Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights III_ Patterns of Force - Michael Reaves [58]
Yes, he’d heard the cascade of innuendo that had torn through the ranks of the Inquisitorius like a flash flood. He’d ignored it. Soon he would silence it.
“What makes you think the two will not be found together?” he asked now. “The boy is a Force prodigy of unbelievable strength. It stands to reason that Pavan would want to recruit him, likely in some vain attempt to resurrect the moldering Jedi corpse.”
Again the two other Inquisitors exchanged glances. This time it was Mas Sirrah who spoke. “What makes you suppose that Pavan even knows of his existence?”
“Don’t be stupid, Mas. Such a power is like gravity. It will draw Jax Pavan just as it draws me.”
During the conversation he had been trying to reacquire the scent of that other Force-sensitive, scouring walls and halls and hidden rooms with his mind and finding only echoes, ghost perfumes. He peered down one long, convoluted alley with the unlikely name of Snowblind Mews … but no, the trail was gone—like smoke flayed to transparency by a breeze.
He turned to his peers. “Pavan is somewhere on this level. Maybe he lives here, or maybe he’s just hiding here, but he’s here now. Stay in the area. I’ll report to Lord Vader.”
They nodded in unison and glided into the shadows while Tesla pulled out his comlink.
The look on Dejah Duare’s expressive face betrayed a jumble of emotions: shock, affront, curiosity, trepidation. She pushed back the cowl of her robe and stared at him. “You want to move to the studio?”
“Not all of us maybe, but at least Kaj and me.” Jax hated asking this of her; he could see that it was wreaking havoc on her composure. “I hate hitting you with this, Dejah, and if I felt I had any choice, I wouldn’t do it. But Kaj isn’t in complete control of his talent, and I need to put him someplace where he stands half a chance of remaining concealed until I can complete his training—or at least teach him how to govern his impulses. Right now the Force is reacting to his every emotion. If he feels anger, the Force amplifies that anger until it’s out of his control.”
“Are you sure Ves’s sculptures will shield him?”
“Not sure, but very hopeful. Especially if I-Five and I can modify them so that the field is widened and stabilized.”
Now she was simply stunned. “You want to modify them? You want to change them?”
“That is usually what the word modify means,” Rhinann said from the doorway of the workroom.
Jax lifted a hand to prevent him from saying more—actually putting a bit of the Force into the gesture for emphasis. The Elomin would experience it as the sensation of an invisible hand clamped over his mouth for a moment. His eyes widened and his lips compressed to an even thinner line than usual, but he stayed put. Jax wished he would just go away, but he refused to use the Force for that sort of petty manipulation.
“Surely there are alternatives,” Dejah said. “You could take him to the Whiplash. Don’t they have safe houses that—”
“There’s no safe house that’s proof to a Force prodigy of Kaj’s power. They’d have to keep him tranquilized day and night.”
“So they keep him tranquilized. You’ve got him tranquilized now …”
“So he can sleep safely. But that’s only a stopgap measure. Keeping him that way for any length of time would do him irreparable harm—and only make him more inclined to emotional overload and explosion.”
Dejah moved closer to Jax, laying her hands on his arm. He instinctively raised a barrier of tightly woven Force threads against her involuntary assault on his senses.
“Then let’s use Whiplash resources to smuggle Kaj offworld. The Togruta is being moved tomorrow morning, right? Can’t we move Kaj at the same time?”
Jax shook his head. “Kaj’s talent makes him a huge liability, Dejah. We don’t have the safeguards in place to move him offworld without tremendous risk to everyone. What I’m asking of you is the only way to minimize the danger. Once Kaj is trained, he’ll be able to