online information he had been pursuing and responded. "Really? Why is that?"

"Why is that?" Rhinann repeated. "I should think that would It obvious, particularly to you." He ticked the reasons off on his long, spatulate fingers. "Our houseguest is a Force-sensitive-that makes him a prime target for Lord Vader's continued purges. He has been pursued by an Inquisitor-ergo, he has drawn attention to himself. Ergo, Vader cannot help but know of his existence. He has killed an Inquisitor..."

"We don't know that for a fact," l-Five said with maddening imperturbability.

"Then he's injured one, at the very least. And he drew Laranth and Jax into his a.s.sociation. How can you possibly think that we are not at increased risk of exposure?"

I can, because one thing has not changed: Vader has no more information about us or our activities or location as a result of Kajin's appearance than he had previously." I-Five gestured at the HoloNet link. "I monitor several different bands that convey cla.s.sified intel, and none of them has given me any reason to suspect otherwise. Trust me: so far, Vader knows nothing of this."

"He docs if his Inquisitor saw Jax and Laranth come to the boy's rescue."

"A moment ago," said the droid drily, "the Inquisitor was dead. He can have hardly observed anything in that state."

Rhinann kept calm. "If he was only injured, he might have seen Jax and Laranth save the boy."

"At the time that Jax and Laranth arrived on the scene, the Inquisitor was being blown sky-high by a blast of repulsor energy. Jax was blinded standing outside looking into the blast. I can't imagine what the Inquisitor might have seen from inside the blast zone, but I doubt it was Jax and Laranth."

The stupid droid was apparently bent on being utterly uncooperative. Rhinann strove for composure. "Bur he sensed them, surely. He would have known other Jedi were involved."

"Perhaps he did. But he was incapacitated, or so Jax sensed."

"How do we know that wasn't the taozin effect?"

The droid had to think about that, and Rhinann felt absurdly pleased. "Jax has told me," I-Five said, "that once you know what to expect, the effect can be sensed."

"I heard him. He said it could be sensed as a complete absence or blockage of the Force-as if someone were no longer there. As if, perhaps, they had been knocked senseless?"

The metal face was completely opaque. "That is a possibility, I suppose."

Thank the G.o.ds! At last, an admission of uncertainty. Rhinann pounced on it. "Well then, perhaps you can understand my uneasiness. If the Emperor's henchmen were to locate us, it would be disastrous for more than just our company. The Whiplash would suffer as well, and a great many precious things would fall into enemy hands-Jax, that extraordinary boy... you. And of course, there is the Sith Holocron Jax is guarding and that bit of pyronium Anakin Skywalker gave him-and . . ."

Rhinann turned to look at the droid directly. "And the bota."

The droid's only reaction was a c.o.c.king of his head and a brightening of his optics. "What do you know about the bota?"

"I know that Jedi Barriss Offee gave it to you to transport here to the Jedi Temple. I also know what properties the bota is supposed to have and their value to the Jedi... or to Darth Vader. I think we are both in agreement that for the Dark Lord to come into possession of such a prize would be beyond disastrous. It has the potential to render him virtually omnipotent."

The droid studied him for a moment, then said, "Rhinann, we have no idea what the bota will do to one as steeped in the Force as Vader is. None."

"Well, it can't be good."

"We agree on that, at least."

Rhinann leaned forward in his chair. "Have you given no thought to what might happen if Vader should possess not only the bota, but the pyronium and the Sith Holocron?"

"I have given it as much thought as it deserves."

Rhinann bit back his frustration. This was like talking to a cryptogram generator. "And has it not occurred to you that these items should be separated?"

"Yes. Some time ago, in fact."

Rhinann feigned relief. "Then you've distributed them to several different hiding places."

"I've done what I thought necessary."

Maddening, perverse, obstinate . . . the list of vices that no droid should ever possess grew exponentially in length. What in the name of creation could Lorn Pavan have been thinking?

"So you've given the bota to Jax already?"

"I have seen to its safety. That's all you should know, Don't you think?"

Stung, Rhinann opened his mouth to protest, but I-Five continued, "After all, if I tell you who has the bota and you're captured by Darth Vader, then the dark side would alert him to the fact that you had information he wanted. Information he would cheerfully scour your skull to get."

Rhinann felt the blood drain from his head. "You're right, of course," he murmured, surrendering. There was no use in interrogating a thing that would nor permit itself to be interrogated. "I certainly wouldn't want to be caught with any information Vader might find useful."

"No," said I-Five. "You wouldn't."

It was evening by the chrono and everyone was home from their various tasks when the door chime sounded, Jax felt a thrill of mingled dread and antic.i.p.ation course through him. He'd been working with Kaj at improving the boy's ability to concentrate, and Jax wryly realized that the interruption had disturbed his meditations far more than it had the boy's. Kaj remained seated cross-legged, apparently a few centimeters or so above the mat upon which they meditated. Jax had dropped to the floor.

Silly, really: the enemy would not chime politely and ask to be admitted, so this was not an attack. Why the reaction? He thought of Tuden Sal and Laranth in the same heartbeat-Sal might be back to press for an answer to his proposal, and Laranth ...

He stood and found Kajin's gaze on him.

"Stay here," Jax instructed. "We don't want to advertise your presence, okay?"

The boy nodded and returned to his contemplations, bobbing slightly higher above the mat.

Jax shook his head as he went to the living room - Kaj made it look so easy. It had never been that easy for him.

Den had answered the door by the time he reached the outer room, admitting Pol Haus. The Zabrak police prefect looked positively grim. The emotion behind the expression on his face was so intense that Jax realized it was what had pulled him from his meditations. Haus was wrapped in dark Force threads that, though as insubstantial as smoke, were troublingly sinister and seemed to be in constant motion. They went nowhere; they simply wound themselves around the prefect in a visible a.n.a.log for the tension that showed in his face as pale gray lines bracketing his mouth.

The prefect stepped through the conapt doorway and let the door glide shut behind him before he spoke.

"We've got a situation," he said without preamble.

Jax exchanged glances with Den. "A situation?" he prompted.

The Zabrak fixed him with a steady gaze. His eyes, usually distracted and unfocused, were as sharp as the pointy-end of a vibrosword. This, Jax realized, was the real Pol Haus-the man who lived beneath the carefully cultivated air of shambling disorganization.

"One of your lot has murdered an Inquisitor."

"One of my lot?"

Haus tipped his horned head to one side. "C'mon, kid. Do I have to spell it out? A Jedi-if not officially, then a pretty powerful Force-sensitive. Seems he or she fried this Inquisitor with the energy siphoned from a couple of badly aligned repulsor fields. Is that in your repertoire?"

"Oh frip," muttered Den.

Jax very nearly took a step backward but, sensing no hostility from the Zabrak, stood his ground. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "Of course that's not in my repertoire. I'm not..."

"Save it, Pavan. I don't have time to let you blowsmoke at me, and you don't want to make me mad at you. Look, I'm not going to give you up to the Inquisitorius, if that's what you're wondering, so let's just see if we can't work past this momentary awkwardness and get to the heart of the nutter."

That had, in fact, been what Jax had been wondering - if he was looking a threat in the face. Now, reaching out toward Haus with tendrils of Force, he wasn't so sure.

"Jax . . ." Den shifted nervously from foot to foot, glancing up at the Jedi's face. Apparently not liking what he saw there, he swore again, this time more volubly.

"No," Jax said, in answer to Haus. "No, it's not in my repertoire. I don't have that kind of ability."

Pol Haus nodded. "That's sort of what I figured. The perp was described to me as a rogue Force-sensitive, dangerous and out of control. It was suggested to me that I do everything in my power, move every resource at my disposal, to run this rampaging adept to ground."

"Suggested by ... ?" Den asked.

Haus kept his gaze on Jax as he answered Den's question. "Darth Vader."

Den made an incoherent sound somewhere between a groan and a growl. Jax blinked and gave Haus's mantle of Force threads a more careful look. Yes, they made more sense now. The prefect had been touched by the emissary of the dark side. The touch still stained his personal aura-and obviously disturbed him a great deal.

"So that's why I'm here," the prefect continued. "If a Jedi or some rogue Force-user offed this Inquisitor, you're the best person to help me find them before they a.s.sa.s.sinate another one."

Jax gestured at the room behind him. "Why don't you come in and have a seat and we'll discuss it?"

Our of the corner of his eye he could sec the expression on the Sull.u.s.tan's face. Dumbfounded didn't even begin to cover it. Jax nudged Den into motion as he turned to follow the prefect into the living room.

What are you doing? Den mouthed at him.

Jax waved the journalist back, mouthing in return, Get I-Fife and Dejah, and nodding toward the workstation alcove. Den scurried away while Jax led the prefect into the living room.

Jax knew that Den had no idea what he was doing. Truth he told, Jax himself wasn't sure what he was doing, but he was painfully aware that the object of Pol Haus's search was sitting not six meters away, separated from them by a meager plasticrete wall-a wall that would prove to be no barrier at all should Kaj panic and invoke his connection to the Force.

Prefect Haus would learn then mighty fast where the rogue Force-sensitive was hiding. a.s.suming that he survived the discovery ...

Chapter Eight.

"How did you know I was a Jedi?" Jax stood where the kinetic light from Ves Volette's sculpture played across his face, obscuring his expression from the police prefect, who paced up and down the center of the living room, his dingy topcoat swirling about his legs. "Who or what-gave me away?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes."

"No big proof. More like a body of evidence. A lot of little things. The way your companions and a.s.sociates react to you. The way you carry yourself. The way you observe what's going on around you. The way you react to it. The way you seem to disappear from my radar sometimes when I know you're there. The way your hand hovers over your left hip when you sense danger. The speed of your reactions ..." Haus shrugged. "Someone sent a bounty hunter after you-a Sith-trained bounty hunter. You came back alive; she didn't."