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“I wasn’t thinking. That was the point. I was drunk— or at least as close to it as I could program.”

Jos shook his head in amazement. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s head over to the shop and see if anyone’s still there who can fix you up. Reattaching mechanical limbs is a bit beyond my expertise.”

The three left the cantina and walked through the hot night air, I-Five holding his dismembered arm. Den said, “I’d feel terrible if I was responsible for you getting drunk and into a bar fight—if it turned out not to be worth it.”

“I think it was,” I-Five said. “I think it was very worthwhile.” He looked at Jos. “Remember my mentioning that I seemed to be having an anxiety attack?”

Jos nodded.

“I believe it was born out of conflicting impulses based on new data garnered from regaining all of my memory files—including several regarding my erstwhile friend and partner, Lorn Pavan.

“I remembered that I have an obligation to fulfill—one that involves my returning to Coruscant as soon as possible. But to do so would be to abandon my responsibilities here. This was a problem that could not be solved by an application of logic. I needed intuition—the ability to sense what was right by mechanisms far older than logic and application of data.

“I needed, somehow, to jar my synaptic grid cortex into another mode—a totally nonlinear mode. Thus, the concept of altering my sensory input and perception of data.”

“Did it work?” Den asked.

“I believe so. I have decided on a course of action.”

“You leaving us, I-Five?” Jos asked.

“Not immediately.” The droid did not amplify his comment.

Jos couldn’t resist. “But,” he said, “you’re a machine, remember? Programmed to be an automaton, no more. So what does it matter how you reach a decision?”

I-Five looked at him. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“All of what I have said before is technically true,” the droid said. “But I’ve come to realize it’s possible for things to be more than the sum of their parts. And that a difference that makes no difference is, for all practical purposes, moot. I think I was, for lack of a better term, afraid. I believe that I was trying to convince myself, more than you, that I am not what you, Barriss, and a few others here see me as. I was, however, lacking necessary information to reach the right conclusion.”

“And that would be…?”

“That I am indeed sentient,” I-Five said.

Jos grinned, and slapped the droid on his durasteel back. “Took you long enough to figure it out.”

They found an Ishi Tib tech, half asleep under a tool bench. At first he was surly, but the bottle of Corellian wine that Den had grabbed as they’d left proved an effective bribe.

As the tech was reattaching I-Five’s arm, spot-welding snapped junctions and splicing sensory cables and hydraulic circulatory piping, Jos said, “By the way, it’s none of my business, but I’m curious—just what is the obligation you remembered?”

I-Five didn’t answer right away, and the silence stretched long enough for Jos to begin to wish he hadn’t asked. Then the droid said, “It was a request of Lorn’s. He asked me to watch over his son.”

29

Barriss could not sleep. Her experience with the Force continued to echo in her, stronger by far than after the first time, bringing up powerful flashes of the wondrous cosmic consciousness she had been a part of—along with the feeling of important things going undone. She wanted to return to that place—to stay there, if at all possible.

Maybe it was cumulative. Maybe it would come to pass that, eventually, she could swim in that magical sea on her own, at will, and without the bota to deliver and keep her there.

There hadn’t been any new revelations. The danger to the camp was approaching, but it was not yet at hand. On some level, she knew she had enough time to decide upon a course of action. On another level, what that course of action would be seemed utterly beyond her capabilities.

Beyond her unamplified capabilities. But nothing seemed too big for her to handle while connected in the Force by the miracle of the bota.