"Um, now I'm confused. She might hurt me for some other reason than my having said something she found offensive? I mean, I would rather not get hurt either way."

"Siths' connection to the Force interferes with their impulse control, Ma'am, any time she's upset there's a chance she'll hurt someone."

"Then it probably is for the best for her to leave her alone for a while, let her figure out her connection to the Force with one less person to control herself around. Maybe the time dilation will go the helpful direction."

"Yes Ma'am. I'll let you know how it goes."

"Thanks." She goes back to the main bar and is shortly ensconced in an out-of-the-way booth reading about hyperspace engines and making mental notes about how to check if the same physical principles apply in her home universe.

A few days later, DZ comes down to the bar missing an arm; she heads straight for Bar.

Upload does a double-take at the missing arm, then hesitantly starts walking toward DZ and Bar.

By the time she gets there, Bar has produced a replacement arm, but DZ is talking to her rather than attaching it: "Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. I don't think that would help, ma'am, but thank you."

Upload's cameras are flicking back and forth as she alternates between trying not to stare at the injury and staring at the injury. "Is everything okay? Do you need a hand--argh, not what I meant, I mean do you need help with anything."

It really doesn't look that bad: the arm is detached cleanly at the attachment point, with no visible damage, just an ashy scorch mark on her side. She puts the new arm on before answering; it only takes a moment for it to click into place, and she flexes her new fingers experimentally as she speaks. "I'm fine, ma'am, thank you."

It's less that it looks like it hurts and more that she wants to know how it happened but doesn't want to ask. All she says is "It's convenient that the bar can sell you parts."

"Yes. Thank you," she directs at the bar.

Awkwardly: "I hope whatever happened to the previous arm didn't inconvenience you too much."

"It's all right, ma'am. Master Deskyl is just frustrated that she shouldn't go kill Lort Pritruth yet."

Margaret doesn't say "And that resulted in you needing a new arm, huh?". She doesn't even narrow her eyes, partly thanks to not having any. She just asks, "What is the current timeline on that?"

"I'm not sure, ma'am. She hasn't made much progress yet, but she could have a breakthrough any time."

"Progress on her problem with the Force, you mean? Huh. What *is* the Force like, anyway? I know it only interacts with biological life, and it's how Deskyl's powers work, but that's about it."

"What it's like for her, ma'am? It's a little like an extra sense, but more like a very strong intuition that's usually trustworthy. She's used to trusting it, and Sith are explicitly trained to react immediately to certain intuitions, since that's how their danger sense works. But right now it's telling her that she should react to anything that annoys her by attacking it."

"That sounds really unpleasant, for her and you both. But I meant more . . . what is it, what's it made of, does it do anything besides empowering Sith?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am. It's a part of physics, like gravity or time, that interacts mostly with minds and emotions but can also interact with other parts of physics. All biological creatures have a connection to the Force, but it's very weak for most of them; enough to keep them alive and give them an occasional bit of useful intuition, mostly."

"Hey, no need to apologize for giving me interesting information. It's curious that the Force is still accessible in Milliways, when most worlds I've met people from don't seem to have anything like it. It almost makes more sense given that biology relies on it, since Milliways seems to make an effort to be survivable by lots of kinds of people."

"It's more likely that they just don't know, ma'am; it's very rare for a Force-sensitive individual to figure out how to use it on their own, on top of how rare they are to begin with."

"That would be really interesting. Now I kind of want to ask Deskyl, when she's feeling better, to lean out my door and see if the Force is the same in my world."

"She might be willing to do that. Or, if you find someone who's willing to give a blood sample, we could check it for midichlorians; those are the organelles that interact directly with the Force."

"Unfortunately my door leads to a maze of tunnels, so finding someone to give a blood sample would be pretty difficult, but if I get the chance, I'll take it. Actually . . . Bar, can you sell me a vial of my blood from back when I had blood?"

Bar provides this.

"How do we test it? I assume it involves some sort of equipment."