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I-Five turned to face her. "With the Force."

"Yes."

"I knew a Padawan, a female human approximately your age, on Coruscant. Her name was Darsha As-sant." He seemed disturbed by this recounting.

Barriss nodded. "I’ve heard of her. Obi-Wan Kenobi says she died bravely, battling an unknown foe."

I-Five was silent for a moment. "Bravery," he said at last. "Yes. She was very brave. You humans are known for your courage throughout the galaxy. Even the most warlike of species respect it. Did you know that?"

"I hadn’t really given it that much thought. There are a great many species who are as brave or braver than humans, I should imagine."

"Yes. But there is a crucial difference between your kind and a Sakiyan, say, or a Trandoshan, or a Nikto. They are fearless, but not necessarily brave. Fearless-ness is encoded in their genes. There are two ways that life ensures survival of the fittest-by producing warrior types fierce enough to conquer all in their path, or by creating life-forms that have the sense to run away. Those capable of both are rare. You humans have a choice-fight or flight. Yet so many times you choose to fight-and so often for the strangest reasons." I-Five raised both hands, palms up, in a very human shrug. "It’s fascinating, at times baffling, and often infuriating. Humans never cease to amaze me."

As they spoke, Barriss took her lightpad from the rack and started walking down the rows of beds, check-ing the overhead monitor stats against the glowing fig-ures appearing on the pad as she entered each bed’s information field. The droid walked alongside her.

"You and Jos were talking about what it is to be hu-man during the game," she said. "Do you consider yourself brave, I-Five?"

"Somehow I doubt that anyone who is really brave considers himself brave. I don’t believe Padawan Assant did."

They walked down the narrow aisle between the two rows of beds. Nearly all of them were occupied by clone troopers; the same face multiplied over and over. Only the injuries were different.

I-Five said, "I’ve been told that the troops have also been genetically modified to feel little or no fear on the battlefield. One can’t help but wonder-does eliding the ’fear gene’ make them less human?"

Barriss did not answer; she was suddenly occupied with watching the last piece of a puzzle fall into place. She knew that Jos had been wrestling with some sort of existential conundrum for the past few days, and, with the surety of those connected to the Force, she suddenly knew that this was it. Jos, like most people-even some Jedi-had compartmentalized those around him into comfortable slots-comfortable for him, anyway. For him, clones had been dumped into the same category as droids-the only difference being that they were made of flesh and bone instead of durasteel and electronics. It had been convenient to view them with such detach-ment; it made it easier to accept it when he was unable to save one on the table, though he still took it pretty hard. He was not the sort to be callous or indifferent to any life, even that of someone most considered an or-ganic automaton.

But then, along comes I-Five, a fully cognizant ma-chine, or at least extremely close, and suddenly life isn’t so easily dealt with. If Jos couldn’t mentally segregate a droid into something less than human, then he certainly couldn’t fit clones into that category.

No wonder he’d seemed shaken up lately. His view of life had been wrenched.

A hand with a vibroscalpel needed to be steady. She should speak to him. Or at least make sure he spoke to the minder.

And yet-what words of wisdom could she offer to quiet his turmoil? Was she so certain of life in all its manifestations that she could offer a real solution to his problem? Wiser heads than hers had failed to come up with a sustainable philosophy of everything that made the galaxy a neatly packaged place. Who are we? Where do we come from? What does it all mean? She had the Force, a constant upon which she