“Ah. Somewhere not on this planet, I assume.”
“I’m willing to compromise. I’ll consider the same galactic sector.”
“But where would I go?” Kajin asked. He hovered at the 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 attitude 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 assume 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 atrocities in history have been orchestrated with complete dispassion. 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.”
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 bit. 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 synthsilk. 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?” D
en 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 alacrity 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 headspace to the Zeltron woman’s peculiar reaction to their discovery, however. The 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 entities. 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 tugging 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 sit 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.
“Hiding,” 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 muted echo.”
“Oh, surely he wouldn’t be 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 assuage 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 pheromones into the atmosphere than she usually did, so much so that some 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 midi-chlorian 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 grass 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 overemotional.”
“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 are, 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 I-Five has it? And Jax knows this?”
“I assume one of them has it. Though I could be 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 assassin, after all.”
Star Wars: Coruscant Nights III: Patterns of Force Page 11
