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Rhinann was intrigued and annoyed simultaneously. This hedonistic telempath clearly had a higher midi-chlorian count than he did. If she did not possess a capacity for Force manipulation herself, she clearly could sense it.

“Textures?” he repeated. “How interesting.”

“Oh, more than interesting.” She drew her knees up under her chin and hugged them. The gesture was at once child-like and seductive. Or would have been, if the Elomin were capable of being seduced.

“Even when Jax pulls the Force across himself like a curtain,” she continued, “it’s a curtain of amazing depth and nuance. Like … a warm bath, like sun-heated sand beneath your feet, like morning grass at the first touch of the sun, or—” She looked up, caught the look on Rhinann’s face, and laughed. “I don’t do it justice and still you think me overimaginative and overemotional.”

“No, my dear, of course not …” He did think those things, but they were potentially useful things, so he tried not to dispense with them. “I was merely wondering how you would perceive the effects of the bota extract if Jax were to use it.”

“The what?”

Rhinann gazed into the Zeltron’s eyes. Ploy or honest puzzlement? He couldn’t tell which. “The bota. The plant extract once deemed a panacea—”

“Yes, I know what bota is—or was. It’s pretty much just a weed in its current form, isn’t it? It mutated or something. Years ago.”

“It did. But I was speaking of its ability to enhance the use of the Force. I thought perhaps you’d know about that—being, as you are, so close to Jax.”

She shook her head, her burgundy brows drawn together above her eyes. “Enhance the Force? What are you talking about? Jax has never mentioned anything to me about such a thing.”

“Ah. That’s odd. According to the droid, a Jedi named Barriss Offee serendipitously discovered that an injection of bota extract amplified or expanded a Jedi’s Force perception and ability exponentially. While they were on Drongar together, she gave a vial of the extract to I-Fivewhycue to bring to the Jedi Temple. By the time he arrived, of course, Order Sixty-six had been implemented, and so—”

“So I-Five has it? And Jax knows this?”

“I assume one of them has it. Though I could be wrong. The droid might have given it to someone else, or hidden it somewhere.” Rhinann shrugged as if the location of the bota were of no interest to him at all. “I’ve no idea.”

“But why hasn’t Jax used it? If it amplifies the Force as you say, mightn’t that make him powerful enough—” She paused, took a deep breath, then continued with a lowered voice, “to destroy the Emperor?”

Rhinann was no thespian, but he put every gram of acting ability he had behind his next words. “Indeed it might. Perhaps the droid isn’t the best candidate for an assassin, after all.”

“So why hasn’t Jax taken the bota?”

Gazing down into the Zeltron woman’s avid face, Haninum Tyk Rhinann had an epiphany: if something was missing, the more people you had looking for it, the better.

He frowned and tapped his thin lips with one flat fingertip. “Perhaps because he doesn’t know where it is. I begin to suspect that the droid has not yet given it to him. That perhaps he has hidden it instead.”

“Why would he do that?”

Rhinann shrugged. “Who knows? Were he a normal droid, the answer would have to be because someone instructed him to do it. But I-Five is not a normal droid, so that opens up a score of possibilities. Perhaps he wants to be the hero, instead of Jax. Perhaps he wishes to exact vengeance on the Emperor and Darth Vader himself.”

Dejah looked thoughtful. “No. That’s not like him. More likely he’s trying to protect Jax.”

Feign innocence, Rhinann instructed himself. Project guilelessness. It, along with his natural immunity to the Zeltron’s wiles, seemed to be working. “Protect him from what?”

“From making himself a tool of vengeance. To do that would be to give in to the dark side, wouldn’t it? Or maybe he’s afraid of side effects. Are there side effects?” She glanced up at him askance.