Jax and I-Five exchanged glances. "You mean you've learned to read the taozin signature?" asked Jax. "The damping field? In other words, you know where they are by sensing where they're not?"

"Is that what it is?" Kaj shrugged, apparently unwinding a little bir. He cast a shy smile at Dejah, who continued to hover in the background. "It feels like ripples to me. Like weird little splashes-water flowing around a rock." He looked into the light sculpture and took a deep breath. " Y'know, looking at this thing is relaxing. Maybe I could use it for meditation." He moved a step closer to Ves Volette's masterpiece ... and disappeared for the third time.

"What is it?" I-Five asked, and Jax realized he was staring once again at the boy.

"He just disappeared, didn't he?" Dejah asked, her voice hushed. "You can't feel the Force from him while he's standing that close to the sculpture."

"How do you know?"

"I lost him telempathically, too. Or nearly so. He's ... muted. Gray."

"I'm gray?" Kaj looked at his arms as if expecting to see himself in black-and-white.

Jax felt a rising tide of excitment wash through him. "Kaj, step away from the light sculpture."

"Huh?"

He waved the boy back with one hand. Kaj looked puzzled but did as asked. He reappeared in the Force as soon as he had cleared the dance of light by about half a meter.

"Dejah?" Jax murmured.

She nodded solemnly. "He's back. Vividly."

Jax motioned at Kaj. "Now walk around behind it."

Kaj obeyed, moving behind the light sculpture at a distance of about a meter. His Force threads broke like so many strands of hair-thin synthsiik. With his eyes, Jax could see him vaguely through the kinetic display, but he couldn't see him at all with the Force.

"Walk away from the sculpture," he told Kaj. "Move toward the wall."

The boy did, and remained hidden from the Force.

"Incredible," murmured Dejah. "I had no idea Ves's light sculptures possessed this property." Brow furrowed, she moved slowly around the display, stopping only when she stood next to Kaj opposite Jax. Then she peered at the Jedi through the moving pattern of lights.

"I can't sense you," she murmured, then glanced from Den to Rhinann. "Any of you." The idea seemed to disturb her. Wrapping her arms about herself, she left the room without another word.

"What was that about?" Den asked.

"Perhaps," said Rhinann, "one of us should inquire. She seemed ... unhappy. I'll go," he added, before anyone else could respond, then moved after Dejah with an alacritv that was no less surprising than the gesture itself.

To his further amazement, Jax could swear that Den had also made a move in Dejah's direction. He didn't have time to give heads.p.a.ce to the Zeltron woman's peculiar reaction to their discovery, however. She overall implications of it as far as their current predicament was concerned were too important.

Jax, I-Five, and Kaj all gathered around the undulating display of colorful light. A moment later Den joined them, and they all stood looking at the thing like a flock of art gallery patrons gawking at the newest exhibit.

"Any theories, I-Five?" Jax asked the droid. "Any idea how or why the light sculptures might cause this sort of damping effect?"

"The display itself uses a combination of electro- and bioluminescence, so I suppose there is a possibility that it could somehow warp the kinetic energies of biological ent.i.ties. But I think it more likely that it's the power source. The light sculpture creates a cohesion field capable of bending light to the desired shape by using a lightsaber crystal. Perhaps it bends more than light."

Jax stared at the droid. "You're saying the Force might not be blocked, but instead shunted somewhere else?"

"Possibly, but not necessarily. I would suggest, given the challenges inherent in training your Padawan, that you may wish to conduct some simple experiments. There are still at least half a dozen of these sculptures in Ves Volette's studio. It would be interesting to know if they all create the same effect, and if they damp telekinetic and other psionic forces-or, as you suspect, shunt them off somewhere else."

"What I'm wondering," said Jax, "is what would happen if a Force-user was surrounded by them. Would they make an effective wall?"

"A redistribution enclosure?" suggested I-Five. "Something like an EM cage?"

"A what?" Den wanted to know.

"An electromagnetic cage is an enclosure lined with conducting metal designed to block various frequencies of radiation," I-Five explained. "It's extremely versatile and has been used for millennia. What Jax is postulating is essentially the same concept, applied to the Force."

"Hard to believe that someone hasn't stumbled across such a basic concept already," Jax said.

"Not really. For centuries the only ones really interested in the Force were the Jedi, and their R and D was much more esoteric and theoretical than practical. Their emphasis was always on ways to augment the Force, rather than restrict it." The droid looked closely at the light structure. "We'll no doubt have to tweak the frequency for optimal results."

Jax glanced toward the closed door to Dejah s quarters. "Not without her permission. She loves those sculptures. They're all she's got left of Ves Volette."

"Naturally, we would get her permission," I-Five conceded. "But I can't imagine she would withhold it. She has, after all, been an outspoken proponent of you pursuing a serious training regimen with Kajin."

"You really think a shield of these things would work?" the boy asked, staring up into the play of light.

"There's only one way to find out," Jax said, and turned toward Dejah's quarters.

I-Five put a pewter-shaded hand on his shoulder. "I think perhaps you should wait until Rhinann has had a chance to ascertain what's bothering her."

Jax felt a twinge of remorse. He'd been so wrapped up in their discovery that he hadn't given thought to Dejah's apparent discomfort with it. He should have gone after her. he supposed, but this... he gave the light sculpture another appraising glance. This could be the perfect solution to his current quandary.

He wondered how the Elomin was faring in his attempt to comfort the Zeltron. He'd thought Rhinann completely immune to Dejah's gentle emotional rugging and prodding. Apparently he'd been wrong.

"Dejah, are you unwell?" Rhinann stood on the threshold of the Zeltron's room and peered in at her.

She had gone immediately to sir in a false window seat, staring at a projected image of her late lover's equally deceased homeworld, Caamas. The Empire had seen fit to all but extinguish the elegant and gentle Caamasi, Rhinann recalled. Only a handful of those living on the planet, and emigrants to other worlds, had survived the scourge.

"Fliding," she said softly. "Ves was hiding from me, Rhinann. He had surrounded himself with objects behind which he could hide from me emotionally--withhold himself from me-whenever he wished."

"Perhaps he didn't realize that." Rhinann said. He felt excruciatingly uncomfortable-the only species that found speaking about emotions more anathema than Elomin were Givin.

She shook her head. "No, he knew it. He must have known it, to have used it so carefully that I never suspected. If it were a random effect, he would have disappeared emotionally at random moments, not... merely when he wanted to. Not merely how he wanted to." She seemed to struggle for a moment with the idea, then added, "I thought I was party to his private thoughts and feelings, the direct reflection of his soul. But he was only allowing me to catch a mured echo."

"Oh, surely he wouldn't he so cruel."

"He wasn't being cruel." She looked up at him with wide, tear-filled eyes. "He was just being private, independent. It's too much to expect a non-Zeltron to be as-as public as we are. He just wanted to keep some of himself ... for himself. And so he died, surrounded by his barrier of light. It has always bothered me that I didn't feel even a touch of fear or pain from him that day, and now I understand why. Even the day his world died ..." She put a hand up to her mouth.

"I doubt you would have wanted to feel that, my dear," said Rhinann, trying to go for an avuncular impression. "Your kind are not known for their tolerance of negative emotions."

"No, and right now I'm feeling . .. betrayed. I know I shouldn't. I know it was just his way of retaining a sense of privacy, but..."

"Consider your friend's kindness in sparing you the full brunt of his grief," Rhinann suggested. "Perhaps that will a.s.suage your feelings of betrayal."

She smiled wryly and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her garment-a gesture that Rhinann found strangely charming, given his usual distaste for such things.

"Count my blessings, Rhinann?" she murmured. "An odd sentiment, coming from you."

Yes, it was, rather. He caught himself, realizing what was happening. In her agitated state, Dejah Duare was undoubtedly pumping more pheromono into the atmosphere than she usually did, so much so that sonic of them were creeping past his natural immunity. He shook himself. He must not be distracted from his goal.

"My dear," he said, retaining the endearment because he thought it useful, "can you be thinking that Jax Pavan also might use this technology to hide from you, as you put it?"

She blinked up at him, eyes sparkling with tears. "It... it... Now that you mention it, yes, he certainly could. He has the Force to hide behind, of course." Her mouth turned up at the corners and her eyes shed bereavement as if it were a transient film, to be flicked away with a wink. "But that's entirely different. The Force, even used to filter or block, has such interesting . . . textures. In some ways it's more satisfying to the touch than the emotions it conceals."

Rhinann was intrigued and annoyed simultaneously. This hedonistic telempath clearly had a higher midichlorian count than he did. If she did not possess a capacity for Force manipulation herself, she clearly could sense it.

"Textures?" he repeated. "How interesting."

"Oh, more than interesting." She drew her knees up under her chin and hugged them. The gesture was at once child-like and seductive. Or would have been, if the Elomin were capable of being seduced.

"Even when Jax pulls the Force across himself like a curtain," she continued, "it's a curtain of amazing depth and nuance. Like ... a warm bath, like sun-heated sand beneath your feet, like morning gra.s.s at the first touch of the sun, or..." She looked up, caught the look on Rhinann's face, and laughed. "I don't do it justice and still you think me overimaginative and ovcremotional."

"No, my dear, of course not ..." He did think those things, but they were potentially useful things, so he tried not to dispense with them. "I was merely wondering how you would perceive the effects of the bota extract if Jax were to use it."

"The what?"

Rhinann gazed into the Zeltron's eyes. Ploy or honest puzzlement? He couldn't tell which. "The bota. The plant extract once deemed a panacea..."

"Yes, I know what bota is-or was. It's pretty much just a weed in its current form, isn't it? It mutated or something. Years ago."

"It did. But I was speaking of its ability to enhance the use of the Force. I thought perhaps you'd know about that-being, as you arc, so close to Jax."

She shook her head, her burgundy brows drawn together above her eyes. "Enhance the Force? What are you talking about? Jax has never mentioned anything to me about such a thing."

"Ah. That's odd. According to the droid, a Jedi named Barriss Offee serendipitously discovered that an injection of bota extract amplified or expanded a Jedi's Force perception and ability exponentially. While they were on Drongar together, she gave a vial of the extract to I-Fivewhycue to bring to the Jedi Temple. By the time he arrived, of course, Order Sixty-six had been implemented, and so..."

"So l-Five has it? And Jax knows this?"

"I a.s.sume one of them has it. Though I could he wrong. The droid might have given it to someone else, or hidden it somewhere." Rhinann shrugged as if the location of the bota were of no interest to him at all. "I've no idea."

"But why hasn't Jax used it? If it amplifies the Force as you say, mightn't that make him powerful enough..." She paused, took a deep breath, then continued with a lowered voice, "to destroy the Emperor?"

Rhinann was no thespian, but he put every gram of acting ability he had behind his next words. "Indeed it might. Perhaps the droid isn't the best candidate for an a.s.sa.s.sin, after all."

"So why hasn't Jax taken the bota?"

Gazing down into the Zeltron woman's avid face, Haninum Tyk Rhinann had an epiphany: if something was missing, the more people you had looking for it, the better.

He frowned and tapped his thin lips with one flat fingertip. "Perhaps because he doesn't know where it is. I begin to suspect that the droid has not yet given it to him. That perhaps he has hidden it instead."

"Why would he do that?"

Rhinann shrugged. "Who knows? Were he a normal droid, the answer would have to be because someone instructed him to do it. But I-Five is not a normal droid, so that opens up a score of possibilities. Perhaps he wants to be the hero, instead of Jax. Perhaps he wishes to exact vengeance on the Emperor and Darth Vader himself."

Dejah looked thoughtful. "No. That's not like him. More likely he's trying to protect Jax."

Feign innocence, Rhinann instructed himself. Project guilelessness. It, along with his natural immunity to the Zeltron's wiles, seemed to be working. "Protect him from what?"

"From making himself a tool of vengeance. To do that would be to give in to the dark side, wouldn't it? Or maybe he's afraid of side effects. Are there side effects?" She glanced up at him askance.

"I don't know," he said, irritated by the digression. "I do know-or understand from the little I've learned- that the extract would make the Jedi who takes it . . . well, very nearly G.o.d-like in power and abilities."

"but for how long?" she murmured, her eyes going to the static view of the dead world projected into the niche above her "window" sear. "And at what cost?"

"Cost?" repeated Rhinann.

She gave him a gamine look from beneath her long, blood-red lashes. "Nothing is without cost, Rhinann. Nothing." Her eyes moved back to the image of the world that no longer was. "It's all a matter of trade-offs. Of knowing what something is worth."

"Different things are of varying worth to different people," he observed neutrally.

"Yes," Dejah murmured. "They are." She reached over and tapped a small touch pad next to the image niche. The view of the once verdant surface of Caamas disappeared, to be replaced by a panorama of a junglescape in which the dominant color was red. Rhinann a.s.sumed it was an image of Dejah's homeworld, Zeltros. Sitting before the landscape, she all but disappeared into it.

She turned her gaze back to Rhinann. "Do you think I-Five is wrong to keep Jax from the bota-if that's what he's about?"

"Wrong?" Rhinann splayed a thin, spidery hand over his heart. "I can't judge the wrong or right of the situation, my dear. I only know that it exists as a possibility. And as for what the droid is about, look at the evidence: Jax wants nothing more than to destroy the Emperor and Darth Vader and to restore not only the Jedi, but the fortunes of the Republic. The bota could give him the means to do it, but he hasn't used it, or even suggested that he use it. The only logical reason I can think of for that is that the droid has hidden it front him. If the droid were a biological life-form, Jax could influence his thinking. But he isn't, and he follows orders poorly or not at all. Therefore, he is impervious even to Jax."

"Yet I detect no strain between Jax and I-Five," Dejah observed. "At least, Jax doesn't seem to have any negative feelings for the droid."

"Perhaps because our mechanical friend has done a good job of convincing him that withholding the bota is for the best. I-Five can be quite persuasive when the need arises. After all, he is-or was-a protocol unit."

Dejah shrugged. "Perhaps he's right. Perhaps it is for the best."

Rhinann's smile was so brittle, he feared it might crack his lips. "I'm sure of it, Dejah," he said. "After all. who knows the Jedi better than I-Five?"

Dejah Duare merely smiled.

"My, look at the time," Rhinann said, glancing at his chrono. He left quickly, on the pretext that he was expecting a data dump from one of the Imperial intel links he was monitoring, and went away unsure of what, it anything, he had accomplished. Clearly Dejah Duare had known nothing of the bota until he had mentioned it. Had that mention fueled a further sense of betrayal? Had it intrigued her? Amused her? Frightened her?

He gave up his maundering. Who knew what a creature like that was likely to do? She was, as Pavan was wont to note, an atypical Zeltron. In some ways that made her as hard to read-and as frustrating-as Pavan's metal guardian.

He exhaled gustily, then winced. His nose tusks were vibrating so much lately from sighing that the anchoring flesh was getting sore.

"The prefect removed our tracking devices within minutes of returning to his headquarters."

Darth Vader's gloved hand moved in a dismissive gesture. "That was to be expected."

"He's a traitor then. He's chosen his side."

"Has he?" The Dark Lord turned, and Probus Tesla saw his distorted reflection in the curved black surfaces of the Dark Lord's optic panels. His image was warped, but the marks of his brush with death were still clearly visible on his face, notwithstanding the hours spent in a bacta tank. No matter. The scars served their purpose: they reminded him that hubris was a failing he could nor afford and that false a.s.sumptions based on hubris could be deadly. He would not forget that hard-learned lesson.

"Or," Vader continued, "is he just being a prudent and cautious officer of the prefecture? Do you imagine that those we seek would not check for tracking devices? If they found them, Pol Haus would become useless to us. They'd never trust him."