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Alas, this wonder was now no more than a wistful historical footnote; the bota plant evolved swiftly and, as it evolved, its properties changed. What had once been a closely guarded, much-sought-after medicinal herb was now merely an inconsequential weed … except to a select few.

Haninum Tyk Rhinann was one of those few.

The thing that made bota of such intense interest to Rhinann had nothing to do with its healing properties. Nor had he initially learned of that aspect of it from the HoloNet. He had—and it galled him to admit it, even to himself—gained early knowledge by eavesdropping on conversations between I-Five and Jax Pavan. In such a way he had learned of something bota could provide that the HoloNet did not catalog: a transcendent connection to the Force. Provided, of course, that the test subject had a sufficient level of midi-chlorians to make him Force-sensitive. Rhinann’s own midi-chlorian count was not quite enough to access the Force unaided, but it was just possible that, with the bota extract providing the requisite boost, he might.

He’d long since come to accept, with the fatalism common to his kind, that he would die in poverty and misery, but he wanted to experience the Force just once before death. Just once, he wanted to be attuned to the power and pattern of the universe and not deaf as a dianoga; just once he wanted to have the power and presence of mind and spirit to take out those responsible for his fall from grace; just once he wanted—

“I said, ‘Isn’t that pretty much what you discovered, Rhinann?’ ”

The Elomin blinked and turned to look at Jax Pavan, who, he realized, must have repeated himself several times to have raised his voice to that level. The young Jedi was usually soft-spoken and soft-edged—a manner calculated to make him seem unthreatening. Even now there was no anger in his voice, just bemusement.

Jedi did not get angry—or so they liked to tell everyone. It was Rhinann’s secret opinion that they got just as angry as the next being and simply hid it better. How could Pavan not be angry when the Dark Lord, allegedly responsible for his father’s death, kept sending assassins after him? How did one possibly not rage against the universe when—

“Rhinann?” Jax repeated, his dark gaze seeking the Elomin’s. His voice now held a touch of asperity.

“Pardon, I was contemplating a … an abstruse angle of another case.”

“If you could be bothered to contemplate the rather more immediate angles of this one,” said Pol Haus, “I’m sure we would all appreciate it.”

Rhinann blinked again, slowly and for effect, and let out a long, patient breath. “If you could repeat the question?”

Jax did. “I was telling Pol Haus that the data you uncovered indicated that the conduit through which Bal Rado was receiving spice had dried up just prior to his murder.”

“Ah. Yes. Precisely. We reasoned,” said Rhinann, bringing his mind efficiently back to the matter at hand, “that his reluctance to inform his buyer—”

“A Hutt named Sol Proofrock, if you can believe it,” interjected Den Dhur from his seat in a window embrasure.

“As I was saying,” continued Rhinann tightly, “he was reluctant to inform his buyer—a Hutt with a variety of aliases—of this situation. Which caused him to try to cover it up while he sought a new source of spice—”

“Which, unfortunately for him, failed to materialize,” added the Sullustan.

Rhinann favored the short, stocky humanoid with his most disdainful glare. “Well of course it didn’t. Otherwise the pathetic fellow would likely still be alive. What my research indicates,” Rhinann told the prefect, wanting it to be perfectly clear that Den had had nothing to do with the solving of the case, “is that one of the smugglers Rado contacted about his little problem—one Droo Wabbin, a fellow Toydarian, as it happens—revealed his situation to the buyer.”

“That’s speculation, though,” Den interrupted. “Because you were unable to recover the contents of the message, all we know for certain is that Wabbin