Part 25 (2/2)

It was Thi Xon Yimmon who suggested that they send the boy to the Togrutan healers and The Silents on s.h.i.+li, adding that between the planet-grounded Force adepts and the strange, unspeaking monks with their soothing, therapeutic presence, he might more readily heal, as well as regain conscious control of the Force. In destroying the boy's memory, Vader seemed to have wiped from Kaj's mind the very meaning of what it was to be a Force-sensitive. The Force in him was like a skein of tangled threads, knotted, frayed, their connections obscured. As much as Jax hated to admit it, he knew Yimmon was right-there was nothing he could do for Kaj here. Here, Jedi were still marked for death. Here, they would still have to hide. That was no environment for the boy.

Jax had given momentary thought to leaving Coruscant and traveling to s.h.i.+li with Kaj, but he knew he could not. He was committed now-he and his companions-to doing what he'd come to realize was his life's calling: helping the downtrodden and the helpless, and helping to build a larger and more far-reaching rebellion against the Emperor.

So it was that, with some sense of having failed, Jax sent Kajin Savaros through the UML to a waiting tramp freighter in the company of one of The Silent. Then he returned with Laranth to their new environs in a Whiplash safe house.

”You didn't fail, you know,” Laranth told him as they walked the alleys on their way to their new home. ”You weren't at fault. Dejah just wasn't capable of putting anything as abstract as loyalty ahead of her own gratification. You couldn't have antic.i.p.ated that.”

”Yes, I could. I should have. But I was so sure of myself. So sure of my grasp of the Force, that I didn't realize what she was doing to me-to us. I was completely taken in by her, Laranth, to the point that I. ..” He let his voice trail off.

”You gonna finish that thought?”

He glanced aside at her. ”I let her wrap me in a veil. Pheromones and pride. Bad combination. I got so caught up in the cosmic idea of being someone's Jedi Master that I forgot what it meant to be a Jedi Knight. I forgot you. I don't ever want that to happen again.” He hesitated. ”When you were in the medcenter:”

”That was then. This is now.”

He stopped walking and turned her to face him. ”No. I'm not going to accept that. That was then and now.” He struggled for words. ”We ... I...”

”Eloquent, aren't we?”

”Laranth, stop it. Don't make this so hard. You know what I'm trying to say. You can sense what I'm trying to say.”

And suddenly he knew she could because, in the s.p.a.ce of a breath, she had let him in. He was swept up in a strange, heady recursive emotional loop. A Force-enhanced empathy.

He looked at Laranth and saw himself as she saw him and was awed by the emotions that he evoked in her. He experienced the echoed revelation of that in her as she caught the tenor of his feelings and explored the texture of his innermost being.

He moved past the reserve and the hurt and the careful defenses she had erected and felt her breaching his barriers in return.

When they came fully back to themselves they were standing in a Stygian alley, foreheads touching, fingers entwined, quivering.

”What was that?” Laranth murmured. ”What did we just do?”

”I was about to ask you the same question.”

”I know. I don't know what to call it.”

Jax exhaled. ”Let's not call it anything for now. Okay?”

”Okay.”

They separated, physically at any rate, and began walking again by mutual agreement.

”While we're on the subject of mysteries,” said Laranth, and Jax smiled. ”What made you take a chance that the bota would push Vader over the edge-literally as well as figuratively?”

Jax was quiet for a few strides, then he said, ”It's a debate as old as the Force itself: Is it generated by and for living beings, and so subject to their desires and their demons, or is it transcendent-something ineffable that we can only hope to glimpse occasionally in its entirety? Something that's not meant to be experienced in its entirety. As long as there are living beings to wonder about it, the question will exist.”

”Be careful what you ask for, you might get it? That's not an answer. It's just another question.”

”There's also another factor-the fact that I-Five had been carrying the bota around for two decades. True, it had been processed, and was much more stable than in its raw state, but still-I was betting that such a complex molecule was starting to fray a bit around the edges.” He shrugged. ”Whether you opt for the mystical explanation or the practical one, Vader wasn't expecting a bad trip.”

”You were betting our lives,” Laranth said. She didn't smile, but there was amus.e.m.e.nt in her thoughts.

Jax marveled at their texture and nuance. ”What choice did I have?” he asked. ”He could have killed us all in a breath, using just the Force he has access to every day. I had to gamble that, at the very least, the bota would make him lose track of the ephemeral world and give us half a chance to escape.”

He didn't mention the third factor: this was the first time he'd been this close to Vader. close enough to touch him. And though he hadn't dared to try to probe the man he'd noticed something about the patterns of Force that had swirled around the Dark Lord. Patterns that seemed strangely, unbelievably, familiar.

Master Piell had told him once that the moire swirling of the Force were as individual as a person's DNA, he could not be sure-and likely he'd never know the truth-but, if Master Piell was right and those patterns were not to be duplicated ... well, it had been enough to gamble on.

He had evidence through the Force that Anakin Skywalker was still alive. And the Anakin he knew, steeped though he had been in the Force, would not have had the self-knowledge to realize what the bota might mean to someone with his particular set of character flaws. Yes, it was a mad thought, bur it was a thought Jax dared to have because of something Darth Vader had said: And now. if you would return the pyroniunt.

”Do you think he's finally dead?” Laranth asked, breaking into his thoughts.

Jax shook his head. ”He's harder to kill than that. But I think maybe the game has changed. And that could be good news ... or bad.”

”But you'll still stay.” It wasn't a question.

He didn't reply. What was there to say? Inquisitors or no, Vader or no, the Emperor or no, Jax couldn't conceive of anyplace he'd rather be, any job he'd rather be doing. For better or worse, this was home.

They'd reached their new domicile while he'd been thinking, and when they entered, they found someone waiting in the front room, talking to Den and I-Five.

Den introduced the newcomer, who seemed to be a Mirialan, judging by his facial markings. ”This is Chan Dash. He's got a problem that we might be able to help with.”

Jax nodded. But as he was about to speak, he suddenly felt the Force surge within him, higher and stronger than he had ever felt it before. It was as if those threads which some believed vibrated throughout all of time and s.p.a.ce, forming the fabric of reality itself, had suddenly seized him and lifted him, almost instantaneously, above-no, outside the world that he knew, and carried him to some metaphysical vantage point. For one timeless moment, Jax beheld the spectacular galactic whirlpool itself, which simultaneously being connected, somehow, to each and every being within it.

It lasted a millisecond; it lasted an eternity. Then, just as abruptly, he was back.

Was this what Barriss Offee had experienced when she had taken the bota? Had he been, for the length of a heartbeat, connected to the greater, unifying gestalt that the wisest of the Masters called the Cosmic Force? If so, how? Vader had used the last of the bota; there was nothing he could think of that could possibly have triggered this, except...

Except the Force itself.

Jax felt a sense of great contentment, of purpose. He didn't know why the Force had elected to grant him that vision, but he suspected a reason. He suspected that it had been to show him without a doubt where, in the immensity of the galaxy, that Jax Pavan belonged.

Tell me something I don't know, he thought.

He realized that Chan Dash, as well as his team, were beginning to regard him strangely. The silence was beginning to stretch.

Jax shook the Mirelian's hand and gestured to a chair. Sit down, please,” he said. ”Tell me how I can help you.”

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