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“Okay …” Jax said. “May I ask why you’re holding a grudge against our guest?”

“Yeah,” Den agreed, bustling farther into the room. “In fact, why don’t we invite our guest to come in and sit down, get him a drink, and ask him to explain what he might need from us?”

“What I need, first and foremost,” said the Sakiyan as he moved to sit uneasily on the utilitarian couch that graced one gray wall, “is to apologize to I-Five.”

Den stared at Tuden Sal. “You what?”

“Apparently,” Jax said, “Tuden Sal and I-Five have some kind of history.”

The Jedi had perched on the arm of the couch, from which vantage point he could watch both the Sakiyan and I-Five. Wise of him, Den thought. He crossed the room to hand their guest the glass of water he’d just drawn from the tap. The Sakiyan stared at the glass as if he’d never seen anything like it before, and Den had a momentary panic attack, trying to remember if Sakiyans had some allergy to or other problem with water.

But then Tuden Sal accepted the glass, issuing a wheezy laugh as he did so. “History indeed—or the lack of it, in I-Five’s case. It seems rather odd to me, too, I must admit. I’m still not quite used to the idea that I-Five, is—for want of a better term—self-aware.”

“Self-aware,” said I-Five drily, “is a perfectly good term, thank you.”

Tuden Sal nodded. “Yes. I’d forgotten how perfectly good.” He looked directly at the droid, who stood facing him—probably, Den thought, about two subroutines away from firing up his lasers again.

The Sakiyan lowered his eyes and took a moment to straighten the folds of the calf-length coat he wore over his once elegant tunic. Then he looked up at I-Five again. “I’m sorry, I-Five, for what I did to you. I was … shortsighted and selfish.”

“You can add to that disloyal, disreputable, unscrupulous, and cruel,” I-Five told him. “You were, in a word, wrong. You can have no idea what your action ultimately cost the Jedi and the Republic.”

The Sakiyan closed his deep-set eyes momentarily, veiling his thoughts. “No. I don’t believe I can.”

Den pulled himself up into the window embrasure adjacent to the couch. He favored this spot because it gave him the advantage of height—a rare perspective for a native of Sullust—and allowed him to study other people’s faces from a proper angle. “This is all very cozy,” he said, letting his short legs dangle over the windowsill, “but would one of you mind clarifying why this apology is necessary?”

I-Five canted his head pointedly at Tuden Sal, who cleared his throat and rearranged his coat yet again. “Some years ago,” he said, “a … a friend asked me to make sure I-Five and some data he was carrying got to the Jedi Temple here on Coruscant.”

Den didn’t need the Force to see the effect of those words on Jax. The young Jedi stiffened.

“My father. My father, Lorn Pavan, asked you to get I-Five to the Jedi.”

Tuden Sal nodded. “Yes. I didn’t realize at the time that he … that it was something in the nature of a dying wish. Since then, I’ve come to appreciate that Lorn trusted me with the task because he expected not to live much longer. Unfortunately, he was correct in that expectation.”

“Why didn’t you carry out that wish?” Jax asked, his voice hushed.

Den glanced at I-Five. Though he gave no outward indication of tension or increased interest, his friend knew that the droid had been waiting for a resolution to this mystery for over two decades.

The Sakiyan spread his hands in the universal sign of bewilderment. “Quite simply, I saw a profit to be made from the droid, and with the hubris that often comes with success, I figured I could kill two mynocks with one blast. I had intended to deliver the holocron I-Five was carrying to the Jedi as Lorn had asked, but I first planned on having the droid mindwiped and reprogrammed as a bodyguard for use during my dealings with Black Sun. He had certain … modifications I had never seen in any protocol droid—not in any droid, come to it. Modifications I hadn’t even realized were possible.”

“Yet you failed to note the most significant of them,” said I-Five.

“I did,