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By Root 433 0

beyond that point, but Den had garnered enough information—both from things the droid had let slip during conversations, and from using his own reporter’s nose to sniff out snippets here and there on the HoloNet—to know that they’d been targeted by an expert assassin; a shadowy menace who had answered to an extremely high-placed government figure. Den had often wondered just what data the holocron contained. They must have been juicy bits of information, indeed, to warrant the bloody path the assassin had carved through the narrow streets in his pursuit. Apparently the Crimson Corridor had never been more deserving of its name.

One of the endless passing throng stopped before them. He was a Bothan, Den realized with a small pang of wariness. He’d heard it said that a Bothan could figure more directions out of any given situation than a souped-up nav computer. They were masters of duplicity and politics, always working the angles.

This one said nothing; he merely passed a small datachip from his dark furred hand to I-Five’s gleaming smooth one.

“The payment?” the Bothan asked in a low voice.

“Has been deposited in your account,” I-Five replied.

The Bothan gave a slight bow and melted back into the passing throng.

Den eyed the droid. “What has been deposited into his account?”

“It was an arrangement made months ago—the funds were in escrow for this purpose only.”

Den glared for a moment, but decided to drop the matter. What was done was done; he knew how important it was to I-Five to find Lorn’s son.

He stood on tiptoes, trying to see the chip in the droid’s metal palm. “I take it this is going to tell us where good ol’ Jax is hiding?”

I-Five closed his hand around it. “Not directly,” he replied. “But it’ll do the next best thing.”

“And that would be—?”

“It will enable me to track him through his use of the Force.”

Den looked skeptical. “Way I always heard it, you can’t measure, detect, or calculate the Force, any more than you can catch hold of a rainbow or teach a Wookiee table manners.”

“You’re correct—the Force, pervasive as it evidently is, is nonetheless impossible to quantify. Midi-chlorians can be measured, but the Force itself can’t be assessed in terms of coulombs or joules or gausses. It is neither wave nor particle; it’s unique.”

“You’re a walking data bank, you know that? Get to the milking point.”

“No known instrument can sense or trace usage of the Force,” I-Five said, the slightest hint of annoyance in his voice. “But it’s been proved that a sentient tapping into it exhibits a distinct brain wave pattern. And brain waves can be sensed. And traced, within a limited distance.”

“Uh-huh. How limited?”

I-Five appeared somewhat discomfited. “Twenty meters or less.”

They’d been walking down the thoroughfare as they talked; now Den stopped so abruptly that a Ho’Din coming up from behind had to step over the Sullustan to avoid tripping. Den didn’t even notice; he just stared at the droid.

“Twenty meters or less?”

“Or slightly more, in some cases—”

“Twenty meters or less,” Den repeated. “And he has to be using the Force before he can be in this brain wave state. Am I wrong?”

“Not as such, no, but—”

Den began to laugh. He couldn’t help it. He sat down cross-legged on the walkway and laughed until tears filled his huge eyes. The passing crowd took no notice of him, save for a few benefactors of varying species who dropped centicreds into his lap.

Finally he was able to control himself again. He stood and looked at I-Five, who had remained immobile and silent during this. “All right,” he said. “Enough.” He stretched out a palm. “Give me that.”

The droid dropped the chip into Den’s hand with uncharacteristic meekness. Den let it fall to the pavement and crushed it under his boot heel. I-Five’s photoreceptors grew brighter—the equivalent of a look of human astonishment—but he said nothing.

“Now,” Den said. “I’m going to do what I should have done the moment we hit dirt.”

I-Five did his equivalent of one cocked eyebrow; Den was never quite sure how he managed it, but the skepticism always came across