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“I don’t know,” he said, irritated by the digression. “I do know—or understand from the little I’ve learned—that the extract would make the Jedi who takes it … well, very nearly god-like in power and abilities.”

“But for how long?” she murmured, her eyes going to the static view of the dead world projected into the niche above her “window” seat. “And at what cost?”

“Cost?” repeated Rhinann.

She gave him a gamine look from beneath her long, blood-red lashes. “Nothing is without cost, Rhinann. Nothing.” Her eyes moved back to the image of the world that no longer was. “It’s all a matter of trade-offs. Of knowing what something is worth.”

“Different things are of varying worth to different people,” he observed neutrally.

“Yes,” Dejah murmured. “They are.” She reached over and tapped a small touch pad next to the image niche. The view of the once verdant surface of Caamas disappeared, to be replaced by a panorama of a junglescape in which the dominant color was red. Rhinann assumed it was an image of Dejah’s homeworld, Zeltros. Sitting before the landscape, she all but disappeared into it.

She turned her gaze back to Rhinann. “Do you think I-Five is wrong to keep Jax from the bota—if that’s what he’s about?”

“Wrong?” Rhinann splayed a thin, spidery hand over his heart. “I can’t judge the wrong or right of the situation, my dear. I only know that it exists as a possibility. And as for what the droid is about, look at the evidence: Jax wants nothing more than to destroy the Emperor and Darth Vader and to restore not only the Jedi, but the fortunes of the Republic. The bota could give him the means to do it, but he hasn’t used it, or even suggested that he use it. The only logical reason I can think of for that is that the droid has hidden it from him. If the droid were a biological life-form, Jax could influence his thinking. But he isn’t, and he follows orders poorly or not at all. Therefore, he is impervious even to Jax.”

“Yet I detect no strain between Jax and I-Five,” Dejah observed. “At least, Jax doesn’t seem to have any negative feelings for the droid.”

“Perhaps because our mechanical friend has done a good job of convincing him that withholding the bota is for the best. I-Five can be quite persuasive when the need arises. After all, he is—or was—a protocol unit.”

Dejah shrugged. “Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps it is for the best.”

Rhinann’s smile was so brittle, he feared it might crack his lips. “I’m sure of it, Dejah,” he said. “After all, who knows the Jedi better than I-Five?”

Dejah Duare merely smiled.

“My, look at the time,” Rhinann said, glancing at his chrono. He left quickly, on the pretext that he was expecting a data dump from one of the Imperial intel links he was monitoring, and went away unsure of what, if anything, he had accomplished. Clearly Dejah Duare had known nothing of the bota until he had mentioned it. Had that mention fueled a further sense of betrayal? Had it intrigued her? Amused her? Frightened her?

He gave up his maundering. Who knew what a creature like that was likely to do? She was, as Pavan was wont to note, an atypical Zeltron. In some ways that made her as hard to read—and as frustrating—as Pavan’s metal guardian.

He exhaled gustily, then winced. His nose tusks were vibrating so much lately from sighing that the anchoring flesh was getting sore.

“The prefect removed our tracking devices within minutes of returning to his headquarters.”

Darth Vader’s gloved hand moved in a dismissive gesture. “That was to be expected.”

“He’s a traitor then. He’s chosen his side.”

“Has he?” The Dark Lord turned, and Probus Tesla saw his distorted reflection in the curved black surfaces of the Dark Lord’s optic panels. His image was warped, but the marks of his brush with death were still clearly visible on his face, notwithstanding the hours spent in a bacta tank. No matter. The scars served their purpose: they reminded him that hubris was a failing he could not afford and that false assumptions based on hubris could be deadly. He would not forget that hard-learned lesson.

“Or,” Vader