She explained as they walked, telling him about her Force experience, the bota, and her certainty about the approaching danger. Almost without realizing it, by the time she finished, they were at his kiosk.

"That's the story," she said.

"Sweet Sookie's maiden aunt," he said. "That's pretty amazing."

"Yes. I feel like the mythological seer Daranas, from Alderaan-I can see the future, but no one will believe my warnings."

Jos said, "Well, you've told Vaetes, and he's pa.s.sing it along to the guys on the ground.

If there is going to be a threat, that's probably where it'll come from. At least they have a heads-up."

She nodded.

"And you really think the bota is augmenting and focusing your connection with the Force?"

"Absolutely," she said. "I know that it offers great power. I believe that with that connection, I can somehow stop the danger. I might even be able to stop the war on this world completely."

He didn't say anything, but she could feel his doubt through the Force. "You think it's some kind of hallucination, don't you?"

"I didn't say that."

"But you believe it."

He rubbed at his face. "Barriss, you're a doctor. You know that medicine does different things to different people. Giving a Devaronian two cc's of plethyl nitrate will cure a lobar pneumonia and open up his congested lungs with virtually no side effects. Give that same dose to a human and it'll drop his blood pressure into the syncope zone. Give it to a Bothan-"

"And he'll be dead before he hits the floor," she finished. "Your point?"

"Bota is the wonder drug of our age-every time we turn around, we wonder at some new effect it has on some species that's never tried it before. Maybe it does connect you to the Force in some mysterious and powerful way. Or maybe you imagined it. A scientist would have to run an experiment with objective protocols to be sure which it was. We've both worked with patients in the throes of psychedelic delusion. They believe what they see and hear and feel, too."

She nodded. "Yes. But the Force is not something that easily pinned to an experimenter's board and dissected. I know that what I experienced was real."

"But you're the only one who does."

"Master Unduli said that several Council members felt the ripples of it."

"I hate to play Sith's advocate, but if I'm correctly understanding what you're telling me, there's no way to prove that what they felt was an echo of your experience. It's all just too subjective. Still, let's a.s.sume, for argument's sake, that it is all true-what are the risks of you having that much power? What might you do by accident?"

Barriss nodded. Yes. He'd put his finger squarely on the crux of the problem. Who was she to wield a weapon that was, perhaps, tantamount to a lightsaber that could shear through a planet? What might she do by accident? There was no telling. Even the wisest Jedi Master would have to approach such power with great caution and a lifetime of experience. And she was but a Padawan, lacking any great skill or wisdom.

So, the choice: take up the flaming torch offered her by the Force, use it to keep the pack of dire cats from her door-and, in doing so, run the risk of burning down her house.

One way or another, she would have to make a decision soon. Because one thing she was certain of: time was running out.

38.

Jos was in the middle of shrapnel removal from a trooper. In this case, a bowel resection was necessary. The building's refrigeration units were offline again, so the air was clammy and hot, and the necessity of being up to his elbows in the trooper's pungent intestines wasn't helping things any. It was, Jos thought, as he wrestled yet another chunk of durasteel from the rec.u.mbent abdomen before him, mimn'yet surgery at its best. Or worst.

And yet, even as Jos worked away at his grisly task, he was smiling. His heart seemed to have its own tiny anti-grav unit; it threatened to burst free of his chest and float away,, up to the bands of rust and verdigris girdling the sky. He felt like he could handle any case, repair any injury, no matter how extensive. The reason for this sense of joy was quite simple: He and Tolk were back together again.

Uncle Erel had been as good as his word. He had fixed that which had been broken-in this case, Jos's heart.

He could feel her presence beside him, attentive and ready to hand him whatever surgical tool was needed. They hadn't had a chance to speak all that much before the incoming medlifters had driven them into the OT. Just a whispered apology, a quick kiss, and then they had to scrub and gown up.

That was all. But it was more than enough.

He finished the resection. The trooper was stabilized and gurneyed off, making room for another, this one's chest raddled with dried blood.

"Y'know what?" Jos said to the room in general. "I think this galaxy would be a whole lot nicer and more pleasant place to live if we could all just stop killing one another. Who's with me on this?"

A few chuckles and a couple of faux cheers were the response.

"You're a visionary," I-Five told him.

"Float it past Palpatine, see what he thinks," Uli suggested.

Yes, it was gallows humor, but at least it was humor. There had been other smiles in the OT, if only for a moment.

Jos and Tolk grinned at each other through their masks. Jos felt six meters tall and invulnerable. He was back with the woman he loved. That was all he needed-he knew he could handle anything thrown at him now.

Something smashed into the force-dome and exploded.

Outside, the rain had stopped, and Barriss waded through puddles from the OT to her practice spot. She had allowed herself to feel fear, worry, and she knew that only a calm mind could allow her to regain her mental balance.

With the lightsaber in hand, she danced. She put everything else out of her thoughts, shut it all out, and focused entirely on her moves. Trust the Force.

After a few minutes, she was sweaty, but doing something she had not been able to do of late-she was not thinking, only doing.

Her spirit calmed. The Force was there. Not the bound-less power she had felt before, but the familiar, comfortable beacon in the darkness, the presence that had been with her since she'd been a child. An old friend with hand outstretched, offering what Barriss sorely needed: Peace.

And with that peace came a clarity. Not forged of durasteel, not announced by the clarion shouts of trumpets, as it had been when she'd been tossed in the tumultuous current of the Force, but rather a still, quiet confidence: she could do this. She could do what she needed to do.

Barriss switched the lightsaber off and hung it at her belt.

These people had become part of her responsibility. She had the tools to protect them, she knew, even without the bota. She was a Jedi. Maybe still only a Padawan, but she still had abilities most people did not.

There was a spy in the camp, of that she was sure. Who was it? If she could puzzle out him or her, or it, she could likely find out what the coming danger was.

She had been here on Drongar long enough, and her use. of the Force was certainly developed sufficiently that she could eliminate some people as suspects. She was a healer, and that gave her a connection to others that even Jedi more senior than her, who were not healers, sometimes did not have. She had been in close proximity with many of the medical staff, and their essences-their thoughts and feelings-were apparent to one with her training.

There were too many people in this Rimsoo for her to personally speak to them all and use the Force to try to read them. But she could eliminate some here by common sense: the spy, whoever it was, wouldn't be a trooper, was unlikely to be a droid, and had to be somebody in a posi-tion wherein he or she could access valuable information. Somebody in authority.

And here in Rimsoo Seven, that meant it was very probably somebody she knew.

Barriss started toward her kiosk. She did not know who the spy was, but perhaps, by the process of elimination, she could determine who it wasn't.

First, it had to be somebody who had been in place here before she had arrived on this planet, because suspicious actions had already happened. Certainly the explosion of the bota transport had taken some time to arrange.

So that immediately removed Uli from the pool, since he had arrived only recently.

Jos? No. She had been with him long enough to know it wasn't in him to be a murderer.

Zan was dead, and his heart had been too pure in any event.

Colonel Vaetes? He was in a position to gather intelligence, better than anyone else here, perhaps, but-no. He had no thoughtshield, and she sensed no great malice in him.

Who did that leave? Den Dhur? The reporter posed as a cynic, but clearly was not; nor did Barriss feel he was evil enough to kill people.

So. Of the people that Barriss had contact with, who would be in a position to gather the most useful information? Who could coldly murder people with whom he-or she-worked?

n.o.body she had touched via the Force was capable of that. These were doctors, nurses, medical techs-all of them people dedicated to saving lives. She had felt that imperative strongly within each of them, and the Force didn't lie.

Wait. It was true that the Force didn't lie-but it didn't always reveal everything, either. There were two people here whom she knew, but could not scan deeper than the surface: Tolk le Trene, the Lorrdian, who could read a face like a child's textbook, but who kept a tight cover over her own thoughts and emotions; and Klo Merit, the Equani minder, who also had, by dint of a.s.siduous training, a thoughtshield that protected his thoughts and feelings, hiding them behind his smile.

Tolk was a lieutenant, a nurse, but it wasn't impossible for her to gain access to privileged intelligence, especially given her face-reading abilities. Merit, as a minder, was well positioned to do so.

But how could it be either of them? Tolk and Jos were in love; Barriss could see that in their every gesture and glance toward each other. Could somebody who could love another like that be capable of wholesale murder?

Yes indeed, if history was to be believed. You could love your sister and still kill your brother. It happened all the time.

Still, Barriss did not want to believe this of Tolk. If she were a spy, that would mean there would be at least one more death on her conscience-for the revelation of her perfidy would surely kill Jos. If not immediately, eventually. He would never recover from such a wound.

And Merit? The minder who healed psychic injuries, who soothed anguish and psychological pain day in and day out? How could be possibly be the one?

Both candidates seemed impossible. And yet, as Barriss considered it with all the calmness and dispa.s.sion at her beck, it seemed more and more likely to be one or the other.

She suddenly recalled another fact-both Tolk and Merit had been on the MedStar when the explosion had occurred. Tolk had come back changed. She had withdrawn from Jos. That now seemed to be on the mend, but-what did it mean? Had Tolk been genuinely traumatized by the disaster? Or was she wracked with guilt?

Merit had not spoken of his feelings about the sabotage, that she was aware of-certainly not at the sabacc games. As far as she'd been able to tell, the big Equani had maintained the same, somewhat bland and professional concern for his patients after his trip upstairs that he had before. But did this indicate the callousness of a professional killer, or simply the ability to disconnect and so avoid burnout, which was a constant threat to a minder?

At this point, she had no proof that would convict either of them.

There would be records-if anybody else in this Rim-soo had been on the orbiting ship when the sabotage had taken place, they'd have to be included on the suspect list. But if not.

Tolk? Or Merit?

The more Barriss thought about it, the more it seemed to her that the secret agent had to be one or the other. Nothing else made sense. Any killer with a mind open to her touch would have been like a black lamp among alt these healing folk. She couldn't have missed it.

There was, she knew, an immediate way for her to find the truth. She stopped walking toward her kiosk, turned, and headed for the OT. A simple, direct way. Often these were the best-A flash of light flared overhead, followed almost instantly by a loud boom!

Barriss looked up and saw the heat-wash of an exploding artillery round splashing against the force-dome.

They were under attack!

She ran for .the operating theater.

Den ran out of the cantina, drink still in hand, and cleared the building just as another mortar sh.e.l.l impacted on the force-dome above, filling the air with eye-smiting light and noise.

He grimaced. It looked like he wouldn't have to tell anybody about the bota going roots-up after all. It seemed pretty obvious that word had gotten out.

A small unit of troopers double-timed along the dome's inner perimeter, heading for the exit, along with a couple of small vehicles hauling spare ammunition and armor. Outside the dome, larger forces had also begun to gather.

Den stood and sipped his Bantha Blaster thoughtfully. "Looks like my flight's going to be delayed," he murmured.

In the OT, as the echoes of the latest explosion slowly died, Jos said, "I'm getting really tired of this mopak." He looked up at the roof and yelled, "Hey! We're a medical unit-we don't have anything worth blowing up in here!"

Another explosion came, but it didn't seem to affect the OT much. A few bedpans rattled, and the bacta tanks sloshed.

"I don't think they heard you," I-Five said.

He saw Tolk smile through her mask. It felt like sunlight. He didn't want anything to happen to her, but if he died now, he'd do so a happy man.

He glanced up, and saw Den Dhur's face outside the viewing window of the OT's door. The little reporter must be standing on a chair or something.

Den raised a gla.s.s full of something greenish and offered Jos a silent toast, then drank.

Jos nodded at him, then turned back to his work. He was almost done with this patient.

Best to get him patched up, then try to figure out what was going on.

Barriss reached the OT. She saw Den standing on a table in front of the viewport, and moved to him. It wouldn't hurt to double-check what she thought she already knew.

"Den, I need you to do something for me."

"Name it."

"Open your thoughts to me."

He frowned. "Why?"

"Please."

"All right. But if you see anything embarra.s.sing, it's your own fault."

She extended the Force toward him . . .

This was a person who had risked his life to save Zan Yant's musical instrument, a selfless act of heroism he continued to deny. She felt his mind-sharp, agile, bright.

There were dark areas in it as well, regrets and loss, but nothing as dark as murder.

"Thank you," she said.