Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights III_ Patterns of Force - Michael Reaves [45]
“What about you, I-Five?” Jax asked the droid. “You’re a student of humanoid body language. Do you think Pol Haus is enough of a threat that we should leave Coruscant?”
“I think we may wish to relocate somewhere else in the city, perhaps keeping this place up as a front. But not so much because I distrust Pol Haus as because I trust Vader to be hypervigilant. I also think that if Pol Haus is our enemy, he has the potential to be a bad one, because he will most certainly have all the usual means of escape watched, if not already closed. Getting offworld cleanly is probably not a realistic option at this point.”
Jax again felt Kaj’s emotions spike. Then he winked out again. Jax swung around to face him.
“What are you doing?”
The boy, Force-visible once more, froze as he was rising from the chair. Liquid light from the sculpture splashed his face.
“I was just—” he started, but Jax cut him off.
“No, I mean how did you shield yourself from the Force just now?”
The boy swallowed in obvious confusion. “I … I didn’t do anything.”
“Twice in the last couple of minutes you have virtually disappeared from view through the Force. Are you sure you didn’t make that happen?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Kaj repeated, a note of sullenness creeping into his voice.
“Not consciously, perhaps,” said I-Five, regarding the young Force prodigy with obvious interest. “But it could have been an involuntary part of your fight-or-flight response. What were you feeling just now?”
“Afraid. I was feeling afraid. Nervous. I don’t want to leave Coruscant. My parents said they’d try to come here to find me. If I leave …”
“Fear?” Jax looked at the droid. “You’re suggesting he disappears when his fear reaches panic proportions? I’ve never heard of any Force-sensitive who could do that. Besides, when he was confronted with the Inquisitor he didn’t just disappear. He fought. He used the Force to fight, not to hide.”
I-Five turned to the boy. “You’ve been dodging the Inquisitors for some time now. Are you certain there isn’t some trick you use—something that may even seem second nature to you—that allows you to hide yourself from them? Something that’s allowed you to escape them?”
“I’ve escaped them by knowing where they are and using the Force as little as possible when they’re around.”
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 bit. 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