Part 9 (1/2)
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 s.h.i.+eld 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.