Jax knew Haus was talking about Aurra Sing. He had wondered if the Sith lightsaber he now carried hadn't belonged to her-the fact that he'd gotten it from an anonymous source just prior to his confrontation with Sing surely couldn't have been a coincidence. He didn't ask how Haus had known about the connection. He was the police prefect; it was his business to know that sort of thing. Jax just hadn't expected that he would know it. Apparently he had underestimated Pol Haus.

Haus continued, "When someone like that shows up on your turf you find out why as quickly and quietly as you can. I knew she was trailing a Jedi-a young Jedi who matched your description. I called in a few favors, got a list of Jedi who still haven't been run down. Guess whose name was on there." He looked at Jax with a c.o.c.ked eyebrow. "Did you want to be found? 'Cause I'm thinking you sure didn't go to a whole lot of trouble to make yourself scarce."

Now that he'd laid it out, it did seem to Jax that he'd done a remarkably poor job of covering his tracks. He wondered what Haus had divined from how his companions reacted to him. He glanced from Den to Rhinann to Dejah to I-Five. He wasn't going to ask that just now.

Instead he asked, "Vader came to you directly?"

Haus snorted. "Get serious. He sent one of his goons-oh, excuse me-one of his Inquisitors to fetch me. He made sure the meeting took place on his turf and that I was suitably impressed with his security measures and clout."

Jax stiffened. "You were at Vader's headquarters?" Images flashed through his head of tracking devices and furtive tails. Judging from the expression on Rhinann's and Den's faces, their thoughts had taken the same path. Dejah, bless her, seemed not to have caught the sinister implications of the prefect's words. Her lips were parted, her eyes bright, as if he'd just told her she'd been awarded a prize.

I-Five, correctly interpreting Jax's concern, said, "He's clean. Any tracking devices would have pinged the sensor net at the entrance to the mews."

Haus, his gaze never leaving Jax's face, said, "Don't worry. I'm a professional. I went back to my own head quarters and had myself carefully and completely debugged-and yes, there were some stowaways on my person. They're gone now and, no, I don't really give an armored rat's behind what Vader thinks of me removing them. What I do care about." he added, "is that a rogue Force-user-a truly rogue Force-user-might be a little overexcited by his ability to take out Inquisitors. He might develop a taste for it. Fie might strike again. Which would be very bad for all of us."

Jax felt Kaj's presence on the other side of the door to his room, felt the chill spikes of his sudden fear. Fie split his attention, sending the youth calming thoughts.

"So," Haus continued, "I'm sure it comes as no surprise. Pavan, that I need someone of your unique ability to help me find the a.s.sa.s.sin."

Haus's words fell into the room like a gigantic boulder into a placid stream. Kaj's reaction hit Jax in a cold wave of terror. Apparently Dejah sensed it. too, for she rose from her scat, her crimson eyes wide.

"Jax ...," she murmured, hut anything else she might have said was interrupted by a loud thud from the next room and the unmistakable sound of a Sontaran song ball being abused.

Pol Haus frowned, turning to look in the direction of the open doorway. "You have more houseguests?"

"Oh no," said Dejah looking apologetic. "It's my whisperkit droid. I've forgotten to deactivate it... again," she added with charming self-deprecation. "I do that so often, you really should remind me, Jax, not to leave it playing with its toys. I'll just go turn it off."

She swept across the room to Jax's door and disappeared inside. Her voice came back to them lightly only Jax caught the undertone of agitation. "Oh, there you are, you poor thing. Come down from there now. Everything's just fine. Did that nasty song ball scare you?"

They heard the soft chime of the Sontaran meditation device, then Dejah said, "Good droid. Come to Dejah."

Both Den and Rhinann had turned a pale shade of blue-gray and looked about to leap out of their respective skins. I-Five was as impenetrable as a droid was supposed to be.

Jax felt laughter born of relief bubbling up from his throat. He pushed it back down. Without doubt, Dejah was the only one among them who could have walked into that room just then with the least chance of being felled by the frightened boy's power. Dejah was, at that moment, the only one Kajin trusted. Jax almost shook his head in bemus.e.m.e.nt: a Zeltron empath accomplishing what even a Jedi Knight most likely could not.

He turned back to Pol Haus. "You were saying you wanted our help finding the a.s.sa.s.sin. What do you intend to do with him if we catch him?"

It was not Jax's imagination that everyone in the room held his breath.

After a moment of close scrutiny, the prefect said slowly, deliberately, "Turning him over to Vader is out of the question. He killed an Inquisitor, so he's clearly not a Sith or a Sith sympathizer. That means his abilities could be used by the Jedi."

"Prefect," Jax said quietly, "I don't know that there are any other Jedi on Coruscant-or anywhere else for that matter."

Haus lowered his horned head and gave Jax an almost sly look out of the corners of his eyes. "I have it on good authority that there are other Jedi about. Can't tell you where or who, but I'm convinced they're there. And this powerful an adept shouldn't be lost to them, I'm thinking."

Den leaned forward in his window eas.e.m.e.nt. "So you'd-what-help smuggle him offworld? Go underground? What? I mean, Vader would expect you to turn the killer in, right?"

"Yes. he would. Which is why when I tell him that the killer died while we were in pursuit of him-fell into the materials hopper of a fabber at the s.p.a.ceport, say- he would most likely believe me."

Jax blinked and met the prefect's golden eyes. He swept him again with his Force sense-which he was convinced the Zabrak knew he was doing-and again saw the swirling ribbons of smoky darkness encircling him. They were dimmer now, less active, but they were still there.

Darth Vader's residual touch, or something else? Something dark that emanated from Pol Flaus himself?

Jax knew the prefect was asking for trust, for cooperation, but he also knew the consequences if those were mistakenly given. He couldn't take that chance, even though Haus seemed to have disinterred a great deal of information about their activities-at least insofar as they concerned Aurra Sing.

Did he know these things, or was he merely guessing, hoping Jax would reveal more?

"You'll understand if I'm reluctant to jump into this," Jax said. "You're talking about a potential Jedi, and I've only your word that you mean this person no harm."

The Zabrak nodded. "Yes, though I might be able to get someone else's word. Someone you trust. And besides, I've shown that I mean yon no harm, Jedi. I've suspected that you were more than you made yourself out to be for some time. I could have run to Vader and said, Hey, check out this bunch. They've got connections on their connections, and their leader seems to always land on his feet no matter who's trying to stomp on his toes. I haven't done that."

"Maybe because we're too valuable to you," suggested Den. "Up till now, anyway. Now you've got a chance to maybe look like a big hero to His Dark Lordliness. And maybe if we help you find this . . . this person, you'll just hand him over to Vader, figuring there's nothing we can do without putting our own lives in jeopardy. And if we don't help you find him, maybe you just hand over Jax instead."

That thought had also occurred to Jax and filled him with a sinking dread. To have to leave Coruscant, to run away from all he wanted to accomplish, away from the chance at finding out the truth about his father's death ...

"Oh, I don't believe Pol Haus would do anything so dastardly."

All eyes turned to where Dejah Duare stood in the doorway of Jax's room, gleaming like a red sunset. She crossed back to the seating area, wafting so close to the prefect that her translucent gowns brushed his disreputable duster.

"As he noted himself." she continued, "he's had reason to suspect our situation here for some time and he's done nothing. The plan he suggests might even satisfy Darth Vader and make it even less likely that we'll be discovered. I feel we should consider his job offer."

"Dejah Duare is absolutely right," Haus said, smiling crookedly. "I have no reason to want to disband this group or sever my ties with it. You get results that my forces can't. Besides, if I were to betray the Inquisitor killer to Darth Vader, you'd just try to rescue him. With all due respect, you put your lives in danger every' day of the year. Your lives are in danger at this very moment. Things move out there in the dark," he added, sweeping a broad gesture toward the city outside Den's window cas.e.m.e.nt. "You know that as well as I do. And some of them are looking for you."

"How kind of you to remind us," said I-Five, speaking for the first time. The sound of his voice made Den start visibly and nearly topple from his window ledge.

The Zabrak prefect laughed. "I've had opportunities to help them find you. I haven't. I won't. Your choice on whether you believe that or not."

Jax glanced at Dejah. She could sense the emotional subtext of Haus's message; what did she think? She gave the slightest nod. the merest glimmer of a smile.

"All right," Jax said. "We'll help you find your Force-user. But if he's as powerful as Vader says he is, then he may be impossible to find . . . unless he wants to be found."

The unseen listener in Jax's quarters coiled and uncoiled, still teetering on the edge of terror.

"Understood." The prefect turned on his heel and started for the front door, the job interview apparently at an end.

Jax moved with him, side by side, to the door and saw him out into the hall. "Tell me, Prefect," he said, "what about my companions' reactions hinted to you that I was a Jedi?"

Pol Haus turned to look at him, a wry almost-smile on his lips. "You're the youngest of them, but they all look to you for direction. Even the Gray Paladin did when she was here. A question is asked, they all watch your face as if the answer is there. And though you are also the most soft-spoken, the least verbose..." A glance back through the door. "...you're the one who makes and speaks the decisions. I can think of no one of your age who would be accorded that respect if he or she were not a Jedi."

"Oh," Jax said, showing some of the eloquence for which he was not famed. "I see."

"So do I. But relax. Most people don't notice things like that. Just avoid students of sentient nature like me."

He gave a sloppy half salute with one hand and turned to go.

"Whose word?"

"What?" The prefect arrested his shambling gait and turned to look at Jax over his shoulder.

"Whose word would you give that we'd trust?"

"Now, that would be promising what I might not be able to deliver. Or it might be revealing an important source of information. Or it might be betraying a friend. Or all or none of the above. Have your droid patch into the 'Net in about an hour. I'll be sending you what I've got on the murder from the Imperial Security drones."

Jax nodded, then watched the police prefect make his way down the corridor, looking nothing like what he was. There had been a time when Jax Pavan had regarded Pol Haus as a disorganized, easily befuddled Imperial functionary. Now he wasn't sure what to make of him.

Chapter Nine.

"He's gone," Jax said as he reentered the living room. "It's all right, Kaj, you can come out."

A moment later the boy appeared, looking highly spooked.

Jax smiled at him rea.s.suringly. "It looks as if we may have another ally."

"I'd withhold judgment on that," advised Rhinann. "You can never be too careful."

"Actually, you can," I-Five said. "And you can miss opportunities that way."

Still keeping tabs on Kaj through the Force, Jax turned his objective attention to the droid. "And is this an opportunity or a risk?"

"Aren't they two sides of the same coin? Opportunity rarely comes without risk."

"Oh, stop it, Five," said Den. "You sound like a carnival oracle droid. Opportunity, my aunt Freema's dewlaps. All this is, is one more person-one more person with a link to His Evilness-who knows Jax is a Jedi. I see no particular upside to that. I think we should relocate immediately."

"Ah. Somewhere nor on this planet, I a.s.sume."

"I'm willing to compromise. I'll consider the same galactic sector."

"But where would I go?" Kajin asked. He hovered at he very edge of the seating area, the light sculpture washing him with lambent hues.

"No one is going anywhere," said Jax.

Den stared at him. "Haus could be on his way to Vader right this minute."

"Den," said I-Five, "you're showing every sign of rampant paranoia."

"You know the difference between paranoia and realistic concern? Breathing. The way I see it," Den said, "Haus has little to lose by tipping Vader to us and much to gain in the way of prestige. I don't trust him."

Behind Jax, Kaj uttered a sick moan and, much to Jax's astonishment, disappeared entirely from Jax's Force radar. Startled, the Jedi turned just as the boy slid into a formchair, simultaneously coming back into sight, as it were.

Had Kaj just disconnected from the Force? Could he do this at will? From his att.i.tude he seemed unaware of what had just happened. Even so, the implications were stunning. Jax opened his mouth to say something, but Dejah had launched into a disagreement with Den.

"That's because you can't sense him. Den. Not like Jax and I can. Right, Jax?"

"I..." Jax pulled his attention away from Kajin, who continued to brood. "What I sense from Haus is . . . anomalous. He's got some dark ribbons of Force around him, but they don't seem to be connected to Vader, or anyone else, which is unusual. There's an underlying agitation there, though. My sense of it is that he's more disturbed by Vader than he cares to admit."

"Well, I'm not sensing anything anomalous," Dejah said. "I don't sense any duplicitous emotions from him at all."

"You're not getting your psychic impressions of him through the Force," Rhinann pointed out.

"Which leads me to trust them all the more."

A moment of somewhat stunned silence followed this. Then Jax said, "Before, when he was playing the bungling detective, did you realize that's what he was doing? Did you sense duplicity then?"

Dejah stared at him in surprise. He felt suddenly contrite and nearly apologized aloud.

"I sensed no malice," she answered.

"But neither did you realize that he was concealing his true nature," said I-Five.

Anger flashed briefly in the Zeltron's eyes. "I sensed he was hiding no hostility," she repeated.

"Why would you a.s.sume that anyone who meant us harm must necessarily feel hostility for us?" the droid asked. "Beings often hurt each other for reasons other than emotional impulse. Some of the greatest atrociries in history have been orchestrated with complete dispa.s.sion. The Emperor's annihilation of the Caamasi homeworld, for example, or, to put it on a more personal level, Tuden Sal's betrayal of Jax's father. In the latter case, Sal certainly held no malice toward him. If you had been privy to the last meeting Lorn and I had with him, you would very likely have come to the same conclusion: we were in no danger, because Sal wasn't hostile toward us."

"What about you, I-Five?" Jax asked the droid. "You' re a student of humanoid body language. Do you think Pol Haus is enough of a threat that we should leave Coruscant?"

"I think we may wish to relocate somewhere else in the city, perhaps keeping this place up as a front. But not so much because I distrust Pol Haus as because I trust Vader to be hypervigilant. I also think that if Pol Haus is our enemy, he has the potential to be a bad one, because he will most certainly have all the usual means of escape watched, if not already closed. Getting offworld cleanly is probably not a realistic option at this point."

Jax again felt Kaj's emotions spike. Then he winked out again. Jax swung around to face him.

"What are you doing?"

The boy, Force-visible once more, froze as he was rising from the chair. Liquid light from the sculpture splashed his face.

"I was just..." he started, but Jax cut him off.

"No, I mean how did you shield yourself from the Force just now?"

The boy swallowed in obvious confusion. "I ... I didn't do anything."

"Twice in the last couple of minutes you have virtually disappeared from view through the Force. Are you sure you didn't make that happen?"

"I didn't do anything," Kaj repeated, a note of sullenness creeping into his voice.

"Not consciously, perhaps," said I-Five, regarding the young Force prodigy with obvious interest. "But it could have been an involuntary part of your fight-or-flight response. What were you feeling just now?"

"Afraid. I was feeling afraid. Nervous. I don't want to leave Coruscant. My parents said they'd try to come here to find me. If I leave ..."

"Fear?" Jax looked at the droid. "You're suggesting he disappears when his fear reaches panic proportions? I've never heard of any Force-sensitive who could do that. Besides, when he was confronted with the Inquisitor he didn't just disappear. He fought. He used the Force to fight, not to hide."

I-Five turned to the boy. "You've been dodging the Inquisitors for some time now. Are you certain there isn't some trick you use-something that may even seem second nature to you-that allows you to hide yourself from them? Something that's allowed you to escape them?"

"I've escaped them by knowing where they are and using the Force as little as possible when they're around."