Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights III_ Patterns of Force - Michael Reaves [6]
When Jax at last exhausted the account, I-Five was silent for a moment, his photoreceptors flickering slightly in a way that suggested the blinking of human eyes. Finally he said, “May I point out that this would seem to contradict the knowledge you received through the Force some months ago that Skywalker was still alive?”
“Well, yeah.” Jax ran fingers through his sweat-damp hair. “Although he might have been injured on Mustafar, I suppose.”
“Possibly, although other possibilities abound. It might have a more metaphysical meaning, for example. Or it might be an expression of your own inner fears.”
“That’s not usually how Force dreams work, but I suppose it’s possible. I’ve never had one like this before,” Jax admitted. “I mean, a dream of the past, rather than the future, for one thing. And an edited past at that. Anakin didn’t say anything about the Force when he gave me the pyronium, he just asked me to keep it for him while he went to Tatooine. And I think I’d have noticed if he burst into flames,” he added wryly.
I-Five’s “eyes” flickered again, seeming to convey amusement.
The door chime sounded; Jax checked his chrono, but I-Five was ahead of him.
“It’s oh seven hundred hours.”
It wasn’t a terribly early hour this deep in downlevel Coruscant where few acknowledged either day or night, but most sentients seemed to agree that some hours were impolite for calling on one’s neighbor.
Jax rose and padded out of his room into the larger main living area, noticing that the rest of his companions were either asleep or out. I-Five followed him.
As he moved to the front door of the conapt, Jax sent out questing tendrils of the Force to the being on the opposite side of the barrier. In his mind’s eye he saw the energy there, but he perceived no telltale threads of the Force emanating from or connecting to them.
Every Jedi experienced and perceived the Force in intensely personal ways. Jax’s particular sensibilities caused him to perceive it as threads of light or darkness that enrobed or enwrapped an individual and connected him or her to the Force itself and to other beings and things. In this case there seemed to be no threads … though there was a hint of a, well, a smudge—that was the only word Jax could think of that even vaguely fit.
Curious for the second time that morning, he opened the door, smiling a little as I-Five stepped to one side to take up a defensive position where he would not immediately be seen by whoever was outside.
In the narrow, starkly lit corridor stood a short, stocky male Sakiyan whom Jax guessed to be in his sixties, dressed in clean but threadbare clothing. He blinked at Jax’s appearance—he was wearing a loose pair of sleep pants and hadn’t bothered to put on a tunic.
“I—I apologize for the hour,” the Sakiyan stammered, blinking round eyes that seemed extraordinarily pale in his bronze face, “but the matter is urgent. I need to speak to Jax Pavan.”
Jax scrutinized the Sakiyan again, more thoroughly and with every sense he possessed. Sensing no ill intent, he introduced himself. “I’m Jax Pavan.”
The visitor’s face brightened and he heaved a huge sigh of relief. “By any chance, do you happen to own a protocol droid of the Eye-Fivewhycue line?”
“I don’t ‘own’ him,” Jax replied cautiously. “But yes, he’s here. What do you want with him, er …?”
The Sakiyan executed a slight bow. “I apologize for my extreme lack of manners. My name is—”
“Tuden Sal,” I-Five said, stepping out of the shadows beside the door. The droid pointed an index finger at the Sakiyan. A red light gleamed at the tip—the muzzle of one of the twin lasers incorporated into his hands. His photoreceptors gleamed brightly. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this …”
two
Kajin Savaros stood in the narrow cleft beneath a support pier somewhere in the lower levels of a cloud-scraper on the long axis of Ploughtekal Market and peered out at the rabble in the bazaar