THE ADVENTURES OF LANDO CALRISSIAN

by

L. Neil Smith

Based on the characters and situations created by George Lucas A

Del Rey Book BALLANTINE BOOKS, NEW YORK

CONTENTS

LANDO CALRISSIAN AND THE MINDHARP OF SHARU

LANDO CALRISSIAN AND THE FLAmEwIND OF OSEON

LANDO CALRISSIAN AND THE STARCAVE OF ThONBOKA - AND THE MINDHARP

OF SHARU

This book is dedicated to Robert Shea and Robert Anton
Wilson .

PROLOGUE

"SABACC!

It was unmercifully hot.  Tossing his card-chips on the table, the

young gambler halfheartedly collected what they'd earned him, an

indifferent addition to his already indifferent profits for the

evening.  Something on the unspectacular order of five hundred credits.

Perhaps it was the heat.  Or just his imagination.

This blasted asteroid, Oseon 2795, while closer to its sun than

most, was as carefully life-supported and air-conditioned as any

developed rock in the system.  Still, one could almost feel the

relentless solar flux hammering down upon its sere and withered

surface, feel the radiation soaking through its ironnickel substance,

feel the unwanted energy reradiating from the walls in every room.

Especially this one.

Apparently the locals felt it, too.  They'd stripped right down to

shorts and shirt-sleeves after the second hand, two hours earlier, and

looked fully as fatigued and grimy as the young gambler felt.'He took a

sip from his glass, the necessity for circumspection regarding what he

drank blessedly absent for once.  No nonsense here about comradely

alcohol consumption.

Most of them were having ice water and liking it.

Beads of moisture had condensed into a solid sheet on the

container's outer surface and trickled down his wrist into his

gold-braided uniform sleeve.

What a way to live!  Oseon 2795 was a pocket of penury in a

plutocrat's paradise.  The drab mining asteroid, thrust cruelly near

the furnace of furnaces, orbited through a system of pleasure resorts

and vacation homes for the galaxy's superwealthy, like an itinerant

junkman.

The gambler was wishing at the moment that he'd never heard of the

place.  That's what came of taking advice from spaceport attendants.  A

trickle of moisture ran down his neck into the upright collar of his

semiformal uniform.  Who said hardrock miners were always rich?

He shuffled the oversized deck once, twice, three times, twice

again in listless ritual succession, passed it briefly for a

perfunctory cut to the perspiring player on his right, dealt the cards

around, two to a customer, and waited impatiently for the amateurs to

assess their hands.  Real or imagined, the heat seemed to slow

everybody's mental processes.

Initial bets were added to the ante in the middle of the table.

It didn't amount to a great fortune by anybody's standardsexcept

perhaps the poverty-cautious participants in the evening's exercise in

the mathematics of probability.  To them the gambler was a romantic

figure, a professional out-system adventurer with his own private

starship and a reputation for outrageous luck.  The backroom

niicrocredit plungers were trying desperately to impress him, he

realized sadly, and they were succeeding: at the present rate, he'd

have to drain the charge from his electric shaver into the ship's

energy storage system, just to lift off the Core-forsaken planetoid.

Having your own starship was not so much a matter of being able to

buy it in the first place (he'd won his in another sabacc game in the

last system but one he'd visited) as being able to afford to operate

it.  So far, he'd lost money on the deal.

Looking down, he saw he'd dealt himself a minus-nine: Balance,

plus the Two of Sabres.  Not terribly promising, even at the best of

times, but sabacc was a game of dramatic reversals, often at the turn

of a single card-chip.  Or even without turning it-he watched the deuce

with a thrill that never staled as the face of the electronic

pasteboard blurred and faded, refocused and solidified as the Seven of

Staves.

That gave him a minus-four: insignificant progress, but progress

nevertheless.  He saw the current bet, flipping a thirtycredit token

into the pot, but declined to raise.

It also meant that the original Seven of Staves, in somebody's

hand or in the undealt remainder of the deck, had been transformed into

something altogether different.  He watched the heat-flushed faces of

the players, learning nothing.  Each of the seventy-eight card-chips

transformed itself at random intervals, unless it lay flat on its back

within the shallow interference field of the gatning table.  This made

for a fast-paced, nerve-wracking game.

The young gambler found it relaxing.  Ordinarily.

"I'll take a card, please, Captain Calrissian."  Vett Fori, the

player in patched and faded denyms on the gambler's left, was the chief

supervisor of the asteroid mining operation, a tiny, tough-looking

individual of indeterminate age, with a surprisingly gentle smile

hidden among the worrry-lines.  She'd been betting heavily-for that

impecuni crowd, anyway-and ous losing steadily, all evening, as if

preoccupied by more than the heat.  An unlit cigar rested on the table

edge beside her elbow.

"Please, call me Lando," the young gambler replied, dealing her a

card-chip.  " 'Captain Calfissian' sounds like the one-eyed commander

of a renegade Imperial dreadnought.  My Millennium Falcon's only a

small converted freighter, and a rather elderly one at that, I'm

afraid."  He watched her for an indication of the card she'd taken.

Nothing.

A nasal chuckle sounded from across the table.  Arun Feb, the

supervisor's assistant, took a card as well.  There was a hole frayed

in the paunch of his begrimed singlet, and dark stains under his arms.

Like his superior, he was small in stature.  All the miners seemed

to run that way.  Compactness was undoubtedly a virtue among them.  He

had a dark, thick, closely cropped beard and a shiny pink scalp.

Drawing on a cigar of his own, he frowned as he added what he'd been

dealt to the pair in his hand.

Suddenly: "Oh, for Edge's sake, I simply can't make up my mind!

Can you come back to me, Captain Calrissian?"  Lando groaned

inwardly.

This was how the entire evening had gone so far: the speaker,

Oudefa Osuno Whett, for all his dithering, had been the consistent big

winner, perhaps owing to his tactics of continuous annoyance of the

others.

Fully as much a stranger in the Oseon as the young starship

captain, at the moment he was operating on considerably less goodwill.

"I'm sorry, Ottdefa, you know I can't.  Will you have a card or

not?"

Whett assumed an expression of conspicuous concentration that

might have been a big success in his university classes.

Ottdefa was a title, something academic or scientific, Lando

gathered, conferred in the Lekua System.  It was the equivalent of

"Professor."

Its owner was a spindly wraith, ridiculously tall, grayheaded,

with a high-pitched whiny voice and a chronically indecisive manner.

It had taken him twenty minutes to order a drink at the beginning

of the game-and even then he'd changed his order just as the chink

arrived.

Lando didn't like him.

"Oh, very well.  If you insist, I'll take a card."

"Fine," Lando dealt it.  Either the academic had an excellent

poker face, or he was too absentminded to notice whether the resulting

hand was bad or good.  Lando looked to his right.

"Constable Phuna?"

The squat, curly-headed tough-guy he addressed was T. Lund Phuna,

local representative of law-and-order under the Administrator Senior of

the Oseon.  It was not, apparently, the happiest of assignments in the

field.  The uniform tunic hanging soddenly over the back of his chair

looked nearly as worn as his companions' work clothes.  He lit

cigarette after cigarette with nervous, sweaty fingers, filling the

cramped, already stifling room with more pollution.  He wiped a

perspirationsoaked tissue over his jowls.

"I'll stand.  Nothing for me."

"Dealer takes a card."

It was the Idiot, worth zero.  Given the circumstances, Lando felt

it was altogether appropriate.  If only he'd headed for the Dela System

as he'd planned, instead of the Oseon.  He'd.seen richer pickings in

refugee camps.

Bets were placed again.  Vert Fori took another card, her fourth,

as did her assistant, Arun Feb, asking for it around the stub of his

cigar.  Ottdefa Whett stood pat.  A Master of Sabres brought the value

of Lando's hand up to a positive ten, as a final round of wagering

commenced.

Arun Feb and Vert Fori both folded with a nine and minusnine

respectively.  The cop Phuna hung grimly on, his broad features misted

with sweat.  Lando was about to resign himself, when Whett excitedly

cried, "Sabacc!"  slapping the Mistress of Staves, the Four of Flasks,

and the Six of Coins down on the worn felt tabletop.

The Ottdefa raked in a meager pot: "All ... not exactly the

Imperial Crown jewels, nor even the fabulous Treasure of Rafa, but@'

"Treasure of Rafa?"  echoed Vert Fori.

She might as well ask, thought Lando, she isn't doing herself any

good playing cards.

"I've heard of the Rafa System," the mine supervisor continned,

"everybody has.  It's the closest to our own.  But I haven't heard of

any treasure."

The academic cleared his throat.  It was a silly, goose-honk

noise.  "The Treasure of Rafa-or of the Sharu, as we are now compelled

to call it, not for the Rafa System, my dear, but for the ancient race

who once flourished there and subsequently vanished without a trace-is

a subject of some interest."

This had been delivered in Whett's best professional tones.

Vert Fori's weathered face, impassive enough when it came to

playing cards, plainly displayed annoyance at being patronized.

She picked up her cigar, stuck it between her teeth, and glared

across the table.

"Without a trace?"  Arun Feb snorted with disbelief.  "I've been

there, friend, and those ruins of your-what'd you call lem?-'Sharu,'

are the biggest hunks of engineering in the known galaxy.  What's more,

they cover every body in the system bigger than my thumbnail.  They

"Are not themselves the Sharu, my dear fellow, of whom no trace

remains," Whett insisted, his tone divided between pedantry and

insulted reaction.  "I certainly ought to know, for, until recently, I

was a research anthropologist for the new governor of the Rafa System."

"What's a bureaucrat want with a tame anthropologist?"  Feb asked

blandly.  He blew a final smoke ring, mashed his cigar out on the edge

of the vacuum tray, and took a long drink of water.  It dribbled down

his chin, soaking the collar of his soiled shirt.

"Why, I suppose," sniffed Whett, "to familiarize himself

thoroughly with all aspects of his new responsibilities.  As you are no

doubt aware, there is a native humanoid race in the Rafa; all of their

religious practices revolve about the ruins of their legends of the

long-lost Sharu.  The new governor is a most conscientious fellow, most

conscientious indeed."

"Yes," Lando said finally, wondering if the anthropologist was

ever going to deal the next hand, "but you were speaking of treasure?"

Whett blinked.  "Why, yes, yes I was."  A shrewd look came into

the academic's eyes.  "Have you an interest in treasure, Captain?"

More interest than I've got in this game, Lando thought.  I wish

I'd steered for the Dela System, no matter how much easier it is to

land a spaceship on an asteroid than a full-scale planet.  Soon as this

farce is over, that's precisely what I'm go im ing to do, win or lose,

even if the astrogational calculations take me twenty years.

"Hasn't everybody?"  Lando answered neutrally.  He extracted a

cigarillo from his uniform pocket and lit it.  Treasure, eh?  Maybe

there was something to be learned here, after all.

"Not quite everybody.  Speaking for myself," the scientist in-,

toned, beginning at last to shuffle the thick seventy-eight-card deck,

"my interest is purely scientific.  What use have I for worldly wealth?

One for you, one for you, one for you, one for you, and one for

me.

One for you, one for you, one for you .  .

"Well, you surely came to the right place, then!"  Vett Fori

guffawed, picking up her cards.  "No worldly wealth to get in your way

at all!  What are you doing here, anyway?  We didn't hire any

anthropologists."

Lighting another cigarette, Constable Phuna spoke bitterly.

"Seeing how the other half lives, that's what!  I saw his entry

papers.  He's studying life among the poor people of a rich system@n a

fat Imperial grant, speaking of worldly wealth.

We're specimens, and he@' "Please, please, my dear fellow, do not

be offended.  I aspire only to increase our understanding of the

universe.  And who knows, perhaps what I learn here can make things

better in the future, not just for you, but for others, as@' Vett Fori,

Arun Feb, and T. Lund Phuna spoke almost simultaneously: "Don't do us

any favors!"

"Do me one," Lando suggested in the embarrassed silence that

followed, "tell me about this treasure business.  And kindly deal me a

card while you're about it, will you?"

Bets were placed again and additional cards dealt out.

Lando, having actually lost interest in the increasingly slim

pickings the game afforded, watched absently as the card-chips in his

hand transmuted themselves from one suit and value to another.  He paid

a good deal more attention to what the anthropologist had to say.

"The Toka are primitive natives of the Rafa System.  As Assistant

Supervisor Feb has so cogently pointed out, they and the present

colonial establishment co-exist among the ruins of the ancient Sharu,

enormous buildings which very nearly occupy every square kilometer of

the habitable planets.  I'll see that, and raise a hundred credits."

Arun Feb shook his head, but tossed in a pair of fifty-credit

tokens from a dwindling stake.  Vert Fori folded, a look of disgust on

her face.  She placed her still unlighted cigar back on the table's

edge.

Phuna raised another fifty.  "Yeah, but the really important thing

about the Rafa is the life-crystals they grow there."  He fingered a

tiny jewel suspended in its setting from a slim chain around his sweaty

neck.

Whett nodded.  "Important to you, perhaps, good Constable.

It is true, the life-orchards and the crystals harvested there are

the chief export product of the colony, but my interest-and what I was

paid to be professionally interested in-were the Toka legends,

especially those bearing upon the Mindharp."

Glancing at his cards, Lando saw he had a Mistress of Coins, a

Three of Staves, and a Four of Sabres.  He dropped the requisite number

of tokens into the pot just as the Three turned into a Five of Flasks:

twenty-three, but it didn't really matter; Fives were wild anyway.

"Sabacc!  " He gathered in the largest pot of the evening thus

far.

"Mindharp?"  the gambler asked.  "What in the name of the Core is

that?"

Ottdefa Whett wrinkled his nose, passing the rest of the deck to

Lando.  "Oh, just a ridiculous native superstition.  There is supposed

to be a lost magical artifact designed to call the Sharu-with whom the

Toka identify in some strange fashion-to call the Sharu back when the

Toka need them.

Silly, as the Toka could not possibly ever have been contemporary

with a civilization millions of years in the past, any more than human

beings and dinosaurs-" "I've seen dinosaurs," Arun Feb interrupted.

"On Trammis Ill. "  The gigantic reptiloids of Tramniis III were

famous the galaxy over, and a chuckle circulated around the table.

"I take it, however," Lando said as he shuffled and dealt the

cards, then watched the bets pile up again, "that you have your own

theories."  Somehow the talk of treasure seemed to have loosened up the

pursestrings a bit, except perhaps for Vett Fori and her assistant.

The gambler took a puff of his cigarillo.

"Would you mind talking about them?"

The anthropologist looked .  as if he wouldn't mind at all, even

if requested to discourse standing barefoot on a large cake of ice

while his ample gray hair were set on fire.

"Well, sir, the ruins, for all that they are ubiquitous, are

impenetrable, closed completely on all sides without a sign of

entryway.  I daresay that all the collected treasures of a million

years of advanced alien culture await the first adventurer to gain

admittance.  I don't mind confessing to you all that I attempted it

myself on several occasions.  But the ruins are not only impenetrable,

they are absolutely obdurate.  No known tool or energy yields so much

as a smudge upon their surfaces.

I'll see that, and raise five hundred.  Constable?"

Grudgingly, the policeman threw in five hundred credits' worth of

tokens.  Lando saw the bet with @id amazement and raised it a hundred

credits himself.

"Sabacc!"

Hmmm.  Things were looking up a little.  He was now ahead two

thousand credits.  He dealt the cards a third time, wondering what

prospects for a gambler might be met in the Rafa.

The idea was tempting: only a handful of straight-line lightyears

to navigate across, and, if he recalled correctly, a major spaceport

with good technical facilities-which to him meant landing assistance

from Ground Control.  The Millennium Falcon was completely new to him.

He'd be playing cards in the Dela System this very moment if he

weren t such an abysmally amateurish astrogator and ship-handler.  He'd

balked at the long, complicated voyage and reputedly tricky approach to

a mountaintop landing field, despite well-founded rumors of rich

pickings in an atmosphere friendly to his profession.

But the Rafa ...

He won the third hand and a fourth, was now ahead some fifty-five

hundred credits.  The prospects of action seemed to be encouraging him,

and he wasn't noticing the heat as much anymore.

"Oh, I say, Captain Calrissian It was Vihett again.  As the

stakes- mounted, the anthropologist seemed the only one whose interest

in desultory conversation hadn't lagged.

"Yes?"  Lando answered, shuffling and dealing the cards.

"well, sir, I ... that is, I find myself somewhat embarrassed

financially at this moment.  You see, I have exceeded the amount of

cash I allowed myself for the evening's entertainment, and I-" Lando

sat back disappointed, drew on his cigarillo.  it was too much, he

reflected, to have expected to get rich off this emaciated college

professor.  "I move around too much to extend credit, Ottdefa.1' "I

appreciate that fully, sir, and wish to ... well, how much would you

consider allowing on a Class Two multi-phasic tohot, if one may ask?"

"Once may indeed ask," the gambler replied evenly.

"Thirty-seven microcredits and a used shuttle pass.  I'm not in

the hardware business, my dear Ottdefa."  There was an idea, however:

he could rent a pilot droid to get the ship from here to the Rafa-or

wherever else he decided to go.  He reconsidered.  A Class Two was

worth a good deal, perhaps half again the value of his spaceship.  In

these circumstances ...

"All right, then, a kilocred-not a micro more.  Take it or leave

it."

The Professor looked displeased, opened his mouth to bargain Lando

up, examined the determined expression on the gatnbler's face, and

nodded.  "A kilo, then.  I haven't any use for the thing in any event,

it was attempting to help me break into the Sharu ruins, and I-"' "Will

you have a card, Supervisor Fori?"  Lando interrupted.

"I'm out; this game's gotten too rich for me, and I'm on shift in

fifteen minutes."  Much the same was true for Arun Feb.  They sat

through the hand, enjoying watching somebody else lose for once.

Osuno Whett, however, bet heavily with his borrowed thousand,

perhaps in an attempt to tap the gambler out.  He was assisted in this

by Constable Phuna.  The money on the table grew and grew as Lando met

their every raise, increasing the stakes himself.  He wanted the game

over with, one way or the other.

He'd dealt himself a Two of Sabres and a Four of Coins, taking an

additional card after his two opponents had accepted them.  Abruptly,

the Four became a Three of Flasks, and his extra, which had been a Nine

of Staves, transformed itself into the Idiot.

"Sabacc!"  Lando cried in double triumph.  To judge from the money

on the table before him, and the lack of it in front of Whett and

Phuna, that was the game.  "Where can I pick up that droid, Ottdefa?

I'm going to put it to work immediately as a naviga@, "On Rafa IV,

Captain.  I left it in the custody of a storagelocker company,

intending to sell it there or send for it-now, please don't get angry!

I have here the title and an official tax assessment indicating

its true value.  You may take these with you, or use them to get a fair

price for the robot here!"

Lando had risen, violence flitting briefly-very brieflythrough his

mind.  That he had been gulled like any amateur was his first coherent

thought.  That he had a small but powerful pistol secreted beneath his

decorative cummerbund was his second.  That he could wind up dead, or

in jail, on this sweltering fistful of slag was his third.

There wasn't time for a fourth.

"Hold on there, son!"  the Constable said, seizing Lando's arm.

"No need for any uproar.  We're all friends here.  He pointed with

his free hand to the papers Whett had preferred.

"The Ottdefa here can post bond to you in the full amount of-say,

what's thist' Lando felt something small, round, and cool thrust up

beneath his embroidered sleeve.  He glanced down just as Phuna was

pretending to remove it, and groaned.  It was a flat, smooth-cornered

disk a centimeter thick, perhaps four centimeters in diameter.  He knew

precisely what it was, although he'd never owned one in his life.

"A cheater!"  the indignant Constable exclaimed.  "He had a

cheater all the time!  He could change the faces of the cards to suit

him any time he wanted!  No wonder-" With a feral snarl, Osuna Whett

took advantage of the asteriod's minimal gravity, launching himself

across the table at Lando.  Just as his skinny frame was halfway to its

target, a dirty denym jacket flopped over his head, followed by a

knobbly set of knuckles belonging to Arun Feb,s right hand.

There was a dull thump of contact and a muffled squeak from the

anthropologist.

"Get out of here, kid!"  Feb shouted.  "I saw Phuna plant the

cheater on you!"

The lawman whirled on Feb, fist upraised.  Apparently Vert Fori

trusted her assistants judgment-and knew how to maneuver in the absence

of gravitic pull.  She snatched up the nearest solid object-which

happened to be the anthropologist's already battered head-and dashed it

sideways against the startled cranium of the police officer.  Eyes

crossed, he collapsed, drifting slowly to the floor.  Still holding

Whett by the occipital region, Fori pried the wad of official-looking

papers from the unconscious scientist's fingers.

"Fake these and get your ship out of the Oseon, Lando.  I'll talk

sense with Phuna when he comes around.  He's crooked, but he isn't

crazy.  Besides, in theory, he works for me."

It wasn't the first rapid exit Lando had made in his brief but

eventful career.  However, it was passing rare for those whose money he

had taken to assist him at it.  With a pang of gratitude-and the

feeling he'd regret it later-he made to toss his winnings back on the

table beside the insensate Ottdefa.

"Don't you dare!"  Vett Fori growled.  "You want us to think you

didn't win it fair and square?"  Behind her, Arun Feb tapped Phuna on

the pate again with a stainless steel water carafe, tunk!  He looked up

from the pleasant occupation and nodded confirmation.

Lando grinned, waved a wordless farewell on his way out the door.

Twenty minutes later, he was aboard the Millennium Falcon, bolting

down a very hastily rented pilot droid.  Ten minutes after that, he was

above the plane of the ecliptic, blasting out of the Oseon System and

headed for the Rafa.  It was the last place Whett would look for him.

He told himself.

GOLD-BRAIDED FLIGHT CAP carefully adjusted to a rakish angle, a

freshly suave and .  debonair Captain Lando Calrissian bounded down the

boarding ramp of the ultra-lightspeed freighter Millennium Falcon-and

cracked his forehead painfully on the hatchcoaming.

"Ouch!  By the Eternal!"  Staggered, he glanced discreetly around,

making sure no one had seen him, and sighed.  Now what the deuce was it

Ground Control had wanted him to look at?

They'd put it rather ungenteelly ...

"What's that garbage on your thrust-intennix cowling, Em Falcon,

over?"

Well, it had been something they could say without insulting

references to the amateurish way he'd skidded, setting her down on the

Teguta Lusat tarmac.  Atmospheric entry hadn't been anything to brag

about, either.  Gambler he may have been, scoundrel perhaps, and what

he preferred thinking of as "con artiste."

But ship-handler he was definitely not.

He frowned, reminded of that rental pilot droid he'd wasted a

substantial deposit on, back in the Oseon.  Let 'em try to collect the

rest of that bill!

Stepping-gingerly this time-around the hydraulic ramp lifter, he

backed away from under the smallish cargo vessel (which invariably

reminded him of a bloated horseshoe magnet), shading his eyes with one

hand.  Intermix cowling ... intermix cowling ... now where in the name

of Chaos would you find"Yeek!"

The noise had come from Lando, not the hideous leathery

excrescence that had attached itself to his ship.  It merely flapped

and fluttered grotesquely, glaring down at him with malevolent yellow

eyes as it scrabbled feebly at the hull, unaccustomed to the gravity of

Rafa IV Two hideous leathery excrescences!

Four!

Lando pelted back up the ramp, slamming the Emergency Close lever

and continuing to the cockpit.  The right-hand seat was temporarily

missing, in its place bolted the glittering and useless Class Five

pilot droid, its monitor lights blinking idiotically.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," the robot smirked, despite

the daylight pouring through the vision screens from outside, "and

welcome aboard the pleasure yacht Arleen, now in interstellar transit

from Antipose IX t@' The young gambler snarled with frustration,

slapped the pilOt'S OFF switch, and threw himself into the left

acceleration couch, just as one of the disgusting alien parasites began

suckering its way across the windscreen, fang corrosives clouding the

transparency.

"Ground Control?  I say, Ground Control!  What the devil are these

thinlaq.?"

A long, empty pause.  Then Lando remembered: "Oh, yes ... over!"

"They'@e mynocks, you simpering groundlubber!  You're supposed to

shake them off in orbit!  Now you've violated planetary quarantine, and

you'll have to take care of it yourse@.nobody's gonna dirty his-" With

a growl of his own, Lando punched the squelch button.

If they weren't going to help him, he could do without their

advice.  Mynocks ... ah, yes: tough, omnivorous creatures, capable of

withstanding the rigors of hard vacuum and Absolute temperatures.  They

were the rats of space, attaching themselves to unwary ships, usually

in some asteroid belt.

The Oseon System was nothing but asteroids!

Hitching a ride from sun to sun, planet to planet, mynocks

typicallyGood grief!  He jumped up, banging Ws head again, this time on

the overhead throttle board-stupid place to put it!-and made quick, if

clumsy progress aft to the engine area.  He'd just remembered something

else he'd read or heard about mynocks: subjected to planet-sized

gravity, they collapsed, dying rapidly ...

After reproducing.

In a locker, he found a vacuum-tight worksuit, also scrounged up a

steamhose and couplings.  Shucking into the greasy plastic outfit-a

pang of regret: he was ruining his mauve velvoid semiformals!-he

ratcheted the steamline to a reactor let-off, cranked open the topside

airlock, and, trailing hose, clambered out onto the hull.

A mynock waited greedily for him, alerted by the unavoidable

rumble of the hatch cover, its spore sacs shiny and distended.  It was

ugly, perhaps a meter across, winged like a bat, tailed (if that was

the proper word for it) like a stingray, poison-toothed like a"Yeek!"

The mynock, this time.

It floundered toward him, dragging itself along by a ventral

sucker-disk.  The only thing uglier than mynocks, Lando thought, were

the larvae they spawned on planet surfaces.  He leaped as it flicked a

clawed wingtip at him, his awkwardness aboard ship bred more of

unfamiliarity in a new environment than any native lack of agility.  He

twisted the hose nozzle, spraying the monster with superheated vapor

from the Falcon's thermal-exchange system.

It screamed and writhed, flesh melting away to expose the

cartilage it used instead of bones.  This, too, reduced quickly, washed

down the curved surface of the ship, leaving nothing but gelatinous

slime steaming on the spaceport asphalt.

A noise behind him.

Side vision impaired by the suit, Lando whirled just in time to

ram the nozzle into a second mynock's gaping maw.  It swelled and

burst.  Fastidiously, he played steam over himself to remove the

dissolving organic detritus, then stalked grimly forward, finally

destroying seven of the sickening things in all.

"Good going, Ace!"  Teguta Lusat Ground Control sneered through

his helmet receiver as he wiggled back through the upper airlock

hatchway.  "Didn't you get an instruction booklet when you sent your

box-tops in for that pile ofjunk you're flying?  Over" Pile of junk?

The only pile of junk in the neighborhood, thought Lando, sweating

in his bulky armor as he cranked the hatch back down and stowed the

stearnlines, was that brainless rent-a-hot up forward.  Hmmm.  That

gave him an idea.

"Hello, Ground Control," he warbled pleasantly from the cockpit

only seconds after worming back out of the plastic vac-suit.  "I'll

have you know that this stout little vessel's often made the run to

your overrated mudball in record-breaking time. Once upon a time.  At

least that's what her former owner claimed, trying to bid up the

battered freighter's pot value in a sabacc game he was losing badly.

Lando's rented droid had failed miserably to coax anything near

the advertised velocities out of the ship.

Probably some trick to it.

"By the way," Lando continued, "I seem to have the knack of

handling this baby now.  Would anyone care to purchase a practically

new pilot droid?  Over?"

"We've heard that one before, Millennium Err.  That rental outfit

in the Oseon may not maintain offices here, but they've got treaty

rights.  You'll have to send it back fast-,freight.  Expensive.  Over

and out.

It wasn't quite as bad as he'd expected.

Lando shipped the droid back slow-freight, balancing the extra

rental time against the transportation costs.  Evening had begun to

fall before he'd taken care of that, plus all of the complicated

official paperwork attendant upon grounding an interstellar spacecraft

anywhere the word "civilized" is considered complimentary.

Tonight, he'd relax.

He needed it, after traveling with that confounded robot.  Get a

feel for the territory-by which he meant identifying potential marks,

locating those social gatherings that others foolishly regarded as

games of chance.

Tomorrow, he'd take care of business.

The Rafa System was famous for three things: its "lifecrystals";

the peculiar orchards from which they were harvested; and what might

have been called "ruins" if the colossal monuments left by the Sharu

hadn't remained in such excellent repair.

The crystals were nothing special-as long as you regarded

quadrupling human life expectancy "nothing special."  Varying from

pinhead to fist-sized, their mere presence near the body was said to

enhance intelligence (or stave off senility) and to have some odd

effect on dreaming.

They could be cultivated only on the eleven planets, assorted

moons, and any other rocks that offered sufficient atmosphere and

warmth, of the Rafa System.

The life-orchards themselves were nearly as famous-dter the manner

of guillotines, disintegration chambers, nerve racks, and electric

chairs.  It was not the sort of agriculture amenable to automation-the

crystals were harvestable only under the most debilitating and menial

of conditions.  However, the operation was attractive financially

because,it came with its own built-in sources of cheap labor, two, to

be exact: the subhuman natives of the Rafa, plus the crin-dnal and

political refuse of a million other systems.

The Rafa was, among its other distinctive features, a penal colony

where a life sentence meant certain death.

That much was known by every schoolchild in civilized space-at

least that minority with an unhealthily precocious bent for unwholesome

trivia, Lando reflected as he secured the Falcon for the night.  He

strolled across the still-warm asphalt to the fence-field surrounding

the spaceport, intending to catch public transport into Teguta Lusat,

capital settlement of the system-wide colony.

An old, old man dressed only in what appeared to be a tattered

loin-cloth, hunched over a pushbroom at the margin of the tarmac.  He

looked up dully for a moment as Lando strode by, then back at the

ground, and resumed pushing dead leaves and bits of gravel around to no

apparent purpose.

Slanting sunset caught odd angles of the multicolored alien

architecture that constituted foreground, background, and horizon

everywhere one cared to look on this planet.  Pyramids, cubes,

cylinders, spheres, ovoids, each surface was a different brilliant hue.

The least of the monumental structures was vastly larger than the

greatest built by living beings anywhere in the known galaxy.  What

passed for a town lay wedged uncomfortably into the narrow spaces

between them.

Under a scattering of stars, Lando stepped lightly aboard the

open-sided hoverbus, arrayed in his second-best blue satyn uniform

trousers, bloused.  over bantha-hide knee boots.  He wore a soft white

broad-sleeved tunic, dark velvoid vest.  Tucked into his stylish

cummerbund was enough universal credit to get him into a semihealthy

table game-and the tiny five-charge stingbeam that was all the weapon

he ordinarily allowed himself Those who carried bigger guns tended, in

Lando's brief but highly observant experience, to think with them

instead of their brains.

Alone aboard the transport, he leaned back ortthe outwardfacing

bench, unsure whether he enjoyed the unique scenery or not.  Traffic

was a modest trickle of wheels, hovercraft, repulsor-lifted speeders.

Not a few pedestrians clumped along the quaint and phony

boardwalks that fronted the human buildings, and among them Lando

spotted many more like the old man at the port.  Perhaps they were old

prisoners who had served out their sentences.  The bus wheezed into the

center of Teguta Lusat.  Lando paid the droid at the tiller,

dismounted, and stretched his legs.

The colony was an anthill built on soil scrapings in the cracks

between ancient, artificial mountains.  Whatever effort had been

invested decorating the place (and it didn't amount to much), it

remained drab by comparison with the polychrome towers surrounding it.

Streets were narrow, angling oddly.

Human-scale homes, offices, and storefronts merely fringed the

feet of titanic nonhuman walls.

Lando walked into the least scruffy-looking bar.  The usual crowd

was there.

"Looking for a cargo, Captain?"

The mechanical innkeeper of the Spaceman's Rest polished a glass.

Bottles and other containers from a hundred cultures gleamed

softly in the subdued lighting.  A smattering of patrons-not very many:

it was the dinner hour and Four was mostly a family planet-filled the

unpretentious establishment with an equally subdued burble of

unintelligibility.

Lando shook his head.

"Too bad, Captain, what else can I do for you?"

"Anything that burns," Lando said, childishly pleased to be

recognizable as a spaceman.  He was puzzled, however, over the robot's

commercial pessimism.  This was a healthy, thriving colony, with

enormous and growing export statistics.  "Retsa, if you've got it."

In one dark corner, what might have been the same uhderclothed old

man leaned on the same old pushbroom.

"Coming up, Captain."  Deft maneuvering with glassware followed.

Lando turned his back, put elbows on the bar, inquired over his

shoulder: "Where could a fellow find some action around here?"  He'd

put it in a colonial accent-when in hick city, act hickier than the

hicks.  Civilized polish scares money away- "I just got in from the

Oseon; my evening's free."

"How free?"  The machine's optic regarded Lando appraisingly.

"There's Rosie's Joint, down the street.  Has a real nice revue.

Just turn left at the big red neon@' Lando shook his head.  "Later,

maybe.

Perhaps a gamesabacc?  Folks back home used to say I was pretty

good."

Cynicism in its voice, if not upon its unyielding features, the

automaton put on a show of thinking deeply.  "Well, sir, I don't know .

. ."

Lando offered twice the going price for retsa.

"I might know of a game-my memory stacks just aren't what they

used to be, though, and .  . ."

Lando placed another bill in the bar-top.  "Will this cover having

them rO-charged?"

The bill seemed to evaporate.

"Don't go away, Captain.  Make yourself comfortable.  I'll be

right back."

The 'tender vanished almost as impressively as had Lando's money.

THE FLEDGLINC; STARSHIP owner/operator had scarcely picked up

his drink, selected a dark, heavy, quasiwood table, and seated

himself, carefully adjusting the creases in his trousers, when another

figure appeared, a tall, cadaverous, nearly human individual wearing

something loose, with polka dots.

They clashed badly with his mottled orange complexion.

"Allow me to introduce myself, sir: I am the proprietor of this

establishment.  " The creature stroked its moustaches-two separate

levels filling the inhumanly broad space between nose and upper

lip-took a chair to the gambler's left, and lit a long green cigarette.

The young gambler noticed with amusement that the fellow hadn't

really introduced himself at all.

"I understand," said the alien, "that you have expressed an

interest in the scientific theories regarding the phenomenon of

probability."

Lando had wondered how the subject would be broached.

He settled back with a grin, assuming the facade, once again, of

an overconfident colonial, put his feet up on the chair opposite, and

winked knowingly.

"Purely scientific, friend.  I'm a spacer by profession, an

astrogator, so my interest's only natural.  I'm especially intrigued by

permutations and combinations of the number seventyeight, taken two at

a time.  Fives are wild."

"Ah ... sabacc."  The owner took a long drag of orange smoke,

exhaled softly.  "I believe you could be inducted'into the, er,

research foundation practically instantaneously.' He paused, as if

embarrassed.  "But first, Captain ... well, a small formality: your

ship name if you please, sir, strictly for identification purposes.

There are certain regressive, antiscientific enemies of free

inquiry@, Falcon, berth seventeen.  I'm Calrissian, Lando Calrissian."

"Who carry badges and blasters?"  He laughed.  "Millennium The

proprietor consulted a data-link display on his oddly jointed wrist.

"A pleasure, Captain Calrissian.  And your credit, I observe, is more

than sufficient to support this, er, research program of ours.

If you will follow me."

It's the same the galaxy over, Lando thought.  A small back room,

emerald-color dramskin tabletop, low-hanging lamp, smoke-filled

atmosphere.  In an honest game, there was a modest house percentage,

and the cops were all paid off-that routine of the tavern owner's had

merely been a chance to check Lando's credit rating.  Only the

particular mingling of smoke odors varied from system to system, and

that not as much as might be expected.  He might be out of his depth at

the controls of a starship.  For that matter, he didn't know very much

about asteroid mining or needlepoint.  But here-wherever "here"

happened to be-he was at home.

He -took his place at the table.

There were three other players, and a tiny handful of spectators

currently more interested in their drinks and breathing down each

other's necks than the game.  He placed a few creds on the firm green

surface.  Card-chips were dealt around.  He received the Ace of Sabres,

the Four of Flasks, and Endurance-which counted as a minus-eight.

That made eleven.

"One," said Lando neutrally.  He drew a Seven of Staves, which

promptly flickered and became the Commander of Coins.

Twenty-three.

"Sabacc!  Dear me, beginner's luck?"  He allowed excitement to

tinge his voice as he raked in the small pile of money, accepting the

deck and dealing.

He carefully lost the next three hands.

It wasn't easy.  He'd had to dump two perfect twenty-threes and

might have drawn to a third if he hadn't stood pat with a

fourteen-point hand, praying that the card-chips would keep the faces

they'd begun with.

The local talent thought they had a live one.

In a manner of speaking, they were right-but not in any manner of

speaking they'd find pleasant or profitable.  It was one of those

evenings when the young gambler felt made of luck, filled to the brim

with spinning electrons and subnuclear fire.  He ran the pot up

gradually, so as not to frighten the others, conspicuously losing on

the low bets, making steady, quiet gains.

Drinks flowed freely, compliments of the polka-dotted proprietor.

This may have been a spaceman's bar, but at least two of the

players were townies, likely splitting with the boss what they skinned

from visiting sailors.  The same glass of mesa Lando had begun with,

diluted now with ice he kept having added, stood sweating on the

plastic table-edging near his elbow.

"Sabacc," breathed Lando, flipping the trio of card-chips face

upward.  It was a classic: the Idiot's Array, lead-card worth the zero

printed on it, plus a Two of Staves and a Three of Sabres-an automatic

twenty-three.

"That cleans out my tubes," grunted the player opposite Lando, a

dough-faced anonymous little entity with slightly purplish skin.  Like

the gambler, he wore the uniform of a starship officer.  Despite the

coolness of the evening, there was a fine sheen of perspiration across

his forehead.  "Unless I can interest you in a small cargo of

life-crystals."

Lando shook his head, adjusted an embroidered cuff.  First a

beat-up freighter, then a robot he hadn't even had time to inspect, now

a holdful of trouble with the local authorities.

"Sorty, old fellow, but it's cash on the tabletop or nothing.

Business is business-and sabacc is sabacc."

Born of fatigue, this partial transformation from toughedged (if

preternaturally fortunate) amateur into no-nonsense professional

startled at least one of Lando's opponents, a stalky, asymmetrical

vegetable sentient from a system whose name the young gambler couldn't

quite recall.  It placed three broad leaflike hands on the table-Lando

thought the contrasting shades of green looked perfectly terrible

together-and garbled through an electronic synthesizer fastened to its

knobbly stem.

"Awrr, Captainshipness, being a sports!"  It turned a petalfringed

face toward the small technician.  "Negatordly give these person ill

considerations.  Cargo of value, inarguability.  " The third player, a

hard-bitten bleached blonde with a thumb-sized oval life-crystal

dangling from a chain around her wattled neck, hooted agreement.

"Sure, Phyll," Lando replied, ignoring the woman.  "Is that how

you obtained that marvelous translator you're wearing-in lieu of

credits in a sabacc game?"

The plant-being shivered with surprise.  "How thou understanding

these?"

"With considerable difficulty."

He paused, thinking it over, however.  To a gambler, particularly

one who was both reasonably honest and consistently successful, good

will represented an important stock in trade.

"Oh, very well, Chaos take me!  But only this once, understood?"

The amorphous-featured fellow nodded enthusiastically; he lasted

only two more hands.  On his way out the door, he reached into a pocket

of his coveralls, presented Lando with a bill of lading and a few

associated documents.

"You'll find the shipment at the port.  Thanks for the game.

real sport, Cap'n Calrissian, honest to Entropy, you You're a

are. Lando, now some seventeen thousand credits ahead, and ready to

bow out of the game as gracefully as he could@r as firmly as he

must-scarcely heard the little nonentity.  He had blessedly near the

price of the Millennium Falcon, right there on the table before him.  A

plague on interstellar freighthauling!  Let somebody else worry over

landing permits and cargo manifests.  He was a gambler!

It sure beat scraping mynocks off a starship hull!

Shortly after midnight, strolling the few boardwalked blocks

toward the modest luxury of Teguta Lusat's "finest hotel"-the droid

bartender's recommendation-Lando kept one hand on the credits in his

pocket, the other on his little gun.  It didn't seem to be that kind of

town, still, there were that kind of people everywhere you went.

Beside him shambled the weirdest apparition of the mechanical

subspecies he had ever seen-or even wanted to.

"Vuffi Raa, Master, Class Two Multiphasic Robot, at your service!"

The transport station with its dozens of storage lockers had been

on Lando's way to the hotel.  Desiring an early start on the morning's

business, the gambler had thought it a good idea to pick up the droid

he'd won immediately.  Now he wasn't sure.

Some things are better faced in daylight.

It stood perhaps a meter tall, about level with Lando's hip

pocket-hard to judge, as it could prop its five tentacles at various

angles, achieving various heights.  It was the shape of an attenuated

starfish with sinuous manipulators-which served both as arms and

legs-seamed to a dinner-plate-size pentagonal torso decorated with a

single, softly glowing many-faceted deep red eye.  The whole assemblage

was done up in jointed, glittering, highly polished chromium.

Utterly tasteless, Lando thought.

"Most people," he had observed, watching the thing unfold itself

from the rental locker, "have forgotten that 'droid' is short for

'android,' meaning manlike."  It stretched its long, metallically

striated limbs almost like a living being, carefully examined the tips

of its delicately tapered tentacles.  "And what kind of name is that

for a robot, anyway: 'Vuffi Raa'?  Aren't you supposed to have a

number?"

It regarded him obliquely as they squeezed past a geriatric

janitor and left the ten-ninal through automatic glass doors, headed up

the boardwalk.

"It is a number, Master, in the system where I was manufactured-in

the precise image of my creators.

"I wish I could recall exactly where that is: you see, I was

prematurely activated in my shipping carton in a freight hold during a

deep-space pirate attack.  This seems to have had a bad effect on

certain of my programmed memories."

Wonderful, thought Lando, keying open his hotel room.  A ship he

couldn't fly, and now a robot with amnesia.  What had he done to

deserve this kind of-never mind, he didn't want to know!

The Hotel Sharu wasn't much, but it was regarded locally as the

best, and he had certain standards to uphold with what he thought of as

his public.  He mused: in this age of wide-ranging exploration, it was

entirely possible for a commodity such as Vuffi Raa to change hands

many times, be bought, sold, resold, won, or lost, winding up half a

galaxy away in a culture totally unknown where the product had

originated.

Or vice versa, as seemed to be the case here.  He couldn't recall

any sapient species shaped even remotely like Vuffi Raa.

Somehow, he hoped he'd never run across them.  In any event, he

thought, that'll make two white elephants for sale in the morning.

He'd already come to a decision about the Millennium Falcon.

Tablt talk during the sabacc game had been understandably sparse,

but one thing was obvious even before he'd accepted those crystals for

cash.  The life-orchards operated on a combination of unskilled labor

supplied mostly by the near-mindless natives of the Rafa-he wondered if

he'd see any of the creatures while he was there, but came to the same

decision about that that he had concerning Vuffi Raa's

manufacturers-and supervision by offworld prisoners.  The whole

enterprise was a monopoly of the colonial government.

As nearly as Lando could determine, consignments of lifecrystals

traveled only via the Brother-In-Law Shipping Company (whatever its

local equivalent was actually called), and free-lance haulers were

simply out of luck.  There would be no cargo for the dashing Captain

Lando to write manifests on.

Well, that suited him.  He'd trade off the cargo tomorrow.

Door-field humming securely, and the bed turning itself down with

cybernetic hospitality, Lando undressed, carefully supervising the

closet's handling of his clothing.  Vuffi Raa offered its services as a

valet, the appropriate skills being well within the capacities of its

Class Two architecture, which supposedly approached hum response.  . an

levels of intellectual and emotional But Lando declined.

"I haven't had servants for a very, very long time indeed, my fine

feathered droid, and I don't intend starting again with you.  I'm

afraid you're to change hands once more, first thing in the morning.

Nothing personal, but get used to it."

The robot bobbed silent acknowledgment, found an unoccupied corner

of the room, and lapsed into the semiactivation that in automata

simulates sleep, its scarlet eye-glow growing fainter but not

altogether dimming out.

Lando stretched on the bed, thoughts of ancient treasure dancing

through his head.  Of course, he considered, lifecrystals weren't the

only possible cargo he could take away from this place.  The ancient

ruins were supposedly impenetrable, but whatever race had built them,

it hadn't stinted on strewing the system with more portable artifacts.

Museums might be interested-and possibly in the crude statuettes

and hand-tools fashioned by the savage natives, as well.  High

technology past and primitive present: quite a fascinating contrast.

But the treasure ...

Come to think of it, there were also a few colonial manufactured

goods.  But that meant he'd have to chase all over the Rafa just to

line up a single decent holdful-with a messy, embarrassing, and

possibly dangerous takeoff and landing at each stop along the way, he

reminded himself.

Of course, there was always the treasure ...

No.  Better stick to the original plan: find a buyer for the

Falcon.  It had been fun for a short while, but he was no real space

captain, and she was far too expensive to maintain as a private yacht,

even if he'd wanted one.  Find somebody to give him a fair price for

Vuffi Raa, as well.  Perhaps the same suck@ustomer.  Then ship out,

tens of thousands of credits richer, on the very next commercial

starliner.

He whistled the lights out, then had an afterthought.  "Vuffi

Raa?"

The faintest whine of servos coming back to full power.

"Yes, Master?"  Its eye shone in the darkness like a giant

cigarette coal.

"Don't call me Master-gives me the creeps.  Can you, by any

chance, pilot a starship?  Say, a small converted freighter?"

"Such as your Millennium Falcon?"  A pause as the droid examined

its programming.  "Why, yes, er ... how should I call you, sir?"

Lando turned over, the smug look oA his face invisible in the

darkened room.  "Not too loudly, Vuffi Raa, and no later than

nine-hundred in the morning.  Good night."

"Good night, Master."

KRAAASH!

The door-field overloaded, arced and spat as the panel itself

split and hinges groaned, separating from the frame.

Lando awoke with a start, one foot on the floor, one hand reaching

for the stingbeam on the nightstand before he was consciously aware of

it.

Four uniformed figures, their torsos covered with flexible

back-and-breast armor, helmet visors stopped down to total anonyn-tity,

stomped over the smoking remains of the door as the room lights came up

of their own accord.  Their body armor failed to conceal the sigil of

colonial peacekeepers.  They carried ugly, oversized military blasters,

unholstered and pointing directly at Lando's unprotected midsection.

He removed his hand from the nighttable, hastily, but without

sudden, misinterpretable movement.

"Lando C@ssian?"  one of the helmeted figures demanded.

He eyed the wreckage of the door.

"Wouldn't it be embarrassing if I weren-um, on second thought, let

me revise that: yes, gentlebeings, I am Captain Lando Cahissian, in the

flesh and hopeful of remaining that way.  Always happy to cooperate,

fully and cheerfully, with the authorities.  What can I do for you

fellows?"

The bulbous muzzle of its weapon unwavering, the imposing armored

figure stepped closer to the bed, its companions immediately filling up

the space behind it.

"Master of the freighter Millennium Falcon, berth seventeen,

Teguta Lusat Interstellar-" "The very same.  l@' "Shut up.  You are

under arrest."

"That's fine, officer.  Just let me get my pants@r not, if it's

inconvenient.  I'll be happy to answer whatever questions His Honor may

wish to ask.  That's my policy: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing

but the truth.  Support Your Local-Umph!"

The big cop hit Lando in the stomach with his blaster, followed it

with the empty hand, balled into a mailed fist.  A second figure went

to work on the hapless gambler's legs.  The other two swung crisply

around the bed, started in on him from the other side.

"Ow!  I said I'd go peaceably-ghaa!  1-unhh!  Vuffi Raa, help me!"

The robot cowered in its corner, manipulators trembling.

Abruptly, it collapsed, curled up into a ball.  Its light went

out.

So did Lando's.

SQUAT.

Squat and ugly.

Squat and ugly and powerful-at least locally, Lando reminded

himself with an inward groan as two of the helmeted officers dragged

him into the presence of Duttes faer, colonial governor of the Rafa.

Lando hadn't had time yet-nor the inclination-to inventory the

indignities inflicted on him by the Colonial Constabulary.  He seemed

to be one solid, puffy bruise from neck to ankles.  Avoid trouble with

the cops in one system, get it in the next when you least expect it.

It hurt, rather a lot.

Yet nothing really serious had been done to him, he realized,

nothing broken, nothing that would show if they ever gave him back his

clothes.  A thorough, workmanlike, professional beating, it had been,

and, for all that it had seemed to go on and on forever, apparently a

purely educational one, a few wellplaced contusions meant to underline

the fact that he was totally at their mercy.

He'd bloodied his own nose, stumbling against the jamb as they'd

frog-marched him over the broken door of his hotel room.  In hopes of

not acquiring any further damage, he wished they'd put a plastic sheet

under him now, to keep him from getting blood all over the governor's

fancy imported carpet, the only extravagance apparent in an otherwise

spare and utilitarian office.

There was a useful clue, there, if only Lando's head would begin

working well enough to ferret it out.

The governor blinked.  "Lando Cahissian?"

At least everybody seemed to know his name.  It was a startlingly

high-pitched, feeble voice, considering the ponderous bulk it issued

from-and perhaps a touch more nervous, Lando thought, than current

circumstances seemed to warrant.  Gamblers make much more careful

studies of such nuances than psychologists.  They have to.

Thickly muscled, improbably broad, resembling more than anything

else a deeply weathered tree-stump crowned in fine, almost feathery

hair, the governor looked like the kind to play his cards close to the

chest, never to take wild chances, to be a merciless, implacable

player.

Turn the tables and he'd holler like a baby.  Lando knew the type

well.

In the present context, he felt the information wasn't terribly

helpful.  He glanced uncomfortably at the armored visorwearers either

side of him, then back at the governor.  It doesn't matter a whit if a

bully's a coward at heart-as long as he has all the guns.

The governor blinked, lifted a blocky arm, repeating the

salutation-or, more likely, the accusation: "Lando Calrissian?"

"Flatten the first A a bit," Lando answered, more bravely than he

felt.  "A little more accent on the second syllable of the last name.

Keep trying, you'll get it right."

He ran a tongue across his lips, tasted blood.  His head hurt.

So did everything else.  Egg-sized eyes under the silly

headthatching regarded him coldly from behind a small, uncluttered,

impossibly delicate-looking desk of transparent plastic.

"Lando Calrissian, we have here a list of very serious charges

against you that have been brought to our attention.

Very serious charges indeed.  What, if anything, have you to say

for yourself?"

The governor blinked again as he finished, this time as if the

very sight of Lando was painful to him.  The young gambler bit back a

ing illegal he had done.

Lately, anyway.  He hadn't any qualms, particularly, about

breaking the law: there were a lot of silly little planets with a lot

of silly little laws.  It was just that he'd rather-as an aesthetic

point, mostly-be caught when he'd actually done something.

He decided, more or less experimentally, to add truth to the

courteous obsequiousness that had failed with the cops.  One never

knew, the combination might work on this fat tub of"Sir-Your

Excellency-I know nothing about any charges.

To the best of my knowledge, I haven't done anything to be charged

with."

He left it at that; a complaint would be carrying things too far.

The governor blinked.

Lando opened his mouth to speak.  A loop of fabric from his

tattered pajamas chose that moment to slip embarrassingly from his

shoulder and swing.  He sniffed, lifted it with whatever dignity the

occasion afforded, attempted to smooth it back in place.

The governor blinked.

it was not a large room they were in.  There was a wide door-but

then, it was a wide governor@ither side of the desk.  Like the door

facing the desk, through which Lando had been escorted, both were

framed in plain undecorative alumabronze, the spare motif echoed in

wainscotting, baseboards, and a border around the high, somehow

intimidating ceiling.  The pace was tinted a bilious yellow to match

the governor's eyes.  Instead of draperies, the windows displayed

recorded scenes Lando recognized from other systems: greenish gravelly

beaches, deep orange skies, scarlet vegetation.  Entire worlds done up

in bad taste.

The governor, apparently deciding Lando had been sufficiently

intimidated by the longish silence, lifted a thick arm from his desk,

regarded the troopers half-holding the muchabused starship captain

erect.

"You are advised," Duttes Mer squeaked menacingly, "to improve the

best of your knowledge, then, young @screant."

Miscreant?  Lando thought, did people really say miscreant?

The governor perused a printout lying on his desk, raised downy

eyebrows.

"Quite a record!  Reckless landing procedures.  Illegal

importation of dangerous animals.  Mynocks, Captain-really?

Unauthorized berthing of an interstellar "But, Governor!"  Lando

forgot himself momentarily, struggled free of the policeman on his

left-then remembered where he was and clamped the astonished man's

armored hand back around his elbow with a short-lived sheepish grin.

He'd realized, with a sudden, stifled gasp, that the transparent

desk the governor occupied was composed entirely of gigantic, priceless

life-crystals@nough to extend the life-spans of hundreds of

individuals.  Power, then, was the key.  It explained the barren

office.  Money and display wouldn't impress the malevolent lump of

wasted hydrocarbons sitting before him; he would be motivated only by

the prospect of controlling and disposing of the lives of others.

"Sir, I had all the clearances and permits.  I-" "Truly, Captain?

Where?  Produce them and the charges against you may be reduced

some small but measurable fraction."

Lando looked down, seeing his own frame-the thought whisked by

that this might be an qnfortunate choice of words@raped in pocketless

pajamas much the worse for their recent intimate acquaintance with

Teguta Lusat lawenforcement procedures.  He looked back up at the

governor.  "I don't suppose you'd let me go back to my hotel ... no, I

didn't think so.  Well, better yet, check with the Port Authority.

They should be able-2' "Captain," the governor sighed with

affected weariness, "the Port Authority have no record whatever of any

permits being granted to either a Lando Calrissian, or a .  . ."  He

checked the list again.  a Millennium Falcon.  Of this I assure you,

sir.

in fact, you might say I ascertained the data in the matter

personally."

"Oh," Lando answered in a small voice, beginning to understand the

situation.

"There is also," the governor continued, satisfied now that he had

a properly attentive audience, "conspiracy to evade regulations of

trade.  You see, we know of your attempts to obtain an unlicensed

cargo.  Carrying a concealed weapon-my, MY, Captain, but you are a bad

boy.  Finally: assaulting a duly authorized police officer in an

attempt to resist arrest."

The governor got a thoughtful look on his face, looked down at the

list again, picked up a stylus and made a note.

"And failure to settle your hotel bill as you departed those

premises.

"Now what have you to say?"  The governor blinked, licked fat lips

in anticipation.

"I see," Lando said, barely concealing his glee.  His spirits had

begun to lift considerably in spite@r because-of the fist of charges

against him.  The governor was someone he could deal with, after all.

Ante: "My gun was on the nighttable, it wasn't concealed.

And if 'assault' consists of willfully striking a constable in the

fist with my stomach, then I'd say you've got me, fair and square.

Governor.  Sir."

Raise: "Very well, Captain.  Or ought I to make that 'Mister

Calrissian'-you will not likely be doing very much more captaining from

now on.  What have you to say to the probability of finishing your days

doing stoop-labor in the life-orchards amidst other criminals,

malcontents, and morons like yourself?"

Lando saw that and raised with a grin: "In all truth, sir, I

wouldn't like that very much.  I've heard that the life-orchards tend

to take it out of you."

The governor nodded, not exactly an easy feat for someone without

a discernible neck: "If you had it to begin with, Captain-if you had it

to begin with."

Call: "I'd also say you're about to offer me some lessunpleasant

alternative.  That is, unless you make a custom of trumping up silly

charges against every independent skipper who makes your port.  And I

guess I'd have heard about that long before I got here."

The governor resembled a frowning tree-stump covered in feathers.

"Don't anticipate me, Captain, it, takes all the fun out of

occasions such as this."

He blinked, then pressed a button on his desk.

Lando replaced the cup on its saucer, leaned back in the large

soft chair a servant had been ordered to bring him, and drew deeply on

one of the governor's imported cigars.  Yes, indeed, all of life was one

big sabacc game, and he was corm'ng out ahead, just as he had done the

night before.

The servant@the of the Rafa System's "natives"@ffered to pour more

tea.  That had come as a surprise (the native, not the tea).  It stood

there with a look of worshipful expectancy on its seamed, vacant,

elderly gray-hued face.  Lando shook his head.  One more cup and they

could float him out of there.

Another puff.  "You were saying, my dear governor?"

"I was saying, my boy-by the way, are you finding that dressing

gown adequate?  Your baggage should be here from the hotel by now.  But

I'd rather we didn't interrupt ourselves at this point in the

conversation.  I was saying that, among the intelligent species of the

galaxy, we humans are a most prolific, preternaturally protean people."

"And alliterative as all get-out, too, apparently."  Lando flicked

two centimeters of fine gray ash into the vacuum tray on the governor's

desk.

Mer ignored the jibe, indicated the stooped and withered servant

as it quietly shambled through the main office door behind Lando.

"Consider, for example, the Toka-known locally as the 'the Broken

People.' Entirely devoid of intellect, passion, or will.  Subhurnanoid

in intelligence.  Every one of them bears what would be the signs of

advanced age among our own kind-white hair, sallow, wrinkled faces, a

bent, discouraged gait.  Yet these are but superficialities of

appearance@r are they?  --they carry each of these dubious attributes

from birth.

"Domestic animals, really, nothing more.  Useful as household

servants, they're too unintelligent to be anything but discreet.  And

in harvesting the life-orchards.  But nothing else."

Lando stirred uncomfortably in his chair, adjusting the front of

his borrowed bathrobe to conceal his discomfiture.  The fabric was

velvoid, a revolting shade of purple, sporting bright green-and-yellow

trim.  If everyone took to using the fabricand with such egregious

taste-he'd have to reassess his entire wardrobe.  He wondered precisely

what all the palaver was leading up to.  He'd heard slavery justified a

thousand different ways in a thousand different systems, yet it did

seem to him that the Toka lacked some spark, some hint of the

aggressive intelligence that made people people.

"You said 'for example': 'Consider the Toka for example'don't you

mean 'by contrast'T' The governor signaled for yet another cup of tea.

"Not at all, my dear boy, not at all.  With offworld prisoners as

overseers, a few droids for technical tasks the Toka are content to eat

food intended for animals, and @ill quite willingly work themselves to

death if it's demanded of them."

Lando allowed himself a small, cynical snort.  He'd heard that

working in the orchards had some kind of drainage effect.

Most human prisoners had purely supervisory positions, as the

governor had suggested.  Ditto for nonhuman sapients that had gotten

themselves into trouble.  Those unfortunate few "special" prisoners of

both classifications, condemned to menial lahot, wound up sub-idiots

within a year or two.  Apparently it didn't affect the Toka that way.

They were already sub-idiots.

"All that must be highly convenient," he said, "for the owners of

the orchards."

Mer looked at Lando closely.  "The government owns the orchards,

my boy, I thought you understood that.  The point is, the Toka are

quite as human as ourselves."

Lando's jaw dropped.  He scrutinized the servant as it poured the

governor's tea, oblivious to the highly insulting things being said

about it.  How could this acquiescent, wizened, hunched, gray-faced

nonentity, with its tattered homespun loincloth and thinning white

hair, be human?

The governor blinked, managing to look smugly proprietary in spite

of it.  He opened his mouth to speak ...

WHAAAM!

The air was split by an explosion that rocked the office.

There was a blinding flash; a column of blue-black smoke boiled

into existence, floor-to-ceiling, at the right of the governor's desk.

Oh, brother, Lando thought, what now?

IV

"ENOUGH OF THIS!"  The blue-black smoke column shrieked,

evaporating into tiny orange sparks that winked and disappeared.

A Sorcerer of Tund, Lando groaned inwardly, how quaint.

Members of an allegedly ancient and rather boringly mysterious

order from the remote Tund System, they were all given to flashy

entrances.  The rest of the column condensed into a vaguely humanoid

figure about Lando's height and general build.  The old boy had

probably tossed his flash-bomb into the office, then stepped through

the door quite casually into the center of the smoke.

Nobody was quite sure what species the Tund wizards were, or even

if they were all members of the same species.  Swathed entirely in the

deep gray of his order, the newcomer wore heavy robes that brushed the

carpet, totally concealing the form beneath.  A turbanlike headdress

ended in bands of opaque cloth across the face.

Only the eyes were visible.  To his surprise, Lando found himself

wishing fervently that they were not.  Despite the absurdity of the

sorcerer's melodramatic actions, the eyes told a different, more

sobering story: twin whirling pools of-what?

Insane hunger of some sort, the gwnbler decided with a shiver.

Those ravenous depths regarded him for a moment as if he were an

insect about to be crushed, then turned their malevolent power on the

governor, Duttes Mer, who blinked and blinked, and blinked.

"You prolong these preliminaries unnecessarily!"  a chilling voice

hissed through the charcoal-colored wrappings.  Lando couldn't quite

determine whether it was a natural utterance or one produced by a vocal

synthesizer.  "Tell the creature what it needs to know in order to

serve us, then dismiss it!"

The governor's composure disintegrated completely.  He swiveled

his enormous bulk in his chair, short stubby arms half-lifted in

unconscious and futile defense, his large yellow eyes rolling with

abject terror.  His walnut-shaded skin had paled to the color of maple.

Even his feathery hair seemed to stir and writhe.

"B-But, Your Puisssance, l@' "Tell the tale, you idiot," the

sorcerer demanded, "and be done!"

Lando spat out a bit of ceiling plaster jolted loose by the

intruder's showy appearance.

With a terrible effort, the frightened governor turned partially

toward Lando, never quite daiing to take his eyes altogether off the

sorcerer.

"C-Captain Land-do Calrissian, p-permit me t-to introduce Rokur

Gepta, my ... my .  . ."

"Colleague, " the sorcerer supplied with an impatient hiss that

sent goosebumps up the starship captain's spine.  It didn't seem to do

the governor much good, either.  He nodded vaguely, opened his mouth,

then slumped in his chair, unable, apparently, to utter another word.

"I see," the sorcerer hissed, taking a step forward, "that I shall

have to finish this."

Another step forward.  Lando fought the urge to retreat through

the back of his own chair.  "Captain Cahissian, our friend the

governor, in his slow, humbling way, has informed you of the failings

of the Toka.  They are manifold, I shall warrant, and conspicuous.

What this oaf has not seen fit to mention thus far-and the very

heart and soul of the matter before us-is their most interesting and

singularly redeeming feature.

"For you see, despite their humble estate, they observe and

practice an ancient system of beliefs which, if taken literally not

only explains the present unenviable condition of the Toka, but

promises more for the properly prepared and sufficiently daring.

"Much, much more."

The inhuman voice died with a hiss, as if its owner expected some

question or remark from the gambler seated before him.

Instead, Lando simply looked at the odd figure, forcing himself,

despite an inner cringing, to gaze calmly into the lunatic eyes of the

sorcerer.

Meanwhile, the governor had managed to recover enough to press a

button on his desk, order the Toka servant it summoned to obtain

another chair for his "colleague."  But the elderly creature could not

be induced by kind words (of which the governor uttered but few) or

threats (of which he had many in supply) to come near the threatening

gray-swathed figure.

In the end, after an embarrassing impasse, Mer himself was forced

to rise from his oversized office swiveler, bring the chair in from the

next room, and place it for the robed magician.  To Lando's amusement,

the fat executive had nearly as much difficulty as the Toka forcing

himself to come near Rokur Gepta.

Lando himself attempted to relax, settled back, and regarded his

cigar, which had long since expired from inattention.

Again, seemingly from nowhere, the Toka servant materialized to

light it, then, still cowering under the baleful gaze of the sorcerer,

vanished once again with a shuffle of bare feet on plush carpet.

"Promises precisely what?"  Lando asked after a long time, somehow

managing to sound casual.  Half a hundred wild speculations formed in

his mind as he said it, but he repressed them savagely, waiting Gepta

out.

"Among other things," the sorcerer whispered, "the Ultimate

Instrument of Music."

Great, thought Lando, his fantasies collapsing.  It could have

been diamonds, platinum, or flamegems; it could have been immortality

or Absolute Power; it could have been a good five-microcredit cigar.

The guy wants zithers and trombones.

"The Mindharp of Sharu"@epta explained as he seated himself, "has

been an article of the simple faith among the Toka for centuries

uncounted.

"As you are not doubt aware, the current human population of

Rafa-not to mention numerous representatives of many other associated

species-dates from the early days of the late, unlamented Republic.

What is not generally appreciated by historians is that, in the

chaotic, erratically recorded era preceding, a respectable amount of

exploration and settlement was also earned out, albeit haphazardly.

Thus, when Republican colonists arrived in the Rafa for the first

time, they discovered it already occupied by human life.

"The Toka.

"I must explain that, for some decades, I have employed

others-anthropologists, ethnologists, and the like, many of them

incarcerees of the penal colony here and thus anxious to reduce the

burden of their sentences-to observe, record, and analyze the ritual

behavior of the Toka, believing that, in the the long run, such an

effort might produce some particle of interest or profit.  I have made

many such investments of time and wealth throughout civilized space.

"The Toka, savages that -they be, have little or nothing in the

way of social organization.  Infrequently, however, and at

unpredictable intervals, they gather together in small bands for the

purpose of ritual chanting, to all appearances the passing-on of a

purely verbal heritage.

"Fheir legends acknowledge that they came, originally, from

elsewhere in the galaxy-would-be pioneers and explorers, employing a

technology which they subsequently somehow discarded or lost.  They,

too, found the Rafa already occupied.

Their tradition speaks of the Sharu, a superhumaniod race perhaps

billions of years advanced in evolution, too terrible to look upon

directly or contemplate at any length.

"The Sharu were, of course, responsible for the monumental

construction which characterizes this system, a style of architecture

betraying a bent of mind so alien that, for the most part, even the

purpose of the structures cannot be guessed.  It is unclear whether

mere contact with the Sharu 'broke' the Broken People, or whether it

was the Sharu's later hasty departure.

"For depart they did.

"Legends maintain that their flight was in the face of something

even more terrible than they, something they feared greatly, although

whether another species, some disease, or some unimaginable something

else, we cannot so much as conjecture.  They left their massive

buildings, they left, apparently, the life-orchards whose original

function is as obscure as everything else regarding the Sharu, and they

left the Toka, crushed and enfeebled by some aspect of their experience

with the Sharu."

Lando reflected on Gepta's words while he let himself be offered

another cigar.

It seemed to him that the question of what broke the Broken People

was of considerably less pragmatic interest than whatever put such a

scare into their superhuman masters.  He hated to think of something

like that still hanging around the galaxy.

A starship captain's life (he knew better from vicarious

experience than from any of his own) carried him through many a long,

lonely parsec in the darkness.  And many a ship has disappeared without

so much as a trail of neutrinos to mark its passing.

The Toka servant, skirting Gepta, lit Lando's cigar.

The latter said, finally, "What's all this got to do with me?"

From within the voluminous folds of his ash-colored robes, Gepta

extracted an object about the size of a human hand, constructed of some

lightweight, bright untarnished golden metal.

It was Lando's turn to blink.

Viewed from one perspective, the device seemed to be a large,

three-tined fork-until the gambler looked again.  Two tines or four?

Or maybe three again?  The thing just wouldn't settle down in his

field of vision, giving him, instead, the beginnings of a headache when

he stared at it too closely or for more than a few seconds.

Gepta placed the object carefully on Duttes Mer's crystalline

desk, where it seemed to writhe and pulse without actually moving.  The

governor gazed down at it with an uninterpretable expression on his

face-somewhere between dismay and greed.

"We have reason to believe," Rokur Gepta hissed, "that this object

is a Key-perhaps it is a miniature of the Mindharp itself, although

that is only surmise.  It was ... shall we say, obtained in an

altogether different system, from a small, shabby museum.  But it came

originally from the Rafa System and is a Sharu artifact.  Of that there

is not the slightest doubt."

Somehow, without being told, Lando knew that there were volumes of

adventure, betrayal, and deceit behind the sketchy explanation Gepta

had just given.  He had no doubt it was a story best left untold.

"A key," he repeated.  "What the blazes does it unlock, if one may

ask?"

"One may ask," the sorcerer replied in a threatening whisper, "but

with a great deal more deference and respect in the future than is your

customary practice!"

"A thousand pardons!"  Lando tried to keep the sarcasm he felt out

of his voice, with only partial success.  "Pray what does it unlock,

noble magician?"

Gepta paused as if trying to gauge Lando's sincerity, then

shrugged it off as of no practical consequence.  "There is evidence to

indicate it provides access to the Mindharp of Sharu.

The Mindharp is the focus of a thousand Toka rituals.  The fools

believe it produced music so sweetly compelling-isn't that just

precious!-that it was capable of swaying the most unfeeling of hearts,

even across vast distances of space."

The Rafa was a multiplanet system, but, given the millions of

nfiles of hard vacuum between planets, Lando reserved judgment.  He'd

seen legends come to nothing before.

Gepta mentioned that some versions of the legends had the Mindharp

as the principal means of communication between the mighty Sharu and

their human "pets."  What the Mindharp looked like and precisely where

it might be found, these questions remained unanswered.

It was up to Lando to answer them.

Or else.

For his part, Lando wondered what the value of such an instrument

might be to a system governor or a Sorcerer of Tund.

And he wondered again about the terrible unnamed agency which had

caused the presumably powerful Sharu to flee their home system like so

many panicky mice.

"Okay," he answered finally, "what's in it for me if I find the

Mindharp for you?"

The sorcerer turned slightly in his chair, gave Lando the full

benefit of his terrifying gaze.  "How about your continued liberty?"

For the first time since fetching the sorcerer a chair, Duttes Mer

found the wherewithal to speak for himself.  "There is also your ship

to consider."

"And your life!"  Gepta finished in a tone that made Lando's

tailbone quiver uneasily.

He ignored it, pretending a nonchalance he didn't feel: "Well," he

said, "two out of three isn't bad.  I was planning to sell the ship.

It's of no use t@' "That you shall not do, foolish mortal!"  Gepta

seemed suddenly to swell in size and power.  "This entire system is

covered with Sharu ruins.  We have no idea, as yet, in which of them

the Mindharp lies awaiting us.  You may very well need the vessel t@'

"Okay, okay.  I get your point."  Stcretly, Lando congratulated himself

on having been able to interrupt the sorcerer.  He hated being

intimidated by anyone and made a practice of disintiniidating himself

as quickly as he could.  "I get a ship I don't want, my life and

liberty-which I already had before I stumbled into this rustic

metropolis of yours.  I don't want to appear unappreciative of your

boundless generosity, my dear fellow-beings, but let's negotiate a

bonus.  A little something for the overhead?"

Mer leaned forward over his desk, not a particularly easy feat

considering his treelike torso and the neck nature had seen fit not to

endow him with.  A threatening.look darkened his face as he opened his

mouth to speak, but he was stopped short by a hiss from Gepta.

"Incentives, my dear governor, incentives.  Do not seal down the

intakes of the droids who refine the fuel.  We shall indeed offer our

brave captain a little something as recompense.  Captain Calrissian,

would a full cargo of life-crystals from the orchards be acceptable?"

The sorcerer's tone implied it had damn well better be.  Mer

looked sharply at Gepta.  He might be afraid of the gray-robed figure,

but it was his bread and butter they were negotiating away.  He opened

his mouth again, saw that Gepta was serious, and closed it to stifle a

groan.

Lando grinned.  "I imagine that it will take rather a deal of

fancy paperwork to cover up the shortage."

"Which is precisely, my dear Captain'7-the sorcerer turned

contemptuously toward Met, and the governor shrank from his gaze-"what

bureaucrats are for."

"Okay, Gepta, so far, so good.  But what's to keep you two from

seizing my ship and returning me to the tender mercies of the

constabulary once I get the Mindharp for you?  The most extravagant

offer in the universe is a cheap price to pay if you don't intend-"

"Peace!"  A long pause for consideration, then: "We shall deliver the

cargo to your possession before you begin your search for the

Mindharp-silence, Governor!  However, we shall also have our menials at

the port of Teguta Lusat render your Millennium Falcon incapable of

leaving the system-in case you decide to play us falsely yourself-while

leaving it perfectly suitable for travel from planet to planet within

the system.  Once you have secured that which we all seek so ardently,

your vessel will be repaired and you will be free to go.

Is this agreeable?"

Lando thought.  It still wasn't much of a guarantee.  In fact, it

was the same lousy deal as before, with his shi@r at least its

ultralight capacities-as bait instead of the life-crystals.

Still, it was all, he was sure, they were going to offer him.

It was a great deal more than he'd expected after Mer's thugs had

worked him over.

"All right," he said through a weary sigh that was at least half

genuine.  "It beats sitting around in jail."

Or having one's mind sucked away by the life-orchards, he thought

grimly to himself.

"I HAVEN'T THE foggiest notion!  Anyway, what possible business is

it of yours?"

Lando stalked moodily along the narrow streetside toward a transit

stop.  His gaudy shipsuit had at least been restored to him, even his

din-dnutive stingbeam.  This last decorative touch, he reasoned

bitterly, was yet another educational message from Rokur Gepta and

Duttes Met, underlining ironically what they imagined was his utter

helplessness.  Well, they'd learn better.

Trouble was, Lando couldn't think of how to accomplish that at the

moment.

Vuffi Raa clattered beside him, carrying the rest of his luggage,

which had been somewhat battered during the assault on the hotel room.

"But Master, I mean, Captain@' "Call me Lando!"

"Er, Lando, how am I to help you if you won't tell me what's

required of us?  I know nothing about what's going on.

I spent the entire night in the Confiscated Properties Room at

Constabulary headquarters, sandwiched between bales of illicit smoking

vegetables and wire baskets overflowing with vibroknives, murder

hatchets, and the like."

At the thought, the little droid suffered an involuntary

mechanical shudder, which originated at its torso seams and rippled

along all five tentacles to their slim-fingered extremities.

Lando's bags bobbed up and down until the seizure passed.

"Did you know," the robot offered in a subdued, conciliatory

voice, "that most of the spouse killings in this system are

accomplished with cast-titanium skillets?"

Lando stopped suddenly, stared back at Vuffi Raa in anger.

"With a sharp blow to the cranium, or simply bad cooking?

Look, my mechanical albatross, there's nothing personal in this.

-It's simply that I haven't the faintest clue where or how to

begin the idiot quest they've blackmailed me into, and I stand a far

better chance if I don't have to spend my time stumbling over a

useless-" "Master, I do not wish to oppose your will in this matter.

In fact, such would violate my most fundamental programming to the

point of incapacitating me.  However-2' "I don't give a damn what

happens to your capacitors!"

'@however, before you sell me again, I am determined to prove to

you that I am, indeed, far from useless.  Perhaps even slightly

indispensable."

Lando stopped again in the middle of the boardwalk, looking down

with contempt at the little suitcase-laden automaton.

He took a deep breath.

"That, my esteemed collection of clockwork cowardice, would be

something to see.  What precisely have you in mind?' Vuffi Raa paused.

A lengthy silence followed, and hovercars and repulsor vehicles

were suddenly audible swishing by in the narrow, twisted avenue.

Without warning the droid suddenly spoke once more.

"So that is the difficulty; I believe I understand at last.  The

hotel room.  The Constabulary.  Your cries to me for help.  Your

preference, as I understand it, is that I should have been somewhat

more, er ... physically demonstrative.  Even, perhaps, at the risk of

worsening the charges against you?"

Lando turned on a booted heel, wordlessly resumed his march down

the street.  A bus went by, bearing half a dozen gawking tourists being

lectured by the driverdroid on what little was known of the Sharu.

"Master!"  the droid cried behind him, scurrying to catch UP

"There was nothing I could do!  I am specifically enjoined by my

programming never t@' "Stow it!"  Lando snorted, taking some visceral

satisfaction in the terse, blue-collar monosyllables.  He'd kept his

back to Vuffi Raa this time, hadn't even slackened his pace.  The

robot, with a sudden burst of speed made awkward by his master's bags,

slipped around Lando and stopped, blocking the young gambler's further

bad-tempered progress.

"Sir, I am not programmed for violence.  I cannot harm a sentient

being, organic or mechanical, any more than you could flap your arms

and fly from this planet."

"Which only goes to show," Lando asserted, startled at the droid's

sudden insistent solemnity, "that I was right in the first place."  He

stepped around the robot and started walking again.

"You're useless."

"You are saying, then," the robot's voice inquired, very small, at

the captain's rapidly receding back, "that violence is the only

solution to this problem, the only capability that is useful or

desirable to you in a friend or companion?"

Lando froze, one foot still in the air, stopped dead by the icy

disgust he heard in Vuffi Raa's voice.  He set the foot down, turned

slowly to face the machine.  Not only was he arguing with an

artifact-he was losing!

Of course the little droid was right.  Why else did he, Lando

himself, insist on carrying nothing more than the minimal and miniscule

weapon tucked away in his sash?  Men of whatever species or

construction acted with their minds, survived by their wits.  Only a

stupid brute would automatically limit himself to the resource of his

fists or those of a friend.

That stopped Lando a second time: just exactly when had he begun

to consider Vuffi Raa his friend?

"Well, Master," Vuffi Raa mused, "as I understand the situation,

you're to search for whatever lock the Key may fit.  Yet you haven't

any idea whether the lock-and it may be a more metaphorical than

material entity-is even on this planet.  Correct?"

Lando nodded resignedly.  He'd let three regular hoverbuses to the

spaceport whistle past the stop while he carefully explained things to

the droid.

"You've got it, exactly as I just told it to you.  So far, old

lube-guzzler, you've proved your usefulness as a suitcase caddy and an

audio recorder.  Any more talents you haven't revealed?"

He shifted on the transit-stop bench so that his back was to the

little robot.  He wasn't so much annoyed with Vuffi Raa for being

useless, as for the fact that the automaton had forced him to confront

some of his own failings.

"I beg your pardon, Master, all of my internally lubricated

subassemblies are permanently sealed and require no fuilher@' Lando

turned back suddenly.  "All right, cut out that robotic literalness.

You're a smarter machine than that, and we both know it.  What I

mean is, do you have any ideas?  I'm fresh out, myself."

Something resembling a humorous twinkle lived in Vuffi Raa's

single red optic for a fleeting moment.  "Yes, Master, I have.  if I

had something ancient and historic, and valuable to look for, I know

precisely where I'd look for information.

Lando frowned, brightened, and leaped up off the bench.

"By the Eternal, of course!  Why didn't you say so before?

Why didn't I think of it?  It's certainly worth a try!  You may

have some use, after all."  Lando paced hurriedly down the block just a

few yards, turned into the nearest bar, then poked a head back out

through the swinging doors.

"Wait for me out here!"  he shouted, pointing to a sign in the

window of the drinking establishment: NO SHOES, NO SHHZT, NO EXTEE

HELMET FILTERS NO SERVICE NO DROIDS ALLOWED "But Master!"  the little

robot protested to the empty swinging doors, "I was referring to the

public library!"

Having shaken his unwelcomely helpful companion, Lando gratefully

entered the cool quiet of the Poly Pyramid, one of Teguta Lusat's many

inebriation emporia.  There was nothing special about the place

appearancewise or otherwise; he'd merely availed himself of the first,

nearest ethanol joint on the boardwalk.

He sat down at a table.

What he'd really needed all along, he'd known the minute he left

the governor's office, was some kind of Toka gathering of the clans.

Unfortunately, life rarely provides what one really needs.  To

judge from what Gepta had told him, the only people who truly knew

what,was what where the Sharu were concerned were much too primitive to

hold conventions-or much of anything else.  They had no villages, no

tribes, not even any real nuclear families.

Every now and again, at unpredictable intervals, the Toka simply

collected in small bunches to bay at the moon like wild canines.  Rafa

IV didn't have a moon, but, Lando thought, it was the principle that

counted.

All right, the young gambler reasoned, one place he'd noticed the

reliable presence of Toka@yen before he'd known who and what they

were-was in saloons, usually swamping the floors and polishing

spitoons, the kind of occupation reserved in other systems for

lower-classic on c rol .

the innkeepers could afford to entertain their prejudices and

those of their clientele against the mechanical minority; Toka

seniislaves were handier and far cheaper.

Lando tooked'around.  He'd selected a table in the approximate

center of the room, halfway toward the back, and halfway between the

bar that ran down the left side of the place, and the booth-lined wall

opposite.  Ordinarily, he'd prefer a position where he could see

everything that went on and not have to turn his back to the door,

perhaps something toward the rear.

Now the important thing was to be seen.

The Poly Pyramid was a working-being's establishment.  On the

walls, lurid paintings alternated with sporting scenes from a dozen

systems.  On a less cosmopolitan planet, racy shots of unclad females

would predominate, but, in places where one being's nude was another's

nightmare, sensuality had given way before such items as incompetently

taxidermized galactic fauna, which were nailed to the walls or

suspended on wires from the ceiling: fur-bearing trout from Paulking

XIV, for example, and a jackelope from Douglas III.

As bars go, it was brightly lit and noisy, especially considering

the small number of patrons so early in the afternoon.  On both sides

of the traditional louvered doors the inner, fulllength doors were

propped open with a pair of giant laser drillbits, souvenirs of the

deep-bore mining of Rafa III, whose vacationing practitioners

habituated the place.

In the back, the ubiquitous native was emptying ashtrays over a

waste can.

The bartender, a scrawny specimen of indetemiinate middle age,

approached Lando, wringing his knobbly hands in a dark green apron.

What little hair he still possessed was restricted to the back and

sides of his otherwise highly reflective pate, and cut short.  He had a

nose friends might have called substantial, others spectacular.

Tattooed permanently beneath it, a mild sneer, punctuated by a

small mole on his chin.

"Spacers' bars're all downtown about three blocks, Mac, he said in

a peculiar drawl.  "This here's a hardrock miners' joint."

Lando raised an eyebrow.

"Aint sayin' y'can't drink here.  Just likely y'won't want to-once

the off-shift R and R crew starts t'fillin' the place up. It seemed a

long speech for the wiry little man.  He stood there, balanced on the

balls of his feet, relaxed but ready, looking down at Lando from under

half-closed eyelids, a foulsmelling cigar butt dangling from his mouth.

A large, dangerous-looking lumpiness was apparent beneath one side

of his apron bib.

Lando nodded slightly.  "Thanks for the advice; I'm meeting

somebody here.  Have you a pot of coffeine to hand?"  Until he'd sat

down, he'd almost forgotten the night's sleep he'd lost.  Now it was

catching up to him.

"Some of m'best friends drink it," the barkeep replied.  "One mug

comin' up."

He began to walk away, then paused and turned back to Lando.

"Remember what I said, Mac.  Splints an' bandages'll cost ya

extra."

Lando nodded again, extracted one of the governor's cigars from a

breast pocket, and settled back.  Then, casually, he pulled the Key

from an inside pocket.  An optometrist's nightmare, it wouldn't hold

still visually, even locked firmly in his hands.  First it seemed to

have three branches, then two, depending on your viewpoint.  If you

didn't shift the angle you were watching it from, it would oblige by

shifting it for you.

Lando averted his eyes.

He sat like that for forty-five minutes without any seenung

reaction from anyone.  Having long since finished his coffeine and

tired of the cigar, at last he rose, left a small tip on the table,

nodded amiably at the gnarled little bartender, and stepped outside on

the boardwalk.

"Master?"

"Don't call me Master!  Let's find another bar."

VI

THE NEXT PLACE sported a small bronze plaque beside the door that

stated: "FACILITIES ARE NOT PROVIDED FOR MECHANOSAPIENTS."

it meant "No droids allowed."

And it wasn't even true, not in its original rendering.  Vuffi Raa

had a sort of waiting room to park himself in, nicely furnished, quiet,

with recharging receptacles, Only bigotry of the very nicest,

highest-class sort was practiced there.  Lando left the robot with a

couple others of its kind watching a domestic stereo serial.

Inside, three Toka swampers were distributing dirty water ly all

over the floor.  That they and their employers probeven ably thought

they were washing only demonstrated that pretensions and sanitation

don't necessarily go together.

it was not quite dark, so the real drinking crowd hadn't arrived

there yet, either.  It didn't matter; Lando wasn't interested in them.

Nearly an hour went by this time, Lando sipping a hot stimulant

and toying discreetly with the Key.  The thing was as evasive to the

tactile senses as it was visually, he discovered, closing his eyes and

examining it by touch.  "Perverse" might be a better word, and even

more nauseating, somehow.  He opened his eyes with something resembling

relief.

On several occasions, he could have sworn that one or anaring at

him intently when he wasn't other of the natives was st looking in

their direction.

Which was also precisely what he'd expected.  He began to allow

himself a feeble hope.

Another hour, and two more saloons, brought him back to the

Spaceman's Rest, the first such establishment he'd visited in Teguta

Lusat, the day before.  It seemed like a thousand years ago.  The

double-moustached alien proprietor was nowhere to be seen so early in

the evening, but the droid behind the bar seemed to have had his memory

banks attended to.  He recognized Lando with a cordial mechanical nod.

By then,.  the gambler was thoroughly coffeined out.  He leaned

against the bar, ordered a real drink, then took it back to a table and

sat, unobtrusively displaying the weird, eyestraining Key as before,

for everyone to see.

One thing was different about the place: its multispecies

clientele and robot bartender encouraged Lando not to leave Vuffi Raa

outside in the street.  After all, the little fellow was an item of

valuable property (to somebody, someday, Lando hoped), and probably

wouldn't like being stolen, either.

That small mechanical worthy presently bellied-figuratively

speaking-up to the bar, cutting up electronic touches while the 'tender

polished glasses.  Lando had always wondered what robots talked about

among themselves, but never enough to eavesdrop.

Despite the tolerant atmosphere of the Spaceman's Rest, the usual

Toka flunky was there, an elderly wretch distributing synthetic plastic

sawdust on the floor from a bucket.  Lando grew hopeful as the shavings

around his table deepened to two or three times the thickness of those

covering the rest of the barroom floor.

The Toka kept circling, reluctant yet fascinated, rather like an

insect around a bright light.  He stared at the Key, tossed a worried

glance toward the bar, then turned back to the Key again, drawn

irresistibly.  If he was concerned about the bartender's reaction, he

needn't have bothered; the droid didn't even seem to notice, wrapped up

as he was in his work and in conversation with Vuffi Raa.  Maybe native

productivity wasn't his department.

On an odd impulse to see what would happen, Lando tucked the K@y

back into his pocket.

Abruptly, the Toka dropped his pail with a crash and bolted out

through the back of the room, leaving a fabric door-drape swinging

behind him and a few gaping mouths among the sparse scattering of

customers.  Ordinarily nothing would induce the lethargic and

prematurely senile natives to do anything in a hurry.

Lando held his breath: could his lucky break have come so soon?

He signaled the 'tender for another drink.  Vuffi Raa obliged by

bringing it over to the gambler.

"I still think we'd make better progress in the library, Master."

He set the glass on the dark polished wood of the tabletop.  Lando

was having a talmog that evening, one part spiced ethanol to one part

Lyme's rose juice, popular in a unique sunless, centerless system many

hundreds of light-years away.  It burned.  Lando hated the things,

which made them another drink he could nurse and re-ice all night if he

had to.

"Listen, little friend, let me do the detecting.  For your

information, I think I've got a bite already."

"A bite, Master?"  The robot reached a free tentacle to the floor,

scooped up a pinch of sawdust, and held it closely to his large red

eye.  "I would have thought the place to be cleaner kept than that.

Perhaps the Board of Sanitation@' "Vuffi Raa, how would you like

to be reprocessed into sardine cans?"

For the second time that afternoon, there was mirth in the robot's

eye.  "Master-" "Don't call me-" Lando stopped.  The sawdust-spreader

who had observed the gambler so closely was holding back the hanging

for a vetitable grandfather-of-grandfathers among the grandfatherly

natives-a wizened, shriveled super-ancient nearly doubled over with the

burden of his long life.

The bartender had stopped his glass cleaning, stood silent as he

watched the geriatric native hobble toward the gambler.  The old man's

straight white hair hung in matted tangles to his shoulders.

"Lord," the ancient Toka wheezed almost inaudibly, bowing until

his forehead touched the tabletop.  "It is as it was told.

Thou art the Bearer and the Emissary.  That which thou concealest

is indeed the Fabled Key lost long ago."

The other Toka was suddenly nowhere to be seen.  Somehow the spell

was broken.  The barkeep gave a metal-jointed shrug, resumed his work.

,'I, er ... 11

Now that Lando had made his contact, he realized he didn't quite

know what to do with it.  The ancient glanced at Vuffi Raa.  Lando gave

the little droid a scowl, which failed to rid him of the machine at

what could be a delicate point in the proceedings.  Vuffi Raa remained

standing by the table, all attention focused on the old Toka.

"Lord," the worthy repeated.  "I am Mohs, High Singer of the Toka.

Knowest thou what thou boldest on thy person?"

elderly character straightened-as much as he was ever going to

again in this life-and Lando noticed a tattoo on his forehead, a crude

line drawing of the Key itself.

"An unaccountably odd artifact," he answered, unconsciously

patting the irregular lumpiness of it in his inside jacket pocket.

"Some kind of three-dimensional practical joke.  But, please-sit

down.

Would you like something to drink?"

The ancient glanced around, a furtive expression tucked deeply

into the wrinkles in his face.  The tattoo puckered on his forehead.

"Such is not permitted, Lord.  l@' "Master," the droid interrupted

again.

"Shut up, Vuffi Raa!  Well, old fellow," he said turning to Mohs,

"wilt-will you at least tell me something more about the Key?"  He took

it out, held it in his hand.

Mohs had to wheeze a little while before he could get the words

out.  "Thou wishest to test thy servant, then?  So mote it be, Lord.

Thy wish is my command."

The Toka launched into a long, whining gargle in a language that

was vaguely familiar to Lando.  Perhaps it was an obscure dialect from

some system he'd visited.

The effect on the dozen or so other patrons wasn't exactly

salutory: they watched and listened, but Lando couldn't persuade

himself to believe the expressions on their faces were friendly.  He

found himself wishing he'd sat a little nearer the door.

The Toka's monolog went on and on, one of Mohs' bony hands

indicating the Key occasionally, the rest of the time his weathered

face turned upward toward the ceiling.  Finally, the chanting ceased.

"Have I recited rightly, Lord?"

Lando scratched his smoothly shaven chin.  "Sure.  Perfectly.

And-just as another test, mind you-let's have an abbreviated

version in the vernacular."  He indicated the rest of the room.

"Might win a few converts among the heathen.  Think you're up to

it?"

"Lord?"

The old man reached out shakily toward the Key, apparently thought

better of it, withdrew the gnarled hand with obvious reluctance, then

began.  "This is the Key of the Overpeople, Lord Bearer, the Opener of

Mysteries.  It is the Illuminator of Darkness, the Shower of the Way.

It is the Means to the End.

It is-" "Hold it, Mohs, just tell me what it does."

"Why, Lord, as thou knowest perfectly well Mohs tapered off.  Was

that a hint of sudden skepticism in the ancient High Singer's eye?  He

began again, in a very slightly different tone of voice.

"It releaseth the Mindharp of the Sharu, which in turn-2' "Bull's

Eye!  Look, Mohs.  As official Bearer of the Key, I have personally

selected you to lead-in a purely ceremonial sense, of course-to lead a

pilgrimage.  We're going to use the Key.  What do you think of that?"

The thought that everything was happening too easily began to seep

into the back of Lando's mind, but he repressed it savagely.  He was

stuck with his task and welcomed any lead that would get it over with.

"Why, whatever else would we do, Lord?  It must be as it has been

told, else it would not have been told to begin with."

"I'm sure there's a hole in your logic somewhere, but I'm too

tired right now to go poking for it.  How soon can you start, then?"

The old man raised his snowy eyebrows, and the crude

representation of the Key on his forehead squashed itself from top to

bottom like an accordion.

"This very instant, Lord, if that be thy desire.  Nothing

supercedeth Their holy plan."

He cast a pious eye toward the ceiling fixtures again.

"Good," the gambler answered, once the native's gaze returned from

its rafter rapture, "but I think we'll@' "Master!"  The little droid's

tone was urgent.

"What is it, Vuffi Raa?"

"Master, I hear trouble coming!"

"Just what we needed."  Lando groaned.

Suddenly, a man with a gun in his hand burst through the door.

"All right, spaceboy," he growled, pointing his massive weapon at

the gambler, "get ready to die!"

Vii

"MR.  JANDLER!  THE barkeep shouted, a panicky harmonic apparent

in its electronic voice, "I'm terribly sorry, sir, but my employer has

permanently restricted you from entering this@' "Shut up, machine!  Now

where in blazes was I?  Oh, yeahyou there!  Yeah, I'm talkin' to you!

It's just like Bernie down to the Pyran-dd told me!  And not only

with a snivelin', jobstealin' droid at the table, but a dirty Toka,

too!

What are you sailor, some kinda pervert?"

The few patrons in the establishment instantly cleared a broad

aisle between Lando and the intruder.

"I don't know," Lando replied evenly.  "It wasn't my turn to

watch.  Now just who in the galaxy are you?"

The man was good-sized, maybe eighty-five kilos, perhaps a shade

under two meters tall.  Over the powder-blue jumpsuit that draped his

broad frame, he wore a dark blue tunic and neckcloth.  He was neat,

clean, shaved, and surprisingly sober for a thug, Lando thought.  And

with surprisingly good taste, as well.

The man walked closer; the muzzle of his pistol didn't waver.

The robot bartender hurried to Lando's table, placing himself

between the two men.  "He's the former owner of the Spaceman's Rest,

Captain Calrissian, that was before I worked here.  When the place

changed hands, he tried to get a clause put in the agreement, never to

allow-" "What do you mean 'tried,' you miserable junk heap?  A contract

is a contract!  People got a right to make any contract they want!"

Apparently undecided whether to shoot the young gambler or the

bartender, Jandler was waving his gun around in a manner that tied

knots in Lando's stomach.  If it came to a choice, Lando hoped he'd

choose the bartender as less messy-the bigot did seem to have some

aesthetic sensitivities.  The robot stood its ground.

"Not when there's a system-wide ordinance against discrimination,

sir, and especially not when you lost the place in a table game to a

being who doesn't believe in discrimination."

The man swiveled on the machine-Lando thought about jumping him

just then, but it remained a thought-and brought the weapon down hard

on its plexisteel dome-top with a sickening crunch!

"That for your ordinance!"  he hollered, "and thatOWCH!"

"You should never kick a droid, sir," Vuffi Raa advised

sympathetically as the man hopped around on one foot, cutsing.  Somehow

Jandler found the concentration to peer menacingly at the

starfish-shaped robot.

"Quite right," Lando offered, diverting Jandler's attention even

further.  "He might have another droid.  Sic 'im, Vuffi Raa!"

Jandler whirled on Vuffi Raa again.  The five-tentacled 'hot

stared at his master in bewilderment, but the distraction worked.  The

stranger took an ugly step toward Vuffi Raa, on his guard against the

totally harmless little droid, and the bartender, despite its severely

dented cranium, walloped the fellow on the back of the neck with a

chair Lando toed over toward it.

Jandler went down like a sack of mynock guano.

A cheer rose from the dozen or so patrons in the room.  They began

gathering about Lando's table-somewhat unjustly ignoring the injured

and heroic 'tender-lining up to shake the gambler's hand and pat him on

the back.

"I'm gratified," Lando observed with a highly necessary shout-he

hadn't so much as risen from his chair during the excitement and was

taking a far worse beating now from his new admirers-"I'm gratified to

see that not all robots are programmed categorically against violence."

More specifically to the crowd he said, "Thanks, it was nothing,

honestly, thank you very much."

"He's only programmed against starting it, sir," the bartender

answered.  "I'll just haul this fellow out in the street now, if you

don't mind.  By way of restitution for the disturbance, will you have a

drink on the house?"

"I'd rather have it on the table in front of me.  And bring one

for my friend, here.  Mohs?"

Lando .  umped up.  Mohs was gone.

So was the Key.

Turning quickly, Lando glimpsed the raveled tail of a grayrag

garment whisking through the door-drape at the back of the room.  He

was through the little crowd and across the room with a speed that

startled even the robots.

He grabbedAnd received a collection of knobbly knuckles in the

teeth!

Spitting blood, Lando seized the wrist attached to the knuckles,

bit down hard in the meaty edge of the palm.  Mohs let out a yelp and

brained his erstwhile Lord left-handed with the Key.

Releasing the old man's arm, a dazed, surprised, and angry Lando

went for the throat with both hands, catching Mohs' knee, instead,

right between the legs.

Lando groaned and sank down to his knees, fighting the urge to

vomit.

This, however, put him in a position of advantage.  As the elderly

native-Lando couldn't make himself stop thinking of the savage in this

manner-came in for another shot with the Sharu Key, Lando grabbed the

nearest naked, dirty ankle that came to hand.  Mohs went down on his

back, with Lando on top, the old man biting and scratching.

By this time, Vuffi Raa had made it to his master's side, where he

hopped up and down, shouting advice that Lando couldn't hear and

probably wouldn't have followed.  It was scarcely a fair fight.  As

much as he would have liked to, Lando couldn't punch the "helpless" old

fellow into submission.  He simply attempted to hold on and ride the

furious storm to its conclusion.

They rolled across the storeroom, crashing into crates and

cartons, and at one point fetching up against the lower extremities of

the bartender, who had joined Vuffi Raa in supervising and kibitzing.

For a brief crystalline moment, Lando looked up.

"You're being a lot of help," he said to the bartender.

The mixerbot remained motionless.  "Beating up old men is a little

out of my line, Captain.  Besides, you look like you could use the

practice."

Abruptly, Lando was sucked back into the fight.  Mohs bashed him

on the head again, but a bit more weakly.  Lando grabbed the Key, then

managed to lever himself into a sitting position astride the Toka

Singer, grab a forelock of shaggy white mane, and bounce the elderly

head once, gently but fmwy, on the floor.

Mohs struggled for another moment, sivity.

"Naughty, naughty, Mohs," Lando said, gasping for breat i as he

looked down at the ancient.  "No fair doing Holy Things without the

duly constituted Key Bearer's help."

Mohs concealed his face in his long, emaciated hands.

"Thou mayest kill me now, Lord.  I have sinned greatly."

With considerable effort, Lando cranked himself back into a

standing position, reached a hand down to the native, and helped him

up.

"By the Emptiness, that's the first sign of spirit I've seen from

any of you people."

He sat down, panting, on a stack of plastic cartons in the dingy

rear hall.  "But, from now on, just keep in mind who's the sacred

emissary here, will you?"  He held up the Key.  "I'm in charge of this

eyeball-bender for the duration.  Keep that in mind, and we'll get

along fine.  Vuffi Raa?"

The robot trundled up beside him, his tentacles a tangle of

nervous excitement.  "Yes, Master?  Sorry I couldn't help you back

there, but-2' "I know, I know.  In your estimation, how long will it

take for Gepta's crew to sabotage the Falcon the way they said they

were going to?"

The droid considered: "Not more than an hour, Master.  It's merely

a matter of unsffipping the toroidal dis@' "Spare me the technical

details."  Lando turned to the old man, who seemed to be recovering

more quickly than he was.

"Mohs, we're headed for the spaceport to begin our little

excursion.  Are you ready to come along and behave?"

The old man nodded humbly, bowing.  "Yes, Lord, I am."

"Then let's get moving-and don't call me Lord."

Mohs stole a glance at Vuffi Raa, nodded again.  "Yes, Master."

"Mohs," Lando scrutinized the wrinkled figure carefully, "are you

trying to be funny?"

"What is 'funny,' Lord?"

Lando sighed, beginning to be resigned to permanent exasperation.

"Something about this whole confounded setup.  Here I neatly avoid

a messy conflict with that character out in the

I

re apse into pasbar, and then you go and try to set yourself up in

the Key Bearer business.  And I don't see why Gepta and his pocketpiece

governor need me to do their dirty work in the first place.  They had

the Key, why not just ... Come on, Vuffi Raa, we're getting out of

here.  I need a chance to think.  We'll doss down aboard the Falcon

tonight and get a fresh start in the morning."

He paused, then added, "And I want you to help me rig up a few

booby traps in case anybody else wants to try grabbing the Key."

"Master, I'm not sure my programming will allow that!"

The bartender stood, impassive, then turned and went back into the

bar.  "Good luck, sir.  I think you're going to need it."

Keeping a suspicious eye glued to Mohs, Lando said to Vuffi Raa,

"Very well, then, whether we can overcome your cybernetic scruples or

not, we're still spending the night aboard the Falcon.  Get out front

and find us some transports bus, a vegetable gravlifter, anything."  He

shrugged uncomfortably, trying to unwind a painfully twisted muscle in

his shoulder.  "Do you think they might have any taxis on this

misbegotten mudball?"

The robot knew a rhetorical question when he heard one.

Lando watched him o, rubbed at his bruised shoulder,

stood up and stretched.

"Stay a moment, Lord."  It was the old Toka.  "It is not meet that

thy servant mount the same conveyance as thyself."

Lando snorted.  "What do you propose as an alternative?"

Mohs shook his snowy head.  "Worry not, Lord, neither trouble

thyself over the minor travails of thy servant, but go thou, instead,

thine own way, even as thy servant shall go his."

"Catchily put.  Does that mean you'll meet us at the spaceport?"

The old man looked puzzled.  "Is that not what I just said?"

"Somewhere in there, I suppose; it got lost in the

transubstantiation.  Very well, old disciple, have it your own way."

Blast, there was a snag in his tailored uniform trousers.  They

simply weren't intended for brawling.  "We'll leave a light burning in

the starboard viewport."

He left by the front door to join Vuffi Raa.  Mohs presumably

exited through the back.  A hoverbus swooshed along almost immediately.

Lando and the robot were whisked the ten kilometers to the landing

field in as many minutes.

They were not unanticipated.

"What in the name of the Core is that?"  Lando asked the equally

astonished droid.

Outside the chain-link gate that filled a gap between the

force-field pole-pieces around the port, a considerable and highly

unusual crowd had gathered.  Absently, Lando paid the driver droid,

turned to stare at the hundreds of stooped gray figures standing in

their loincloths in the moonless dark, chanting to the cold unanswering

stars.

As the gambler and his companion approached them, the primitives

stepped back en masse, forming a broad, open corridor.  To one side, a

spaceport security officer was visible through the transparency of his

guard booth, gesticulating at the visicom.

Lando and Vuffi Raa, the former growing more reluctant by the

minute to surround himself in an unpredictable mobespecially after his

recent wrestling match with one of the natives-made slow, involuntarily

stately progress as the crowd folded itself back before them, the

rhythmic chanting never missing a beat.

At the end of the living aisle, they encountered Mohs.

Vill

IT HAD BEEN a couple of very long sleepless days.  Lando didn't

even want to think about how an ancient savage on foot had beaten a

fusion-powered hovercraft across ten kilometers of twisted, ruin-strewn

thoroughfare to the spaceport.

Let the robot figure it out, he told himself groggily, that's what

Class Two droids are for.

Mohs, High Singer of the Toka, had, of course, been leading the

high-pitched, disharmonious chant.  Now the old man signaled the others

to provide a more subdued background music as he addressed the gambler:

"Hall, Lord Key-Bearer'@he turned to Vuffi Raa-"and Emissary.  It is,

indeed, as it has been told.  Long have we awaited thee.  Vouchsafe now

unto thy servants what it is that shall next come to pass."

"We shall climb aboard yon Millennium Falcon," Lando pointed to

the crablike vessel sitting on the asphalt a hundred meters away, and

yawned.  "Tuck ourselves into our little beddy-byes, and get

some-yipe!"

He stopped short.  Across the tarmac, half a dozen

repulsortrucks, overhead lights blazing like novas, surrounded the

small starship.  Along with what appeared to be at least two squads of

heavily armed constabulary.

"Good grief," the gwnbler said to the robot.  "Your ethical virtue

will remain unscathed tonight, at least.  Everybody seems to have

beaten us to the spaceport.  So much for the wonders of public

transportation.  What do you suppose we've done now?"

" 'We,' Master?"

"Very funny, my loyal and trusty droid.  Your support underwhelms

me."

Approaching the lowered boarding ramp, Lando, the robot, and the

TokA Singer-who had detached himself from his departing

congregation-were met by armored, dark-visored cops, blasters drawn and

at the ready.

"Okay, officer, I'll pay the two credits."  Lando was tired and

angry.  He didn't even want to know how they'd gotten in past the

locking-up he'd done the previous night.  But he kept his tone

goodnatured.  With those fellows, it paid to.

"Good evening, Captain," came an equally good-humored reply from

beneath a helmet with two decorative bars across its highly reflective

forehead.  "We're here to guard your cargo while it's being loaded."

"Really?"  Lando marveled.  He was always suspicious of favors

from policemen.  The trooper pointed an armored finger toward the

trucks, from which a steady stream of packages ran up automated

conveyors into the Falcon's open cargo hatches.

"That's tight," the guardsman answered, then added in a more

subdued and, Lando thought, somehow civilian tone, "I sure hope your

bruises are healing up okay.  We were pretty careful.  Nothing

personal, you understand, sir.  A guy has orders to follow."

And plenty of morally evasive cliches to fall back on, Lando

thought as he peered into the anonymous helmet visor.  He

LI' @

gave it up.  "Think nothing of it, my dear fellow, I understand

completely.  I'll try and do as much for you, someday."

The cop chuckled, snapped to attention, clicked booted heels, and

brought his heavy handweapon to port arms.  Lando suppressed an

unmilitary snigger of his own at the display, and climbed aboard the

Falcon with Vuffi Raa and Mohs behind him.

The interior of the Millennium Falcon, Lando thought for e

hundredth time, was more like the innards of some great th living beast

than the inanimate human construction that it was.

Starliners and other vessels he was familiar with were as

rectilinear and orderly as the hotel where he'd spent an uncomfortable

night in Teguta Lusat.  But aboard his ship were no separate

compartmentalized cabins of any sort, nor any clear demarcation between

cargo and living space, simply lots of unspecialized volume, currently

being rapidly and compactly filled with cartons and crates of highly

valuable life-crystals.

Lando watched the port's longshorebots work.  It appeared Gepta

was more than keeping his part of the bargain-Lando made a note to have

the crystals assayed as soon as possible.

There was nothing about the sorcerer, or his governmental flunky,

that inspired trust, even had Lando been the trusting type.

Parking Mohs at a convenient bulkhead frame, Lando and Vuffi Raa

stopped off beside the ultralightspeed section of the ship's drive

area.  There had been some changes made.  And not for the better, Lando

thought.

"Oh, Master!"  the dismayed Class Two robot wailed.  "Just see

what they have done to her!"  He rushed to the faster-thanfight drive

panels and stood, wringing his metallic tentacles and making the kind

of high-pitched squeal humans call tinnitis and see physicians about.

All along the wall, access panels had been left rudely hanging

open.  Frayed wires and broken cables dangled from the overhead.  Small

bits and pieces of machinery, mechanical detritus such as nuts and

washers and scraps of insulation littered the decking.  The faint foul

stench of soldering and scorched plastic defied the ventilating

system's best efforts.

"It's quite a mess, aJI right, old home appliance.  But don't

fret, she's only a machine, after all, and they've promised to make

full and complete repairs, once we@' "Only a machine?"  The robot's

voice was disbelieving, scandalized, and almost hysterical.  "Master,

1, too, am 'only a machine'!  This is horrible, unbearable, cruel,

evil.  It's-" "Oh, come now, Vuffi Raa, don't exhaust your vocabulary.

You're a sapient machine.  The Falcon's big and smart, but she's

way, way beneath you on the scale of things.  Otherwise I shouldn't

have had to rent that confounded, idiotic-" "Master," the droid

interrupted, more gently this time, "how does it make you feel to see

somebody's furry pet run over by the roadside?  Do you dismiss it, say

it's only an animal, beneath you on the scale of things?  Or do you

feel like ... well, the way I feel now?"

Lando shook his head, too tired to argue further.  The point,

within limits, was certainly well taken.  And he hated to think that

the little automaton was a more humane being than he himself.

"I'm going forward," he said abruptly.  "There's no telling what

trouble somebody like Mohs can find to get into with all those dials

and pretty buttons going unsupervised."

"Very well, Master.  With your permission, I'll remain here a

little while to comfort her as best I can and tidy up this ...

this butchery."

"As you will."  Lando paused in the bight of curving comdor,

turned back to see the droid collecting washers and sheared rivets from

the decking.  "Er, uh, sorry I didn't understand your feeling at first,

old cybemet.  It's just that I .  . ."  His voice trickled off.

There was a long silence between the two, then: "That's all right,

Lando.  At least you understood after I explained it.

That's more than most organic beings could do, I think."

The gambler cleared his throat self-consciously.  "Yes, weller,

ah ... see you forward in a little while, then-and don't call me

Lando."

In the tubular cockpit forward, Lando took an inexpert look at the

indicator lights on various control boards, then thumbed through the

Falcon's dog-eared flight manual to see what they meant.

Mostly, the unfamiliar lights he saw were warnings of open hatch

covers where the loading was being carried out.  Clunks and thumps and

groans below confirmed the telltales.  The entire section of

instrumentation given over to the ultralight drive had only solid reds

and yellows glaring balefully.

Behind Lando, in the high-backed jumpseat where the gambier had

placed him firmly, Mohs seemed to have lapsed back into senile

passivity.  Lando couldn't blame him: he almost wished he could do the

same.  It had been a long, hard day for the poor old savage.  The Toka

sat, eyes wide open, staring down at the decking plates, knobbed hands

lying palms up in loinclothed lap.

"Mohs?"  Lando asked gently.

The old man started, as if he'd been thoroughly asleep despite the

open eyes and hadn't seen Lando turn around to speak to him.  He

blinked, rubbed a slow and shaky hand over his stubbly chin.

"Yes, Lord?"

"Mohs, what was it that you and your people were chanting out

there by the fence?"

The old man breathed dee ply, resettled himself in the heavily

padded jumpseat.  He'd never placed his scrawny fundament in so

luxurious a resting place before.  He patted the arms a little, almost

in disbelief.

"It was the Song of the Emissary, Lord, in honor of the advent of

you and@' "I see."

A long, thoughtful few moments followed.  The old man's breathing

was almost loud in the control cabin.  Lando hadn't really thought very

much about this Emissary business.  There hadn't been time.  It was

beginning to dawn on him that there might be more to all the chanting

and Key-Bearing stuff than Gepta had seen fit to tell him.

"Well, old fellow," Lando said, not unkindly, "if you're not too

played out after all the excitement, why don't you tell me-2' With a

clank at the doorsill betraying whatever weary clumsiness robots happen

to experience, Vuffi Raa chose that moment to return from the drive

area aft, clambered into the right-hand seat, which Lando had replaced

after sending the pilot droid back to the Oseon.  The little automaton

was uncharacteristically subdued.

"Everything shipshape and tidy to your liking, then?"  Lando asked

conversationally.  "Good.  Did you happen, by the way, to overhear that

guard captain out there?  He more or less directly identified himself

as the unreconstituted son-of-a@' "Yes, Master," the robot responded

somewhat dully.  "I must say, it was something of a surprise."

Lando mused.  "I don't know about that.  I don't suppose it's all

that great a coincidence.  In the first place, they can't have an

endless supply of uniformed thugs to call upon in Teguta Lusat to do

their dirty work.  And in the second place, assigning that particular

one to greet us would be Duttes Mer's idea of a joke.  Actually, I

thought it rather sporting of the fellow to apologize and ask after my

health and all that sort of thing. Once more imitating human beings,

Vuffi Raa did a double take, turning to "face" Lando.  "And especially

considering the effective way in which you got even, afterward,

Master."

It was Lando's turn to blink surprise.  "Got even?  What in the

name of the Galactic Drift do you mean?"

"Why, Master, I thought we were talking about the same socalled

coincidence.  Aren't you aware of who that@' "Certainly: the

paramilitary bully from the hotel, last night. "And more recently,

Master, a civilian 'Mr.  Jandler' from the Spaceman's Rest.  I thought

you recognized his voice, as I did-and the painful stiffness with which

he moved his neck."

"You don't say!"

Perhaps there is some justice in the universe, after all, Lando

thought with satisfaction.  Then he screwed his face up sourly: another

blasted mystery!  What had that charade in the saloon been all about,

then?  He'd taken it for a bit of bigoted random stupidity on a highly

bigoted and randomly stupid planet.  And what did it all imply about

the robot bartender (or its owner), who seemedA previous idea demanded

Lando's attention quite suddenly: "Tell us about tire Emissary, Mohs,

old fellow-no, don't sing it!  Make it short, intelligible, and to the

point."

The Toka ancient stirred.  "Le,-end foretelleth of a dark

adventurer, an intrepid star-saflor with preternatural luck at games of

chance, who shall come with a weird inhuman companion in silvery armor

arrayed.  They shall possess the Key with which to liberate the

NEndhaip, which in turn shall liberate the@' Lando slammed a palm on

the amirest of his chair.  "Well, I'll be doubled-dyo, homswoggled, and

trussed up like a holiday fowl!  We were set up, Vuffi Raa!  Gepta must

have had his convict spies watching the port for months-possibly

years-to find a sucker with the right qualifications: gambler,

spaceship-captain, with an unenameled droid and a weak mind.

That's why neither a creepy old Tund magician nor that ugly

neckless governor of his could play this hand themselves: they don't

fit the Toka legend!"

"And we do, Master?"

"Ask Mohs, here; he's the local Keeper of the Flame."

"Master?"

"Never mind, a figure of speech.  Let's go back aft and get some

shut-eye.  We've got some heroing to do in the morning-and don't forget

to polish your armor, old canopener!"

ix CAME THE DAWN, with a full night's rest under his stylish if

somewhat wrinkled satyn semiformal cummerbund, Lando was in a worse

mood than ever.  He loathed the idea that he might have been taken by

one of the marks, and the nasty suspicion was growing within him that

he'd only begun to discover the extent to which he'd been outmaneuvered

by Rokur Gepta.

The takeoff of the Millennium Falcon shortly after sunrise, had

proceeded as smoothly as clockwork, as fluidly graceful as a textbook

exercise.  Even the Teguta Lusat control tower had complimented Lando

on it.  This failed to cheer him.  He passed the compliments along to

Vuffi Raa, who had been at the controls.

The troopers and freight-handlers had departed sometime the

previous evening under the cover of the moonless sky, sealing the

Falcon's hatches tightly behind them until the control boards displayed

a solid, unbroken tapestry of green pilot lamps.  Mohs had curled up on

a lounger, snoring like some impossible archaic internal combustion

engine.  Vuffi Raa had tidied up and tinkered through the night.

Sapient robots do need sleep-the brighter they are the greater the

need-but Lando never had been able to discern a pattern in their

nightly habits.  He himself had tossed and turned, sweating into the

fancy and expensive synsilk bedroll he'd spread under the common-room

gaming table, and finally achieving an unrestful semiconsciousness from

which the robot had awakened him, stiff and groggy.  Several large

containers of hot, black coffeine had only deepened his already

gruesome mood.

"All right," he snarled unnecessarily at the old Toka shaman.

They were forward in the cockpit once again, Mohs perched on the

jumpseat, Vuffi Raa occupying the right-hand copilot's couch as a token

concession to the human captain, but very much in control of the ship.

Someday, thought Lando, when it all was over, he'd sell both

blasted machines, Vuffl Raa and the Millennium Falcon, to someone fully

capable of appreciating them.

"So where do we go from here?"

They were lying in a close orbit around Rafa IV.  From there they

could reach any point on the planet's surface within minutes or strike

out freely across space for any other body in the system.  Mohs closed

his eyes, mouthed the rote-memorized words of an ancient ritual to

himself, and finally pointed a dessicated finger out the viewport.

"Lord, the Mindharp lieth in that direction."

Perfect, Lando thought sourly to himself, I've got a mechanical

kid's toy for a pilot, and an elderly witch doctor for a nay@ igator!

A sadistic little voice inside him insisted on adding that he also

had a sabacc-playing conman for a captain.  Even all around, then.  He

gave it up and peered through the faceted transparency.

How in the devil do you discuss the details of navigational

astronomy with an utter savage?  "You mean that bright light in the

heavens, there, Mohs?"

"Of a certainty, Lord: the fifth planet of the Rafa System; it

possesseth two natural satellites, a breathable atmosphere, and

approximately nine-tenths of a standard gravity, not unlike Rafa tV

beneath us, whence we came-except in the matter Of the moons.  Is it

not pleasing in thy@' "Forget it!"  The gambler peered suspiciously at

the old man, "How is it that you know so blasted much about astronomy,

all of a sudden?"  And who's really the utter savage here, he asked

himself quietly; he'd never have been able to pick out the next planet

from the local sun against the starry sky, not without the ship's

computer as a crutch.

The ancient Singer shrugged, gave Lando a saggy, toothless grin.

"it is all there, Lord, in the Song of the Reflective Telescope,

which detaileth all things in this system.  Should it not be so?"

There was a long, long silence, during which the only thing

accomplished was Vuffi Raa's computer-guided confirmation that Lando's

"bright light in the heavens" was, indeed, Rafa V.

"How many of these bloody chants do you know, anyway?"

The savage considered: "Many beyond counting, Lord.

More than the fingers and toes of all my great-great ancestors and

children.  I would say approximately seven point six two three times

ten to the fourth.  Does this please diee, Lord?"

For a humble worshiper, the old boy was getting pretty sarcastic,

Lando thought.  "I suppose that last comes from the Song of Scientific

Notation."  He shook his head- He understood fully now why Gepta and

Mer hadn't gone on this wild falumba chase themselves.  It had nothing

to do with conforming to ancient Toka legends.  They simply wanted to

stay sane.

The question now was, why did Vuffi Raa and Mohs need him?

"What now, Master?  Do you want to go to Rafa V?"

"DON'T CALL ME MASTER!"

The relatively short jump of a few dozen n-dllion kilometers was

blessedly uneventful for the captain and "crvw" of the Millennium

Falcon.

They hadn't started it at once.  Vdffi Raa and Lando quizzed the

elderly Mohs, had made him repeat and translate the appropriate stanzas

of the appropriate Songs until they, too, were as certain as they could

be, under the circumstances, that Rafa V was the place to find the

Mindharp.

That is, if you were willing to place much confidence in an

intermittently senile shaman mouthing rhymed and metered legends of an

indeterminate age.

Lando spent the few hours of transit catching up on his sleep,

while Mohs and Vuffi Raa carried on whatever passed for conversational

small talk between them.  The pilot's acceleration couch was infinitely

more comfortable than the sleeping bag, and by the time Vuffi Raa woke

him again, he felt halfway human.  Downright cheerful, in fact.  Or at

least as cheerful as he everSPANG!

Something struck the roof of the control cabin, hard.

"What in the eternal blue blazes was that?"  Lando shouted.

Behind him, the old man cringed, began gibbering to himself in a

high-pitched, hysterical voice.  Something about the wrath OfSPENG!

This time, it was somewhere aft, near the engines.  A yellow light

winked on the control board.  Vuffi Raa stabbed console buttons, his

tentacles blurring with speed into near invisibility.

"One moment, Master, while l@' SPING!  SPONG!

Red lights flickered now.  There was the faint but definite

whistle indicating loss of atmosphere.  Lando swallowed hard.

His ears popped as the pressure equalized, although that hadn't

been his intention.

Something was striking the Millennium Falcon repeatedly and with

great force.  For some odd reason, the image of Constable Jandler (if

that was really his name) flashed through Lando's mind.  They were in

close orbit over Rafa V, preparing to use the old Toka chants as a

guide to selecting a landing site.

Vuffi Raa heeled the Falcon over so she could take whatever was

hitting her on her better-armored underside, but they had already

received at least minor damage.

SPUNG!

"In the name of the Galactic Center, what's that?"  Lando

hollered.

An unlikely object had wedged itself into the space between the

cockpit transparency and a small communications antenna.

It resembled nothing more than a fancy cut-glass plumber's helper,

complete with handle and suction cup, but rendered in some crystalline

substance reminiscent of Rafa orchard produce.

"I don , t know, Master!"

Was that hysteria in the robot's voice?  Wonderful, thought Lando.

The ship rolled, stabilized, and they were traveling in orbit on

her side.  The bombardment seemed to slacken off.  The droid turned to

Lando.

"It's an artifact of some kind, Master.  Archacoastronomers

believe that Rafa V was the original home of the Sharu, the planet they

evolved on.  Mohs' Songs seem to agree with that.

I suspect, Master, that we're seeing-and suffering-the remnants of

their first attempts at spaceflight, objects launched by primitive

rockets, others expelled by small spacecraft as they prepared to

reenter atmosphere."

It made sense.  Planetary orbits were always the richest fields in

which to discover the leavings of primitive technology.

There were probably cameras out there, used spacesuits, freefall

table scraps, all of them practically as good as the day they had been

jettisoned-barring a little micrometeorite and radiation damage.

A thought came to him.

"Vuffi Raa, why didn't you just power the Falcon's shields up when

we started taking hits?  There's nothing out there the deflectors

couldn't have handled, especially given our relative speeds in orbit."

Reading through the flight manual over and over again seemed to be

doing him some good, Lando thought.  Maybe if he watched the robot fly

this machine long enough, he'd pick up the knack himself.

On the other hand, right now he could be aboard a luxury passenger

liner, sipping a tall cool drink and shearing twolegged sheep.

"Why, I don't know, Master," came the reply.  "I simply acted as

quickly as I could.  Brace yourself, everybody, we're going in!"  The

droid began punching console buttons again.

Rafa V-birthplace of the fabled Sharu or not-was not the favored

planet for human colonization.  There was atmosphere, the usual thick

scattering of titanic multicolored buildings, and, most importantly,

the ubiquitous life-orchards.  But the place was just a trifle too

cold, a trifle too dry, and Rafa IV, the planet they'd just come from,

was moist and shirt-sleeve comfortable over a wide range of latitudes.

Here and there, according to their orbital survey and maps

programmed into the Falcon at Teguta Lusat, lay small settlements,

orchard-stations where a combination of Toka (native to the planet, as

they were to all bodies in the system with sufficient resources),

convicts, and government horticulturists harvested life-crystals,

although on nowhere near the scale of Rafa IV.

No doubt in another hundred years or so, there would be towns,

eventually cities other than those the Sharu had abandoned.  But for

now, there were a paltry few hundred individuals sprinkled over an

entire planetary surface.

The colossal pyramid Mohs pointed them toward was at least a

thousand kilometers from any contemporary outpost of civilization.

Vuffi Raa brought the Falcon to a gentle leaflike landing in a

space between several ancient constructs at the foot of the pyramid

that dwarfed even them.  There were no convenient words to describe the

building that now loomed over them.  At least seven kilometers of it

protruded above ground level.  The Falcon's various scanners had

disclosed that it kept on going beneath the surface, but the depths

exceeded the capabilities of her instruments.  It was a literal

mountain of smooth impervious plastic that served no discernible

function.

The pyramid had five facets (not counting the bottomwherever that

was), the angles between each of them not particularly uniform, giving

the gigantic construct an eerie, dangerous, lopsided look.  Each face

was a different brilliant color: magenta, apricot, mustard, aquamarine,

turquoise, lavender.

Execrable taste, Lando thought, well deserving of cultural

extinction.

There was no finishing ornament at the top; the sides simply came

together in a peak sharp enough to give anyone who reached it a nasty

puncture wound.

Not for the first time, Lando wondered who or what it was that had

scared off creatures capable of creating such an edifice.  He rummaged

through the ship's chests and his own wardrobe looking for suitable

clothing, settled finally on a light electrically heated parka, heavy

trousers, micro-insulated gloves, and rugged boots with tough,

synthetic soles.  It was a measure of his uneasiness about the place

that he broke long precedent, slinging a short, weighty' , two-handed

blaster over his shoulder and filling his pockets with extra power

modules.

The weapon hung at his waist, muzzle swinging with his body when

he moved.

Mohs flatly turned down the offer of additional warm clothing,

joined the gambler and Vuffi Raa at the boarding ramp.

Lando wondered if the old fellow wanted to add frostbite to the

rest of his in@ities.  If nothing else, they already made an impressive

collection.

"Now, you're absolutely certain this is the place?"

Mohs nodded vigorously as the ramp lowered them and itself to

ground level, unaffected by the cold as the angle beneath their feet

steepened and a deep chill entered the belly of the ship.  Air puffed

out in visible vaporous clouds.  They tramped down onto the dry-frozen

soil.

"Master," Vuffi Raa admonished, "I trust you're carrying

sufficient water.  The humidity in this region does not quite reach two

percent."

Lando slapped the gurgling plastic flasks tucked into the pockets

of his parka.  "Yes.  And I brought a deck of card-chips, as well."  He

looked out over the barren surface of the planet.

Fine reddish sand lapped like a frozen sea around the bases of the

abandoned buildings.  "Chances are we'll die of boredom before thirst

gets to us."

Mohs turned, an odd look on his face as he watched Lando open a

small panel at eye-level on one of the Falcon's landing legs.  The

gambler pushed a sequence of buttons that started the boarding ramp

groaning upward again into its recess under the ship's belly.

"Hast thou also the Key, Lord, the Key which@' "What is this?  Are

you two seeing me off to summer camp or something?"

He led them out from beneath the ship, took a deep invigorating

breath-and promptly froze the hairs in his nostrils.

"Well, I can see why nobody much has staked a claim on this

forsaken stretch of-" "Master," Vuffi Raa clattered up beside him and

tugged at the hem of his jacket.  "Master, I don't like this, there's

somethings' "I know, old junkyard, I can feel it, too."

The sky, a light greenish color, was cloudless.  Nevertheless,

somehow it impressed them all as gray, bleak, and overcast.

And it was cold.  The whine of Vuffi Raa's servos was clearly

audible, a sign that perhaps his internal lubrication was thickening.

Lando replaced the glove on the hand he'd used to retract the

ramp, thrust it deeply into a warm pocket where the blaster swung.

"Master!  11

Something went zing!  and a short, stubby, wicked-looking arrow

suddenly protruded from the seam between the robot's leg and body.  In

the next instant, a hailstorm of the primitive projectiles whistled

toward them, bouncing off the Falcon's hull, burying themselves in the

sand at their feet.  Vuffi Raa went down, looking like a five-legged

pincushion.  He didn't utter a word.

Curiously, not a single arrow struck either Lando or Mohs.

The former swung his weapon up on its strap, panned it along the

low dunes a few yards away.  He felt a slap!  and turned the blaster,

staring at the muzzle orifice with disbelief.

An arrow had found its way straight down the bore, turning the gun

into a potential bomb, should Lando touch the trigger.

He tossed the dangerous thing away, began struggling with the

fastenings of his coat to find the stingbeam.  It wasn't much, but it

was all"Stand where you are, 'Lord'!"  Mohs exclaimed, "If you resist,

you will die before you draw another breath!"

The old man raised a hand.  From behind the sand dunes, half a

hundred Toka emerged, dressed as he was in nothing more than

loincloths.

In his hands, each held a powerful crossbow, pointed directly at

Lando.

SO THIS was a genuine life-orchard.

The trees were a little odd, but nothing spectacular.  In the wild

grove perhaps five hundred of the things grew, in no particular

pattern, yet each was of an identical size and spaced several meters

from its nearest neighbor.  The trunk was relatively ordinary,

too-until one examined it closely and discovered that what appeared to

be bark-covered wood was in fact a fibrous glassy pigmented stem

approximately half a meter through and a couple of meters tall under

the spreading branches.

The first oddity one noticed, however, was the root system.

Each tree seemed to rest on a base, an irregular disk two meters

across, like a toy tree in a model monorail set.  Composed of the same

substance as the trunk, the disk spread from the tree, forming a

platform that curved abruptly downward at the edge and buried itself in

the ground.  The entire undersurface was covered with hair-fine glassy

roots reaching downward perhaps a kilometer but spreading laterally

only as far as the longest of the branches.

The branches, in some ways, reminded one of a cactus.  At about

average head height, they began to sprout from the trunk, departing at

a right angle for a little distance (the lower the branch, the longer

the distance, none exceeded the span of the root system), then turning

straight upward.  Outer branches-lower ones-had shorter vertical

components.  Inner ones had longer, so that the entire tree was

somewhat conical in shape.

At the slender, tapering tip of each branch, a single, faceted,

brilliant crystal grew, varying from fist-sized, on the outer branches,

to tiny gems no bigger than pinheads.  Each tree bore perhaps a

thousand crystals.  In the center, along the line of the trunk, one

very tall, slender branch reached skyward like a communications

antenna, unadorned by a crystal.

These trees were a little shorter, a little stockier than Lando

had been led to believe was normal.  Perhaps the milder climate of Rafa

fV had something to do with that.  It was hard to understand how

anything could grow on Rafa V.

For grow they did, those trees@espite the fact that they were some

odd cross between organic LIFE and solid-state electronics.  From some

unknown spread of seeds, each orchard grew, every tree at the same

rate.  Remove a crystal from its branch tip-something which had to be

done with a laser-an another would replace it within a year's time.

Elsewhere in the Rafa System, Lando knew there were groves of

trees no more than a hand's-width tall, others in which no tree stood

less than ten or twelve meters.  All bore crystals proportionate to the

tree size.  Some life-crystals, uselss for commercial purposes, were

microscopic.  Others were the size of Vuffi Raa's body.

The thought of Vuffi Raa caused Lando to stop thinking about trees

and reflect, instead, on how he'd gotten into this predicament.

Back at the ship, he'd turned in dismay to look at the little

robot.  Its red-lit eye was out; arrows stuck from nearly every chink

and crevice of its body.  A light clear fluid ran from many of the

wounds, darkening the reddish soil around it.

Mohs strode up to him, no longer bent and stooped.  He thrust out

a hand, palm up.

"Give me the Key, imposter!"

Lando set his jaw.  He didn't have much to lose, and he was

mad-more at himself than anything else.  He folded his arms across his

chest, planted his feet in the sand, and grunted.

"The Key!  It is not yours, it is ours!  Give it to me!"

"Don't be silly, old fellow!"

Quite inexplicably, a look of dismay spread over Mohs' face.  He

dropped his hand to his side, turned to the other natives surrounding

the pair in a heavily armed and dangerouslooking ring, and shrugged.

He turned again to Lando.

"I say once more, you fake, you fraud, you, you .  . ."

"If you do," said Lando, not understanding what was happening, but

willing now to hope, "I'll just say something insulting.

In fact, I think I will, anyway: your mother sang off key."  He

nodded for emphasis.

Mohs took a step backward, aghast-whether at the magnitude of the

insult or in surprise at the general turn of events, Lando couldn't

tell.

Mohs turned once again to his people-and there's another problem,

Lando thought idly: Mohs was from another planet.

How was it that the locals seemed to know him and acknowledge his

leadership?

Come to think of it, how had the ambush been set up in the first

place?

The savages conferred for a while in their own language.  A

decision appeared to have been made.

"You will come with us, imposter!"  Mohs ordered.  He started to

walk off on a course paralleling the nearest face of the giant pyramid.

Lando stood where he was.

"I will when the Core freezes over!  Owch!"  This last was due

more to surprise than injury.  A crossbow bolt had whistled past

Lando's head, skinning an ear already made painful by the cold, s@ng

the hull of the Falcon, and catching him on the rebound in the seat of

his insulated pants.  A pattern seemed to be emerging: they didn't want

to kill Lando; they couldn't take the Key away without his consent

(although Mohs had tried that back on Four, he reminded himself), but

they could threaten and coerce him in other ways.

They seemed to be pretty good at that.

He reached for his discarded blaster, intending to pull out the

arrow and create a little mayhem before they shot him down.  He hadn't

moved a meter when another flight of arrows virtually buried the

weapon, pinned it to the ground by its sling, trigger guard, and other

apertures in the stock and foreend.  So much for that idea.

As one, the fifty or so natives swung their weapons back on Lando.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming!  Anybody think to call a cab?"

Two hours later, Lando wished it hadn't been a joke.  They'd

marched him for mile after endless mile, climbing over random, angular

ruins, sloshing through deep-drifted sand, scrabbling through scrubby

brush.  His feet hurt and his legs ached and, no matter how high he

turned his suit controls, he was still cold.

At last he stopped.

"All right, everybody, I've been a nice guy so far, but this is as

far as I go.  If you want the Key, you'll have to take it off my dead

body.  I'm not going another meter."

The silent natives who surrounded him looked to Mohs.  The old man

nodded.  They loosed a flight of arrows that plucked at his clothing,

kicked sand up in his face, whistled mere angstrom units over his head.

These fellows were impressive markspersons, Lando found himself

thinking; I hope none of them gets the hiccups.  He stood his ground

again until they started shooting between his legs.

It wasn't worth the risk.  He waited until they paused to reload,

then began marching again.

What he had thought were crossbows had turned out to be something

entirely different, some kind of spring-loaded contraption with hinged

arms-which he'd mistaken for the limbs of a bow-that flailed forward,

hurling the stubby arrows out through the front of the weapon.  They

didn't seem to need reloading every time they were fired.  He guessed

there were perhaps half a dozen projectiles stashed in a magazine

hidden within the mechanism.  The weapons weren't very powerful, as

projectile throwers went, but the speed and accuracy with which they

could be used made him realize he could die from a thousand pinpiicks

as easily as from a single blaster shot.

And a great deal more painfully.

They marched.

Another couple of hours went by.  Lando wasrr't sure exactly-he

didn't want to took at his watch, because he didn't want to remind the

natives that he had several items concealed beneath his winter clothes,

notably his five-shot stingbeam.  It would take a lot of figuring to

get any good out of it in this situation, but it was something to fall

back on, and it gave him a bit of hope.

Step after endless step.  The country didn't vaiy much: something

between desert and tundra, most of the space taken up with giant Sharu

buildings.  Sand, sand, and more sand.  Occasional weeds.  The clear,

yet somehow foreboding sky.  He worried about Vuffi Raa, hoped that

robots die a swift and merciful death.

All during the long, pauseless ordeal, the Toka around him

chanted, sometimes slowly, sometimes more rapidly.  And to his

continuous annoyance, never in rhythm with the marching.

This caused him to stumble awkwardly every now and again.

He didn't know how the Toka mind worked, but he knew he didn't

like it.  They sang low-pitched Songs, they sang highpitched Songs.

They sang in harmony, disharmony, and counterpoint.  They would be

great to record-they had an endless repertoire.

At long last, the marching ended at a grove of life-crystal trees.

Mohs approached him.

"Imposter, hear me: we are forbidden to remove the holy Key from

the Key bearer, even should the Bearer be a false one.  You have

somehow guessed this.  Nor may we kill him who bears the Key, although

we have killed the false Emissary, which makes us glad."

So that was it!  Somehow Lando had gotten the idea that the Key

Bearer and the Emissary were the same fellow, namely himself.  Had he

betrayed that belief to Mohs, setting up the debacle?  He tried to

recall what he'd said to Mohs on the subject, then realized it didn't

make a bit of difference anyway-and besides, the old man was still

talking.

11 let them do it themselves.  Come with me!"

Lando followed him to a tree.  Several of the other Toka handed

their weapons to comrades, joined Mohs and Lando, and, between them,

produced a loincloth.

By the time Lando decided to resist, it was too late.  They forced

him into a sitting position, bound him to the tree trunk by the waist,

and used the same length of cloth to tie his hands behind him.  They

pushed back his hood, unfastened his jacket, and tore it rudely from

him.

"Hey!  Do you know what my tailor charged me for-now hold on a

tninute, that's going too far!"

Mohs had pulled off one of Lando's boots, bent to seize the

AND THE'MINDHARP OF SHARU 77

other.  When this was accomplished, the boots tossed aside near

his discarded parka, they tore his tunic off, and ig s beneath it.

Then Mohs produced a knife.

"Now wait a blasted minute, here!  You can't do that!"  He kicked

at the old man until a pair of natives held his ankles.

He'd never believed in strong, silent heroes, and since the only

thing he had left to do was yell, he yelled.

He yelled the entire time it took Mohs to slit his trouser legs,

exposing bare skin to the chilling air.

"Now," said the ancient Singer, when he was satisfied with Lando's

disheveled condition.  "All will notice that the Key remains with the

Bearer."

This was true.  They'd taken it from his tunic and tucked it into

the dirty gray cloth about his waist.  That had been a scary

moment-he'd held deathly still so they wouldn't clank it against the

tiny beamer hidden beneath both loincloth and cummerbund.

"Now we shall wait.  In Their own time, They will take his life,

either in the cold or through the tree.  We shall then return and claim

the Key which is our rightful heritage.  We go."

They went.

As the sun sank behind the highly unnatural skyline, shadows crept

inexorably toward the helpless gambler, and as they did, his heart sank

at approximately the same rate as the sun.

He watched as small plants curled themselves into little

protective balls for the night.  He watched as frost formed on his

toes.

He watched as moisture in the ground forced up the top layer of

the soil on frozen ice columns.

Mostly, he watched his nice warm parka, tunic, boots an( socks

gather frost of their own, not three meters beyond his bound and

helpless reach.

He began cursing, first through genuine anger at himself and Mohs

and Gepta and Met, then simply in order to keep warm.

He cursed in his native tongue and in the dozen and a half others

he'd learned during a long and checkered career.  He cursed in three

computer languages and the warbling cheep of a race of musical birds

he'd once played cards with-until it reminded him of the Toka.

He cursed the Toka all over again.  And again.  And again.

He woke up with a start!

And began cursing for no other reason than to stay awake.

If he didn't, he would freeze to death.

xi DEATHLY SILENCE.
Beneath a looming, monstrous, crustacean form resting on stilted

legs, the twin pale moons of Rafa V picked out metallic reflections in

the night-blackened sand.  Shadows overlaid at different angles with

slightly differing shades: the enormous double shadow of the Millennium

Falcon, hundreds of tiny double shadows of stubby wooden projectiles

buried in ile metal carapace and nearby soil.  a frag Deathly silence

and deadly cold.

Everywhere within sight of the Falcon, small, groundhugging plants

had rolled themselves into compact olivecolored balls in order to

survive the frigid darkness.  The air was dry, even cheer than the

daytime atmosphere.  The subtlest sparkling of frost showed here and

there, on half-frozen plantlife, on the crest of miniature dunes, on

the rims of a thousand footprints that surrounded the ship, even on the

tortured, tangled mess of chromium cables lying in a heap just outside

the Falcon's shadow.

Fluid still stained the sand for a short distance around the

pitiable heap, slow and thick and gummy now, in the frozen quiet.  Yet,

a few inches beneath the grainy surface, there was movement.

Pseudo-organisms, shiny and metallic, motelike, hovering at the

edge of human visibility, stirred within the thickened fluid, migrated

a millimeter at a time back toward the larger pseudo-organism they had

tumbled from before dark.

Microscopic flagella beat languidly, laboriously.  Yet, centimeter

by centimeter, millions of the tiny objects swam what was to them

enormous distances, back to where they belonged.

In their wake, the fluid became thinner, more liquid, and withdrew

after them, carrying minerals and trace metals m t soil with it.

The same two moons cast double shadows several kilometers away.

Beneath a spread of glassy boughs, a figure huddled, trying to

stay alive in the cold.  Lando Calrissian was dying.  As Vuffi Raa's

life had run out into the sand, so he could feel his own life running

out through his exposed skin into the frigid air, into the hungry

sinister plant he was bound to.

Around him, if he'd cared to look, he might have seen the same

small plants rolled up into the same small, beatconserving spheres.  He

might have wished that he could do the same.  But he was past all that,

by now.  From time to time he shivered, convulsions wracking his body,

seeming to tighten the painful fibers around his waist, around his

wrists, cutting off the circulation even further.

It was getting hard to think, and Lando didn't know whether the

cold was causing that or the tree.  It seemed important to figure it

out.  What had he heard about trees like this?  That there was nothing

free in the universe-that what the crystals gave to those who wore

them, they had first taken from someone else.  Were they taking from

him now?

Most of all, it hurt.  His naked feet felt as if they were on

fire.  Even in the parched air, frost was forming on their tips, on the

nails.  How cold does tissue have to be before frost will form on it.

Cold enough for gangrene?

Well, they weren't going to get him that easily!  He nodded

confirmation to himself, and only then noticed the tears that had run

down his cheeks and frozen there.  If he could still feel his feet-he

wished he couldn't because the agony was as distracting as the cold

itself-he ought to be able to feel his fingers.  They were cold, too,

but shielded from the air by his body, the little clothing they'd left

him, and the tree.

The tree.

Its glassy trunk was like a block of ice at his back.  Overhead,

its strangely precise limbs showed a bit of transparency-or was it

translucency?-where they crossed the moons.

He shook his head, and a pattern stopped.  Dully, he tried to

figure out what was n-tissing.  Had his heart stopped beating?

He didn't think so.  He was still breathing@nly now that he was

conscious of it, it became an effort, an added burden to keep on doing

so.  He wished he could forget about it, begin breathing automatically

again.

That was it!  Unconsciously, he'd been doing something with his

hands, his fingers.  Why did the tips of his fingers hurt?

Were they frozen, like his toes?  They shouldn't be-but

"shouldn't' was a funny word: he shouldni be there, trussed up to a

tree that was eating his mind.  He should be ... should be ... what

should he be doing?  Something about long corridors and beautiful women

and ... and ... card-chips!  What would he do with card-chips?

Trying to figure that one out, he didn't notice that his fingers

had gone back to picking the fabric at his wrists, stripping the aged

cloth one shredded fiber at a time.

Begin with a metal pentagon, approximately thirty centimeters

across its longest dimension, seven or eight centimeters thick at the

edges, perhaps twice that in the rounded center.

In the center, a lens, deep red, the size of a man's palm.  And

dark.  Dark where it should be glowing softly, warmly.  Dark as death

itself.

Back at the edges, seams.  On the other side of each seam, a

tubular extension, joined every centimeter or so, tapering gracefully,

each joint a little closer, a little finer than the one that preceded

it.  Sinuous, serpentine, and very, very highly polished, reflecting a

curve-distorted picture of the frozen moons and cruel stars.  Tangled

now, heaped up and disheveled.

And at nearly every joint, at nearly every seam, a crude stubby

brown pencil, rough and splintered, hundreds of them, jutting out at

every conceivable angle.  Where each arrow pierced the thin, fragile

metal, a tiny pool of thick, transparent fluid welled.  Some of it

dripped off curved shining surfaces to the sand a few centimeters

below.

Travel down the graceful, violated sinuosity, tapering, tapering,

slimming impossibly.  Approximately a meter from the torso seam, the

tentacles branch again, into five delicate tapering fingers.  Usually,

these are held together so the tentacle seems to have a single,

well-proportioned tip, concealing a tiny red optic in each "palm,"

replicas of the larger eye in the torso.

Now they are splayed, whether in haphazard array or in the agonies

of death, only the mechanically sentient can tell, and they are a

taciturn, unsentimental lot, for the most part, and will not say what

it feels like for a machine to die.

Perhaps, exactly like their creators, they don't know, will never

know until they experience it themselves and can't relay the sensations

to others.  Perhaps it's just as large a mystery to them as it is to

everybody else.  Perhaps.

Each slender, dainty finger is divided into joints, precisely like

the tentacles-fine, impossibly tiny joints, such as a watchmaker would

create, looking through his loupe, trying to still the microscopic

trembling of his hands.  After a few centimeters, the fingers branch

yet again-something absolutely no one ever notices.  The joints

continue marching, tapering, growing smaller and finer until they

vanish from unaided vision-and continue.

Those subfingers, at their ends, are hair-fine, wire-slender ...

alloy strong.  Their inner composition is just as sophisticated,

just as complex as any other portion of the creature they belong to.

Yet, unlike the pentagonal metal torso, unlike the sinuous jointed

tentacles, unlike even the slender adroit fingers, they are too small

to be seen, too fine to be hit with an arrow.

One of them stirs.  It waves back and forth languidly a moment,

living a life of its own.  It coils and uncoils, testing itself.

It stretches minutely, contracts minutely.  It doubles back, wraps

itself around the base of an intruding wooden object that had pierced

the body above it.

It pulls.

There is a gentle, sucking noise.  Slowly the arrow surrenders,

sliding out, grating through tortured metal.  The hair-finesubfinger

plucks it out, casts it away.  Elsewhere, other wirelike extensions

perform similar tasks.  And on the inside, where torn and dented metal

protrudes in sharp triangular, ragged, toothlike edges, nearly

microscopic flagellated motes begin pushing, thrusting, hammering the

metal skin back into place, almost a molecule at a time.

"The bantha is a shaggy beast, although it has no hair...

Its feathers are unique, at least, because they aren't there....

Hee, bee, bee, bee, bee!"

Lando began coughing uncontrollably, choking on his genius as a

poet.  He was disappointed.  No one would ever get to hear his

cleverness-although he couldn't quite remember why at the moment,

Whatever it was, it made him sad, and he lapsed directly from laughter

into sobs.

His fingers, highly trained and skillful at manipulating

cardchips, coins, the entrances to other people's pockets, went right

on thinking for themselves, picking at the rough-woven cloth that bound

the wrists above them, threatening to cut off their circulation before

they had quite finished their self-assigned task.

"Me governor of Rafa Four is fat as he can be... with fuzzy crown

and stubby limbs, he looks just like a... bee?

Fee?  Me?  Thee?  77zee!  He looks just Uka diee, old man, he

looks just lika thee!"

Behind Lando, between his body and the pseudoplant, a final fiber

gave way.  With something akin to shock, Lando jolted back to reality,

momentarily, surprised that he could move his wrist, almost sorry as

warmth crawled back into his right hand and the pins-and-needles began.

Vuffi Raa had problems larger than pins-and-needles.  Ms own

fingers were free, now, where the primitive arrows had pinned them to

the ground and punctured them.  His joints would be stiff and

uncooperative for some while to comeshoot a bullet through a hinge

sometime and learn why-but he was already plucking the projectiles from

his tentacles.

The congealed fluid in each wound was hardened, not by cold, this

time, but deliberately, by design, protecting his incredibly delicate

inner mechanisms.  He was through reclaiming fluid from the sand.  The

traces of raw materials he'd picked up that way wouldn't serve him

long: he'd require refuelling-something he'd only done once before in

his long, long memory-perhaps even an unprecedented lubrication.

But he was alive.

Moreover, he was conscious, having the spare power, at last, to

divert into consciousness.  He had taken over the programmed

simple-minded self-repair mechanisms, and the work was going at

quadruple speed.  He was beginning to feel good again, knowing that

what he could do for others of his kind he could also do for himself.

The frozen desert saw the first faint glow of ruddy amber from the

lens set in his pentagonal torso, a luminescence vastly dimmer and less

conspicuous than the moons above-another conscious decision.

His body stirred the sand around it, continued plucking arrows out

and healing.

Lando Calrissian pondered one of the deep philosophical problems

of all time.  His right arm was completely free, but he didn't know why

that was important.  What had he intended to do with that arm?

Something about being cold.

Well, that was silly: he wasn't cold at all.  He was nice and

warm.  Nice and rosy warm.  The warmth spread from his toasty feet, up

through his legs, into his body, out through his shoulders.  Ms ears

were warmest of all.  They were practically on fire.

Fire!

He looked around him.  It was smoky enough for a fire.  The grove

where he sat so warmly comfortable seemed to be full of haze.  Someone

hadn't opened the damper on the fireplace, evidently.  Well, he'd just

have to get up in a few minutes and do it himself.  Couldn't trust

anybody these days, even with so simple a task as tending aFire!

Something about a gun!  Now what in the blazes would he do with a

gun if he had one?  There was nothing to shoot here, nothing to fight,

nothing to eat, even if he'd been the wildgame type, which he wasn't.

Besides, they'd plugged his gun up with an arrow.  Devilishly good

shots, those ... those ...

Now who had been that good a shot, shooting?

Shooting?

What did that have to do with anyd-ting?  He'd been going to tend

the fire, hadn't he?  Well, no time like the-he tried to sit up.  Great

Galactic Core, he thought, I'm paralyzed from the waist down!  No-I was

simply careless putting on my pants and looped the belt around this ...

this ...

With sudden, momentary clarity, he reached into his cummerbund,

extracted his five-shot stingbeam pistol, flipped off the thumb-safety,

and fired.  The rough cloth fell from his waist.  Almost in panic, he

rolled away from the life-tree, and had to restrain himself from

wasting his remaining four shots on the thing that had been sucking his

brains away.

It cost him.  Every bone, every muscle in his body, every square

inch of his skin was in agony.  Each movement threatened to shatter him

or tear him.  All he really wanted to do was go back to sleep.  All he

really wanted to do was rest.  That was it: he knew he had other things

to do, but he could rest up, first.  Get warm again-not really sleep,

just close his eyes andNearly shrieking.  defiance-at what he was never

afterward able to say-he rolled, crawled, pushed himself along the

ground, inflicting new pains with every centimeter of progress.

At least he reached the heap of clothing Mohs and his bravos had

stripped from him, nearly dived into the parka, and turned the

thertnoknob to Emergency Full.

And the agony really began.

There wasn't much he could do about his pants.  They'd been sliced

open from cuff to crotch-Lando remembered the knife, seemingly made

from a life-crystal.  The abandoned loincloth still clung to his waist.

With stiff fingers, he spread it out, tore it into strips, wrapped

the strips around his legs, and tied them at strategic points to hold

his trousers together.

Bundled up in the parka, he put the gloves on next.  The stingbeam

was small enough to conceal inside the right glove so that he could

shoot it in a hurry if he needed to.  The little weapon was blessedly

warm from the one shot he'd expended.

Time to think about standing up.  Should he take the parka off,

replace his undershirt and tunic?  It would be in better taste, but

somehow that didn't seem to matter right now.  Oh, yes!  He'd almost

forgotten about his boots and socks.

When he got around to examining his feet, he almost wished he

hadn't.  He was going to rfiiss those toes, and regeneration was a

long, fairly painful process.  Oh, well, to paraphrase an old, old

saying, it beat the hell out of having to regenerate new feet.  With

great tenderness, he pulled his socks on-being careful to dump as much

sand out of them as possible-and, over those, his boots.

How the dickens was he going to stand up?  He didn't dare approach

one of the deadly trees close enough to lean against.

He rolled over on his side, pulled his knees up, rolled up onto

them.

It felt as though someone had clamped his feet in a vise and was

tightening it.  He told himself that at least he was alive enough to

feel pain.  Somehow that didn't cheer him much.  He told himself that

at least he had his twnd back, could think, wasn't going to be a

drooling vegetable.

He clambered to his feet, forced himself to walk around.

So this was a genuine life-orchard.  It had bloody well nearly

been a death orchard, he thought.  Wouldn't Mohs be surprised, come

morning, to find his victim gone, and along with himThe Key!

He felt beneath his cummerbund.  Even though both gloves and coat,

he couldn't mistake the lumpy weirdness of the artifact.  Well, that

was going to upset the old man.  Lando chuckled to himself.

The thought came to him that perhaps he was being watched.  Well,

let them watch!  The stingbeatn didn't have an orifice like a blaster,

its muzzle was a pole-piece, more like a thick, stubby, rounded antenna

than anything else.  He was alive, intelligent, on his feet-he was

going back to the Falcon for a hot cup ofVuffi Raa!

It had been one monster of a day!  He'd nearly been killed,

certainly been hijacked, and lost his best friend.  No, he wasn't

ashamed to say it: the little droid had been a better, more loyal

friend to him than any he'd ever had before.  He was going to miss the

little guy.

Now, which way was the Falcon?  Simple: just follow the tracks,

which, with the double portion of moonlight and the dry, still

atmosphere, were still plainly visible in the sand.

He took a step.

LANDO CALRISSIAN!

Before he realized it, the glove was off his right hand, the

stingbeam pointed aloft.  Overhead, a repulsor-vehicle hovered, bright

with running lights, a searchbeam shining down on him and illuminating

the entire grove.

It settled to the ground.

"Drop your weapon, " a familiar voice said over the loudhailer,

"and put your hands over your head!"  Lando didn't move.

Nor did he move when four constabulary troopers, their armor

glinting in the moonlight, jogged up beside him, took his gun away, and

held their own weapons leveled at his chest.

Captain Jandler-if that was his name-had rendered his own visor

transparent, this time.  He strutted over from the hovercar.

"Well, Captain Calrissian, we meet again.  As soon as we've taken

care of you, we'll recover your vessel and get that cargo back to its

rightful owners.  If you thought you were in trouble before ... By the

way, you have something else we want.

Where is itT' "Where is what?"  said Lando between gritted teeth.

"The Sharu artifact.  The Key the governor gave you.  Where is

it?"

"Come and get it, thug!"

"All right, men, we're going to do it the hard way.  Search him.

Strip that clothing off and search him!"

xii THUNDER BOOMED OVERHEAD!
Bathed in a glorious dawn that hadn't yet reached the ground

beneath it, the Millennium Falcon roared down upon a constabulary

detachment frozen with confusion and surprise, and stood hovering a

dozen meters over their heads.

Lando seized Guard-Captain Jandler's weapon muzzle, swung it

aside, and kicked the hapless policeman.  Jandler sank with a moan to

his knees, eyes crossed beneath his helmet visor, and, with a

preoccupied gurgle, collapsed onto his face.

Lando resisted the urge to kick him again, someplace more

breakable.

Two things happened at the same time: one of the other police

officers leveled his blaster at the gambler, a finger whitening inside

his gauntlet on the trigger.  Roiled dirt and fire spurted up into a

wall ahead of him as a turret on the Falcon spat energy down at him.

He dropped his gun and raised his hands unbidden, as did two of

his comrades.  They were out of the game.

The fourth wasn't giving up so easily.  He seized the opportunity

to dash for the repulsor-cruiser where a heavy beamer was mounted on

the transom.  Before he'd taken three hurried steps, the starship's

turret pivoted, a second energy bolt lashed down from above and the

police cruiser heaved upward from the ground, fell back in flaming

wreckage.  Smoke poured from the ruined vehicle into the rapidly

lightening sky.

Keeping a wary eye on Jandler, Lando sat down heavily himself,

wondering where all his vim and vigor had come from all of a sudden.

And where it had gone just as abruptly - The Falcon settled, its

active turret still aimed at the policemen.  Lando noticed the

guard-captain's heavy blaster, lying in the sand a few inches from his

rag-wrapped knee, picked it up and rested it in his lap.

The Falcon's long, broad boarding ramp creaked down slowly.  After

a while there was a flash and twinkle at the dark, inner end of the

passage.  Vuffi Raa came slither-marching down to the ground, his

posture and movements conveying somehow that he was rather pleased with

himself-although he looked a bit worse for the previous evening's wear.

"Master!  I'm gratified to see you're still alive.  I feared I

wouldn't get here in time, but I see you've taken care of nearly

everything yourself already."

The gambler grinned wearily, accepted the proffered tentacle.

"I'm gratified myself, considering some of the alternatives.

But you look like you've been out in a meteor shower!  Or is that

the latest robot fashion you're wearing?"

From eye tens to manipulator tips, the little droid was covered

with small, rounded dents.  Where they overlapped his joints-which was

practically everywhere-his movements were a little stiff and uncertain,

and he sounded, when he replied, just the slightest bit self-conscious.

"Yes, well, these arrow wounds are healing, Master.  In not too

many days I'll be quite myself again.  But you have suffered damage

which will not be repaired so quickly.  We must get you into the ship,

where I can administer-2' "Hold it."  Grunting, Lando hauled on Vuffi

Raa's tentacle, pulled himself onto his knees, and, placing a palm

firmly in the middle of the little robot's lens, pressed himself

upward, to his feet.  He swayed a little, but he was vertical-and still

had the blaster pointed straight at the constabulary contingent.

Meanwhile, Captain Jandler was beginning to do some grunting of

his own.  He rolled over, tears welling from his eyes and dripping on

the inside of his visor, shook his head from side to side, and lay

there, still doubled up.

"We'll administer to me later, old pencil-sharpener.  First we're

going to 'administer' to our military friend, here.  He seems to be

among the living, again, although how long .  . ."

Lando offered the blaster to the droid, glancing significantly at

the four undamaged troopers.  "While I'm attending to "Hold them at

bay?  I'm afraid not, Master.  I cannot threaten Jandler, I don't

suppose you could .  . ."

a living being with bodily harm.  Sorry."

"Well, I'm not complaining, not anymore.  I'll just have to keep

an eye on them myself.  But I am curious: how was it that, ten minutes

ago, you could@' "Use the Millennium Falcon's armament to keep them

from attacking you?"

"And to do that demolition job on the police cruiser.  Neat, but a

little outside your specialties, wouldn't you say?"

Lando approached the semiconscious guard-captain, toed him not too

roughly in the armored ribs.  "All right, time to rise and shine!

We've got a little talking to do!"

Vuffi Raa shambled up beside the gambler.  "Master, I can watch

the troopers for you, and they needn't know I can't initiate force

against them."  The little robot continued in a louder voice, intended

for a broader audience, "If one of them so much as twitches an earlobe,

we'll burn him off at the kneecaps!"

Lando chuckled, "Yeah, right up to the armpits!  Just be sure'@he

whispered to Vuffi Raa-"that you don't compromise yourself into a

nervous breakdown."  Then he added, more loudly, "I said get up, you!"

Jandler stirred, did some more groaning, rolled over, and sat up

painfully.  Wincing, he took off his helmet and wiped sweat from his

face.

"Cain'ssian, you just plain don't fight fair, do you?

Lando aimed the confiscated blaster at its former owner's nose.

"I don't like to fight at all.  When I have to, I try to get it

over with as quickly and neatly as possible.  Now, WHAT IN THE BLAZES

IS THIS ALL ABOUP" Jandier, his troopers, even Vuffi Raa jumped a

little at this outburst.  The police leader blinked, considered, then

shook his head and sighed.

"Oka Calrissian-I wish to perdition I knew!  I've been Y, sent on

more crazy errands in the last couple of days than in my whole career,

up until now: your hotel room, the Spaceman's Rest, the spaceport, and

now this.  It puts a man in mind of retiring early, pension or not.

What do you know about it?"

Lando squatted down on his haunches, keeping the blaster r

centered on Jandler.  "I hate the devil to steal your line, Captain,

but I'm asking the questions, here.  Tell me, exactly where-rather,

from whom-Aid you receive your orders, if one may ask?"

Jandler glanced quickly at his men, then back to Lando, and licked

his lips.  "Where do you think?  From that fat son-of-a-" "Captain!"

shouted one of the cops, "you can't@' "The Entropy I can't!  Do

you think that overstuffed chairwarmer gives a nit in a nova what

happens to any of us?  All he cares about is that Sharu doohicky, and

if we come back without it, we might as well not come back!  Well, I-"

"You mean this?"  Lando drew the Key from his waistband.

it gleamed in the early morning sunlight and, if anything, seemed

more disorienting than before.

Lando could see the guard-captain calculating whether it was worth

the risk jumping for it.  He looked from the Key to his former blaster

muzzle, across to Lando, up at Vuffi Raa, then back to the Key again.

Finally, he shrugged.  "Is "Let him get it for himself!"  Jandler

decided out loud.

there any way my men and I can get out of this alive, Captain

Calrissian?  I won't give you those hull-scrapings about , just

following orders again'@nly, well, I'm not too fond of the w.

Especially since I seem destined to

idea of dying, just no for a while."

taste the fruits of civilian life med, winked at vuffi Raa, and

looked back at Lando tu Jandler.

"Well, old Constable, you people do seem to present us with la

problem.  I'm impressed with your change of heart, but insu ficiently

so to be too happy about your breathing down my neck while I'm on this

planet.  Giving you all the Big Push would seem to be the answer-2' He

held up a hand.

-But I am highly disinclined in that direction, believe me.

As you know, I am a gambler by profession, certainly no killer.

1 live by my wits, not by the gun, however useful the things may

prove to be at times.  If we can think of a way to let things work out

for everybody, I'll certainly cooperate."

Jandier grinned, scratched his head.  His men, a few yards away,

seemed to relax a few notches as well.

"Now, Captain Jandier," said Lando, "this is what I think we'll do

The idea worked out better than Lando had expected.

Aboard the Millennium Falcon, there were several tough, inflatable

life-bubbles that could be jettisoned, with air and other short-term

supplies.  A man could live inside one for several days in moderate

discomfort.  They weren't much use if something went wrong in

interstellar space, but, in the neighborhood of a solar system-where

most accidents happen anyway-they could keep one alive until

assistance, summoned by an automatic radio beacon, arrived.

Lando's original plan was to haul the constabulary contingent out

a few astronomical units and abandon them in space.

They'd be out of his and Vuffi Raa's figurative hair for a few

days, and yet live to tell their grandchildren about the experience.

Happy ending all around.

The little droid made it happier.

"Well, Master, that takes care of that.  I believe the gentlemen

can go aboard now."  He was exiting a hatch in the side of a powered

interplanetary cargo barge, large, dark, and rusty, in which the police

team had originally traveled to Rafa V. The humble vessel's presence

had helped Vuffi Raa to locate Lando in the nick of time.

Lando transferred the blaster to his left hand, extended his right

to the constabulary boss.  "I suppose this is farewell, then, old

bluecoat.  I trust you and your comrades will enjoy the trip. Jandler

grinned.  "It beats a beam in the eye from a hot laser, Captain

Calrissian@' "Call me Lando, nobody else seems to be able to do it."

"Lando, then.  And when we get there, none of us will be in any

particular hurry to report, will we, guyst' This last had a bit of an

edge to it.  The other four policemen quickly assumed a what?  who, me?

expression, and Lando trusted Jandler to keep them all in line.

Not that it mattered.  The plan was perfect.

The officers trooped aboard.  Lando waved, then watched Vuffi Raa

weld the hatch shut behind them.

"Thirty seconds, Master."

"Very well, let's get back out of the way."

Slowly, gently, with impossible grace, the ungainly tub of a

spaceship lifted from the sand, guided by a program Vuffi Raa had

punched into its miniscule electronic mind.  Lando glimpsed the fused

and blackened end of a communications antenna, one of three the little

droid had ruined.  For the duration of its trip, the barge would be out

of contact with the rest of the Rafa System.  It would take the vessel

a week to reach Rafa XI, last and least planet of the colony, a bleak

ball of slush circling in the dark.

A considerable research installation had been built there, and a

fairly impressive helium refinery.

"You didn't forget the torches, did yout' "Please, Master, it was

difficult making myself do it, don't rub it in."  controls was your

"Oh, very well.  But sabotaging the ship's idea, I'll remind you.  The

cops can't alter the taped course, and they can't communicate with

anyone until they're close enough to do it with flashlights out the

viewports.  You did send along that Oseon brandy, I trust" ,Yes,

Master, and those ... those .  .

"Holocassettes?  Absolutely imperative, old gumball machine.  The

scenery where they're going is remarkably boring."

He gave a final salute as the barge lifted through a rack of rare,

high cirrus clouds and disappeared.

Vuffi Raa said nothing.  In truth, he was rather proud of his

master for sparing the men's lives, and especially for parting with

them under somewhat cordial circumstances.  Perhaps humans-this one in

particular, at least-weren't such a bad lot, after all.

"All right," Lando said, breaking into the robot's reverie, "let's

get moving ourselves.  We've got to find the Toka.  I'm going to kill

that buzzard-necked Mohs if it's the last thing I ever do!"

The first thing they had done, after sending off the constabulary

contingent, was to attend to Lando's wounds.  Frostbite-of which he had

been plentifully supplied by the matter, can be as previous evening's

adventure-is no minor serious as a blastershot under some

circumstances, and, even with all the facilities of modern medicine, can

lead to gangrene in a matter of hours.

The Millennium Falcon did not provide all the facilities of modern

medicine.  In a locker, Vuffi Raa discovered a portable gel-bath,

miniature version of the large, full-body devices used to heal serious

wounds.  It would fit Lando's feet nicely.  He unfolded it in the

common room and slid it under the gametable where Lando was considering

a problem in Moebius chess.

or appeared to be.

"Dash it all, Vuffi Raa, where would you be, on this planet, if

you were an ancient savage, with an angry outworider after yout' "I

couldn't say, Master, the inscrutabilities of the organic mind@'

"Nonsense, old android.  Your mind is every bit as organic as@'

"Please, Master, I have done nothing to deserve insult.  If you truly

wish, I will consider the problem you have just posed."  Silence, then:

"Why do you suppose he had us land the Falcon near that giant pyramid,

Master?"

Lando gave up on the game, slapped the oFF switch, and watched the

weird serpentine playing board fade and vanish from the tabletop.

"I've been wondering about that, myself.  It's much the largest

building on the planet-perhaps, in the system, which would make it the

largest in the entire galaxy, I'm sure.  On the other hand, the

Sharu-now there are some inscrutable minds for you-the Sharu may have

used it to store potatoes."

"Or the Mindbarp."

"Yes, although I'd venture that if the Mindharp were simply a

device to tell the Toka to run and fetch their masters' pipe and

slippers, it wouldn't deserve quite so august a resting place.

However, one thing is certain: it is where that scoundrel Mohs met

up with his savage cohorts.  As such@' "As such," Vuffi Raa ventured,

"it may be a wonderful place to get ambushed-again.  Hold still,

please, Master, while I tape your ears."

"Leave my ears out of this, you mechanical menace, they were fine

before."

"Master, please!  I am programmed t@' "All right, all right!  Then

limber up your piloting appendages.  We're headed for that pyramid

again.  Only this time, I'm carrying two heavy blasters-and an umbrella

to keep arrows out of the muzzles."

Mohs wasn't hard to find.  When the Millennium Falcon arrived, he

was sitting on a sand dune in the shadow of the pyramid, smoking a

lizard.

XHI

"TWICE HAVE I doubted thee, 0 Lord; yea, even as twice hast thou

proved me in erior!  Kill now thy miserable excuse for a servant, that

he may disgrace thee no further!"

The fire, built of twigs and leaves in a scooped-out hollow in the

ubiquitous reddish sand of Rafa V, was no larger than a teacup.  It

failed to warm Lando although he sat cross-legged not more than two

feet away, trying to avoid noxious fumes rising from a branch that

sported a small, disgusting reptile skewered neatly from end to end.

An ugly way to die, the gambler thought, even for a lizard.

And it made an even uglier lunch.

"Look, Mohs, see me about that sometime when I'm not so tired.  I

may surprise you and take you u p on the offer.  In the meantime, are

you still interested in trying to use the Key?"

"Of a certainty, Lord!  Too long have my people, the wretched

Toka, suffered under the tyrannical thumb of the@' "Save it for the

union meeting, Singer.  All I want to know is where to put this thingIf

somebody-your people, for instance-benefits, and somebody else loses as

a result, well, that's no paint off my hull, I can assure You."

Secretly, the amateur star-captain was thoroughly enjoying the

chance to use what he imagined was tough-sounding spacefaring jargon.

Now that he'd had a hot meal, plenty of coffeine, and was wearing

a fresh change of clean, undamaged clothes, he felt downright jaunty,

even considering the miserable night he'd spent in the life-orchard.

"I don't give a hiccup out the airlock, even if Gepta benefits, as

long as I get out of this confounded system with a full cargo and a

whole skin-not necessarily in that order, mind YOU."

Mohs had started a little at the mention of the sorcerer's name.

Now he positively reeled, managing to wring his bony hands at the

same time.  "O Lord, they servant knoweth full well that thou sayest

these cynical things only as a test of my faith, fortitude, and other

virtues@' "Which are too microscopic to mention."

'@which are too riiicroscopic to mention, as thou sayest, Lord.

Yet, wouldst thou mind very much not making such vile,

blasphemous, and mercenary utterances in the mortal presence of thy

humble servant?  It causeth unease."

"Oh it doth, doth it?"

Lando glanced back over his shoulder.  He was pretty sure that at

least half of the old man's "unease" derived from the imposing presence

of the Millennium Falcon about fifty meters away across a clear expanse

of sand, her full batteries trained in a protective circle to prevent a

reenactment of the earlier ambush.  In an inner pocket of his parka,

her captain carried a transponder that kept the Falcon's guns from

sweeping within a couple of degrees of whoever wore it.  This was a

necessary precaution because Vuffi Raa was not at Battle Stations,

inside.

He was programmed against it.

Somewhere back along the line, Lando had ceased resenting the

little robot's programmed pacifism, and simply begun planning around

it.  In the righthand outside slash pocket of his parka, he carried a

second device with which he could trigger every weapon aboard his ship.

Vuffi Raa could handle opening the boarding ratnp as Lando ran for

it, if anything went wrong.

It wasn't against his built-in ethics to save a life.  In fact,

the i; droid had proved himself quite useful in that department

already.

But to the problem at hand.

"Okay, old theologue, we'll change the subject: How did you know

we had survived this morning, and why did you wait for us here, when

you knew how sore I'd be about last nightt' Lando wanted to move back

from the fire.  About a thousand meters would do nicely.  The cooking

reptile, presently hovering somewhere between second-degree blistering

and thirddegree chaning, smelled exactly like ... like ... well, he'd

smelled more appetizing things attached to starship hulls while he was

melting them off with live steam.  Nonetheless, even the idea of the

fire was warming; he hadn't felt really comfortable since he'd landed

on that stupid clot of sand, not even aboard ship.

The elderly Singer opened his mouth.  "Lord@' "MASTER, HUMAN FORMS

ARE MOVING BEHIND THOSE DUNES OVER THERE."

Mohs jumped at least a meter.  The little droid's voice had lified

through the ship's external loudhailers.

come amp red in a normal tone.

"Thanks, old cogwheel."  Lando answer cellent hearing, and so did

Vuffi Millennium Falcon had ex Raa.  He chuckled as the antique shaman

regained his dignity.

THOSE CROSS"THEY APPEAR TO BE CARRYING BOW THINGS, MASTER."

"Mohs," the gambler said evenly, "I'm going to give you and if

they're not just thirty seconds to.  send your people away, gone by

then, you're going to swap places with that poor une creature you're

cooking.  I ought to turn you in to comfortable the ISPCA@R at least the

Epicures Club."

The Singer slowly cranked himself into a standing position,

rattled off a few discordant stanzas-probably the Song of Strategic

Withdrawal, Lando thought-then he sat again, turned the lizard on its

stick, and addressed Lando.

"I have told them to depart, Lord.  They came only for your

protection.  Now, if thy servant may have a few moments in which to

fortify himself and attend to bodily needs, then we shall go to a place

I know ... where the Key may be used."

He seized the lizard by its head, pulled backward in a peeling

motion, and tore it off the stick.

"Good heavens," Lando cried, gulping to control his upper

gastrointestinal tract, "are you going to eat that thing?"

Fifteen minutes later, they were standing at the base of the

pyramid.  Even tilted backward as the wall before them was, it seemed

to loom over them like some fantastic, infinitely high cliff,

threatening to topple and bury them at any instant.

Vuffi Raa, having locked the spaceship up securely, joined them.

The Toka Singer cast around, seeming to look for something

recognizable on what appeared to be a featureless magenta wall.

Finally, he stopped and pointed.

"There, " he said with finality, "about a meter downward, Lord."

He folded his arms.

Lando rolled his eyes in exasperation.  "Well, don't look at me.

I'm the Key Bearer.  You're the peon.  You want a shovel, or will

you perform this ceremony by hand?"

The old Toka was aghast.  "Me, Lord?  I am Singer of the"One

moment, gentlebeings," the robot said.  "I can have it done before the

two of you are finished arguing about it."

With that, his tentacles became a blur of motion.  He resembled a

shiny circular saw blade with a glowing red center.  Sand poured upward

in a wake behind him like an absurd dry fountain, and he was, as he had

promised, soon finished.

"Escargot and Entropy!"  Lando swore, struck by what he saw where

Vuffi Raa had dug.  Mohs was startled into silence, fell to his knees

and began chanting in a low, whimpery tone.

It shouldn't have been possible.  Draw a line around your hand and

rout out the material within the outline to a depth of approximately a

centimeter.  It can be done, and easily.

Now try it with the blade of an eggbeater.  The human hand is, in

its simplest representation, a two-dimensional form.

Something requiring three dimensions can't be represented in the

same way, not including its essential element-its threedimensionality.

Not unless that object is a Sharu artifact, and the people doing

the has relief are the Sharu themselves.

In some ways, it was rather as if the wall were transparentwhich

it was not-,and the molded impression of the Key were buried yet

visible inside it.  But that wasn't truly the case.  In another way, it

was like seeing the Key itself, inside out, glued to the side of the

pyramid@xcept that the "image" (or whatever it was) neither protruded

from the surface nor was inset into it.  The whole thing looked just as

preposterous, just as impossible, as the Key itself, only more so.

And it hurt the eyes in just the same way.

Lando stepped back, blinked, and shook his head to uncross his

eyes.

"All right, Mohs, suppose you tell us exactly what you know-what

your Songs have to say, if anything-about what we're seeing and what

happens if we use the Key in it."

The old man hummed a little to himself, at first as if to get the

right pitch, then as if he knew the data only by rote and had to find

the right place before he could start properly.

"This is the Great Lock, Lord.  For generations uncounted, no

Toka-no, nor any interloping stranger from the stars-has entered into

the least of the many sacred shrines They left behind."

"Marvelous.  We already knew that."

"Ah, yes, Lord, but now it is as it has been told: we shall enter,

without entering.  We shall walk the hallowed halls and yet they shall

not echo to our feet.  We shall travel to their farthest corners without

going anywhere.  We shall dream, therein, without sleeping, and know

without learning.  And, in due course and in Their time, we shall

discover the Harp of the Mind; setting free the Harp, we shall set free

the@' "All right, all right.  Politics again.  Let me think this over a

minute."  He kicked experimentally against the bottom edge of the

pyramid where it showed above the ground.  There was no sound, no

sensation of impact.  It was like kicking at water or fine dust.

"Vuffl Rai?"

"Yes, MasterT' "Don't call me master.  )"at do you think about all

this interloping businesst' He took the Key from his pocket, turned it

over in his hand, and thrust it back in his pocket.

"I think I'm long overdue for a lube job, Master, and would just

as soon go home and@' "I thought your lubricated areas were permanently

sealed."

Was that a sheepish look in the droid's single eye?  "Yes, Master,

although I did get rather badly punctured and lost a good deal of ...

oh, I can't see any alternative to using the Key as Mohs suggests,

Master.  Much as I would like to."

-withoutLando laughed.  "I don't much like this enter entering,

sleep-without-dreaming stuff myself, truth to tell.

Look here, Mohs, what else have you got for us-in plain language."

For the first time, the old man appeared to be uncomfortable on

Rafa V. He had goosebumps all over him, and was shivering with the

cold@r something else.

"That is all that is known to the Toka, 0 Lord.  It is all that

the Song hath to tell.  Thy humble and obedient servant confesseth, in

his unworthy manner, that, were I thee, I would consider departing this

place without using the Key.  All those numberless generations,

waiting, waiting ... Why me, Lord?

Why in my time?"

"Congratulations, Mohs, you've just joined the ranks of some great

historical figures.  That's what they wanted to know, and usually in

about the same miserable, desperate tone of voice."

Again, Lando extracted the Key, looked it over grimly.

"Well, there's no time like the present.  Keep your eye open,

Vuffi Raa.  Mohs, what do your Songs say about using this thing?"  He

suppressed a shudder.

The old man gave a highly articulate shrug.

"That's what I like," Lando said, "help when I really need it.

Here goes nothing!"

Which is precisely what happened.  Lando pressed the Key against

the lock in a position and at an angle that seemed most likely.  It was

a little like putting a ship in a bottle-at least it seemed that way at

first.  Then, in a manner that defied the eye and turned the stomach,

the Key was in the Lock.

The sun shone.  The wind blew.  The sand lay on the ground.

Lando looked at Mohs, who still had some of his shrug left.

He used it.  The gambler looked at Vuffi Raa.  Vuffi Raa looked

back at him.  The robot and the elderly shaman exchanged glances.  They

both looked at Lando.

"Well, Mohs, I realize you've had breakfast, or whatever You call

it, but I could use another bite.  This seems to be a bust.  What say

we repair to the ship and-Vuffi Raa?"

As he had spoken to the old man, he'd turned to look at the robot.

Vuffi Raa had vanished.

"Mohs, did you see that-Mohs?"

The instant Mohs was out of Lando's field of view, he had

disappeared, exactly like the droid, without a sound, without a

movement.

The sun shone.  The wind blew.  The sand lay on the ground.

xiv LANDO CALRISSIAN was not, ordinarily, a physically

demonstrative young man.  His livelihood and well-being depended on

dexterity and control, the subtle, quick manipulation of delicate

objects, the employment of fine and shaded judgment.

He smashed a fist into the pyramid wall.

And reeled with surprise.  Where, before, contact with the

building had been much like ducking one's head into a stiff win"lusive

but unquestionably real-now the experience had taken on the aspect of

fantasy.

His hand passed into the wall and disappeared as if the structure

were a hologram.  He withdrew the hand, looked it over, flexed it.  He

inspected the wall without touching it: terial itself was featureless,

seemingly impervious to the ma time, weather, the puny scratching and

chipping of man.  Yet there was a fine patina of dust, a film of oil or

grease that seemed to coat everything within the planet's atmosphere.

Lando could plainly see a single fine hair, neither his own nor

one of Mohs'-perhaps that of some animal that had wandered by or which

had been home on the wind until it stuck here.

- He thrust his hand into the solid-looking wall again.  Again it

disappeared up to the wrist.  He stepped forward until he lost sight of

his elbow, shuddered, backed away.  And, again, his hand, his arm, were

intact, unharmed.

Lando Calrissian was nothing if not a cautious individual.

Someone else might have plunged through the wall in pursuit of

Vuffi Raa and Mohs, for it was clearly where they'd gone.

But to what fate?  If your best friend zipped from sight into a

trapdoor in the floor, would you follow him onto the steel spikes

below?

Lando pushed his hand into the wall again, meeting no more

resistance than before.  It was as if the wall weren't thereexcept as

far as the eyes were concerned.  He closed his own, and felt around.

There wasn't enough breeze outside that he could tell about the

wall's effect on air currents.  The temperature felt the same.  He was

free to wiggle his fingers, clench and unclench his fist.  He snapped

his fingers, felt the snapbut couldn't hear it outside the wall.

Thrusting in a second hand, he felt the first.  Both felt quite

normal.  He clapped them, feeling the sensation, missing the usually

resultant noise.  Odd.  He placed his right hand around his left wrist,

slid the hand slowly up the arm until it reappeared, much like a hand

and arm emerging from waterexcept that this surface was vertical.  He

stooped, picked up a handful of sand, reinserted his arms, poured sand

from one hand to the other.

He pulled his arms out, threw the sand away ...

... and stepped through the wall.

Sometimes you have to take a gamble.

He hadn't thought of that before.

Old man Mohs, ancient and revered High Singer of the Rafa Toka,

had been leaning against the pyramid wall when the Key-Bearer inserted

the Key.  Suddenly, it had been as if the wall weren't there, and, in

the short fall into darkness that resulted, his garment had nearly been

lost.

All his long, long life, Mohs had put up with the chilly draft

that found its way beneath the simple wraparound.  Now, even in the

darkness, even in this terrifying, holy place, it had occurred to him

that he could take a long free end of the cloth, tuck it up between his

legs, and eliminate the draft.

Why hadn't he thought of that before?  Why hadn't anybody else

among his people?  He found himself thinking cynically that this little

piece of information alone was worth a hundred silly Songs about-no!

That's blasphemy!  He cringed, trying to peer into the utter

darkness around @ fearful of ... of ... what?

He thought about that.

He seemed to be doing a lot of thinking in the past few minutes.

Finally, he decided-in what may have been the first real decision

he'd ever made for himself-to wait until his eyes adjusted.  He sat-on

some firm, resilient surface-enjoying his new-found warmth.

And the new-found working of his mind.

It had been hours!

Four hours, twenty-three minutes, fifty-five seconds, to be

precise, by Vuffi Raa's built-in chronometer.  He never had to see the

time, he simply knew.  The trouble with built-in faculties, he

reflected, such as being able to pilot a starship, for example, is that

they denied or dulled the urge to acquire new ones for oneself.  Better

to be like a human being, he thought, without innate programn-ling,

with the ability and necessityA human being?  What was he thinking?

He'd been approximately-no, exactly-seventeen centimeters from

touching it with his nearest tentacle, and yet, when Lando had

activated the Key, suddenly, he, Vuffi Raa, was here (wherever here

was) on the other side of the wall.

Five hours, twenty-nine minutes, thirty-one seconds.

Exactly what here was, Vuffi Raa thought rather ungrammatically,

was a good question in itself.  He'd felt strangely isolated, lonely

for quite a while, and, oddly, that feeling had preoccupied him so

thoroughly that he'd failed to examine his surroundings with much

enthusiasm.  The feeling hadn't gone away, it had gotten worse, much

worse.  Now, it was necessary to investigate, if only to take his badly

shaken mind off his emotions.

Of the presumed-to-exist inside wall of the pyramid, he could see

no evidence.  He stood in a brightly lit corridor, seemingly kilometers

between him and the ceiling.  His doppler radar, not his strongest

sense, couldn't reach quite as far as the roof, although he got some

tantalizing echoes from it.

The area he occupied was a longish rectangle, five meters by

perhaps fifty.  Behind him was a serditransparent wall through which he

could see what appeared to be a vast circular drum, several stories

high, much like a ftiel storage tank, yet made of the same

plasnc-appean.ng material as everything else here.  In front of him, a

smaller circular subchamber filled the corridor from wall to wall, yet

he could see beyond it with several of his senses, knew it divided lais

chamber precisely in half.

To the right and left were similar, exactly parallel corridors,

"visible" through walls much as the one behind him, and identical to

the corridor he occupied except that they lacked the smaller circular

"storage tank."

He turned left.

As far as he went along the wall, there was no exit.  The

available space grew smaller and narrower as he approached the

circularity.  Finally, he stopped, retraced his steps, and took the

right-hand direction.  This time, near the angle of the wall and the

tank, he found a permeable area.  He stepped through into the next

corridor.  The predominating light was blue, as it had been in the

chamber he had left, but here it was slightly brighter.  He crossed the

corridor, found another "soff' spot in the wall, went through into a

third chamber, identical to the second.

The fourth chamber was shaped differently-five-sided, but not

regularly so.  The only permeability was in the far righthand wall, a

very short one, forcing him to take a right turn.

The next chamber was the mirror image of the last, then a series

of rectangular chambers began again.

He kept walking, lonely, and, for the first time in his life,

really afraid.

Seven hours, sixteen minutes, forty-four seconds.

From the inside, the pyramid was transparent.

That was the first thing Lando noticed.  Outside, he could see the

sun shining, the reddish color of the sand, a few scrappy shrubs, and,

comfortingly close (although farther away than he would have liked) the

Millennium Falcon sat patiently awaiting his return.

He hoped she wouldn't have to wait very long.

It was difficult to judge the thickness of the wall.  It was not

quite perfectly transparent, but shaded a very pale bluish tint.

Behind him was an empty chamber-and he realized that there was a

good chance his eyes were being tricked somehow.  Not a hundred meters

away, he could see one of the farther walls of the five-sided building,

more sandy desert beyond.  The walls came to a point perhaps two

hundred meters overhead.

The trouble with all that was that the building was several

kilometers in any dimension you chose to measure.

The walls, then, were sophisticated viewing devices, conveying the

illusion that the building was much smallerhuman-scaled, in fact-than

it really was.

He called out: "Vuffi Raa!  Where are you?  Mohs?  Answer me!

There wasn't even a decent echo.  HeWhat was that?  Embedded in

the wall he'd come through, stuck like a fly in amber, was the Key.  He

reached for it-and barked his fingers badly.  The wall could have been

made of solid glass, and the Key was at least a meter beyond his reach.

It had been his way-and Vuffi Raa's, apparently, and Mohs'-inside

the pyramid.

He looked around the featureless chamber he occupied.

From wall to wall, a smooth reflective floor stretched, devoid of

furniture or fixtures.  It was rather like being in a large, deserted

warehouse.  Through the walls, the sky was a slightly more brilliant

blue than it had really been.

The desert was a trifle darker: red and blue make purple.

The transparency had another odd effect, it made everything

outside seem very far away, subtly shrunken by perspective and

refraction.  Perhaps the walls were curved minutely.  The Falcon almost

looked like a model, a child's toy.

Perhaps he'd better find another way out.

There had better be another way out.

Grown considerably more desperate, Vuffi Raa stopped to rest.

He was internally powered; a microfusion pile that was practically

inexhaustible burned within him at all times, requiring only a minimal

amount of mass to keep itself (and Vuffi Raa) going.

But,the little droid was tired.

In a lifetime vastly longer than his current master would

comfortable to contemplate, the robot could not rehave found call ever

feeling lonelier or more isolated.  There, in that endless series of

empty chambers, it was like being a piece in a huge meaningless game,

shuffled from one spot to the next by vast, uncaring, uncommunicative

fingers.

The little droid was afraid.

He'd come a considerable distance.  Six featureless rectilinafter

the one he'd first appeared in, with its almost ear rooms, transparent

circular tank in the middle.  Then another tankroom.

The four empties, the last of which had forced him into a sharp

left-hand turn, The next room had had a circularity, although there had

been a narrow space to get by it.  Then another empty room, another

left-hand turn, three more flat blue chambers and another tank.

The pattern had repeated itself, again and again, the robot

growing more disconsolate with every fruitless turn and passage.  This

didn't even seem like the same planet-the same reality-let alone the

same building he'd somehow accidentally entered.

He wandered onward.

Thirteen hours, forty-five minutes, twenty-eight seconds had

passed.

Another right-hand turn (the first since the initial one), two

more lefts, and another right.  Two more lefts.  And always the same

stark, empty, blue-tinted rooms, the occasional empty circular columns

in their centers, more left turns, fewer ng How long could this go on?

Nineteen hours, eleven minutes, four seconds.

Lost in thought, Mohs didn't notice that he couldn't see.  It

didn't matter much to him, he didn't have anyplace to go at the moment.

There wasn't any hurry.  He'd only been here for a minute or two,

and before another minute or two went by, the Bearer and the Emissary

would come and get him.

Or not.

it wasn't very important, really.  He'd just realized, thinking

about his loincloth once again, that if he took the long, rectangular

strip of cloth, pulled it around end to end, but twisted it a half turn

before joining the ends together, he'd get a very odd result: an object

with only one side and one edge.  How that could be, when everything

had at least two sides, had to have, he wasn't sure.  There must be

some important secret to this cloth shape, he reasoned, some hint at

the fundamental nature of the universe.  But the secret kept eluding

him, there in the dark, seemed just barely out of reach.  It was

annoying.

He pondered the question, picked at it, unraveled it like the

homespun fabric his single garment had been made from.  It wasn't easy

going, but the more he thought, the simpler things seemed to become.

Presently, they became very simple, indeed.

Mohs laughed.

Lando heard somebody laugh.

He turned, and there was Mohs-where he had not been a moment

before-squatting on his heels, one arm across his naked lap, the other

braced between chin and knee.  Forgotten on the floor before him lay

three or so meters of gray, aged loincloth, laid out in a circle, and

twisted into a giant, floppy M6bius cylinder.  The old man's back was

toward Lando.

"Mohs!"  Lando cried.  "Where did you disappear to?"

The old man chuckled without turning.  "Apparently the same place

that you did, Captain.  What time is it?"

And odd question from a naked savage, thought Lando.  He glanced

at his watch.  "I'd say it's been perhaps twenty minutes since you

vanished through the wall.  What have you been doing all this time,

just sitting?"

"What would you suggest I do, Captain?"  The old man rose, pivoted

on a heel to face Lando.  "I thought it better than getting lost.  You

can't see your hand in front of your face in here."

"Good heavens, man!  What's happened to your eyes!"

The old man blinked, lids wiped down over eyeballs that might as

well have been opaque white glass.

"My eyes?  There's nothing wrong with my eyes, Captain."

The ancient Singer smiled.  "What's wrong with yours, can't you

see the darkness?"

Vuffi Raa wasn't lost, he simply didn't know where he was.

Since he'd first popped through the pyramid wall, he'd wandered

through this strange, blue-lit maze for what seemed like days, taking

pathways that offered no alternative.  The only choice he'd had -was to

stay where he was or go where he could, and he'd always preferred

action to inaction.

He'd taken four right turns (each carrying him through two of the

oddly shaped rooms), and six left turns, not necessarily in that order.

Before very long, he'd wind up exactly where he'd begun, no closer

to any meaningful destination, no wiser concerning what this rat-run

was intended and constructed for, and no likelier to find his friends.

Just a machine, Lando had said once.  Vuffi Raa wondered if his

master knew how lonely a machine could get.  Vuffi Raa hadn't known,

not until the last few hours.  Twenty-seven of them, to be precise,

plus thirty-six minutes, eleven seconds.  He was three rooms past one

of those with the small circular subchambers.  That meant he ought to

be entering a fourth, which would force him to take a left turn.  After

that, one more left, four more rooms, and he'd be back to where he'd

started from.

And a lot more discouraged, in the bargain.

He found the soft spot in the wall, slithered through.  Sure

enough, none of the walls within this place-including the one he'd just

passed through-would let him pass except the lefthand one.  He took it,

the light dimmed a little as it always did in rooms with circular

tanks, and he walked automatically the length of the room, past the

tank, and to the end wall.

And banged right into it.  it wouldn't let him pass.

Well, here was something new.  Oddly enough, it failed to hearten

him, or even relieve the tedium that had become his only companion.

Had he been a mammal, he'd have stood there, scratched his head,

folded his arms in exasperation, and SWOM.

He stood there, raised a tentacle to his chromium carapace,

scratched at it absently while folding two more tentacles in disgust.

"Glitch!"  he said, and meant it.

Exploring the unprecedented chamber, he traveled along the left

wall, squeezed back through the narrow opening past the circular tank.

The short wall through which he'd come was totally impermeable.

He began feeling his way along the half of the other long wall he could

reach before he had to make a cir cult of the tank again-and made

another discovery.

Up until now, the rounded sides of the features he chose to call

tanks were just as solid and impassable as any of the other walls, This

one was different.  He could stick a tentacle through it.  For lack of

any better course, he followed the tentacle into the circular area,

where, on one spot along the curved inner side, there was a deep

purplish glow.  As he expected, the "tank" wouldn't let him back out,

so he felt the glowing section carefully.  Yes, it, too was permeable.

He stepped through into a rectilinear room, exactly like the

tankless blue ones he'd spent the last day wandering through.

Only these were a brilliant scarlet color.

One, two, three, four.  He should be between two of the blue

tankrooms, now, but there wasn't any tank in here.  Five, six,

seven-something odd.  The far wall seemed to tug at him, and the red

glow was a little fainter here.  He backed up and thought.

Thirty-two hours, fifteen minutes, forty-two seconds had passed

since he'd gotten into this mess.  He didn't much care, now, how he got

out of it.

He let the wall pull him toward itself and stepped through ...

Lando sat by the transparent pyramid wall, his head in his hands.

The last half hour had had its shocks, but this was the worst of

all.

Where the old Singer's eyes had been, there were now a pair of

deep ugly wounds-healin rapidly, it was true, and showing no signs of

infection, just as the old man showed no signs of pain.  But he was

blind, horribly, hideously blind.

And happy about it.

"Captain," said Mohs, "please do not be distressed.  There is

nothing free in this life.  I seem to have exchanged my eyes for a

certain understanding.  I now know what I was: a retarded savage who

could see, but did not know what it was he saw.

Now I am an intelligent, civilized man, who happens to be blind.

Do you not think it a fair trade?"

Lando grunted, poked a finger idly at a tiny line of dust gathered

in the corner between wall and floor.  Something tiny sparkled there,

like a speck of metal, a fleck of niirtor silvering.  Curious, Lando

brushed the dust away from it.  It was better than answering Mohs,

either truthfully or insincerely.

Nothing could make up for blindness.

"Further, Captain.  My new-found reasoning capacities seem to

serve me in the stead of eyes to some extent.  I can tell that you are

sitting to my left, turned mostly to the wall, poking with a finger in

the corner.  I believe I know this by deducing from the sounds you make,

what I know of your personality and habits-it's quite as if I could see

you."

"I'm happy for you, Mohs," Lando mumbled irritably.  Suddenly, the

minute sparkly bit grew larger, and Lando drew his hand back abruptly.

"Son of a-look at this!"

Not noticing what he'd said to a blind man, Lando watched the

corner.  There was a spider there, a tiny one, very shiny, very fast.

It skittered about frantically, trying to escape Lando.

It couldn't have been much more than three millimeters in

diameter.

Lando reached down, unafraid, let the spider race up his thumb,

turned the thumb down into the palm of his other hand ...

And watched a nearly rwcroscopic Vuffi Raa, accelerated to sixty

times normal speed, trip over his lifeline and go sprawling.

-X-V

No ONE HAD ever accused Vuffi Raa of being stupid.

Of course he'd recognized the hundred-meter giant looming over

him, the instant he'd popped out of the final red-lit chamber and

through the inside wall of the pyramid.  It was his master, and what

surprised him was the feeling that, whatever their current predicament,

he was home.

Apparently, Lando grasped the weird situation, too.  He'd held his

thumb down on the floor in front of Vuffi Raa, keeping it amazingly

still for the full minute the little-very littledroid required to climb

its length.

For his part, Vuffi Raa was very careful: the thumbnail at this

scale was rough and full of convenient handholds, but the flesh seemed

soft and spongy.  He went gently, using all five tentacles and

spreading them, outward and flat, to disuibute his mass.  One misstep

would cruelly pierce his master's fie sh like a needle and, perhaps,

precipitate the robot into disaster.

Not that that wasn't the situation now.

With incredible slow steadiness, Lando had raised the robot up to

his eye level, then across his mountainous chest, over to the other

hand.  Vuffi Raa tumbled down into the waiting palm, righted himself,

and looked up into the giant eye that peered down at him.

"Master!  What a mess!  What are we going to do?"

"EEEwVUUUFFFEEE EEEUUURRRAAAHHH," responded Lando, taking at

least twenty seconds to do it, his voice low and thunderous.  A human

being in Vuffi Raals Position might not have been able to hear what

Lando said-the little droid's range of hearing was impressive-but he'd

certainly have felt it.

Now the robot understood his master's unnatural rocksteadiness.

There seemed to be some difference in their perception of time,

correlative to the difference in their sizes.

Lando was living at a vastly slower rate than Vuffi Raa.  He

considered the problem for what would have seemed a millisecond to his

master, then gave forth a series of loud chirps, spaced evenly over

about a minute's time, each burst carefully shaped and calculated to

blur with the ones before and after into something the giant could

follow: "Can't understand you, Mtister " Lando heard a tiny voice say,

"Can you hear me?"

Lando wasn't stupid, either.  He could see how quickly, jerkily,

Vuffi Raa was moving about in his hand, and figured out that time@r at

least metabolism-was flowing differently for each of them.  He even had

a good idea how Vuffi Raa was managing to communicate with him,

although none whatsoever as to how he could communicate back.

He decided on short words: "Yes."Vuffi Raa received this as

"EEEYYYEEEAAASSSSS," but the part of him that was a high-powered

computer quickly squashed it all together (as it had eventually learned

to do when Lando called him by name) and formulated a brief

reply-although it would take a much longer time to transmit: "Ask Mohs

about this.  " "OOOGGGAAAIIIEEE!"

Giant-to-giant: "I say, Mohs old fellow, what does your new-found

cogitational capacity tell you about this distressing turn of events?

I believe I've got the galaxy's smallest droid here, but I don't

think he's appreciating the distinction very much."

Wrapping the loincloth back around his middle by feel, the old

shaman shuffled up beside the gambler, cocked an ear over the tiny

robot in lieu of peering down at him with ruined eyes, and thought his

answer over for a moment.

"I do not know of any Song which speaks of such a thing as this.

He can hear us, can he not?"

"Yes, " came the small, clear reply, almost as quickly as Mohs has

asked the question, and long before Lando could respond.  This method

of communication seemed to work satisfactorily for the organic giants,

Lando realized, but it must be agonizing unto tears for the tiny

speeded-up droid, each word requiring many seconds to assemble, then

the even more annoying molasses-like wait for the humans, with their

slower reaction time, to answer.

"Captain," the old man said, seemingly unwilling to address a

spider-sized machine directly, "I can see-in a manner of speaking-no

intelligent alternative but to go on with our search for the Harp.  We

can do nothing for your friend here.

Perhaps some solution lies ahead of us."

"Agreed," Vuffi Raa said before Lando had a chance to think about

it.  Meanwhile, the miniature automaton had also had time to think to

become thoroughly fascinated with the examination of his giant master's

hand.  The epidennis was shingled like a shale field, and the fine

ridges were like furrows made by a plow.  Lando's pulse was a quiet,

steady earthquake every few minutes.  Open pores lay scattered abut

like gopher holes.

Finally, long after Vuffi Raa had tired of his explorations:

"AAAIII EEEGGGIIIEEESSS EEEIIIYYYOOOLYUURRR EEERRRAAAIIIT7T."

Eventuall , Vuffi Raa managed to convey a question about travel

arrangements.  He was willing to make his exploration of the building

on foot, as the humans intended to do, but his own far greater rate of

operation would be more than offset by his size and the (to him)

roughness of .  the terrain.  Accordingly, he suggested that he ride,

somehow, and asked diffidently how and where.

"I've always rather fancied an earring," Lando told the surprised

robot.  "D'you think you could manage it without tearing off my

earlobet' That would make communications a bit easier, and there would

be little chance of Vuffi Raa's getting injured or dropped, since Lando

would be inclined to be careful about injuring his own head.

"Captain," Mohs asked, once that had been settled, "there is

supposed to be a way out of this chamber, somewhere near the center.

Can you see it?"

For the relatively short time they'd been there, Lando's attention

had been directed outward, through the transparent walls.  Then it had

all gone to Mohs and the pitiable condition of his eyes, and finally to

Vuffi Raa.  Now he took a good hard look around.  It wasn't easy: the

floor was glossy, as if it were transparent glass over some darker

base.  He guided the old Singer toward the center of the room,

approximately fifty meters away, the little droid clinging with all

five tentacles to his ear.

Before them lay a downward-slanting ramp set neatly into the

floor, flush, without guardrails or other embellishment.

Lando thought they hadn't noticed it before because of this, and

the fact they'd been looking straight across its foreshortened length

to the reflective surface on the other side.

It was strangely dim in the middle of the room, beneath the

pyramid's peak.  The brightly shining sun outside lent an eerie

contrast, which got on Lando's nerves.

"Well, friends, shall we?"  Lando asked no one in particular.

No one replied.

He shrugged, took a step-remembering, once it was too late, that

this sort of thing was what had gotten him into ...

well, this sort of thing in the first place.  As soon as it rested

on the gently downward-slanting surface, his foot began to slide

forward of its own accord.  He gave a hop, his other foot joined the

first, and he found himself moving without walking-just as Mohs'

prophetic Song had had it-on a sort of glassy, featureless elevator.

He looked behind him.  Mohs was in the rear, expression a bit

unsettled-apparently not very happy to realize his Songs had come true.

Well, Lando thought, are any of us ever, really?

The place that they had entered was broad, perhaps ten meters

wide, and as they settled down through the floor and the tunnel seemed

to level off, they saw that the roof overhead was about the same

distance-ten meters-from the moving floor.

The walls went straight up, tipped over into an arch overhead.

At first the walls were featureless, the same impression as above

of transparency over darkness.  The floor showed no

AL

AND THE MINDHARP OF SHARU III signs of mechanical moving parts; an

object placed upon it simply flowed along at the same rate Lando, Mohs,

and Vuffi Raa were traveling.  Whether the floor itself traveled with

them, they were unable to determine.

"EEEIIIUUU OOOGGGAAAIII, EEEwVUUUHHHwVIII EEERRRAAAHHH?"

Vuffi Raa clung to Lando's ear, watching, measuring, trying to do

his part-since someone else was carrying his miniscule weight.  Yet

most of his mind was on the matter of his size.  Assuming it was he

who had diminished-never mind how or that the disparity was supposed to

violate several laws of physics-h e certainly didn't want to spend the

rest of his life that way.  Droids live a long, long time.

On the other tentacle, suppose Lando and their native companion

had somehow grown, violating different laws.  Vuffi Raa didn't think

he'd have to ask them how they'd feel about that, His contemplations

were interrupted by the part of him that was watching.  He gave an

internal, mechanical sigh as he prepared himself for another of the

tedious attempts at communication: "Master the corridor's beginning to

curve.

"Not so loud, Vuffi Raa!  Curve?"  Lando glanced around.

He couldn't see it; it must be very gradual.  A thought occurred

to him: "What's the rate?  At some point, it's got to bend back on

itself, and we should see the junction-for whatever good that does us."

"I don't think so.... It, never fidly leveled out... Starting a

gradual downward spiral " "So?  At what rate?"  Lando repeated.  The

old Toka Singer listened to this exchange as it went on, a strange look

on his blinded face.  "What's the apparent diameter of the spiral?"

"Whose scale?"

Lando chuckled.  "A good question.  Make it mine, if you don't

mind.  I've got to figure it out, haven't I?"

Vuffi Raa refrained from saying that Lando hadn't been much good

so far at figuring out anything-and only partly because communications

were such a chore.  Instead, he simply divided everything his sensors

told him by approximately sixty.

"Ten klicks at current rate.  Drops a hundred meters every thirty

kilometers.

"Can you tell how fast this thing is carrying us?"

"About twenty kph.  One full spiral every one-twenty-third of a

planetary revolution.

The journey went on and on.  Hours passed.

It was Vuffi Raa who first noticed the changes in the walls.

"Master Please observe that something is visible.  " "I see it."

Lando peered through the transparency.  Where before there had

been inky blackness, now some form and structure could be seen, like a

highway cut through a mountain pass.  "We're out of the pyramid!  Below

it!"

xvi THEY TRAVELED THROUGH the heart of the planet.

This was not precisely true, as Vuffi Raa was already pointing

out, but it was a metaphor that suited Lando.

The geological strata they were seeing dated, according to the

little droid, from the beginnings of life on Rafa V. Beds of stone

formed by tiny microscopic creatures living in seas that no longer

existed on the ancient, dried-up sphere alternated with slabs of

solidified lava from volcanic eruptions.  Vuffi Raa's fine vision-and

perhaps the fact that he was so smallenabled him to see and describe

the smallest details through the transparent glass.

"And here we see ... Master ... the evidence of the first cellular

colonies ... the precursors of multicelled animals."

"Don't call me Master, especially when you're lecturing me.

Do you want a bite of this, Mohs?"

Lando had delved into the pockets of his survival parka for water

and condensed rations.  Vuffi Raa hadn't any need of them, but the old

man surprised Lando by accepting only a small portion from the plastic

canteen.

Otherwise, the ancient High Singer had been strangely quiet for

hours, watching the walls, peering ahead into a gloom that was

something other than darkness, listening to Vuffi Raa.

How much the old man understood of the droid's paleontological

dissertations, he had no way of guessing.

"But if we're seeing the slow, steady progress of microscopic

life," Lando asked Vuffi Raa, "doesn't that mean we must be gaining

altitude again?"

"On the contrary ... Master ... the corridor leveled out some time

ago ... and straightened.... We're traveling in a diagonal upthrust

formation."

For some reason, this bothered Lando.  He wished the robot had

kept him informed on the shape and direction of their travel.  More,

this was almost as if ... as if ...

"They chose this route deliberately, didn't they?  So we'd see

what we're seeing!"

"fhey, Captain?"  Mohs spoke up, surprising Lando.  The old man

had long since discovered that he could travel on a moving sidewalk

just as easily by sitting down as standing.  Lando had joined him, and

they were sitting a few feet apart now.

Lando had been thinking about taking a nap before the walls grew

transparent and the geology lectures began.  He was still thinking

about it.

"You know perfectly well who I mean.  There's some purpose to all

this, isn't there?"

"If so, Captain, the Songs do not@' "I'll bet they don't!  Mohs,

the primary purpose of those Songs of yours was to make sure somebody,

someday, wound up sitting precisely where you are."

"So 1, too, had sum-dsed."

Lando searched through his pockets, found a cigarette.  He didn't

smoke much at all, and when he did, he preferred cigars.

Whoever had packed this parka-an Imperial surplus modelhad left

very little missing.  Lando lit a dried-up cigarette with a tiny

electric coil built into one sleeve of the jacket.

"The question, then, is why.  What's so flaming important about

your seeing all these rocks and suchlike?"

The old man lifted his sightless head.  "There must be a better

word than 'seeing,' Captain."

"Great Heavens, man, I'd almost-," He had almost forgotten about

Mohs' eyes.  At least the hideous wounds were healing.

Yet Mohs had not been moving like a newly blinded man, had not

been stumbling and groping.  He had peered at the walls, down the

tunnel, listened to Vuffi Raa as if he could"What do you mean, 'a beuer

word,' Mohs?  Is there some sense better than seeing?"

The Toka Singer swiveled himself where he sat on the floor and

faced Lando.  He drew in a deep breath, then let it out.

"It would appear so, Captain.  You are carrying the Emissary on

your right ear.  You have a container of water in your left hand, the

remains of a food-stick in your right.  Your coat is unfastened; the

shirt beneath has a missing fastener, second from the top.  You hold a

burning weed-stick in the same hand which holds the canteen.  It is

approximately one-third consumed."

Lando was as impressed as he ever was by anything.  "What color

are my eyes?"

"They are the color of deceit, the color of avarice, the color

Of@,

"Enough, enough!  Don't go getting poetic on us.  Somehow you are

'seeing' all these things.  Any idea how: clairvoyance, telepathy,

psychometry .  . ."

"I do not know the meaning of these words, Captain.  I can hear

the water gurgling, the weed-stick crackling, the tones within your

voice and that of the Emissary.  I smell things and feel vibrations in

the floor.  Here it is warm, there it is cold.

Pictures form themselves in my mind.  My remaining senses assemble

information which tells me everything my eyes once did."

"Pretty good trick.  How many fingers am I-ow!  Take it easy,

Vuffi Raa, that's my earlobe you're destroying!"

"Apologies ... Master... Observe the walls.... There are the first

large creatures to appear on this world."

VufFi Raa's method of communication was far from perfect, but it

didn't fail to convey his excitement.  Lando wondered what was so

terrific about the fossils of old marine animals.

Why, they looked like ordinary urchins, starfish, and the like.

Perhaps that was what had moved the little robot.  These things

weren't unlike him in their rough anatomy: five-sided, fivelimbed.

That didn't account for Mohs' excitement: "Behold!  Look upon the

very ancestors of Those whose name it is not wise to speak in this

place!"

"You mean the Sharu?"  Lando said defiantly.  He hated mumbo

jumbo, even in a good cause, and this wasn't.

"Yes, Captain," the old man sighed resignedly, "I mean the Sharu."

They were nothing more than a bunch of formerly slimy starfish, no

matter whose ancestors they were.

The hours wore on, Vuffi Raa and Mohs alternating in rapture over

what they observed embedded in the walls.  Lando yawned, slid over onto

the moving floor surface, arranged the hood of his parka comfortably,

and did a little sliding of his own, in the direction of sleep.

The floor was solid, but resilient, and it was warm.

Even in his sleep, the science lectures wouldn't leave him alone.

He recapitulated the slow, steady progress-boring every step of

the way-from the tiny, disgusting single-celled inhabitants of the

planet's soupy primeval waters, through the first colony organisms, up

into multicelled animals, and from there to things with backbones and

legs which eventually crawled out on the land.

Oddly, the further these imaginary entities got, climbing the tree

of evolution, the vaguer and more nebulous they grew in Lando's mind.

Queer, shadowy shapes beat at one another with broken tree limbs.

Even more intangible figures took those tree limbs, scratched the dirt

with them, and planted the first seeds.

By the time the ancestors of the Sharu were building tiny, crude

cities, it was almost as if the cities built themselves and were

inhabited by invisible citizens.

Continents were explored, migrations carried out.  Wars were won

and lost, with rapidly increasing technology.  Discoveries were made,

more wars fought.  The pre-Sharu touched the boundaries of space in

primitive explosive-powered machines, depositing the first installment

of the junk the Millennium Falcon had had to fly through, getting to

Rafa V All the while, Lando experienced a growing sense of unease, some

vague pain or nagging that made his sleep less restful than it might

have been.  He'd had no idea, all day, where they were going.  There

wasn't any choice in the matter for him: he had to find the Mindharp,

and then figure out how to get out of the tunnel, away from the ruins,

off the stinking planet, and, ultimately, clear of the Rafa once and

for all.

They'd never catch him bringing mynocks into the Rafa System

again!

Or anything else.

The sense of unease grew, gradually metamorphosing into something

resembling real pain.  Lando tossed and turned in his sleep, but kept

on dreaming.

The ancestors of the Sharu had built roads and buildings that

wouldn't be unfamiliar to any civilized inhabitant of the galaxy.  They

had traveled in powered vehicles, eventually spread themselves to.

other planets of the system.  At first they endured the harsh

conditions on some of these globes, living in domes or underground.

Finally, they had begun transforming them into replicas of their

own home planet.

It hadn't always been a desert.  There had been oceans and trees

and lakes and snow-covered mountains.  There had been moisture in the

air, and weather.  How long ago all that had been, the part of Lando

that did the dreaming wasn't prepared to guess.  How long does it take

for the seas to go away?

Gradually, however, as their technology surpassed that which was

currently available in Lando's civilization, the shapes of buildings

changed, the roads disappeared.  The unseen entities who wer6 becoming

the Sharu fought no more wars, but struggled, instead, with the

environment.  No rock, whirling in its independent orbit around the

Rafa sun, was too insignificant to be altered into a garden.  To what

precise purpose became increasingly unclear.  Cities ceased to resemble

anything that made sense.  The first of the gigantic plastic structures

appeared@n Rafa V. Then they appeared on the other planets, as well.

Taken altogether, they were nightmarish things.  Lando squirmed in

his sleep, flailed his arms and sweated.  Every surface and angle was

somehow wrong, things were added that seemed without function,

passageways tapered out into tiny pipelines, hair-fine fractures became

vast thoroughfares, in no logical order.  The seas began to vanish, red

sand replacing landscape everywhere.  Had something gone wrong with the

Sharu environment, or did they like it better the new way, plan it?

Lando sank deeper into a dreamless, pain-filled sleep.  His last

thought was a question: would this passage funnel down until the

inexorably moving floor ground them into tiny pieces?

Lando woke up.

Somewhere, for a fraction of a second, he had the feeling that

everything made sense after all.  Then the feeling went away and left

him with a terrible lingering headache.

"Vuffi Raa, are you awake?  You're going to have to find another

perch for a while, my whole head hurts!"  He rolled over on his back

from the curled-up position he'd taken in the night.

"Masteryou'reawakeatlasthowdoyoufeel?"

He sat up-a sudden blast of pain hit him and he settled back again

for a moment.  "Take it a little slower, will you?"

He lifted a hand to his ear.  "Hop down a minute while I get rid

of this headache."

He felt a fe rathe touch his palm.  The pain subsided.  Bringing

his hand down, he looked at Vuffi Raa.  Something was funny, but he

couldn't place it in his present groggy state.

The walls rolled by, this time showing discarded metal and plastic

containers, parts of machinery and electronics frozen into the

geological matrix.  How long does a civilization have to last before

its radios and televisions become fossils?

"Now, what was it you were saying, little fellow?"

"Merely ... greeted ... you ... Asked... how ... you ...

feel."

"Lousy, but thanks for asking.  Anything interesting happen in the

night?"  He scrounged around for a cigarette, started thinking about

which of the ration bars to eat for breakfast.

"It... is... nighttime... now... outside.... Master ...

You... slept... through... the... day."

"I don't see that it makes all that much difference, down here.

Where's Mohs?"  Lando had glanced around, up and down the tunnel,

and hadn't seen the old man.  Perhaps he'd"What ... Master?"

"We seem to be having some difficulty understanding one another

this-er, afternoon.  I said, where's Mohs, did he wander off

somewhere?"

"Master ... there is something I must tell you."

Lando felt a vague alarm.  "What's that, old watchmovement?"

"I believe... from measurements that you're shrinking."

"What?"

"Everything is shrinking.... The tunnel grows narrower by the

kilometer... You have shrunk just enough that my weight upon you causes

pain.  . . . The previous rate at which I communicated is too fast....

We are nearing each other's size and time-passage."

"Which could mean just as well that you're growing, did you ever

thing of that?"  Lando examined the tiny robot in his hand.  Let's see,

he'd estimated Vuffi Raa's previous size at perhaps three millimeters.

Yes, no question of it, he was very nearly twice that size now and

his miniscule weight was actually perceptible in Lando's hand.

"Yes.... I considered it.... I think you are shrinking."

"Well, I think you're growing.  What about Mohs?"

"Who ... Master... Who is Mohs?"

"Vuffi Raa, don't do this to me!  Mohs-the High Singer of the

Toka-the old guy who led us here!  Mohs!"

There was a long, long pause.  It must have been vastly longer to

the speeded-up droid.  Finally: "Master ... I recall no Mohs.... Are

you certain you feel all right?"

xvii AS TtiE TUNNEL carried them along, they argued.

"Who was it that we met in the bar, who sang the Songs that

pointed the way to Rafa V?"

"Why, Master, something that Rokur Gepta said must have given you

the clue, and you guessed.  Very good guessing, Master, highly

commendable."

"Well, then, damnit, what about that crowd at the port.  Who had

been leading the singing?"

"Why, no one, Master, it was simply community chanting,

spontaneous on the part of the natives."

"Arghhh!  Okay, why did we land at the pyramid-never mind, I know:

it was the biggest building on the planet.  Tell me this: if there

wasn't any Mohs, who ambushed us, shot you full of holes, and carried

me off to the life-orchard to die?"

"The natives, of course, Master.  But there wasn't any chief or

head witch doctor or whatever.  The Toka don't have enough social

structure for that."

"Or to build crossbows?  Look, Vuffi Raa, I couldn't have made up

that part about eating a lizard, I just couldn't."

"What do you expect me to say, Master?"

"I expect you to say that this is all an elaborate practical joke,

and that you're sorry and will be a good little droid from now on."

Lando shook the plastic package.  There weren't any cigarettes

left.

"Life is just full of annoyances these days."

Vuffi Raa stood on the floor by Lando's knee.  He was five or six

centimeters tall, by then, looking very much like one of those tropical

spiders that eat birds.

"I wish I could do that," he squeaked, no longer coding his

messages in pulses.  He had to make a conscious effort to slow them

down for his still-gigantic master.  "What reason would I have to lie,

Master?"

Lando crushed the pack, started to throw it away, then, looking

around him at the clean, uncluttered tunnel, thought better of it and

put it in his pocket.  "I'm not saying you're lying, Vuffi Raa.  One of

us is wrong, that's all.  By the Eternal Core, I can describe the old

man to you in the finest detail, from the tattoo on his wrinkled

forehead to the dirt on his wrinkled feet!"

Vuffi Raa said nothing to that.  He simply sat there growing@r

watching his master shrink.  That was something else they hadn't been

able to agree about, but they'd tired of arguing about it.

They were also tired of asking one another when the journey would

be over.  Lando extracted the deck of sabacc cards he carried with him,

began to shuffle them.  Vuffi Raa looked on with interest.

"Did you know, old pentapod, that these things were once used for

telling fortunes?"  He shuffled the deck again, cut it, and began

laying the cards out on the floor.

"Highly irrational and unscientific, Master."

"Don't call me Master.  I know what you mean, thoughexcept that

sometimes they can help you solve a problem, simply by getting you to

look at it in a way you hadn't thought to before."

"I've heard that said, Master, but so can a sudden blow to the

head, if you're looking for random stimuli."

That's right, Lando thought, what I really need now is a fresh

machine to banter with.  The first card to fall was the Commander of

Staves, one which Lando had often associated with himself.  It was the

apparently chance appearance of the right card-as happened so

often--4hat made him wonder if his "scientific" analysis was all there

was to the things' "That's me," he explained to the robot, "a messenger

on a fool's errand.  Let's see what stands in the way."  He dealt a

second card, laid it across the first.  "Great Gadfry!"  he exclaimed.

"What is it, Master?"

"Not what, who.  It's Himself-the Evil One.  I'd guess that to be

Rokur Gepta.  Hold on, now, it's changing."

As sabacc card-chips are prone to do now and again, the second

card transformed itself into the Legate of Coins-but the image was

upside-down.

"Duttes Mer!"  laughed Lando.  "A being corrupt and evil if ever

there was one!  Well, that makes sense, even though it tells us nothing

new.  Let's see what else."

The third card he placed above the others.  The Five of Sabres,

Lando explained, represented his own conscious motivations, in this

case, the desire to relieve the weak and unwary of the burden of their

excess cash.  He chuckled, dealt a card below the others, indicating

his deeper, possibly subconscious motives.  He groaned.

"The Legate of Staves.  Don't tell me I'm a do-gooder at heart!"

"Master, this is simply a random distribution of images, don't

take it seriously."

Lando looked at the little robot cautiously.  "I think I've just

been insulted.  Well, the next card should tell us something.  It

represents the past, things coming to an end."

It was the Six of Sabres.  Lando placed it to the left.

"Oh-ho!  This usually denotes a journey, but its position

indicates the journey is nearly at an end.  What do you think of that?"

"I think, Master, that journeys can end in many ways, not all of

them pleasant or productive."

"That's what I keep you around for, to bring me down whenever I

feel too good, to remind me that every silver lining has a cloud.

Say, you know, you're getting bigger@ight, maybe nine centimeters.

And your voice is changing, too."

The little robot didn't reply, but simply watched Lando lay the

next card down to the.right of the center pair.

"Flame and famine!  You spoiled the run, Vuffi Raa-it's the

Destroyed Starship!"

"Does that mean harm will come to the Falcon, Master?"

"Don't call me Master.  I thought you didn't believe in any of

this."

"I don't.  But what does it mean?"

"Cataclysmic changes in the near future, death and destruction.

It may be the worst card in the whole deck.  Maybe.  One thing

I've learned TOM all t us: t There s ways a worse car(.

This next will tell us what will happen to us and how we'll react

to it."

" We, Master?"

"There you go again-great: the Satellite.  It means a lot of

fairly nasty things, things that you find under rocks.  Mostly it means

deception, deceit, betrayal."  He looked closely at the robot again.

"Are you getting ready to double-cross me, my mechanical minion?"

"There, Master, is the greatest danger in such mystical pursuits.

You trusted me before you started playing with those card-chips,

didn't you?"

"I still do, Vuffi Raa.  The next card, up above the Satellite,

here, is supposed to tell us where we'll find ourselves next.

Hmmm.  I wonder what that means?"

The Wheel sat shimmering on the card-chip, an image denoting luck,

both good and bad, the beginning and the ending of things, random

chance, final outcome-it gave Lando no information whatsoever.

The third card in that part of the array, placed in line above the

Satellite and the Wheel, represented future obstacles.

Lando cringed when he saw what had appeared.

"Gepta again!  Well, I suppose that's only logical.  Want to see

the final outcome, old clockwork?  Well, you're going to, anyway.  Here

we go.  Well, that's not too bad, after all.  It's the Universe.  It

means we'll have a shot at everything we want to do.  Join the human

race and see the world.  Something like that."

"Master."

"Yes, Vuffi Raa, what is it?"

"Master, that Six of Sabres: that's a journey over with?"

"That's what I said although it can mean other things, in other@'

"Master, our journey's over with."

And, indeed, so it appeared to be.  The floor slowed as they came

upon the towering doorway of a chamber large enough to park a fleet of

spaceships in.  A long, long distance away, something resembling a

giant altar was raised, all the lights in the cavernous room focused

upon it.

Even from several hundred meters off, Lando could tell it was the

Mindharp of Sharu.  It hurt his eyes to look at it.

xv

IT WASN'T As easy as all that.

There were other things inside the hall besides the podium or

altar where the Mndharp stood, and a giant replica of the Key Lando had

carried until the wall of the pyramid had taken it.

"What do you make of that, Vuffi Raa?"

The robot, standing now as high as Lando's knee, peered into the

same odd well-lighted gloom that had filled the tunnel behind them.

The light was a brownish amber and seemed to emanate from the

floor.

The room, a vast auditorium of a place, was lined with something

between sculpture and paintings pageant that seemed, to the gambler, to

recapitulate his dreams of the night before.

Here, at the entrance, shaggy forms, barely erect, shambled along

the walls in a frozen march, growing straighter, taller, beginning to

carry things in their hands, to lose their furry coverings, to wear

clothing.

Lando and Vuffi Raa followed the right wall, which curved gently

into the vast circularity that was the chamber of the Mindharp.  By the

time the figures on the wall were playing with internal combustion

engines and rocketry, the pair had only walked a few dozen meters.

Uncounted thousands of centuries of history lay ahead of them.

The robot hadn't spoken.  Lando looked down at him.  His eye was

glowing peculiarly-or perhaps the peculiarity was in the lighting of

the chamber.

"Vuffi Raa, did you hear meT' "Why yes, Lando," the droid said,

seeming to be waking from a sort of walking dream.  "What do I make of

this?  The same that you do-that this is somehow the center of Sharu

culture.  What they left behind of it, anyway.  That the Harp is

somehow even more important than we thought it was."

Lando hadn't been thinking that at all.  He'd been thinking that

the chamber was a place of worship, that the, figures on the wall were

human-Toka-that the has-relief murals would convey to them the story of

how they arose on some far-off planet and came to the Rafa System.

That somewhere along the wall the story would be told of how they

met the Sharu and discovered their masters.

He didn't want to wait.  "I'm going on across the roomenough of

this historical nonsense.  Con-ting with me?"

Vuffi Raa turned, followed Lando without a word.

It was a long, long trip.  The Sharu had discovered the same

secret that many human cultures had: that if you make the floors of a

public building slick enough, keep them polished and slippery, they'll

force the people who have to walk there into little mincing steps that

magnify the distances and humble the spirit-just as high ceilings tend

to do.

Lando wasn't having any.  He took a few running steps and slid

along the floor.

"Wheee!  This is fun!  Come on, old tinhorn, try it!"

"Master!"  said the robot in a scandalized voice.  "Have you no

respect?"

Lando stopped, gave the robot a sober look.  "Not a grain of

it-not when it's being imposed on me by the architecture."

He took another running start, slid several meters this time.

The robot had to hurry to catch up.  By the time he had, he was

very nearly his original height.

"Lando," he said, "speaking of architecture, there's something

very odd about this place."

Lando had to stop to catch his breath.  He sat down on the floor.

"That would be consistent with everything else around here.

What is it this time?"

"Well, from the entrance, the room looked circular, with a high

domed ceiling, and perhaps a thousand meters across the floor to the

altar."

Lando looked around.  "Still seems that way to me."

"And to my vision, too.  But, checking with radar and a number of

extra senses, the room is ovoid-shaped like an egg with a big end and a

small end.  The big end was the entrance.

The roof keeps getting closer to the floor."

Lando had another flash of his dreams.  Something Vuffi Raa said

earlier had triggered the first, something about the idea that it

wasn't he, the robot who was growing, but Lando who was shrinking.  Yet

if that were true-the tunnel had seemed to stay the same size the

duration of the two-day tri@then the moving passageway had to have been

shrinking.  Lando had appeared to Vuffi Raa to be a hundred and ten or

twenty meters tall in the beginning.  Now he was back to being a little

shy of two.  The corridors had to have been shrinking accordingly.

At that rate, when they reached the Mindharp, Vuffi Raa would

tower over Lando, and they'd both have to travel on hands and knees to

reach the artifact.

11 HALT!"  said a voice.

"What?"  Vuffi Raa and Lando cried simultaneously.

11 IT IS NOT PERMITTED TO CROSS THE HALL."

"What happens if we do?"  inquired Lando.

The voice paused, seemed confused.  "WELL, I'M NOT SURE I KNOW.

NO ONE EVER ASKED ME.  BUT IT IS NOT PERMI=D."

Lando opened his mouth"Just who in the Hall are you, anyway?"

Vuffi Raa said.

Lando looked at the robot sharply.  He hated having his good lines

stolen.  It was exactly what he'd been planning to say, himself 11 WHY,

I AM THE HALL, OF COURSE.  YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO LOOK AT THE EXHIBIT AS

YOU APPROACH THE SACRED OBJECT."

"And it's your job," Lando suggested, "to make sure we do?

Well, let's get a few things straight here, Hall: I've been tugged

along by everything that's happened so far.  I'm not going to let an

empty room tell me what to do.  Now answer me truthfully: does anything

bad or dangerous happen to someone if they don't skulk along the wall

like vermin?"

NO, I DON T SUPPOSE IT DOES."

"Then I guess we'll go on.  You don't happen to have a cigarette,

do you?"

I'M AFRAID I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN."

"I thought you were going to say that.  Come on, Vuffi Raa."

They continued across the broad expanse of the Hall, Lando sliding

occasionally just to demonstrate his spirit.  Vuffi Raa's legs twinkled

in the weird lighting.  Lando had a thought: "Hey, Hall?"

AND THE MINDHARP OF @HARU 125

YES, HAVE YOU DECIDED TO GO BACK TO THE WALL?"

"No.  I was just wondering: how much do you know about this

place?"

11 ABOUT MYSELF?"

"No, about the pyramid and the moving tunnel we were in before we

got here."

The Hall considered.  "A GREAT DEAL.  WHAT, SPECIFICALLY WOULD YOU

LIKE TO KNOW?"

"Well, just to begin, what size am I?"

A very long pause this time.  "IN WHAT UNITS OF MEASURE MENT?"

"Skip it, then.  What I really want to know is: was I gigantic a

few kilometers back, or was my friend, here, very tiny?"

DOES IT MATTER?"

"Of course it matters.  Would I ask, otherwise?"

"Organic entities seem to take considerable delight in doing

things to no good purpose," Vuffi Raa offered.  "But in this case,

Hall, I'd be interested in knowing, too."

"Right," Lando said under his breath, "so the two of us can

compare notes on the frailties of humankind.  Play your cards right,

Vuffi Raal- cozy up to this Hall and they may make you a telephone

booth or something."

11 VERY WELL.  THE CHANGES IN THE DIMENSION WERE WROUGHT

ON THE ORGANIC LIFE-FORMS HERE.  IT IS A NECESSARY PART OF THE

PROCESS WHICH CULMINATES, PROPERLY, IN TRAVELING AROUND THE

CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE HALL AS YOU ARE INTEN@' "Skip the commercial,

Hall," said Lando, "and get on with the explanation."

11 VERY WELL.  THIS INSTRUMENTALITY IS CAPABLE OF ALTERING

THE PROPORTIONS OF INANIMATE MATTER AS WELL, BUT IT MUST BE

IN THE PROXIMITY OF ORGANIC LIFE.  OTHERWISE, IT IS ABSORBED BY

THE MAINTENANCE SYSTEMS .

Vuffi Raa described his journey through the blue and red maze.

"Can you tell me what all that was about?"

11 CERTAINLY.  YOU WERE MISTAKEN BY THE WALL FOR A SMALL

HOUSEKEEPING DEVICE AND ROUTED THERE FOR REPROGRAMMING AND REPAIR.

HAVE YO BEEN REPAIREDT' u "Not that I know of."

Lando laughed.  "Any secret urges to sweep up or take out the

garbage?"

"Lando, this is serious.  I want to know what happened!"

"Touchy!  Okay, I concede, I grew, I shrank-but I've got

Mkl

you on another one: Mohs.  The Hall said organic lifeforms,

plural."

11 QUITE CORRECT, SIR, YOUR INTESTINAL FLORA, OTHER SYMBIOTIC

ORGANISMS, ALL WERE GREATLY ALTERED IN SIZE, THEN BROUGHT BACK TO

NORMAL MAGNirUDE AS PART OF@' "What about Mohs.  Was there another

human being with us when we entered, and what happened to him?"

The hall was silent-a guilty silence if ever there was one.

Lando realized suddenly that relations between mechanical

intelligences weren't all that different from those between organic

ones.

'Well?"

More silence.

Lando looked at Vuffi Raa.  'That thing mistook you for a

maintenance bug, and hummed up your memory trying to 'repair' you.

That's why you don't remember Mohs.  Now it feels ashamed."

Vuffi Raa looked at Lando.  "I certainly hope so, Master, I

certainly hope so.  What are we going to do, once we reach the Harp?"

"Shhhh!  The walls have ears.  We're going to use it in whatever

manner was intended-rather, take it to somebody who knows how to and

let him do it."

"You mean the govemort' "That fat ape?  No, I mean Gepta.  He's

the one who really I I says when we get to leave this lousy system."

They shuffled onward, trying, occasionally, to get the hall's

attention again.  Since it obviously hadn't gone away, it must have

been ignoring them.  Finally they reached the base of the raised

platform on which the Mindharp stood.  It wasn't as bad as Lando had

predicted: the ceiling was much lower-Vuffi Raa was now his old

familiar size again-and the room felt smaller, but it was still huge

and awe-imposing.  As was the altar.

A dozen meters high, it was cut from a single perfectly

transparent slab of what appeared to be life-crystal.  It was hexagonal

in cross section, with corners one could practically cut himself on.

Otherwise, it was smooth and featureless.

It would be a long, difficult climb.

Lando sat down to consider the problem.  Ms survival kit included

no rope, suction cups, antigravs.  Its designers had anticipated he

would be among others-fellow soldiers-and had shared out supplies in a

package that was sold originally to an entire squad.  They had not

anticipated that survival would necessitate committing a burglary.

"Any ideas, Vuffi Raa?"

"No, Master.  If I were small again "You never were small,

remember?  We argued about that and you won."

"oh, that's right.  You argued so persuasively that I forgot for a

moment."

",Vuffi Raa, I think that's the first nice thing you've ever said

to me."

"You're welcome, Master."

"Don't call me Master."  He thought some more, then: "Hey, Hall?"

11 MAY I BE OF ASSISTANCE?"

"I hope so.  How come you didn't answer us back theret' I'M SORRY,

I WAS THINKING ABOUT SOMETHING.  MAY I HELP YOU NOW?"

"Sure.  Does this pylon sink into the floor or anything?"

11 NO, I'M AFRAID THAT IT DOES Ncyr."

"You don't happen to have a ladder handy, do you?"

11 NO, SIR, I AM NOT SO EQUIPPED."

Lando mused for a long time.  Despite his long sleep, he was tired

and hungry-jacket rations aren't everything their manufacturers claim

for them.  In fact, they aren't anything their manufacturers claim,

except that they'll keep you alive.

"Say!  Can you make me big again?"

CONGRATULATIONS, SIR, YOU H"E PASSED THE TEST.  YES, I CAN ENLARGE

YOUR SIZE.  DO YOU WISH ME TO BEGIN NOW?"

"Can you make me normal again, afterward?  The size I am

now-provided that's the size I started out before we entered the

pyramid?"

11 IMMEDIATELY UPON YOUR REQUEST, SIR."

He looked at Vuffi Raa.  "Well, here we go again."

" 'We,' Master?"

"Now don't start that!  Okay, Hall, let's do it!"

This time it was perceptible.  Lando watched the room and

everything in it shrink around him, Vuffi Raa grew smaller, the altar

shorter.  It only took a few moments.  "How the devil does this work,

anyway, Hall?  I thought it was supposed to be impossible-cube-square

relationships and my bones not supporting my weight above a certain

size and everything.  That's why I figured Vuffi Raa had shrunk-plenty

of problems there, but fewer, I think."

OH, NO PROBLEMS AT, ALL, sfR," the Hall began.  Lando noticed that

its voice wasn't disturbed at all by the change in scales.  Good

engineers, those Sharu.  "WHAT ARE YOU, NO OFFENSE, SIR, BUT ORGANIZED

@ORMATION?  WHAT DOES IT MATTER HOW DENSELY THAT INFORMATION IS

COMPRESSED?  AN OLDFASHIONED BOOK MAY BE PRINTED UPON THICK PAPER, WITH

THE LINES DOUBLE-SPACED.  STILL, Yr IS THE SAME INFORMATION, IS IT

NOT?"

"You trying to tell me I've been sort of spread-out, like?  I'm

not sure I like that thought.  Well, here we are.  Vuffi Raa?

That's all right, you don't have to talk back.  Just help me with

this thing once I get it down-it's going to be big."

At present, the Mindharp rested on the flat upper surface of the

pylon.  It was a precise replica of the Key, except for size, and, in

his present condition, it felt the same to Lando as the Key had.  He

reached down to take it, it came away without resistance.  He started

to put it in his pocket"Master ... don't ... do ... that."

"Right!  It'd mess up my jacket a bit when I shrank back down,

wouldn't it?  Okay, Hall, let's lower me back where I belong."

Silence.

"Hall?  Hey, you're supposed to shrink me again!  Get with it!"

There was no reply.

"Look, Hall, if you don't listen, I'm going to take this obscene

artifact and-2' OH, I'M VERY SORRY, SIR.  WOOL-GATHERING AGAIN.  I HAVE

AN INCREASING TENDENCY TO THAT, AS THE MILLENNIA ROLL ON.  I TAKE IT

YOU WISH TO BE REDUCED AGAIN."

"You take it right."

With that, Lando began to shrink once more, the Nfindharp growing

perceptibly in his hands as he did so.  He stooped gently, set it on

the floor beside Vuffi Raa, straightened, and folded his arms over his

chest.

The Mindharp was an armful when Lando had been restored to his

natural size.  Perhaps a meter in its greatest extent, it was even more

visually distressing than the tiny model he had played with in the

beginning.

"Vuffi Raa, take one end of this.  Hall, how do we get out of

here?"

BEHIND THE PILLAR, SIR, AND GOOD LUCK."

"Well, good luck to you, too.  Maybe someday they'll hold concerts

here."

I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT, SIR.  I RATHER LIKE THE PEACE AND

QUIET."

Behind the pylon was a wall.

Embedded in the wall was a Key Perhaps it was the same Key, Lando

thought-this building seemed to like little jokes like that.  The

question was, how did you use it?  It protruded somehow from the wall.

He let one hand go from the Mindharp, reached out to touch its

smaller counterpart.

There was a flash!  and a hole began opening in the wall, like the

iris of an ancient camera.  Lando and Vuffi Raa stepped through.

Into the busy daytime streets of Teguta Lusat.

"OFMCER," Vum RAA demanded, summoning the first constabulary cop

he saw on the street.  The robot pointed a tentacle at Lando.  "Arrest

this man immediately.  Orders of the governor."

Lando stopped, stunned.  They hadn't taken three steps away from

the side of the Sharu ruin they'd emerged from.  He looked back-the

aperture they'd walked through was gone.

He held the Mindharp to his chest, walked back a step, another,

until his back was against the wall.

"Why, you little@' "That'll be enough of that," the cop ordered.

"I can't arrest a man on the word of a machine.  I'll have to

check it out with H.Q."  He touched the side of his helmet, communed

momentarily with the radio inside it, then waved off with one hand the

small crowd that was beginning to gather.

Lando took a small, quiet step sideways.  No one seemed to notice.

He took another, and another.  Only a few more steps to a corner

where he just might be able to"Officer!"  Vuffi Raa shouted.  "He's

trying to get away!"

"Manks a lot, you atom-powered fink!"

The policeman drew his blaster, held it steady on Lando's chest.

"Well-first time I've ever heard of a droid with a security

clearance like that, but-hold still, you!  We'll have some

transportation in a minute, then we'll all take a nice little ride."

The governor's office looked much the same as it had before, even

to the absence of Rokur Gepta the Sorcerer of 'Nnd.

With the Mindharp lying across the crystalline desk, Lando

wondered why the wizard wasn't present to claim the prize he'd sought

so avidly.

He didn't wonder very long.

"Good afternoon," Duttes Mer said, entering from the right and

easing himself into his chair.  "I see you have the object.

Very good.  You could tell me one little thing, though, if you

would be so kind."

Lando was standing between two of Teguta Lusat's finest once

again.  This time Vuffi Raa was present, standing beside the governor's

desk.

"Anything you want to know," Lando said, trying hard for

cheerfulness and not quite making it.

"EXACTLY WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN THESE LANl' FOUR MONTHS?"  The

governor calmed himself down, straightened his neckcloth, blinked.

"Four months?"  Lando asked, reeling from one astonishing

development after-so that was it!  The time differential.  What had

seemed like a couple of days to him had actually been sixty times that

long.  "Governor, you wouldn't believe me if I told you.  Ask your

treacherous friend, here.  He'll tell youunless he's a congenital

liar."

"Don't be too hard on the droid, Captain.  He did what he was

programmed to do: play the Emissary's part so that the natives would

help you find the Harp.  Also, to report to me the instant the Harp was

in your possession.  It would seem I've had a stroke of luck in that

respect, however.  How is it that you flew to Rafa V and returned here

without being picked up on planetary defense sensors?  We really have a

nice, modern system, you know."

"You tell him, Vuffi Raa, since you're such a blabbermouth

anyway. "Sir," the robot said, "the Sharu appear to have some method

of matter transport.  I'm not certain when the transition occurred, and

I am told that you lost track of my telemetry the instant we entered the

pyramid on Rafa V. The shift could have been oy time afterward, from

the inside wall of the pyramid to the aperture through which we stepped

into the street here in Teguta Lusat."

The governor patted his stumpy fingers together.  "Well, well.  A

technological bonus, if we can unravel its secret.  In the meantime, as

I said, a stroke of unexpected luck.  You see, Captain, my, er,

colleague is orbiting Rafa V this very minute, waiting for your

emergence there."

"Haw, haw.  I am here.  And I have the Mindharp.  It would appear

that I am something of a lucky gambler, too, wouldn't you say?"

Lando shrugged indifferently.  This wasn't going to turn out good,

no matter what he did, and there wasn't any point in giving the fat

-slob any satisfaction.

"Come now, Captain, consider: Rokur Gepta hired an anthropologists

real one, mind you, with genuine credentials-to investigate the system.

The poor fellow thought he was working for me, which gave us the

opportunity to appropriate his paycheck from Imperial funds, and

yielded Gepta the enjoyment of n-dsdirection he seems to treasure so

much for its own sake.

"Meanwhile, we set a little trap.  In return for the offer of a

new job, once his investigations here were finished, the anthropologist

went to Oseon 2795 in search of, well, shall we say a suitably gullible

individual to do our work for us."

Interested despite himself, and aware that Mer's desire for, what,

approval?  might show him a way out of the mess, Lando asked, "@y

didn't you just hire yourself another sucker-or let your tame scientist

get the Mindharp for you?  Why me, and why maneuver me into it, rather

than simply coming out and@' The governor laughed.  "You know the

legends.  It had to be a wandering adventurer from the stars, a

stranger to the Toka, someone they hadn't seen snooping around,

recording their chants and so forth.  And the truth.  Why, Captain, if

you known the truth about the Mindharp, you would be about to assume

absolute power over the minds of everyone in the system, rather than

myself That is another mistake my esteemed colleague made.  Thus we

looked for a freighter captain down on his luck-and on Oseon 2795

everybody's down on his luck-in a place where we had the, er,

cooperation of local law-enforcement personnel.  We let you think you'd

won the robot, and put you in a position where you had to flee@' "Oh?"

the gambler asked beneath raised eyebrows.  "Well, suppose I'd

fled to the Dela System, as I'd intended, or simply@' "There was the

'treasure' as an inducement, plus the fact that you had a valuable

asset to claim in the droid, here.  And, of course, if you hadn't come,

our Ottdefa Osuno Whett would simply have found a new prospect.  You

were our first-I'm rather proud of the Ottdefa."

Lando shook his head resignedly.  "I get it.  That's why Vuffi Raa

was left here: if you'd missed your chance with me, and I'd had him in

my possession in the Oseon, you would have lost a valuable 'hot,

whereas any poor jerk who took your bait@' "Precisely.  I'm gratified

that you appreciate the subtlety of the scheme.  That will be all.

Officers, take him away."

Lando didn't even have time to protest.  The police hauled him

from the office, along the corridor, and down a flight of stairs to a

waiting hovercruiser.  They whisked through the streets to the edge of

town, where they entered a force-fence around a series of

corrugated-plastic buildings.

"Give him the usual processing," one of the anonymous visored

officers told a fat man in a dirty tunic.  "You'll have the paperwork

in the morning."

"Very well," the fat man beamed.  He was short and greasy looking,

but the neuro@c whip in one hand and the military blaster in the other

added something to his personality.  The cruiser roared away.

"Welcome to the penal colony of Rafa IV."  The fat man grinned.

Midnight.

Listening to the chanting of the Toka, Lando lay on a steelslatted

cot in a barred cell.  Offworld prisoners occupied cells on one side of

the corridor; the Toka shared an unlocked kennel-like affair on the

other side.  Lando was unusual in that the other three bunks in his own

cell were unoccupied.

iL

He figured that the governor didn't want him talking to anyone

until he was "processed'!-whatever that meant.

To say he found the native chanting annoying would have been a

calamitous understatement.  It was unpleasant enough in itself, but it

further served to ren-iind him of Mohs-the little man who wasn't there.

If he had been.  The question bothered the gambler almost as much

as his present predicament did.

More, perhaps, because he'd been in jail before.

Less, perhaps, because he'd never faced a sentence in the

life-orchards.

And, unlike the other freshly arrived convicts in the cells around

him, he knew what that meant, had had a taste o s mind's being sucked

away by the trees from which the crystals were @ested.

And his memories of Mohs were clear; the chanting across the

hallway was in no way inconsistent with them.  The language was

distressingly familiar.  He could almost imagine- he understood it.

Not for the first time, he reasoned that it was a corrupted

version of some tongue spoken in a place he'd been once.  If only he

could remember ...

"ALL RIGHT RISE AND SHINE!"

The fat man had friends, at least five of them, also armed with

blasters.and whips.  They paced up and down in front of the barred

cells, shouting to wake up the offworld prisoners.

The Toka were already gone, sometime in the night.

Lando groaned, turned over.  Before they'd placed him in the cell,

they'd taken his clothes, replacing them with roughwoven pajamas of

unbleached cloth.  Now he was being ordered to remove even that minimal

dress.

He quickly found out why.  Two of the guards placed their weapons

to one side, manhandled a huge fire hose into place before the cells,

and turned it on.  Lando was dashed to the back of the cell, where he

fetched up against the rough plaster wall and slid to the floor,

shielding his eyes against the blast of water.

The stream passed on to the next cell.  He rose stiffly, put his

shirt back on-he hadn't time to undress all the way before the water

hit him-and wondered what came next.

He didn't have to wait long.

"All right, prisoners," the fat man shouted, "we will open the

cells in a moment, and you will step outside, stand at attention, until

told otherwise.  Then you will turn left-face and march, single file

and silently, into the waiting bus.  Step out of line, utter so much as

a single word, and you are dead where you stand."

Luckily, Lando didn't have a snappy come-back ready anyway.

The door slid open with a clank.  He stepped out and stood

stiffly, shivering in the early morning breeze.  He had his first look

at the compound, and, having looked around, decided he didn't want to

make a habit of it.  Boxed into the corner between two plastic Sharu

building ' s hundreds of meters tall and unscalable, the yard was

fenced on the other two sides.  Bare earth, a handful of small

one-story cell blocks, and an administration building.  Home sweet

home for the rest of his life.

Like hell, Lando swore to himself.  He would be free.  He had

debts to settle.

The command was given.  He turned left smartly, walked behind half

a dozen other prisoners to the bus, an old one, driven by another

convict.  Its skirts were stained and tattered.  It would be a rough

ride this morning.  ItThe ground began to shake.

Across the compound, the earth billowed up like waves on the

ocean, heaved at the cellblocks, smashing them to bits, ripped the

administration building apart, toppled the hoverbus.

The man inside it screamed.

Several convicts ran to help the trapped driver.  They were

shouted at by the guards.  One of the uniformed men opened fire,

sending a prisoner up in flames that were mirrored by those which

suddenly burst from a leaking fuel line in a building on the far side

of the yard.

Lando stood where he was, then decided to fall down, since the

quake threatened to do it to him anyway, and there was less chance of

getting shot.  Suddenly, a figure in the town-cop uniform, mirrored

helmet visor and all, staggered up to the warden or whatever he was.

Lando could hear him over the rumble, roar, and screaming.

"That man is to be turned over for further interrogation!"

The armored finger pointed at Lando.  The warden and the cop

leaned on each other to stay erect.

"I have no authorization!  He's mine!  Can't this wait?"

"The governor wants him immediately!"  There was sudden menace in

the big policeman's voice.  "Something about a load of cops he tried to

maroon on Rafa XI four months ago."

"Then by all means take him.  l@' That was all the fat man had to

say.  He swayed and fell.  The cop ducked back, came for Lando.

"Let's go!"

Grabbing Lando by the pajamaed scruff, the cop bore him along

toward a waiting cruiser that had been left aground beside the cell

block.  "Get in!"

They roared away through the gate, which hung open on one hinge.

It wotvldn't have mattered: the force-fence was down, even its

auxiliary power system apparently destroyed in the quake.  The car

rocked and swayed, turned right, and sped down the road.

"Say, old flatfoot, this isn't the way to Teguta Lusat!"  Lando

shouted.  He cringed as they rounded a corner and dashed toward the

country.

"What's it to you?  Shut up and mind your own business!"

"Would this make it my business?"

The cop looked down to see what was pressing at his side.

It was his own blaster.  He raised a visored head to the young

gambler.

"Very good.  I guess you didn't need rescuing that badly, after

all.  Want to go back and have all the glory to yourself.9" "What are

you talking about?"  Lando demanded.  "Stop this car and take that

helmet off.  I want to see who I'm talking to!"

The cruiser slowed as per specification.  They halted in the

middle of the road and waited out an aftershock.  Lando leveled the

blaster at the policeman's face.  "Okay, take it off."

The gloved hands rose, took the helmet and lifted.  In place of a

head sticking up through the collar, there was-a snake!

A chron-tium-plated snake.

"Can I get out of this uniform, Master?  It's very uncomfortable."

"Vuffi Raa!  You little-but what's going on here?  Why are you

rescuing me?' Shucking the rest of the guardsman's uniform-he'd been

walking on two tentacles, using two for arms, and the fifth as an

ersatz head-Vuffi Raa assumed a more normal position behind the driver

tiller.

"Master, I was programmed to betray you from the beginning, and

not to tell you about it.  But you're my Master, Lando, and, as soon as

that program had run out, so did 1. And here I am.  We've got to get

off this planet, out of the system, and fast."

"I know."

"You know?  How?"

"The dreams, the chanting I heard last night.  It's Old High

Trammic-the language of the Toka.  I was on Tramffiis III a couple of

years ago.  I still can't understand the language very well, but my

subconscious apparently made something of it.  I woke up this morning

knowing the truth about the Mindharp, and I know we've got to get out

of this place now."

"N"y is that, Master?"

"Don't call me Master.  Because, once somebody starts the music

up, this system's never going to be the same again."

"Then we must go now, Master.  Duttes Mer is using the Harp.

That's what the earthquake's all about."

xx UNLIKE A Flc-riONAL villain, Duttes Mer hadn't gloated or

divulged his plans to the beaten Lando Cahissian.  He'd simply had him

disposed of, as quickly and neatly as possible.

Where he'd made his mistake-his first one, anyway-was in his

attitude toward menials.  Toka servants were virtually invisible to

him@nks and cigars simply appeared near his elbow, and that, he

thought, was as it should be.  He was the governor, after all.  Droids

were even more invisible.

So Vuffi Raa had stood in plain sight in the governor's Office as

he made a transspace call to Rokur Gepta.

"Ahhh, it is you, my esteemed sorcerer.  I have some news."

"What is it, Met?  It had better be good!"

"Are you enjoying your stay in orbit around a dried-up desert

planet?"

"My ship is far more comfortable than that heap of bricks you call

a city.  Get on with it, Governor, you're beginning to anger me!"

The governor reached for the pickup on his communicator,

AND I THE MINDHARP OF SHARU 137

pulled it out on a retracting cable, and pointed it at the top of

his desk.  "See anything you recognize, Gepta?"

In the screen, the sorcerer's eyes were filled, by turn, with

wonder, greed, and rage.  "The Mindharp!  How did you@' The governor

chuckled.  "It only matters that I did, Gepta, and that you're millions

of kilometers from here.  You see, that story you told Calri I

ssian-that the Harp is the 'Ultimate Instrument of Music'-may have been

good enough for him, but the story you told me about its being a master

control over all the Toka never washed.  Such a thing would be

commercially useful, but this," he indicated the Harp, "is much, much

more than that."

"What do you mean, Met?"

"I am capable of hiring investigators, too, my dear former

partner, and I took the wisest course: hiring yours.  Recall that I

have the power to commute sentences, order pardons.  I know the truth:

that the Mindharp of Sharu is an instrument capable of controlling

every mind within the system-possibly beyond it.  And the instrument is

mine!"

"Don't try it, Met, you don't know what you're doing!"

Panic was evident in the sorcerer's voice.

"On the contrary, my dear@' "NO!  You don't understand!  The

Mindharp will-" The governor smiled benignly.  "It will give me

absolute power, even over you.  I suggest that, if you don't want to

feel that power, you turn your ship out of orbit and leave my system.

That may buy you a few years, at least."

"MerI'll warn you once more: you don't have the knowledge to

safely@' Click.

When the opportunity arose-which wasn't until the middle of the

night-Vuffi Raa crept from the governor's offices, stole a uniform from

the guard laundries, jump-wired a police cruiser in the maintenance

yard, and went off to rescue Lando.

"Well, I appreciate it, Vuffi Raa, old criminal, but I trust

you'll understand the residue of skepticism that remains within me.

They were whisking back into town at a moderate, legal, and

inconspicuous velocity.  They had felt several more tremors, but

nothing like that first quake.

"I understand," Vuffi Raa acknowledged, "and I suppose telling you

I was programmed to betray you is much the same as a human being's

saying he couldn't help himself Well, I came to rescue you by way of

restitution."

Lando thought about that.  "Very well, and just to show you my

good faidi, you might as well know that Rokur Gepta and Duttes Mer are

both wrong about the Mindharp."

Vuffi Raa brought the car to a screeching halt as they neared the

outskirts of Teguta Lusat.  "What?"

"That's correct.  And we've got to get out to the port, steal

something that will get us out of the system, but fast."

"Master, I agree about getting out.  You don't want your mind

controlled, especially by a being like the governor- i@' believe me, I

know.  But if they're wrong .

"It will be worse, Vuffi Raa.  My only regret is leaving the

Falcon on Rafa V" "Master, four months have passed.  Mer had the Falcon

brought back.  It's cargo of life-crystals hasn't even been unloaded,

because until we reappeared in Teguta Lusat, Gupta and Mer didn't know

if they might have to bargain more with you.

"What?  Why didn't you tell me?  He didn't think to have her

drives repaired, did beT' After a long pause, the droid replied, "No,

Master, I did that, the first thing on the way to Rafa V."

Lando didn't say anything.  If he'd realized the extent of the

droid's housekeeping back then, they might have taken off and skipped

the last four months inside the Sharu ruins.  "Well," he said

irritably, "let's get out to the port!"

"Yes, Master."

Aboard the decommissioned cniiser Wennis, leaving orbit from Rafa

V, a decision had been made.  Rokur Gepta lay ' in a special

acceleration couch, being strapped up for the voyage ahead of him.  The

vessel in the lifeboat bay was not a lifeboat, but an elderly Imperial

fighter, refitted as a scout.  It could make the trip to Rafa IV in a

third the time of its parent vessel.

If the occupant could stand the G-forces involved.

The safety precautions were primarily for the benefit of the crew,

Gepta reflected.  He didn't need them, but it was dangerous for them to

know that.  As the last strap and bit of tape was m place and the port

clamped down, he relaxed, waited for the tick, and didn't stir a hair

when @st that might have seriously injured a mere human being passed

harmlessly through his body.

He'd be in Teguta Lusat within an hour.

Duttes Mer looked down at the Mindharp on his desk, afraid to try

again, but desperate to master the weird thing be ore Gepta could return

and take it from him.  He had no Ilusions.

If he couldn't control that mind, along with millions of others,

he was doomed.  He placed his short, square hand on the central shaft

of the Harp again, suppressed a wave of fear, and tried to concentrate.

"Master!

Vuffi Raa clung to the steering tiller as the road tried to shake

them off its back like a wet dog.  Lando grabbed the ends of a seat

belt, tried to fasten them together as the police car pitched and

swayed.

"This is no good!"  he shouted, finally giving up the effort.

"Look, let's make a run for it!"

The spaceport gates were only a few hundred meters away, and they

were traveling twice that distance weaving back and forth across the

road.  Lando slammed the door open, rolled out, got to his feet, and

ran toward the gate.  Vuffi Raa, right behind him, took no time at all

to catch up.

A guard, well away from his swaying guardpos@ was standing in the

gateway.  He aimed a blaster at Lando.

"Halt!  Looters will be shot!"

"I'm not a looter," Lando hollered as he approached the guard.

Both were pretty busily occupied just staying on their feet.  "I'm

the captain of that ship over there, the Millennium Falcon, and I've

got to get her off before she breaks up with everything else on this

planet!"

The blaster came up to Lando's eye level.  "That ship's under the

governor's seal.  You can't@' Lando stepped closer.  The guard fired,

but, swaying as he was, succeeded only in burning a shnib across the

road.  By that time, Lando was close enough to seize the weapon, push

it upward, punch the other man in the solar plexus with his fist.

Flexible armor is for bullets and energy beams.  It's no

protection at all against an unarmed man.  The guard folded.

Lando took his gun away, added it to the weapon he'd taken at the

labor camp.

"Let's go!"

They ran toward the Falcon, and, as they approached it, the

boarding ramp swung downward slowly, as if in welcome.

Cautiously, Lando and Vuffi Raa walked up the inclined plane.

At the top, still aged and wrinkled, but sporting a stylish

haircut and expensive business suit, stood Mohs, High Singer of the

Toka.  Where his ruined eyes had been now glittered a pair of faceted

multicolored optics like those of a giant psychedelic spider.

Duttes Mer glared resentfully at the alien object on his desk.

Twice, now, following the mental procedure conveyed to him by

Gepta's captive sociologists, he had tried to gain control of the

Mindharp, and thusHe slammed his hand down on the desk, making the

object jump.  He didn't want to try again; all it seemed to do was

cause quakes that threatened to tear his administration building apart.

Why that should be, he didn't know, but he knew one thing: Rokur

Gepta was coming.

The spaceport radar people had confirmed it, just before the

communications lines had gone dead.  A small, extremely fast craft was

no more than twenty minutes from landfall.  Mer suspected that Gepta

didn't need the port facilities; there was a wide flat space atop the

adn-finistration building.  It would do nicely forHe hit the

annunciator button.  "Give me the Captain of the Guard!"

At first there was no answer.  Then a terrified secretary told

him, "Sir, the guard contingent has left the building because of the

tremors.  I was about to go, myself.  I-" "If you leave, I'll have you

shot.  Summon those four men who went to Rafa XI.  They're under house

arrest here in the building.  Tell them to get up on the roof and-never

mind, I'll tell them myself!"

Once more, he looked upon the Mindharp.  It had better work this

time.

Rokur Gepta was'coming.

"You will pardon my dramatic appearance, Captain Calrissian," Mohs

said as he ushered them around the curving corridor toward the Falcon's

cockpit, "but things are beginning to happen, and I am too busy to be

anything but dramatic."

"I know," Lando said, throwing himself into the left-hand seat.

He flipped a couple of switches and helped Vuffi ' Raa through the

preflight checklist.  It was a long list, much too long for comfort.

"I know everything-but I'm in something of a hurry myself right

now."

Mohs looked puzzled, then relaxed and grinned.  "Ah, yes.

You put the pieces together.  All my life I was the instrument of

my ancestors, given orders-the Voices of the Godswhisked thither and

yon at Their bidding.  It was terrifying to the savage that I was, for

example, to brush near an ancient wall, as I did that night in Teguta

Lusat, and appear an instant later, leagues away, amidst a gathering of

my people.  I apologize also for vanishing from the tunnel; its purpose

was elementary education, you see, and I matriculated and went on to

higher things."  He absently ran a fingertip over his bizarre eyes.

"The decision was made for me, and l@' "Had no choice about it?"

Lando asked.  He looked at Vuffi Raa.  "There's a lot of that going

around.

What in heaven's name is that red light on the life-support panel!

Here, let's override@' "You are in no danger," Mohs smiled.  "The

two of you helped me, and now I shall help you.  We mean you no harm."

"Swell.  Can you fend off the governor and his friend the

sorcerer?"

"I can tell you that the governor is alone, trying to use the

Mindharp, while Gepta is on his way from Rafa V. He ought to be down

any minutes but he won't be coming to the spaceport. Lando turned to

look at the old man, no longer bent and wizened.  He was still old, but

it lent him dignity and authority now.

The tattoo of the Key-the Mindharp, Lando realized-was darker now,

stood out more sharply on the old man's forehead.

It practically glowed.

"Are there any more like you?"  Lando asked.

"No, Captain, I am the only one.  I am all there ever was, of my

generation.  The burden was to be passed on next year, but here I am."

"Master, what are you talking aboutt' "Quiet, Vuffi Raa.  Watch

the temperature in that reactor!"

"I assure you, Captain, everything is under control.  You'd

realize that, if you truly know our secrets."

"I know your secrets, Mohs, believe me.  There never were any

pre-Republican colonists here, right?"

"That is correct, Captain."

"But what are you saying, Master?  If@' "Nor were there really any

Toka.  Or would that be tellingt' "Minter-" "Quiet!  You people are the

Sharu.  It's written all over your walls inside the pyramid.  You're

humanoid and very, very advanced.  I don't know what scared you into

this masqueradeand I'm willing to bet you don't either!"

"Master, will you please exp@n@' "All right, all right.  Mohs will

correct me over the rough spots.  I hardly understand contemporary

Tramniic, let alone an ancient-and thoroughly synthetic-version.  But

this is the gist: something pretty scary threatened the Sharu.

Something that liked to eat hyperadvanced cultures but that

wouldn't bother with savages.

"So, a vast computer system was created.  that's all the socalled

ruins in the system.  The Sharu, before the threat, lived in cities not

terribly different from our own, and they're probably concealed beneath

the monumental architecture tooalong with the intelligence of the

Sharu.  Hand me that checklist a moment."

"Very good, Captain, very good."

"You bet it's good.  The life-orchards weren't created to increase

intelligence or longevity.  They were created to suck it away from the

population.  I'll bet three-quarters of everybody's mind on the planet

is stored inside that pyramid and other buildings like it.  That's so

succeeding generations would be disguised as savages, too.  But, when

the crystals were separated from the trees by the colonists, the things

absorbed small amounts of intelligence and life-force from the ambient

environment, then fed them back to whoever wore the crystal-an

accidental and unlooked-for effect."

The old man nodded.  "The colonists' harvesting did no harm.

What was of real value was stored in the buildings."

"The buildings," Lando continued, "may be the biggest computer

system ever created.  When this colony was founded, the computer

searched our records, came up with a missing pre-Republican colony

ship, and decided to use that as a cover story.  The Sharu-reduced to

mere Tokahood-were poor savage brutes, 'broken' by their experience

with the n-dghty Sharu.

"I just couldn't swallow it.  What were the Sharu afraid olp.

How could they be so mighty, and yet-" "I still don't know the

answer to that, Captain.  it was expunged from the records, out of

sheer terror, I think.  It womes me. "It ought to.  Ready, Vuffi

Raa?"

"I think so, Master.  Yes, we're ready."

Another tremor rocked the ship.

"Mer's trying to use the Harp again.  Boy, will he be

disappointed.  It's a trap, isn't it, Mohs?"

"I'm afraid so," the old man admitted gravely.  'The legends were

spread among my people in order to entice members of another

intelligence species into finding and using the Harp.

That way, we'd know that it was safe to come out of hiding."

"Your giant computer system will regurgitate all those smarts it's

been storing for thousands of years, the covers will be stripped off

your cities-there's going to be a good deal of earth-moving around

here, isn't there?"

"All over the system."

"And when the dust clears, the Sharu will be back in control.

Well, considering the governor and the nature of the colony here,

it can't happen too soon for me.  We're leaving.

Better jump off, Mohs.  I'd say it's been nice to know you, but I

hate being used, by governors, sorcerers, or representatives of

sen-filost civilizations."

Rokur Gepta swept down upon the governor's office building.  As

he'd expected, guards were posted all over the miniature landing field.

He cleared them away with a burst of the craft's blasters and set

down lightly amid the smoking remains.  The ground trembled again, and

this time it didn't stop.  Gepta hurried down to the penthouse office.

He thrust the doors aside and walked into a burst of radiance.

Gepta was thrown against the corridor wall as energy streamed out

all around him.  He squinted his eyes, employed certain other

protections, and gazed briefly at the governor's desk.

The Mindharp of Sharu shone far too brightly to be looked upon,

even by the sorcerer.  Behind it, his fat hands wrapped around the

base, stood the governor, his mouth and eyes opened wide, frozen,

paralyzed.

And doomed.

Even as Gepta watched, both governor and Harp began to melt, to

fuse, showering the room and hall with deadly radiation.  He regained

his feet and ran back up as the earth tremors redoubled.

It was a scene from hell.  All around, as far as the horizon, the

giant forms left by the Sharu were shifting, fusing, melting like the

Harp or, occasionally, detonating rather spectacularly.

Something else was rising from the rubble, something Gepta didn't

want to see.

He leaped into his scoutship but neatly tumbled it off the roof

before he got it properly airborne.  Ahead, toward the spaceport, an

ungainly crustacean-shaped object lifted from the runway.

Gepta cursed.

He heeled the fighter around, then aimed it straight for the

Millennium Falcon.  Closing, closing, he laid a thumb on the firing

stud, his crosshairs on the unsuspecting freighter.

Two things happened.

Aboard the Falcon, another thumb rode another stud.  Energy

streaked toward the fighter Vuffi Raa had noticed landing on the roof.

The Falcon's radar was good, and they'd both been alert against

flying debris.

I may not be much of a pilot yet, but I can shoot, Lando thought.

Almost simultaneously, a small obelisk of Sharu manufacture

exploded beneath Gepta's fighter, driving fragments into the small

craft.  The explosion staggered the scout, disabling it but throwing it

from the path of Lando's beam.

Seconds later, Rokur Gepta clambered from the wreckage as the

Millennium Falcon soared away, safe, and with a precious load: the last

life-crystals ever to be harvested in the Rafa System.  Lando would be

very, very rich.

Gepta shook a fist at the departing ship.

Someday ...

LANDO CALRISSIAN AND THE FLAmEwIND OF OSEON

And this book is
dedicated to J. Neil Schulman and Victor Koman, a pair of cards if

there ever was one.

HE WAS SLIGHTLY over a meter tall, from the faceted wide-angle
lens glowing redly atop his highly polished pentagonal body to the fine

feathery tips of his chromium-plated tentacles.

Of these, there were five, which he felt was as it should be.

After all, hadn't he been created in the image of his

manufacturers?

He thought of himself as Vuffi Raa, an unsentimental designation

from a different numbering system and a different language, half a

galaxy ago.  It served well enough as a name.

At the moment, he was in a hurry.

The tree-lined Esplanade of Oseon 6845 was a broad, jungly,

cobblestoned thoroughfare built exclusively for pedestrian traffic, no

matter what the individual sentient's personal means of locomotion.  It

was equipped with an artificial gravity field three meters deep to

accommodate the most attenuated of species.  It was lined on both sides

with elegantly restrained shops to accommodate the very richest.

It has been said that the commercial footage along the domed

Esplanade of Oseon 6845 is the most expensive in the known universe.

And that the patrons strolling its landscaped and sculptured

kilometers are the wealthiest.  Vuffi Raa didn't know about that@ rare

failing of information on his part.  In the first place, he hadn't the

appropriate statistics ready to hand (in a manner of speaking).  And if

compelled to base his.  opinion on an n of one-the single case with

which he was intimately familiar-he'd have had to hold the opposite was

true.

Not everybody there was rich.  Not everybody there had come to buy

and sell.

Which conclusion neatly brought his musings back around to the

reason for his present urgency: his current master, latest of what had

been, until recently, an embarrassingly lengthy list of thoroughly

dissatisfied customers.

Freebie-reeep!

From the heavily planted median on the Esplanade, an entity that

might have been a songbird warbled noisily in what may have been a

bush, momentarily distracting the little robot.  You could never tell.

In the plush, cosmopolitan resort, the creature doing the singing

might well be a photosynthetic vegetable attempting to attract pollen

carriers, and the foliage it perched in, a soil-rooted animal.  The

entire Oseon System was like that, a rich-man's playground, cleverly

intended by those who had ordained its construction to be full of

surprises.

But then, so was life itself Their very presence in this

overstuffed watering hole, his and his master's, was ample testimony to

that.

Vuffi Raa forced his jumbled thoughts back into relevant channels.

He was a Class Two droid, with intellectual and emotional

capacities roughly equaling those of organic sapients.  And an

uncorrected tendency in his programming to let his mind wander and to

mix his metaphors on occasion.  It was a price he paid for being one

of the rare machines abroad with an imagination.

At the moment, it was a luxury he couldn't afford.  He held the,

blackened evidence before his eye again as a renlinder.  It was a

fist-sized chunk of scorched metal and fused silicon.  A few hours ago,

it had been a neutrino hybridizer, a delicate and critical component in

the sub-lightspeed drive of a certain class and vintage of starship.

Now it looked like a niicrocredit's worth of asteroid

rm'netailings.

Unconscious of a gesture he had acquired from long association

with human beings, Vuffi Raa raised his free tentacle to scratch at the

upper portion of his five-sided torso-the closest thing he had to a

head.  The little droid was pentadextrous, having no preference as to

which of his five sinuous limbs he used for getting around on, which he

used for holding, carrying, or manipulating objects.  Such as

treacherous lumps of recently molten quartz and platinum.

A well-rounded, versatile, and radially symmetrical fellow was

Vuffi Raa.

And a very worried one.

lEs brisk but absentminded pace carried him past a leafshaded

decorative pond where something between a green mammal and a small

many-joinied insect dabbled a lineactually an extension of its right

front leg-into half a meter of water.  There was a modest ripple, a

splash, then a snap!  The creature reeled in a tiny, colorful fish,

devouring it on the spot and spitting the bones back into the water.

Vuffi Raa never even noticed.

At long last he reached the expensively decorated surface of the

exclusive Hotel Drofo.  With a brotherly salute, entrance Vuffi Raa

strode past the door-being, a robot painted in the garish gold and

purple livery of the establishment, and went directly to one of the

eight down-shafts leading into the hotel proper.

On an asteroid, even one like Oseon 6845, and even where a

first-rate hotel is concerned, surface area comes dear.  Volume is

cheap.

Selecting LOBBY on the miniature display beside the entrance to

the down-shaft, he waited for the elevator to take his measure, then

fell-"drifted" might be a better word-at a fraction of the augmented

surface acceleration of the asteroid gently downward several dozen

meters, coming at last to a cushioned rest at the bottom of the shaft.

He stepped out into the whispery bustle of the underground hotel.

Plenty of other droids were in evidence, mingling freely with the

humans, humanoids, and nonhumans present.  Most of the automata here

were in service of one sort or another; they were unusually conspicuous

in their number and visibility.

The galaxy over, robots were the object of harsh and persistent

prejudice.  The Oseon was different, however.  Cynics pointed out that

neither its current inhabitants nor their ancestors were ever Rely to

have worried much about losing a job.

The place was filled with exiled and vacationing nobility.

Captains of industry, active and retired, gravitated here, along

with majors, colonels, and generals.  Mercantile-and literalpirates who

had purchased themselves a little class, sometimes from that selfsame

deposed aristocracy, rubbed shoulders and less human body parts with

media stars from a million different systems.

The little droid knew the man he was seeking would be in one of

the small, comfortably furnished gan-dng salons just off the Grand

Lobby, here on the first, or bottom, floor.  Finding the room wouldn't

be any problem, but getting in might be.

Gamblers tended to be jealous of their priv I acy.  He

"shouldered" his way through the richly dressed crowd, thinking about

the news he had for his master-and how very reluctant he was to deliver

it.

A human being can only stand so much bad news.

It had begun with an adventure.  His master had won a starship-a

small converted freighter, actually, called the Millennium Falcon-in

yet another card game, and had whimsically decided to add "captain" to

his other professional titles: gwnbler, rogue, and scoundrel.  He was

proud of every one of them, though he preferred "con artiste" to what

the authorities usually had upon the tips of their sharp and

unforgiving tongues.

He'd been a perfectly terrible pilot in the beginning.  Vuffi Raa,

an accomplished ship-handler by virtue of inbuilt programming, was

gradually taking care of that in two ways: piloting the Falcon when the

need arose; teaching his master to do it for himself whenever they had

time.

He'd won Vuffi Raa in a card game, as well.  That had triggered a

series of events that culminated with their leaving the Rafa System

with the very last full cargo of the fabulous lifecrystals ever

harvested there.  The only load ever removed from the system legally by

a private cargo vessel.

And they were rich.

Temporarily.

Yet his master hadn't seemed very happy, filling out

landing-pennit forms, going over bills of lading, figuring overhead and

profit margin.  Even with Vuffi Raa along to make the workload lighter

... It was too much like going straight.  The gambler yearned to

practice his original profession once again.

Thus, when the invitation had suddenly arrived out of nowhere to

come and play sabacc in the Oseon, where the pickings were the richest

in the galaxy, the pair's free-lance cargo days had come to an abrupt

and highly welcome end.  They'd blazed across a hundred parsecs to be

here on time.  The Falcon's speed, in competent tentacles, was

legendary.  And here they were.

Trouble was, someone had attempted to assure that they be not only

here, but also back in the Rafa, out on the Edge, down at the Core, and

everyplace else tiny little pieces of their respectively organic and

mechanical existences could be scattered.

That someone, it would appear, didn't like them very much.

Vuffi Raa approached the heavy antiqued wooden double doors.

Standing before these was an enormous humanoid in an

JIL

elegantly tailored groundsuit at least four sizes too large for

any other two men in the hotel.  Beneath the hulking fellow's stylish

armpits the robot could make out the twin bulges of a pair of

Imperial-issue blasters.

"Excuse me, gentlebeing," offered the little droid, "I have a

message for one of the players inside."  He produced a card his master

had given him for use in just such a circumstances To Vuffi Raa's

overwhelming relief, the bouncer/bodyguard looked at the holocard as

the letters of instruction danced across its surface, nodded politely,

and stepped aside.  The doors parted slightly; Vuffi Raa squeezed past

them.

The air inside the small, luxurious chamber was full of smoke, at

least a dozen different, mingling odors, despite the best efforts of

its starship-class life-support systems.  In the center, seated at a

table ringed with players and kibitzers, lounged his master,

resplendent in tasteful and expensive velvoid sen-dformal shipclothes.

The robot approached, waiting until the hand was finishedhis

master raked in a substantial pile of credit tokens-then tugged gently

at the hem of his short cloak.

"Master?"

The figure turned, looked down.  White teeth in a dark face,

irresistible smile, intelligent and mischievous eyes.

"What is it, Vuffi Raa-and how many times have I asked you not to

call me master?"

They were both whispering against a noisy background.

The droid held up the oddly shaped clump of debris for his

master's inspection.  "There wasn't any spontaneous breakdown in the

phase-shift controls aboard the Falcon, Master.

I'm afraid you were right, that this makes two such incidents."

His master nodded grimly.  "So it was a bomb."

"Yes, Master, someone is trying to murder you."

LANDO CALRISSIAN SHOOK his head ironically and grinned.
He had good reason.  His first evening in the Oseon, his first

sabacc game, and already he was ahead some twenty-three thousand

credits.

The dashing young gambler stood, dressed impeccably at an hour

when most people were rumpled and tired, before a fulllength mirror,

stroking the brand-new mustache he'd begun only a few weeks ago, when

things looked so much bleaker.

Yes, by the Core, it did give him a certain panache, a certain

elan, a certain ...

And without filling out so much as a single form in triplicate (if

that was logically possible)-his mind was drifting back again to the

money tucked into the pockets of his velvoid sen-iiforinals-without

acquiring a permit, easement, license, variance, or Certificate of

Mother-May-1.

Here was one fat bankroll that wasn't going to evaporate when he

wasn't watching it!

What added amusement to triumph was that sabacc was a game

considerably more complex and infinitely riskier than the

entrepreneurship he'd been attempting since he'd acquired the

Millennium Falcon.  It called for quicker judgment, greater courage,

and a more sophisticated understanding of human (in a broadly tolerant

manner of speaking) nature.

So why was he so casually accomplished at the former and so

miserably rotten at the latter?

He shrugged to himself, crossed the hotel room from the door he'd

closed and locked securely not very many moments before.

Let's see-just the most recent example.  He'd won the Falcon and

Vuffi Raa, then proceeded to cam a handsome fee (work he'd been coerced

into doing) that, by all rights, ought to have set him up for life.

Orchard crystals from the Rafa System had never been cheap to

begin with.  Humanoids who wore them found their life spans extended,

their intelligence somewhat enhanced.  They were both valuable and

rare.

They grew in only one place in the universe.

Lando had known, when he and the hot had quit the Rafa, that there

would be no more life-crystals, at least for a while.

The colonial government there had been overthrown by insurgent

natives.  Thus, he'd held out for the highest possible prices.  Yet,

somehow, the money-several millions-had seemed to disappear before his

very eyes, eaten up in spacecraft maintenance, docking charges, taxes,

surtaxes, sursurtaxes, and bribes.  Every time he closed a deal, no

matter what margin he'd built in at the beginning, he wound up losing.

It didn't seem sensible: the more money he earned, the poorer he

became.

If he got any richer, he'd be broke.

Perhaps he simply hadn't been playing in the right league.

One of the rules of this new game (new to Lando, anyway) was that

they didn't tell you the rules until it was too late.  His figurative

hat was off to anyone who could survive in the world of business, let

alone prosper.

A small noise in the next room alerted him.  He peeked in: Vuffi

Raa was laying out tomorrow's wardrobe for him.  He'd told the little

fellow a hundred times that it wasn't necessary.

He needed no valet, and long ago had begun thinking robot as a

friend more than anything else.  But exactly like a good friend (or

consummate servant), the droid understood the gambler's need for some

time alone without conversation, while he unwound from the evening's

tense preoccupations.

Lando suspected that Vuffi Raa actually wanted to discuss the bomb

he'd discovered-the second since their last planetfall.

Well, morning was time enough for that.  He closed the connecting

door softly and returned to his private thoughts.

A second irony struck him as he watched the bed turn itself down.

He shucked out of his dressy bantha-hide knee boots and reclined,

one foot dangling over the edge of the bed to the floor.

The very individuals who had prospered most, either at legitimate

businesses like freight hauling, or shadier ones such as smuggling (the

avocation, in fact, for which the Falcon had originally been

constructed), those who had made their way to the top, lived here in

the Oseon, where one Lando Cahissian, a dismal failure by their

standards, experienced little difficulty at all separating them from

their hard-won money.

It was their own fault.  They'd invited him ...

Fire streaked from the starboard weapons turret of the Millennium

Falcon.

In desperate haste, Lando swung the quad-guns down and to the left

as the drone squadron whooshed by, their own energyguns coloring the

misted space around the freighter.

"Missed!  Vuffi Raa, hold her a little steadier!"

The ship ducked and swooped, narrowly avoiding being skewered in a

cross fire as the drone fighters split up, attacking from both sides.

"Master there are too many of-good shooting, sir!"

The little droid's voice issued from an intercom beside Lando's

ear.  The gambler made an imaginary chalk mark on a purely mental

scoreboard, manhandling the guns around for another shot.  The drone

he'd splattered was an incandescent and expanding ball of dust and gas,

augmenting an already dirty region of space.

Anyone else might have whooped!  victoriously.

Lando ftimed in the transparent gun-bubble.

All right, so it had been his idea to shortcut through this small

nebulosity on the way to the next port.  Blast it all, he was carrying

valuable, somewhat perishable cargo.  Crates of wintenberry jelly.

Stacks of mountain bollem hides.  Expensive tinklewood fishing

rods.

In short, the produce of a frontier planet.  His corner-cutting

could save them precious days, compared to routes preferred by

scheduled cargo haulers.

The shields pulsed with coruscating brilliance.  They were taking

hits again!

He slewed the quad-guns hard, pressed the double triggers.

Bolts of ravening energy rammed directly into a pair of tiny

unmanned fighters screan-dng toward the ship.  One exploded, the other,

severely damaged, cork-screwed crazily out of Lando's line of vision.

Vuffi Raa rolled the ship, skated into a wild, stomachwrenching

yaw, adroitly avoiding a direct hit.  They were a good team together,

Lando thought.

Besides, it wasn't much as nebulosities go.  Even deep inside the

scruffy patch of gas, a few molecules every cubic meter produced very

little visible clouding.  They did slow a ship down, however, making it

dangerous to use the faster-thanlight drive.  That's probably why the

regular lines avoided the place.  But Lando, calculating distance over

time, had figured that, even at a substantial reduction from

lightspeed, they'd still gain time and profit thereby.

He'd been wrong.

Six more meter-diameter drones bore directly for his turret.

The enemy seemed to have an endless supply.  Lando caught a glance

of their mother vessel, a pirate lying off and directing the attack in

relative safety.  She was approximately four times the displacement of

the Falcon, clumsily built, a large sphere attached to a slightly

smaller cylinder, the whole awkward assembly patched and mottled by

hard use and long neglect.

He could imagine half a hundred crew-beings, hunched over their

drone panels in a dimly lit control center.  They were probably as

broke and desperate as he was.

Waiting until the last possible moment, he let loose all four

barrels on maxium power and dispersal.  Lights dimmed aboard the

Falcon.  Two saucer-shaped drones blossomed into fireballs, the third

was holed severely.  The fourth, fifth, and sixth zoomed over his head

in ragged formation, past the gun-blister, and out of his visual range

before he could tell what he'd done to them.  He released the triggers.

Full illumination sprang forth again.

Nebulosities were good for hiding spaceships.  The gas, dust, and

ions, the magnetic and static fields made a hash of longrange sensor

instrumentation.  That's they'd woun up in this confounded"Vuffi Raa!"

Lando shouted suddenly.  "Close on the pirate herself!  I've had

enough of this.  Give me a pass at her reaction-drive system!"

"Very well, Master" There was doubt in the robot's doubly

electronic voice-not concenung Lando's combat abilities.  Quite the

contrary.  It was simply that the droid's most ftindeanental

programming forbade him to take the life of a mechanical or organic

sapient being.

He was straining his cybernetic ethics severely even now, conning

a fighting ship.  Yet strain them he did.

In a long, graceful arc with a little flip on the end, the Falcon

soared toward the pirate, taking her by surprise.  A few guns warmed

up feebly-too late@ their startled operators switched attention from

remote-control panels to fire-control systems.  The tiny flying weapons

might be adequate against an unarmed freighter or a pleasure yacht

that stumbled into the cloud, but they hadn't been conceived or built

for mortal engagement with a vessel like the Falcon, half pirate ship

herself and bristling with more guns than her crew could handle all at

once.

Trusting his ship's shields, Lando bore down upon the quadgun,

drilling its quadniple high-power bemns at the reactiondrive outlet at

the far end of the pirate's spherical section.

Once again the Falcon's interior lights dimmed, and for the first

time, it occurred to Lando that his heavy trigger finger was costing

something..However, the enemy's thrust tubes were beginning to glow.

First red, they quickly became orangeyellow.  They'd been molded

to withstand heat and pressure right enough, but not from the outside

in.

Suddenly, a starburst appeared in space between him and the

pirate.

"Good shooting, Master You got another one!"

"Nonsense, I didn't even-Great Merciful Heavens!"

All around them, balls of fiery gas stood out against the starry

background.  The drone fleet was destroying itself!  The pirate

swiveled on her center of gravity, glowed savagely from her own

internal fires, and streaked away.

At the extreme end of her flight line, toward the edge of the

nebulosity, Lando could make out the flash as she shifted into

faster-than-light.  It was a deadly risk even so; they must be

frightened badly.

"Well, well!  Stand down from Battle Stations," he informed his

mechanical partner, 111,11 be up to the cockpit in a n-dnute.  Put some

coffeine on, will you?  And by the way, Vuffi Raa .  .

He unstrapped himself from the gun-chair webbing, turning his

captain's hat-the one with all the golden braid-around the right way,

and zipped his shipsuit up a couple of inches.

"Yes, Master?"

"Don't call me Master!"

Stepping into the broadly curving main corridor, Lando passed the

sublight-drive area of the Millennium Falcon.  As if sprouting from the

floor, there stood a tapered chromium snakelike entity, about a meter

long, tending the control panel.

At its slenderest end, it branched into five slim, delicate

"fingers" that twisted knobs and adjusted slide-switches.  In the

center of the "Palm," Lando knew, was a small glassy red eyespot.

Farther along, where a cluster of instruments comprised the radar

and other detection devices, another metallic serpent stood watch.

There were three more like it elsewhere in the ship, giving

attention to sensitive areas that could not be handled from the cockpit

monitors.

Up front, Lando flopped into the left-hand seat, a pridepreserving

. concession tacitly made between himself and the real pilot of the

vessel.  It lay in the other seat, a pentagonshaped slab of bright

silvery-colored metal and electronics.  A large lens pulsed redly at

the top.  The object was strapped down firmly to the seat.  One of the

"snakes" hovered over an instrument panel, half a meter away.

"Vuffi Raa, you've got to pull yourself together," Lando chuckled,

fumbling under the panel.  He brought out a slim cigar and lit it,

eyeing the armless, legless contraption next to him and waiting for a

reaction.  Outside, the fog began to disperse as their own reaction

drives brought them to the margin of the nebulosity.  Was he imagining

things, or was the plastic window transparency slightly pitted?  More

dust in the region than he'd calculated-and another expensive repair.

The snake floated downward, attached itself to one flat side of

the pentagon, and waggled at the gambler.  "Master, that wasn't funny

thefirst hundred times you said it."  Vuffi Raa began unstrapping his

torso from the copilot's seat, one-tentacled.

From the passageway outside, another snake drifted in, settled in

the chair, and linked itself, becoming the second of Vuffi Raa's limbs

to rejoin his body.  Lando looked over the ship's instrumentation, and

his glow of combative satisfaction evaporated completely.

"By the Edge!  Look at those power-consumption gauges' Those

quad-guns are expensive to shoot!  We would have used less power going

the long way around!"

It was a hell of a note, Lando thought, when even defeating a band

of pirates had to be calculated on the balance sheet.

And at a loss.

"We'll be lucky to break even on this load, do you realize that?"

Regaining yet a third tentacle, the robot refrained diplomatically

from pointing out that he'd opposed the shortcut in the first place.

He hadn't known exactly why.  The big, regularly scheduled

companies avoided the route although it took parsees and whole days off

the run, exactly as Lando had insisted.

On the other hand, big, regularly scheduled companies seldom

attempted anything new or daring-which was what always made the future

so bright for newer, smaller companies.

Now, between the star-fog and the pirates it concealed, both of

the partners knew what was wrong with the nebulosity.

Fourth and fifth manipulators in place, Vuffi Raa cautiously

punched up the interstellar drive.  The stars stretched into attenuated

blurs and vanished.

Yet, none of that explained what was wrong with Dilonexa X-Xlll.

"FISHING POLES?"

The customs agent was a small man with wiry arms and legs, knobbly

knuckles.  He was dressed, like everybody else on that self-consciously

agrarian planet, in bib overalls.  in his case, they were made of a

deep green satyn, heavily creased.

His shiny pink scalp shone through a field of close-cropped gray

stubble.

"You gotta be kidding, Mac!  In the first place, there ain't a

body of water on the planet bigger'n a bathtub; we don't like to spare

the land.  In the second place, nobody here has any time for fishing.

An' in the third place, the native fish taste terrible-lacka trace

metals or something."

The sun of the Dilonexa System (a catalog number Lando didn't

remember and hadn't bothered asking Vuffi Raa about as they'd made

their approach) was a gigantic blue-white furnace.  The twenty-two

planets nearest it were great places to get a suntan.  In a couple of

microseconds.

The outer seventeen were iceboxes.

But the planet in the middle, at least in the view of its early

col I onists, made it all worthwhile.  It was large, nearly twenty-five

thousand kilometers in diameter, composed mostly of the lighter

elements, which gave it a surface gravity not too unreasonable.  Nearly

everything of metal had to be shipped in.

But Dilonexa XXIII was rich, an agricultural world whose fields

stretched unimaginable distances around its surface, providing

foodstuffs, plastics, combustible fuel@verything with an organic base.

Its inhabitants, fat farmers and their fatter families, had

acquired a taste for some of the finer things in life.

"ch was why Lando had brought his valuable, somewhat perishable

cargo there.

He shook his head ruefully as he watched the Dilonexan ground crew

put fuel elements into the Falcon where it rested on the feffocrete

apron-and gaping wounds in his credit account.

"Well, then, how about the jelly and the hides?  Surely@' "Had a

second cousin once named Shirley," the little man explained, scratching

a mole under his chin and squinting up at the cloudless sky as if in

aid to memory.  "Tried that wintenberry stuff you're haulm'.  Broke

down with the gallopin' gosharooties.  Too many trace minerals for a

fourth-generation colonist.  We gotta watch what we eat, us

Dilonexicans, that's a fact."

Lando shook his head again; it was getting to be a habit.

"But look here, Inspector, l@' "Call me Bernie.  You wouldn't

happen t'have a cigar on you?"

The gambler visualized the big chest of cigars in his safe aboard

the Falcon.  "Even if I did, they'd be from Rafa IV, a place just lousy

with heavy metals.  Probably kill you.  What about the leather, then?

I have a hold full of beautifully furtanned hides, and@' The

wizened customs officer interrupted Lando again, this time with an

upraised hand.  He pointed toward the prairie that surrounded them.

Lando knew that virtually the entire globe was plains just like the

scenery he saw now.  He also knew that city-sized tornados swept,

unimpeded, around the planet's circumference-that is, they had until

gigantic weather-control satellites had been installed.  Their potent,

tornado-destroying energy-weaponry also made it impossible to smuggle on

or off the planet-or to get away with unpaid bills.

"%Vhaddya see out there, Mac?  A zillion acres of grain crop,

that's what.  We can't eat it, but the native bovines can, an, we can

eat them.  Lookie here!  when's the last time you saw a genuine leather

awning?  You got it@ver on that building right there.  We got leather

comin' out our cars.  There's a sixty-five percent import duty on

hides, seventy-five percent on fishin' poles an' other recreational

goodies, a hundred an' five on poisonous substances like that jelly

you're pushin'."

Lando groaned.  First the expensive battle with the pirates, now

this-plus he was out his landing fees, permits, and refueling costs.

"But say, you're Cap'n Cahissian, ain'tya, from the Millennium

Falcon?  Gotta message for you somewhere here."  He fumbled in his

overall pockets until he pulled out a chip with a keyboard displayed on

its face, punched numbers and letters into it.

"Right!  From the Oseon, it says.  That's quite a ways away, ain't

it?  You want it now?"

"Oh, very well," Lando answered despondently.  He didn't really

care.  All he really wanted was a nice quiet place to he down for a

century or two.

"Okay, that'll be thirteen-fifty, Mac."

Lando blinked.  So it wasn't a paid message.  Odd, and thirteen

and a half credits seemed a little cheap for interstellar

communication, but ... He pulled a few bills out of his pocket.

"You don't unnerstand, Mac.  There's an import fee on interstellar

messages here.  We figure a fella oughta be content with what's on just

one planet, an' not go sashayin' off ... Anyway, that'll be thirteen

hundred an' fifty credits."

"Forget it, then," said Lando in disgust.  "It's probably just The

little man grinned up at him.  "There's a two-thousandcredit penalty

for not pickin' up interstellar messages.  Ain't neat t'leave 'em lyin'

around."

In the comparative quiet and sanity of what passed for a lounge

aboard the Millennium Falcon, Lando inserted the coded chip into a

playback machine.  An overstuffed, cheerful face materialized above the

instrument.

"To Captain Lando Calrissian of the Millennium Falcon: greetings

and salutations!  I am Lob Doluff, Administrator Senior of the Oseon

SystenL You haven't heard of me, I'll wager, but, my dear boy, I have

heard of you!"

The recording continued: "Your reputation as a player of sabacc is

perhaps wider spread and mom salubrious than you know.  My associates

and 1, a small group of fanciers of the game, would like to invite you

here at your convenience, to play with us.  If you are interested,

please name the time and stakes.  Every courtesy will be extended to

you during your stay with us.  My very warmest and anticipatory regards

to you Lob Doluff, signing off.  " A grin began to spread itself

across Lando's face.  In that context, he could cut his losses.  All he

needed was a small stake when he got to the Oseon.  He thumbed a

communicator switch.

"Vuffi Raa?"

The robot was below, out on the concrete, supervising the last of

the fueling operation.  "Yes, Master?"  came his voice.

"Don't call me Master."' He'd sell the fishing rods to

somebody-diere wouldn't be a scheduled import duty if there wasn't some

market, no matter how small.  Too bad no one needed tinklewood radio

antennas.  Not surprisingly, he'd learned the agricultural planet would

pay top credit for the contents of his ship's waste-cycling system.

"Get up here and give me a hand, will you?  We've got a thousand

hides to chop up and several hundred crates of jelly to put down the

disposal."

He'd used his own communications equipment, once they were out of

the atmosphere of Dilonexa XXIII, saving several hundred credits in the

process.  Doluff was delighted that Lando was on the way, and promised

a high-stakes game in the most luxurious of surroundings.  Lando shaved

and showered, dressed himself in civilian clothing, though they were

still several days' transit from the Oseon.  He simply wanted to get

the feeling back of doing what he was properly cut out to do.  As Vuffi

Raa droided the controls, Lando sat in the lounge practicing with the

cards.

There were seventy-eight of these, in five suits: Sabres, Staves,

Flasks, and Coins, plus the special suit of face cards with negative

values.  The object was to build a two- or threecard hand adding up to

twenty-three, no more.  What made it especially difficult was that the

cards were "smart"-each was, in fact, a sophisticated electronic chip

capable of changing randomly to another value, while the card it

replaced changed to something else.  This made for a fast-paced,

nerve-wracking game combining elements of skill and fortune.

Lando thought of it as relaxing.

He held up a card, watched it blur and shift and refocus, from

Commander of Staves to Three of Coins.  In the surface field of a

gaming table, the cards would retain their identities.

This was necessary for scoring: imagine tossing down a perfect

twenty-three, only to have it transmute itself into a losing hand.

Another card, the Seven of Sabres.  It stayed its old familiar

self for rather a longish time, finally changed into Endurance, one of

the negative cards.  Lando shuffled it back into the deck.

The Oseon, he thought: I should know a great deal more about it

and its people.  Principally, what the mffic will bear.

He turned from the cards to a datalink, punched a few buttons.

There it was: oh, yes!  While it might be remarkable for its rich

inhabitants, it was downright famous for its seasonally spectacular

scenery.

Oseon was the home of the Flainewind.

Many stellar systems have asteroid belts, where whole planets have

come unglued or never quite managed to coalesce.

Circular zones occupied by rocks rather than worlds, their

constituents could range in size from sand grains to objects

hundreds@yen thousands-of kilometers in extent.  Some few systems had

morr than one such belt.

The Oseon had nothing else.

In the Oseon there were no planets at all in the proper sense of

the word.  Not even the Core knew what disaster had taken place there,

perhaps billions of years before the advent of humankind.  Maybe a

rogue star had passed too close, its gravity well disrupting the

planet-forming process.  Maybe some unique element in the makeup of the

system had caused the planets to blow themselves up.

Perhaps there had been an ancient, alien war.

Whatever the cause, the Oseon sun was now surrounded by seven

broad bands of floating debris, billions upon billions of subplanetary

bodies.  The largest of these worldlets, Oseon 6845, was an

artificially honeycombed mountain seven hundred kilometers in diameter,

filled with luxury hotels, nightspots, and palatial residences.  Other

rocks in other belts had been converted into estates for the rich and

supenich.  There was plenty of room.

All of this, while quite extraordinary, was not in itself

sufficient to turn the place into a five-star tourist attraction.

But once a year (by what reckoning Lando forgot even as he read

it), the Oseon System's sun flared in a peculiar manner (giving rise to

the theory about a unique element blowing up the planets).  As the

flares tore streamers of excited vapor from the nearest of the

asteroids, the entire system fluoresced, pulsed, resonated, generating

enormous bands of shifting color, fairy brilliance, millions of

kilometers long and wide, like the spokes of an enormous wheel.  Colors

ranged across the humanly visible spectrum, exceeding it broadly at

both ends.

There was, very possibly, nothing else quite so impressively

beautiful in the known universe as the Flamewind of Oseon.

Lando did a rapid calculation: yes, if his luck ran well for long

enough, he and Vuffi Raa would be there at the right time.  Perhaps

that had been intended by Lob Doluff as an incentive of sorts.  How

nice: a kind of bonus they could bothK,4BLOMMMMM!

The Millennium Falcon pitched end over end with sudden violence.

Through the ports, stars whirled crazily about them in a

meaningless pattern.  Alarms went off, filling the cabin with an

ear-splitting wail.  Smoke began seeping into the room as random bits

and pieces-Lando's cards, his cigars, an old pair of socks@lung in odd,

unpredictable places, responding to the prin-fitive artificial gravity

imposed on the ship by its wild head-over-heels spin.

"Vuffi Raa!"

Grasping the nearest bolted-down furniture, Lando shouted at the

intercom.  "What in the name of the Eternal was that?"

There was no response.

Pulling himself hand over hand against the nonsensically vectored

drag, Lando made slow, unsteady progress to the bridge.  Klaxons beat

upon his head, their noise a tangible thing.  The final turn of

corridor was like crawling up a vertical sewer pipe, each rung of the

emergency ladder coming with greater difficulty as he climbed above the

ship's new center of gravity.

Once in the cockpit, he climbed exhaustedly into his seat and

strapped himself in, trying without much success to catch his breath.

Rendered virtually invisible by their speed, Vuffi Raa's tentacles

were flying over the controls.  It must be some emergency, thought

Lando, if even the multitalented robot was too busy now to talk.  To

the continued tune of shrilling alarms, Lando began assisting him,

newly acquired knowledge coming sure and true to his fingertips.

First, they stabilized the ship's insane changes of attitude.  Up

became up once again, down, down.

Next, they located the source of the explosion.  It was in the

bottommost level of the Falcon, seemingly just under the belly skin.

They triggered cannisters of firefoam, then jettisoned the

resultant mess into open space.  Temperature indicators relaxed, a few

red lights winked to green.  The alarms shut off-, a deafening silence

reigned.

Finally, Vuffi Raa laid the proper course back in, and they were

on their way to the Oseon once again, although at something less than

normal interstellar cruising speed.

"How bad is the damage?"  Lando was already unstrapping himself He

wiped a shaking hand over his dampened forehead.

Vuffi Raa looked over the control panel, several sections of which

were still ablaze.  with red and yellow lights.  "It would appear,

Master, to be superficial.  The difficulty began when I shifted into

faster-than-light drive.  We shall have to inspect it close up,

however.  I don't trust the remote sensors."

"Very well," the gambler answered, "let's get below.  I'll put on

a pressure suit and@' "Master, it is standard procedure in such

instances for one crew member to remain at the controls, while the

other@' "All right, then," Lando said, a trifle irritated, "you stay

here.  I'll suit up and@' "Master, I can operate perfectly well in a

hard vacuum without a suit.  Explosive decompression doesn't bother me.

And I know how to weld.  Do you?"

The little droid, of course, showed no expression, but Lando felt

as if there were a pair of human arms somewhere inside its shiny

chassis, folded across an imaginary chest, beneath an unbearably smug

grimace.

"Have it your own way, then!  I'll still suit up.  It seems a

sensible safety precaution, just in case you open the wrong door

somewhere.  Keep me informed, will you-and don't call me Master!  "

Vuffi Raa unstrapped himself from the copilot's seat, rose, and strode

to the back of the control area.  "I'll do better than keep you

informed, Master.  Observe that monitor nearest your left elbow."

Swiveling his neck, Lando was suddenly seeing himself, quite

plainly if somewhat distortedly, as if by a wide-angle lens held too

close to its subject.  The colors seemed a bit off, and the gambler

realized he was seeing a translation of infrared and ultraviolet

information in addition to the usual spectrum.

"I get it: I see what you see.  You know, this could come in very

handy: like, say, the next time I'm in a game, and@' "But Master, that

would be unethical!"

"Wouldn't it just?  All right, we'll talk about it later.

Meanwhile, let's get to work on the damage."

They both shuffled out of the cockpit, headed toward separate

destinations.

Ten minutes later, Lando was again seated in his pilot's recliner,

watching the monitor through the transparent faceplate of a spacesuit

helmet.  He thought about opening the visor to smoke a cigar,

remembered the magic words "explosive decompression," and desisted.

After all, they didn't know yet how badly hurt the Falcon was.  A

footfall, no matter how light, in the wrong place might blow a hull

panel, whichOn the screen, Vuffi Raa had made it to the site of the

explosion.  His viewpoint approached a heavily damaged piece of

machinery.

"Why, that's just one of the hydraulic jacks for the boarding

ramp," Lando exclaimed, almost indignantly.  "There's nothing flammable

or explosive in that section-and what does it have to do at all with

the ultra-lightspeed drive?"

The camera angle tilted downward.  A tentacle reached for

something wedged between two heavy springs.  The object had to be sawed

and twisted out of its place, then the tentacle lifted it nearer the

robot's eye.

"What the devil is that?"  Lando asked the intercom.

The thing' looked like a spring itself, a section of thickgauge

wire coiled and then twisted around into an evasively fanfiliar shape,

rather like a doughnut, but with an extra turn, pretzel-wise.

"It's a M6bius coil of some kind, Master," Vuffi Raa answered at

last.  "They're used as tuners and-my word, it's an antennh.  Master,

someone placed a device here to detect the shift into ultralightspeed.

You see, there's a hyperware generated by the-" "Yes, yes," Lando

interrupted impatiently.  "But what's the point of all that?"

"There would be a considerable point, Master, if the antenna was

connected to a controller that, in turn, was connected to a bomb."

The gambler pondered that.  "You mean, someone just walked up and

attached it back on Dilonexa, while we were refueling, and when we

buttoned up for takeoff, we effectively brought it inside the ship

ourselves?"

"Something like that, Master."

"A bomb.  Do you suppose they found out about the wintenberry

jelly?"

IV

DEEP SPACE.

The officially decommissioned Imperial Cruiser Wennis bored

through the blackness like a thing alive, a hungry thing, a thing with

the need to kill.  It had been built for that, nearly three-quarters of

a century ago.  Now it was an obsolete machine, displaced by more

efficient killers.

Still, it served its purpose.

On the bridge, a uniformed crew quietly attended to their duties.

They were a mixed lot, officially-again, officiallycivilians.

Many were the worst of the worst, the scum and misfits of a

million-system civilization.  Others were the best that could be had,

the cream of the elite.

Like the Wennis, this, too, served a purpose.

All were military personnel, now indefinitely detached to serve

aboard the decommissioned cruiser.  In this, they served their

Emperor.(although not without an occasional-extremely discreet-grumble)

and hoped for early promotion and other rewards.

In practicality, all served an entity who, although somewhat less

elevated than His Imperial Majesty, was nevertheless quite as

frighteningly impressive.  This figure stalked the bridge as well,

draped from crown to heel in the heavy dark swathings people had come

to associate with the mysterious and sinister Sorcerers of Tund.

Rokur Gepta, all features save his burning eyes concealed behind

the final windings of his turbanlike headgear, barely suppressed a

scream.

"Do you have the temerity to tell me you have failed again?"

The officer he addressed was not happy with his present

assignment.  In the first place, his uniform had been stripped of all

rank and unit markings.  It made him feel naked.  In the second place,

he could not understand why a battle-ready cruiser and its full crew

were pursuing a single tiny tramp freighter.

The officer gulped.  "I only mean to say, Sir, that the device our

agent planted seems to have gone off prematurely.  It was supposed to

explode, on your orders, just before atmospheric entry at their next

port of call."

"So you have failed twice!  You idiot, they're en route to the

Oseon-there will be no atmospheric entry!  I have had enough of this!"

The sorcerer made a gesture with his gloved fist.  The officer

groaned, sweat sprang out on his forehead, and he sank to his knees.

"You see how much more effective it is than mere pain, don't you?

Everyone has memories, little items from their past best left

buried: humiliations, embarrassments, mistakes ...

sometimes fatal ones.  All the ways we have failed those we have

loved, the ways they have failed us!"

Gepta made another gesture.

"No, you can think of nothing else!  The ignobility races round

and round your mind, amplified, feeding on itself!"

The officer's face went gray, he swayed on his knees, his back

bowed, his clenched fists began dripping blood where the fingernails

cut into the palms.  A little froth appeared at one corner of his mouth,

followed by more blood as he gnashed at his lips and tongue.  Finally,

he lost all control, collapsed in a heap and lay there, twitching,

moaning.

Gepta released him.

A pair of orderlies appeared, dragged the broken man from the

bridge.  Oddly enough, he was far from destroyed.  Gepta had noticed,

in the past, a certain increase in efficiency, perhaps even slightly

enhanced intelligence after one of these crises.  So why not make a

good tool better?  The tool was not in any position to complain of the

stresses involved.  Did it hurt a knife to grind it to razor sharpness?

Who cared?

Slightly invigorated himself, the sorcerer turned, strode back to

the control chair he usually occupied on the bridge.  He was not

captain on the Wennis, but he liked to stay on top of things.

He sat.  Beside the chair was a pair of cages, each perhaps half a

meter cubed.  In the first, he kept his pet.

It was scarcely visible in its bed of gray-green muck, simply

three stalky black legs @sting upward crookedly, curving inward with a

certain hungry, greedy energy perhaps only Gepta could see and

sympathize with.  The legs were sparsely hairy.

In the second cage, Gepta kept another type of creature.

There were half a dozen of the things; soon he'd need a new

supply.  They were about the size of mice, very like mice, in fact, but

with curly golden pelts and impossibly large blue eyes.  Each creature

was sleek and clean, seemed to radiate warmth.  Each had a bushy tail,

rather like that of a miniature squirrel.

Suppressing a shudder, Gepta reached into the cage of the furry

creatures.  Using a large pair of plastic tongs, he seized one-it

squeaked with surprise and pain-and transferred it from its cage.  He

opened the top of the other cage, dropped it into the center of the

upraised hairy legs.

There was a squelch!, another terrified squeak, which was cut off

sharply, then a crunch!  Gepta let the lid drop, a warm glow inside him

as his pet preened itself, one dark, manyjointed leg grooming another

until all three were clean of the blood and fur of its meal.

It did him good to imagine that the small, furry, helpless

creature he had just destroyed was Lando Calrissian.  It did him a

great deal of good.  Others had attempted to interfere with Gepta's

plans before.  Only one had managed to survive.  Why, of all people,

this insignificant vagabond, this itinerant gambler and charlatan

should so frequently come between the sorcerer and his plans was a

mystery.  Yet it had happened.

Very few individuals understood how much-and how little-the

Sorcerers of Tund believed in magic.  Even fewer were those who lived

to pass the knowledge on to others.  Calling up the Wennis's captain's

ugly memories, for example, amplifying them, driving out everything

else-there was nothing to it, nothing that couldn't be done by anyone,

given the proper electronics.

Yet those of Tund had their own beliefs about things that

transcended science, and Rokur Gepta was a superstitious soul.

He believed that some perverse kind of luck, some fate, karma,

kismet, or destiny kept throwing Cahissian in his face.  Sometimes it

appeared the young gambler wasn't even aware that it was happening.

Now the sorcerer would have an end to it.

He pressed a button set in the arm of his chair.  An officer

materialized, one a little younger than the captain.

"You are the second in command?"  Gepta hissed.

The officer saluted uncertainly.  He'd seen his superior dragged

from the bridge.  "Y-Yes ... yes, sir, I amer ...

shall we maintain our course for the Oseon, sir?"

Rokur Gepta waited a while to reply, knowing that the prolonged

silence would further ravel the young officer's nerves.

In a military hierarchy there was alwa something to feel YS guilty

about.  It was designed that way, so that an individual couldn't go

through a single day without having to stretch, bend, or break a rule.

This, of course, worked to the advantage of those at the top of

the pyramid.

Just as it was working now.

When a fine sweat sprinkled the officer's brow, Gepta finally

spoke.

"No, no.  We shall digress for a short time.  I'll give you the

heading.  Your captain will be indisposed for several hours, and I want

to be well on my way by the time of his ... recovery."

Many parsecs away, in space equally as deep as that which

enveloped the cruiser Wennis, a strange apparition manifested itself.

At its center lay the naked core of a dreadnaught-class

ultralightspeed drive engine, pulsing, glowing, seeming to writhe with

unholy energies as it twisted space around itself to deny the basic

laws of reality.  A closer examination would have disclosed that it was

old, very old, patched and welded together out of many such drive

engines, long past obsolescence, verging on dangerous fatigue.

Surrounding it were at least two dozen equally weary and obsolete

fighters of nearly as many separate pedigrees, some constructed by

inhuman races and sloppily converted.  They were connected to the drive

core with gleaming cables that glowed and sparked and writhed in time

to its fundamental frequency.  The fighters appeared to be towing the

engine.  In fact, the reverse was true.  These small craft were

incapable of making the translation to faster-than-light velocities

themselves.

They let the core field do it for them.

Nfititia Leader FJyn Shanga sat before the controls of his aged

spacecraft, his eyes unseeing, his mind turned inward.  It had been

thus for over eleven days-Us was the most excruciatingly dull voyage he

had ever endured.  Yet it was necessary: honor demanded it.

Though alive with lights, his controls were, for practical

purposes, inert, locked into the controls of all the other fighters,

each of them in turn slaved to a cobbled-together navigational computer

on the chive engine.

There was nothing to do, and all the time in the universe to do

it.

He had long since stopped thinking of his home, a littleknown

backwater planet, settled long generations before the present wave of

Imperial colonization-settled even before the Old Republic had sent its

own explorers outward.  He had long since eeased thinking about his

fancily.  There was little point: it was highly unlikely he would ever

see them again.

He had devoted even less time to thinking about his present task,

the mission of this motley group of militiamen, retired policemen,

adventurers, and professional soldiers as ancient and obsolete as the

craft they flew.  They were their culture's expendables.  The task was

simple and straightforward: find someone and kill him.  It didn't

matter that their target, their enemy, had damaged their civilization

severely, exposed it to a galaxy-wide culture more potent and wealthy,

stripping away its hidden safety.  It mattered less that the life they

sought to take was the very embodiment of evil.  Evil or not, it would

pass out of existence if they did their work right.

If they didn't, their fates were academic.  Evil abounded in the

universe, and one life more or less wouldn't make much difference.  The

damage was done; this was for revenge, pure and simple-and perhaps to

protect other helpless, defenseless worlds.

Klyn Shanga glanced through the canopy of his fighter at the rest

of the group clustered around the battleship engine.

All together, they looked laughable-the same way, no doubt, their

world had looked to the intruder.  They resembled nothing more than a

grotesque, desiccated plant, an interstellar tumbleweed being blown

wherever the faites would have it.  Shanga tried to take comfort in the

notion that nothing could be further from the truth, that they were a

spare and deadly force who would take their adversary completely by

surprise.

At that moment, his communications console sprang into life.

There were no greetings, no salutations.  The beam was tight,

intended only for the cluster of fighters.  It boomed and faded with

the galactic drift.

On the screen, a young military figure was visible, his gray

uniform unadorned by rank or unit markings.  Shanga knew him to be the

second officer of the decommissioned Imperial Cruiser Wennis.

The figure did not speak, but only nodded.

Keying his transmitter, Shanga asked, "He is on his way, then?"

The figure nodded again, but hatred and fear burned in his eyes,

just as it burned in the heart of Klyn Shanga and all his men.

"He will be there when we arrivet' asked Shanga.

For the first time, the officer spoke.  "There is the possibility

of some delay@f a detour, apparently-but I believe the original course

will be resumed in a short time."

Klyn Shanga rubbed his calloused hands together.  In the many

decades since his world's last war, he had been a farmer, living

peaceably and contentedly among animals and plants and children.  Now

that could be no more, because of the person they were discussing.  He

knew his men were listening to the confirmation that the prey was at

last near to hand.  They had come a long, long way to hear that news.

"You take considerable risk," Shanga said, some sympathy seeping

into his weathered expression.

"It is unnecessary to discuss that.  It is well worth it.  I must

signal off, the chance of detection grows by the second."

Shanga nodded.  "Be well, then, and good luck."

"The same to you."

Many parsecs away, an impatient Rokur Gepta closed a switch and

sat back, to ponder.  His first, most immediate inclination was to

choke the life-better yet, the sanity-from the young pup who was

betraying him.  Not for the first time was he grateful to himself for

having installed the secondary system of surveillance devices in the

personal quarters of his underlings.  The second officer had easily

fooled the official bugs.

Well, Gepta would have his revenge at the appropriate time.

Now it was important to let this complication resolve itself.  He

did not recognize the individual with whom the off icer had spoken, but

then Gepta was very old, so old that the truth would have frightened

most ordinary beings.  He had seen and done a lot in the many centuries

he had lived.  He had made many enen-des, most of them now long dead.

So should it always be.

One thing he could do: hasten the process.  He shelved his earlier

plans; they had had a certain hesitancy to them anyway.

He keyed a switch on the table beside the bed in his living

quarters.

"Bridge?  Gepta.  Cancel previous orders.  Reinstate the course I

previously gave you.  We will proceed directly to the Oseon."

LoB DOLUFF was a pear-shaped man who looked larger on the

televisor than he was in fact.  He had what Lando found him l@ self

thinking of as a skin-tight dark beard and a naked scalp that looked as

though it had been waxed and polished.

His manner was ingratiating, he was an enthusiastic sabacc player,

and a good loser.  This was something of a necessity, it appeared,

since enthusiasm and skill do not always go together.

Sitting across the table from Lando, Doluff managed to hold his

cards up while resting his elbows on his protuberant stomach.  Fate had

presented him with a Six of Flasks and a Mistress of Staves on the

initial deal, yielding a value of nineteen.

Courage and enthusiasm do not always go together, either.  He

stood pat, somehow failing to take into account the fact that the

longer he held the cards, the likelier it was they would alter

themselves before his very eyes.

Lando, with a Seven of Coins and the negative card, Demise, the

eded something better than minus six to win this hand.  He dealt

himself an Ace of Sabres, bringing the score to nine-still

insufficient.  The next player also took a card; the Administrator

Senior had already decided to refuse; the player to his left took a

card; the one to Lando's right stood pat.

Lando dealt himself another card, the betting proceeding with'each

turn around the table.  They had anted at a thousand credits that

night, Lando's fourth in the Oseon, and after three rounds of betting,

an impressive amount of money lay on the table.

Mistress of Coins.  Lando was one point short of a pure sabacc.

He held his peace.  The cards seemed slow, tonight, reluctant to

perform their transmutations.  He could feel his luck glowing warm

within him.  He was relaxed.

The player to his left took a card.  The Administrator Senior

still stood pat.  The next player took a card-and immediately slammed

her hand down on the table.

"Zero!"  she grumbled in disgust.  There were three ways of going

out in the game: exceeding twenty-three, falling below minus

twenty-three, or hitting zero.  The player to Lando's right stood pat.

A flicker of movement in his hand caught Lando's eye.  One of the

cards was changing.

"Sabacc!"  he said with satisfaction.  Demise had made itself into

Moderation.  The odds against such consecutivity were high, and so was

the value of the pot the young gambler raked in.

The others tossed their cards on the table.  The deal would stay

with Lando for another hand.

Shuffling the cards, he considered those playing with him.

There was, of course, Lob Doluff, too conservative a player to

make any real gains-no threat, but a reliable source of income.  He

should stick with managing a bureaucracy.  He wasn't cut out to be a

gambler.

That night they were at Doluff's estate.  The game shifted to a

new place each night it was played.  A few kilometers outside what

passed for a city, it was a rather large dome on the surface, filled

with moist air and tropical plants.  The cold stars rose clearer and

sharper than they had any natural right to do above the thick jungle

that surrounded the players.

The table had been placed on a broad, tiled walkway in the very

center of the giant decorative greenhouse.  A fountain burbled

agreeably nearby.  It was practically the only noise: the Administrator

Senior had not seen fit to populate his garden with animals.  From time

to time, a mechanical servant would emerge from between the heavy

plantings to offer the players a drink.  Lando stuck with snillik, a

thick liqueur from somewhere near the galactic Center, one he actively

detested and therefore drank slowly and judiciously.

Having shuffled the deck a fifth and final time, he offered it to

the player on his right for a cut.  That worthy accepted, divided the

deck into three stacks, and reassembled it in a different order.  Lando

kept an eye on him; he had the look of yet another professional,

although he'd claimed to be a retired businessman.  Perhaps he was

both.

Approximately of middle age, Del Cycer was extraordinarily tall

for a human being, well over two meters.  He was also extraordinarily

thin.  He was dressed in a bright green caftan and wore a great many

rings on his fingers.

"You have been recently to the Rafa, I heard it said, Captain

Calrissian.  Is it true they've found the legendary lost civilization

that was supposed to be there?"  Cycer's tone was conversational,

friendly, interested.

Lando reclaimed the cards, dealt them around the table in a

practiced, leisurely manner.

"It might be more accurate to say the lost civilization found us.

I was there when it happened.  The ancient Sharu are back and

setting up in business."

"How dweadfuw!"  the creature to Lando's left responded.  It was

something nasty looking, with a small trunk dangling beneath its

bloodshot eyes.  Even more unfortunate, its blood was green.  The veins

clashed with the deep blue of the irises.  "Does that mean theah won't

be any mowe wife-cwystals?"

The creature had a large Rafa orchard-crystal pendant from a chain

around its thick, wrinkled neck.  It wasn't the only one here to sport

the expensive gems.  Lando had learned that they collected a sort of

ambient life force given off by all living things, collected and

refocused it on the wearer.  He shunned them himself-, they made him

feel like a vampire.

"No," he answered, handing the creature its second card.  "I think

the new management will eventually start shipping them again.  Probably

at substantially higher prices."

Lob Doluff took his second card without comment.  It was obvious

to Lando that he had a winning hand-and that he'd managed to lose the

advantage somehow before the play was over with.

The player to the Administrator Senior's left was a female human

being, younger than Lando, blond and not unattractive.

She had been introduced to him as Bassi Vobah, and some vague

reference made to her being an administrative officer.

The young gambler wondered where she got her money.  He was

unimpressed with her playing so far, and more than a little bothered by

the fact that she seemed to be watching him closely.

And not in a friendly way.

He handed her a card, dealt to De] Cycer and himself, then,

without looking at his cards, took a tiny sip of snillik.  "Cards?"

he inquired.

The trunk-being nodded, its proboscis flopping obscenely, then

threw all three down in disgust.  "Fhirty-seven!"  it exclaimed.

"Amazing!"

Lob Doluff stood pat.

Bassi Vobah took another card, said nothing.

De Cycer accepted a card, laid his hand down gently.  "Out,

confound it."

"Anybody again?"  Lando asked.  Bassi Vobah responded, took the

card, stared grimly at her hand.  This time the centerpiece was not as

rich.  Lando finally looked at his cards: Nines, of Flasks and Staves.

"Dealer takes one."

Sweat began forming on Lob Doluff's shiny pate, his fingers seemed

to tremble a little.  Finally, in an explosive gesture, he threw his

cards on the table, face up.  'lWenty-two!  Can YOU beat that?"

Lando glanced at Bassi Vobah.

"Fourteen," she said.  "Forget it."

With the Four of Sabres Lando had drawn, he, too, had twenty-two.

He displayed the hand, picked up the deck to deal again.  "Sudden

Den-tise."

Doluff received the Three of Staves, breaking his hand.

Lando could have stopped there, but flipped the next card over.

The Idiot, worth exactly zero.  The pot was his again.

"Let's take a break."

Since it was his winning streak, he could recommend a rest without

engendering resentment.  That was easy: he didn't believe in winning

streaks, and wasn't afraid of interrupting them.  He did need to

consider, though, whether to begin losing a few hands deliberately.

His livelihood, well-being, ultimately his survival depended on

maintaining goodwill-which meant losing on the small bets and winning

quietly on the big ones.

He'd believed such a ploy to be unnecessary in a rich-man's

playground, but was discovering that it wasn't any different from

playing in a hard-rock @her's bar.  Psychology, human and otherwise,

remained the same.

"Five minutes to breakout, Master" Once again, Lando sat in the

lounge of the Millennium Falcon, riffling through the cards and

thinking odd-shaped thoughts to himself.  He and Vuffi Raa had repaired

the damage to the ship as best they could.  Luckily they carried a good

many replacement parts in stores, and the boarding ramp seemed to be

something that needed fairly constant upkeep in any event.  Moving

parts.

Then, they'd gone over the interior of the Falcon centimeter by

centimeter, being the untrusting types that they were, looking for

additional sabotage.  They had found nothing.  Vuffi Raa had wanted to

climb outside and check the hull, but had been severely vetoed: the

fields around a ship in ultralightspeed drive were not only physically

dangerous, but the distortions of reality they created could drive even

a droid insane.  Besides, he'd studied the manuals enough to know that

the defense shields flowed along the surface of the ship, in the first

few molecules of her skin.  A bomb attached outside could only do less

than minimal damage.

They'd take their chances.  He wasn't a gambler for nothing, and

he had a friend's concern for the continued health of his mechanical

sidekick.

He realized suddenly that he hadn't replied to the intercom.

"All right, old can-opener, I'll be up in a moment."

This was to be Lando's first planetary landing under the tutelage

of the talented robot.  His previous attempts, before he'd acquired

Vuffi Raa, had been fiascoes.  Perhaps setting down on the surface

("next to the surface" might be a more accurate description) of an

asteroid wasn't a very spectacular exercise, but he needed the

practice.

This time he'd made it to the cockpit before the explosion

occurred.

Afterward, they spent some time untangling arms and legs from

tentacles.  Lando hadn't had the time to strap in, and Vuffi Raa had

momentarily unstrapped himself to check a gauge at the rear of the

control deck.  They both wound up between the pilot's seats, stuffed

under the control panels.

The Millennium Falcon turned lazily, end over end.

"Master, I hate to point this out, but that explosion was on the

outside of the ship, in the outboard phaseshift adaptor."

Lando studied the boards, while rubbing severaj bruises.

"Yes, bui I think it may have been spontaneous.  Look at the

readings on the phase-shift controls-they aren't very far away from

where that bomb went off the other day, are they?"

It was the droid's turn to ponder.  "I believe you are right.

Nonetheless, had we been making a genuine planetary reentry, into

a full atmosphere and full gravity, this accident would have destroyed

us, Master.  Observe the remote cameras; the cowling's been torn and

lifted.  It would have ablated away, leaving us with-2' "Uh, I think

that will do, my friend.  I can well imagine us tumbling and burning

out of control.  How long to fix it?"

"Not more than a few hours, nor will it interfere with our landing

now."

Lando dealt the cards again, not quite as honestly as before.

Of course it had turned out to be a second bomb.  Whoever had

planted it apparently hadn't known their ultimate destination was to be

an airless worldlet too small to suck them in and burn them up.  Vuffi

Raa had found part of the control module, like that in the first bomb,

a device built to detect a change in their velocity relative to the

speed of light.  This one had been set to go off when they dropped

below lightspeed.

Somebody really meant to kill him.

He @ to remember all the really big coups he had made at the

gaming table.  Had he unknowingly pushed someone with enough resources

and anger to carry out a vendetta?  Well, it appeared that caution

might be in order, now.  And a little sleight of hand.

He dealt the trunk-creature a Two of Staves, Lob Doluff a Ten of

Staves, Bassi Vobah the Queen of Air and Darkness, valued at a minus

two.  Cycer got a Master of Coins; the young gambler dealt himself a

Commander of Coins.

Going around a second time, he handed the alien the Star, a

negative card worth seventeen; Doluff took a Nine of Sabres; Bassi

Vobah got a second negative, the Evil One, which brought her count to

n-tinus-seventeen.  He dealt to Cycer and had scarcely given himself

the Nine of Coins for a respectable but unspectacular twenty-one, when

the tall, thin retiree shouted "Sabacc!"  excitedly and slapped his

original Master on the table, along with the Nine of Staves.

Lando breathed a secret sigh of relief and passed the deck over to

Cycer for the deal.  Sometimes winning included knowing when to lose.'

Cycer had the deal for exactly one hand, which Doluff, barely able to

contain himself, won.  Then the deal passed to the trunk-thing (Lando

was beginning to feel a little guilty about not remembering the

creature's name-which was humanly unpronounceable in any case), where

it stayed for two hands, then back to Del Cycer.

Bassi Vobah didn't seem to be having much luck.

Cycer was dealing the cards when a small spherical droid rolled up

beside Lob Doluff and whistled imperatively, then split into a pair of

hemispheres.

Doluff looked up from the screen and keyboard thus revealed, all

colored drained from his face.

"Captain Calrissian, I believe you'd better hurry to the

spaceport.  I have a message here that your ship, the Millennium

Falcon, is on fire."

VI

THE ASTEROID OSEON 6845 had been artificially accelerated to

complete a rotation every twenty-five hours, giving its inhabitants a

comforting sense of day and night-and those whose task it was to land

spaceships there a severe headache.  Touching down upon a surface

moving at eighty-eight kilometers an hour in the tight and tiny circle

that was the planetoid's circumference doesn't seem a difficult job

until one tries it.

Consequently, from the Administrator Senior's equatorial garden

home, Lando took a pneumatic tubeway to the north pole of 6seon 6845.

There a small and relatively stationary spaceport had been leveled

out of the barren rock.

Unfortunately, the tube car had no communicator of its own, nor

did Lando make a habit of carrying one.  Momentarily, he regretted it:

he could learn no more in transit about the fate of the Millennium

Falcon.  All he had with him was the fortyseven-odd thousand credits

he'd acquired that evening, and a tiny, unobtrusive five-shot sfingbeam

pistol tucked into his velvoid cummerbund.

It was all the personal weapon he allowed himself in a dark and

perilous universe; he preferred to rely on his brains for the heavy

firepower.

The tubeway shot him northward through a chord beneath the

curvature of the asteroid's surface at several thousand kilometers an

hour.  Lando fidgeted every second, every centimeter.

He'd sent Vuffi Raa to the space terminal to continue repairs on

the Falcon.  And to keep a big red glassy eye on her.

What had gone wrong?

The little robot was a pacifist by nature, it was ineradicably

programmed into him.  Could some saboteur have taken advantage of this

handicap, overpowered him, and set fire to the ship?

With a plastic-gasketed wheeze, the tubeway lurched to a halt.

Its transparent doors opened to let Lando-out into a maze of

service corridors underneath the landing field.  He ran down seemingly

endless crossing and countercrossing passageways until he reached one

numbered 17-W.  A temporary holosign in a bracket on the wall displayed

in six languages the legend: MILLENNIUM FALCON LANDO CALRISSIAN, CAPT.

& PROP.

Overhead, a large circular pressure door hung open, connected by a

short, accordion-pleated tube to the underside of the Falcon.  A metal

ladder led upward through it.  Oddly, there was no one else about in

the harshly lit cylinder of the service corridor.  The only sounds

Lando could hear were those of small mechanical things going about

their business.

Shaking his head, Lando climbed the ladder.

He emerged in the curving companionway of the Falcon, the somewhat

dimmer light and familiar clutter something of a comfort after the

stark, brightly lit port corridor.  Everything was perfectly quiet.  He

stalked along the passage until he came to the first intertame panel he

found set in a bulkhead.

Nervously, he pressed a button.  "Vuffi Raa?"

"Yes, Master?"  a cheerful voice replied.  "I'm out on the hull,

finishing up with the phase-shift adaptor."

"Oh.  Well, I'm aboard, very confused.  You didn't happen to have

a fire here tonight, did you?"

"Master?  Why, no, aside from some welding-and that was

vacuum-synergetic, no open flame of any kind Why do you ask ?  "

Suspicions of several and various distinct flavors began to fill

Lando's mindEr, this may sound silly, but how do I know it's really

you I'm talking to?"

"Master, what's wrong?  Of course it is really L Please come to

the starboard gun-blister and I'll show yol4" That could be an

altogether different kind of invitation than it sounded.  Lando drew

his stingbeam, every nerve on edge.

He crept into the short tunnel leading to the gun-blister, his

back tight against the low, curving wall, and slid sideways until he

could see out past the quadguns through the hemispheric plastic.

Outside, the Oseon sun shone garishly on a stark and rocky scene.

'De spaceport had begun as a huge natural crater many kilometers

in diameter.  The Falcon sat in its approximate center.

Here and there a ship lay, positioned over its own assigned

service hatchway.  Pleasure yachts, company vessels, those of traders,

distributors, and caterers.  Halfway across the crater to the rim,

Lando could make out the impressive bulk of an elderly but

well-maintained battle cruiser.  Well, everyone to his own taste.

Stars beat feebly downward, making a miniscule contribution to the

solar brilliance.

A flicker of movement at the corner of his eye sent Lando into a

tense crouch, both hands wrapped professionally around the small grip

of his pocketgun, its muzzle seeking, sniffing after something to bite.

A chromium tentacle rasped across the plastic before him.

Lando found himself staring into Vuffi Raa's eye as the robot

swung down in front of the blister and hung on one manipulator.

The gambler punched the intercom button beside the gun chair.

"Sorry, old boltcutter, I'm a touch paranoid tonight.  Some

thoughtful individual interrupted my game-and quite a profitable one, I

might add-with a fire alarm.  Anything at all exciting happening at

your end of the planet?"

Through the plastic, the droid gave as much shrug as it was

capable of.  "I've simply been tidying up here, Master There have been

no communications, visitors, nor have I so much as seen anybody within

a hundred meters of the ship except a few of the spaceport automata.

Shall I come in and-" "Don't trouble yoursell Perhaps I still have

time to return to my game."

The robot waggled a free tentacle in farewell.  "Very good, Master

I'll see you at the hotel."

"Good night, Vuffi Raa."

The light flickered momentarily, as if a ship had flown between

the Falcon and the sun.

Out of the blister and around the passageway, Lando went directly

to the hatch he'd entered through.  He clambered down the ladder, more

careful this time not to get his seniiforinals greasy.  On the

next-to-last rung, he heard the sharp grit of a footstep behind him,

twisted to see who itCRUMMMP!

Something hard and traveling fast smashed savagely across his

lower back.  Grunting with shock and pain, he released his hold on the

ladder, fell rapidly in the artificial gradient, scraping his face on

the ladder.

A second swipe missed him, zipping over his head to clang noisily

on the metal rungs.

Hitting the floor with a gasp, Lando rolled over in desperate

haste, clawing at his middle.  A pair of dirty boots tromped toward

him.  They were all he had time to see before something came swooshing

downward toward his head.

He fired the stingbeam upward.

There was a high-pitched piercing whistle from the weapon, a

high-pitched scream of agony from the tar-get.  The clubwhatever it

was-clattered noisily to the surface.  Lando's adversary fell backward,

the chest area of his jacket bursting into flame.  Smoke and the

nauseating stench of flaming synthetic fabric began to fill the

corridor.

Lando rose stiffly, millimeter by tortured millimeter, pulling on

the rungs of the ladder.  There were tears in his eyes from smoke and

pain.  Leaning hard against the ladder, he reached around behind

himself, felt his back where he'd been struck.

His life had probably been saved by the forty-seven thousand

credits distributed in his compartmented cummerbund.

Stingbeam hanging limply along his thigh, he staggered over to see

who had attacked him.  The figure lay still, the brieflived

flames-accidental byproduct of a close-range discharge-had died.

So had the-assailant.

A soldier of some kind.  That's how he appeared to Lando.

The gambler tugged a soft leather helmet off the fellow's

unresisting head, the kind of headgear customarily worn under the larger

bubble of a spacesuit during extended periods in hard vacuum.  The

club, a two-meter section of titanium pipe, was the only weapon

visible, although Lando detected wear across the dead man's trousers

where a gunbelt had abraded the fabric.

The uniform, if that's what it was (hard to tell with only one of

the things around) was patched and faded, many times mended.  It seemed

to match the wearer's condition.  He was a large man, gray and

weathered, his face deeply furrowed with age.  Lando didn't recognize

the insignia.  In a million-system civilization, chances- were he

wouldn't.

What to do now?

In the big cities of many a civilized planet, one was far wiser,

having disposed of a mugger or burglar, simply to pass on, leaving a

small mystery behind for the authorities.  Such was Lando's

inclination.  They were accustomed to it, as they had every right to

be.  They were the ones who had made the act of self-defense a worse

offense than the crime that had provoked it.

In the Oseon, would that be the case?  Lando didn't know.

He couldn't very well afford simply to walk away.  A dead body, at

the docking entrance of his ship, plenty of other physical evidence

scattered around, and a partially discharged energy-weapon in his hand.

Embarrassing, to say the least.

Well, down the corridor there was a public communicator.

He climbed back up the ladder.

Vuffi Raa, back now from the hull, met him at the top of the

ladder.  In the dimly lit corridor, his eye glowed like the coal of a

cigar.

"Master, what is going on?  I heard shouting, and-" ve just killed

a man, old thing.  Be a good sort and corn Lob Doluff.  We may have a

bit of pull in this system; I suspect we're going to need it."  He sat

down suddenly on the decking, leaned against the wall, and collapsed,

sliding over sideways.

It wasn't bad, as jails go.

The life of a gambler was somewhat checkered.  Often people took

offense when they lost money.  Sometimes they were in a position to do

something about it outside the rules of whatever game they'd lost money

at.

The suite was seniitastefully decorated in cheery plastic colors

that did not quite make up for the colorless music drifting blandly

from a speaker in the ceiling.  A separate bathroom offered modest

privacy-as long as one overlooked the large rmrror over the sink that

was undoubtedly a window from another point of view.  There was a

genuine skylight, heavily barred and shielded, that served to reduce

claustrophobia and gave a fine, undistorted picture of the stars

overhead.  There had even been a band of plastic around one of the

ceramic facilities stating that it had been sanitized for Lando's

protection.

Somehow, he couldn't quite summon up the appropriate gratitude.

His injuries had been properly attended to.  They weren't many: a

couple of cracked (or at least severely bent) ribs, some abrasions.

The tape was supposed to fall off of its own accord sometime in

the next fifty hours.

They'd confiscated his clothing and personal papers, his

cununerbund with the forty-seven thousand credits, and, of course, his

stingbeam, leaving him a set of shapeless drab pajamas with a number

on the back and front in six languages and a pair of step-in slippers

that threatened to deposit him on his head every time he took more than

three paces.

There was only the one bed, and it wouldn't turn itself down when

Lando told it to.  Technically, he was in solitary confinement.  That

was all right with him, the acquaintances one makes in jail arc seldom

broadening, nor was he enamored of any sort of company at the moment.

There was nothing to read, nothing to watch, nothing to do-but

think.

Lando was.

good at that.

Lob Doluff had answered the call himself.

The Administrator Senior expressed gratification that Lando's ship

hadn't actually been on fire.  He couldn't understand the false alarm,

however.  Such criminal offenses were prosecuted harshly in the Oseon.

"There is one small complication," Lando added, "however."

"However?  And what is it, Captain?"

In the background, Lando could make out the figure Of Bassi Vobah,

drink in hand.  They were still in the starlit garden dome.  He

wondered whether the other players were still there as well, and if

not, what else might be going on in the upper echelons of Oseon

Administration.

"Well, sir, the false alarm seems to have been intended as a trap.

Someone ambushed me as I was preparing to return to the sabacc

game-a stranger.

"I'm rather afraid I've killed him, Administrator Senior."

The older man's eyebrows danced up a fraction of an inch and he

leaned into the video pickup.  "You aren't joking, are you, Captain

Cahissian?"

Lando sighed.  "I don't believe I'd joke about something like

this.  He surprised me, attacked me with a piece of pipe, and I was

forced to shoot him."

The Administrator Senior's eyes widened and his eyebrows soared

impossibly close to the crown of his naked scalp.

"Shoot him?  Did you say@' "Hold on a moment, Captain Bassi Vobah

leaned over and whispered something.  Doluff looked puzzled a moment,

then nodded.

"Captain Calrissian-Lando, my boy, stay right where you are.  I'm

going to send Miss Vobah directly over to you.  I believe she can be of

help to both of us in this affair.  In the meantime, leave everything

exactly as it is; I'll order access to your service corridor closed

off.  We'll get this over with a quickly and discreetly as possible."

Another whispered conference.

"Yes, and by the, way, it is perhaps better that you tell Miss

Vobah and myself nothing @er about what happened.  We are duty-bound to

testify in court about it, being administrative personnel, the both of

us.  You understand."

Lando understood.  He nodded, signaled off, slouched back in his

pilot's chair disconsolately.  Outside, the light seemed unnaturally

harsh, even for an airless asteroid, and flickered now and again as if

a fleet of ships were passing overhead.  The colors all seemed a bit

off, as well, but that may have been explainable by the mood of the

observer.  Finally he turned to Vuffi Raa.

"Well, old vegetable-slicer, it looks as though we're in for it

again.  I must be losing my touch."

"Now, Master," the robot replied, patting the gambler on the

shoulder with a gentle tentacle, "I'm sure everything will work out.

You would not have done what you did, had you not been forced to."

He extracted a cigar from beneath the control panel, trimmed it,

handed it to Lando, and lit it with a glowing tentacle tip.

"I didn't know you could do that.  Do you suppose he was the party

behind the bombings, the fellow I shot?"

"The idea had crossed my nidnd, Master.  I do not know."

A glum silence settled over the pair.

The control panel beeped.  Lando flipped a switch.  "Yes?"

"It's Bassi Vobah here, Lando.  I'm in the service accessway

beneath you.  Come down and meet me, will you?"

"Very well.  Shall I bring a toothbrush?"

Her voice was apologetic.  "It might be a good idea."

Lando gave the robot a few instructions, then turned and retraced

his steps to the bottom of the ladder.  When he turned around, she was

bending down, dispassionately examining the body.

She was wearing the uniform of the Oseon police.

In his cell a few hours later, Lando once again resisted the urge

to get up and pace.  He'd never taken very well to confinement.  It was

well past local midnight, there on a different spot on the equator,

closer to the small city of which the Esplanade formed the core.  Yet

the lights had been left on-more or less standard practice in jails

everywhere.  Worse yet, the syrupy music still dribbled from the

overhead.  Resentfully, he looked up-and was nearly blinded by a flash

of overwhelming brilliance in the sky.  As his eyes began to readjust,

he saw that long streamers of color had begun to creep across the

zenith, deepening every second in hue, like mutant fingers closing over

the transparent bowl of the heavens.

Crimson flared.  Yellow seethed.  Blue and green pulsed steadily

against a syncopated counterpoint of violet.

The Flamewind had begun.

VII

A POLICEPERSON'S LOT is not a happy one.

Sometimes, it was downright discouraging, thought Peacekeeper

Bassi Vobah as she wrote up her report on the Millennium Falcon

killing.  What a time for something like this to happen!

Flamewind had begun, and she was going to miss it.

Born in the oseon System, she was one of the many who served the

few, her function-not terribly different from that of the countless

robots that populated the asteroids-spare her masters all possible

inconvenience.  That this has been the essential task of police

officers everywhere in time and space, she was unaware.  Her education

had been specific and to a point.  It had not been noticeably

cosmopolitan or analytical.

Her parents, even less well off than she was, had originally

immigrated as merchants after passing batteries of examinations,

probes into their backgrounds and intentions, studies of their

attitudes and goals.  Nevertheless, they had not been tenibly

successful.  In the end, she had worked to support them, and by the

time it was no longer necessary, what she did for a living had become a

habit with her, although not a particularly comfortable one.

Her one relief, her one vacation every year, was Flamewind.

it was a deadly and spectacular time.  Brightly colored streamers

of gaseous ionization filled the open spaces-a thousand kilometers on

average-between floating mountains.  Fantastic lightnings blasted from

rock to rock.  The seven belts of the Oseon fluoresced madly.

Radiation, static discharges, and swirling, colored fogs distotted

navigational references, drove instruments and men alike insane.  All

interasteroidal commerce was grounded by law for the duration,

averaging three weeks, to protect would-be sojourners from their own

folly.  The sleet of particles that lashed the system was only one

opportunity for misadventure and destruction.  Communications of any

sort between the asteroids or with the'rest of the galaxy were

physically impossible, blotted out by wailing electrons.

No one went anywhere.  Or wanted to.

And there were spooky stories of a less scientifically verifiable

nature that circulated every year during Flamewind.  Legendary

disappearances, ominous apparitions, phenomena of the oddest,

ghastliest, most relishably gossipable sort.

Yet-or consequently-tourists flocked to the Oseon just before the

cataclysn-dc display.  It had become a caniival of confinuous parties,

public and private, unceasing gaiety.  Hundreds of different

intelligent species intermingled from a million systems, giving some

meaning and adventure to the otherwise humdrum life of a small-town

girl.

Like Bassi Vobah.

And now this.  Aside from the arrest itself and the keyboardwork

it engendered, there were the impoundment documents, to be completed in

nanolicate, it seemed.  This Lando Calrissian, a wandering tramp who

hadn't filled out so much as a single visa form, had so far collected

one hundred seventy-three thousand credits from his betters (and hers)

without lifting a finger to do any honest work.  That had been

confiscated, of course, and, whether he was ultimately found innocent

or guilty, would go to pay the expenses he'd imposed on the

administrative services of the Oseon.

That much money would have supported half a hundred families like

Bassi Vobah's for a year.  It was simply indecent for an individual to

gain so much so easily.  At least justice reached a long arm out to

punish evil-doers sometimes.  This was one occasion when her job

generated a great deal of satisfaction.

And then there was the broken-down smuggling vessel he claimed was

a freighter.  That was worth fifteen or twenty thousand.  If she could

think of additional appropriate charges, the ship would go on auction

to pay for them.  Also that pilot/ repair droid.  It was worth

considerably more than the ship and would have a much more enthusiastic

market in the Oseon.

Mark it down at fifty thousand credits.

Incidental personal items of property, worthless-and, of course,

the murder weapon.  No, she wasn't legally justified calling it that.

Yet.  The confiscated stingbeam, then.  It would make a nice

addition to her tiny department's "museum."  Such killings didn't

happen often in the fat, complacent community she served.  It would

make an interesting story to tell.

But that scarcely made up for the trouble Calrissian was causing,

and if possible, she'd see him fried for that.  The other complication

was his fault, indirectly, as well.  She'd argued with her superior,

Lob Doluff, about it, but pressure was being put on him, and the

pressure worked its way down onto her shoulders.  Calrissian would pay

for that, as well.

Flamewind had begun, and she was going to miss it.

Vuffi Raa paced the curved companionways of the Millennium Falcon.

He was a most unhappy machine.  Below, the hatchway to service

corridor 17-W was closed, clamped with an impound seal, and it had been

all he could do to persuade the authorities not to stencil a seizure

notice on his body@r take him away and lock him up in some warehouse.

Maintaining a modest silence about his manifold additional

capabilities, he'd convinced them that, as a pilot, navigator, and

repairbot, he was essentially part of the ship.  As a consequence, they

had affixed to his torso a restraining bolt-a bit of electronic

mischief that was supposed to inflict enormous pain on his nervous

system should he attempt to leave the Falcon.

It had taken Win all of thirty seconds to disable it, once the

police had departed.  Nonetheless, prudence dictated that he stay there

unless he could think of something useful to do for himself and his

master.

Outside, huge sheets of polychrome gas filled the sky, punctuated

every few minutes by terrifying displays of lightning.

Flamewind was barely underway and yet, for most observers, the

phenomenon was overwhelming.

Vuffi Raa didn't even notice it.

He supposed that Lando had offered at least a hundred times to set

him legally free.  For some reason it bothered the gambier deeply to

own another sapient being, even a mechanical one.  Vuffi Raa had always

turned him down, preferring to stay with his adventurous master.  Now

he wondered-very briefly-whether it mightn't have been a better idea to

accept.

As a manumitted droid, he would have been at liberty to deal with

the situation.

Although what, specifically, he would have done remained a

mystery.

As an article of property, he was told nothing by the authorities

about Lando's fate or that of himself and the Falcon.

However from long, long experience with human culture, the robot

could make a fairly accurate guess.  Somehow all of that must be

prevented, some bargain struck that would at least leave them even,

leave them in the condition in which they'd arrived.

Vuffi Raa had very little experience making deals.

Outside, the sky writhed with the seven colors of the spectrum-and

with every possible mixture in between.  For Vuffi Raa, there were more

than a hundred basic colors, from lowest infrared to highest

ultraviolet, and the pen-nutations an combinations possible had to be

expressed in exponentials.

Yet the spectacle was lost on him, and not from any lack of

aesthetic sensitivity.

He liked Lando Cahissian.  The little droid had a deceptive

appearance; he always looked brand-new, and his mere meter of height

made people think diminutive thoughts about him.  In reality, he had a

powerful mind and a lifetime that stretched back centuries, even

further than he could remember.

Apparently, that was the result of a pirate attack on a freighter

in whose hold he'd occupied a commercial shipping crate.  It was his

first clear memory, the jarring, shouting, scre@ng.  The groaning of

the fabric of the victimized ship.

He hadn't been supposed to awaken until arrival at his

destinafion.  The premature activation was a survival mechanism, but it

had cost him something.  He could remember nothing of his origins; had

only the vaguest impression that the race who had created him looked

something like him.

In all the time since, through hundreds of owners, hundreds of

systems, planets, cultures, he'd never grown so fond of a human being.

He couldn't exactly say why Lando Calrissian affected him so, but

affection was the truth.  They laughed together; Vuffi Raa's separating

tentacles (once the robot had disclosed this capability) had become the

basis for a number of Lando's rare but elaborate practical jokes.  They

prospered together, and in financial extremes, Lando had divided his

small fortunes between buying food for himself and whatever small

electronic items the robot's maintenance required.

They were friends.

And now, Vuffi Raa was helpless to aid his master.

Outside, a braid of raspberry red, lemon yellow, and orange orange

twisted through the heavens, across a constellation locals called the

Silly Rabbit.

No sentient sighted being could have cared less than Vuffi Raa.

Rokur Gepta floated in an utter blackness not half so dark as the

secret -contemplations of his soul.

Deep underground, where the final traces of the minuscule natural

gravity of the asteroid were canceled, he hung suspended in the center?

of an artificial cavern, momentarily free of all sensation, free of

the annoyances attendant upon suffering the incompetence of his

underlings, free of the steady, grinding presence of the warmth and

bustle of life.

His plans were well in motion.  The Wennis was some distance away,

its crew performing drill after endless drill, not so much to sharpen

their abilities-they were, after all, only the best of a hopeless

lot-as to keep them out of the kind of trouble that uncontrolled

individuality never fails to generate.

Gepta smugly affirmed to himself that chance favors the prepared

mind: a happy turn of fate had placed his enemy, Lando Caltissian, in

the custody of Oseon officialdom.  Since that officialdom was a

government, and he was who he was, Cahissian was already three-quarters

of the way into his hands.

They would be cruel hands, once they received their prey.

And deservedly so.  Who had kept the sorcerer from obtaining and

using the Mindharp of Sharu, an instrument of total

AL

mental control over others?  Lando Cahissian.  Who now owned the

ancient enigmatic robot that seemed the key to yet another sheaf of

tantalizing unanswered questions-and limitless power?  Lando

Calrissian.  Who had evaded trap after trap, ineluding that prepared

for him on Dilonexa XXIII and the device planted aboard that cursed

wreck, the Millennium Falcon?

Lando Cahissian.

How he hated that name!  How he would make its owner squirm and

writhe until he learned the secret of his weird luck, or the other,

hidden powers for which he was a front!  How he would crush the

life-slowly, very slowly-out of Lando Calrissian's frail body, after

first destroying most of the mind (but not enough so that its owner

couldn't appreciate the final moments).

Gepta thought back to an earlier, a happier time, to his first the

ancient Sorcerers of Tund.  How years as an adept among he had deceived

the doddering fools, even while stealing their esoteric and sequestered

leamings.  As intended, they had n-iistaken him for a young apprentice

and had been unable to penetrate his disguise.  Already, he had been,

even those thousands of years ago, far older than the most ancient of

the sorcerers, and they knew how to stretch a life span!

Ah, yes.  The galaxy still believed that somewhere the hidden

planet Tund was home to the mysterious Order.  Only Gepta knew it was a

sterile ball.  Not so much as a tiny fingerbone was left.  The

thought-the memory of what he had done on that final day-filled him

with delight and satisfaction.

Someday he'd do it to the entire universe!

Meanwhile, that universe wasn't big enough for Rokur Gepta and

Lando Calrissian.  As Lando Cahissian was going to discover very soon.

Slowly, with elaborate precision, the sorcerer everted his

body-turned inside-out on the axis of his digestive system as a form of

meditative relaxation-and' resumed a true appearance only slightly less

disgusting than the one he had given a few seconds before.  No human

being had ever seen him thus, none ever would-and live to relate the

horror of it.  He relaxed his numberless alien appendages, stretched

them, and relaxed, then spun about himself the appearance of the

gray-swathed presumably humanoid sorcerer the'world knew.

Summoning a power of which the universe was equally ignorant, he

drifted slowly, deliberately, toward the floor of the cavern.  There was

work to do, and he must be about it.

And yes ... he must feed his pet.

Klyn Shanga concealed his grief.  Year after year, it never got

any easier to bear.  Now, Colonel Kenow, his old and valued companion,

was dead.  Dead and gone.  Forevermore.

They had fought in the battle of the Rood together as boys.

It had been an insignificant sideshow in a vastly greater war, but

to them, it had been a lifepath-altering cusp.  They had survived,

toughened by the ghastly experience, transformed from callow fannboys

into soldiers.

And friends.

And now, Colonel Kenow was dead.

The worst of it was that it had been a senseless, purposeless

death spurred by an impetuosity Shanga wouldn't have believed possible

in a man of Kenow's age and battle experience.  The stringent

rich-man's laws of the Oseon had forced the veteran to abandon the

weapon he was used to in favor of a crude length of pipe..  Then he had

been shot down by a stranger only tangentially involved with the enemy

they sought, an accidental, not altogether innocent bystander.  If only

Kenow had listened ...

Lightning flared, shaking the entire fabric of the odd assembly of

fighters.  Keeping station off the asteroid was growing more difficult

by the minute.  He could scarcely see across the few hundred meters

that separated him from the farthest ship in his tiny fleet, thanks to

the colored vapor that smoked and roiled around them.  The

radiation-counter needles climbed inexorably, despite the fact that

they were in the shadow of a billion tons of iron-based rock.  How much

longer they could keep it up ...

Well, in the end, it wouldn't matter.  The giant engine still

pulsed reliably, the cables connecting it to the fighters were sound.

They'd had to rebalance to make up for Kenow's missing ship, but

that had been simple, really.  If they could just hold on long enough

to do their work, it wouldn't make a bit of difference whether they

survived the fury of the Flamewind, whether their skin flaked off and

they lost their hair and vomited up the last drop of their lives.

Those lives would have been well accounted for, the loss well worth it.

Shanga, like the rest of his companions, bided his time, hid his

grief The sleet of energy around them was making even

AL @

line-bound communication impossible.  The cables acted like a huge

antenna, gathering up a howling cacophony that ground on the nerves,

eroded morale and resolve.  It was as if all the dead the universe had

ever seen gathered in an unholy chorus once a year in the Oseon.

And now there was a new voice, that of Colonel Kenow, Klyn

Shanga's old friend.

Well, soon there would be other voices, Shanga thou s among them.

Lob Doluff wasn't any happier than anyone else that carnival

season.  He regarded the whole Flamewind fooforaw as an enormous,

unnecessary pain in the neck.  He had never liked it, never understood

why anybody else did.

Lob Doluff was color-blind.

He was also worried-half to death.  Dressed as he was in

lightweight indoor clothing, his head uncovered, his plump arms bare to

the chill of the special section of his garden, standing in the middle

of half a hectare of snow, his hands were sweating.

The Administrator Senior's visual disability did not affect his

appreciation for flowering plants althou h his reasons for collecting

them may have been a bit different from those odiers might have.  He

loved their perfume and their persistence.

To him a weed that cracked a ferroconcrete walkway was something

of a miracle, and here, where tiny, almost microscopic flowers poked

their small, courageous heads up through snow and ice, there was

something especially miraculous.

It did little to cheer him now, however.  He was in a bind.

Unlike his subordinate, Bassi Vobah, he was one of there who

served the few, while making an unusually honest effort to serve the

many.  He was quite as wealthy as anyone in the Oseon, and yet a sense

of civic duty, personal pride, drove him to sit in the Administrator

Senior's office and attempt to govern the essentially ungovernable

millions upon millions of falling worldlets that comprised the system.

He kept the peace.  He maintained minimal social services.  He

acted as a buffer between the Oseon's inhabitants and a galaxy that

often clamored for their attention, either in response to their great

wealth, their enormous fame-or their crin-dnal reputation.

At all of this he was very good, and his independent wealth

allowed him a certain latitude denied the average civil servant.

He might not quite be able to tell his superiors to take a flaming

jump into the Core, but he had thought about it more than once and made

the recommendation to many of their representatives.

Unfortunately, he was unable to indulge himself on this occasion.

Pressure-greater pressure than he had known existed-was being

placed on him to betray many of the things he stood for.  If he

complied, it was distinctly possible that no one would ever learn of

it.  But he, Lob Doluff, would know, and it would remove a great deal

of the satisfaction from his life.

At the other end of the proposition, he stood to lose his

position, his wealth, his reputation, even his life if he insisted on

pushing things to their extreme.  In addition, many, many others would

suffer.  It was ugly, and he hadn't thought such things could happen in

a civilized universe.

Now he knew different.

He turned from his absent contemplation of the snowflowers of a

hundred systems, walked through an invisible air curtain into a

semitropical wedge of the dome, strode to a tree stump, and flipped the

top upward.  Reaching in, he seized a communicator and brought it to

his lips.

"This is the Administrator Senior," he said after asking for the

correct extension number.  "Have Captain Calrissian brought to my

office in an hour."

His hands were sweating again.  He'd never sent a man to certain

death before.

Vill IT was Two and a half meters tall, had an orange beak and

scaly three-toed feet, was covered with bright yellow feathers, spoke

in an annoying high-pitched effeminate voice despite its repulsively

obvious masculinity, and answered to the name Waywa Fybot.

It was also an undercover narcotics agent.

Lando hadn't learned any of this yet as a pair of robots,

spray-painted the same color as Bassi Vobah's uniform, dragged him from

his comfortable cell to confront the Administrator Senior.

"The charge is carrying a deadly weapon, Captain Cahissian, and

the customary sentence, upon conviction, is death by exposure."

Lob Doluff paced back and forth before the floor-to-ceiling window

in his office.  Outside, the Flarnewind filled the sky with racing

garishness, but most of it was obscured by the dozens of hanging plants

that turned the window into a vertical carpet of shaggy greenery.

Other plants were scattered about in pots, in long narrow

planters, in aquaria, even drifted in the air on lacy pale wings.  A

gentle frond brushed Lando's cheek as a flying plant passed over his

head.

Lob Doluff didn't have a desk.  He didn't need one.  Tucked away

in an alcove was a datalink with its screen and keyboard; a pair of

secretaries awaited hi$'sunnnons in an anteroom.

What he had were several comfortable chairs, none of which had

been offered to Lando, and the enormous bird-thing that none of the

mobile plant life would even approach.

And Bassi Vobah herself, looking prim and starched and heavily

armed.

Lando reached downward to thrust his hands in his pants pockets,

discovered once again he hadn't any, and folded his arms across his

chest.  He looked from Bassi to the Administrator Senior, spent a

moment on the weird creature in the corner, then back to the humans.

"I take it, then, that you're not charging me with murder."

Bassi Vobah nodded.  "That would be irrelevant.  In the first

place, there's ample evidence that you killed him in selfdefense.  In

the second place, we have no record of him having entered the Oseon by

legal channels and therefore, at least in legal terms, he doesn't-never

did-exist."

Lando shook his head.  "Nice government you have here.

Why is carrying a weapon a capital offense, and what have I got t6

do to get out of it?  I take it that I wouldn't be here if you

weren't going to offer me some nasty alternative to being shoved out an

airlock."

The gambler had been in, this position before, on more than one

occasion.  Odd, how government people needed extragovernmental people to

manage their dirty work on occasion.  The things that he'd been asked

to do, however, could scarcely be classified under civil service job

descriptions.

Bassi Vobah had stiffened at Lando's reply, and only steely nerves

and training had kept her hand away from the gigantic military blaster

hanging at her hip.

Lob Doluff, however, seemed relieved.  He nodded toward the

nonhuman observer, introduced the creature to Lando.

Waywa Fybot flapped his short arms as if in greeting, ruffled his

feathers, and settled back into silence.

"In one sense, Captain, you are mistaken.  You have been arrested

and are soon to be tried and duly convicted of the offense."  The

Administrator Senior made a gesture.  The robotson each side of Lando

stepped back, Lando was signaled to a chair facing those in which Lob

Doluff was seated and Bassi Vobah stood behind at a sort of parade

rest.

"As I said, the punishment as prescribed by law is exposure to the

heat, cold, and vacuum of interplanetary space.  There is, however, no

provision for the precise method to be employed, and I am moved, my

boy, to suggest a means by which the law may be obeyed and yet spare

you from the unpleasantness such an experience ordinarily brings."

"I get it.  You're going to shoot me before you stuff me out the

airlock.  By the way, Administrator Senior, have you ever seen somebody

after they were spaced?"  (Lando hadn't either, but he had a good

imagination and hoped that Doluff did as well.) "Pretty messy."

He made a face, eyes bulging out, tongue lolling at the corner of

his mouth.

Lob Doluff grimaced painfully, gulped, and placed a protective

hand on his large stomach.  "That's exactly what we're trying to

prevent, my boy.  To my knowledge, there has never been a ron-nal

execution in the Oseon, and I have no desire to be the first@' "Nor I,"

Lando agreed, "I suppose this is where our avian f7lend comes in, isn't

it?"  He indicated Waywa Fybot, taking up a great deal of room in the

corner.

Fybot stepped forward.  "Tell me, Captain,"-the creature squeaked

ridiculously, especially considering its size@'have you ever heard the

name Bohhuah Mutdah?"

"Sounds like somebody bawling for his mommy."  Lando was sick of

being the eternal patsy.  He knew by then that they needed him, and had

become determined to make things as difficult as he could for them.

The humor of the response-what little there was of it-was lost on

everybody present.  Lando even detected a little shudder from Lob

Doluff.  The Administrator Senior shut his eyes, wiped sweaty palms on

the creases of his trousers.

The big bird took another step forward, towering over Lando.

"Bohhuah Mutdah is a retired industrialist, a trillionaire.  His

holdings in the Oseon are the largest in the system by a single

individual, and it is possible that he is the wealthiest person in the

civilized galaxy.

"He is also thoroughly addicted to lesai."

Lesai.  Lando shut the bird-being out of his mind for a moment,

summoning up what he knew of the rare and extremely illegal drug.

The product of a mold that grew only on the backs of a single

species of lizard in the Zebitrope System, lesai had many desirable

qualities.  In the first place, it eliminated the necessity for sleep,

thus effectively lengthening the human life span by a third.  Unlike

other stimulants which consumed something vital in the human brain,

lesai provided that something vital itself, meaning it could be taken

indefinitely.

Yet, it was not without its cost.  It turned the user into an

emotionless, amoral calculating machine.  In the end, family and

friends, the lives of thousands or millions of other individuals-at

least so the authorities claimed@ounted as nothing, compared to

whatever goals the addicted mind had set itself.  One had to be

careful; those in power often lied about things like the effect of

drugs, and even Lando, who was strongly predisposed against any

mind-altering substances, took what the government said with a very

large grain of salt.

Nonetheless, some of this made sense.  He could understand how

lesai and the richest individual in the known universe might be

associated.  There wasn't any particular trick to becoming rich-as long

as one devoted his whole life to it to the exclusion of everything

else.  Lando wasn't capable of it; to him, money was a means to an end.

It became meaningless when it was an end in itself.

But not everybody felt that way.  Perhaps Bohhuah Mutdah was a

person like that.

"Okay," he interrupted the avian creature, "so we have a

fabulously wealthy lesai addict, and you're a drug cop.  What's the

matter, didn't he pay his protection money on time?"

Waywa Fybot stood up even straighter than before' his feathers

fluffed straight outward as if in shock.  "Captain Cahissian, you

forget yourself!  1, after all, am a-" '@An agent of a government fully

as corrupt as any government that ever existed.  Don't kid me,

won-n-breath.  Vice laws are always written to be selectively enforced,

to serve other purposes.  What have you people got against this Mutdah

character@r is it simply that you don't like the size of his bank

account?"

The bird-creature blinked, began to tremble with rage.  It opened

its beak to reply, shut it again, opened it again, and subsided into

the corner, speechless.  Lando grinned at the Administrator Senior and

his Peacekeeper, spread a hand that was half a shrug.

Bassi Vobah was nearly as scandalized as her professional

colleague.

Lob Doluff, however, chuckled and appeared to relax for the first

time since the interview had started.  His smile became a grin to match

the gambler's, then became outright laughter.  He glanced, guiltily at

first, at the feathered VIP, then shook his head and laughed again,

this time without qualms.

"By the Core, Captain Caltissian-Lando, if I may-I do admire you!

You're a gambler through and through, not just at the table.

Please allow me to make this unpleasantness more comfortable.  Have you

had anything to eat?"

Lando nodded.  "Best food I've ever had in jail.  I could use some

coffeine, though, and maybe a cigar."

"And by Core, Edge, and Disc, so shall you have them!

Bassi, see to it immediately!"

The police officer stared at her boss indignantly, decided he was

serious, and stalked out of the room to attend to the chore.

Doluff snapped a finger at one of the guard-robots who had retired

to the corners of the room behind Lando.

"Bring this gentleman his clothing, this very minute!  By the

Eternal, if I have to go through with this charade, I'll bloody well go

through with it in my own way!"

Lando had sat quietly through it all.  Now he sat up a little

straighter as the Administrator Senior settled back, fully relaxed.

Coffeine and tobacco arrived in due course, delivered by a

seething Bassi Vobah.  A police-robot brought Lando's personal

property, which the gambler ignored for the time being as more

interesting matters occupied his attention.

"Now," Lob Doluff said, when everyone was settled in again.  At

his insistence, a strange-looking rack the size and shape of a pair of

sawhorses had been brought in by a robot, and Waywa Fybot encouraged-at

the Administrator Senior's insistence-to perch on it.  The bird got a

dreamy look on its face, its feathers smoothed once again, and it was

quiet.

"Now, sir, I will tell you the plain truth-as much as I have been

told, in any case-and we will all understand.  You're quite right, of

course.  Bohhuah Mutdah's corporate enemies and business rivals are

preparing to overthrow his commercial empire.  But they fear him

greatly, sir, as I would in their place, and, accordingly, are seeking

to put him personally and physically out of the way.

"I rather guess they hope he will resist arrest, providing them

with an excuse to make things permanent.  But that is only a sun-nise.

The point is, Lando, I must ask you to help make all of this

possible, and there is no way I can refuse to do so.  I have what

amounts to'direct orders-by Gadfrey, it feels good to tell the truth!

"Were it simply my position, I would tell them-well, I hold this

office quite voluntarily@uite unnecessarily if the truth were told.  I

like it, but not so much that I'd betray a fellow sabacc enthusiast and

gentleman adventurer I ad@re."

Bassi Vobah squirmed uncomfortably in the chair she'd been ordered

to take.

"Why do I have the feeling you're going to find another reason to

betray me, then, old bureaucrat?"  Lando asked.  "That's what you're

leading up to, isn't it?"

The Administrator Senior sighed.  "I'm afraid so, my dear fellow.

I offer no excuse.  Means have been found to exert leverage upon

me which my scruples cannot withstand.  I do not ask you even to

understand my position.  I am attempting to arrange things so as to

minimize the damage the situation inflicts on us both.  I'll thank you

to believe that much, at least."

Lando shrugged again, noncommittally.  "How much does a hangman's

apology count for, Administrator Senior?"

Doluff grimaced uncomfortably, then nodded.  "You're quite right,

sir.  But took here, this is how I am prepared to hold up my end of a

bad bargain."  He turned to Waywa Fybot.

"Listen to me, you ridiculous creature, and listen well-"

"Adminis-" interrupted a shocked and outraged Bassi Vobah.

"Hush, child, I'll get to you in a moment.  Are you listening to

me, you absurd collection of flightless feathers?"

The Imperial narcotics agent blinked stupidly.  Apparently the

position it had been forced to assume triggered some reflexive sleep

reaction.  It shook its head, peered at the Adn-iinistrator Senior, but

said nothing.

"Very well, then, and you can inform your mercantile-class

sponsors that I gave you this direct order: you may arrest Bohhuah

Mutdah, I haven't the power to stop you.  But you will return him to

me, alive and in condition to stand trial in the Oseon, or I'll have

you plucked, dressed, and roasted for Founder's Day.  Am I making

myself clear?"

The bird-creature nodded, a look of hatred latent in its large

blue eyes.

Doluff turned to Bassi Vobah.  "And as for you, my dear, remember

who it is you work for.  Your orders are to see that my orders are

carried out.  And you are to use that oversized chicken-roaster of

yours"-he indicated her energy pistol-"if the occasion calls for it, on

whomsoever merits it."

He nodded significantly toward Waywa Fybot.

"Now, Captain Cahissian-Lando-this is what you are to do.  As you

probably are aware, it is perilous in the extreme, and also illegal,

for ships to travel from asteroid to asteroid in the Oseon during

Flamewind."

As if to underline the Administrator Senior's words, lightning

flared briefly outside the window, washing the colors from every object

in the room.  The flash subsided.

"Nonetheless, I am required to instruct you to take this pair of

law-enforcement officers to Oseon 5792, the home and estate of Bohhuab

Mutdah, so that they may make their arrest."

Lando shook his head.  "I don't get it.  Why not just-2' "Because,

my dear Captain, it seems he must be caught in the act.  His enemies

lack sufficient evidence at the moment, and even they dare not move

without it.  You are the goat because of your avocation as captain of a

tramp freighter.  It must appear that you are taking him his regular

shipment of the drug; apparently he supplies himself every year under

the cover of the Flamewind, and-2' Lando stood up suddenly.  "Now wait

just a minute, Admin@' The bureaucrat slammed his large hands down on

the arms of his chair.  "You wait a minute, Captain!  I have no

latitude in this; my instructions are clear, detailed, and unavoidable.

We will provide you with a large amount of lesai, which has been

seized from Mutdah's regular connection.  You will make transit to the

next Belt inward, to the particular rock owned by Bohbuah Mutdah, and

sell him the drug.  You will be observed doing so by Officer Waywa

Fybot and Oseon Peacekeeper Bassi Vobah, who will then seize both drug

shipment and payment and take Mutdah into custody.  That is how it has

been ordained; that is how it shall be done."  Doluff subsided once

again and took two or three deep breaths.

Lando sat quietly for a moment, thinking, then asked a question.

"All right, so we're boxed in, if I'm to believe your word.

But-well, I've won rather a deal of money here in the Oseon in the

last few days, nearly two hundred thousand creds.  I can anticipate

that it would suit certain interests if I'm arrested in the same

illegal exchange, wouldn't it?"

A predatory gleam became visible in Bassi Vobah's eyes.

Lob Doluff, on the other hand, simply sn-died sadly.  "Lando, we

already have you on the weapons charge; I repeat, a capital offense.

Those whose interests I serve desire that no one besides

themselves possess the means of deadly self-defense, and they enforce

the rule@r expect me to, which amounts to the same thing-quite

severely.

"Besides, although you have been quite fortunate-no, let us

acknowledge your skill-at the gaming table, I assure you that no one

you played with, excepting Miss Vobah here, who was appropriately

subsidized, will miss so much as a micro of your winnings.  We are a

wealthy people.

"However, if it will make you feel more comfortable, you'll recall

I offered you an additional assurance of my goodwill in this awkward

matter.  This is what I had in mind: transport these two individuals

and help them make the arrest.  In return, I shall see that you take

your winnings with you, along with every other item of your property,

and you may depart the system directly from Bohhuah Mutdah's estate.

He owns a large number of small interasteroidal craft, and I

believe that the Hamewind may have quieted enough that Bassi, here, and

Officer Fybot can make their way with evidence and prisoner back to

this place unassisted.  Is that fair enough?"

Lando thought it over, nodded reluctantly.

"And you, my dear, have I made myself sufficiently clear to you?

Should you oppose my will in this, inconvenience Captain Cahissian

in any way, I shall expect you to leave the system directly from

Mutdah's asteroid, in his place."

The policewoman gulped visibly and nodded fully as reluctantly as

Lando.

Once more Lob Doluff frowned at Waywa Fybot.  "And as for you, you

hyperthyroid whooping crane, should you interfere in my wishes

concerning the good captain here, after you have been plucked and

roasted, I shall stuff a cushion with your feathers and rest my

fundament upon it for the remainder of my life.  Do you understand?"

The bird nodded, adding a third portion to the general grudging

atmosphere in the room.

Doluff folded his hands across his paunch, a satisfied expression

on his face.  "Very well, then, we are agreed, and everything is

settled.  By the Center, it is good doing business with a group as

straightforward and understanding as you all are.  I am feeling

extremely fond of the three of you.  Shall we see about having lunch,

then?"

ix IN THE OSEON System during Hamewind, the inhabitants and their

guests have little to do but party and watch the fireworks.

But even the most spectacular display in the known universe begins

to pall after sufficient time, and attending parties has its

limits-and its consequences.

Thus it is an interesting fact of demographics that, although the

majority of Oseoni, owing to what is required of them to achieve their

high place in the general scale of galactic society, are long beyond

childbearing age, yet the human birthrate in the system inevitably

jumps every year nine months after Flamewind.

One reason for the increase is the peril of traveling during

205 -AND THE FLAMEWIND OF OSEON

Flamewind.  The deadly rain of radiation accompanying the display

vastly accelerates the decay of electronics that control navigation and

life-support equipment.

Even travel on the surface of an asteroid is dangerous.

And yet, Lando Calfissian, once resigned to the journey, was

anxious to be underway.  Freedom in the Oseon, he was discovering

rapidly, had its severe drawbacks.  There would be no more sabacc games

for a variety of reasons: he had effectively cleaned out the available

talent, not, so much depriving them of their discretionary funds as

convincing them that it was pointless to oppose him at the gaming

table.  In this he had been, if not directly careless, then overly

enthusiastic.  It was not a mistake he would have made in less opulent

surroundings; he had yet fully to appreciate how much more tenaciously

the rich hold on to what they have.

Had he been a waitress or a bell-hot, no one would have needed to

tell him.  The wealthy are notoriously lousy tippers.

What was worse, given the local standard of living, the fact that

there were so many wealthy inhabitants and that the commercial overhead

was so high, he was once again watching his money-his winnings-being

eaten up.  Everything was expensive, from a simple meal in the humblest

eatery to the equipment and supplies his ship required for the journey

ahead.

As usual, Lando's luck, both good and bad, was operating at full

blast.

The day after his revealing conference in the Administrator

Senior's office, he and Vuffi Raa were bolting down the weirdly shaped

seating rack that had been sent over for Waywa Fybot.

"One more turn ought to do it!"  Lando grunted.  "I wish there was

room for an autowrench in this corner-unh!"

The head of the bolt had twisted and torn off.  This meant they had

to undo all the other bolts and move the rack while Vuffi Raa drilled

out the broken hardware and removed it for a second try.

"Master, why is the installation necessary?  We could override the

gravfield in this part of the ship and let Officer Fybot spend the trip

in free-fall.  It would be much more comfortable."  Having drilled a

hole through the soft metal of the bolt, he inserted a broken-screw

remover, the twist of its threads being opposite those of the bolt, and

tightened it, turning the offending artifact neatly out of the deck.

"What, and have his birdseed floating everywhere?  Not a chance.

Besides, his physiology is supposed to be delicate or something,

like a canary's.  Don't ask me why they made somebody like that a

cop-that would require an assumption that logic functions at some level

of government."

Together, they moved the distorted chair back into place over the

boltholes drilled for it in the decking.  Somehow, thought Lando, the

parties responsible for this-the final straw of messing up his nice,

neat spaceship-would be brought to a reckoning.

The first three bolts went in perfectly.  Again.  Lando and Vuffi

Raa looked at each other with resigned expressions (Lando reading the

little droid's body posture since it had no face), placed the fourth

bolt in its hole, and locked the wrench around its hexagonal head.

"If it doesn't work this time, old power-tool, we're going to send

for a big wire cage!"

Deep within the honeycombed recesses of Oseon 6845, down where

enormous pipes the diameter of a man's height conveyed air and water

and other vital substances from fissionpowered machinery to hotels and

offices and stores and other places habituated by human beings, down

where no one but an occasional robot made its perfunctory rounds, a

meeting was being held.

"So you came," a gray-clad figure whispered.  The clothing had the

look of a uniform, although it was barren of the insignia of rank or

unit markings.  The face above the stiff collar, below the cap, was

young.  It was the first officer of the Wennis, lurking in the shadows

of a ship-sized power transformer, his voice drowned within a meter or

two by its titanic humming.

The other figure was even less conspicuous, hidden more deeply in

shadows, cloaked for anonymity in many yards of billowy fabric.  It was

taller than the Wennis second-incommand, and stood there silently,

acknowledging the greeting with a nod.

"Good," the officer hissed.  "And do you understand what you are

supposed to do when you get to 5792?  There must be no mistake, no

hesitation.  The Administrator Senior has found a legal means of

circumventing our intentions in this matter, and it must not work!  The

orders come from very nearly as high as they can."

Once again, the tall disguised figure nodded.

"All right, then.  In return, you will be richly rewarded.  Our,

er ... principal understands the pragmatic value of gratitude.

Be sure you understand the consequences of failure."

The cloaked form shuddered slightly, but that may have been the

cold.  Even with the machinery in full operation, there was a chill in

the air that converted both their breaths into clouds of barely visible

vapor.

It shuddered again.  And it may not have been the cold.

The gray-uniformed officer departed without further conversation.

He was in a hurry.  Before he returned to the Wennis, he had

another meeting, even deeper in the planetoid's core, and it was not

one he was looking forward to particularly.

Behind him the tall, cloaked figure departed as well, leaving a

single, downy yellow feather that trembled in the cold draft along the

floor, then was still.

With understandably mixed feelings, Lando tucked his freshly

recharged stingbeam into the waistband of his shipsuit.

Mere possession of the thing inside the Oseon System was a capital

offense, and the manner of execution made hanging, gassing, perhaps

even the nerve rack seem desirable ways to end it all.

On the other hand, he was operating under the direct verbal orders

of Administrator Senior Lob Doluff, whose concern for Lando's continued

existence, it appeared, was sincere and rivaled only by his desire that

Bassi Vobah and Waywa Fybot carry out the mission precisely as the

administrator had instructed.  Lando's pistol was a small but

additional guarantee he had insisted upon.

On the third hand (Lando looked at Vuffi Raa, whose capable

tentacles were flicking switches, turning knobs, and doing other things

mandated by the preflight checklist), the Administrator Senior had

adamantly refused to issue the young gambler a written permit to carry

the weapon, fearing, perhaps, that his original leverage on Landowould

be weakened thereby.

Ah, well, Lando thought, if things went according to plan (he had

no great confidence that they would, being a cynic by inclination and

having lived long enough to see his natural suspicions confirmed more

often than not), he and Vuffi Raa would be out of the confounded system

in a few days, and the whole issue would be irrelevant.

He had taken some pains of his own to assure this.

He intended to take even more.

As Lando and his mechanical partner warmed things up in the

cockpit of the Millennium Falcon-illuminated through the forward canopy

by the multicolored glare and flash of the Flamewind-their passengers

were in the lounge area, each keeping his or her trepidations about the

coming voyage to him- or herself.  Bassi Vobah, having reluctantly

abandoned the psychological protection of her police uniform, sat in a

sort of semicircular booth with an electronic table in its center,

glumly watching an entertainment tape from the Falcon's meager library.

It was the saga of some early star travelers, marooned on a harsh

and barren world through the failure of their spacecraft during a

magnetic storm.  At present, the characters were casting lots to

determine which of them would eat the others.

Somehow it failed to elevate her mood.

Waywa Fybot was essentially a bird in his anatomy and physiology,

although no more bound by the characteristics of such creatures than

are men by their fundamental origins.

While he was nervous, he could remind himself that what he was

about to endure was in the line of duty, what Emperor and Empire

expected of him, and consistent with future promotion and increases in

salary.  While he felt murderously angry at the local administrator who

had verbally savaged him (Fybot's own people had plenty of snappy

remarks applicable to mammalian species in general and simian ones in

particular, but Doluff's office hadn't seemed the place to trot them

out), the prospect of bigger game and future rewards helped him smooth

his ruffled feathers.

Damn!  He'd done it to himself that time.

Beneath the long thick plumage of his stubby left ann-a vestigial

wing useless for flight long ages before his people had chipped their

first crude stone tools-Fybot wore a small energy-projector that was

something of an advance on Bassi Vobah's openly sported blaster.  Half

the military weapon's size, it had six times the power, coming close,

in theory, to one of the modules of Lando's four-barreled quad-gun.

The projector was a Service Special and a closely guarded secret,

even from the regular military.

It didn't need to be drawn to be used, which was a blessing, as

nature had not provided Fybot's people with the quickest or most adroit

of manipulators.

He looked over at Bassi Vobah as she tried hard to keep her

attention on the entertainment tape.  It wasn't easy.  Calrissian and

his robot were running the Falcon's engines through a series of tests

that shook the vessel like a leaf at irregular intervals and left

stunning silences between.  Their caution in assuring themselves of the

ship's operating condition only served as a grim render of what risks

they were all about to take.

Which brought Waywa Fybot around again to his nervousness.  He

settled deeper into his resting rack, enjoying the reflexive drowsiness

that came with the action, and wished his species still had sufficient

flexibility to tuck their heads under their wings.

Come to think of it, he'd only bruise himself on the weapon he

carried.

A gentle snoring sound began to issue from the small round

nostrils pierced through the narcotics officer's beak.

"Item one ninety-six," Lando quoted from the manual, "navigational

receivers on standby.  Well, old can-opener, we can skip that one.

How'd that dead-reckoning program of yours turn out, or do you

want to say?"

Vuffi Raa paused, a tentacle tip over a switch on the panel before

them.  "I wish, Master, that there was another name for it.  It sounds

awfully final, doesn't it?"  He flipped the switch, watched the panel

indicators go crazy as the Flamewind's ionization attacked the

navigation beam receivers.

He flipped the switch to off again.  Both partners felt relieved.

"Item one ninety-seven," Lando said, ignoring Vuffi Raa's

rhetorical sque@shness.  "This begins a subseries of thirteen

intermediate items before we get to one ninety-eight.  First item:

check main reactor core-temperature, which should be up to optimum by

now.  Check.  Second item: make sure that moderator fluid is

circulating freely in the heat exchangers.

Check-at least according to the instruments.  Third item .  . ."

Administrator Senior Lob Doluff had stoically suffered the

indignity of ordering the datalink, normally tucked inoffensively away

in an alcove and concealed by a hanging fern, rolled out into the center

of what was supposed to be his office and what was, in reality, a

miniature of his greenhouse home.

By landline he was having a view transmitted to him of the north

polar spaceport, specifically, the central area where the Millennium

Falcon vibrated in readiness.

Maybe, he thought to himself, he hadn't the intestinal fortitude

to be a first-rank administrator.  He found it difficult in the extreme

to order those beings, Lando Calrissian and his doughty little Class

Two droid, into the fury of the Flamewind at its most colorful and

dangerous moment.  His heart would be traveling with them, he knew, and

might never return to its proper location.

He wished them well.

However, he sighed, he did know a cure for the anxiety and guilt

he was experiencing.  In another alcove, across the room from that in

which the dat@ normally was exiled, he kept a terrarium filled with odd

spongy growths from a planet a quarter of a galaxy away., Even to him,

the great lover of green, growing things, they were utterly repulsive.

But they were necessary to nurture and conceal an even more

repulsive specimen of lizard that lived in symbiosis with them and

shared the planet Zebitrope IV.

On the back of the lizard, another symbiont, there grew a rather

disgusting purple mold.

Lob Doluff locked his office doors, extracted a small plastic

spatula from beneath the datalink, trod over to the terrarium, seized

the lizard, and scraped a bit of mold from its back.  This he rubbed

with thumb and forefinger into the hollow at the base of his throat,

covering the resulting stain, which looked rather like a bruise, with

some flesh-colored powder he kept for just that purpose.

He settled back in his chair.

They were wrong, thought the governor, those "experts."  He

watched the Falcon detach itself from the accordion tube beneath it and

seal up its belly hatch.  Lesai didn't stop you from caring.

Lob Doluff wished it did.

Several thousand kilometers away, a n-dssile streaked past an odd

conglomeration of battered and obsolete fighting craft attached with

long and brightly pulsing cables to the core of a starship engine.

It was a signal, the only means of conveying information across

space during the Flamewind of Oseon.  Klyn Shanga watched it sizzle

past his canopy, began punching buttons to place himself in

wire-communications with his companions.

"That's it, men," he said in a grim, determined voice.  "Now it

begins, and it will not end until we have ended it.  Call off your

status when I say your name.  We have to get this damned mess

synchronized just right or we'll wind up slamming into a rock somewhere

between here and there.

"Den Salt Glass!"

"On the tick, " came the reply.

"Glee Jun!"

"Hot and ready!"

"Stec Eddis!"

"On the mark!"

"Mors Eth!"

"Item two twenty-three," Lando read.  "At long last.  Landing

tractors out, prepare to lift."

"Landing tractors offline," Vuffi Raa answered.  "Zero weight on

the landingjacks, negative weight, we're clear!  Ease forward on the

throttle, sublight drives engaged at three percent power.  Altitude-if

that's the word for it-twelve thousand meters and rising."

"Good!"  the gambler/spaceship captain replied.  He hit a button,

spoke toward a small grill in the arm of his acceleration chair.

"This is Captain Calrissian speaking.  Hope you two are thoroughly

uncomfortable over there.  We're off the ground and headed toward the

Fifth Belt.  If we arrive in one piece, it won't be any fault of

yours!"

VIOLET FRINRES LASHED at the Millennium Falcon, purple flames

licked at her hull as lavender-colored lightning flashed in a sky that

was infinitely mauve.

"Vuffi Raa, according to these instruments, we're spinning like a

top and following a course that's essentially a giant figure eight!"

Lando shook his head.  The plum-colored glare through the

cockpit's canopy was souring his stomach, and the hard vacuum of space,

which supposedly was incapable of conveying sound waves, rocked as if

with the laughter of malicious giants.

He could scarcely hear the droid's reply.

"I'm sorry, Master, there isn't any help for it.  We must trust

the program I fed into the engines and attitude controls.  I can't see

a single instrument on the panel that's reliable."  Even the robot's

voice had the faintest hint of an hysterical edge.  Or perhaps it was

Lando's ears, battered by the screaming of a universe tearing itself

into bits.

in the passenger lounge, Waywa Fybot was aroused from a sleep

unusually deep even for his deep-dreaming species.  He stirred, felt

the feathers on his long neck ruffling themselves, and tried to close

his eyes again.  A glimpse through a small round port across the room

caught his attention.  His gaze became involuntarily fixed upon it, as,

one by one, his feathers lifted, stood perpendicular to his body.

Bassi Vobah's hands covered her eyes.

Had she been capable of a single linear thought, she would have

wished for a second pair to cover up her ears.  It seemed to her that

the very Core of the galaxy was shrieking at her for some terrible

thing she'd done and somehow forgotten.  With a sob, she collapsed

sideways on the curving couch, sqt eezed herself into a huddled ball,

knees up to her chin, eyes s iut tightly that they were slowly

blackening under the self-in licted pressure.

Her hands were on her ears, now, so that the titanic bellowing of

a sun gone mad and its resonating orbital companions transmitted itself

through her very bones.

Beneath her face, the cushion of the couch was soaked with tears.

What end was there to madness?

Starboard, in the cockpit, Vuffi Raa switched off another bank of

useless instruments.  They were distracting and therefore worse than

useless.  In a similar disgruntled humor and for identical reasons, he

had shut off his hearing, but it hadn't done quite as much good.  Where

humans had a small cluster of senses, seven or eight at most, he had

nearly a hundred, and at the moment, every one of them seemed to be his

enemy.

Unlike Lando, who could suffer the effects but never feel the

machine-gun sputter of ionizing particles through his body, part of

Vuffi Raa's sensorium was a sophisticated scintillation counter.  He

could experience the density and frequency with which a dozen distinct

kinds of particle drilled through him.

For the first time in his long existence, he wished sincerely that

he had the same limits to his awareness as his master.  For the first

time in a very long existence indeed, he entertained the notion that

what he didn't know mightn't hurt him.

Lando had finished being sick-or at least with having something to

be sick with.  Fortunately the cockpit sanitation unit was still

functioning.  Of course it wasn't electronic and had almost no moving

parts.  Lando, wishing for the impossible like everybody else, was

wishing he didn't have any moving parts, because, every time he moved

something, it sent waves of nausea up whatever limb it happened to be,

waves that zeroed in on his solar plexus and waggled it back and forth

until he had to inspect the sanitation unit again.

Closely.

He didn't think he ever wanted to see anything purple again as

long as he lived.  If he lived.  Or wanted to.

A blueness that was more than blue seeped in through every port,

window, blister, bubble, and televisor on the ship.  With the same

delightful irony that determines every other day-today event in a

malicious universe, the only electronic devices on the ship that worked

perfectly were the outside visual pickups and their repeaters inside

the hull.

Navy blue, robin's-egg blue, sky blue (the sky of a million

different planets, all mixed together indiscriminately in agate

whirls), powder blue, denym blue, velvet blue, true blue.

Lando blew his nose.

His stomach seemed to have subsided a little.  He glanced at Vuffi

Raa, who bristled with alertness, tentacles on the controls and his big

red eye fastened on the cockpit transparency.

"How are you feeling, Master?  Better?"

"Don't call me master.  Yes, I'm feeling better.  How are you

feeling, old trash-compacter?"  Lando thought about lighting a

cigar-and immediately had to lean over to the sanitation unit again.

False alarm, but it very nearly made him stop smoking for the

rest of his life.

"I don't know, Master.  I'm afraid I had to shut my feelings off

in order to function.  Please forgive me if I don't seem quite myself

for the duration of this journey."

Lando laughed.  "I'm never going to be myself again!  What can I

do to help?  You look like you have your tentacles pretty full.

"There is really nothing either of us can do, Master.  The course is

logged in and-one trusts-being followed.  I am merely monitoring

life-support and other housekeeping functions.  And wondering how

reliable even those indicators are."

"We could always go back and look-you or 1, I mean, whichever you

think best."  He tightened his chair harness a little, straightened up.

He'd always wondered why sadness was described as being "blue."

Now he knew: much more of this, and he'd be looking around for

something sharp to cut his wrists with.

He'd never known there were so many shades of blue, all of them

ugly.

"I think not, Master.  If something goes wrong up here, I t)elieve

it will require the attention of both of us to correct it.  You might

try asking one of our passengers how things are elsewhere in the ship,

though."

"Good idea."  He pushed an intertalkie button.  "Hello, over

there!  Anybody listening?  We just want to know if the air and

lighting and heat are all working.  Hello?  Can you hear me?

Bassi?  Fybot?"

Nothing could be heard over the roar of static in the system.

Lando looked at Vuffi Raa and shrugged.  The instruments said

everything was all right in the lounge and elsewhere in the ship.

Other instruments, however, said that they were traveling in a

spiral now, looping the loop as if riding down the coils of a cosmic

corkscrew.

Everything was blue outside.  Lando felt a tear creep down his

cheek and, for the first time, in a long, long time, thought about a

dog he'd had once.  It had been run over by a hovercraft.

Bassi Vobah felt green inside.

As a matter of fact, she felt green outside, as well.  The

leafcolored radiation then battering at the Falcon's viewports seemed

to penetrate to her very marrow, turning it and the blood it produced

green, too.

It didn't make sense.  Nothing made sense, and that alarmed her

far worse than the light or radiation.  She was a person of certain

bounds, of linearity, of rationality, of rules.  She was a person-an

upholder, a maintainer@f law and order.

Now see what had become of her.  The penetrating green light let

her do exactly that.  She could see her own heart beating, deep green

muscle fibers pumping bright green blood to medium green tissues and

organs-all of which she could watch functioning-and returning,

gray-green, to be reoxygenated in her spongy green lungs.

With transparent green oxygen.

Vuffi Raa examined his tentacles one by one.  Reflecting bright

yellow light from the cockpit canopy, they gleamed back at him as if

made of gold.  He had been silver-colored all his LIFE.  Now he was a

golden droid, glittering at every joint.  He rather liked it.

A beeping on the control panel indicated another set of

instruments gone mad.  Irritably, he shut them off, then returned to a

pleased and fascinated contemplation of his highly polished self.

Perhaps when it was over, he'd have himself gold plated.

Tastefully, mind you, nothing ostentatious.  How would gold and the red

of his eye look together?  Rather nice, he thought.

A yellow light began blinking on the console.  It clashed with the

yellow streaming in the windows, so he flicked a tentacle down and

squashed it.  There was a pop!, a fizzle, andblast it all, he had soot

on his tentacle tip!  He searched around for something to clean it

with, found a tissue beneath the panel, and began tidying up.  Must be

perfectly clean, unless I want the plating to peel on me, and that

would be atrocious Absently, he reached down to turn off another

half-dozen switches, and suddenly became aware of a sallow pinkish

starfish of a being sitting right on the dash in front of him.  Ver@n!

How in the name of"Vuffi Raa!  What are you doing, old cybemaut?"

"What did you call me, you@' "Vuffi Raa, listen t(y me!  You've

busted up the intercom, and you were starting to turn off the

life-support monitors.  Get hold of yourself, droid!  What's the

matter?"

With considerable effort, Vuffi Raa forced himself back into

something resembling a normal frame of reference.  "My word, I'm

sorry, Master, I must be taking radiation damage!  I don't know what to

do about it, though; it's so hard to think.  Would you like me better

if I had myself gold plated, or would it'be too garish?"

Lando stared in blank amazement at his friend.  "Can you turn

yourself off temporarily?  If you removed your tentacles, I could put

you in the safe-the one under the panel where I keep my cigars.  Would

that workEr

, what?  You want me to what, you organic slug, you

blind, groping grub, you sniveling, hydrocarbonated-yawp!"

Lando snatched the robot from the pilot's chair and, tentacles

trailing, crammed his pentagonal body into the safe.

"I hope youappreciate what I'm doing, old geiger counter.

I've ruined my entire supply of cigars-crushed them to a ...

Vuffi Raa, are you all tight?"

The robot responded groggily.  "I think so, Master.  Did I really

call you all those things?"  The heavy genuine steel antique safe-left

by a previous owner of the Falcon-surrounded him on all sides but one

and seemed fairly effective at shielding him from the radiation.  Lando

swung the door as far shut as the robot's tentacles would allow, and

chuckled.

"I believe that's the most gumption you've shown since I met you.

I rather liked it-but don't make a habit of it.  And don't call me

master!"

"Master, I'm still feeling the effects of the radiation.  Can you

get by without me for a while?  I'm going to disconnect my

manipulators, and ask you to close the door.  I'm terribly sorry,

but-2' "Don't have another thought about it.  That's right, I'll take

care of your legs.  I'm closing the door now.  Have a nice nap.

I'll wake you when it's over."

He shut the door, suddenly feeling very lonely, and carefully

placed the little robot's tentacles on the pilot's seat, strapping them

down.  He took a look at the instruments, decided there wasn't very

much he could do about them, and sat for a while, wishing he had a

cigar.

Waywa Fybot awoke suddenly with the oddest feeling that he was

home.

Familiar orange light poured in from somewhere, and suddenly the

world felt better, looked better than it had since he'd left his native

planet decades ago to join the police.

Why, yes!  There was his hometown, a lovely place, not too large

yet not so small it didn't have all the conveniences a being could

want.  He could see it now, wavering a little on the horizon as the sun

beat down upon it.  He kept walking ...

Egad, it had been a long, lonely time out among all those weird

alien races.  Everywhere he went, they made bird jokes.

Could he help it if his people were evolved-and proudly sofrom

avians?

He only wished that somewhere along the track of time they hadn't

lost the knack of-but what was this?  He wasflying!  A glance to either

side assured him that his arms had somehow lengthened, broadened,

strengthened.  Well, it was all in the genes somewhere, he supposed.

Recapitulation, he recalled, recapitulation.  He banked steeply,

enjoying the sensation, banked the other way to get himself headed

right, and passed over the rooftops of the town to the house that he'd

been hatched in, a large place of cement and steel beams with a

thatched roof.  He saw now that the place had been reroofed with

genuine straw.  His folks were nothing if not stylish.  Those checks he

was sending home were going to a good cause, then!

He hopped over the fence, stirring the lawn lice with the power of

his wings and making them complain in their mewling tones.  There were

thousands of them, of course.  It was a well-kept lawn of a lovely

shade of magenta, alive with crawling, rustling legs.

He went inside the house.

The Falcon seemed to be flying in right triangles as the Flamewind

shifted from orange to red.  Lando caught it in the act that time,

blinked as many-branched lightning bolts blasted all around the ship.

He fought the urge to seize the controls as the apparent geometry

of the Falcon's flight path shifted with the colors from triangles to

something indescribable that would nauseate a pretzel-bender.  Well,

I'll be dan-med, he thought, we're traveling on the inside surface of a

Klein bottle.

Or so it felt.

Satisfied that the ship was flying true to course (or at least

resigned to trusting its computer), he bent down and put his head next

to the safe.

"Vuffi Raa?"

"Yes, Master?"  the robot answered meekly, its voice severely

muffled by the metal door and barely audible over the Flamewind's

titanic howling.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm all right," the box said.  "How are things with you?"

"I'm having a wonderful time, wish you were here.  1-by the Galaxy

Itse4p Hold on, I'll get back to you if we live!"

Directly ahead of the Millennium Falcon was a vision out of a

nightmare.  But it was no illusion.  Half a kilometer wide, the thing

loomed up out of the glowing star-fog and ominous red glow like an

impossible spider with too many legs.

It seemed to be a starship engine attached to a great number of

obsolete one-man fighters.  Eve n as he watched, the smaller craft

detached themselves, leaped toward the freighter, their energy-guns

spewing destruction.

These were no remote-control pirate drones.  These were the real

thing.

And they were ready and eager to kill.

xi STEADILY THE MOTLEY fighter squadron bore down on the

Millennium Falcon.  Its instruments unreliable, bound to a

predeternidned course, the converted freighter was a helpless target.

Lando reached to the panel without hesitation, flipped a bank of

switches, cutting off the artificial gravity and inertial buffers.

Loose items in the cockpit swirled and floated as he punched the

override and took control of the ship from the computer.

He couldn't see-not with the dials and gauges acting the way they

were-but he could feel.  He could con her by the seat of his pants.

Whether or not they reached their destination was of secondary

importance; survival came first.

A pair of fighters streaked by, spitting fire.  The Falcon's

shields glowed and pulsed, absorbing the energy, feeding it into the

reactors.  There were limits to the amount that could be absorbed that

way-in which case the reactor would come apart, taking the ship and

everything within a thousand kilometers with it-but for now, each

unsuccessful pass fed the Millennium Falcon's engines.

And her guns.

Rolling to defeat another run by the fighters, he slapped the

intercom switch.  "Bassi Vobah, try and reach the starboard

gun-blister!  I need some help with the shooting!"

Silence.

Diving steeply,finishing up with a flip that left four fighters

soaring helplessly past the freighter, Lando realized that Vuffi Raa,

in a moment of demented frustration, had wrecked the intemme.  He was

on his own, for the first time since acquiring the little robot.

He wasn't thing it much.

A pair of smaller weapons on the upper hull was controllable from

the cockpit.  Lando started keyboarding until he had established fire

control through a pair of auxiliary pedals beneath the console.  Then,

turning sharply-and feeling for the first time the stresses of

acceleration as it piled his blood up in odd parts of his body-he trod

on the pedals, blasting away at three of the enemy as they passed.

They kept on passing.  Either Lando had missed, distracted by

maneuvering the ship, or he didn't have the firepower to do the job.

It was like a nightmare where you shoot the bad guy and he doesn't

fall down.

Half a dozen fighters overtook the Falcon from behind, their

energy-caimon r@ng her.  She shuddered, staggered.  Lando brought her

back under control, rode the shock waves out, and continued to pour

fire at an enemy he saw-to no effect at all.

He slewed the ship around, getting angry, and found he faced at

least a dozen of the fast, vicious little craft, coming head on.

He picked out the leader, got it in the canopy cross-hairs, and

stamped on both pedals.  Every move the fellow made, he matched,

keeping the fighter centered, keeping the guns going.

The enemy's nose cowling suddenly disintegrated, the small craft

burst into flames, showering debris over the Falcon and his

squadronmates.  One of the companion vessels staggered suddenly and

veered off, trailing sparks and rapidly dispersing smoke.  Two with

one-rather prolonged, Lando admitted to himself@hot.

The Falcon lurched, as if lifted suddenly from behind, then

stabilized as Lando applied counterthrust.  Something solid had smacked

her in the underside vicinity of the boarding ramp, always a weak

point.  He skated her in a broad horizontal loop, gave her half a roll

as she came around, and there it was: another fighter, its fuselage

accordioned, its engines spouting flames.

Ramming?  In this century?  They must be pretty desperate.

And certainly not pirates, Lando thought as he fought the ship

into a better attitude to fire from.  No profit in ramming.

The bombers, then?  The man he'd killed on 6845 could have been a

fighter pilot.  What had he done to get an entire squadron of fighter

pilots angry with him?

The Falcon jumped again.  This time the irtstruments-if they could

be relied upon-showed heavy fire being poured into the hull about where

the fighter had mmmed her.  Sure enough, the shields, never at their

strongest there, were steadily deteriorating.  He rolled the ship, only

to be attacked in the same place by another group of fighters.  The

battle was getting serious.

All right, then: he hadn't anyone to help him, and a battle by

attrition was a losing proposition.  He only had one ship to lose.

He'd taken the measure of the fighters.  They were maneuverable

and fast-more maneuverable than the freighter, that was only natural.

But not as fast, either, not on a straight course.

Trusting his feel for direction, he ironed out the circle he'd

been making, rolled through three-quarters of a turn to bring him

parallel to the Oseon ecliptic, and shoved all throttles to the ends of

their tracks.

Behind him, the sublight dimsters outshone the Flamewind for a

moment.  Then, from the viewpoint of the fighters, they were gone, lost

in the multicolored mist.

Lando knew his enemies-whoever they were, confound it!-would not

be long in following.  They'd had that gigantic antique battleship

engine they were using as a collective booster.  He had to think of

something clever, and he had to do it fast.

Momentarily, the Flamewind paled.  They were out of the Sixth Belt

where they'd begun, and crossing the narrow space between it and the

Fifth Belt, their destination.

Either that or they were headed from Six to Seven-Lando didn't

trust his navigational capacities at the best of times, let alone now.

No, they were headed toward the Oseon's fractious primary.

His hand swept instrument switches.  The screens still showed an

indecipherable hash, but coming up a little to the starboard was a

small cluster of asteroids, irregulars, following their own course

through the belt.  He modified his course to meet them.

As he switched the instruments back off, he could see the tiny

fleet of fighter craft behind him.

The screen had shown him half a hundred asteroids.  His naked eyes

showed him half a hundred more, all small-none greater than a few

kilometers-all very tightly bunched together.  Taking a great chance,

Lando cut straight through them until he saw a sort of miracle ahead.

Whether it had been a single rock, struck and not quite split in

half, or a pair of floating worldlets that upon colliding had not quite

wholly fused, there was a cldep crack around its circumference, seventy

or eighty kilometers long, no more than twenty meters wide.

Using everything he had to stand her on her nose-without smearing

everybody aboard into roseberry jam in the absence of inertial

buffering-he steered for the crack, orienting himself correctly and

establishing a tangent course to the double asteroid.  At the last

moment he killed everything but the attitude controls and the docking

jets, brought her to a gentle stop deep within the crevasse.

The portside windows showed a half a dozen fighters streaking past

without noticing where he'd hidden.  Puffing little bursts of attitude

reactant, he ground the Falcon gently into place.  The guns he could

control he aimed at open sky.  The Flamewind pulsed-luridly, looking

like a far-off fireworks display.

Which is when he noticed the instruments.

One by one, as he checked them, most of his instrumentation seemed

to turn reliable again.  He guessed his hidey-hole was an iron-nickel

asteroid that acted as a shield against the storm of radiation.  The

protection wasn't perfect, but it was within the abilities of the

ship's electronics to correct.

He ducked his head beneath the panel, spoke loudly and distinctly.

"Vuffi Raa, come out of there!  Coffeine break's over!"

Reconnecting the little robot's tentacles was not as easy as it

was under ordinary circumstances.  They themselves were sophisticated

mechanisms, the equal of the fully equipped droids that drove buses and

typed stories in newsrooms everywhere in the galaxy.  Even deactivated,

they had taken a lot of radiation, and their self-repair circuits, set

in motion once they were attached to their owner, would require some

hours to bring them to full efficiency.

Lando left Vuffi Raa in the cockpit to watch for enemy strays, and

wended his way around the corridor to the passenger lounge.

Where he was greeted by utter chaos.

It looked as though a herd of house-sized animals had stomped

through.  Freed of the restraint of artificial gravity, impelled by

sudden changes of direction without inertial damping, everything loose

in the room had collided with everything stationary at least once.

Perhaps more than once.

And that included Waywa Fybot and Bassi Vobah.

Wires hung loose from ceiling and walls.  Small articles of

ftimiture had ended up in extremely strange places.  The female police

officer was beginning to stir.  She moaned heartily, lifted herself up

on an elbow, and shook her head.

"What happened?  Where are we?"

"Two very good questions," the captain responded.  "We were

attacked-I don't know by whom-and we escaped.  But I don't know to

where.  Are you all right?"  He stopped beside her, assisted her in

righting herself.  She breathed deeply, made a sketchy

self-examination.

"I don't think anything is broken-although to look at this room,

that would require a small miracle.  Ohhh, my head!"

"Take it easy, you're not expected anywhere very soon.

That's me: Lando Cahissian, miracles made to order.  You stay

there, I'm going to look at our fine feathered fuzz."

He rose and stepped over the debris toward Waywa Fybot's sleeping

rack.  In the bird-being's case, there had been something less than a

miracle.  Both the creature's legs were broken, in exactly the same

place, apparently where a bar of the rack crossed them.  The

arrangement had never been intended for free-fall and high

acceleration.

Nonetheless, the avian officer seemed to have a blissful

expression on his face, if Lando could rely on his interpretation of

it.  The gambler felt a presence at his elbow.  Bassi Vobah had made it

to her feet and across the room.  She stood a bit unsteadily, but she

wasn't leaning on anything or anybody.

Lando liked her a little bit more for that, but not much.

"What's wrong with Officer Fybot, and why in the name of the

Eternal is he smiling in that idiotic way?"

"Shock, perhaps," Lando answered her.  "He's broken both his

legs-rather, I've broken both his legs.  I'm having a bit of trouble

regretting it very much, considering the circumstances.

Although I wish I knew how to examine him for further damage.  I

don't know where he's supposed to bend, let alone where he isn't."

Bassi seemed a bit hysterical all of a sudden, and Lando

subtracted a few of the points he'd given her.  "Well, can't you do

something?  We can't just leave him lying there!"

He shook his head.  "That's exactly what we're going to do, after

I splint those'legs.  I don't think we'd better move him."

The birdlike creature sat up suddenly, opened his great blue eyes,

and said delightedly, "Yes, I'll have another centipede, Mother, if you

don't mind!"

xii AND THis ONE is worth a negative eighteen-am I clear, so far?"

the robot asked.  The gigantic yellow avian towering over him at

the lounge table nodded, trying to shift to a more comfortable

position.

Lando looked up from the covered free-fall dish that contained his

long-overdue meal and chuckled, wondering who was going to take whom to

the laundry when the bird and the droid had the rules of sabacc

straight between them.  Vuffi Raa's literal-mindedness could be a

handicap; on the other hand, Waywa Fybot was a bit preoccupied at

present, between his injuries and whatever it was he'd seen during the

onslaught of the Flamewind.

They'd gotten the narcotics officer sprinted up all right:

tinklewood fishing rods had turned out to be good for something, after

all.  Lando had never been able to sell the blasted things back in the

Dilonexa.  He still had a bundle of them stacked in one of the

auxiliary holds.

Ah, well.  Things could be worse.

They could all be dead.

Looking up again, he winked and smiled at Bassi Vobah, likewise

feeding herself from a covered tray.  It had taken them the better part

of an hour to manhandle the bird into a position where his broken legs

could be treated, even in free-fall.  Then, all at once, it seemed they

had a million things to attend to, and it hadn't been until later that

they could think of food.

The first order of business had been the Falcon herself.

She'd been pretty badly battered by the desperate flight through

the Flamewind and the battle with those tramp fighters-Lando still

didn't know who the Core they were or why they had attacked him.  She'd

never been constructed for astrobatics with her inertial dampers shut

down.  The stresses to her hull and frame must have been titanic.

In addition, she'd been shot at and even rammed, albeit by a tiny,

lightweight single-seater with insufficient mass to do very much except

momentarily overload her dynamic shielding.  That was the key, of

course: her force fields had held her together through everything; she

was basically a loose pile of nuts and bolts kept in one place by

electromagnetogravitic gimcrackery.

But-like his girlfriend the bootlegger's daughter-he loved her

still.

"Master, that should be another centimeter to starboard, I

believe.  " Vuffi Raa had been on the other side of the hull-the

inside-measuring the effects of Lando's exhausting labor on the

outside.  There was a huge ugly dent-but no more than that-in the

underside of the boarding ramp where the fighter had smacked it.  Lando

laughed to himself.  You shoulda seen the other guy!

There was nothing he could do right now about the purely

mechanical battering.  Her seals were intact, the ramp would work

perfectly (although there'd be a slight bulge to stumble over, exiting

the ship), and what really counted was the shielding.

He moved the n-ticropole another centimeter to the right, waited

for the robot's confirmation, and riveted it in place.  He didn't

understand why the Falcon's previous operators hadn't done this long

ago.  They had the parts in stores.  Just lazy, perhaps.  When he was

done, the effective density of her defenses would be doubled@f course

with a correlative increase in what the shields pulled out of the power

plant.  Maybe that explained things.

It was hot and sweaty in the vacuum suit, and he was hungry again.

Worse, it was extremely claustrophobic working in the skinny wedge

of space between the Falcon's belly and the face of the asteroidal

crevasse.  Well, he had no one but him@ to blame for that: he'd sheared

half a dozen communicate and sensory antennae wiggling her in there,

items that by very nature had to protrude through the defenses in order

to operate.

The fact that they hadn't been operating at all, on account of the

Flamewind, had helped to guide his instantaneous decision.

That and the twenty-odd hostile spacecraft determined to blow the

Falcon to smithereens.

He began to back from the cramped enclosure.  "Let's see about

those soft spots on the upper hull, now.  Then I'm going to have to

quit for a while.  This is rather tiring, I'm afraid."

The little droid's response was laden with apologetic overtones.

"Master, if it were possible, I would be doing that for you right

now.

I-" "Vuffi Raa, for once shut up and let somebody else do the

donkeywork.  You come out here and the blasted sun will start frying

your brains again.  It's like that safe in the cockpit: we're shielded

by the asteroid, but not perfectly.  You need the extra protection of

the hull."

"Yes, Master How lucky it was that this crevice runs perpendicular

to the direction of the Flamewind.  Were it a few degrees the other

way, it wouldfunction as a funnel or a wave guide and concentrate the-"

"Yes," said Lando with a shudder, "how well I know!"  He hadn't been

thinking about all that when he'd ducked the Falcon in there.  He'd

simply been trying to get away from the fighters.  He'd been flying and

fighting by the seat of his pants.

Even now it gave him a chill to contemplate.

"All right, I'm out from under.  Start the lock cycling.  I'll

rest for five minutes and then get out on the upper hull."  This may be

hard work, Lando thought, but when I'm finished, my ship and

passengers-and I!-will be as well protected from the Flarnewind as we

are now.  Without having to hide inside an asteroid and go wherever it

feels like taking us.

"Sabacc!"  Vuffi Raa cried, displaying his cards to the bewildered

bird.  "You see, this comes under a special rule: whenever you have the

Idiot-that's worth zero, you know-then a Two of anything and a Three of

anything are considered an automatic twenty-three."

Dejectedly, Waywa Fybot handed over a few credits.  "But that's

ridiculous," he said in his ridiculous voice.  "It doesn't make sense.

Two and three are five, not twenty-three, and besides, the

addition of a zer@' "That's why it's called the Idiot's Array, old

passenger Pigeon," Lando supplied.  If things kept going that way, he

was going to fly the ship and let Vuffi Raa do the gambling.  Lando

opened a flap in his tray, took a final bite of whatever it was, and

slid the container into the mass recycler.  "Why don't you play with

them, Bassi?  A three-handed game's more interesting."

"Not on your life!"  She shook her head ruefully.  "I've played

enough sabacc to last me a lifetime, thank you."

"Master would it be presumptuous of me to say that your piloting

of the ship earlier today was highly proficient?"

"Only if you don't call me master when you're doing it."

Lando could not have been more pleased by this modest praise.  He

had been a perfectly terrible flyer when Vuffi Raa had taken him in

hand-rather, in tentacle.  Now, at least sometimes, it was as if he

were wearing the Millennium Falcon instead of riding in her.  The

little droid had been mortified about his own failure to stand up to

the sleet of radiation, at his momentary irrational irresponsibility.

But Lando had pointed out that even a diamond, subjected to the

proper stress at the proper angle, would shatter.

He tightened down another @cropole, this time on the upper surface

of the Falcon, and went on to the next designated location.  No bloody

wonder the vessel was so vulnerable; there were a dozen spots where the

fields failed to overlap properly.

Carefully he pulled his arm out of the suit sleeve, pulling at the

glove with his other hand, snaked his fingers up through the collar

into the helmet, and wiped perspiration off his nose.

You'd think that after all the centuries people had been wearing

pressure suits that someone would have inventedA red light lit up on

the surface just below his chin.  Now what the devil did that mean?

Great Edge!  It meant a heat-sink overload!  He was cooking

himself to death!  He examined the readouts on his left arm; everything

looked nominal there.

What was the matter, then?  He keyed the suit's transmitter.

"Vuffi Raa, you'd better start the lock going.  I've got to get

out of this suit.  There's somethings' No response.

"Vuffi Raa, do you copyt' Still no response.

Again he checked the indicators on the panel inset in his sleeve.

The communicator pilot was burning steadily.  He hoped that his

little friend was all right.  The difficulty there lay in the fact that

the high point of the Falcon's hull was precisely at the upper airlock.

He'd had to crawl out from below, climb around the edge of the

ship, to get to where he was.

Now, with an apparently malfunctioning suit, he was going to have

to repeat the procedure in reverse, with no guarantee he could do it in

time to keep from being poached in the shell.

Vuffi Raa could save him a critical few minutes-if only he'd

answer!

"Captain to Millennium Falcon, do you read?"

Nothing.

He sat as still as possible, thinking as hard as he could.  It

seemed to be getting hotter inside the suit by the second.

Suddenly, he glanced at the riveting gun in his hand and at the

airlock wheel wedged against the rock that formed a roof over his head.

Crawling slowly forward a meter, he rapped against the shank of

the wheel.  The clank!, transmitted by the hull, reverberated in his

suit.

He tried it again.  And again.

A few moments later, there was another kind of reverberation in

his suit.

"Master is that you making that noise?  I can't raise you on the

comlink.  " Uncertain whether Vuffi Raa could hear him, he bashed the

riveter against the wheel again, once.

"Are you in some kind of trouble other than communication's being

down?"

Good guess, Vuffi Raa.  Clank!

"I'll come and get you, right-" Clank!  Clank!

"But, Master ...

Clank!  Clank!

A few sweaty minutes later, another suited figure clambered toward

Lando over the edge of the ship.  Bassi Vobah-her pistol strapped to

the outside of her borrowed vacuum-wearcrawled beside him, placed her

helmet in contact with his.

"Once a cop, always a cop," Lando said before she got a chance to

open her mouth.

"Don't be an idiot.  What's wrong with your suitt' He shook the

sweat out of his eyes.  It floated in tiny droplets inside the helmet,

distracting him.  "Coolant failure of some kind.  I was worried about

getting dinner; now it looks like I'm going to be din@' "Oh, shut up!

You relax and lie still.  I'll pull you out of here.  Your little

five-armed friend and Officer Fybot are at the downside lock right now,

waiting for us."

"Not the bird, he's accident prone!"

"You should talk!"

Lando was approaching unconsciousness when they cycled through the

lock.  Vuffi Raa practically tore the helmet off his master-and his

ears with it.  The resultant blast of fresh air in Lando's face was

like an arctic gale.

"Well, another small adventure," the gambler observed as the three

of them stripped him down to his underwear and handed him a plastic bag

of water, "when what I really needed was a few days in a

sensory-deprivation tank.  That's the universe for you.  Anybody think

of slapping something in the food-fixer?"

Bassi Vobah huffed and stomped her way out of the lock area, not

an easy thing to do in the absence of gravity.  "You're welcome!"  she

said over her shoulder.

The alien officer followed her, limping awkwardly on his sprinted

and bandaged legs.

Vuffi Raa looked up at Lando from where he was minutely examining

the vacuum suit.  "Master," he said cautiously, and in a very quiet

voice, "did you remove this suit between the time you were working down

below and when you went topside?"

Lando floated on his back beside the airlock hatch, @ng-but only

thinking-about getting up and going forward.  The cold metal felt

extremely good to him at the moment.

"Had to," he replied, hoping the robot wasn't headed where he

thought he was headed.  "Call of nature."

"So that's when it was done.  Master, somebody@' "Sabotaged the

suit when I wasn't looking, is that it?"

"I'm afraid so.  They crossprogrammed the communicator with the

cooling system.  Oddly enough, if you'd continued trying to call me on

the radio, it would have saved you from being roasted."

Lando shook his head, grabbed a stanchion, and sat up stiffly.

"That's a little obscure, even as practical jokes go.

Which one of them do you suppose it is?"

"Bassi Vobah helped to save your life."

"When she couldn't avoid it.  Come on, I want a smoke.  Do you

suppose I could roll a cigarette out of one of those crushed cigars in

the safe?"

"Why would you want to, Master?"

"Because it's there."

The next order of business-after getting something to eatwas

figuring out where they were.  Lando's running battle with the fighter

squadron had taken him through many turns and twists, and across what

distances he couldn't guess.  He and Vuffi Raa spent a good deal of

time pondering all that over the navigational computer.

"The device is useless, Master.  The radiation's finished it

off.-That gives me an eerie feeling, I must confess.  However, the

catalog has some information: this asteroid is uninhabited, but it

isn't uncharted."

In the seat beside the robot in the cockpit, Lando's shoulders

jerked in surprise.  "What?  You mean you know where we are?"

"I know the catalog number and some other characteristics of the

asteroid we're on@r in, if you prefer.  Its configuration is unique,

and has been noticed in the past.  On the other hand, I can't say

precisely where the asteroid is at the moment.  I have its orbital

elements, but everything in this system is subject to everything else,

gravitywise@' " 'Gravitywise?' " "Yes, Master, and predicting where

anything will be at any given moment amounts to a billion-body geometry

problem.  At any other time than Flamewind, there are continuous

longrange sensor inventories, and the system's databanks are updated

hourly, but you see@' "I see."  Lando turned a knob, activating the

deck plates at their lowest intensity so he'd have just enough gravity

to roll a cigarette.  He lit it, kicked them off again, and reclined in

his chair, mind working furiously.

"Once we get out in that mess again, we won't be able to

navigate," he said, more to himself than to the robot.

Vuffi Raa agreed, adding, "However, I shall be of more assistance,

now that you have increased the shielding, Master.

The trouble is that we don't know where to go."

"We still have that dead-reckoning program of yours?"

Reflexively, he flicked ash off his cigarette.  It drifted in the

cabin, finally settling on Vuffi Raa's carapace.  The droid, equally

absently, flicked it off.  It broke up and they both lost sight of it.

"Yes, Master-with what amounts to a big ball of unknown squiggles

at the end of it where you evaded those fighters."

"Can you estimate how big a ball?"

"Yes, certainly.  From the.  power consumption, if nothing else."

"Then that's our margin for error.  We simply follow the course as

if we'd never deviated and hunt through a sphere of space the same size

for Bohhuah Mutdah's estate."

"I'm afraid not, Master, if for no other reason than that the

sphere doesn't stay the same size.  It increases as a function of

probable error as we travel sunward.  During Flamewind, there's no way

of accurately estimating drift, and@' "Does that catalog of yours give

details on Mutdah's asteroid?"

"Fifty-seven ninety-two?  Yes, Master, l@' "Then it should give us

some hints about the other asteroids around there; it's interested in

the weird shape of this one.

Let's get as close as we can, then pick our way, rock by rock,

until we find the right one."

"Very well, Master, I see no other alternative."

"Neither do I. Now, while we're still up here and have some

privacy, we're going to talk about who it is this time that's trying to

kill me."

"We're nearly a day behind schedule!"  Bassi Vobah protested.

They were sitting in the lounge again.  Lando had powered up the

gravity, assuring himself beforehand that his passenger with the broken

legs was settled comfortably, and asked Vuffi Raa to prepare another

meal before they started.

"Do you realize," the female officer continued to an

unappreciative audience in general and an increasingly irritated Lando

in particular, "that, under ordinary conditions, this trip would have

required a little over two hours?"

"As an inhabitant of the Oseon System, my dear hired gun, you

should appreciate better than anyone else the inapplicability of the

expression 'ordinary conditions.' There's a storm going on out there,

and although I'm not altogether unwilling to venture out in it again,

some preparation is essential."

"Captain, may I remind you that the discretion in this matter

isn't wholly yours t@' "Officer, may I remind you that I am the

captain, and that, if you continue nagging, me, I'm going to take that

bl@ away from you and stuff it up your nose?"

The policewoman blinked, sat back in stunned outrage.

her superiors had never spoken to her like that!  Lando

grinned-not altogether unironically, and laid down the law: "Now see

here: one of you attempted to murder me when I was outside the ship.

I'm going to be rather busy when we quit this refuge, both Vuffi

Raa and I are, and I don't want to have to watch my back.  Therefore,

until we can arrive at an agreement concerning arrangements, we will

sit right here.  My inclination-and if you think I'm joking, you're

woefully deceived-is to handcuff the pair of you together until we get

to 5792.  Unless you can think of an alternative that suits you

better-and will satisfy me-that is what we'll do.

"Or we'll park here until the Core freezes over."

Bassi Vobah sat in angry silence, her arms folded across her

chest, a sour expression on her face.  Waywa Fybot blinked his huge

blue eyes, looked thoughtful, but in the end said no more than did his

colleague.

Finally: "Now look, you two, I'm not kidding!  I haven't figured

out who's doing what to whom and why, yet, but there's

something-possibly several somethings-going on.  I make it a practice

to avoid getting killed.  'One of you get out your handcuffs and lock

yourself to the other immediately, or@' "Master!"  came a shout over

the intercom.  "We've got trouble-big trouble!  I need you on the

flight deck!"

Rising quickly, Lando glanced from one cop to the other, smashed a

frustrated fist into the palm of his other hand, turned, and hurried to

the cockpit.

"What is it, Vuffi Raa?  Just now I've got@' "Look forward,

Master, to the edge of the crevasse."

Lando settled in his chair, strapped himself in, and, as a happy

afterthought, turned the local gravity in the lounge up to

approximately three times the normal pull.  "That ought to keep them in

one place!  I-oh, no!"

"Oh, yes, Master.  You can make out the reflections from their

bulls.  The fighter squadron has found us.  They'll be firing into this

canyon-without any chance of missing-in a very few seconds!"

xiii "MASTER, I HAVE failed you again!  We cannot escape, my
pilot skills are therefore useless.  Nor can I man the guns-my

programming forbids it!"

Lando waggled back and forth at the controls, loosening the Falcon

in its rocky nest.  He was wishing he could bring the starboard

quad-guns to bear, but that was asking too much.

Aside: "We all have our limits, Vuffi Raa, remember what I told

you about diamonds.  Just@' Diamonds?  That gave the gambler an idea-a

gambler's idea, to be sure, but it was all he had at the moment.

"Get out of there, old automaton, strap yourself in the jumpseat

behind us, and warn me if anybody comes up the tunnel to the cockpit.  I

may be able to get us out of this mess, but I want my back safe and my

elbows unjogged."

As soon as the droid had restationed himself, Lando began hitting

switches.  He had some time: the crevasse was deep, composed mostly of

metal-bearing rock.  It would take the enemy a while to find the

Falcon, especially since they were out in that impossible .  - - in the

lounge.  A neeTaking his first risk, he cut the gravity die on a

power-consumption gauge dropped slightly to the left.

Next, he began robbing power from every other system.  Out went

every light in the ship.  Off went the life-support-they'd all be fine

for a few minutes without it, and, if his plan didn't work, they

wouldn't need it.  He'd never reactivated the inertial damping; he

placed it on standby, contingent on what happened next.  When he was

finished, only the panel lights were glowing, that and Vuffi Raa's

great eye behind him.  The ship was deadly silent.

With enormous reluctance, he cut the standby power to every gun on

the ship.  It made him feel naked, but they were useless for what he

had in mind.

"All right, Vuffi Raa, everything quiet back there?"

"I can hear the pair of them wondering what's going on, Master."

"Let them wonder."

He reached across the instrument array and flipped the shields on.

Lights sprang into bright existence, making him feel better.  Then

he unlatched a metal cover over a graduated knob.  Normally it was set

at a tiny minus value, placing the main strength of the shields just

under the first few molecules of the ship's skin.  There were sound

reasons for this, but Lando didn't care about them now.

He turned the knob, slowly, very carefully.

The ship's structure groaned as the shields expanded, first a

millimeter, then a centimeter away from the surface of the hull.

Stresses were transmitted through the hull members to the heavily

buttressed casing of the field generator.  Lando turned the knob a

little more.

The Falcon had been tightly wedged within the rock, the wheel of

her upper airlock hatch scraping one side of the crevice, the bottom of

her hull abraded by the other.  There hadn't been a millimeter to

spare.

Now Lando was demanding more room, expanding the shields against

the asteroid's substance.  He turned the knob again; something groaned

like a living@ying-thing aft of the cockpit, but the panel lights still

showed everything intact.

Half a dozen fighters shot by the lip of the crevasse, seeking,

searching, probing.  One of them fired an experimental shot.  It

penetrated and rebounded half a dozen times within the walls before it

faded.

Another group of fighters swooped past.

And another.

They were circling the asteroid, searching the long canyon,

hundreds of kilometers in extent, for the hidden freighter that had

burned at least two of their number out of the polychrome skies of the

Oseon.

Their flybys were becoming more frequent as they narrowed the

search.

Lando turned the knob a little more, a little more.

A brilliant beam of energy cascaded across the forward shields.

By accident or design, the enemy had found its prey.

The power needle jumped.  Lando slammed the knob to the right as

far as it would go.

There was a deafening exploding sound.  Multicolored light

showered in on Lando and the robot as the asteroid burst under the

stresses of the shields and the Flarnewind swept around them again.

Secondary explosions punctuated the space around them: one, three,

five-Lando lost count as the hurtling rock fragments smashed and

scattered the fighter squadron-seven, eight.  Perhaps more, he wasn't

sure.  No one turned to fight.  He diverted a little power to the

inertial dampers, cut the shields back to normal, fired up the drives

and kicked in the deadreckoner.

They were on their way again.

He turned up the gravity in the lounge.  Even he could hear the

thump and a curse from Bassi Vobah.  He grinned and shook his head.

The improved shields seemed to help considerably.  Vuffi Raa

retained his reason, Bassi Vobah was as mtional as she ever was.  Waywa

Fyb6t dozed in his rack, recovering from his injuries with the aid of

an electronic bone-knitter from the Falcon's medical bag of tricks.  He

ought to be completely well in a few more hours, just in time to arrest

the triltionaire addict.

SweH.

Lando, for the most part, stayed up in the cockpit.  He was tired

of having police for company, preferred the company of Vuffi Raa.  The

little robot scurried around, tidying up and doing minor repairs.  He

reported that the hull was perfectly sound, despite the torture

inflicted on it, and, in a spare hour, checked the mountings of the

shield generator for stress crystallization.

There wasn't any.

Now that he had time to think about it again, Lando realized that

his life had become very complicated.

He'd had many of the same thoughts in jail back on Oseon 6845, but

things had been simpler, even as recently as then.

He was a simple man, he told himself, a relatively honest gambler

who usually only cheated to avoid winning too conspicuously.  Yet

someone-several someones, it would appear- kept trying pretty hard to

kill him.  First with a bomb.

Then with another bomb.  Then, just to show a little versatility,

with a big piece of titanium pipe.  Finally, most recently, with a

cleverly jimn-lied spacesuit.  He didn't even count the pirate attack

or the two encounters with the fighter squadron, although the latter

seemed at least tangentially connected.  He simply didn't know where it

all fit in.

Everybody has enemies, especially a gambler who makes a habit of

winning.  But the vendetta was ridiculous.  For the hundredth time, he

reviewed his life over the past few years, trying to discover some

person he'd known and hurt badly enough to merit such attention.

He was a skillful and fortunate man with the cards, and, despite

his failings as a merchant captain, he was becon-ting a pretty good

ship-handler, as well.  If he did say so himself.

Vuffi Raa said so, himself.

Unfortunately, when closely examined, his proficiency was a talent

of no practical value.  All it seemed to do was get him into trouble.

He belonged on a luxury interstellar liner as a passenger,

educating other passengers about the follies of trying to fill an

inside straight.  The soldier-of-fortune routine was beginning to pall.

Well, if by some slim chance he got out of this mess, he'd see

about rearranging his LIFE.  He had come to love the Falcon, but it was

a dangerous affair, one that threatened to get him killed at just about

any moment.  Vuffi Raa was quite another matter, a good friend and

partner, an astute adviser.  But this captain business ...

Vtrith a sinking heart, Klyn Shanga inspected the remnants of his

command.  One lost at Oseon 6845.  Two lost in the first engagement

with that tramp freighter.  And now, between the Flatnewind and that

exploding asteroid, a mere five fighters left.  It was possible that

more had survived, were even now trying to find their way back to the

squadron through storm and radiation.  Some of them might even live

past the @sadventure because they'd lost touch with their comrades.

Five tiny fighting craft, no two alike, except in general size,

range, and firepower.  They drew on the battle-cruiser engine,

restoring their own power even as it pulled them through the

nightmarish void.

Well, each of the men had known from the beginning what he faced:

a cruel and cunning enemy; a being that took delight in human misery; a

creature willing to sacrifice whole cultures, entire planets to satisfy

whatever unknowably evil objectives it set for itself.

And each had understood, when he had assembled them in his home

system from the ragtags of a dozen armies, how little chance there was

of surviving the quest.  To them, it had been worth it.

Five out of twenty-four.

It still was.

Bohhuah Mutdah lounged in a gel-filled recliner, watching a

performance of surpassing obscenity.  On the lawn before him, all

manner of sentient beings mingled, progressing through every

permutation of activity possible to them.  He had hired them-over three

hundred of them-for that express purpose.

They were following his detailed instructions.

He found it boring.

Bohhuah Mutdah found very nearly everything boring.

There was little he cared to participate in directly, owing either

to security considerations@yen now he was surrounded by an unobtrusive

force field to protect him from potential assassins among his

employee@r to his physical condition.  He had seen too much of life,

had too much of life.  Still he clung to it, although he didn't know

why.

To say that Bohhuah Mutdah was obese would be to engage in

understatement.  He had begun, a hundred years ago, with a large frame,

a little over two meters tall, broad-shouldered, long-legged.  That had

been only the beginning, an armature on which he molded a grotesque

parody of heroic sculpture.  He was heroically obese, monumentally

obese, cosmically ...

On a genuine planet, with a real gravitic pull, he would have

weighed three hundred kilos, perhaps three-fifty.  He hadn't entered

such a field for a quarter of a century.  He was bigger around the

waist than two large men could reach and working on three.  His own

arms looked stubby, his legs like cones turned over on the ends into

absurdly tiny baby feet.  His face was a bushel basket full of suet,

dotted with impossibly tiny features: a pair of map-pin eyes, a pair of

pinprick nostrils, a miniature blossom of a mouth.

He hadn't used his own hands for any purpose for five years.

He could afford to use the hands of others.  He had no real notion

of what he was worth.  No truly rich man does.  He'd heard it said he

was the wealthiest human in the known galaxy.

He wasn't sure about that, either, and didn't care.

He didn't care about anything at all-except, perhaps, lesai.

Maybe it was I the drug that kept him going, maintained the mild

interest he experienced in remaining alive.  Everything else, the

world, the entire universe, resembled a bleak gray plain to him.  The

Flamewind, lashing and snarling above his heavily shielded dome, seemed

colorless to him, although the hirelings on the lawn paused long

enough, now and again, to look up in awe at the display.

It wasn't being rich that had done this to him.  As long as he

could remember, since he was a child in rather ordinary circumstances,

he'd puzzled over the phrase "will to live" and wondered what drove

others to the bizarre extremes they sometimes reached while struggling

merely to remain in existence.  Mutdah's wealth had been the casual

result of a decade's desultory application of his incredible

intelligence, directing his modest substance toward a path of

inevitable, automatic growth.

Nor did that intelligence provide him with an answer to his real

problem.  He knew submorons, many of them working for him, whose

capacity to enjoy life was infinite compared to his.

He simply lived on, whether he cared to or not, like a machine-no,

even the machines who worked for him appeared to relish the mockery of

life they possessed with greater fervor and satisfaction than their

master.

It was a puzzle.  Luckily, he didn't care enough about solving it

to let it worry him unduly.  He watched the sky, he watched his

performers.  He watched reflections of it all in the fist-sized Rafa

life-crystal he wore upon a yard of silken cord about his neck,

wondering why he'd bothered to obtain the thing in the first place.

That philosopher, whoever he had been, had been right: the

greatest mystery of life was life itself.  And the question that best

stated it was: why bother?

A tear rolled down Bohhuah Mutdah's pillow of cheek, but he was

far too numb to notice it.

In a hidden place, Rokur Gepta thought upon the art of deception.

How ironic it was, and yet how fitting, that the surest way to lie

to others is to lie to oneself first.  If you can convince the single

soul who knows the falsehood for what it is, then everyone else is an

easy mark.

Salesmen had known this simple wisdom for ten thousand years, but

Rokur Gepta had never known a salesman.  Politicians knew it, too, but

politicians were Gepta's natural prey, and while the spider knows the

ways of the fly in many respects, she never asks him what he thinks of

the weather.

Gepta, isolated by necessity now, from his cruiser, from his

underlings, even from his beloved pet-they'd better be taking proper

care of it, or they themselves would face a greater appetite!-Aid not

regret the rigors which fulfillment of his plans required.  Long

centuries before an infant Bohhuah Mutdah moaned that life meant

nothing, Gepta was consumed by an overwhelming lust for all the things

life meant to him: power; hunger filled;, power; humiliation of

enemies; power.

He let himself be warmed, in his stifling concealment, by memories

of triumphs past, by extrapolation to future victories.

He saw himself astride the universe, whipping it on to exhaustion

in his service.  In a linear progression, he would make vassals of

emperors, servants of gods.  Nothing was beyond the scope of his

ambition, nothing.

And his certain destruction of Lando Catrissian would be but a

microscopic footnote, a token of good luck, a single fourleaf clover in

an infinite field.  It was an exercise in determination to-Rokur Gepta,

an example of taking minute pains to assure that everything, absolutely

everything, was right.

The subject of a microscopic footnote to the future history of

intergalactic space was pleased.

He rolled another cigarette and lit it while Vuffi Raa checked

references against the Oseon ephemeris.  Exactly as the gambler had

anticipated, they'd wound up, at the end of the program, in a flock of

asteroids which were well cataloged and identifiable.

And not too very far away from Oseon 5792.

A gambler's life had taught him to take satisfaction from success

without being cocky or becoming careless.  Well outside the range of

the best-known ship-detection systems, and despite the fact that the

Flamewind howling outside had blinded any such devices, he ordered

Bassi Vobah and her feathered colleague into hiding.  Examining the

blueprints of the Falcon, it had occurred to him that there was space

below the corridor decking that might be perfect for installing hidden

lockers.  Smuggling was merely an interest with him; it might someday

rise high enough among his priorities to become a hobby.  In the

meantime, he had not as yet taken time or gone to the expense of

building the lockers.  He might never get around to it.

As a consequence, the two police officers were extremely

uncomfortable just then, zipped into their spacesuits and stuffed

beneath the decking.  They clung to stanchions, cursing Lando and their

jobs, wishing they had become clerk typists or shoe salespersons.

@ch suited their chauffeur right down to the ground.

"Fifty-seven ninety-two coming up, Master.  I believe it's that

big blob over there on the right."

"Mat's starboard, old binnacle; don't let's disillusion the

tourists.  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of-You've got the package ready?"

The little robot turned from the controls, reached behind himself

adroitly, and took a vacuum-wrapped parcel from the jumpseat.  "I

inspected it and analyzed it as you requested, although I don't quite

understand why that was necessary.  It's genuine lesai, all right, in

its most potent form, enough for six months' use by even the most

habituated addict, and worth more the' "Fine, fine.  The reason why I

wanted you to check it is that I didn't want to be caught delivering a

shipment of phony goods.  The recipients would likely find a way to

reprimand me.  Terminally.  Also, I didn't want to be exposed to the

stuff myself.  I don't know how addictive it is, but it's potent

applied to the skin."

Lando checked the lightweight vacuum suit he was wearing, made

sure his stingbeam was handy in an outside pocket.  The part of the

mission that had always worried him was coming up.  His gambler's

wisdom told him it was a bad bet: when the owner of a big,

well-defended estate found out he'd brought the law, there were bound

to be some recriminations.

The Falcon drifted closer to Oseon 5792.

At approximately a hundred kilometers-farther than Lando would

have expected under the current "weadiee' condifionsthey were hailed by

a cruising ship.  It was small, like the fighters Lando had fought off,

but brand-new and nearly as heavily armed as his own.  Radio being out

of the question, it was using a modulated laser to communicate.

Unfortunately, Lando didn't have a de-modulator.

"They say we're supposed to stop here," Vuffi Raa supplied.

"They say they'll fry us out of the firmament if we don't heave to

for boarding.  Good heavens, Master, they're listing the weaponry they

carry!  If they're only lying about ninetyfive percent of it, we're

done for."

"That's all right, old electrodiplomat.  How do we tell them that

we're stopping for inspection?"  Lando had a password, but-with all the

other details in his mind the past few days-it hadn't occurred to him

that there might be a problem using it.

"I can tell them, Master."  The robot leaned forward, directed his

big red-faceted eye toward the security ship, and blat!  a beam of

scarlet coherency leaped through the canopy.

"Tell them the secret word is 'dubesor'-l understand that's a

native insult on Antipose Xil."  Lando took a final, not altogether

relaxed, drag on his cigarette and put it out.  Vuffi Raa's laser beam

winked out almost at the same moment, and he turned to his master.

"They say we're late.  I told them, who wouldn't be, considering

the Flamewind and everything, and gave them a little edited version of

our trouble with the fighters-presumed to be pirates.  Did I act

correctly, Master?"

"First sabacc, and now bluffing your way past the bouncers.

I'm not sure whether to be proud of you or worried.  I think I'm a

bad influence.  What did they say?"

"That we're expected and should set down on the small field

opposite the surface mansion complex-but not to try any dirty tricks.

They gave me another list of engines of destruction they can

employ with pinpoint accuracy against a ground target. "That guy must

have been a drummer for an arms company.

All right, let's set her down.  You do it, won't you?  I'm a

little too nervous to risk it, considering my amateur status as a

pilot."

"Very well, Master."

I wonder what the folks on Antipose XII are doing tonight, Lando

thought, whooping it up in the local saloon and calling each other

dubesor?

It beat hell out of what he was about to do.

xiv

OSEON 5792 was not particularly large as asteroids in the Oseon

go.

It was perhaps fifteen kilometers across its widest span, a

flattened disk-shaped accretion of many smaller bodies or a peculiar

fragment from a shattered planet.  To Lando it rather resembled an

island, floating on a sea of impossible blue-that being the color the

Flamewind was concentrating on at the moment.

Yet it was an island with two personalities.

The top side, as the gambler thought of it-perhaps because it was

the first view that he had of it-was a mythological garden, dotted with

small lakes, spread with rolling lawns, and punctuated here and there

by groves of trees, all held down by high transparent domes and

artificial gravity.  As the Falcon approached, Lando could make out

clumps of beings on the grass before a huge old-fashioned palace, doing

something.  He couldn't make out quite what it was.

The underside of 5792 was an impressive miniature spaceport,

cluttered parking grounds to an enormous motley fleet of spacecraft,

almost as if it were a hobbyist's collection, rather than a working

landing field.  The port was ringed, at the asteroid's edge, with heavy

armament; Lando began taking the security picket's boasts more

seriously.  'Mese folks believed in firepower and had the hardware to

back up their belief.

Vuffi Raa settled the Falcon in a berth designated for him with a

pulsing beacon.  As the freighter's landing legs came into gentle

contact with the surface, and the robot began slapping power-down

switches, Lando slapped his safety-belt release.

"I'm going to finish suiting up.  You understand what you're

supposed to do?"

He pulled on a lightweight space glove, gave his stingbeam another

check.  It shouldn't look too obvious.  No point making things easy for

the opposition.

"Yes, Master, I'm to conceal myself in the main controlcable

conduit between here and the engine area.  I'll tap into the lines

there and keep the Falcon ticking over for an instant getaway."

The little droid paused as if reluctant to continue.  "I'm to stay

here, no matter what, and blast off for deep space if you're not back

within eight hours.  Why do you ask me to repeat these things like a

child?  You know I have a perfect memory."

"Yeah?  Well, I'd feel a lot better about that if you remembered

not to call me master.  Besides, you've been known to improvise."

The robot considered this gravely.  "You could be right, Master.

I certainly won't depart as you've instructed me to.  Not without

looking for you first."

Though inwardly pleased at the response, Lando scowled.

"Fo hell with you then," he snarled.  "I've logged your

manumission into the Falcon's memories, just in case I don't get back.

You'll be a free machine, my little friend, like it or not, with a

fully operational commercial starship of your very own."

He was halfway through the rear door of the cabin when he turned

and spoke again.  "By the way, I've also made you my legal heir.  I

wish you better luck with this space-going collection of debris than

I've had."

The droid said nothing, but his eye dimmed very slightly in a

manner that indicated he'd been touched emotionally.  Then: "Good luck

to you, too, Master.  I'll be waiting .  . ."  But Lando was already

gone.

He followed his master off the tiny bridge.

In the passageway, the robot loosened a ceiling panel, hoisted

himself up inside, and drew the panel into place beneath himself.

Within a few seconds, he was a part of the Millennium Falcon.  A

very expensive, highly unconventional, and sullenly (for the moment,

anyway) independent one.

Carrying his helmet under one arm, the parcel of lesai under the

other, Lando reached a certain point in the ship's main corridor where,

transferring both burdens clumsily to one hand, he stooped down and

rapped, not very gently, on the floor.

A section of roughly-sawn decking parted upward and an angry and

unc6mfortable-looking Bassi Vobah raised her helmeted head.

"I'll take my money now," Lando said.  His own helmet began to

slip from between his gloved fingers.  He gave it an irritated hitch.

He doubted he'd really need the thing anyway, but he was a man who

took precautions.  He was taking one now.

"You can whistle for it, low-life!"  Bassi Vobah's spacesuit

served a different and more certain purpose.  It was a common

quarantine practice to flood a visiting ship with poison gas.

Hard on insects, germs, and furry creeping things of a million

species, it also discouraged smuggling of certain types and illegal

immigration where such phenomena were regarded as a problem by the

authorities.  "I don't keep bargains with cri@nals!"

"Then why do you work for politicians?"  He thrust a determined

hand out.  "Give me my money, or I'll suddenly and to my innocent

amazement discover a pair of stowaways.  Just in time for Bohhuah

Mutdah's security goons to take them into custody."

"You wouldn't!"

Lando smiled sweetly.  "Try me."

Breathing heavily, and from more than exertion, Bassi Vobah

struggled among the pipes and wires in the cramped, disorganized space

beneath her.  She fetched up a bundle, threw it at Lando's feet.

"Take it then, you mercenary anarchist!"

"That's me all over," he agreed charmingly, counting the credits.

One hundred seventy-three thousand, four hundred eighty-seven of

them.

Well, at least Lob Doluff was an honest criminal.  Better than

that, by returning everything he'd won to Lando, the Administrator

Senior had, in effect, underwritten the gambler's expenses on the

mission.

"Thanks, fuzzikins.  Try and understand it takes all kinds.  I

certainly do."

Bassi Vobah slumped back into the floor space, slammed the

improvised lid-down on top of herself.  Lando took an angry step

forward, stamping on the slab, ostensibly to seat it flush with the

rest of the floor, but more as if afraid that some vindictive spirit

would rise from its grave to haunt him.

Then he chuckled at his own annoyance with the lady cop, dismissed

it, and continued along the passageway.  A few meters farther, he bent

again, tapped the beginning of shave-anda-haircut on the deck, got the

final two notes from Waywa Fybot, straightened, and went on.

Near the ship's main entrance, he used a screwdriver to good

effect, stashing the wad of money behind an intercom panel.  He let

down the boarding ramp and stepped onto the "soil" of Oseon 5792.

Bohhuah Mutdah met him halfway.

The trillionaire's private planetoid, while more than a dozen

kilometers in diameter, was less than three in thickness.  Like nearly

every other human-developed rock in the system, it had been steadily

honeycombed over the decades of its occupation with storerooms, living

quarters, utility areas, and spaces for every other conceivable use.

Two armed guards in stylish livery-and heavy body armor-met Lando

at the foot of the boarding ramp, each stationing himself at one of the

gwnbler's elbows.  For what had appeared to be a bustling port facility

from a few thousand meters overhead, the place seemed remarkably

deserted just then.

No one else was about, organic or mechanical, as far as the eye

could see.

The guards bracketed Lando for a brisk walk across the

ferroconcrete apron, into a corrugated plastic service building,

through@the door of an industrial-grade elevator, and down into the

innards of the asteroid.  He needn't have bothered with his helmet.

There was enough artificial pull to hold a generous atmosphere.

The helmet's transparent bubble made a not too terribly convenient

receptacle and carrying case for the package of lesai.

"Well, fellows," Lando offered conversationally halfway through

the elevator ride, "everybody here enjoying Flamewind?  Where is

everybody, by the wayt' A stony silence followed, during which the

gambler spent a futile several moments attempting to peer through the

mirrorreflective visor on the riot helmet of the guard at his left

elbow.

Instead, he saw the swollen and distorted image of a gambler with

a mustache, lamely trying to make conversation.

The elevator halted with knee-bending alacrity, its door whooshed

open, the guards escorted Lando into what appeared to be a titanic

library.  The spherical chamber, half a klick from wall to wall, was

lined with every known variety of book produced by any sentient race

anywhere in the galaxy: chips, memory rods, cassettes and tapes of

various compatibilities, bound and jacketed hard- and soft-cover

publications, scrolls, folios, clay, wood, and bamboo tablets, stones,

bones, hides stretched wide on wooden poles, clumps of knotted rope,

and a good many other artifacts whose identity the young captain could

only infer from their presence with those other objects he did

recognize.

The only things missing were librarians and browsers.  The place

seemed utterly devoid of life.

Bohhuah Mutdah, Lando surmised, was addicted to the printed

(written, punched-in, hieroglyphed) word as much as to lesai@ither that

or he had carried pretension to a new extreme.  Perhaps it was a tax

write-off.

The three, Lando and his personal bookends, were whisked by a

length of fluorescent monofilament@the of hundreds drifting handily

around the cavernous room-to the center, where an obese giant took his

ease.

The trillionaire was being read to by a frail, elderly male

servant in a long white robe.  Mutdah himself wore nothing but a pair

of purple velvoid shorts that would have made a threepiece suit for

Lando with an extra pair of trousers.

"Ah, Captain Cahissian," hissed the enormous figure floating

effortlessly in midair.  His flesh billowed as he made a slight

gesture.  "I am given to understand you have a delivery for me and that

you braved the perils of a solar storm to accomplish the swift

completion of your appointed rounds, is that correct?"

Lando, angered by the condescension, cleared his throat, nodded in

a way that someone foolish might have interpreted as a slight bow.  He

reached across his spacesuited chest to extract the lesai from his

helmet.

"Hold it!  Freeze where you stand!"

That from a guy who wouldn't even discuss the weather with a

fellow.  He and his companion had their blasters drawn, pointed at the

gambler's head.  The first- guard looked to Mutdah.  His employer

nodded nidscroscopically.  The guard took the drugs, helmet and all,

examined them one-handed without reholstering his weapon, gave them

back to Lando.

The second gunman thrust a palm out.  "Okay, let's have it!"

Lando blinked.  "What are you talking about?"

A wheezy chuckle emanated from the trillionaire.  "Your pistol,

Captain.  Give him your pistol.  You were thoroughly scanned in the

elevator."

With a disgruntled expression, the gambler carefully extracted his

stingbeam, handed it to the security man.

"The other one, as well, please, Captain."

Lando shrugged, grinned at Mutdah, bent over and removed an

identical weapon from his boot.  Straightening, he gave it to the guard

on his right, who was having trouble handling three guns with two

hands.

"What happens now?"  the gambler asked mildly.

"That will be all, sergeant, thank you," Bohhuah Mutdah said

cheerfully, then, turning to the servant, who had remained impassive,

added "You may go as well, Ekisp."

That left Lan@o and the trillionaire sitting all alone in thin air

in the center of the cavern.

"I thank you sincerely for the trouble you have gone to on my

behalf, Captain Calrissian.  I ask you to forgive the concern for my

continued health which my employees often demonstrate.  It is

personally gratifying, but sometimes a nuisance.

Your property will be return6d when you depart."

Not knowing what to say, Lando said nothing.

"On that table, beneath the book old Ekisp left behind, you will

discover another package.  Please open and examine it; assure yourself

that it contains what it is supposed to.  The package you have brought

may then be left in its place.  Will you do that now, Please?"

Pulling lightly on part of the monofilament mesh surrounding them,

Lando drifted to the table, the sort usually found at either end of a

sofa, incongruous there in freefall.  The book, a heavy double roll of

vellum written in an alphabet he didn't recognize, had been tucked

beneath an elastic band that stretched across the tabletop from edge to

edge.

Beneath band and book, as the trillionaire had said, was indeed a

bundle.  Lando stripped opaque brown plastic from it, attempting to

control his eyebrows when he saw the stack of hundred-thousand-credit

certificates it contained.  With an experienced thumb, he riffled

through the pile, estimated that there were at least two hundred of

them.  Twenty million creditsthe gambler suppressed a whistle.

What price lizard mold?

He placed the package of lesai under the restraining band,

replaced the scroll, and pushed himself back from the table.

"Thank you, sir," the gambler said.  "If that will be all, I'll be

getting back to my@' Mutdah had opened his mouth to reply, but whatever

he had been going to say was muffled by a BRAAAMM!

Beneath them, the elevator door bulged and split, impelled by a

highly directional charge.  Two mutilated bodies-the security men who'd

stationed themselves on the wrong side of the door-spun end over end

across the great library.

Through a cloud of smoke two figures swooped on suit jets, braked

to an airborne halt in the center of the chamber, their weapons out and

leveled at the trillionaire.

"Bohhuab Mutdah," Bassi Vobah stated formally, "you are under

arrest on the authority of the Administrator Senior of the Oseon

System, for trafficking and use of illegal substances!"

Mutdah s@led.  The explosion hadn't startled him.  Nothing seemed

to take the obese trillionaire by surprise.  He looked at Bassi, looked

at Lando speculatively, then looked at Waywa Fybot, ridiculous in his

outsize bird-shaped spacesuit.

Waywa Fybot looked back.

Mutdah nodded to the avian.  Fybot changed the direction of his

blaster, pulled the trigger, and neatly blew off Bassi Vobah's head.

xv BASSI VOBAH'S BODY slowly tilted backward, its legs projecting

rigidly.  One arm caught briefly at a filament that turned the corpse

as it moved.  It drifted away to join those of the guards in the

book-lined void.

Bohhuah Mutdah turned his mildly amused attention back to the

feathered law enforcer.  "Your report, Officer Fybot, if you please."

The creature gave him a salute.

"lbe order for your arrest, sir, originated in the highest

possible echelons.  The very highest possible echelons.  In addition,

shortly before I was dispatched to this system, I was given purely

verbal instructions, sir, that you were not intended to survive the

process.  As insurance, pressure was applied to the local governor

through his family, his business interests, and by virtue of his ... er

... his .  . ."

The trillionaire's raisin eyes twinkled pleasantly.  He lifted a

negligent hand, sending waves of obscene motion through his bloated

flesh.  "Pray go on, my friend, you may speak frankly.

The truth does not offend a rational being."

"Very good, sir: through his habituation to lesai.

"Somehow Lob Doluff knew or guessed about my secret orders and

sent her@' Fybot pointed in the approximate direction of the drifting

body, now several dozen meters away and dwindling rapidly@'to see that

they were not carried out."

The bird-being had been speaking more and more rapidly, an

hysterical edge growing in his already high-pitched voice.

Now he paused, caught his breath before continuing.

"Captain Cahissian was induced, under threat of prosecution on a

capital charge, to provide us transportation and to assist in your

entrapment.  No one, however, not the Administrator Senior, not his

police chief, not Cahissian, and I most fervently hope not my

superiors, seems to have been aware of our ...

er, arrangement, sir."

Mutdah smiled.  "An excellent report, Officer Fybot.  Most

succinctly delivered.  All in all, I am highly pleased at the outcome.

"But tell me: you are very nearly twenty hours later arriving than

either of us anticipated at the outset.  I appreciate the difficulties

of negotiating the Flamewind, but ... twenty hours, Fybot?  Really!"

The alien blinked, finally thought to reholster his blaster.  He

fastened down the flap.  "In transit to this place, sir, many queer

events transpired.  I myself suffered deep hallucinations, although my

Imperial conditioning is supposed to have rendered me resistant to most

. . . Well, that's as may be, sir.  In any case, we were attacked, by a

collection of odd military spacecraft.  We took refuge.  Some repairs

were required."

Here, the alien hesitated, visibly nervous about the next part of

his report.  Lando thought he knew why, and doubled both his fists in

anticipation.

"Sir, believing@n account of our pursuers@hat Cahissian had become

a liability, I took the initiative in attempting to dispose of him by

sabotaging his vacuum suit.  I also thought perhaps this would disrupt

the plans of Bassi Vobah when it came time for your arrest.  I was

reasonably confident that I could get the Millennium Falcon here

myself.  Cahissian has a pilot droid that@' "Yes, yes," Bohhuah Mutdah

answered, for the first time betraying a touch of impatience.  Lando

relaxed, started breathing again.  He'd hoped his little five-leggiid

ace-in-the-hole wouldn't come up in casual conversation.

"But tell me more about these raiders," Mutdah continued.

"Who were they?  What did they want?"

"Sir, they made no demands, they simply-I have no idea, sir."

"Captain?  Surely you must@' Lando shrugged.  "I've been trying to

figure it out myself for days.  There might be some connection with a

pirate ship I fought off between Dilonexa and the Oseon.  Then again,

it might just be another sore loser."

Mutdah contemplated Lando's reply for a rather longer time than

Lando could see any reason for, muttered, "Possibly .  . . " more to

himself than anyone else, then ". . . and possibly not."

Finally he shook his massive head and turned very slightly to face

Lando again.  "I might explain that Officer Fybot has never been

particularly happy in his line of work.  He was, I ascertained when my

intelligence sources informed me of this scheme, conscripted to pay

tribute owed by treaty by his system to the central galactic

government.

"A gentle being, our Waywa; at heart he nurtures no ambition

greater than to become a gourmet chef.  I suspect that you and I would

find his culinary efforts quite resistible.  Nonetheless, he possesses

no small talent, in the view of his fellow avians, and fondly wishes to

resume his education where he was forced to abandon it upon being

drafted into service.

"Have I stated your case correctly, Waywa?"

The bird-being reached up, gave his helmet a quarter turn,

detached it from its shoulder ring and tucked it under an arm.

He wrinkled up the few mobile portions of his face in a grimace

Lando had learned to recognize as representing happiness.

"Oh yes, quite correctly, sir!"

The trillionaire addressed Lando again.  "In return for his

cooperation, I have personally assured Waywa that he will no longer be

required to suffer involuntary servitude at the behest of the

government.  I fully intend to make good upon that promise, keep my

part of the bargain."

Abruptly, Mutdah raised a tiny pistol from where he'd concealed it

in the deep folds of his corpulent body, drilled Waywa Fybot cleanly

through the abdomen.  The beam of energy pierced both suit and bird.  A

surprised expression froze on Fybot's face as his inert form wafted

away slowly from the center of the room.

That made four corpses in the library.  Things are getting pretty

messy around here, the gambler thought.

"The anatomy," Bohhuah Mutdah said incongruously, 'Is somewhat

differently arranged than one might anticipate.  That was, believe it

or not, a clean shot through the creature's heart."

His fat hand, which supposedly hadn't been used for years,

adroitly tucked the pistol into the waistband of its owner's shorts,

then hovered there, ready to draw and use the gun again in a fraction

of a second.

Lando had noticed that the fat man's reflexes were incredible.

Now he noticed something else: a glow of cruel satisfaction that

suffused the trillionaire's decadent face.  The man liked killing.

He looked at Lando appraisingly.  "The question now, my dear

Captain Cahissian, is what I ought to do with you.  As you are aware, I

have elm-tinated-have caused to be eliminatedtwo duly sworn officers of

the law.  They will doubtless be n-dssed.  I have illicitly purchased a

substantial amount of a highly illegal substance.  I have suborned an

agent of the government.  in short, nothing I couldn't easily pay to

have taken care of."

The obese figure pointed toward the table once again.

"There is a box of excellent cigars in the top drawer of the end

table.  Would you kindly remove two of them, light them with the

lighter you will also discover there, give one of them to me, and enjoy

the other yourself" The fat hand stayed near the gun.

Lando followed the instructions-with the exception of lighting the

cigars.  He handed one to Mutdah, offered to light it for him.

"Oh, come now, Captain.  I suppose you are afraid of being

poisoned or something silly like that.  Here: If you don't mind, I'll

puff on both cigars while you apply the flame-no, don't let the flame

touch them.  That's right, just hold it there until the ends begin to

glow.  That's the way to enjoy a fine cigar.

Please choose either one you wish."

Lando was a gambler, a professional manipulator of cards.

He knew how to "force" a draw, determine which card another person

took while appearing to encourage a free choice.

Mutdah wasn't doing it to him.

He took a cigar.  It was very, very good.

"Well," he said after a couple of satisfying draws.  He'd missed

die cigars he'd accidentally crushed aboard the Falcon, and the crude

cigarettes he'd rolled from their tobacco had been no substitute.  "I

don't suppose you can just let me go my own way.  Believe me, I don't

care what substances you find enjoyable, and these two7@he waved a hand

broadly to indicate the room in which the remains of Vobah and Fybot

were floating somewhere@'were no friends of mine."

Bohhuah Mutdah slowly exhaled smoke.  "I'd be a great deal more

inclined to take that seriously, my boy, if I hadn't seen the

expression on your face when they were killed.  I suspect that you

pretend to be a blas6 Core-may-care, live-and-let-five sort of rogue,

Captain.  But you are a moralist at heart, and I would always have to

be looking over my shoulder for you."

He waggled his massive, bloated shoulders.  "As you can see, I

would find that quite a burdensome task."

Lando's chest began to tighten.  He hadn't any illusions about

what was about to happen, not since he'd seen Waywa Fybot burned down,

but here it was, unmistakably.  Soon five corpses would drift on the

air currents in the chamber, and the next few seconds would determine

whether it was shin and uniformed or gross and nearly naked.

"So I guess we can't make a deal, then?"  Lando asked

rhetorically.  The second pistol hadn't been his only cautious

preparation, but he was damned if he could see what good his others

would do now.

"I'm afraid not," Bohhuah Mutdah answered sadly.  "And for more

than one reason.  In the second drawer of the end table, you will find

a pair of manacles."  He drew the gun, leveled it at the gambler.  "I

wish you to put them on.  If you do not, then I will slowly roast you

with this weapon, rather than kill you outright.  The first shot will

pierce your lower spine so that you will be helpless to resist the

subsequent agony.  Get the manacles and put them on, please."

Lando thought about it, looked at the muzzle of the pistol, looked

into Mutdah's unwavering beady eyes, and got the manacles.  They were

force shackles, a pair of cuff bands connected by an adjustable

tniniature tractor beam.  First class and very expensive.  That

figured.

"That's right," the tiillionaire said encouragingly.  "Now put

them on."

Shrugging to himself, the gambler snapped the bands around his

wrists.  He wasn't altogether resigned; Mutdah had something in mind.

After all, he hadn't handcuffed Bassi Vobah or her partner.

"Thank you very much, Captain.  Now place the shackle beam in this

loop of monofilament.  Yes.  You see, I mentioned that there was more

than one reason why I cannot let you go?

You recall that?"

An exasperated expression on his face, Lando asked, "Why do jerks

like you always have to go into this thespian routine?

If you're going to kill me, do it with the gun instead of boredom,

there's a good fellow."

A flush spread itself across the vastness of Bohhuah Mutdah's

face.  With a gargantuan effort, he forced himself erect, pointed the

weapon at Lando.

"The first reason I have explained.  My enemies are hounding me

and would see my power and fortune redistributed.  Parenthetically, I

must tell you that I do not care a whit about any of that.  The

continuation of the Bohhuah Mutdah 'empire' is of considerably less

than no interest to me at all.  I am constitutionally incapable of

feeling any concern about it.

"The real reason, Captain, is that I don't want to let you go.

The obese trillionaire's body began to blur, its colors swirling

together, its outline dissolving.  It was replaced by the somewhat

smaller form of an individual swathed in gray from top to toe.  Only

his insanely hungry eyes showed through the wrappings of his headpiece.

"For I am Rokur Gepta, and I'm going to torture you until you beg

for death!"

xv "SABACC!"

Lando Calrissian slapped down the cards in triumph-a triumph that

turned to embarrassed agony when he saw he'd hesitated too long between

shouting out his victory and sealing it in the stasis field of the

gaming table.

In the brief interval between the acts, his perfect twentythree

had transmuted itself into a losing hand.

The seventeen-year-old would-be professional gambler wtithed

inwardly, He'd practically begged for a chance to join the game in the

back room of the local saloon.  He'd lied to his family, ducked out on

school, broken or severely bent several ordinances about minors and

environments such as the one he found himself in now.

He wished that he was home in bed.  He wished that he was home

under his bed.  He wished he'd never seen a deck of cardchips in his

life, never practiced with them, never imagined himself a dashing rogue

and scoundrel.

It was all a dream, a foolish, idiotic dream.

"All is illusion, Captain Cahissian!"

Lando shook his head.  The back room of the sleazy hometown saloon

had vanished, and with it the embarrassed memory of humiliation and

mistake.  Actually, he'd gone on to win that game, taking home more

money than he'd ever had together in one place before.  Why hadn't he

remembered that?

Replacing the saloon in his field of vision was a broad rich lawn,

trees at the horizon, Flamewind spouting, roiling, and coruscating

overhead.  That was where he'd seen all those people on the approach to

Oseon 5792.  Where had they gone?

"The sights you see at this very moment are no more real, no more

substantial than the memories you have just experienced so vividly, my

boy!  That is the fundamental truth the universe has to teach us, and

like nearly everybody else, you have not managed to learn it until the

uttermost end of your life!"

The hiss in that voice was unpleasantly familiar.  Lando twisted

his head around-he was tied up!-but couldn't find the source.  The

range of his vision was limited by the upended picnic table, a cold,

synthetic marble of some kind, to which he had been bound.  All he

could see was the garden before him.

And the Flamewind.

The soft sound of slippered feet on grass.  A shadow passed around

the table-from the angle, Lando guessed it had been propped up on a

bench-and turned to confront him.

"Rokur Gepta!"

The voice was filtered through a smile behind the turban windings.

"And you thought I was dead, a victim of the uprising on Rafa IV.

No, Captain, I have been quite thoroughly alive for a vastly longer

time than you could guess.  I am hard to kill and highly reluctant to

let strangers terminate my existence."

Lando bit back a witty reply.  In the first place, this was not

the time for it, not when he was staked down and helpless.  The tractor

cuffs were anchored to the table, the beam of force between them lying

in close and inseparable contact with the marble surface above his

head.  Likewise, another pair of manacles had been added to his

spacesuited ankles.  He and Gepta had moved from the bubblecavem in the

asteroid's free-fall center to the surface, beneath the domes.

And he couldn't remember a moment of it.

"No remarks?"  the sorcerer taunted.  "I see that you have at

least learned some discretion.  This is not a moment for repartee, but

a time for contemplation.  You are about to experience an agony so

excruciating, so unprecedented in the history of intelligent life, that

being one of its first experimental subjects is a privilege and a

signal honor.

"You have had a sample of it: torture by chagrin."

The sorcerer waved a leather-gloved hand.

A jail cell on Rafa IV at dawn.  The open-fronted chamber looked

out on a graveled yard.  The noise was deafening: they were waking up

the prisoners for a day of murderous labor in the life-orchards.

The guards beat on the bars.  Lando had awoken with a start; now

the fear of what was about to happen filled his being to the core.  He

backed into the cell, trying to escape the noise, his unsteady

breathing slowly turning into a whimper.

BLAAASSSST!

The fire hose caught him unprepared.  It dashed him against the

wall, the icy water sluicing over him, blinding him, forcing itself

into his mouth and nose.  He fell to his knees, his head battered

against the wall.  He ducked it, trying to breathe, trying to stay

alive against the killing force of"But, you protest, it wasn't like

that at all?"

Gepta paced back and forth in front of Lando, relishing the

gambler's agony.  Despite the sweat on every centimeter of his skin,

Lando was freezing, simply from the memory.

But Gepta was right: it hadn't been like that at all.

"It-it only lasted a few moments," Lando stunered.  Perhaps it was

a surrender of some kind; he hated to give the madman any satisfaction

at all.  But he had to understand what was happening here.

"I wasn't nearly that frightened.  I'd already worked out a way to

escape.  And it only lasted a few seconds-not the hours I just .  . ."

He tapered off, unable to continue because of his shaking.

Shaking merely at the remembrance of something that hadn't bothered him

all that much when it was actually happening.

"You're a brave man, Captain Cahissian.  You don't like to think

of it that way.  What do you call it, 'creative cowardice'?

You regard yourself a pragmatist, one not given to heroics."

The sorcerer had paused, stood now nearly motionless before the

gambler.  In the background, the Flamewind whorled around the demented

sky, casting many-colored shadows.

Lando shook his head to get the sweat out of his eyes, tried his

bonds.  As he'd expected, they were there to stay.

"And yet," Gepta continued, "what is bravery but the capacity to

reject our fears, ignore and suppress them, then go on to do whatever

it is we are afraid to do.  What you are experiencing now, dear

Captain, is the fear You refused to experience the first time.  Now you

have no choice!"

Surprise attack!

Wrestling the Falcon with one hand, Lando desperately tried to

fire the cockpit guns with the other as the weird ragtaggle

fighter-squadron bore down on him.  It was a nightmare: they were too

well shielded for his inconsequential guns to trouble, yet he couldn't

operate the quad-guns without leaving the bridge.

Vuffi Raa, insane and helpless, couldn't assist him.

He fired again.  He might as well have been shooting strewns of

pink lemonade as the pale, ineffectual fire that was all he could

manage.  The enemy fleet bore down on him, bore down, bore down ...

Lando finished throwing up, coughed, choked, cleared his throat.

"Obviously," Gepta hissed cheerfully, "you survived the peril that

you just reexperienced.  Otherwise, you wouldn't be here now-it's only

logical.  It is a logic which enables us to live with our unpleasant

memories, is it not?  An integrative, healing contextualization which

we all require to survive."

"Sure," the gwnbler gasped.  "Sure, you rotten-anything you say!"

"Afth!  Resistance at last!  As I was saying, however, the art of

torture-by-chagrin lies in denying the mind that integration, that

perspective.  As you relive the n-dnor horrors of your life, you don't

recall that you survived, eventually triumphed.  You see, even at

moments of extreme peril, there are defenses, distractions, digressions

which dilute the passions..What is more, my method does not allow its

subject to experience anything but the fear.  You can think of nothing

else.  The experience goes on and on, in circles, until the ego and the

will are utterly crushed.

"Resistance," the lecturer trudged on relentlessly, "only adds the

brissance, the, how shall I express it, the snap!  which makes the

quashing of the human personality possible.  Get angry by all means,

Captain.  Insult me.  Not only will it speed the process-without

rendering your eventual agony any shorter in duration, I assure you-but

I relish it, as you shall see to your dismay!"

Lando's breath was sour, the taste in his mouth bitter, but he

managed a reply.  "I'm betting that you're bluffing, Gepta.  I'm

betting that you're lying about that part.  It would be like you.

I think I'll continue hating your guts for a while, just as a

matter of form.  I think I'll imagine them pulled out through your

navel and roasted over a slow@' Lando's world was a forest of giant

legs.

All around him, grown-ups on their private hurried errands jostled

him, threatening to knock him down and trample him.

There wasn't anything he could do.  He was only three years old.

And he had lost his mommy.

The frightening alien city streets were crowded for the holidays,

wet and dirty, dark with early evening.  The lighted,windows of the

giant stores along the sidewalk didn't help.  He stumbled in the slush

and nearly fell, sagged instead against the wall below a window filled

with toys, and fought back the tears rolling down his terrified little

face.

"Mommy!"  Where was she?  Why didn't she come and get him?  She'd

left him at one of the windows-he'd wanted to watch the animated

display-when he'd promised he wouldn't move.  He was tired of the

inside of the store; everything was up too high; there were too many

people; and it hadn't been an interesting department anyway, where the

lady had given mommy too much money back.

"Mommy?"

"Your mommy isn't here, Lando.  You're all alone, and always will

be."

"Who's that @ng? "I'm yourfear, little Lando, I'm your terror

I'm an eternity of anguish and I'm going to get you! "Mommy!"

Somehow the voice sounded familiar.  Somehow he knew the voice

hated him and wanted to hurt him.  He didn't know what those big words

were, terror, eternity, anguish, but they didn't sound very nice.  He

wanted his mommy.

But he was lost forever in the forest of legs.

"Ahhh, that was a deep and fundamentally traumatic one, wasn't it,

little Lando?  I could barely stand it myself."

Gasping, Lando shook the tears from his eyes, tried to catch his

breath.  It felt like he'd been crying for a thousand years.

He remembered the incident very well.  It had lasted, in reality,

all of ten minutes, but somehow, he had never quite trusted the

universe afterward.

"What do you mean you could barely stand it?"  shouted Lando,

then: "You!  You were the voice!  What are you doing to me?"

"Only beginning, my dear boy, only beginning.  We've been at this,

what?  Half an hour?  It will go on for days, Captain Calrissian, with

any luck for weeks!  I may attempt to prolong it for-But I see that you

are puzzled, Lando."

Gepta had resumed pacing.  Lando moved, tried to stretch, and

discovered that he'd hurt himself Where the force cuffs held him, where

the marble table bore against his back, he was in pure, unadulterated

physical agony.

It felt good by comparison.

"You see, the art of torture-by-chagrin requires that its

practitioner experience what the subject experiences.  He must guide

the mind of the subject into always deeper, always more terrifying

waters.  He must suffer the experiences himself, in order to assure the

quality, the depth, the texture of it.

"And in your case, Captain, and in mine, to make sure it is

suitable as revenge!

"Yes, I have a way of living in your head, and yes, I am willing

to suffer every bit of pain you suffer, so that I will know that I am

torturing you enough!"

Overhead, the Flamewind sheeted the sky with a demented rainbow.

Interplanetary lightning.crackled across ionized paths.

A hurricane of color whirled around the asteroid.

Gepta whispered, "The next little nostalgic digression will

concern your business failures, Captain.  But before we begin, I wish

to tell you that they are not altogether the product of a malicious

universe or your incompetence."

Gepta had been pacing back and forth a couple of meters in front

of the tilted table where Lando was restrained.  Now, for the first

time, the sorcerer stepped forward until his eyes burned into those of

the gambler.

"I hounded you!"

Lando shook his head, too groggy from pain of several kinds to

comprehend fully what Rokur Gepta was telling him.

"I dogged your footsteps!  Everywhere you went, I saw to it that

the prices were a little higher, the rates you could resell at were a

little lower!  I warned the authorities anonymously that you were a

smuggler, increasing the number of fees you had to pay, raising the

amount in bribes!  I devoured you by attrition-and then arranged for

you to be invited to the Oseon!"

"What?"  It didn't make sense.  Hadn't the government wanted to

destroy Bohhuah Mutdah?  Hadn't"I anticipate the questions you are

asking yourself, Captain.

I and I alone arranged for that decadent leviathan to be harrassed

by the government, then had him killed and took his place.  All so I

would be here when you arrived.  I saw to it that more money was placed

in your hands than you have ever had before-tens of raillions!-money

you will now never have the chance to spend."

Here, Gepta reached behind the table, took the thick sheaf of

bills, and placed it on the ground at Lando's feet.

"Enjoy it, Captain Lando Calrissian, in the limited way that you

are able.  Enjoy it as you shall enjoy the memories of every sickening,

humiliating, painful event in your lifeincluding this one!  I shall

enjoy it all with you, purify it, help you to concentrate upon it to

the exclusion of all else.

"And we shall see, as I have never had the opportunity to

determine before, whether an individual can die of shame .  . ."

He lifted a hand; Lando could feel something like drowsiness steal

over him, just as he had in each instant before.  He fought it,

wrenching himself in the restraints, but his mind kept getting fuzzier,

his eyes refused to focus on anything but his own terrifying inner

realities.  He fought itBut he was losing.

MAGENTA CURTAINS SHIMMERED against a stationary tapestry of pale

stars as lightning exploded above Bohhuah Mutdah's crystalline dome.

And exploded again.

Startled, Rokur Gepta whirled in mid-gesture as a flash bleached

his surroundings for a third time in as many seconds.

Somewhere, far away, there was a roar of matching thunderwhich

should have been impossible-and a breeze began sifting toward its

distant source.  The broad lawn rippled like the pelt of an angry

predator.

The wind was fully as impossible as the thunder.  Yet it rose from

an initial flutter-to gale force in a twinkling, whipping at the

sorcerer's gray cloak, hurling dust and loose papers along with it.

Lando squinted.  The dead trillionaire's lofty architecture had

been breached somewhere near the edge of the worldlet.  The artificial

pull of gravity this side of the asteroid was indolently kinder than at

the spaceport, and consequently insufficient to maintain the present

atmospheric pressure without help.  That help was departing rapidly.

The hurricane would roar until things equalized.

He hoped he'd be able to breathe by then.

Battered by the powerful current, Gepta lurched against its

strength, trying to reach Lando.  The gambler realized this was his

only chance-and that perhaps the preparations he had made, however

elaborate, might be worthwhile, after all.

Beneath his spacesuit, under the sleeves of his shipclothes, he

was wearing his own set of tinklewood splints.  In fact, it had been

this idea that later served as inspiration when Waywa Fybot broke his

legs.

In Lando's case the intention was to prevent injury.  There were

half a dozen twenty-centimeter rods, half a centimeter in diameter,

running parallel to each of his forearms, tucked through small fabric

loops in three neat circumferential rows, near the elbow, wrist, and in

between.  Vuffi Raa, thrilled at the chance to do some valeting at

last, had sewn them on a heavy shirt for his master.  Lando had

speculated that they might be handy stopping a blow or parrying a

blade.  They were X-ray transparent, nonmetallic, indefectible by the

usual run of security scanners.

Unlike his pistols.

He wore similar crude armor around his lower legs, knee to ankle.

Wriggling an elbow, he finagled one of the rod ends until it was

free of the force cuff on that wrist.  This would have been a futile

effort while Gepta had the upper hand.  Now, fighting the incredible

wind blowing into space through the broken dome, the sorcerer was too

busy to interfere.

The rods had added enough girth to Lando's wrist that he was

able-very painfully-to tear his hand through the manacle just as Gepta

reached him.  Quickly, he slipped one of the rods out of his sleeve,

jammed it through the turban slit into the sorcerer's eye.

'Gepta screamed, clapped a hand to his shrouded face, and stumbled

backward.  The wind caught his voluminous cloak and took him away in a

tumbling, fabric-covered ball of curses.  He vanished into a nearby

grove of Thorn trees.  There was more screaming.

Liberating the feet was more difficult.  Lando finally pulled his

suit-boots off, scraped his way past the restraints, and had begun to

gather up his shoes and wits and Mutdah's money, when a silvery snake

appeared in the grass before him.  It had fingers for a face and a red

glassy eye in the palm.

It couldn't bite; it was programmed not to.

"Vuffi Raa, you've got to pull yourself together!"  There was no

response; the independent appendage couldn't talk, and vulgar gestures

were beneath the robot's dignity.  "I don't know exactly what's going

on around here, but it's our chance to get out!  Move!"

Behind the uptilted table, Lando found his suit helmet.  He also

found a complex pile of electronic equipment, cables leading to a large

flat, complexly braided coil that had been situated at the back of his

head.

"I'm a little disappointed," he said to the tentacle.  "And here

I'd thought he was doing all that spellbinding by sheer force of

personality!"

Somehow the chromium appendage managed to convey impatience as

Lando dawdled.  It lay on the ground fidgeting while he pulled on his

boots.  Overhead-directly overheadthere was a resounding bellow.

Jagged sheets of curved plastic began falling.

"Relax, old boy, I'm pedaling as fast as I can!  I wish you could

tell me what the deuce is going on!"

As he shoved his foot into the boot, snapped the vacuum clasps

tight, Lando saw the lightning flash of high-powered energy-weapons

above them.

And several of the fighter-craft he'd battled on the way to 5792.

"Edge take me, that makes things a little clearer!"

Together the gambler and the disembodied tentacle hued into the

deceased trillionaire's deserted mansion, robot appendage in the lead

and seeming to know where it was going.  Inside, 4hey took an elevator

down into the planetoid.  Even as they let it bury them, they could

feel the asteroid shake and shudder from the assault overhead.

In the blink of an eye, the carriage passed the ruined door of the

library, swung on its gimbals, turning at least one startled occupant

on his head, and whisked onward in this new orientation.  Adding injury

to insult, Lando was nearly dashed to the floor as the machine crashed

to a stop inside the spaceport service building.

Rasping on damage-distorted ways, the pneumatic door ground

halfway open, then froze.  The gambler squeezed through, chrome snake

underfoot, and the pair leaped from the building a fraction of a second

before it collapsed in flames.

Fire and explosions rocked the airport as more fighters strafed

and bombed it.  A scarlet beam lashed the waiting Millennium Falcon as

they approached her.  The backsplash nearly ftied the gambler.  But her

shields held.

Gasping, Lando ran up the boarding ramp, pausing only to punch

buttons to retract it, then sprinted forward around the corridor,

momentarily outdistancing even the tentacle as it hastened back to its

owner.  Vuffi Raa had climbed down out of the ceiling access, and was

strapped into the pilot's seat.

Lando took the right-hand position without complaint.

"Let's get the devil out of here!"  he screamed above the chaos

roaring outside.

Reclaiming his leg, Vuffi Raa spared a split-second of attention

for the gambler while he helped it connect itself.  "You're a hard

being to rescue, Master.  You don't wait for help.  I'll ask you how

you got loose from Rokur Gepta later, if we live.

Meanwhile, hadn't you better man the quad-guns?"

"You suggesting an aggressive act?  I think you're right."

Lando was gone before he'd finished the last sentence.  Sliding

into the gun chair, he Ripped switches and pushed buttons, grabbed the

handles of the ungainly weapon, and rested restless digits on the

triggers.

A fighter made a pass at the larger ship as she lifted, her

ffimsters glowing blue-white.

Lando made life hell for him.

The Falcon soared into the multicolored sky, two of the fighters

harrying her like angry hornets.  They were fast, maneuverable, and

good.  Too good: Lando hadn't any easy dodge available there, as he had

at the fissured asteroid.  Nor was he experiencing much success smoking

his tormentors.  But his

IL

steady, accurate, occasionally inspired shooting kept them from

having very much luck, either.

Another frantic pass, another exchange of energy-bolts, to little

effect except in generating adrenaline on both sides.

Oseon 5792 dwindled rapidly beneath them.

Then somebody manhandling a fighter made a mistake, zigging when

he should have zagged.  Aboard the Falcon, crosshairs rested firmly on

his rrddsection, waiting for exactly such @ error.  They were still on

him as Lando mashed both triggers, tracking all the while, following

through.

The fighter burst into a tumbling ball of sparks and greasy smoke.

Vuffi Raa rolled the Falcon, skidded, bringing Lando's guns to

bear again.  He poured her fury into the remaining fighter as it

swerved to avoid the fate of its companion.

Freighters weren't supposed to be able to do that!

The unnaturally agile saucer suddenly performed a maneuver that,

in another place and time, would be called a Luftberry circle, placing

her smack on the fighter's back again.  Her quad-guns pounded.

The enemy wriggled off the hook once more, but this one made an

error, too: he got sore.  Veering in a wide, angry, predictable loop,

he came back to have his vengeance.  Instead, he got four parallel

pulsed beams of raw fusion-reactor output straight in the helmet visor.

And exploded, showering space with incandescent atoms.

Beneath them, there was a sudden streak of light.

Something left the asteroidfaaassst!, headed for interstellar

space.  At very nearly the same instant, the surviving three fighters,

having reconnected themselves with their battleship engine, bored

directly for Bohhuah Mutdah's miniature world, fanatically intent on

taking their victim with them-and unaware that (whoever it was) he was

gone.  Detaching themselves at the last second, they slung the giant,

throbbing power plant at Oseon 5792.

One of them had a mechanical failure.  His cable wouldn't release.

He was pulled down with the engine into hell.

The other two sheered off frantically.

Vuffi Raa raced tentacle tips over the Falcon's keyboards.

The resulting acceleration could be felt by her captain even

through her powerful inertial dampers.  His gun seat slewed around

violently, slamming itself and its occupant hard against the stops as

the guns swung wildly.  The asteroid dwindled to a pinprick-and

blossomed into a glowing cloud, consuming one of the fighters who

thought he'd gotten away, tumbling the other.

Even the Flamewind paled momentarily as the ravening fireball

expanded, growing brighter, brighter.

Then, from the inside out, it began to dim.

Lando took a deep breath@scovered he'd aheady taken one he didn't

remember-and let it out.

"Brace yourself, Master!"  screamed the intercom beside his ear.

BLANG' ZOONG!  GRATI It was like being inside a titanium drum

being beaten by a tribe of savages.  Debris showered past the Falcon,

mostly ricocheting off her shields, some pieces actually getting

through at a reduced and harmless velocity.

The freighter shook and danced, then steadied.

Lando released a second breath he didn't recall taking, unstrapped

himself from the quad-gun chair, rubbed a couple of sore places on his

back, and shambled forward to the cockpit.

Deep in interstellar space, far from the Oseon and getting farther

by the nanosecond, a brand-new one-seat fighter, bruised and battered

by the Flamewind and the destruction of a world, took its badly shaken

pilot home.

Rokur Gepta laughed bitterly.  The best deception is the one that

first deceives the deceiver.  Blood stained the voluminous gray robes

he wore, and agony pulsed through his ruined eye-another debt he owed

Lando Cahissian.  Yet Rokur Gepta was a being who took precautions,

too.  For example, his private fighter, one of the tiniest craft

capable of interstellar flight ever constructed.  It had saved his life

in the Rafa System; now it guaranteed his continued existence once

again.

In a universe that was all illusion, deception was a doubleedged

sword.  As Bohhuah Mutdah, he had nearly sunk into that flaccid

degenerate's depression, so thoroughly had he absorbed the role.  Only

an all-consuming passion for vengeance had helped him to maintain his

true identity.  Similarly, when attacked by Cahissian, the disguise

that he had worn for centuries had nearly been his undoing.

He endured the pain a while longer as a lesson to himself.

There was no truth, no objective reality.  Yet it would serve him,

as a master of deception, to keep his illusions sorted out better.  He

would meditate upon this lesson while waiting at the Tund System for

the scheduled arrival of the Wennis, due to rendezvous with him after

the passing of the Flamewind.  He'd left her and her crew on Oseon 6845

and flown the fighter to 5792 to assume the role of Bohhuah

Mutdah.

A pulse of raw anger nearly overwhelmed him, and he concentrated

on the pain again to maintain self-control.  He'd lost his pet on

5792-another debt he owed the vagabond gambler, one which he would pay

with interest when the opportunity presented itself again.  Correction:

when he made the opportunity.

Well, enough was enough.  He set his tiny ship on automatic, let

the gray-swathed form he usually assumed fade.  At long last he

occupied the pilot's seat in his true appearance.

The tinklewood rod dropped to the floor of the small cabin, the

bloodsmears along its length vanishing before it hit.

Gepta's pain, fully as illusory as his common worldly

manifestation, vanished even more quickly.

Then another rearrangement, another shift of shapes and colors.

Once again the charcoal-cloaked, mysteriously masked entity

appeared, clean of bloodstains, free of pain.

He cut out the autopilot, took the grips of the fighter's

controls, and punched in the overdrive.

The ship became a fading streak against a starry sky and was gone.

"There it is, Masterl" an excited Vuffi Raa called.

Lando peered into the transparent canopy of the Falcon's cockpit.

The radar and proximity indicators were still nonfunctional and

would remain so as long as the Flamewind raked the Oseon.  He longed

for an old-time primitive optical telescope.  The electronic magnifier

aboard the Falcon was worse than useless here.

"You've got a sharp eye, little friend.  But keep the shields u@we

don't know whether he's really helpless or just faking."  Lando took

another puff on the crudely rolled cigarette.

Someday he'd get the chance to buy some more cigars.

The Falcon swayed and dipped, matching the velocity of the

tumbling fighter.  Not only had the droid insisted on rescuing its

occupant-if said occupant had survived the beating his craft had

received-but Lando had agreed in the hope that it might answer a few

nagging questions.

Exactly whom had he offended sufficiently to merit the fantastic

vendetta diat-he hoped-was drawing to a close this very minute?  He'd

certainly never won enough money from any single individual to make it

understandable.

The streamers of the Flamewind and the starry background began

whirling crazily as Vuffl Raa rolled the ship to match the motion of

the disabled fighter.  Lando took a final drag, groaned, and cranked

himself out of the seat, staggering a little at the disorienting sight.

The Falcon's artificial gravity and inertia compensators were

functioning perfectly, but his sight was fooling his middle ear.  He

squinted.

"I'll get topside.  Hold her steady, will you?"

"Be assured, Master-and be careful.  I'll join you as quickly as I

can."

"Pight."

On the way to the upper hatch, Lando reclaimed his helmet.

He hadn't had time to take off his pressure suit, which was just

as well.  He placed the bubble on his head, gave it the slight push

downward and the fractional turn that locked it into place, and checked

the telltales on his arm to make sure he had a perfeet seal.

One more stop.  He seized a meter-long breaker bar from a

socket-wrench set in the engine area.  He'd lost his stingbeams on

5792, kept no other small arms aboard the Falcon.  Hefting the length

of titanium, he swung it experimentally.  Notas good as steel would

have been, too light, but it would do to crack a helmet faceplate or a

skull.

A muffled clank!  reverberated gently through the entire ship.

Almost as quickly, the robot's voice crackled in his earphones.

"We're locked on, Master I'll just stabilize our attitude and be

right with you.  " Lando didn't feel the maneuver.  When things were

working right (and he couldn't see out a window), he wasn't supposed

to.  In any case, he was busy turning a large metal wheel set in the

hatch over his head.  The seal was supposed to be tight with the escape

aperture of the fighter; his suit was only a precaution.  But he had

closed an airtight door behind him when he entered this area of the

ship.

Lando was a man who took precautions.

The wheel hit its stop, the door slumped downward a couple of

centimeters, and Lando swung it aside.  Pocked and abraded metal

greeted him, a circle of it, set in a broader area that matched it in

long, hard wear.  The circle had an inset ring at its edge.  Lando dug

a gloved pair of fingers under it, pulled hard, and a strip of sealant

followed it down through the Falcon's hatch.

The circle popped out-sfighdy higher pressure inside the fighter.

Lando tossed the emergency access plate down to the chamber floor,

stuck a cautious wrench handle through the port, followed it with his

head and shoulders.  A booted foot hung on either side of his head.

The boots were connected to a pair of legs that rose to a body

slumped in an acceleration chair and strapped in.  The body didn't

move.

Straining a little, Lando stretched up and hit the harness

quick-release.  'Ngging gently on the figure's ankles, he got the body

started down through the hatch, having to drop his breaker bar to the

floor to make room and gain an extra hand.

The shoulders jammed momentarily, then slid through.

Lando was glad he'd adjusted the gravity in the room to one-tenth

normal.  The guy would have squashed him on the way down the hatch

ladder.  He was huge.

With the rescued pilot lying unconscious on the floor, Lando

heaved the hatch back into place, turned the wheel until a green light

winked from a small panel beside it, and dropped back to the floor.  He

read what he could of the pilot's suit telltales.  Appearances could be

deceptive; the pilot looked human, but it could be ammonia he was

breathing inside his suit.

That wasn't the case.  As he detached his own helmet and began on

that of the disabled fighter pilot, he heard another clank as Vuffi Raa

cast off the ruined craft.  Inside the helmet was an aged rugged face,

elaborately scarred, and covered with a grizzled week-old beard.  Even

in repose the face looked tough and wise and experienced.

An eyelid fluttered.

Lando recovered the wrench handle, just in case, then had a second

thought.  This fellow looked strong enough to.  take the handle away

from the gambler and shove it right up hisA hiss sounded across the

chamber.  Vuffi Raa stepped through the door just as the pilot began to

stir.  The tough old man shook his gray head slightly, looked up

groggily at Lando, blinked, and looked around the room.

His gaze stopped at the droid, froze there.  A look of passionate

hatred surf-used the pilot's face, and his body tensed for combat.

"You!"  the pilot screamed, "Destroyer of my world!  Kill me now,

or you shall surely escape death no more!"

xviii WITH A VICIOUS tentacle-slash at the bulkhead behind him,
the robot launched himself across the room, straight at the astounded

fighter pilot.  The pilot leaped up just as four chromeplated

manipulators seized him in their mechanical embrace, joined by a

belated fifth.

The pilot heaved his forearms up and outward in a holdbreaking

maneuver, fended off a tentacle with a forearm block that would have

snapped radius and ulna of a human antagonist, delivered a powerful

turning backfist blow to Vuffi Raa's pentagonal torso.

The little robot flew back the way he'd come, smashed into the

wall, and was on the way back into combat again before Lando could so

much as blink.

"Master!"  the droid shouted, once again wrapping his limbs about

those of the pilot.  "Use your medikit!"

Fumbling at the belly of his suit, Lando grabbed the kit's

injector, a flat thick coin of an object with a red side and a green

side laminated over silvery plating.  As Vuffi Raa held the fighter

pilot momentarily, Lando slapped the injector on his neck.

There was a hisssss, the pilot slumped, and Vuffi Raa released

him.

The robot seemed to slink into a corner, his red eye growing

dimmer, his tentacles spreading and curling until the little fellow was

a simple metallic sphere.  The light pulsed feebly once, and went out.

"Vuffi Raa!"  the gambler exclaimed, shaken with surprise and

grief.  He hurried to the robot's side, without the faintest idea what

to do for his friend.  A tiny hint of eye-glow still could be made out.

Lando stood as anger began to fill him.

He walked over to the pilot.  The sedation hadn't rendered him

unconscious.  He lay, breathing deeply, his eyes swimming in and out

of focus, in and out of burning lunatic hatred for the helpless droid

across the room.

Lando turned him over roughly, tore the somewhat antiquated

blaster from the man's n-dlitary holster, flipped him on his back

again.  Poking around in the small cramped chamber, he found some

scraps, odds and ends from maintenance projjects, among them a

two-meter length of heavy wire.  Holding it against the

shield-saturated upper hull, he burned it in half with the blaster on

its lowest setting, and, without waiting for the fused ends to cool,

returned to the recumbent pilot, twisting one piece around his suited

wrists, the other around his ankles.

Then, uncaring about what physiological damage he might be doing

the soldier, he twisted the knurled edge of the injector until a small

arrow was opposite the engraved legend stim, and clapped it firmly to

the man's face.

The device made its subtle noise.  The fellow flushed, groaned,

but his eyes grew clearer immediately.  Lando pressed the still-warm

muzzle of the blaster against the man's left kneecap.

"All right, Ace: tell me your story and make it short.  By all

means don't cooperate.  I'd love an excuse to use you up, one joint at

a time!"  The knuckle of his index finger tightened on the trigger, and

the pilot saw it.

"I'm Klyn Shanga," the trussed-up figure said with a sigh.

"I'll tell you anything you want to know, as long as you promise

to use that blaster on me afterward.  One clean, effective shot for an

old soldier, what do you say?"

Taken aback, Lando let the muzzle drop to the floor.  "I say I'll

let you know after I hear what you have to say.  'Klyn Shanga': what

kind of name is that?"  He squatted on the deck beside Shanga, one eye

on Vuffi Raa.  The robot didn't stir.

Shanga shook his head and sighed again, trying to accept defeat.

He'd had a good deal of practice.  "It's the name of a dead man,

friend, the name of a dead man.  Who in the Name are you, and what are

you doing fighting men like yourself with that fiend over theret' "I'm

Captain Lando Cahissian of the Millennium Falcon," Lando replied

evenly, "and that 'fiend' is my pilot-droid and friend, friend.  His

name is Vuffi Raa and he never hurt the tiniest insectoid in his life.

He's programmed against it."

The pilot blinked.  "A droid?  Is that what it told you?

explains the fancy chrome-I almost didn't recognize it.  But I

did!  You don't forget the devil that destroys your civilization!"

Lando scratched his head.  "Be sensible, man.  How could one

little droid ... and anyway, what I've told you is true.  He is a

droid, I've seen him partially diassembled.  Let me tell you, if he's

been permanently harmed@o you know why he's curled up like that and

deactivated?  Well, it's because he was forced to attack and restrain a

sentient being, I'd guess, to defend himself and me."

Shanga slumped back on the deck, laid his head down, and groaned.

"I don't know what the Name is going on here!  Partially

disassembled?

Programmed against aggression?  You don't happen to have a

cigarette, do yout' Lando smiled grimly.  "I was about to ask you the

same thing, Klyn Shanga."

"Klyn Shanga?"  said a small voice from across the room.

"Is that what you're called?  Master, I believe I can clear up

some of this confusion, now."

"Vuffi Raa!"  Lando shouted joyfully.  The pilot stiffened.

"You don't know me, creature, but I know you!  Remember the

Renatasia System?"

The robot uncurled himself, stepped slowly and gracefully toward

the two men, and lowered his torso to the floor, letting his tentacles

relax.  It was one of the few times Lando had ever seen the robot rest.

It was one of the few times he had ever needed to.

"Yes, Klyn Shanga, I remember it very well.  And with more shame

and regret than I can ever express.  Master, the Renatasia is a

prehistoric colony.  No one knows how long ago human beings settled

there.  Long before the Republic, certainly.  Long before any historian

is willing to admit there was spaceflight.  But it exists, and was

totally isolated from the rest of civilization, not aware of it, any

more than we were aware of them."

"You will recall," the droid explained, "that my former master,

the fellow you won me from in the Rafa, was an anthropologist and

government spy.  Well, I was with him for many years, a condition of

mutual discomfort and dissatisfaction, I assure you.

"An independent trader, much like yourself, Master, had stumbled

across the Renatasia, and my master was designated to check out his

findings, reported because there is a standing reward for such

discoveries.

"Forgive me, Freeman Shanga-oh, it's Colonel, is it?well, forgive

me, sir, but the Renatasia was a backward place in the technological

sense.  My master surmised that, sometime after the original

colonization, it had been cut off from whatever system the settlers had

come from, and, over the next dozen generations, had slid back into

barbarism-perhaps even further.  As it turned out, they had climbed

back high enough to have commercial interplanetary travel within their

own system, but had not discovered faster-than-light modalities.

"It was this which was their undoing.  The government had

classified them as socially retarded and suitable for forcible

redevelopments variety of wholesale 'therapy' that is a thin euphemism

for ruthless exploitation.  The Renatasia System, unable to defend

itself, was to be used.  To be used up, if desirable.

"But first it had to be surveyed, analyzed, inspected for hidden

strengths.

"My master believed that the best deception was the truthsuitably

edited.  He ordered me to cover my metallic surface with a latoprene

coating of an organic appearance, had me make suitable clothing to fit

over my admittedly rather unconventional shape, and accompanied me to

the surface of Renatasia III in an open, highly conspicuous landing.

We announced ourselves to the local government-the system was

divided at the time into separate nation-states that often fought

vicious wars with one another-as representatives, envoys, from a

galaxy-wide civilization.

"Renatasia, after a suitable interval, was going to be invited to

join.

"There were parades, Master, and celebrations.  We traveled widely

in the system, the honored guests of a people who hoped that this fresh

contact with a higher civilization would put an end to war and poverty

among them.  We went to banquets, we made speeches.  And always,

always, I was the Chief Delegate.  My master played the role of

secretary and assistant.

"We were there for seven hundred standard days, during which we

helped them organize a single system-wide government, organized their

defense force under a unitary command, then greatly reduced its size.

We gave them new technologytrivialities that would aid them not at

all when our true purposes were revealed.

"The Imperial Fleet arrived on the seven hundred first day.

"In the beginning, the rejoicing was only redoubled-until the

fleet began collecting slave levies, demanding taxes, closing schools

and forcing the Renatasians to teach their children the major galactic

tongues to the exclusion of their own.

Whole cities, whole nations resisted.  Whole cities, whole nations

were leveled.

"Two thirds of the population were exterminated in the bungled

pacification operations that followed.

"Stunned and embarrassed, the government left the Renatasia

System.  The entire matter was covered up and what was termed an

'incident' was forgotten as quickly as possible."

"We didn't forget!"  Klyn Shanga cried from his supine position on

the deck of the Millennium Falcon.  "We had nothing left but our dreams

of retribution!  And now we have failed!"

Vuffi Raa propped himself a little higher, began untwisting the

wires around Klyn Shanga's wrists.  "You gathered warcraft.  I didn't

recognize you for what you were.  There were fighters from at least

twenty civilizations in your squadron, and that booster engine was from

a scrapped dreadnaught."

"Yes!  It took us a decade to put the operation together, cost us

everything we had!  And in the end, it came to nothing!"  He turned his

face to the floor; his shoulders shook briefly.

Lando untied the soldier's ankles, helped him to his feet.  "I

trust, old man, that you understand: Vuffi Raa is many things, but he

is only a droid.  He has no choice but to do exactly what he is ordered

to do.  Did you ever see him personally harm anyone?"

Shanga turned to face the gambler.  "No, no I didn't.  What has

that got to do with it?"

"A very great deal.  You saw how he reacted, simply to passively

restraining you?"

The warrior set his mouth grimly.  "So what?  You can kill a man

by ordering it done.  You don't have to bloody your own hands.  Yet

you'll be just as guilty!"

Lando took a firmer grip on Shanga's blaster.  "Then I suppose

that means you won't give your word not to-" "You're bloody well right

it doesn't!"  roared Klyn Shanga.

"Very well."  Lando, holding the weapon on the man, reached up and

reprogrammed the airlock hatch.  "Come along, Vuffi Raa."

Stepping through the bulkhead door, the gambler spoke again.

"We'll bring you a cot and some food.  I intend to drop you off at

the nearest system, and you won't be harmed.  I hope to convince you

'on the way, sometime in the next few days, that this vendetta is

irrational.  Vuffi Raa is a thoroughly good being, and would have died

rather than destroy your culture, but he is also a robot who, even in

the vilest of hands, must obey.  I'm trying to do something

constructive about that, too."

"You are?"  a dazed Vuffi Raa asked from the corridor outside.

"What, Master?"

"Don't call me Master!"

He shut the door, programmed it to restrain the fighter pilot, and

shoved the blaster into a slash pocket on the outside of his suit.

"Let's get forward, old thing, we need to decide where next to

head for."

"That would depend, Master, on whether we are freight haulers or

gamblers, wouldn't it?"

"Indeed it would, except that, at the moment, we are gentlebeings

of leisure.  We have a hundred seventy-three-odd thousand credits I won

on Oseon 6845, after all."

Halfway to the cockpit, the droid turned and looked at Lando.  "I

hate to say this, Master, but from past experience that won't last very

long."

Lando stopped in midstride, a scowl on his face.  He wanted

desperately to shuck out of his increasingly uncomfortable spacesuit,

get a shower, and lie down for a couple of eons.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence.  But we also have twenty

million credits I sort of accidentally brought along with me from

Bohhuah Mutdah's place.  He won't be needing it anymore!"

They continued along to the control deck, where Vuffi Raa began

the procedure necessary to setting a course.  Lando was glumly rolling

another cigarette with crushed cigar tobacco and highly unsuitable

paper.

"Twenty million credits, and I don't have any decent smokes!"

The robot paused.  "Master, may I ask you a questions' "As long as

you don't call me master when you do it."

"I'll try.  Lando, Klyn Shanga's people, the Renatasians-I feel

responsible for them.  Their civilization has been all but obliterated.

If they recover at all, it will be centuries before they're

finished."

Lando nodded solemnly.  "That's true.  On the other hand,

everybody has to start again, fresh every day, from wherever they are."

"Well, Mas-I mean, Lando, we have your winnings from the Oseon.

Wouldn't the Renatasians recover a good deal more quickly if they

had some help?  After all, we're gamblers and adventurers.  Being rich

would only get in our way.  I think we ought to give Klyn Shanga the

twenty million."

Lando looked at Vuffi Raa, ]it his cigarette, and leaned back in

his acceleration couch.  It was a long time before he spoke.

"Vuffi Raa, you're a decent, humane droid at heart.  And, when you

get right down to it, I'm not too bad a sort myself.

Compared to the rest of the universe, we're the good guys.

"But as far as the twenty million is concerned, my little

mechanical friend, forget it.

"I'm going to enjoy being rich."

LANDO CALRISSIAN

AND THE STARCAVE OFTHoNBoKA

This one @ for E Paul Wilson, Healer
and friend, and for James P Hogan, who makes seven.

LEHESU SWAM THE endless Open Sea.
He was large for a young adult, although there were Elders of his

species twice his size and mass.  An alien observer in a different

place and time would have pointed out his resemblance to an enormous

manta ray-broad and streamlined, powerfully winged, and somehow

pleasingly sinister.  His sleek dorsal surface was domed high with

muscle.

Others would have been reminded of the Ponugese man-o'war, seeing

the tentacular ribbons hanging from his ventral side, marveling at the

perfect glassy transparency of his body with its hints and flashes of

inner color.

Yet, naturally enough, such comparisons would have been

misleading.  Lehesu had been born among the people who call themselves

the Oswaft.  He was, unlike ray or jellyfish, penetratingly

intelligent.  Unlike most others of his kind, he was also aggressively

curious.

He dwelt in a place the Oswaft called the ThonBoka, which, in,

Lehesu's language, brought to mind visions of a cozy harbor on the

margins of aston-ny ocean.  It was a haven of peace and plenty, a

refuge.

There were those among the Oswaft, principally family and friends,

who had warned him smugly that he would regret adventuring beyond the

safe retreat of the ThonBoka into the dark perils of the Open Sea.  Few

of them actually dared speculate precisely what those perils might

consist of, what he might find, what might find him-except a quick,

unpleasant death.  For all their intelligence, the Oswaft were not

remarkably imaginative, particularly when it came to the topic of

death.  They were a long-lived people and patiently, even fatally,

conservative in 'their outlook.

Others hadn't even cared enough to scold him.  Lehesu, himself,

was a nuisance and a danger, whose very presence was somehow

inappropriate to the warm sanctum of the ThonBoka, a hint of the darker

ugliness that lurked beyond its confines.  To their credit, it would

have been completely uncharacteristic of them to expel him, just as it

would never have occurred to any one of them, regardless of personal

opinion, to attempt to stop l,ehesu from sacrificing himself to his

incomprehensible exploratory itch.

At that moment, he was beginning to wish he had listened to

someone.  The Open Sea was slowly starving him to death.

He flapped his great manta wings reflexively to achieve calm.  It

was an awe-inspiring, majestic gesture-had there been anyone to see

it-among his kind, the equivalent of breathing slowly and deliberately.

And for Lehesu, it was every bit as effective: it didn't help in

the slightest.  If anything, it only reminded him that he had a plight

to worry about.

He was not really frightened.  For all their conservatism, fear

came slowly to the Oswaft, panic not at all.  It was just that

curiosity was not a common characteristic among them, either.

They had their ancient ' venerable, time-tested, fmwy estabhshed,

customary, and honored traditions.  Such redundancy was necessary,

Lehesu thought, to convey the suffocating stuffiness of it all.  Yes,

there were ways of accepting innovation, After all, his people weren't

savages.  It happened gradually, over several dozen generations.  The

culture of the Oswaft was far from stagnant.  It was simply,

excruciatingly, boring.

Lehesu, on the other fin, was a genius of curiosity@r a totally

demented mutation.  The conclusion depended on whom you sought for an

opinion, Lehesu or any other individual of his species.  In his thirst

to know what unlooked-for wonders lay beyond the cloying safety of the

ThonBoka, he was utterly alone.  He could not so much as begin to

explain the burning need that drove him into the Open Sea-not to anyone

his own age, certainly not to any of the Elders, no, not even to the

younger ones.

Well, perhaps one day he would have young of his own, And if

curiosity were something that could be passed on, they would understand

and share his thirst.  He chuckled to himself-.

how he would ever find a mate who could tolerate him might

constitute something of a problem.

Then again, it might not.  It was highly unlikely he would survive

traversing what amounted to a desert.  Every fiber in his great and

graceful body ached with hunger.  He had been cruising for what seemed

an eternity without encountering a molecule of nutriment, and it was far

too late to go back.  He lifted his enormous wings once more, unable to

ignore their rapidly failing strength.

Lehesu had never seen or even heard of a cat, but he would have

understood what killed it, how, and why.  Still, he couldn't really

bring himself to regret what he had done.  Curiosity may have killed

him already, but it was vastly better than dying from boredom.

Perhaps.

Lehesu estimated that he had, at most, only a few hours before he

expired.  His people fed continually as they moved about through life,

automatically, almost unconsciously.  There was little capacity in his

gigantic body for storage of nutrients.

As he weakened, and the effect was increasingly noticeable,

increasingly painful to him, he reflected that at least he was dying in

the Open Sea, away from all theBut wait!  What was that?  There was

something else in the desolation!  Far beneath him in the depths,

another entity swam, one that pulsed with life and power.  Stretching

his sensory abilities to their limit, he could feel that it was

comparatively tiny, yet it virtually sang with strength-which meant

there had to be sustenance around somewhere.

He did another uncharacteristic thing then, something no other

O@waft would have done: he dived for the object.  Lehesu was not a

predator.  Nor was he herbivorous.  Such distinctions had no meaning in

his time and place, under those circumstances.  It was the habit of the

Oswaft to eat whatever they found edible, leave everything else alone.

They knew of no other intelligent species, and the entirety of

creation was their dinner plate.

At least he could discover what the thing had found to eat.

He realized there was a possibility that it would find him, and he

had little strength for fighting left, even if he had been inclined to

fighting, which he was not.  Yet he had less hope, even, than strength.

Down and down he went.  Yes, there it was, a mote less than a

tenth his size, yet he could feel that it was stronger than he was by a

substantial margin.  Better armored, as well, much like the small

carapace-creatures that swam the calmer currents of the ThonBoka.

They were delicious.

As he approached the thing, he could see that it was not shaped

terribly differently from himself.  To judge from its direction of

travel, it was a bit broader than it was long, more rounded in its

major contours than he was.  Like Lehesu, it had two nondescript

projections on its frontal surface, although whether they were sensory

arrays, like his, was another question.

Lehesu's senses were not strictly limited to straight lines.  He

could "se6" that the creature possessed no manipulators on its

underside.  He had hundreds.  Yet it appeared that part of the surface

was capable of opening; perhaps its tentacles folded into its belly.

He knew of organisms thatLehesu recoiled in shock!  He was near

enough now to make out and be astounded by a major difference between

himself and the ... the thing.  It was completely opaque, like a

corpse!

Ms people lost their transparency upon dying and, until they

decomposed into the dust of which all life is made, remained visually

impenetrable.  This creature looked like a dead thing, yet moved with

confidence and fleetness.  There were those among his people who ...

But Lehesu was not superstitious.

With a mental snort, he rejected such foolish notions.  Almost

completely.

Another, milder surprise awaited him.  Drawing even nearer-any

other Oswaft would have known then and there that lzhesu was quite

insane-he felt the thing trying to say something.  The ThonBoka was

vast and its people many, but neither so vast nor numerous that

separate languages had ever developed.  Within their limits, the Oswaft

were far too wideranging, too swift.  And they could speak over

distances that would only seem incredible to another race.

And so he felt the tingling of conununication, for the first time

in his life without being able to understand it.  He broadcast a beacon

of good wishes himself and waited.  His own message was repeated back

to him.  He repeated the first greeting the small armored creature had

sent him.

Each now knew the other to be an intelligent organism.  That was

as far as communication could proceed.  The armored creature began

counting-that was silly, thought Lehesu; if it were intelligent, of

course he could deduce that it would be able to count.  Thinking hard,

he spoke a picture-message, one meant to convey visual reality rather

than pure ideas.  Lacking any better image, the wave front he

transmitted was that of the small armored object before him.

A rather long pause followed.  Deep within Lehesu, he experienced

a brief sensation of satisfaction that he could surprise it.  Then he

received a picture-message of himself.  Fine!  Now he could convey the

essence of his disastrous situation to it, and perhaps it would help

him.  If in no other way, perhaps it could help pull him into richer

currents.

He spoke a picture of himself, then modified it in his imagination

until he showed a pitiable scene in which he was growing increasingly

opaque, increasingly withered.  Finally, just to do things properly and

in full, he imagined himself dissolving, his molecular constituents

wafting away.  It made him feel very strange to imagine such a thing,

but it was necessary.

Finally, he started the image over again, but this time had

himself feeding richly on what drifted in the currents of the ThonBoka.

He pictured himself growing stronger, healthier, sleeker, more

transparent.  He pictured himself growing to become a giant Elder.  For

some reason this made him feel worse than did the idea of dying,

although whether the feeling came from imagining a feast while he was

starving, or imagining himself in the image of his stuffy forebears, he

was not quite certain.

In any case, the creature hung motionless before him in the void,

nor did it reply for a long, long time.  As he waited, Lehesu examined

it carefully.  Numerous spots glowed on its outer surface, much like

the courting glow pigments of some of the ThonBoka wildlife.  One in

particular, a large globular spot at the front end, displayed odd,

changing patterns.  All the while, the creature pulsed and throbbed

with indecently good health.  It had come to a halt when the

communications began, and continued to be still though obviously

restless and thrumtriing to be on its way.

Finally, it sent him ' a picture-speech.  That caught him by

surprise, as his mind had wandered-another dangerous sign of imminent

starvation.  He had been gazing at the stars, wondering what they were,

how far away they lay, and how he might, if he lived, contrive to reach

them, as he had reached the Open Sea.

The armored creature asked him, in effect, if these were what he

liked to eat.  It then began displaying pictures of every imaginable

variety of wonderfully delicious nutriment, from the incidental

nutrient haze that drifted on the currents and was gobbled up by Oswaft

as they passed, to the most succulent of complex culinary creations.

The trouble was, these images were mixed incomprehensibly with

things he didn't even remotely recognize-and with downright garbage.

Excitedly he shouted confu-marion when the images were right,

withheld connnent when they were not.  He and the creature hadn't

gotten around to establishing the symbols for "yes" and "no".  He

wondered what the thing had in mind.  Would it lead him to this banquet

it was promising?  Would he have the strength to follow?  Or was it

merely mocking him?

He was beginning not to care.  There were only minutes left for

him, anyway.

Suddenly, the greatest shock of all.  The belly of the creature

split open and vomited out everything it had shown him.  It filled the

currents around them, forming an almost impenetrable fog.  Shouting

joyously, he swooped and dived and soared through it all, plowing great

clean swaths where he had passed.

The creature stood off, watching, doing, and saying nothing.

One pass took him very near the thing.  It was not smooth but was

covered with knobs and bulges.  Only portions of the thing showed any

signs of transparency, and they simply admitted the sensory probes

into an internal darkness that revealed nothing.

But for once, Lehesu's curiosity was abated.  He fed, perhaps more

richly than he ever had in his life.  Each pass brought him nearer the

creature, but he was not afraid of it; it had saved his life.  His

senses passed over a spot that might have told him a great deal more,

except that the Oswaft had no written language, no need for one.  It

was a plate, a plaque, attached with rivets to the creature's hide.  On

it were enameled five words that would have shocked him deeply, for

this was not a living creature at all.

The sign read: MILLENNIUM FALCON Lando Calrissian, Capt.

Lehesu the Oswaft, swimmer of the starry void, was content merely

to soar and graze about the Falcon, singing out his gratitude to her

every second he did so, with the natural radio waves generated by the

speech centers of his mighty brain.

The formaldehyde was delicious!

LANDO CALRISSIAN, GAMBLER, rogue, scoundrel-and humanitarian?

It didn't seem very likely, even to him.  But the undeniable truth

was that, several months after her initial encounter with that

remarkable spacebreathing being, Lehesu of the Oswaft, circumstances

found the Millennium Falcon stolidly boring her way through the

interstellar void straight toward the ThonBoka, which translated

roughly into human languages as the StarCave.

Lehesu's people were in trouble: Lando was bringing help.

He was the help, and he was furious.  Ms anger had nothing

directly to do with Lehesu, the Oswaft, or the ThonBoka, but was rather

more closely connected with the broken arm he was nursing at the

moment.  It was not quite so onerous nor prolonged an ordeal as it

might have been in a more primitive place and time.  He wore a complex

lightweight brace consisting of a series of electrical coils that

generated a field that would encourage his fractured humerus to knit up

nicely in two or three days.  Yet the appliance was cumbersome and

inconvenient, particularly in free-fall.  And Lando had grown

particularly fond of free-fall.  It helped him think.

With the deck-plate gravity switched off, he would sit in the

middle of a room@quidistant not only from its walls, but from its floor

and ceiling as well-parked comfortably on a cushion of thin air,

cogitating.  But the cast got in the way.

Lando also had a black eye and a broken toe.  But, considering

everything else that had happened, those were minor annoyances.  He

flicked expensive cigar ash at a vacuum hose he'd arranged to hang

conveniently nearby, and spoke in the direction of an intercom panel

set in a table somewhere beneath him.

"Vuffi Raa, what's our ETA again?"

The instrument returned a voice to him, soft-spoken and polite,

fully as mechanical in its origins as the instrument itself, yet rich

with humorous astute inflection.

"Seventy-six hours, Master That's a new correction: this region is

so clean we've gained anotherfour hours since I made the last estimate.

I apologize for my previous inexactitude.  " Inexactitude!  Lando

thought.  The Core-blessed thing talks prettier than I do, and I'm

supposed to be the con artiste around here!

The Millennium Falcon's velocity, many times greater than that of

light, was limited only by the density of the interstellar medium she

traversed.  Ordinary space is mostly emptiness, yet there are almost

always a few stray molecules of gas, sometimes in surprisingly complex

chemical organization, per cubic kilometer.  Any modern starship's

rfiagnetogravitic shielding kept it from burning to an incandescent

cinder and smoothed the way through what amounted to a galaxy-wide

cluttering of hyperthin atmosphere.  But the resistance of the gas was

still appreciable through a reduction in the ship's theoretical top

speed.

The particular area the Falcon was then passing through seemed to

be an exception.  Bereft of the usual molecular drag, the Falcon was

outdoing even her own legendary performance.

The captain pondered that, then addressed the intercom again.

"Better back her off a few megaknots.  I need more time than that

before this confounded dingus comes off my arm.

And you I've still got a dent or two yourself that needs ironing

out.  And Vuffi Raa?"

"Yes, Master?"  was the cheerful reply.  Lando could hear the

clack-clack-clack of keyboard buttons being punched as per his

instructions.  The vessel slowed, but that could not be felt through

her inertial dampers.

"Don't call me master!"

That had been very nearly reflexive.  He'd long since given up

wondering what the robot's motivation was for the small but chronic

disobedience.  Actually, Lando was concerned about his little

mechanical friend, and not just because Vuffi Raa was such a terrific

pilot droid.  Or at least not entirely.

These sporadic violent attacks they'd been suffering lately were

getting to be a serious matter where they had only been minor nuisances

before, and knowing why they were happening, to Lando's great surprise,

hadn't helped a bit.

The gambler sneered down at his foot where another, tinier set of

coils pulsed healing energies into his flesh.  Somehow, that was the

final insult-that and the black eye.  It was one thing to attempt to

murder an enemy.  That was what a vendetta was all about, after all.

But to do him in by millimeters, an abrasion here, a contusion

there?

Fiendish, Lando was forced to admit-if it wasn't simple

ineptitude.

Somehow the enemy realized that a man otherwise willing and

capable of barehandedly confronting a ravening predator his own size,

sometimes panics at the sound of a stinging insect barnstorming around

his ears.

Well, the gambler told himself, that's why we're on this socalled

errand of mercy.  I'm going to put a twelve-gee stop to all of this

juvenile assassination nonsense, one way or the other, once and for

all.

Sure, it was a risky proposition; the stakes were as high as they

could be.  But above and beyond every other consideration, Lando

Calrissian-he told himself again-was a sport who'd wager anything and

everything on the turn of a single card-chip.

That's how he'd gotten into the mass in the first place.

It seemed that, some time before, a talented but essentially

prospectless young conscientious-objector-of-fortune had won himself a

starship-actually a converted smuggling freighter-in a game of

seventy-eight-card sabacc.  A little while later he had, quite

unintentionally, acquired a pretty pecuhar robot in much the same

fashion.  Together, the two machines and their man had set out upon a

series of adventures, some more profitable than others.  In the

process, they had made a number of enemies, one of them a

self-proclaimed sorcerer who had plotted to Rule The Galaxy, and had

tripped over Lando on his way to the top.  Twice.

The fellow had resented that, blamed Lando for his own humbling

and bad luck, and the vendetta had begun.  Until now, it had been an

unrequited, entirely one-sided relationship.

All Lando wanted was to be left alone.  He'd tried explaining, via

various media, that he didn't care who ran the universehe'd break

whatever rules it suited him to disobey in any case, whoever was in

charge-and that the sorcerer was perfectly welcome to all the power and

glory he could grab.  Alas, these blandishments, reasonable as they

sounded to the gambler, had fallen upon inoperative auditory organs.

Just to make things really complicated, Vuffi Raa had already had

enemies of his own.  Although the robot hadn't known it.  His previous

master, while spectacularly untalented at games of chance, had been a

highly effective government employee in the spy business.  This fellow,

ostensibly an itinerant anthropologist, had used the little robot,

forced him to help undermine a previously undiscovered system-wide

civilization in a manner that had resulted in the brutal military

extermination of two-thirds of its citizens.  The remaining third,

understandably perturbed, had sworn eternal hatred for the droid, and

had enthusiastically begun to do something about it.

Subsequent attempts at negotiation, as in Lando's case, had been

nearly lethally futile.  Some people just won't listen.

Well, life is like that, Lando thought as he hovered in what had

been designed as the passenger lounge of the Millennium Falcon.  It

served as their living room; just then, it was the gambler's private

thinking-parlor, and the thoughts he was thinking were reasonably

ironic.  He took another puff on his cigar.

The trouble with two partners having separate sets of mortal

enemies is that said enemies don't always make distinctions.

Particularly when using fragmentation grenades.  Poor Vuffi Raa

had gotten badly dented by an assassin in the employ of the sorcerer at

their last port of call.  The idiot had confessed before expiring; with

the nervousness of a beginner, he'd thrown the pin instead of the

grenade.  The robot's injuries would work themselves out after a while.

He had excellent self-repair mechanisms.

In another incident, Lando had been pushed over a rail into a vat

of vitamin paste he had considered acquiring for that very trip,

somehow fracturing both arm and toe and picking up a shiner.  What

really hurt was that he'd simply ruined his second-best velvoid

semiformal captain's uniform.  He was certain Vuffi Raa's enemies were

responsible.  It felt like their style.  Clumsy.

Nor was the Millennium Falcon considered immune.  In fact, she'd

rather taken the brunt of things, with bombs planted inside her (two of

which had actually gone off) and having felt the fury of several small

space battles in recent months.  A fighter pilot had deliberately

rammed her, crumpling her boarding ramp.  She'd strained her engines

getting them in and out of various places in a hurry.  Her battery of

quad-guns, under Lando's capable direction, had staved off the

occasional pirate vessel, who probably hadn't anything at all to do

with vendettas.  Surprised at the ferocity with which her captain had

taken it all out on their hides, defeated pirates were giving the

battered old freighter quite a reputation.

Pirates they could handle.  The Falcon was a good deal faster than

she looked, terrifyingly well armed; he and the robot were pretty hot

pilots, but Vuffi Raa had taught Lando everything he knew in this

regard.  Lando told himself again that the business at the StarCave

would pay off all other debts, as well.  He was thoroughly fed up,

loaded for whatever ftuq omnivorous quadruped the fates cared to place

in his path.

Tugging gently at the vacuum ashtray hose, Lando drifted to the

ceiling of the lounge, gave a little shove against the overhead, which

propelled him near the floor.  He switched on the gravity and walked

both forward and starboard around the Falc(in's curving inner corridor,

to the cockpit, which was set in a tubelike construction projecting

from the front of the ship.

In the left-hand pilot's seat, an equally weird construction

perched, a five-hmbed chromium-plated starfish with a single glowing

red eye set atop its pentagonal torso.  Its tentacles were at rest just

then, having reduced the Falcon's speed as Lando had requested.

The meter-high entity turned to its master.  "I believe you'll be

able to make out the nebula now, Master.  See, that blurry spot ahead?"

Lando strained his eyes, then gave up and punched the electronic

telescope into activation.  Yes, there it was: the ThonBoka, as its

inhabitants called it.  It was a sack-shaped cloud of dust and gas,

enterable only from one direction, rich with preorganic molecules even

up to and including amino acids.  Inside that haven, life had evolved

without benefit of star or planet, life adapted to living in open empty

space.  Some of that life had eventually acquired intelligence and

called itself the Oswaft.  But at the moment, they were under seige.

"What about the blockade, can you locate that?"  Lando strapped

himself into the right-hand seat, ran a practiced eye over various

gauges and screens, relaxed, and plucked a cigar out of the open safe

beneath the main control panel.

"Yes, Master, I'm overlaying those data now."

Vuffi Raa's tentacles flicked over the panel with a life of their

own.  He was a Class Two droid, with a level of intelligence and

emotional reaction comparable to those of human beings.  He had a good

many other talents, as well.  To Lando's occasional disgust, however,

the robot was deeply programmed never to harm organic or mechanical

sapience, and was thus an automatic pacifist.  There had been times

when that had been inconvenient.' On the main viewscreen, showing the

sacklike ThonBoka nebula, a hundred tiny yellow dots sprang to life.

Lando whistled.  "That's quite a fleet for bottling up one

undefended dust cloud.  What do they think this is, the Clone Wars?"

He leaned forward to light his cigar, but was stopped by the offer

of a glowing tentacle tip.  Yes, Vuffi Raa had a lot of useful talents.

"That isn't even half of them, Master.  Although I can't

understand why, some of the fleet out there have modified their defense

shielding into camouflage to conceal themselves.  I also believe

they've mined the mouth of the nebula."

Puffing on his cigar, Lando forced calm.  "And we're going to run

that blockade.  Oh, well, it's been a short life but a brief one.  Can

you do anything about shield camouflage for us?"

The robot wiped the screen display.  "I'm afraid not, Master, it's

very sophisticated technology."

"Which means that everybody in the universe is using it except

civilians.  Well, then, what's our plan?"

There was a startled pause that might have been filled with a

blinking red eye had Vuffi Raa been capable of such a thing.

"I thought you had the plan, Master."

Lando sighed resignedly.  "I was afraid you'd say that.  To tell

the truth, I had a plan, but it seems pretty insubstantial, here and

now.  I shall repair to my free-fall cogitorium once more and

reconsider.  1'11 get back to you as soon as possible.

Don't hold your breath, it may very well be a century or three."

He unstrapped himself from his chair, took a final disgusted look

through the sectioned canopy, and removed himself from the control area

with his cigar.  Around the long, heavily padded corridor, out rinto

the cluttered lounge, off with the artificial gravity, and back to the

geometric center of the room, where he sat and smoked and tried to

think.

It wasn't one of his better days for that.

"Master?"  The voice coming over the intercom was agitated.  It

startled the gambler out of a dream in which, no matter what sabacc

hand he held, Ws cards kept changing to garbage, while a faceless gray

opponent held a newly invented one, the Final Trump, which was an

automatic twenty-three.

"Zzzzzz-what?"

Lando blinked, discovered that he was covered with sweat.

His velvoid seniiformals were soaked through, and he smelled like

a bantha someone had ridden half to death.  He stretched, trying to

remove kinks from his muscles that shouldn't have been there in zero

gee.

"Vuffi Raa, how many times have I told you never to call me-

"Master " the robot interrupted, sounding both worried and eager at the

same time, "it's been nearly three hours.  Have you come up with a

plan?"

"Uh, not exactly," the gambler replied, shaking his head in an

unsuccessful attempt to clear it.  "I'm working on it.  I said I'd call

you when@' "Well, I think we'd better talk it over now, if you don't

mind You see, there's a picket cruiser sitting not more than a hundred

kilometers off our starboard bow.  I didn't see them, so well

camouflaged were they, and they've fired two warning shots already.

Master, they say they'll cut us in half with the next shot unless

we stand by to receive boarders.  " Lando grunted.  His mouth tasted

like a mynock cave.

"That's the Navy for you, no consideration at all."

CONCEALED BEYOND TtlE reach of civilization lay a place called

Tund, a name of legendary repute, one seldom spoken above a whisper.

That whispered word named a planet, a system, or a cluster of

stars-no one was quite certain which-rumored for ten thousand years to

be the home of powerful and subtle mages.  Fear was associated with the

name, the sort of fear that inhibits mentioning, even thinking about,

the thing it represents, so as not to invoke its omniscient,

omnipotent, and malevolent attention.  Almost no one knew the even more

hideous truth.

The planet Tund was sterile, devoid of native life, its surface

roasted to a fine, gray, powdered ash where evergreen forests, tropical

jungles, and continent-broad prairies had once stretched for countless

kilometers.  It was a world destroyed by magic.

Or by belief in magic.

At night the planet's face glowed softly, not merely with the pale

blue fire of decaying atoms, but with a ghostly greenish residue of

energies as yet unknown to the rest of galactic civilization.  Where it

flickered balefully, nothing lived, or ever would again.  It had been

partially to preserve the secret of such power that Rokur Gepta, last

of the fabled Sorcerers of Tund, had utterly obliterated every living

thing upon the planet, from submicroscopic wigglers to full-flowering

sentience.  His was a terrible, cosmically unfeeling precaution.

The rest had been sheer malice.

Here and there an oasis of sorts had been permitted its closely

regulated probational existence, areas reseeded from which, some

billions of years hence, when the evil emerald fires had at long last

died , life might resume its pitiably hum bled march.  Massive

force-fields were essential to press the flickering death away from

those few havens.

In one such crouched the cruiser Wennis, a decommissioned,

obsolete, and thoroughly effective instrument of pitiless warfare,

being refitted to her master's precise specifications.  Her crew was an

odd but deliberate mixture of the cream of the galaxy's technical and

military elite and its dregs, often represented in the same individual.

Her weaponry and defenses ran the gamut from continent-destroying

hell projectors to small teams of unarmed combat experts.  She had been

a gift of prudence from the highest and consequently most vulnerable of

sources in the galaxy.

The Wennis would not be recognizable when Rokur Gepta was through

with her.

The sorcerer had that way with ships, and planets, and people.

The only value anything possessed for him was its utility relative

to his inexorable rise to power.  Wealth meant nothing more to him than

that, nor the companionship of his fellow beings, even-owing to the

most peculiar and repulsive of physical circumstances-that of females.

He was empty, as devoid of life and warmth as his handiwork, the

planet Tund itself Such an emptiness requires endless volumes of power

to fill it even momentarily.

Someday he, too, would bestow gifts of decommissioned battle

cruisers-although he would exercise considerably more care to see that

they were employed strictly in his interests.

And even that lofty seat of power was only a feeble beginning.

The million-system civilization ruled from it, after all, was only

a small wedge of the galaxy.

And the galaxy itself only a small part of ...

Deep within the twisted caverns of the murdered planet Tund, where

Rokur Gepta had once personally searched out and exterminated every one

of his ancient mentors-the original sorcerers, who had lovingly

instructed him in the ways of power that had been their ultimate

undoing-the treacherous former pupil sat, immersed in thought.  He

brooded in a blackness utterly unbroken by the glimmer of so much as a

single passing photon.  That was the way he preferred it; he had other

means of observing reality.

Even in the full light of a healthy planet's daytime surface,

another individual would be less fortunate: Rokur Gepta was simply

impossible to come to terms with visually.  He was a blur, a vagueness

more psychological than perceptual in character, perhaps because his

color was that of terror.

On the very rare occasions he was spoken of by others,

descriptions varied: he was a malignant dwarf-, a being of average

though preternaturally imposing stature; a frightening giant of a

figure over two meters tall, perhaps three.  All accounts agreed that

he was perpetually swathed in cloaks and windings of the same hue as

his lifeless domain, an ashy gray from the tips of his (presumed) toes

to the top of his (apparent) head.

He wore a turbanlike headdress whose final lengths were wound

around the place his face should be, obscuring all his features save

the eyes, twin pools of whirling, insatiable, merciless voracity.

Understandably, the sorcerer had enemies, although he had

oudived-often by design-the small minority of them with the capacity to

do him harm.  He had outlived many others as well, simply by surviving

centuries of time.  His long life was in grave and constant danger,

however, from those few who still survived and the continually fresh

crop of victims who wished him ill.

And that was, what produced his present quandary.

Word had been conveyed, through several layers of underlings, of

an emissary, a messenger whose credentials offered a potentially

profitable alliance.  Should he trust the individual sufficiently to

hear him out, as per request, in total privacy?

The sorcerer pondered.  The risk of a personal audience was great,

especially as the representative came from a principal powerful enough

to preclude extensive security measures, which could be interpreted as

an affront.  There were limits to the precautions that could be taken,

but none to the cleverness of assassins.  He ought to know; he had

employed enough of them himself.

Reaching a decision, he gestured with a gray-gloved hand.

Feeble light began to glow within the monstrous cavern, swelling

until it filled the place.  Small black hairy things within the walls

squeaked a protest, rustled in their niches, then settled back into

troubled somnolence.

He would make up this discomfort to his pets, Gepta thought, and

if the audience turned out to be less than advertised, so would the

emissary make restitution, most slowly.

A faint electronic chirp from a panel in the left arm of his

basaltic throne alerted him of visitors.  He firmed up his visual

appearance; no sense alarming the messenger unduly at the outset.  The

time for intimidation, confusion, and betrayal would come later.  It

always did.

From a passageway far to the right, across a kilometer or more of

cavern floor, a small procession wended its way, composed of minions in

uniform, their marks of rank and organization stripped away to preserve

the fiction that they were civilians.  In truth, they were the same

sort of gift the Wennis had been, and served their original master by

serving Rokur Gepta.

I The honor guard consisted of a half-dozen heavily armed and

smartly groomed beings, every fiber bristling at attention as they

marched.  In their midst was a giant, a large, heavyset man in a

battered spacesuit, carrying his helmet under one arm.

The group wound carefully among the cavern floor's many

stalagmites, following a hidden pattern that, if strayed from, would

precipitate their immediate and total destruction.

Gepta waited on his throne, three meters above the floor.

As the column reached its base, Gepta's soldiers snapped to a

halt.  The visitor technically stood at attention, too, but he was the

sort of being who, when the time came, would look as if he were

lounging indolently in his own coffin.  He was utterly relaxed, utterly

alert.  He was utterly unafraid of anything, most especially death.

If Rokur Gepta feared anything himself, it was men such as this.

"Sir!"  the leader of the guardsmen said, "we present Klyn Shanga,

Fleet Admiral of the Renatasian Confederation, sir!"

Gepta would accept no title or honorific.  Such were for lesser

beings.  He tolerated being called "sir" because his underlings, of

military background, seemed to grow increasingly uncomfortable and

uninformative unless they could insert it at least once in every

sentence they addressed to him.

Gepta nodded minutely, looking down on the craggy giant.

"Admiral, welcome to the planet Tund," he hissed.  "Few have seen

it, save my minions, and even fewer have lived to say they've seen it."

Shanga grinned broadly from a face that was one scar overlaid upon

another until nothing of the original flesh remained.

Yet an ordinary human being would have found the effect somehow

pleasing.  Klyn Shanga was everybody's adventurous uncle, the one who'd

been everywhere, done everything, and had it done back to him.

He ignored the threat: "That 'Admiral' is something in the nature

of a joke, Sorcerer.  In your terms I'm more of a squadron leader, and

it's not much of a squadron.  Core-for that matter, it's not much of a

Confederation, either!  But we have our points, as my letters of

introduction demonstrated, I'm sure.  You know about the Renatasia?"

. Gepta nodded once again.  Upon receiving the communication in

question, he'd consulted references and had a conference with his

kennel of government spies.  What was to be learned was skimpy; there

had been a highly energetic cover-.up.  Yet the essential facts were

clear.

"It was a system and a culture colonized long before the current

political status quo was achieved.  It developed independently, unknown

to the rest of the galaxy, and at a somewhat slower pace

technologically.  It was discovered, subverted, exploited, and

obliterated by certain commercial interests acting in concert with the

Navy.  You, your squadron, and your Confederation are some of the rare

survivors.  Are these the fundamental elements of the story, Admiral

Shanga?"  The sibilance of Gepta's whisper echoed in the cavern.

Shanga's turn to nod.  "'nat's it.  About a third of the

population lived, reduced further by starvation- and disease."  He

leaned against a stalagmite, casually swinging his helmet by a strap

around his finger.  "Get rid of the flunkies and we'll talk a deal, how

about it?"

Gepta savagely repressed a wave of rage and nausea that swept

through him at the man's impudence.  Time, he told himself, there would

be time to deal with him appropriately later.

He gestured and the men, with uncertainty on their faces, brought

themselves back to attention, turned in place, and marched back the way

they'd come.  It took them a long while, so indirect and lengthy was

the route.  All the while, Shanga leaned against his stony outcrop with

a grin across his battered face.

"What have you got against Lando Catrissian, anyway, Gepta?"

The sorcerer's gaze jerked upward across the chamber to assure

that no one else was present to witness the gibe.  Then he settled back

in his throne and stared coldly at the fighter pilot before him,

struggling to maintain an even tone.

"It is sufficient that he has offended me-primarily with his

impudence, ICyn Shanga, a fact you would do well to bear in mind.  We

have agreed upon the history of your woebegone system; tell me, what is

your interest in a vagabond gambler.

What has he to do with-2' In an instant, Shanga's facade of

relaxation dropped away.

He stood rigidly beside the stalagmite, his body trembling with

anger.  Rather a long time passed before he was able to reply.

"Calrissian doesn't figure in it.  He has a partner@' "The robot?

Surely, Admiral-"' "Robot!"  Shanga shot back hotly.  "In the

Renatasia it wasn't a robot, but a five-limbed organic sapient!  I saw

it then-nobody could avoid it!  It was treated to parades and banquets,

in the media every minute!  It was an emissary from a long-lost

galactic civilization that ... that ... that ultimately destroyed us!

It was a spy, Gepta!  It infiltrated us, observed our weaknesses,

planned our downfall with ruthless precision!

Robot?  Oh yes, I saw it again after the battle of Oseon,

disguised as a harmless droid, but I wasn't fooled, not for a nano!

Robot?  What would a robot have to gain from@' Gepta raised an

interrupting hand.  He knew perfectly well why a droid might help

destroy a system.  Programmed to obey, it wouldn't have a choice, and

properly disguised with an organic-appearing plastic coating, it would

be a perfect spy.

The sorcerer, however, wasn't about to argue with the man and

possibly lose an ally.  Shanga would have his uses@d his ultimate

disposition.

"Very well, Admiral, we each of us have personal reasons for

wishing a conclusion to this hunt, and your offer of assistance is

welcome.  But your communication hinted at more; there was a claim that

you know where the Millennium Falcon may be found?"

"And trapped!"  the warrior added with a snap in his voice.

"Imagine the sweetness of it: trapped between us and the Navy!"

He began laughing, the edge in his voice growing increasingly

hysterical until he leaned heavily against the stone column, wiping his

eyes and coughing.  When he could speak again, it was only one word:

"StarCave!"

Rokur Gepta kept his peace, offering no reply.  The term was

meaningless to him, but given an hour of privacy and access to his

sources of information it would not remain so.  Finally he replied.

"StarCave, you say."

The fighter pilot nodded.  "Yes, we have our spies, too, Gepta-we

have to.  After all, they're the ones who-but never mind that.  The

navy's keeping a heavy blockade there.  We don't know why.  There are

rumors, but most of them are so silly that we think they're an

Intelligence cover.  Whatever the reason, we also know that Cahissian's

planning to run the blockade, in fact may be there as we speak.  We

have things you need: information, a rebuilt fighter squadron.  You

have something we need: passage through the blockade.  With Calrissian

bottled up there, we can .  . ."

There was a very prolonged silence during which each of the

figures savored his personal revenge.  Gepta was secretly surprised

that the n-tilitary could mount a major action of that type without his

knowing of it.  On the other hand, he hadn't known about the Renatasian

affair until years after it had happened.  He was equally surprised at

the depth-and enthusiasm-of Shanga's intelligence sources.  After it

was over, if he, the sorcerer, could incorporate ... But that was for

later.  This was now, and the culmination of a very long, very annoying

episode in the gray magician's otherwise unopposed rise to total power.

"Very well, Admiral Shanga, let us make an agreement between us.

We shall go to this, this StarCave and see what may be seen.  The

refitting of the Wennis is nearly complete, and I will hurry the work.

Your squadron will rendezvous with her at a place convenient to us

both.  I shall take us through the blockade, and you shall assist with

the destruction of the Millennium Falcon and her owners.  And afterward

..."

Shanga stood, his right hand flexing where his blaster would have

been hanging had it not been taken from him by Gepta's security people.

He felt incomplete without it.  There was a worn diagonal area

across the lower half of his pressure suit, from high behind the left

hip where the heavy belt ordinarily settled itself, to the middle of

his right thigh where the weapon would have been strapped down.

"Yes," said the Admiral, "and afterward: whatt' The sorcerer

smiled, an expression that manifested itself only in the sarcastic tone

of his voice.  Inside the dark gray windings about his hidden face, it

was a far from pleasant exp!ession.

"Afterward, my dear Admiral Shanga, we two shall go our separate

ways, you to rebuild Renatasian civilization to glorious, dizzying new

heights, while 1, on the other hand@' "Mynock muffins!"  Shanga raised

his gaundeted hand in a mocking salute.  Then, without @er ceremony, he

turned on fus space-booted heel and began the trek across the damp

cavern floor to the elevator.

He itched to have his blaster once again-an itch he felt i)etween

his shoulder blades as he turned his back on the perfidious sorcerer-to

get in his small fighter and rejoin the squadron hovering at the edge

of the barren Tund System.  The dead planet was giving him the creeps.

For his part, Gepta watched the figure of the Renatasian soldier

@nish in the twilit distance, kneaded his gray-gloved hands together,

once more stifling rage that bordered on gibbering insanity.  To be

walked out on by a mere underling!  And especially one who possessed

the gall to consider himself an equal partner in the sorcerer's

affairs!

It was almost more than the ancient magician could bear.

Almost.

There are rituals, however, formulae for calming both the mind and

body under such nerve-shredding circumstances, venerable practices of

the long-dead Sorcerers of Tund.

Rokur Gepta applied them all with a will.

IV

LANDO SAT IN the copilot's seat, smoking a cigar and thinking.

The navy cruiser wasn't naked-eye visible and he had no desire to

crank up the telescope.  He'd seen a cruiser before.

They'd been given ten n-tinutes to make up their minds: prepare

for boarders or be obliterated.  Lando was using every second of those

minutes, trying to produce a third alternative.  He wasn't having much

luck.  He'd known from the beginning that a moment like this was going

to arrive, sooner or lateralthough he hadn't imagined it arriving quite

so soon.  The plans he'd sketched out in the leisure and safety at

their last port of call seemed fragile and silly now, however detailed

and astute they had appeared at the time.

The trouble, of course, arose from the fact that Lehesu hadn't

gone straight home.  Fortune or coincidence hadn't had very much to do

with his rescue.  Lando and Vuffi Raa had stumbled across the same

"desert" that had threatened to kill the young Oswaft.  What it meant

for them and the Falcon was a sudden drop to below light-speed while

Vuffi Raa recalibrated the engines.  In the empty sector, the engines

had met almost no resistance and they threatened to race wildly until

they tore themselves and their operators apart, atom by atom.

Thus they had been poking along on their reaction drive when

they'd encountered a five-hundred-meter monster soaring out of nowhere.

At first they'd taken.Lehesu for a weird ship from an unknown

culture.

They'd been half right, but then Lehesu had mistaken the Falcon

for a being something like himself.  It had taken much longer to

straighten out that misunderstanding than to puzzle out the

vacuum-breather's plight and do something about it.

Vuffi Raa had, as usual, been at the controls, as Lando kept a

suspicious eye on Lehesu and a nervous thumb on the trigger from the

quad-gun blister.

"Master, I have conununications on a very unconventional

frequency.  " "What's being saidt' Lando shifted the stump of his cigar

to the other side of his mouth, hunched over the receiver Of the

quad-gun even farther, and strained to see the weird object floating

half a klick away.  It was transparent, and didn't show up very well on

the detectors, as if it were made of plastic instead of metal.  There

was no sign of shielding, and he'd seen much bigger ships.

Nevertheless, its casual proxinidty raised the fine hair on the

back of his neck and gave him the impulse to jam the triggers down and

keep them down until it was reduced to harmless vapor.

"I've got the Falcon's computers working on it-they're not very

well suited to translation, I'm afraid-and I'm also plugged into things

myse@.  It would appear-wait!  We're starting to receive a visual

array.  Repeating that first greeting seems to have done the ... yes

... yes..  . Master!  It's sending us a picture of ourselves!"

Great, Lando thought, here we are, parsecs from any known

civilization, and we've stumbled across an itinerant portrait

photographer.  Usually they brought a pony or a young bantha with them,

but ... He let the sarcastic thoughts dribble away.

They weren't doing any good.  He trusted Vuffi Raa to handle

things in general, but hated to put his life in anybody@ hands but his

own.

"Well, send them back a picture of themselves, for Core's sake!

Pretend we're a pair of tourists taking each other's snapshots.

It beats shooting it out."

"Yes, Master I had already arrived at that conclusion, and am

transmitting a slow-scan with the proper characteristics.  I can put it

on one of your gunnery screens if you think it@ worth the risk."

"Go ahead.  I can do better with the naked eye anyway, given our

range and this thing's weird composition."

On a display to his left, the outline of the Falcon, as seen by

the alien object, faded away to be replaced with an enhanced

representation of the object itself.  Vuffi Raa's vision was better

than Lando's.  He was making out or inferring a good deal more detail.

The thing remarkably resembled some marine creatures Lando had

seen in his travels although it was too large by at least an order of

magnitude.  It was also somewhat like a birdThe picture jerked, the

viewpoint changed, the object curled and uncurled its "wings."

'Master this picture's coming fivm them!  Master I don't think

this is a spaceship!  I think it's a-" At this point, Lehesu began his

little video drama, showing himself starving to death and dying, then

changing things to show himself feeding and prospering.  By the time he

was finished, Lando and Vuffi Raa had a much better idea of what they

had encountered in that odd, empty region of interstellar space.

Lando knew that it was theoretically possible for organisms to

evolve in free space.  Chemical compounds formed spontaneously there,

many of them very sophisticated and much like those that had preceded

life in the oceans of millions of worlds.  There were even substances

which scientists argued were ultrasimple life, somewhere below the

level of viruses on a scale of organization.

What bothered Lando was that they'd encountered Lehesu in a region

utterly devoid of the chemical soup that was supposed to give rise to

life.  It didn't make sense.  One didn't expect to find human beings in

places where there was no light, no heat, no oxygen, no-then he

remembered where he was, the same lifeless, empty stretch of

nothingness the odd creature was navigating, and liked the situation

even less than before.

"Master I think it @ asking for help!"

'7ell it we gave at the office!"

"Master those symbols!  They're atomic nuclei!  It@ telling us

what it needs.  That settles it.- those aren't fuel compounds, they're

food.  It's a living creature, and it's been starving to death!  "

Lando thought about it.  "What does it want, Vuffi Raa?

We're not very likely to have anything this alien can eat, are

we?"

"Simple organic compounds, amino acids.  Master the contents of

the ship's recyclers are almost made for its requirements.  Could we?

. . . " "Oh, very well, go ahead.  We could always use a friend

who breathes vacuum and can cross interstellar space by sheer force of

personality.  Let him have what he- " The Falcon gave a small lurch as

Vuffi Raa vented the recyclers.  The creature reacted immediately,

swooping and soaring ecstatically through the haze of muck they'd

released into the void.  Lando nearly went crazy trying to keep the

energy weapons trained on it, then gave up.  The thing wasn't going to

harm them; it ate garbage and had been starving to death.  They'd made

a friend, and friends don't point guns at one another.

He switched off the gunnery circuits, unstrapped himself from the

swiveling chair, and lumbered forward to join Vuffi Raa in the cockpit.

They'd remained in that one spot for several days, learning

Lehesu's language while Vuffi Raa adjusted the engines.  At one point

it had become necessary for the gambler to suit up and step outside so

that the giant Oswaft could be made to understand that the Falcon was a

thing containing people of a different size and shape than the Oswaft

had been capable of imagining.  For all his size and the idiotic fix

he'd gotten himself into out there, the alien was not stupid.

Artifacts were not entirely unknown to his culture, and, as soon

as he'd grasped the concept of a spaceship, he'd come up with an idea

of his own.

Which meant that Vuffi Raa had to go to work again.  In the end,

the robot had cobbled up a huge tank out of metal and sheet plastic and

filled it with recycler contents.  Now Lehesu could travel without

running out of nutriment.  It had taken both man and droid to maneuver

the tank into position beneath the enormous space-going creature.  He

grasped it in several dozen of his tentacles, gently stroking his new

friends with a couple of others as his voice filtered through Lando's

suithelmet radio.

"Many thanks to you, for you have given me life twice.  My regret

is that there is nothing I can do for you, you who can make food out of

nothingness in the middle of nothingness.  " Lando was about to say a

perfunctory "forget it" when Vuffi Raa raised a cautionary tentacle.

"Master he's making pictures again, I can see them in my mind!"

"You're a droid of many talents, and there are advantages to

having an electronic brain.  What's he showing you, naked

dancing-droids?"

"Master!  On the contrary, he's displaying things which he can

fabricate from the chemicals he doesn't need in his food.

Apparently he does it atom by atom.  Master!  He's showing me

opals, sapphires, flame-gems and sun-stones.  Why, that's a

lifecrystalfrom the Rafa System!  Lehesu, can you truly-" "Yes, my

little friend, if these objects interest you.  There is more, much more

that I can make.  But tell me, is it true that Master cannot see what I

am showing you this moment, without an artifact to assist him?"

Lando interrupted.  "Core blast you, Vuffi Raa, now you've got him

calling me master!  I want him to stop it immediately, do you hear me,

Lehesu?  And Vuffi Raa?"

"Yes, Master?"

"Come on inside and we'll take a look at what Lehesu's Offering

over a screen."

Lehesu's people, the Oswaft, had had yet another talent, and that

was what had gotten the young vacuum-breather into trouble the second

time.

The interior of the StarCave, over a dozen light-years in extent,

was huge even for the relatively enormous organisms and the rest of the

complex ecology that inhabited it.  Simply boring along at sublight

velocities, as Lehesu had been doing on his last (figurative) legs when

the Falcon had found him, wasn't enough.

Lehesu hadn't gone straight home when he left the Falcon.

His curiosity hadn't been satisfied-in fact it had been sharpened

exponentially by contact with the human and the droid.

He wanted to see what things were like in the regions of space

that had produced them.

Holding firmly onto his canister of nutrients, he'd bidden them

farewell and exchanged promises to get in touch again someday.  The

gambler had taken these no more seriously than any frequent traveler

does with the strangers he gets to know superficially for a short time.

He and Vuffl Raa had gone on about their own business, flipping

switches and turning knobs to bring the Falcon up to full power once

more when they reached the margin of the "desert."

Lehesu had gone in search of civilization.

Unfortunately for the Oswaft and the subsequent security of his

people, he had done his searching in a region patrolled by the Navy,

whose sensors, acquired at the unwilling expense of quadrillions of

taxpayers, were more sophisticated than those of the Falcorr.  They'd

ferreted out the truth about the strange being upon first spotting him,

noticing an ability Lando and Vuffi Raa had missed: not only to soar

through space in a linear fashion, but to "skip" vast distances when it

suited him, as hyperdrive starships do.  They'd tracked him back to the

ThonBoka when he'd returned with joyous news of his discoveries.

The navy, of course, had recognized a threat when they saw one: a

race of beings at home in space, capable of faster-thanlight travel-a

terrible thing to contemplate.  Their scouts, estimate of the number of

Oswaft was even more terrifying.  It was like encountering a previously

unknown superpower with millions of fully operational starships.

There was only one thing to do.

The ThonBoka was an open system.  It had to be, or exhaust its

resources rapidly.  The idea was to starve the Oswaft to death, denying

them the chemicals drifting in on the galactic tide.  Once the

vacuum-breathers were sufficiently weakened, they could be finished off

neatly, their threat erased forever.

But the Navy didn't know that Vuffi Raa's canister handiwork

had included a radio relay and transducer-he had truly meant to stay in

touch-through which Lehesu had shouted a cry for help across the

parsecs.  Lando, seeing in the creature's problems a solution to

problems of his own, had loaded his ship and come arunning.  Now he was

having second thoughts.

Less than a hundred kilometers away, point-blank range as

distances in space are reckoned, a battle cruiser waited impatiently

for an answer.  The Falcon was fast, but not fast enough to evade the

vessel's tractor beams or destructive weaponry.  As freighters go, she

was well armed and heavily shielded against impecunious pirates and the

usual run of free-lance riffraff one was likely to encounter in

interstellar space.  But her quadguns and other weaponry were no match

for the armament sprouting from what seemed like every square meter of

the warship that confronted them.  And worse, at that range, the

Falcon's shields would buy her only seconds of extended life.

Lando considered running-not away from the nebula, but toward

it-until he realized that a simple message from the picket vessel would

have a hundred more just like it primed and ready by the time the

Falcon got to the StarCave's mouth.

He evaluated very carefully a slim number of other alternatives,

compared them with his original plan, and shook his head.  No two ways

about it: the idea had been lousy to begin with, was still lousy, but

it was the only one he had.

"Vuffi Raa," he said at last, closing his eyes as if that could

shut out the images of disaster forming in his mind, "shut down all

weapons systems as we discussed.  Also power down the shields and make

sure they can see what we've done over there on their scopes, will

you?"  He flipped a fifty-credit coin and caught it in the air.

Beside him, the robot sounded dubious.  "But Master, that will

leave us completely helpless."  His tentacles fidgeted on the control

panels.

Lando grinned.  "A long time ago, a machine of my acquaintance

pointed out that a person who believes that violence is the first or

only alternative is morally bankrupt."  Up went the coin again, down

into the gambler's palm, and up again.

Vuffi Raa stood silent.  He had been the machine, and the occasion

Lando's learning that the little droid was programmed against causing

harm to any intelligent being.

"Right now, old can-opener," the gambler continued, "our

mechanical defenses are a liability, the appearance of helplessness an

asset.  Long before I became a stiwship captain, I was a grafter and a

homswoggler.  I guess it's time to see if I retain the skills."  Lando

walked the coin across the backs of his knuckles, and put it away.

The sound of chromium-plated metal tapping on plastic was loud as

Vuffi Raa began the process of rendering the ship harmless.  Lando sat,

deep in thought, weighing his next words carefully.

At last: "All tight, raise that cruiser out there; get them on the

line.  And cheer up-I know what I'm doing.  I think."

The robot was incapable of facial expression, but his voice was

ripe with worried skepticism.  "What should I say, Master?"

Lando chuckled.  "Don't call me master.  Tell them we received

their earlier messages, and that it's they who should be prepared to

take on boarders!"

LANDO CALRISSIAN HAD never particularly liked spacesuits.
Not only were they bulky and uncomfortable, they lacked elegance.

His was maintained in the best condition possible, but the color

combinations were egregious, the line was execrable, and it clashed

with every formal and semiformal shipsuit he owned.  And wrinkled them,

as well.

Nevertheless, he was suited up and waiting by the topside lock as

the Falcon, under Vuffi Raa's deft maneuvering, backed and filled to a

designated place under the belly of the cruiser Respectable.  Beside

him on the deckplates was a large soft-sided carrying case loaded with

supplies and samples he'd purchased for just the occasion.  It was one

of those times when thorough preparation and a detailed plan instilled

no confidence whatever.

"Locking on, Master " came the doubly electronic voice from the

cockpit.

"All right, Vuffi Raa, don't wait up for me."

Lando gave the wheel above his head a full turn, another half

turn, and cringed, as he always did, when it popped heavily out of its

threads.  He swung it to one side, reached down for his case, and made

his clumsy way up the metal rungs of the ladder, through the Falcon's

hull, and into the receiving area aboard the Respectable.

To discover he was staring straight into the muzzles of half a

dozen high-powered blasters.

Gulping-and happy that it was concealed by his helmetLando keyed

his suit radio as he swung the heavy bag onto the deck of the cruiser,

lifted himself up, and straightened.

"Good afternoon, gentlebeings.  Lando Calrissian, interstellar

trader at your service.  What can I do you for?"  He laughed heartily

at his lame joke.

He'd climbed into a hangar bay.  Lando thought it a little stupid

that they hadn't been invited inside, freighter and all-the Navy

certainly had the room for it.  The ceiling was invisible far above,

drowned out by the harsh lights glaring down onto the deck.  The

chamber was at least two hundred meters from its broad, curving, and

presently tightly shut doors to the complicated-looking rear wall where

half a hundred windows lit in various colors showed control and

maintenance areas behind a pressure bulkhead.

The squad of security guards didn't relax a millimeter.  Their

leader, identifiable by the insignia on his battle armor, crackled

forward, slapped the weapon he was carrying across his chest.

Quiet, civilian!  You are ordered to report, under arrest, to the

sector security chief.  Your baggage will be taken for inspection and

decontamination!"

"Decontamination?"  Lando feigned dismay.  "You want to

decontaminate a dozen cartons of fine Dilnlexan cigars, Oseoni

cigarettes, Trammistan chocolates-" "Cigars?"  the head goon asked in a

rather different tone of voice than before.  He looked right and left,

slapped a pair of switches on his arm panel, grabbed Lando's arm, and

similarly rendered the gambler's suit radio inoperative.  He touched

his opaque-visored helmet to Lando's bubble.

"Cigars, you say?  Do you know how long the Ship's Exchange has

been out of cigars?  We've been on picket at this Core-forsaken nebula

since-ahem!"  The man seemed to regain control of himself momentarily.

"Report, with this escort, to the sector chief.  I'll take custody

of your sample case and make certain that its contents are undamaged."

"Although they may be somewhat depleted when I get them back?"

Lando grinned and winked through two layers of plastic at the

invisible face next to his.  "Just keep in mind, Sergeant, that there's

a lot more where this came from if we establish an amenable

relationship, all right?"

The sergeant snapped to attention after switching on both radios

again.

"Message received and understood, trader!  I trust you'll enjoy

your stay aboard the Respectable.  " "Oh," Lando said, "I'm sure I

will.  Shall we be moving along?"

The sector chief was a grizzled, overweight warrant officer with

hash marks on his uniform sleeves which threatened to dribble off his

cuffs and onto the metal deckplates of his office.

He scratched a crew-cut head and then shifted his hand to rub a

bulbous, well-veined nose.

"Well, I ain't never heard of nothing like this before-a civilian

merchant plyin' his wares to vessels on blockade duty.

And friend, if I ain't heard of it before, you've got a problem,

cause This Man's Navy operates on precedent."

Lando, having been examined, searrhed, scrutinized, peered at and

into by human eyes and hands and the sensory ends of countless pieces

of nastily suspicious equipment, leaned back in the chair across from

the warrant officer's desk and nodded pleasantly.  He was glad he'd

selected his plainest, least colorful shipsuit to wear beneath his

pressure outfit, which was hanging neatly in a locker near the hangar,

and even gladder he'd left his tiny five-shot stingbeam aboard the

Falcon.  If was the only personal weapon he ordinarily allowed himself,

but at the moment it would have been as conspicuous and

counterproductive as his freighter's quad-guns.

"Believe me, Chief, I understand tradition.  My family tree is

full of it.  But there ought to be room for a little enterprise and

innovation, shouldn't there?  As long as it doesn't jeopardize the

mission, and is conducted through the proper channels?"

"Errhem!"  The sector chief cleared his throat, inhaled from one

of Lando's expensive cigars.  The gambler's case lay on the floor

beside his chair, as thoroughly inspected for weapons and instruments

of sabotage as himself, and considerably lighter in weight than when

he'd brought it aboard the cruiser.  At each level of inspection, from

the guard sergeant to the warrant officer, it had become slightly more

empty, in proportion to the rank of the emptier.

"My precise sentiments, Chief.  Now, about our arrangements.  I

suggest we route our marketing around the Ship's Exchange.  In the

first place, my overhead won't allow me to offer what I have at

wholesale.  In the second, I suspect buying from an itinerant peddler

such as myself might provide an agreeable diversion for your troops.

In the third-well, do you think there might be any interest aboard

in games of chance?"

The warrant officer blinked.  He fancied himself a sharp gambler

and regarded all civilians everywhere as easy pickings, having spent

decades taking things from them at largebore gunpoint.  He wasn't able

to distinguish between this and situations where civilians had an even

chance; could not, in fact, conceive of such circumstances.

"Games of chance?  Such as .  . . ?"

"Such as sabacc."  Lando smiled.  "I'm something of an enthusiast,

and it would offer you and yours a small opportunity to get your money

back for whatever you happen to buy'you' being a figurative expression

in this instance, on account of your commission."

"Commission?"  The sector chief looked confusedly at the stripes

on his sleeve, then suddenly at the cigar he was smoking.  "Oh,

commission!  I get it!  Actually, it's a warrant.  But no matter!  Very

funny!"

Lando hadn't intended it to be, but he laughed heartily along

until the creature subsided.  Then the sector chief adopted an

expression that he imagined was shrewd, having practiced it before a

mirror since he was a rating.

"I'm sure a few games might be arranged, for a suitable

commission!"  He broke into guffaws again, and Lando stifled a

self-destructive urge to strangle the uniformed baboon with his own

hash marks.

"Very well.  Now there's one more thing I'd like to ask about.  I

hesitate, because I have some idea of the importance of your mission

here-" "You do?"  The chief surged forward, leaning avidly across his

desk.  Only the artificial gravity of the floor-plates kept him planted

on his swivel chair.

A wave of alarm swept through the gambler's body.  He'd said the

wrong thing.  This mission was supposed to be top sectet, and,

furthermore, was an unusually shameful one, even for the current

government.  His mind raced, trying to find a way to salvage something

from the mess his careless tongue had created.

"Tell me," the chief said before Lando could speak.  "It's the

ranks that always know the least, and the folks back home who have a

better picture of what's going on."  He peered about the room, rose,

slid a picture of the fleet Commodore aside, seized a small plastic

bulb hanging from a wire behind the picture, and closed his hand around

it, covering it completely.

"Bugs," the chief said.  "We can speak freely now.  What is so

important about this mission?"

Lando almost wept with relief.  Then he had to do some fast

thinking.  "I've heard they have more pirate ships bottled up inside

the nebula than have ever been seen in one place before.

Apparently Intelligence tricked them into some kind of rendezvous,

and you're keeping them trapped until they can be destroyed."

The chief nodded sagely.  "That makes some sense of the

scuttlebutt I've heard.  Any idea when we're going in?"

Lando shook his head.  "You know the Navy: 'hurry up and wait.'

Again the knowing, comradely nod.  Lando had a friend, now; he revised

his prices upward 20 percent.  "Sounds like you were maybe a Navy man

yourself," the chief suggested.

Lando returned the nod.  "Just a swabbie, when I was a kid," he

lied.  "Never made it big, like you, Chief."

"Well, we all have our place in the scheme of things, son.

They also serve who only@' "Sell cigars?  And while we're speaking

of cigars, why don't you have half a dozen of these for later, Chief.

A man only gets so many luxuries, out here on the front line."

"Sabacc!"  the excited rating cried, gathering in a pot that

wouldn't have paid for one of Lando's cigars.  The gambler made a

practice of losing loudly on the small bets and raking in the winnings

as inconspicuously as possible when the stakes were high.  Now he was

following a policy of steady losses on nearly every hand, in order to

win the larger game that awaited him in the ThonBoka.

It was the fourth cruiser he and Vuffi Raa had visited in as many

days, using the original warrant officer's connections.

Each transfer, ship-to-ship, with its attendant docking and

security procedures growing laxer and more perfunctory, brought the

Millennium Falcon and her real cargo closer to the StarCave and its

waiting denizens.

The freighter hadn't been immune to searches, but nobody wastes

much time@r olfactory sensibilities-on the trash and toilet recyclers,

especially when they were genuinely full of substances that everyone

heartily regarded as filth.  And especially when no one below the rank

of admiral seemed to know the reason behind the stupid blockade.

Lando was rapidly coming to love military security procedures.

With inexpert hands made clumsier by petty greed, the rating dealt

the cards out.  There were seventy-eight of them, divided into five

suits: Sabres, Staves, Flasks, and Coins, arrayed from Aces to Masters,

and a special suit of face cards with

im

AND THE STARCAVE OF THONBOKA 311.

negative values and more profound meanings.  The object of the

game was simplicity itself.  acquire cards until the value of your hand

was exactly twenty-three, or as close as you could get without going

over.  A perfect zero or a minus twenty-three was as bad as a

twenty-four, and there were certain special hands, such as that

combining a Two of anything, a Three of anything, and an Idiot from the

special suit, which ritual decreed were the equivalent of twenty-three.

The game being played in the cruiser Reliable's MessRec area

included Lando, two cooks, and a pair of low-ranking gunners.  Lando

wore his most tattered clothing, pressed with razor creases, for the

occasion.

What made sabacc really interesting-and destroyed the nerves of

most amateurs who tried to play it-was that each card was an electronic

chip, capable of changing face and value at random any moment until the

card-chip was lying flat on a gaming table or upon the electronic mat

Lando had provided.  Thus a winning hand, held too long, could change

spontaneously to garbage, or, more rarely, a mess of meaningless

numbers could become a palladium mine.

Lando found the game relaxing and a welcome change from the

exigencies of interstellar freight-hauling.  He'd.always enjoyed it, no

matter the stakes, possibly because he found it quite difficult to

lose.  Even honestly.

The older of the two cooks took the hand and the deal shifted to

him accordingly.  He'd won perhaps half what the previous winner had

and was looking inordinately pleased with himself.  Lando inwardly

shook his head, remembering times when the ransom for a princess or the

price of a starship had rested before him on a table in the most

exclusive and luxurious settings imaginable.  It was difficult to keep

the right perspective, to remember from moment to moment that the real

stakes here were the highest he'd ever played for: the survival of an

entire race, and whatever he might demand in fabricated precious stones

indistinguishable from nature's best.

With pitiable awkwardness, the cook dealt Lando a pair of

card-chips from the bottom of the deck, attempting to cheat the others

in the process as well.  Not only wasn't he good at it, he wasn't any

good at it.  Lando received a Master of Staves, worth fourteen points,

and a Nine of Flasks: a natural two-card twenty-three.  The gambler

held them back, hoping one or the other would metamorphose into

something worthless.  He wasn't after the pay of those miserable

sailors, but information.

"Well," he said casually, "I've almost sold my quota here on the

Reliable.  You swabbies have any suggestions 'where I might find

greener pastures?"

His connections, compliments of the Respectable's sector chief,

had about run dry, and he needed not only the name of the next ship

closer to the mouth of the ThonBoka, but Of someone aboard in a

position to do him some good.  As bets were placed and extra cards were

passed around; Lando asked for one, giving up the I Commander.  He

received an Ace of Coins just as the Nine in his hand transformed

itself into an Eight@nother pestiferous twenty-three!

All right, then: "Sabaccl" The gambler said for the first time

that afternoon.  You lose some, you win some; you gotta take the good

with the bad.  He raked in a few millicredits and promptly engineered a

loss again.  It was simpler to do when he had control of the cards.

"You might try the Courteous," the younger of the two cooks

suggested, pushing his white hat back from his sweaty forehead.  He

smelled of onions and had a missing tooth.

"Those boys been on the line longer'n anybody here.  I got a

cousin-in-law over there who says-OW!"

"Oh he does, does he?"  observed Lando, watching the older cook

kick the younger under the table.  "Accident-prone or just sensitive to

pain?"

"You gotta keep your flapping lip buttoned, Merle," the older cook

said, "There's sucha thing as security."

"Aww, Clive, Lando's all right.  Usta be a rating hisself, didn't

you, Lando?  He just wants to sell stuff over on the Courteous, like he

done here, ain't that right, Lando?  An' seem' as it's the closest

ship in, he might be able to get a look at what the fuss is-OW!"

The older cook looked apologetic.  "No offense, Mr.

Calrissian."

Lando grinned as he watched the younger cook rub a tender shin.

"None taken."

It was a cheerful tune the young gambler was whistling as he

shinnied down the ladder into the airlock of the Millennium Falcon.

"Honey, I'm home!"

"Are you referring to me, Master?"  Vuffi Raa asked, maneuvering

his tentacles over the hatchway coaming.  He took Lando's helmet,

helped his master raise the circular overhead hatch and screw it into

place.

"Did you take care of that little job I asked you about?"  the

gambler inquired.  They passed along the corridor to the cockpiL Lando

stopped to inspect his quad-guns.  The fleet security forre's seals

were still in place; the weapons were theoretically inoperable.  Vuffi

Raa had cheated around them the first hour they'd been installed.

"Why yes, Master, I have.  Can you tell me now why you wanted such

an odd thing done?"  Strapping himself into place, the robot received

clearance from the Respectable and detached the Falcon from her belly.

Lando glanced suspiciously around the cabin.  "You tell me: can I

let you in on it without infom-ling the boys in gray up there9' The

little droid sounded a bit scandalized.  "Master, I removed a total of

twenty-three listening devices from this vessel, put there by at least

three separate agencies in the last seventy-one hours.  We're

completely clean.  What I'd like to know is why you wanted@' "Simple.

I want you to raise the Courteous, confirm we're on our way, and

set a course for her.  Then I want you to be ready to punch everything

we've got into the drives, and everything else into the aft

shield-generators, as soon as we pass by her and light out for the

ThonBoka.  Got that?"  He reached under the control panel, extracted a

cigar of a quality much higher than the ones he had been selling.

Vuffi Raa lit it for him with a tentacle tip.

"Aye, aye, Master.  But that device you had me construct while you

were aboard the Respectable: it projects at least a meter beyond the

after shields, and it's@' "Courteous, this is Millennium Falcon if

you're reading.  As per previous pemiission, we're on our way over.

I've got a hundred gallons of beebleberry ice cream I've been

saving especially for you.  Over."

"But Master, we don't have any@, "Em Falcon, this is Courteous.

We haven't had any kind of ice cream aboard for weeks.  You're

highly welcome, and we hear you have an interest in statistics.

Lando laughed at the universal gambler's code.  "Permutations and

combinations of the number seventy-eight, Courteous-fives are wild.

Watch for us at your airlock any minute now.  Out."

The Falcon soared under reaction drive across the distance between

the two warships, Lando worrying every moment that his idea and the

device he'd had Vuffi Raa construct would actually work.  It was the

most terrible risk he'd ever taken, with no time to experiment, and

technologies were not exactly his bailiwick.  If it failed, then they'd

be little metal splinters scattered from there to the Rafa System.

"Millennium Falcon, you're off the beacon!  Where'd you learn to

fly that overstuffed horseshoe, you confounded feather merchant, some

charm school somewhere?"

Critical moments ticked by, during which the Falcon refrained from

replying to the innuend@d precious kilometers toward her goal racked

themselves up on the boards.

"Em Falcon, now hear this!  Correct course immediately!

Our guns are beating on you, do you copy?"

Gritting his teeth and clamping nervous hands securely over the

arms of his chair, Lando sat motionless, watching the dials.

A trickle of sweat ran down the side of his neck into his collar,

but he said nothing.

Once more: "Millennium Err, you've got five seconds from the mark,

and then you'll be nothing but incandescent atoms!

Mark.- five, four, three .  . ."

"Okay, Vuffi, this is it!  As soon as the drives are hot, punch

everything she's got!"

"Very well, Master."

The robot's tentacles were a confusing blur over the ship's

control console as he diverted power to the after shields until the

gauges screamed at the incipient overload.  Lights began twinkling

cheeringly across the section of the panels labeled Fm; the powerful

interstellar drives awoke from several days' unwilling somnolence.

Finally, all boards were green.  Drives and shields were ready as

the Navy voice in the corn reached zero.

Lando hoped his invention was ready, too.

"Millennium Falcon, " the communicator warned a final, unnecessary

time-giving the gambler and the droid an extra few seconds-"you're a

dead-" "Now!"  Lando and Vuffi Raa screamed at the same time.

The voice chopped off.  The after shields blossomed into an

invisible protective canopy while the ultralight-speed generators began

to throb-just as the leading wave front of the first meter-thick

destructor beam from the cruiser struck the Falcon squarely in the

center of her stern.

Her shields held ... and held ... andSuddenly the Millennium

Falcon burst into an enullfluus blinding cloud of rapidly dispersing

gases; a rain of metallic particles glittered, occupying the space

where she had been.

VI

THE ONE ADDRF-SSET) the Other: "At long last, it is nearly time."

Like Lehesu of the Oswaft, he swam comfortably in emptiness

absently contemplating the surrounding stars.  Unlike Lehesu, he knew

everything about them, had been to visit many of them himself.  Nor was

that the only way that he was not like the ThonBoka vacuum-breather.

Even Lando Cahissian, accustomed to many strange and wonderful

sights, would have had trouble recognizing the entity as a living

being.

"Yes," the Other replied, although his companion's statement had

been rhetorical.  "All things are now as they have been planned.  I

shall gather the Rest, and they shall accompany us."

He took action to accomplish just that.  Such were the distances

involved that, even at communications speeds exponential to that of

light, it would require several days to achieve the desired transfer of

information.

"Indeed," the One agreed.  "That, too, is as it has been planned.

It is very strange, my friend, this 'not-knowing,' stranger than I

had anticipated.  Quite an uncomfortable feeling, really.  It has been

so long since .  . ."  He let what served him for a voice trail off,

contemplating a gulf of time the mere thought of which might,have

driven a lesser being to gibbering disconnection.

The Other indicated silent sympathy.  He, too, had experienced the

discomfort of uncertainty, and, despite his almost unimaginable

life-span, and the relatively recent character of the events, for far

too long.  Uncertainty was like that.  However, that had been the very

purpose of the plan.  Over the countless eons of their existence, the

One, the Other, and the Rest had become, in a manner of speaking, too

perfect, too wellinformed.  It had become all too easy to anticipate

events simply from long experience with reality, excellent sources of

information, and well-practiced logic.

Ironically, it was in that manner that the One had originally

foreseen racial stagnation and eventual death did these comfortable

circumstances continue.  He had advised all concerned that an element

of the unknown be reintroduced.  They, of course, had seen the sense of

it and agreed (with a cordiality that was itself symptomatic; a more

vital, lusty people would have included a number of individuals who

were contrary just for the sake of contrariness.) Their first

experiment in guesswork, partial knowledge, and risk was maturing now,

a process some thousands of years in the making.

"Do you suppose .  . ."  the Other began, unconsciously reviving a

long-unused turn of phrase as he let the unproductive thought trickle

away.  At that point speculation was futile.  He knew as well as the

One what consequences, in all their manifest likelihoods, were

possible, from a vast unprecedented enrichment of their ancient,

already lavishly complex culture, to its uttermost destruction.  These

were not beings to whom such gambling came easily or naturally-which

was yet another reason why it had become necessary.  "Do you suppose

... ?"

The One replied, "I do not know-How truly unsubstantial a

sensation!  For the first time in eons we shall learn New Things,

regardless of the outcome.  These we shall have to integrate with the

old, producing syntheses unlocked for.  I feel this emotion must be

very much as our ancestors expertenced when scarcely anything was

known, and everything remained yet to be learned.  It is little wonder

they were half mad and came close, times without number, to destroying

themselves."

After a long period of silence, the Other said, "I have learned a

New Thing already."  In the tone of his voice there was an odd,

semiforgotten, yet somehow familiar difference.

But excitement tinged the voice of the One: "Please tell me-what

is it?  1, too, must learn this New Thing, and we must pass it on t@'

"I have learned that the prospect of learning New Things makes you

unreasonably loquacious.  I am not certain-there it is again, that 'not

knowing'-that this is altogether good."

"I believe," the One replied rather stiffly, "that you have

reinvented humor.  And I am not certain whether that is good."

Klyn Shanga raced through endless night to join his makeshift

squadron.  Considering his three careers-soldier for his nation-state,

farmer upon military retirement, soldier again for a hastily united and

inevitably defeated Renatasian Systemthis last, the seeking of ultimate

vengeance, was quite the strangest.

Shanga leaned back in his patched and shabby acceleration couch,

carefully placing his feet between control pedals, stretching his long

legs and arching his back to relieve an aching stiffness born more, on

this occasion, of emotional tension than of lengthy travel.  He was

well practiced at that, having logged an incredible number of

intersystem parsecs in his unlikely machine.

His blaster, its grips polished smooth by use, its muzzle bright

with holster-wear and pitted by many more firings than it had been

designed for, once again clung comfortingly to his thigh.  It was not

that having the weapon made him a whole man; like most professional

soldiers, he was revolted by killing and avoided it whenever he could.

Besides, he could do more damage to an opponent with his left

elbow than most individuals could with an entire arsenal.  But, like

the battered, ancient ship he .  flew, it was an accustomed extension

of his body, a companion and friend.

He had very few others left.

Somewhere ahead, hovering at the deep-frozen margin of the Tund

System, his tiny fleet awaited the news he carried.  They had towed

themselves originally into this sector of the galaxy-a long, long way

from home-by means of a scrapped and resurrected Centrality battleship

engine that had been left among the ruins of their civilization by the

departing marauders.  To this they had attached, by cable, craft

bought, stolen, and traded from a hundred cultures.  Ultimately, the

engine had become a weapon of despair, a fusion-powered battering ram.

Even so, they had failed to accomplish their purpose for it, the

destruction of Vuffi Raa.

Now, deprived of an independent method of ultra-lightspeed.

travel, they had to rely upon an uncertain ally.  One who, without

question, would betray them in the end.

Alone in the cramped cockpit of his fighter, Shanga reviewed the

words he would employ to persuade his men that he had made the best of

a bad bargain-those few who had survived the voyage to the Tund System

and their first bloody encounter with the enemy at the Oseon.  More had

joined them afterward, dribbling out in the filthy holds of ancient

freighters, hitching rides aboard the interstellar garbage scows.

Ironically, it was Rokur Gepta who, more than anybody else,

represented the malign spirit that had destroyed the Renatasia.

Somehow, too, it was fitting that they plotted together to use the

navy as a sort of backstop against which they could crush their common

foes.  That same Navy had been the direct agent of his home system's

destruction.  At the beginning of his vindictive adventure, Klyn Shanga

had been fatalistically resigned to throwing away his life and the

lives of his threadbare command in order to avenge their titanic

losses.  Now he realized with increasing clarity and weariness that

there was moremuch more-to live for.  The capture and slow termination

of the five-legged infiltrator would only begin the process.  Somehow

they must make their mark upon the Navy, upon,the Centrality itself,

upon everyone responsible in any way for the murder of a civilization.

Hopelessness breeds desperate measures.  A partnership with the

Sorcerer of Tund necessarily included a risk that the pitiable remains

of Renatasian manhood might be used to some surpassingly evil purpose,

to fulfill some objective even more hideous than the obliteration of a

system-wide culture.  If anyone was capable of engineering such a

cataclysm, it was Rokur Gepta.

There was a Renatasian animal that planted itself by the waterside

and, in the process of giving birth, provided fodder for a predacious

toothy swimmer.  Gepta was very much like that toothy swimmer, circling

expectantly.  Shanga, with his tiny fleet (call it, rather, a "school")

felt very much like that hapless littoral creature who must die

herself-sacrificing, as well, a certain percentage of her young-in

order to give whatever microscopic meaning to life that it was capable

of possessing.

On the other hand, only sapient beings were foolish enough to

imagine that the universe was anything but a sadistic battlefield where

brutality was the natural order and agonized screaming provided the

background music.  Not even a man as bitterly demoralized as Klyn

Shanga believed there was any meaning to death.

Perhaps he should never have retired from the military, he thought

with a deeply -felt sigh uncharacteristic of the role he

ML,

presently played or the place he found himself now.  All those

years on his farm, amid fresh, growing things under a kindly sky, had

made him far too philosophical to be a good soldier ever again.  But he

Was all his world had left, so he would have to do.

Klyn Shanga flew onward through the star-strewn darkness,

reviewing the words he would employ to persuade his men.  He wished

fervently they were of some use persuading himself.

Rokur Gepta, traveling aboard the refitted cruiser Wennis, was

receiving an alarming report from one of his advance escorts.  The

flyer had returned in a one-seat fighter approximating the size and

combat capabilities of Klyn Shanga's, but which was equipped-md this

was rare, even for the navy-to exceed the speed of light.  The little

ship was half engine, virtually unanried, and a tight fit, even for a

slender youth.  Piloting such a vehicle for more than a few minutes

brought new meaning to the word "discomfort."

It and its occupant had been to the ThonBoka and back again

already while the lumbering Wennis, considered a very sprightly vessel

for its class, was still many days'journey from the nebula.

Gepta had such a fighter for his personal use.  It had saved his

life at least twice.  He came as close to feeling fond of it as he came

to feeling fond of anything-aside from the grim denizens from the

darker recesses of his cavern on Tund.  Fondness was not an emotion

ordinarily to be discovered within the similarly stygian depths of

Rokur Gepta's soul, although whether it had never lived within him, or

had been ruthlessly extern-iinated early in his life, was a question

that perhaps even the sorcerer was not prepared to answer.

Thus it was with something of a shock, in the brief instant before

he regained control of himself, that Gepta experienced an unfamiliar,

transient, and microscopic pang of personal regret as he learned of the

destruction of the Millennium Falcon and her crew by the blockade

cruiser.  While the sorcerer wasn't watching Lando Cahissian hid

somehow risen unbidden from the s of petty annoyance to that of worthy

opponent and honored enemy.

"I saw it myself, sir!"  the breathless scout gasped as moisture

from the surrounding air condensed upon his space-cold armor and

trickled off into a little pool on the deck plates.

Like those of all his comrades attached to the mysterious Wennis,

his gray uniform was unadorned by signs of rank or unit in order to

preserve certain political fictions which his masters cherished.  That

no creature wiser than a sponge was taken in by such an exercise

constituted no good reason not to pursue it.

Likewise, the slowly wamiing pressure suit he wore over his

uniform, having just a few moments before leaped out of his cramped,

ultrafast spacecraft into the cavernous hangar deck of the supposedly

civilian cruiser, was without markings.  Most of the personnel aboard

the Wennis, being professional soldiers, resented the shallow

deception, but, with understandable circumspection, seldom got around

to mentioning it aloud.

While in command of the Wennis, Rokur Gepta did not affect the

basaltic throne and the splendid isolation he preferred on Tund.  He

occupied the captain's acceleration chair (although there was an

officer on board who claimed the title) and supervised his underlings

on the bridge as they manipulated the controls at his bidding.  He

pitilessly examined the incoming scout, wondering whether, after all

the time, all the effort, someone else had casually robbed him of

victory over his prey.

"What ship, againt' the sorcerer hissed, briefly contemplating

punishing its captain and crew.  "Which ship destroyed the Millennium

Falcon, and by what means?"  The sorcerer hunched over like a scavenger

bird, peering through the windings of his headdress, his eyes a pair of

glowing, pulsating coals.

The rest of the bridge crew paid close attention to their

consoles, cringing at the pilot's plight, but unwilling to interfere

with his presumed destiny.  They had seen a captain stripped of dignity

and all but killed in that very place.  They held out little hope for a

mere lieutenant.

The scout gulped visibly, wishing he was back inside the

claustrophobic confines of his craft.  He was the best pilot aboard the

Wennis, possibly one of the best in the service.

That was not going to do him any good with the sorcerer.

Nor had he been educated to say or do the diplomatic thing when

confronted with malevolent and arbitrary authority, at least of such

potency.  He felt he would have been better served had such a skill

been part of his otherwise exhaustive military survival training-seldom

had the need arisen for making a fire with flint and steel or using a

signal mirror to summon help.

"The Courteous, sir," he answered finally, "part of the blockade

line at the 'fbonboka.  In fact, sir, at the time, she was the closest

vessel to the nebula.  I listened to the traffic, sir, as I had been

about to report aboard the flagship on your orders, and was awaiting

docking clearance.  This Em Falcon, an ugly old tub of a tramp

freighter, was supposed to rendezvous with Courteous for purposes of

trade.  She'd been through the whole fleet that way, peddling tobacco

and other civilian stuff like a vendor droid at a ballgame.  Instead,

she attempted to evade the cruiser and made high speed for the mouth of

the nebula.

That's when Courteous caught her.  I never saw a beam like that

before, sir.  Must be something new."

Gepta leaned forward even farther, towering from his pedestaled

chair over the young officer.  "And the Millennium Falcon?  What of

her?"

The pilot gulped again, appreciating well the fate of innocent

bearers of bad tidings.  "Vaporized, sir.  She took the full force on

her after shields and overloaded.  It was visible all over the fleet.

Sir."

"So .  . ."  The sorcerer considered these data, the scout

virtually forgotten as the young man stood before him, trembling at

attention, his helmet under his arm.  A runnel of sweat slowly crept

down the side of the pilot's neck into the metal pressure collar of his

suit.

The gray-swathed sorcerer glanced up again a moment later, almost

absently.  "Are you still here, Lieutenant?  I suggest you report back

to your section immediately."

The room fairly creaked with sudden relaxation.

An astonished and highly relieved young courier saluted his

commander gratefully and departed the bridge amid the silent cheers of

the cruiser's conspicuously disinterested crew members.

Looking forward to a good meal and something taR and cool to drink

in the pilot's lounge below, the lieutenant passed through the bulkhead

doors with a new spring in his step.  The panels whispered closed

behind him as he stepped into the companionway.

A large security trooper, one of Gepta's personal bodyguards, came

up behind him, laid a hand the size of a telecom directory on the young

man's shoulder.  The lieutenant nearly jumped out of his spacesuit.

"Thought you'd bought the farm there, didn't you, son?"

The older man's face crinkled in a grin that was difficult to

interpret.  "Say, I'm just going off duty, and seeing as how I was

aboard the first time we ran into that garbage scow the Falcon, and

seeing as how I'm just as pleased she's a cloud of radioactive dust,

what do you say we both go below for some liquid celebration?"

The lieutenant looked up uncertainly into the trooper's face.

The clatnplike grip on his shoulder gave him little choice.  He

nodded without enthusiasm, and the two dwindled and disappeared down

the corridor.

A short time later, Rokur Gepta stirred from futile contemplation,

held up a gloved hand, and snapped his fingers.

From somewhere aft and overhead there came a rustle of dry, hairy

wings as one of his pets lurched out of its darkened, foul-smelling

niche, flapped across the room trailing an indeterminate number of

scrawny, many-jointed legs.  It came to rest, perching blindly on

Gepta's outstretched wrist, salivating in anticipation just as the

bodyguard entered the bridge with a small, shallow tray.

With his free hand, Gepta accepted a pair of plastic tongs,

reached for something on the tray, and held it up before his pet.  The

creature had nothing resembling a face, simply a gummy puckered opening

toward the front of its body, set between the wings.  The cavity

distended greedily at the touch of the offered morsel.

There was a moment of enjoyment, some sucking, digestive

noises.... It belched.

Vii

LEfiF-SU CAME AS close to nervous pacing as any Oswaft could.

The giant raylike creature drifted in the relative emptiness of

space at what he regarded a prudent distance from the warshipguarded

mouth of the ThonBoka.

Watching the watchers.

As always, his estimate of what was prudent differed somewhat from

that of his cosapients.  None of them could be persuaded to venture

within light-years of the spot from which the periodic activities of

their new enemies could be observed, if not entirely understood.

Restless, Lehesu concentrated a moment, got his bearings in some

manner no one but another Oswaft would be able to fathom, and hopped,

without thinking much more about it, a few hundred thousand kilometers,

as if the intervening distance didn't exist.  It was a gesture of

frustration.  He had been brought up to believe such fidgeting was

infantile, undignified, not to mention impolite when in the company of

others.  But at the moment he couldn't help himself.  He was impatient,

an emotion he shared in common with other species, but which would be

beyond the comprehension of most Oswaft.  Still he waited.

He wasn't at all certain when Lando, Vuffi Raa, and the Falcon

would arrive.  lie had difficulty yet, realizing that the freighter was

not a real person.  The existence of, and his friendship with, the

chromium-plated robot made this realization even more difficult to

achieve.  That they would not fail to come to his aid he never doubted

for an instant, despite the genteel jeering of family and friends.

They had not believed the least of his tales about the Open Sea

until the evidence had thundered up to the ThonBoka mouth, heavily

gunned and, for some reason, angrily disposed toward the

vacuum-breathing race.

This, of course, was somehow the adventuring Lehesu's fault.

Concerning Lando Cahissian ... The Oswaft's brief sojourn into

human territory still hadn't educated him about cats; however there

were certain aspects of that animal's psychology he might have

identified with.  Hadn't the gambler and his friends saved his life?

Twice?

They were obligated, now.

Anxiety shifted Lehesu again, this time a quarter of a lightyear,

to one side of the nebula mouth, before he fully noticed it.  He could

"see" better from the vantage anyway.  Metallic motes lost against a

starry backdrop, the elements of the fleet themselves were invisible at

this distance.  But the aggregate was noisy.  A welter of

connnunication darted from ship to ship in a complex net of energies

the operators of which fondly imagined was private.  Lehesu had learned

Lando's language in a matter of hours.  It did not occur to him that

the stinings and mixings of ideas that constituted top-secret military

codes were anything other than amusing gwnes to those who employed

them.  He puzzled them out in idle moments, much faster than he'd

overcome the initial difficulty presented by communicating with the

gambler and the robot.

Had those in command of the fleet, those who had ordered its

destructive presence outside the ThonBoka, become aware of that minor

Oswaft capability, they would have redoubled their efforts to

exterminate the space people.  In this instance, ignorance was mutual;

Lehesu hadn't a notion of the threat he and his people represented to

those who cherished power for its own sake.

A small, thin cloudlet of interstellar plankton drifted by, home

on the complex tide of gravity and photon pressure, tiny pseudoanimals

and quasi-plants that formed the basis of the Oswaft diet, indeed for

the diet of all the thousands of spaceevolved species living in the

shelter of the StarCave.  Lehesu nibbled at them in a desultory

fashion.  To the small extent he was aware of them, he realized they

didn't taste particularly good.  There was a reason for that: they were

slowly dying.

The bottom rung of the ThonBoka food ladder was being ruthlessly

and deliberately sawed out from under the rest of the nebula's ecology.

Every now and again the vessels of the picket fleet outside would

blossom into glowing visibility as, in concert, they unleashed titanic

energies, saturating the space around themselves with destructive

particles and waves.  It was at these moments that Lehesu (who had

found it necessary to explain to his people something he didn't

altogether understand himself.  that these were not living organisms

that beseiged them, but artifacts containing living organisms) could

see that the blockading fleet formed a carefully calculated pattern

through whose fields of fire not one molecule of preorganic substance

could sift unassaulted.

What did come through was spoiled and tasted terrible.

If that were not enough, the ships sprayed a kind of poison@nzymes

' designed to smash the complex natural molecular arrangements of deep

space, reduce them to constituent atoms, and destroy their nutritive

value.  The Oswaft and their environment were being coldly and

systematically starved to death by an implacable enemy they did not

know, hadn't picked, had owed no animosity.

Until now.

"Yellow Niner, this is Hosrel XI Perimeter Control, we have a

bandit at coordinates three-five-oh-two-three.  Do you copy?

Over."

The young rating at the sensor screen had been bored until then.

She had been bored for thirty-four solid weeks, and the constant

drills, the frontier-duty pay, the pron-rise of a chance at a

commission, hadn't helped.  Not a bit.  But she was no longer bored.

If the bogey was a drill, it was something new.  At that,

top-secret navy base on the freeze-dried edge of an already

unspectacular system, anything new, however potentially threatening to

life, limb, or the continued wearing of a uniform, was highly welcome.

"Perimeter Control," the interceptor pilot replied with a studied

drawling casualness that belied the fact that he was a year younger

than the sensor operator, "we copy.  This is Yellow Nine Leader Are you

requesting a six-sixty-sLx?  Over?"

The operator leafed quickly through her procedures manual.

It was so hard remembering ... yes, there it was: six-sixty-six,

scramble and visual checkout of an unidentified target.  Scrwnbling, in

effect, was already taken care of.  Hosrel XI Command kept at least one

full interceptor squadron spaceborne on the perimeter all the time, and

Yellow Niner was it, at the moment.  She hadn't any idea what was being

defended at the Core-forsaken base.  Probably the navy was developing

something unimportant, but they were giving security all the ruffles

and flourishes.

"Yellow Niner, that's affirmative.  Give me your ETVC.

Over."

"My what?  Oh yeah: we ought to be eyeballing your bogey in about,

oh, call it seven minutes, give or take.  Got it on the scope repeater

now.  Looks kinda like it's made olf plastic, doesn't it?  Over" Both

the interceptor pilot and the sensor operator had been briefed, fairly

recently, on new developments in camouflaging shields.  But neither

could discuss it in the clear over an open communications band.

Security is a sword that cuts both ways, and most often wounds the

hand that wields it.

"Yes, yes it does, Yellow Niner.  I have your ETVC at six minutes,

now.  Is that about right?  Over."

"Yeah, yeah.  Yellow Nine Squadron, this is Yellow Nine Leader As

far as I know, this is no drill, repeat, no drill.  Unlock your ar?ning

switches and keep the thumb you aren't sitting on near the button.  No

mistakes, now, or we'll all be plucking crystals in the life-orchards.

Out to you, and over to PC 11

PC, thought the Operator, that sounded sort of nice and heroically

terse.  She said nothing, but simply watched a dozen hard, sharp, shiny

blips converge on the single fuzzy, almost invisible one.  She had

already sent nervous fingers flying over an alphanumeric pad, alerting

her superiors to the situation, and other eyes were monitoring other

scopes, now, within the subterranean bowels of the installation.  She

fastened her military collar and straightened a crease.  Almost, she

hoped, the target would be a genuine pirate attack or rebel uprising.

Promotions came fast in times of"Perimeter Control, this is Yellow

Nine Leader Where the Core is this thing?  We oughta be right on top of

it, unless you're-by the Great Lens, there it is!  It's huge and clear

as glass!  We're making our first pass, using prerecorded hailing

signals ... oh yeah; over" The strange vessel failed to respond, at

least on frequencies the interceptors were permitted to receive.

Instead, it simply disappeared as the squadron crowded it, leaving the

fighters to mill around an empty spot like moths around a light that is

suddenly turned out.

It reappeared to one side, a few thousand meters away, just as

Yellow Nine Seven passed beneath its transparent wing, which twitched

involuntarily as Lehesu struggled to regain his balance.  Suddenly

Yellow Nine Seven cork-screwed away, a smoking, flaming ball of

crumpled metal, its pilot screaming something into his helmet mike

about his deflector shields having failed to function properly.

The voice bit off suddenly.

Eleven pilots whipped their ships around savagely.  Eleven thumbs

mashed down upon their firing studs.  Twenty-two eyes widened as eight

destructive beams-three had not been maintenanced correctly@onverged on

empty space.  One interceptor, Yellow Nine Four, was caught in the

crossfire.  He'd failed to make a turn, due to faulty attitude-control,

and vanished in a flash of energy and atomized debris.

Lehesu stepped off half a light-year, astounded at the hostile

reaction he'd encountered, not at all like his first contact with the

Millennium Falcon.  And his people thought he was crazy.

With the Oswaft equivalent of a shrug, he turned his face toward

yet another star whose spectrum showed traces of artificial, highly

ordered radiation, and prepared himself for a longer jump this time.

Unaware that a densely cloaked scout vessel was right behind him.

The next system had been much the same, except ...

They'd been forewarned, somehow, of this bizarre unidentified

craft that had managed to destroy three (Yellow Nine Nine had missed

the mouth of its Launch/Reentry tunnel and splashed itself all over a

Mountainside of frozen nitrogen; little squiggles of liquid helium

danced with glee at the sight) firstrate fighter-interceptors.  The new

group also ignored his frantic, placative signaling and suffered

forty-three casualties, some of them on the ground, due to an

unfortunate change of shift going on between two double-strength

squadrons.  Lehesu had given up and gone home.

Eventually the fleet had made its appearance.  The ordeal was a

little more bearable for Lehesu than for the others.  He was the only

Oswaft in a hundred generations who had come close to dying by

starvation once before.  As some human philosopher in a different time

and place would observe, that which fails to kill us strengthens us.

Lehesu knew his limits; he could tell that the pogrom was going to

take rather a longer time than either side realized.  To his less

adventurous comrades, it was already agony, already an unprecedented

emergency.  They felt, for the first time in their long, long lives, a

relatively mild discomfort, and were afraid.  Some actually spoke of

attempts to negotiate, to establish upon what terms the enemy would let

them live, not knowing that their utter destruction was the only

success the fleet's mission profile recognized.

Lehesu wished his people would get angry, instead.

Thus, he waited.

It was some hours after the last of the energetic

nutrientdestroying displays that something unusual happened.  Lehesu

felt a tight, powerful beam of communications energy coming from the

blockaded nebula entrance.  While he knew the language, he didn't know

the culture; the gulf between planetbound species and free-fall

dwellers was so enormous that any understanding was a gigantic tribute

to the Oswaft's intellectual capabilities.  Whatever they were saying

out there, it was frantic, and not at all friendly.

It happened again!  Judging from the manner in which this second

burst was all bunched up into the higher frequencies, something was

headed away from the fleet and toward the ThonBoka, fast.  Lehesu

maneuvered that way, both by straightforward distance-covering flight

to keep an "eye" on the incoming signals, and by nonlinear

distance-avoiding hops.

Whatever was coming, it ought to have some kind of reception

committee.

Suddenly an impossibly solid bar of unbearably bright light lashed

out, connecting the two points in space with each other.

There was a brilliant flash, a scattering of reflections, then

nothingness.  A sparkling hint of metallic debris and smoke lingered at

the very edge of Lehesu's sensory capabilities.  The galactic drift

carried traces of scorched titanium and plastic into the ThonBoka.

A long, quiet moment followed.  Then, without warning, something

materialized not far from Lehesu, out of the wherever-it-is that

starships go when they're traveling faster than the speed of light.

It was an absurdly shaped object, like something resembling a

coral-encrusted horseshoe magnet a tenth the Oswaft's size and

possessing none of his fluid grace.  The thing was tumbling slowly, end

over end, while enormous volumes of dense white smoke billowed from its

blast-blackened rear surface.

Naturally, Lehesu recognized her at once.

"Lando!  Vuffi Raa!  Can you hear me in there?  Are you all

right?"

The vacuum-breather swam closer, carefully avoiding the

foul-smelling effluents issuing from the curved rear edge of the

freighter.  Nothing indicated that life had ever inhabited the

strangely shaped craft.  The glow-spots he now knew to be windows lay

dark and foreboding along her surfaces as she continued to somersault

gently before the space-going sentient, the random motion itself a grim

presentiment that nothing rational lived at the controls.

"Vuffi Raa!  Lando!  Speak to me!"  the Oswaft beamed on every

frequency he knew.  "This is Lehesu!"

Nothing replied.

Much more figuratively than literally, Lehesu cast a backward

glance at the fleet besieging his home.  He didn't know how he could

accomplish it, but he swore, in that moment of grief, a terrible

revenge against those who were responsible for the tragedy.  To gain

and lose new friends, good friends-in some respects the only friends

he'd ever had-in what seemed to the extremely long-lived creature like

the mere space of minutes ... It was almost more than a being could

bear.

Thrashing frantically back and forth, he peered into the vessel's

darkened ports, learning nothing.  Gently, he nudged the spaceship,

unintentionally adding an additional vector to her tumbling motion.

"Lando!  Vuffi Raa!  Are you in there?"

He thought a moment, then, despite everything he bad struggled to

understand about his new companions, added: "Falcon, my little friend,

please talk to me!  This is L4ehesu the Oswaft!

Are Vuffi Raa and Lando still alive?"

Vidi

THE REFrr-rED CRUISER Wennis was a trowel-shaped wedge of metal

bristling with instrument and weapons emplacements arranged to overlap

yet not interfere with one another's fields of effectiveness.  At an

unusual-and unusually heavily shielded-point on her after surface,

between the great blinding arrays of drive tubes and deflectors, was a

small chamber with windowless walls two meters thick.  It could be

entered only by a small auxiliary craft, available to the vessel's

master alone, and then only when he had ordered the drives temporarily

shut down.  To navigate the small craft while the cruiser's massive

engines were in operation would be instantaneous suicide.

Two hundred centimeters is a great deal of wall, especially when

it is composed of the latest, state-of-the-art battlewagon armor.  Yet

the arinofing of the special chamber.  was not intended to protect its

contents from the ravening drive radiations of the Wennis.  It was to

protect the Wennis from what lay in the chamber.  Even so, it was a

futile effort, intended more to comfort the one entity who knew what

the arrangement was all about, to provide some sense, however illusory,

of security.

Inside the chamber, Rokur Gepta stood before a chest-high metal

pylon capped with a transparent bubble the size of a man's head.  Gepta

knew the chamber and controls by memory.

No fight burned within it.  He ran a gray-gloved hand along the

surface of the pylon, watching with unseeing eyes as his fingers

pressed inset keys.  Inside the bubble, he had begun to create an

infinitessimal speck of the most dangerous single substance the

universe had ever known.  A sickly green light began to seep from the

bubble, filling the darkened chamber with malignant luminosity.

The trouble with a man like Klyn Shanga, the sorcerer thought,

wasn't that he was not afraid to die.  It had taken Gepta an

unprecedentedly long while to figure that out, so tortuous and alien

was the line of reasoning involved.  Rokur knew man individuals who

were not fearful of death, in fact they seemed to welcome the idea,

embrace the opportunity.

They were eager to die, for their beliefs, for the government or

the numerous causes that opposed it, even for Gepta himself.

Such men were easy to control and extremely useful.  Down deep

somewhere they hated and feared life and were anxious to be relieved of

the burden of living in a manner that would not disturb their other,

contradictory beliefs.

It was clear Klyn Shanga enjoyed being alive, which was what made

things confusing.  Rokur Gepta was not used to being confused, and it

infuriated him.  How was it that someone who loved life could be

unafraid to die?  The first conclusion the sorcerer had reached-not

much help in understanding the perverse phenomenon, but of high

pragmatic significancewas that the original expedition to Renatasia

hadn't done a thorough enough job.  They had done only two-thirds of

it, and it badly wanted finishing.

Gepta promised himself to assign that matter the highest of

priorities once the current operation was over and he could think about

other things.  If Shanga was representative of Renatasia's people, that

system could turn out to be a much greater danger to his plans-and to

the government-than even the essentially harmless vacuum-breathers of

the 'nonboka.

He gazed into the ghastly glow before him, savoring its

destructive potential.  One cubic millimeter of the substance,

established in a self-sustaining manner, would leap from point to point

on a planet's surface, eradicating anything that lived, devouting any

organic substrate on which future life depended.  It was the ultimate

disinfectant, the ultimate sterilizer.  There was something wonderfully

clean and neat about this substance and the very concept of it.

It cleared up confusion.  Life was confusion, and intelligent life

the most contradictory and confusing of all, realized Gepta.

Klyn Shanga wanted to live, yet was unafraid to die.  Such a man

could not be controlled, and, when he had something that the sorcerer

wanted, he became ... impossible!  It had not been two hours since he

interviewed the man, shortly after the Wennis met his ragtag squadron

in deep space.  The craft of Shanga's squadron were not interstellar

vessels, and they were to have waited for Gepta at the edge of his home

system.  But so eager had they been for the ThonBoka (or desirous of

leaving Tund) that they had departed early, confident the cruiser would

overtake them before they ran into trouble.

"It was insubordination!"  the livid Gepta hissed, looking down at

Admiral Shanga.  Their confrontation was not being held on the bridge

because of the possibility that things would be said that would harm

discipline.

Shanga threw his head back and laughed.  "I am not your

subordinate, magician, nor is the least senior of my men.  We felt like

going and we went.  Here we are, closer to the ThonBoka than we would

have been, the better rested for having done something constructive to

get ourselves there.  Is it this that you find objectionable?"

Beneath the bridge of the Wennis lay the captain's battle

quarters, which, like his command chair, had also been preempted by

the sorcerer.  A duplicate of the command chair was placed in the

center of the room before a large viewscreen, which presently showed

the depths of interstellar space, as translated by the ship's computers

from the hyperdrive hash of what was really to be seen.  The light was

gray and even, matching the sorcerer's clothing and, somehow, his

voice.

"You are a military man, Admiral, I oughtn't to need to explain

these matters to you, of all people."

The military man grinned and shook his head.  "I was a n-diitary

man.  Now I am a mercenary in my own employ, fighting, because it suits

me to do so, for the honor of a civilization that no longer exists.  I

recognize no authority and I desire no anthority.  My men follow me

because it suits them."

He grew tired of standing.  The discussion was altogether too much

like being called to the school supervisor's office, and it rankled.

Shanga looked around, discovered a lounger beside the door to the

corridor, tossed his helmet onto another chair, and reclined,

stretching his customarily ship-cramped legs and relaxing.

Shanga groped around inside his spacesuit until he found tobacco

in a shirt pocket.  He withdrew the cigar, put it in his mouth, and lit

it with a hundredth-power discharge of his blaster.  Gepta's guards

hadn't taken his weapon this time.  He hadn't let them.  Three of them

had broken arms and a fourth, who'd gone on insisting, was dead.  That

was the real reason for the conference.

"Let's put our card-chips in the table-field, Gepta," Shanga said

through a cloud of blue smoke.  "You're up to something-the way you've

redecorated this cruiser is evidence enough bf that-and it amounts to

more than simple revenge against one lousy gambler.  And you need us.

I've got twenty-three flyers in a battered assortment of fighters

gathered from the scrap heaps of a dozen cultures, and yet any one of

them is a match for any three of yours."

The sorcerer gripped the arms of his chair, convulsively fending

off the impulse to have the man disintegrated where he sat.  There was

too much light in the room for his comfort, and increasingly too much

smoke.  Yet he had always prided himself on an ability, a willingness,

to withstand temporary deprivation and discomfort for the sake of

future gains.  "Oh, and how is it that you reach this conclusion?"  he

asked evenly.  After all, the crew of the Wennis was the best the Navy

had to offer.

Shanga blinked, considering his words.  "It's how you throw away

good people.  Your whole culture places no value on the individual.

Funny, because that's all there is: no 'group,' no 'Navy,' no

'Empire,' only individuals, who do all the thinking, all the work, that

gets done.  Waste that, and it'll come back to haunt you, Gepta.

People aren't plug-in modules you can use up.  'nat's why my guys are a

match for any five of yours.

They know they're irreplaceable, and ... Look: you've got a drive

tech who's pretty good, but doesn't have the right family or

connections, or espouses the wrong beliefs.  Disregard his unique

competence, pack him off to the life-orchards or the spice rmnes, and

all that leaves you are the socially acceptable incompetents.  Starts

to show, after a while; the machinery grinds down."

A tiny portion of the gray-robed sorcerer that was nei lusion nor

altogether human shuddered.  And controlled himself.  Klyn Shanga's

time would come later.  In the meantime, in order to prevent

morale-destroying rumors from spreading through the crew, he would

order that "complications" set in among the lesser casualties of

Shanga's intransigence.  They'd be given space burial with full honors;

he needed to shut down the ship's drives briefly, anyway.

"We shall agree," he said to the fighter pilot with forced

amiability, "to disagree; it is not necessary that we hold the same

philosophy in order to cooperate."

"No," Shanga nodded, "it isn't.  What's important is that I have

my squadron, you have this ship and passage through the fleet.

Together, we both know Cahissian, have confronted him in the past.

He'll become your prisoner@r worse.  We'll have Vuffi Raa, the

Butcher of Renatasia, to haul back in force shackles for public trial

and execution!"

Knowing full well that a very different fate awaited the squadron

commander@the not dissimilar to that which he planned for the

gambler@epta nevertheless replied, "Yes, of course.  Then you will be

free to rebuild your civilization."  A hint of cordiality very nearly

made it into his tone.

"Rebuild Renatasia?  There's nothing left to rebuild!  We've

become your stinking suburbs!  Everything we have, everything we do is

a pale, threadbare, plastic imitation of whatever was in fashion ten

years ago in the capital!  All we have left to aspire to is ...

justice!"

Inwardly, Gepta chuckled.  How right the admiral was; how much

more right he would be.  The sorcerer watched Shanga for a moment,

sitting in his presence without permission, smoking, and enjoyed the

unintended irony.  Then he pressed a button on one arm of his throne.

"You know Vuffi Raa, Admiral Shanga, and we both have reason to

know Lando Calrissian."  The name stuck unpleasantly in Gepta's throat;

the two words were not the terms on which he was used to thinking of

the man, but Shanga would @not appreciate or understand the sorcerer's

private system of references.  "Now let us hear from one who claims to

know something about what else awaits us in the ThonBoka, shall weT'

The squadron leader shrugged, looking suddenly old and tired.  He

needed to get back to his men.  He neededA door slid aside, and a tall,

gangly human being entered, a man with bushy white hair and a

pen-nanently sour expression pulled down over his long undertaker's

features.

"Fleet Admiral Klyn Shanga of Renatasia," the sorcerer intoned

formally, "Please meet the Ottdefa Osuno Whett, Associate Professor of

Comparative Sapient Studies at the University-" "College boys, now!"

the fighter pilot snorted, his energy renewed by contempt.

"What's he got to contribute to this palaver, anyway?"

"Rather a good deal, my dear-Admiral, was it?"  There was a note

of polite disbelief in the man's voice as he examined Shanga's

clothing, found a place to seat himself, looking first to Gepta for

approval, and sat.  "I am the galaxy's foremost expert-by virtue of the

fact that I am the only expert, heh, heh-on the Oswaft, the intelligent

space-evolved life of the ThonBoka."

"Some expert!  According to our friend the magician, here, nobody

knew about those creepy-crawlies until a few months ago, nobody.  How

much could you have learned in-" Whett looked a bit disturbed, as if

Shanga's disrespect for Gepta, or at least its punishment, might be

contagious.  "Sir, I am an anthropologist, the very same who unraveled

the impenetrable mysteries of the Sharu of Rafa.  I have lived among

and studied the asteroid miners of the Oseon, I-" "The way I heard it,

Mister Associate Professor, the Sharu sort of unraveled themselves!"

He blew a puff of smoke from his relit cigar and laughed,

particularly to see that mention of the Sharu made even Rokur Gepta

appear momentarily uncomfortable.  Now there was a race of sorcerers!

"My title, Admiral, is Ottdefa, an honor conferred by my home

system, and I would thank you t@' "Forget it, friend, I got carried

away."  Shanga looked back to Gepta.  He was one of the few men in the

known galaxy who could look directly into the sorcerer's face

without wincing.  "Okay, I'll bite: what's this all about?"

Without a word, Gepta nodded at the Ottdefa, who began again.

"The Oswaft are a most unusual people.  I began observing them

with an electronic telescope, at the behest of Lord Gepta, until it

became apparent that they were aware of the instrument's

emanations.'Then, in a specially fitted meteoroid, I traversed much of

their region, making observations with less intrusive devices.  They

evolved in space out of the clutter of organic molecules to be found

there, and reached the pinnacle of intelligence, protected by the

nebula that all but encloses them, and unaware that anyone else

existed.

"They have a natural ability to enter hyperspace and travel

through it.  They communicate by modulating radio-frequency waves with

their brains.  Theirs is a complex, highly sophisticated language, and

it is just about all the culture they possess.

They have no need of clothing or shelter, and what little food

they require drifts past them on a sort of breeze.  Hence, they make

few artifacts, most of them sculptures or bodily decorations."

Shanga shook his head.  "I don't get it.  It's stupid enough that

the navy is bothering with them.  From everything you say, they're no

threat to anybody; they don't want anything anybody has.  But what's

the point of our boning up on@' "Because, my dear Shanga," the sorcerer

hissed, "they are allies to our enetriies!  We shall either win them

over and force them to betray Cahissian, or they, too, shall be

destroyed!"

Now, in his special secret chamber aft of the Wennis' drives,

Rokur Gepta contemplated the temporary contents of a forcebubble

stronger than the full battle-shielding of the cruiser.

Perched upon its pylon, it contained a secret an entire race, the

Sorcerers of Tund, had died to protect.

At greater strength now, its ghostly flicker filled the room with

evil dancing shadows, all of them Gepta's.  He felt at peace.  It was

the only light he really liked.  It reminded him of home.  The home he

had remodeled with its assistance.

Inside the bubble tiny forms seethed and sizzled at the border of

visibility, like dust motes in a sunbeam.  They were densest at the

bottom of the bubble, yet many thousands more sparkled in the space

above the bottom.  They were lively, active, hungry.

Gepta chuckled to himself.  In a manner of thinking, they, too,

were his pets.  He had harnessed the most dangerous forces in the

universe and kept them there in a cage.  He made and unmade them at his

pleasure.  And he had work for them to do.

Again.  There was enough ... substance ... there to eliminate the

life in an entire globular cluster.

The ThonBoka, all its inhabitants, Lando Calrissian, Vuffi Raa,

Klyn Shanga-yes, and perhaps this arm of the navy, which was, after

all, another obstacle to his desire for powerall of them would feel the

agony of first contact with this, the most unusual of all his pets.

And then they would feel nothing.

He shut off the switches.  Where there had been activity before

within the bubble, all movement stopped.  The green glow died abruptly.

The motes stopped dancing.  It was drawing near the time that

Gepta had arranged to have the drives shut down again, so that he could

steer his small auxiliary through the zone of murderous radiation, back

to the main hull of the Wennis.

The force-bubble grew smaller until it, too, disappeared, leaving

the smooth, mirror-surface top of the pylon, a simple pedestal of

polished metal.  Gepta smiled to himself, pocketed the one small object

he had removed from the pedestal as the force-field deactivated, and

began cycling the airlock.

How beautiful to contemplate an entire galaxy of worlds glowing

sweetly thus, to imagine the whole universe clean and sterile, linear

and predictable.

The One said to the Other, "I observe that you have brought the

Rest."

They were arrayed before him, rank on rank, less for the sake of

discipline (a concept utterly alien to those beings) or even

orderliness, than for the simple reason that all of them wanted to see

and hear what was going to happen next.  Uncountable numbers of them

bristled with unfamiliar tenseness.

They were not altogether certain it was an improvement over their

normal state.

"Yes," confirmed the Other, like his companion, like all his

companions, glittering in the cold diamond starlight, "and I believe

that they wish for you to address them now, explain-" "But they know as

well as you or I," the One protested, rude interruptions and strained

emotions coming now with greater frequency, even at so vast a remove

from their grand experiment.  "They're all perfectly familiar with@'

"Yes," his friend said, but gently, "and yet they wish it as a kind of

ceremony, marking the passage of one epoch and the initiation of

another, unknown, somehow frightening one.  I wish it, too, if you do

not mind greatly."

The One hesitated, even though he had already assented within

himself.  After all, if those he cared for felt the need ...

and perhaps it would help calm him, as well.  What sort of result

would issue when this project was mature, however, worried him.

Already circumstances were nearly unbearable.

. "My friends, as we all know, some while ago, a rather long time,

even for we who are perhaps the most longevous race in the galaxy, at

my suggestion we caused a being to come into existence among us who

was, well, somewhat different, imbuing him with certain minor physical

advantages, and a burning desire to know about the universe."

There was a murmuring of remembrance, a stir of suppressed

excitement.  Change was con-dng hard and fast to the One, the Other,

and the Rest.

'This being was peaceful, unaggressive even by our standards, for

we had shaped him in this wise for several reasons that made sense to

us and still do.  Nonetheless, he has become embroiled in one violent

incident after another, brutal, sanguine clashes with prin-dtive

cultures.  Lives have been lost.

"Yet he has learned much, and the time has arrived for us to learn

it from him."

The rumbling of comment from the Rest grew louder.  The One gave

them time to contemplate, then said at last, "We go now to gather him

in.  We do not even know whether he will be happy to see us, to learn

that his searches, at least for the time being, are over with.  Let us

greet him in dignity and love, understand the trials he has been

through, and treasure what he has to give us, for it is rich.

"And it will change everything."

ix TUMBLING PONDEROUSLY BOW over stern, and with the slightest of

rolls to starboard, the Millennium Falcon slowed @croscopically, her

attitude burners sputtering at irregular intervals in the eternal

darkness.  Her roll corrected, her pitch losing its momentum, she

stabilized and came to a full stop.  There was a fitful, uncertain

fluttering of red at her ports, scattered here and there around her

battered hull, then the strong, clear crimson of emergency lighting.

From small jets at the rear, streams of milky liquid struck her

after hull plates, boiling off noiselessly in thick, gaseous clouds

that mingled with the trailing smoke.  A still -molten stub of

structural metal projecting to the precise edge of her shield radius

cooled and dimmed.  The smoke ceased pouring; the interior lights and

running markers came on full.

From a pressure valve in the circular hatch atop the Falcon's hull

a mast extruded, silvery, slender, obviously being paid out by hand in

jerky increments.  It stopped with a springy quiver when two meters of

it were visible.  Lehesu, floating nearby, heard a familiar voice:

"Hello there, old flatfish!  Lost the main antenna in all the

excitement back there!  That is you, isn't it, Lehesu?  Glad to be

here.  If Vuffi Raa had hesitated by a picosecond, you'd be talking to

our radioactive ghosts!"

From a rather different culture-one, for example, whose conception

of death did not encompass fancies of an ectoplasmic afterlife-Lehesu

failed to comprehend at least two-thirds of the greeting.

Nevertheless, he understood that his friends had safely arrived in

the ThonBoka, and was ovedoyed.

"Landocaptainmaster!"  the vacuum-breather exclaimed,

unconsciously addressing the human occupant of the starship as an

Oswaft Elder, "Yes it is I!"  He swam closer to the spacecraft until he

could peer into its control room through the canopy.  Inside sat Lando

Calrissian, con man and sometime gambler (or gwnbler and sometime con

man), and his mechanical would-be servant, Vuffi Raa.  Full-time robot.

The two were still busily turning knobs and pushing buttons,

attempting to restore the Millennium Falcon to some semblance of

operational normality.  The captain's seat harness lay unfastened,

floating in the temporarily gravity-free air about his acceleration

couch.  So it had been he, most probably, who had erected the antenna,

aft and upstairs.  The young Oswaft was pleased to have deducted the

data, insignificant as they might be.  It meant he was beginning to

have a feel for what had been a totally alien environment and

civilization.

"Greetings and salutations, friend Lehesu, " the droid echoed.

"Not one of my better entrances, I'm afraid.  And we both

apologize for the delay in reaching you.  " He looked to Lando, who was

nodding, although whether in assent to the apology or as a comment on

the robot's flying skills was moot.

"We were within hailing distance," Vuffi Raa continued, "Of the

StarCave, several days ago, but it was necessary to work our way

through the blockading fleet by means of deception.  " There was the

slightest hint of distaste in the robot's voice, Lando thought.  It

annoyed him; deception was supposed to be one of his major

stocks-in-trade, and Vuffi Raa understood that as well as anyone.

Besides, how else were they supposed to have gotten through.  the

fleet?  He lit a cigar and gazed out through the wedge-sectioned port

at the Oswaft floating gently ahead of the motionless Falcon.  Blockade

or not, it was good to be out of circulation, beyond the reach of what

passed for civilization-and of Mred assassins-however temporarily.

Knowing the navy, he had a pessimistic notion just how safe they

were within the nebula and for how long.  But he had a plan for that,

too, and encouraged by his relatively easy victory over the fleet thus

far, he intended to relax.

"I do not understand, " Lehesu protested in response to something

Vuffi Raa had said when Lando wasn't listening.  "I believed that I had

seen you and the Falcon utterly destroyed.

Of course, at the time, I didn't know it was you, but .  . . "

Satisfaction suffused the droid's tone, "It was my master's idea,

really.  During the time I described to you, while he was spying upon

the enemy under the guise of selling things and gambling, I fitted out

a cylinder of powdered metallic shavings mixed with various volatiles,

and attached it to the stern of the Falcon.  This we left unshielded, so

that the cruiser's rays, upon striking it, would convey the illusion

that .  . ."

I wonder what we would have done if they'd simply used a tractor

beam, Lando mused.  He'd counted on the guns' being manned by

trigger-happy jerks, and, as usual, he'd been right.

For a while he watched Lehesu, not really paying attention as that

being and the little droid communicated.  They seemed to get along

automatically, he thought, had little trouble achieving understanding.

Idly, he wondered why.  For all the goodwill in the galaxy, he had

to struggle to identify with a creature who had never known a planet's

surface, for whom empty space was a comfortable home, who could shift

light-years at a time within it, somehow avoiding the necessity for

those careful computations the gambler had learned so painfully as an

inexperienced captain.

Against the charcoal backdrop of the nebula, a handful of stars

twinkled merrily through the transparent innards of the space being.

Lando laughed, dismissing every doubt and trouble he was feeling

with a shake of his head, took another drag on his cigar through a wide

grin, then rose from his seat.

. "Pardon me, old gumball machine, if you can, but I'm going aft

to change into my bathing togs.  Care to join me?"  Without waiting for

a reply, he stubbed out the cigar and pulled himself between the

jumpseats toward the rear of the cockpit.

"if

The robot stirred from his conversation with the Oswaft.

I interpret you correctly, Master, I think I should like that very

much."  His five chromium-plated tentacles glittered over the control

panels.  "I shall inform our friend, and place the ship on automatic."

"Swell.  Don't call me master."

Ducking through the doorway, Lando floated along the corridor

until he reached a locker where he changed from the well-worn

shipclothes he'd been wearing for the navy's benefit, into a spacesuit.

By the time he'd sealed all the fittings and run through the

checklist programmed into it, Vuffi Raa, who hadn't needed to change,

caught up with him.  Together they made their way to the airlock and

cycled out through it into the void.

Lehesu was there to meet them.

It was the gambler's first good look at the ThonBoka from the

inside, and the sight was eerie.  Behind him, the nearly circular mouth

of the nebula displayed the sky as he was accustomed to seeing it, a

dense scattering of stars-with the occasional intrusion of an eruption

of destructive energies from the fleet.

Everywhere else, the gas and dust shut out the rest of the

universe with a solid wall of deep gray that appeared slightly

phosphorescent, and through which gigantic bolts of lightning played

intermittent natural counterpoint to the unnatural discharges from the

navy.  The eye, perhaps the mind itself, violently rejected proper

proportions in that place.  Lando knew that he was gazing across a

dozen light-years, something like ten trillion kilometers, to the

opposite wall, in reality a finite region of diffuse particles that

would be scarcely noticeable to those aboard a ship traveling through

it.  His eyes told him he was near the entrance to an enormous but

comprehensibly sized cavern, one that might require several days to

traverse on foot, but a cavern nevertheless.

Billows and folds in the nebula resembled geologic flows, sheets

of limestone deposition.  All that was missing were stalagmites and

stalactites.  Illumination was provided by three small planetless

blue-white stars that shone in the center of the StarCave, their photon

pressure probably accounting for its hollow form, but not for their own

presence.  One star might have been sensible.  Three, spaced a

light-year or two apart, would have physicists making excuses to one

another well into the next century.  Lando was happy to be a gambler, a

profession where alibis don't count.  IBiologists would be unhappy, t r

ecstatic-at the strange life that hacl evolved in the sheltered space.

Fingering colored plastic control buttons set into a sma panel on

the arm of his spacesuit, Lando jetted away from the upper hull and

retroed to a floating halt a daring few meters away from the impressive

young Oswaft.  It was something like greeting an ocean liner politely.

He circumnavigated the fivehundred-meter creature in a smooth arc,

tucked himself into a roll, straights ned, and sprang away with arms

extended wide, legs spread, and an expression of sudden joy on his

face.

"Yaaahooo!"  he whooped uncharacteristically, rejoicing in the

sensation of free movement, open space.  He realized he'd been cooped

up aboard ship far too long.  It felt like his entire life.  Or perhaps

evolving on a planet, squeezed between the ground and low-hanging sky,

made one feel permanently claustrophobic.

Vuffi Raa, propelled by the Core alone knew what, spun like a

bright metallic snowflake beside him as Lehesu rotated majestically,

then veered off in a huge graceful curve the two smaller beings

attempted to emulate.  One of them succeeded.

"Hey, you guys, wait for me!"  Lando shouted unnecessarily; his

suit radio carried perfectly well over the kilometer or two he'd missed

intercepting them by.  Correcting, he tumbled slightly-the free-fall

equivalent of tripping over his own feet-stabilized, and swooped to

join his friends.  By which time, of course, they were somewhere else.

Lando didn't care.  On his own, he began essaying ancient

patterns, maneuvers that, elsewhere and elsewhen, would be called

Luftberry circles, Immelmann turns, imitating the inspired antics of

fighting aerocraft of the prespace eras of every culture momentarily

infatuated with free flight and glorious death.  He dived on Lehesu,

showering the vacuum-breather with imaginary reciprocating gun bullets,

then pulled up at the last instant as the startled being instinctively

rolled to peel the attacking foe off his back.

That didn't save Vuffi Raa.  The unfortunate droid was sitting

squarely in the bull's-eye etching of Lando's helmetordinarily used for

the more mundane purpose of orienting oneself before setting off one's

suit propellants-when Lando's deadly pointed fingers filled him full of

hot-jacketed lead.

Caught up in the spirit of the thing, the robot spun out and

downward, wishing he could trail smoke for his master's amusement.

There were limits, however, even to Vuffi Raa's remarkable

capabilities.

Three small blue-white suns glowed against a somber darkgray

backdrop.  Lightning licked the folds and billows of the cavern walls.

Three odd beings, Oswaft, droid, and, oddest of all, human, passed

an endless hour or so, playing at combat like the young of all

intelligent life everywhere.  It was both a release and a return at the

same time, marred only by the momentarily suppressed dread of what lay

outside the StarCave-and the sudden flare of baleful energy as the

fleet, on its clockwork schedule of mass murder sprayed poison and

lethal power into the space around the ThonBoka mouth.

Lando cut his spin-that time, he had been the victim of Vuffi

Raa's machine guns-and halted, hanging in space, resenting being

catapulted back into adulthood, watching the stupidity unnecessary

fleet operations with an angry grimace clearly visible through his

transparent bubble helmet.  Life was so simple, he thought bitterly, so

thoroughly enjoyable.  Why were there always people whose chosen

profession was to louse it up for everybody else?

Vuffi Raa swam 'up beside the gambler, not needing to be

telepathic to read his master's thoughts.  They were joined by Lehesu.

All three stared out through the mouth of the nebula, watching the

evil net of beams that did its work of making life impossible for the

Oswaft.  All knew of the enzymes drifting into the ThonBoka, as well.

"The nutrient current grows impoverished, my friends, Lehesu

observed sadly.  He was not actually breathing heavily from the hour's

exercise, but the effect was much the same.

Lando and Vuffi Raa didn't know his kind quite well enough to

understand it was a bad sign.

"Core forgive me!"  Lando exclaimed, "I'd almost forgotten why we

came here in the first place!"  He turned toward the Millennium Falcon,

applied thrust to his suit.  "We'll get you a little snack, old skate,

then you can show us where best to place the rest of our cargo."

The robot and the man scooted underneath the starship, began

manipulating the locks on a small cargo hatch.  In a moment, clinging

to the hull, they had it open and delivered of a small canister that

Vuffi Raa held out.

"Here you are," Lando heard through his helmet phones.

"Shall I just spray it around, or would you prefer-" "That will be

quite suitable, my friend, and many thanks."

Lehesu tried hard to keep hunger out of his voice.  He hadn't

noticed until now how famished he'd become.  As the specially selected

amino acids and other compounds began drifting around the ship, he

moved slowly and with dignity, scooping them up and ingesting them.  He

could feel them sing through his body and knew a joy akin to that which

Lando felt at the prospect of freedom.

"Well, I certainly trust you're enjoying yourself in your setfish

gluttony!  " It was a strange new voice over the ether, one

incomprehensible to Lando, but Vuffi Raa understood it-and correctly

interpreted its hostile tone.  Both of them jetted quickly out from

under the hull of the Falcon, which was blocking their view, as a pair

of titanic monsters slid casually alongside, making even Lehesu appear

small and meek.

He may not have had the robot's talent for languages, but the air

of sarcastic disapproval hadn't been missed by the gambler, either.

Reflexively, he patted the spacesuit pocket where he kept his

stingbeatn-then laughed inwardly at himself as he thought of pitting

its miniscule power against these ...

these ...

"These are the Elders you told us about, Lehesu?"' he asked

finally.  "Tell them we're here to help them, and that, at the very

least, we mean them absolutely no harm."  He removed his hand from the

pocket and tried to sound sincere.

And almost succeeded.

Easily seven hundred meters from wingtip to wingtip, the pair of

Oswaft dwarfed the Falcon, and everything else in view.  They

positioned themselves on either side of Lando's younger

vacuum-breathing friend, as if that worthy were being arrested.  Or

sent to bed without his dinner.

"No, " Lehesu replied in words the gambler could understand,

"these are most assuredly not the Elders, and they have no right or

authority to interfere with us.  Elders are much larger He'd directed

the final comment to the two interlopers.  Apparently it was some kind

of insult, although it was probably lost on the pair, spoken as it had

been in human language, Lando thought.  If Elders were even larger than

these creatures, the gambler reflected, he certainly didn't want to

mess with them.

Vuffi Raa put on a burst of speed, whipped around as if to block

the progress of the three giant beings-as if a microbe could block the

progress of a bantha.  "I suggest, " the droid radiated in a

businesslike tone, "that you be civil to our friend Lehesu, for he has

per

rest of your-" fonned a great service for you and the

"Silence, insignificant one!"  one of the creatures replied.

"You know not of what you speak.  We are here at the explicit

request of the Elders themselves.  The three of you are to come to them

at once, in order to explain your impertinence and face their mighty

judgment!"

"SABACC!"  CRIF-D LANDO Calfissian, gambler, con artiste, and

interstellar diplomat.  He sat back on sheer nothingness with a

satisfied look on his face and let the Millennium Falcon gather in his

winnings, shuffle the "deck," and deal out the "cardchips" once again.

It was the weirdest and most profitable game he'd ever played.

Senwannus'gourkahipaff, senior Elder of the Oswaft, let a little

ticklish signal be broadcast, indicating amusement and pleasure.

"Truly it is amazing, Captainmasterlandocalrissian.

Lando gave a mental shrug: if the head vacuum-breather wished to

address him with a title longer than his own, indicating deep respect

and a relaxed sort of submission, the gambler wasn't going to correct

him.  There was far too much at stake, and it had very little to do

with the game of sabacc.

"Amazing, " the thousand-meter being continued, "you cannot even

see the cards, yet you have won hand after hand under fair and

impartial conditions.  I abase myself to your skill and intellect.  "

Lando congratulated himself a little, too, principally on his luck.

They were playing in the center of the Cave of the Elders, the

only architectural structure, as far as he knew, within the ThonBoka,

very probably the only such the Oswaft had ever constructed.  Or

thought to construct.

Located in the middle of the triangular plane formed by the three

blue-white stars in the center of the nebula, the Cave of the Elders

was a meticulous replica of the StarCave itself.

From where he sat-hung might be a better word, as they were

relaxing in free-fall-he could make out the folds and tucks he'd seen

outside, duplicated in exact detail a mere ten kilometers away.  A

circular doorway repeated the pattern of the mouth of the ThonBoka

(sans, he was happy for small favors, the blockading fleet), and what

he'd seen of the detail outside spoke exceptionally well for the

inferential powers of the Oswaft.  With the exception of the

adventurous Lehesu, they had never actually seen the outside of their

nebula, yet they knew just what it had to look like.

The only flaw observable in the titanic modeling effort, and what

made the Cave of the Elders really interesting, was that it was

constructed entirely, all twenty klicks of its diameter, of precious

gems.

From outside the entrance of the Cave, the Falcon's computers

pinged in his helmet phones, indicating two cards each had been dealt

to Sen (Lando irreverently abbreviated the being's name for the sake of

his overworked tongue muscles), to Feytihennasraof, the second Elder,

on the senior's left, and to Lehesu, who was also sitting in.

"You have a Three of Staves and a Commander of Sabres, Master

Vuffi Raa informed him from the ship, "total value, fifteen.  The

others would be "seeing" their cards by means of television signals

produced by the computer.  He wished the robot would let him count his

own cards, almost as much as he wished the robot would stop calling him

master, but there didn't seem to be much he could do about it.  To

protect the privacy of Lando's hand, they spoke in Old High Trammic,

the ancient language of the Toka/Sharu of the Rafa System.

The Oswaft were too polite to mention that they'd "decoded" the

language within five minutes of the game's beginning.  They'd play fair

in any case, ignoring the robot's signals.

Both the translation and the refusal to take advantage were

reflexive with the creatures; none of them had thought about the matter

consciously.  Honor and solving puzzles were instinctive with them.

"I'll take one card, " Sen intoned, indicating thanks once the

Falcon had electronically dealt it.  Fey, too, required a card, while

the precocious Lehesu stood pat.  Lando asked for a card, receiving

Moderation, a minus fourteen, which made his hand worth one point.

"Master the computer has randomly altered your last card "Sabacc!"

Lando said before the robot could finish.  That to an Eight of

Flasks!

That means made a hundred and eighty million credits the Oswaft

owed him, if he'd kept his accounts straight.  If he ever got out of

that mess, life was going to be very, very different, "This is a most

diverting occupation, " Fey said.  "Shall we have another hand,

CaPtainmasterlandocalrissiansir?"

Swell: he'd been promoted by a syllable.  At that rate, it would

soon take all day to say his name.  Maybe he should contrive to lose a

few hands.  It wouldn't be easy, seeing that the computer was actually

controlling the cards, but he'd think of something.

Just like he had when they'd been summoned to confront the Elders.

Authority comes in many packages, and the contents seem to vary

just as much as the outer trappings.  Imperial power was based on

naked, lethal, brute force, pure and simple and no shilly-shallying.

The position of decision-makers in 'the Oseon, to choose just one

example, depended on wealth.  In the Rafa System, some deference seemed

to be paid to religious leader-ship, although in that system, things

were so tied up in ancient science that what looked like high priests

might actually be senior technicians.

The Oswaft were a conservative people.  They deferred to age and

experience.  Lando had tried to ascertain how old the Oswaft got to be,

but couldn't.  Like many lower species, they kept on growing throughout

their lives.  Lehesu was a young adult, say the equivalent of late

teens or early twenties.  He was about five hundred meters across the

wingtips, and growing.

The pair I of yes-men who'd picked them up near the ThonBoka mouth

were apparently of middle years (or centuries or millennia), seven or

seven hundred fifty meters in diameter and set in their ways.  They

hadn't much liked calling on tiny strangers or having tiny strangers

calling on them, and they'd liked it less that a youngster like Lehesu

had gone and changed the nice, smooth, boring flow of life in the

StarCave.

The three had pointed out that Lando and Vuffi Raa couldn't

simply go swimming off to meet the Elders.  Lehesu wasn't prepared to

say what would happen if he attempted to transport them as he had his

nutrient cylinder back in the foodless desert.  Nor was Lando prepared

to risk such a venture.  With some Falcon where, with faster-than-light

drives activated, they folhaggling, the pair of outsiders was permitted

to return to the lowed the Oswaft down into the hollow center of the

nebula.

Under the triple suns of the StarCave, the Cave of the Elders was

an impressive sight, glittering and gleaming from billions of points as

it rotated slowly.  Vuffl Raa, using the ship's sensors, informed the

gambler that there wasn't a valuable stone in the known galaxy that

wasn't represented in huge quantities in the walls of the Cave.

Moreover, the size of the gems would have sent a jeweler into a

dead faint.

Senwannus'gourkahipaff and Feytihennasraof bad awaited them within

the Cave of the Elders.  Lehesu, with his excellent grasp of Lando's

language, had spelled the names for the gambler and the robot,

explaining that the apostrophe in Sen's name represented another dozen

or so minor syllables the Elder was too modest to insist upon, and that

there was a third Elder around somewhere who was busy and would join

them later.

"Our most cordial greetings, Captainmasterlando "had been Sen's

first words in the new form of speech Lehesu had taught the Elder in a

matter of seconds.  "I abjure you to forgive the somewhat overzealous

invitation issued to you by our juniors.

The senior Elder administered a mental nudge of admonishment to

the pair-a maser bolt that would have holed the Falcon, deflectors and

all.

"Think nothing of it, Senwannus'gourkahipaff, your Eldership;

they're not the first underlings to get carried away with borrowed

authority.  What can we do for you?"

"We are, " Fey replied, "given to understand that you have brought

nutrients to replace those being destroyed by others of your kind

outside the StarCave.  Is this correct?"

Lando nodded, a gesture he wasn't sure the Oswaft could see or

understand.  They'd left the Falcon parked outsidealthough now he

wondered why he'd bothered as there was' f.

plenty of room for her in the Cave-and jetted in to meet the

Elders.  "That's right, sir.  Not very much, but it's only a beginning.

And besides, I think I've figured out a way to get the Navy off

your back."

"But why should you bother yourself" Fey asked.  "And why should

you oppose the actions and interests of your own kind in this matter?

I'm afraid we do not understand you, Captainmaster and until we

do, we cannot accept this gift you offer The Elders were at least a

kilometer across, Fey being slightly smaller than Sen.  Lando felt

silly negotiating with them-it was rather like carrying on a

conversation with a large apartment building.  But from earlier

conversations with Lehesu, he was prepared for their attitude and these

very questions.

"Well, aside from the fact that Vuffi Raa and I have grown rather

fond of young Lehesu, here, we consider it a sort of a game."  Lando

wished, as he hung in space beside the huge raylike creature, that

there was some provision for smoking a cigar in a spacesuit.  He felt

better making business talk if he could smoke.

"A game?  Please explain what you mean."

"Sure, Sen.  I understand that you folks like mental puzzles.

Well, my folks do, too.  Only we've found a way to make them more

interesting and challenging: we turn them into games.

That's where somebody else tries to solve the puzzle 'first or

better, or opposes your solution of it while he tries to work out his

own."

"Fascinating, " Sen mused, almost to himself.  He turned to Fey.

"Have you ever conceived of such a thing?"

No answer came from the Elder.  To a being so ancient, a new

concept came as something of a shock.

"Right," Lando said, jetting closer to the pair of aliens.

"And just to make it more fascinating, we try to play for

something a little better than the sheer joy of solving the puzzle."

"Such as what?"  both Elders said at once.

"Well, permit me to demonstrate, friends.  Now take the game of

sabacc "Am I missing something obvious here," Lando offered

conversationally as he took another "card7' and the others considered

their hands, "or are you people completely resigned to dying?"

A pale pink tinge suffused through Lehesu at Lando's boldness

toward the Elders, but he kept his peace, trusting the gambler.  Sen

and Fey both performed the equivalent of looking up from their cards.

Lando's helmet indicators said he was being brushed lightly by

twin radar beams.

He knew the beings were far from stupid.  Their transparent bodies

made it easier and more difficult at the same time to figure out their

internal arrangements, but from what he'd seen, he guessed that about

two-thirds of their mass was brain, and pretty astute brain at that.

"Ah yes, " Sen answered finally, "that was the reason you were

demonstrating sabacc to us.  I had become so fascinated with the game

itself I had quite forgotten that its purpose was explaining why you

wished to help us.  So, you play a great sabacc game with your own kind

out there, and we are a part of it.  No, my friend, we do not wish to

die, but there seems little alternative.  I'll take a card,

Starshipmillenniumfalcon, if you please.  " The ship, apparently

unimpressed that it had been granted status not only as a person but as

an Elder among the Oswaft, duly blipped out a signal representing one

of the seventy-eight sabacc cards, and fell silent again.

"There are plenty of alternatives, friend, there always are.

The first, of course, is that you can give up and die.  I'm glad

to hear you reject it.  That's a beginning, anyway.  Sabacc!  That

makes twenty-three million you owe me.  Can we take a break?

I have to visit certain facilities aboard my ship, and we can

carry on this conversation from there."

He jetted across the Cave of the Elders, leaving the Oswaft

behind, climbed onto the hull of the Falcon and into the airlock hatch,

where Vuffi Raa greeted him.  "Patch the intercom into the

ship-to-ship, will you?  I need a cigar to think properly, and the

powwow has reached a critical point."

"Yes, Master, I've been listening.  What are we going to do with

twenty-three million credits worth of precious stones?  I don't believe

we have room in the-" "We'll figure that out when there's a point to

it.  Right now staying alive gets top priority."  He'd unsealed his

helmet and hung it on a rack, and, retaining the rest of his suit,

climbed down into the lounge, where for once he left the gravity on,

enjoying the feel of some weight under him.

"The second alternative," he continued, once contact was

reestablished, "is to fight.  You folks have some impressive talents;

your size alone is pretty terrifying, at least for people of my size,

but I think@' "Captainmasterlandocalrissian, " interrupted Sen, "we are

not a fighting people, in fact the concept is nearly as new to us as

that of gaming-and somewhat related, I would guess.  In any event,

there is a third way .  . . " "And what would that be?"  the gambler

asked as he slowly and deliberately singed the business end of a cigar,

keeping the flame well away from the tip.

"Negotiation.  You will recall mention of a third Elder,

Bhoggihalysahonues?  At this moment, she and a delegation of other

Oswaft have appeared at the mouth of the StarCave and are signaling for

a peace-conference with your fleet.  We wish to ask upon what terms-"

"You bet your apostrophe I remember Boggy, and I can predict exactly

what's going to happen, Sen.  The Navy wants you dead, old beanbag, and

that's the only terms they're going to settle for.  I've seen their

work on other occasions, and you can believe me when I-" "This is much

as I had surmised," the second Elder said, "and I opposed the attempt,

yet we are an open and free people and would not prevent our third

Elderfrom trying what she might.  Yet you have mentioned other

alternatives to dying, fighting, and negotiating.  " "There's running

away."

"What, and leave the ThonBoka?"  So much emotion loaded the

response that Lando couldn't tell which Oswaft it had come from.  He

poured himself a glass of fruit juice (spacesuits tend to dehydrate one

a bit) and sat back down, puffing on his cigar.  Vuffi Raa was forward,

keeping his big red eye on the controls.  It was difficult but

important to remember that they were still in deep space.  He could see

how the Oswaft thought of the place as a safe haven.

"I don't know," he said at last.  "I gather from Lehesu's

experiences that you folks aren't biologically tied to the place.

It's an alternative to dying, isn't it?"

A long, long silence ensued while the massive brains outside

processed his heresy.  Finally: I am not sure, Lando, that it is a

desirable alternative.  We are the ThonBoka; the Thonboka is the

Oswaft.  Would you willingly be driven out of your home, accept an

eternity of wandering-" He laughed.  "Sen, I accepted wandering as a

way of LIFE a long time ago.  It beats the Core out of working for a

living."

ler mused.  There were a lot of strange life-forms in The gatnb

the galaxy, ranging, in the matter of size alone, from these gigantic

creatures, the largest he'd ever heard of, down to the tiny Crokes of

... well, something-or-other.  He couldn't't remember the system.  What

made it interesting was that in his travels he'd observed that the

biggest critters were almost invariably the most gentle and timid.

Well, it made sense: if you were little, you had to learn to be

tough.

If you were big, it didn't matter.  He guessed he'd always thought

of himself as somewhere in the middle.

"Okay, yeah.  Well, what if you appeared to do one or another of

these things-sort of like the way I taught you to bluff in sabacc?  Say

you looked like you were going to destroy the fleet.  Or, say you

looked like you we're all dead?  I hate to bring up a touchy subject,

but Lehesu tells me you folks sort of disintegrate when you-die, drift

away in a cloud of dust?"

Another long, uncomfortable silence.  At long last, the daring

Lehesu spoke for his Elders.  "That's correct, Lando, we return to our

constituent molecules.  Not the happiest of thoughts.

Why, is it important?"

Finishing his cigar, Lando stood, walked back to the ladder and up

to the airlock, screwed on his helmet, and went outside The Cave of the

Elders floated beside the Falcon like a fantastic decorated egg, a

million brilliant colors, a billion gleaming facets.  He drifted toward

the entrance and faced the three giant beings who waited for him there.

"Yes, it could be very important.  It means you don't leave any

remains behind that can be detected against the normal molecular

background of space.  It means they won't be looking for any stiffs."

"Stiffs?"  the three said at once.

"Bodies, corpses, DOAS, meat, Qs-corpora delicti.  Tell me, what

are conditions like out by the wall of the StarCave?"

If Oswaft had been capable of blinking at a rapid change of

subject, Sen, at least would have done so.  "Why, not terribly

different from here.  A bit colder but not uncomfortably so.

"Vuffi Raa," Lando said into the radio in his suit, "get me some

scanning data on the nebula wall, will you?  I've been working on an

idea.  Sen, Fey, Lehesu, can you people get through the wall at all?"

Lehesu replied, being the only one with any practical experience

in the matter.  "It is all but impenetrable.  One cannotwhat is your

expression?-'starhop' because one cannot see where one is going.  It is

said that attempting it in any case will cause one to burst into flame

and vanish."

Lando considered this.  "Makes sense.  No matter how diffuse the

gas and dust is, translight speeds will create that kind of friction.

How deep could you-what is your expression?,swim' into the wall if

you had to?  Far enough so that sensors couldn't detect you?"

It was Lehesu's turn to think.  While he was doing so, a sudden

burst of radio transmissions entered the Cave of the Elders.

It caused some stir.  Lando couldn't understand what was being

said, but no one interrupted the conversation for a translation, so the

gambler put it out of his mind.

At long last: "Yes, I believe such might be possible.  If I follow

your line of reasoning, you would have us conceal ourselves, we and all

of the Oswaft, within the folds and billows of the wall until the

fleet, believing in their despicable villainy that we had starved to

death, gave up and went away to impose misfortune upon someone else.

But what would you have us do about the molecular residue that-"

The gambler grinned.  "I have that all figured out, my overlarge

friend.

It wouldn't take very much, would it?  How about a little of my

cargo, judiciously sprayed all over the place?"

"Lando!  I believe the idea might work.  Esteemed Elders, may I

ask-" "Silence, young one.  Peace!  We have something else to ponder at

this moment, something very disturbing.

"What's happening, Sen, what's going on?"

The giant spoke: "Bhoggihalysahonues' attempts to negotiate an end

to these insane hostilities have ended in disaster!

She, and all of her party-a thousand of our people-were murdered

with energy-weapons almost the moment they appeared at the mouth of the

ThonBoka and greeted the nearest vessel" "I'm sorry to hear it, Sen ...

but, well, it doesn't really change things very much, does it?"

"I am afraid, Captainmasterlandocalrissiansir that it does.

You see, unfortunately, and in their consternation-the details

aren't very clear-the negotiation party shouted at the ...

'cruiser' much as I did in an unthinking moment just now at the

two Oswaft who brought you here so ill-usedly.  " "Yeah.  I felt it,

and it was a tight beam.  The Courteous?

What happened to her?"  He had a bad feeling about this.

Sen gave the broadcast equivalent of a mournful sigh.

"She-your Courteous-was not well defended, as is your Millennium

Falcon, by deflector-shields, for they thought our people harmless.

"Thus was the Courteous utterly destroyed."

"Swell," Lando said, more to himself than to the Elders.

"Nothing like a premature war on our hands."

"The rest of the fleet, with full shields up now, has entered the

ThonBoka mouth to murder us all in retribution.

xi KLYN SHANGA GRINNED a humorless grin.  "Well, Bern, you've

really put your foot in it this time, old friend."

The wiry little man on the fold-down cot spread his skinny arms

and shrugged, returning his commander's rueful smile.

He wore a dark-green military shipsuit with a well-abraded band

around the waist where he was used to carrying a gunbelt.  Shanga's

low-slung holster was likewise empty; no weapons were permitted in the

cell-block of the Wennis' detention sector.

"You know what they say, Boss, sometimes you trick the sorcerer,

sometimes the sorcerer tricks you."  He pursed his lips, tongue

protruding generously, and made a rude and juicy noise.

An alarmed look playing momentarily over his broad and deeply

seamed features, Shanga glanced around reflexively for listening

devices.

His smaller associate laughed.  "What're they gonna do, throw me

in the clink for insubordination?  That'd be like jailing a murderer

for littering."  Harsh light from the naked overhead bulb reflected

from the man's equally naked scalp.  Where he did have hair, on the

sides and back, it was clipped into a dirty gray stubble.

Shanga sat down on the cot beside his friend, extracted a pair of

cigars from a pocket.  There was a brief silence while they got them

lit.  "Well, I've got to admit, when you tried hijacking that

auxiliary, you climbed pretty high on the wanted list.  I wish to the

Core you'd consulted me before you-" "What, and have you wind up here,

yourself?  Boss, you know you'd have done the same thing I did.  There

are five pinnaces tucked away aboard this scow with the capability for

faster-than-light travel, and our fighters can't hack it.  If that

blockade fleet moves in before we get to the nebula, we're gonna lose

the Butcher!"

And our reason for living, Shanga thought, reading the same

thoughts displayed on his friend's face.  Bern Nuladeg was the only

member of his squadron who went back with him to before his original

retirement.  They'd served their country together in d brief but bloody

conflict with one of its neighbors, earning their wings, both of them

becoming aces.  When Shanga retired, Nuladeg had gone on to become a

flight instructor, finally the commander of his nation-state's flight

academy.  The invasion from the stars had changed all of that.

Now they flew together in a squadron made up not only of their

fellow countrymen but of personnel belonging to their former enemy,

individuals from other nations, other planets in their system.  They

were all Renatasians, and they all wanted the same thing.  Vengeance.

"I know, Bern, I know.  That's why you did it on your own didn't

take any of the others along.  You were going to steal that lighter

yourself-then what?"

The small, bald-headed figure chuckled.  "Hadn't gotten that far

along in my plans.  Days before we reach the ThonBoka at this speed,

Myn, days!  What can Gepta be thinking of, permitting the invasion to

begin before we get there?  I heard the story-had the ring of truth to

it-and acted.  Guess I would have swung around and offered you fellows

a ride, if I'd had the chance.  I dunno.  What're they gonna do to me,

do you suppose?"

Shanga shook his head.  "I have a meeting-an 'audience,' he'd like

to style it-with our gray-robed cousin in an hour or so.  We're going

to talk about it then.  I won't lie to you, it doesn't look good.  You

should see the way he treats his own people."

Nuladeg's laughter was practically a giggle now.  "I know!

That's what made swiping that machine so blasted easy: everybody

was afraid to move for fear of getting terminally reprimanded!  Whoever

said dictatorship's efficient, Boss?  It'd be funny if it weren't so

downright stupid."  He drew on his cigar, blew a smoke ring toward the

bulb in the ceiling.  Then his laughter died along with the smile

creasing his face.

"Klyn, promise me one thing: don't worry about me enough to stop

this mission.  Whatever you do.  I mean it.  I can take whatever they

dish out, but I can't stand the thought - - ."

Bern Nuladeg's entire family had been killed by Imperial troopers

enjoying a few hours off-duty time.  It had been a lark for them, and

had only finished what they'd actually been guilty of.  The field

commander for the group had dismissed it as a prank-the same commander

was found the next morning, in his own bed, with a bayonet thrust

through his lower jaw into his brain.  No one had ever solved the

mystery of how it had been done in a heavily guarded building on the

grounds of the former flight academy, nor of who had done it or why.

"All right, old friend," Shanga sighed.  He'd always thought that

Nuladeg, who was the better pilot, experienced with command

responsibility, ought to have been running the tattered squadron.  The

little man had refused even the number-two position, citing an

impulsiveness that no one had truly believed in until now.  "I'll see

what I can do.  You're right, I'm afraid.  I was thinking about those

pinnaces myself, when I heard about the moves against the StarCave.

I'll see what I can do and be back with you as soon as possible."

He rapped loudly on the wall, pointedly ignoring the call button

beside the force-fielded door.  "Guards!  Let me out of here!  I have

to see a toad about a man!"

A quarter of a galaxy away, the One, the Other, and the Rest raced

to keep a rendezvous.  They had come from even farther, and their speed

was something no one in what Lando and his friends regarded as a

civilization would have believed.

"We move so slowly!"  the Other complained, plunging through

hyperspace beside the One.  "I fear we shall not get there on time!"

The One allowed himself to be distracted from his headlong course

long enough to indicate a smile.  "Impatience from you, after all this

time, my friend?  Truly, this is an era of changes.  Never fear, we

shall learn what we shall learn, regardless.  1, too, would prefer that

we-" The Other interrupted.  "Events move of their own accord!

What shall come to pass is unpredictable!  It is Chaos, I tell

you, Chaos!"

"And there ought to be a law?  Remember, comrade, that it is this

state of unpredictability which nearly every race endures for all of

its life-span.  It is in this state that we began, and we are unusual

in surviving it.  We very nearly died of boredom; would that have been

more desirable?"

"Don't lecture me!"  the Other replied with uncharacteristic

sharpness.  "I know as well as you do of the dangers that confronted

us.  I was the first to consent to your plan.  Do not begrudge me the

right to complain of some of its consequences; it assists me in

adjusting to the inevitable."

Laughter crackled through the distorted space around them.

"Nothing is inevitable anymore, dear comrade, nothing!  That is

the entire point of the experiment!"

"Well, I hope your experiment will produce a cure for smugness,

then.  I personally shall take great pleasure in restraining you while

it is forcibly administered!"

Once again laughter sundered the twisted ether as the One, the

disgruntled Other, and the Rest, in various states of mind, plunged

onward.

"Nonsense!"  Rokur Gepta hissed from the corner of his apartments

below the control deck.  "He is mine to deal with, and I tell you he

shall be sectioned alive before the entire crew-yours included, Admiral

Shanga-as an example!"

It was the first time the fighter commander had ever seen the

sorcerer pace nervously.  The time was growing near for the resolution

of a number of crises, and the Renatasian had a suspicion that Gepta,

too, feared he would be robbed of his victory by a trigger-happy fleet

Commodore.

Carrying disrespect to new heights because he felt the effect

AND THE @TARCAVE OF THONBOKA 357

was necessary, Shanga flopped into the sorcerer's huge chair.

"Gepta, you old charlatan, you know better than that, and if you

don't, I'll tell you now.  Keep Bern Nuladeg in the brig, if you wish,

until we get to the ThonBoka.  He could use the rest, and it'll keep

him out of trouble.  Not to mention saving your well-concealed face.

But execute him, and I'm through with you.  I'll take my squadron

and@' "You'll do what you are told!"  Gepta made a threatening magical

gesture.

Shanga laughed.  "Save your parlor tricks, old man!  We stopped

doing what we were told when your precious Navy destroyed anything we

had to lose by disobeying.  Tlwenty-three loose cannon, Gepta, and

they're all pointed at you unless you@, "Silence!  I have no further

need for you, Klyn Shanga.  You have foolishly told me where Lando

Calrissian might be found.

We will soon be there, and he is trapped by the fleet, cannot get

away from the justice I shall mete out.  You serve no purpose.  You are

dispensable!"

Shanga obtained another cigar from inside his suit, lit it, and

spat out a flake of tobacco onto the carpeted floor.

"Yeah?  Well, I spent a little time with your pet professor today.

You'll recall you instructed him to be free and easy with

information bearing on combat operations in the nebula?  What he had to

say about the guff relayed this morning from the fleet was very

interesting.

Very interesting, indeed."

Gepta, his back turned to the squadron commander, spoke to the

wall.  "And what was that?"

"Ask your own people if you don't believe me.  We're up against

it, Gepta.  There are something like a billion Oswaft in that sack,

every one of them as dangerous as a fighter ship.

Something about folks like us being electrochemical in nature, our

nervous systems, anyway.  Well, the Oswaft are what your boy is calling

'organoelectronic.' I don't know exactly everything that implies, but

they can think and act and maneuver a lot faster than we can.  What's

more, a flock of them destroyed the Courteous.  Nobody knows how."

Gepta whirled on Shanga.  "What has this to do with disposition of

your group, Admiral?"  The way the sorcerer pronounced his title may

have been the most sarcastic thing that Shanga had ever heard.  With

difficulty he shrugged off the implied threat, returned to calculated

insult.

"So you think you're going to get anywhere with the clumsy

children you've got manning this ship?  I told you, Gepta, they're

amateurs, and they're so scared at balling things up, they'll ball them

up anyway!  I think what Bern Nuladeg tried this morning ought to

demonstrate pretty well how frightened we are, of you, or of anything

else.  You need us, you pretentious idiot, and you're going to lose

this operation without us.

You may have already.  Have you heard from the fleet?"

There was a long, long silence while Rokur Gepta gained control of

himself.  No one, not for perhaps twenty thousand years, had spoken to

him in such a manner and lived-or even died a quick and merciful death.

In fact some of them had lasted, under one instrument of both

torture and regeneration or another, for centuries.  Klyn Shanga might

be one such, after this was over.

Very well, then, the sorcerer reasoned, it should not matter what

immediate disposition he made of Shanga or his underlings.  They would

serve their purpose in the coming conflict, and any who survived ...

But he had one more source of infon'nation to consult.  He strode

rapidly to the chair that Shanga occupied, ignored the man, and pressed

a button.  "Send me the Ottdefa Osuno Whett immediately."

Not three minutes later, the compartment door whisked aside, and

the anthropologist stepped in.  The tall, emaciated professor took in

what was to be seen, sensed conflict momentarily postponed, and vowed

to himself to get out of the way as soon as he could manage it.

"You have been following the information from the fleet?"

the sorcerer asked without prehrninaries.

"Of course, sir, l@' "What do they tell you of the capabilities of

the Oswaft?"

Shanga grinned, but kept his silence.

"Well, sir, it is a confirmation of my earlier studies.  In a

cellular sense, these beings seem to exist on a sort of solid-state

level, something like primitive electronics.  This accounts for their

communications abilities and-" "How is this known?  Is it merely

surmise, or are there data?"

The anthropologist's astonishment grew every time Gepta snapped at

him.  Along with his fear.  "Sir, a number of vessels did a full-range

scan at the moment the creatures were destroyed.  Most of them were

vaporized when the Courteous went up.  In fact, it's possible that not

one of them was injured by fire from the fleet.  They simply

miscalculated the destructive radius of an exploding cruiser.  The

Courteous did open fire, but there wasn't any time t@' The sorcerer

raised a hand and the scientist halted.  "By what means did the Oswaft

destroy the cruiser Courteous@ Ottdefa?

And how vulnerable do you suppose they are to the navy's weapons?"

When hesitated before he began again: "Sir, as difficult as it may

be to believe, it appears that simple microwaves were the method, but

at incredible power levels.  This is consistent with their ability to

hypertravel, since it, too, is an energyintensive phenomenon.  There is

also the fact to consider that the Courteous was unshielded-I believe

the circumstances are referred to as 'garrison discipline'?  Shielded,

I believe a ship would be quite safe.  To answer your second question,

there is no reason to believe that the Oswaft would be any more

impervious to disintegrator beams, tractor-pressor beams, disruptors,

and the like, than any other living thing."

The sorcerer stood deep in thought, one hand where his chin should

have been under his wrappings.  Shanga sat, apparently relaxed and

smoking his cigar, while Whett stood nearly at attention.

"One final question, Ottdefa: how many Oswaft are there?"

"Sir, there is no direct way of knowing.  Estimates range from

several hundred million to a few billion."

Shanga laughed.  "Since when do the words 'few' and 'billion'

belong in the same sentence.  Gepta, they could whittle down the fleet

by sheer attrition, and-" "Silence," the sorcerer said with unusual

gentleness, "I must think.  Ottdefa, I will speak with you later, thank

you for your report."  The door whooshed open and closed behind the

grateful anthropologist.

Then Gepta addressed Shanga.  "Admiral, you are no friend of mine,

and, after this operation, will never again be an ally.

But you have spoken the truth to me, and I am compelled to

recognize it.  Very well, we shall do as you have suggested.

Your man-what was his name?-will remain confined until we reach

the nebula, whereupon he will revert to your command.  I trust you and

your squadron will serve me as you have implicitly promised."

The fighter pilot rose wearily and stubbed out his cigar.

Rearranging his newly recovered blaster on his leg more

comfortably, he walked toward the door, turned back to the sorcerer at

the last moment.

"I haven't any reason to want to send you flowers, either, old

man, but we've got a common enemy.  We'll stick with you until that's

taken care of Talk to you later."  He stepped through the door and was

gone.

Scarcely noticing the man had left this time, Rokur Gepta paced

awhile more, then, with a more determined stride than before, turned to

his chair.  He seated himself and activated several cameras.  He pushed

a button.  "For immediate recording and beamcast to the fleet," he

directed unseen technicians: "Upon my own unanswerable authority, I

order you to cease all combat operations upon receipt of this

transmission and to return to your positions on the original blockade

perimeter.

"Evasion or failure, on the part of any officer, at any level, to

comply swiftly with this direct order will be punishable by summary

revocation of all rank and privileges, judiciary and ceremonial

impoverishment and sale into bondage of all family members within five

degrees of consanguinity, and for the perpetrator himself, slow

mutilation and death upon public display.

"I, Rokur Gepta, Sorcerer of Tund, command it."

The camera lights went out.

Gepta sat back in his chair, feeling much better.  This would buy

them all some time, and resolve part of the conflict between Klyn

Shanga and himself.  Odd, he hadn't had a real adversary to stand up to

him for thousands of years.  No one dared oppose his ruthless exercise

of power.  Everywhere he went, people in their masses, and as

individuals, feared, hated, and served him.

Except for Lando Caffissian.

And now, possibly even worse than the itinerant gamblerbecause the

affront seemed deliberately calculated-there was I<Iyn Shanga.

The most peculiar aspect of it was that, somehow, it felt good.

xii THE OTTDEFA OSUNO Vvhett reflected.

Shuddering in the relative security of his assigned quarters in

officer's country, he considered himself extremely lucky just to be

alive that morning.  He'd seen others broken, figuratively and

literally, at the malignant whim of Rokur Gepta, individuals guilty of

nothing more than reporting a purely mechanical failure or bringing him

information he didn't want to assimilate.  To be trapped in the middle

of a dispute between the evil sorcerer and his reluctant-and no doubt

soon-to-be fonnerpartner, that barbarian Shanga ...

He crossed the cramped living-sleeping space allotted him, noting

that he'd forgotten to fold the cot into the wall in his earlier haste

to answer Gepta's summons.  So-he was still accustomed to depending on

a servant after all.  this time.  It was a weakness to make note of and

correct.

The gray military wallcoat of the compartment still oppressed him,

despite the decorations-ceremonial masks,- garish shields, primitive

hand-powered weapons-he'd hung up here and there.  He'd have to see

what else he carried in his luggage down below in the storage hold.  It

would brighten the place up and strengthen the official "cover" that

allowed him to travel thus encumbered in the first place.

Entering the tiny head, he sloughed off the casual civilian

shipsuit he'd been wearing, now soaked through with perspiration and

smelling foul.  He wasn't on the schedule for a shower at this time of

day, and hadn't had time for it when the fixtures had been operational.

Thank the Core for the mixture of intelligent species whose

differences in personal habits and physical characteristics made

individual quarters (at least at his level of rank) a necessity rather

than a luxury even aboard this spartan vessel.  At that, it could be

worse: he could be quartered with the noncoms or conscriptees.  It

wouldn't have been unprecedented; his long career had seen him assume

many stranger poses.  Now all he desired was a refreshing wash, which

he attended to at the small sink (set into the shower stall along with

the toilet) with its trickle of lukewarm recycled water.  An ironic

expression greeted him in the mirror above the sink.

Well, he had survived, as he had always survived.  All it had

required was layer upon layer of carefully prepared deception.

It was the sole art to which he could truly lay claim, the only

way he could expect to get out of this mess with his skin intact.

That accursed robot: it had been responsible for all his troubles

in recent years.  Gepta and Shanga were headed toward the TbonBoka

nebula-from Tund, on the outskirts of one side of civilization, to the

StarCave, on the fringes of the other sidefor nothing more than

revenge.  Perhaps he, himself, the soidisant Ottdefa Osuno Whett, would

be enjoying a little vengeance, too, when the Wennis finally arrived at

its destination.

He splashed water on his thin, elongated face, his neck and bony

chest, ran a laser over his stubble, and remembered.

He'd been younger then, of course, and his appearance considerably

different.  Afterward, he'd had four centimeters of bonemer grafted

into each tibia, fibula, and femur to increase his height,

proportionate amounts added to his arms as well, and an extra vertebra

interleaved in his spine.  It was painful, and it had taken several

months just to accustom himself to the new leverages, the new bodily

rhythms the surgery imposed.

He was still learning, and, in the meantime, gave an unnaturally

awkward and gangling impression.  This he welcomed, as it added to his

disguise.  He'd also lost some forty kilogramsamazing how much that

alone had rendered him unrecognizable.  The hair had whitened of its

own accord, as whose wouldn't in the knowledge that something of the

order of a billion individuals wanted to see him painfully dead, and

were willing to do something positive about it.  He'd left the hair

alone, changing only its style.  It, too, served his purpose, which

amounted simply to staying alive in a murderous business.  He'd already

outlived the average life-expectancy in his profession by over thirty

years.

The tap water shut itself off.  He dried himself vigorously with

the only towel he'd be permitted on the voyage, picked up the soiled

shipsuit from where he'd dropped it, and crossed the cabin to the tiny

partitioned alcove where his travel bag hung unfolded.  Depositing the

old clothes on the closet floor, he got out another set, dressed

himself carefully and comfortably, then made another withdrawal from

his bag, went to the unfolded bunk with a small electronic device

clutched almostdesperately in his knobbly fingers.

He lay down, placed the mechanism beside him, drew a small cable

from it, and fastened the eye-mask on its free end over his face.  His

hand hovered over a large green button on the side of the black plastic

case.

Then he paused in thought once more.

The Renatasia had been a lovely system.

He recalled it vividly: eight plump planets and a cheerful

medium-size yellow star set a surprising number of parsecs outside the

then-current margins of the @llion-system Empire.

Apparently they'd been human-colonized in some dim spacefaring

prehistory, although no records of the event Survived, either there or

in "civilized" reaches.  For the Administration a million systems, of

course, were not enough.  A billion wouldn't be.  Thus Renatasia must

be brought under its kindly influence.

Renatasia III and IV were the jewels in their cozy and

conveniently isolated diadem.  From space they appeared warm, lush,

green and inhabited by a people who used steel, titanium, and simple

organoplastics, were capable of wringing useful amounts of energy from

the core of the atom, and who had not only reached but profitably

colonized every one of the remaining six bodies in their system, from

freeze-dried outermost, to charcoal flamb6ed innermost-albeit under

domes and in burrows, rather than through the total climatic

transformation that even the Empire often found too expensive to

pursue.

They had not quite reinvented faster-than-light spacedrives,

although they were fiddling with its theoretical underpinnings.

Nor had they yet made the basic discoveries that would inevitably

lead them to such mechanisms as deflector shields, tractor-pressor

beams, disruptors, and disintegrators-a fact for which the Centrality

navy was later to be rather embarrassedly grateful.  For they could

also fight, it developed, like the very devil.  They'd been doing it

for millennia.

Mathilde was the capital city of a nation-state of the same name,

located on the second largest continent of Renatasia 111.

Reception of the system's crude, flat, electronic sound-andpicture

transmissions revealed that her citizens spoke a much-corrupted version

of the commonest language of the galaxy-this was to serv - e as

justification for the intervention that came later-and were the most

prosperous and technologically advanced people in the system, their

offworld colonies the most numerous and successful.

The nation-state of Mathilde, along with others like it, was

located in the north temperate zone, and divided its activities about

equally between agriculture and manufacturing.  Just like every other

polity in the system, it had forgotten its long-past origins elsewhere

in the galaxy.  Mathildean writers and scholars speculated about what

future explorers would discover among the stars, and whether there was

intelligent life in outer space.

A severely damaged civilian star-freighter had first happened upon

the Renatasia System by accident.  Once it had limped back to port for

repairs, her captain had dutifully.reported the system's existence to

the government.  No contact had been made by the freighter, which made

things very much easier for the intelligence operative assigned the

task of establishing official communications.  The Ottdefa Osuno Whett.

His academic credentials had always been the perfect cover for a

Centrality spy.  Where can an anthropologist not go and poke his long,

thin nose into the most intimate and personal details of a culture?

Before leaving, his superiors had equipped him, more or less

against his better judgment, with an assistant, a rather odd little

droid of obviously alien manufacture who said his name was Vuffi Raa

and that, owing to a mishap of some sort involving a deep-space pirate

attack while he was being shipped in a packing crate, he was unable to

remember his place of origin or the species who had built him.  Whett

was scientist enough-and a genuine anthropologist-to be frustrated by

the lack of information.  Centrality Intelligence was even less

helpful.  They simply told him to stop asking stupid questions and get

on with his assignment.  He got on.

Vuffi Raa did prove to be useful in many ways.  He was a superb

personal valet, had a capacious memory, an astute intelligence with an

easy grasp for every cultural nuance.  He was utterly obedient@xcept

that Whett couldn't get the little droid to call him master.

Actually, that turned out all to the good.  Before landing their

AND THE STARCAVE OF THOMBOKA 365

small, unarmed entry vessel on the front lawn of the Mathildean

chief executive's official residence, among bands and fanfares and

uncounted cocked and loaded weapons, Vuffi Raa had been instructed to

disguise himself as an organic being with sophisticated plastics

simulating skin.

It occurred to Whett that perhaps the droid would then resemble

his original manufacturers.  It was a galaxy-wide assumption that

droids tended to be designed in the image of their makers.  However, he

shelved the speculation; they had other problems at present.

The robot would pose as the leader of the diplomatic expedition,

an envoy from a starry federation Way Out There, ready to welcome the

Renatasians into the fold.  That was Whett's habitual deception at

work.  He assumed the role of humble assistant and secretary.  This

kept him neatly out of a spotlight he felt it would eventually be safer

to avoid, knowing standard policy toward unclaimed but occupied

territory.

The Ottdefa Osuno Whett, lying in his tiny cabin aboard the

decommissioned cruiser Wennis, en route to the ThonBoka, pan ' sed

momentarily in his musings and finally pushed the button on the

electronic box beside him on the cot.  A tide of relaxation funneled

into his brain through the bony wave guides of his eye sockets.  It was

followed by another and another and another, each successively smaller,

yet still soothing.  To run the device continuously would put him into

deep sleep, a condition he must avoid in the event the sorcerer should

call on him again.  But the waves of rest were almost as good.

He pushed the button again.

More memories came to him, unbidden.

After the initial, inevitable awkwardness of first contact, the

Mathildeans, along with everybody in the rest of the system, took Vuffi

Raa to their hearts.  He addressed international conclaves.  He

presided over formal banquets.  He was photographed with scantily clad

media- personalities.  He was compelled to turn down offers involving

the endorsement of consumer products.  Even so, small replicas of the

five-limbed droid began showing up in stores almost from the beginning,

and several sizable fortunes were made for their enterprising creators.

All the while, a short, plump, dark-haired Ottdefa Osuno Whett

made observations and unobtrusive recordings.  Estimates were made and

updated concerning the strength of the Renatasian economy, the

effectiveness of the system's defenses.  It was accepted as a given

that invasion would unite the deeply divided civilization.  Whett would

have preferred to play upon those divisions, in effect to let the

system conquer itself, but the navy was beneath such subtleties.  Some

effort was made by the authorities to limit the pair's access to

highsecurity installations, but they didn't take account of a spy

technology centuries ahead of Renatasia's.

As he lay in his cot aboard the Wennis, Whett's mind was upon

another day, another place.  His hand hovered over the button of the

electronic relaxer, just as it had hovered, in the small cabin of their

landing vehicle, over a button on the communicator panel.  Pushing the

button would transmit all the data he had collected and trigger the

invasion by the navy.

"Well, robot, the great moment has arrived!  This will alter the

history of Renatasia forever@' "It will bring history to an end in this

system, sir, not alter it."

Whett was sitting in the passenger's seat.  Their machine was

stored near the hotel in which they were living, and the excuse had

frequently been offered that Vuffi Raa required certain nutrients and

gases in order to subsist in the (to him) foreign atmosphere of

Renatasia 111.  There had been some thought of holding the craft and

examining it-the military mind is the same the universe over-but it had

been vetoed by a Mathildean chief executive very much aware of the

visitor's popularity.

"Cold feet, from a droid?  Why haven't you said anything about

this before?"  Whett was annoyed.  The creature was spoiling his moment

of supreme triumph.  Still, there was no specific way he could fault

the machine; it spoke the objective truth, was in fact incapable of

speaking anything else.  History would end for Renatasian civilization

within a'few days of his pressing the button.

"I am a droid, sir, constructed to obey.  Your remark seemed

inferentially to require a reply, that is all."  The robot sat in the

pilot's chair, its limbs at rest, its eye glowing dully in the dim

light of the concrete parking garage.

"I suggest that you address me as master, robot."

"I'm sorry, sir, I am not programmed to respond in that area.

Savagely, Whett jammed his thumb down on the button.  A small amber

light glowed to life on the panel; no other sign appeared.  The deed

was done, could not be called back.

Vuffi Raa's eye dimmed almost to extinction, as if the power to

transmit the treacherous information was being drained from his supply.

The next few days were bedlam, exactly as Whett had expected.  The

navy appeared at the fringes of the system, close enough to be fully

detectable by Renatasian defense sensors.

They even let the local military lob a few primitive thermonuclear

weapons at them to demonstrate the utter futility of, resistance.  The

fleet's shields glowed briefly, restoring energy consumed by the voyage

out, and that was that.  Almost.

Unfortunately for the Navy and high-technology aggressors

everywhere in space and time, invasions cannot be conducted with

continent-destroying weapons or from behind shields.  Not unless you're

willing to obliterate the enemy, and not at all if you're interested in

taking what the enemy has: raw materials, agricultural products,

certain manufactured goods, and the potential labor of her citizens.

While the fleet sat tight and safe in orbit above the eight

planets of Renatasia, 93 percent of the first wave of troopers were

savagely massacred by the locals, using chemical bullet projectors,

crude high-powered lasers, poison gases, clubs, meat cleavers, and

fists.

Eighty-seven percent of the second wave died similarly, even

though they'd been forewarned, 71 percent of the third, and so on, The

Navy was winning a glon'ous, disastrously expensive victory.

Troopships carrying replacements began showing up at hourly intervals.

Osuno Whett and Vuffi Raa had gone into hiding briefly after they

had summoned the fleet.  Nevertheless, they were hunted and hounded

across the face of the planet.  The relentless natives gleefully cut

them off again and again from rescue by their uniformed compatriots.

At long last they joined a force, a remnant of the third wave,

which helped them get aboard a shuttle and into the safety of a

Centrality battlewagon.  But not before the ugly, merciless

extermination of two-thirds of the Renatasian population was an evil,

personally experienced nightmare they would live withand sleep with-for

the rest of their lives.

Whett, in his cabin on the Wennis, pushed the button again.

Waves of relaxation, but regrettably not of forgetfulness, swept

through his tense and tortured body as tears coursed down his face.  It

was a rare moment: generally he merely hated and feared the remaining

Renatasians, having for the most part burnt out his circuitry for

shame.  He had fled their persistent presence for a long, long time.

Nor had he been unhappy when, at long last, his superiors had

ordered him to "lose" the robot-both an unwelcome reminder and a dead

giveaway to pursuers-to Lando Calrissian in a rigged sabacc game.

That had been in the Oseon, and things had not turned out well for

either the hopes of his superiors or for those of Rokur Gepta, who had

personally supervised that particular operation.

Now, alone with his real pursuers, his memories, Yvlhett realized

that it was more than revenge he needed to accomplish in the ThonBoka.

He had to see that robot destroyed.  It was a dangerous link, in

more ways than one, to an even more dangerous past.  And he had to see

an end, as well, to Captain Lando Calrissian, who could connect his new

appearance, adopted before the game, with the robot.

Very well, then: Gepta sought to destroy Cahissian; Shanga sought

to destroy Vuffi Raa (because he didn't know the real mastemiind was a

"hanniess" academic he had seen nearly every day); that academic must

now seek to destroy them both, gambler and droid.

Still he wondered, after all this time: where had that accursed

robot come from, anyway?

xiii THAT ACCURSED R0130T scratched his head.

"Politics, saved our lives, Master?  I'm not altogether sure I

understand."

In reality, the gesture was more a matter of flicking a delicate

tentacle tip around the bezel that retained the faceted red lens of his

eye, mounted on the upper surface of his headless pentacular "torso."

But its meaning was clear; he had picked it up from long

association with human beings.  As usual, certain aspects of that

association puzzled him.

"Well, I'm only guessing, mind you, but a massive operation such

as that Edge-blasted blockade out there, especially when it's being

carried out in secret, presents a lot of opportunities to people

envious of the boys on top."  Lando pried up his cigar from where he'd

secured it to the edge of the bench top, drew deeply on it, expelled

the smoke, and squashed it firmly once again, sideways, into the wad of

chewing gum that, in the absence of gravity, held it where it wouldn't

float away.

"Do you want this end-wrench, Vuffi, or the adjustable spanner?"

The robot glanced back at his master, squatting on the deck plates

with one leg thrust under the bench for leverage and security, much

like the cigar.  Lando leaned on a tool chest, assisting.  They'd

lifted a repair port and the robot peered now into a complex maze of

working and sen-tiworking parts.

"Adjustable, Master.  This is a section I rigged after we beefed

up the shields in the Oseon.  All we had in stock were replacements

from the Ringneldia, and everything in that system is standardized

around the diameter of some native bean or other."

It wasn't just the sudden pullback of the murderous fleet that

bothered Vuffi Raa, although it had left thousands of dead Oswaft in

its wake.  While genuinely ignorant, or at least amnesiac, about his

own origins, he could infer certain facts about his makers and their

culture, and the trouble was, several of the facts in question were

contradictory.

And current events were bringing him swiftly to a personal crisis

involving those contradictions.  It was not a situation that any

intelligence@yen that of a Class Two droidfinds comfortable.

He detached one of his sinuous manipulators, directing it remotely

to thread its way into the starboard reactant-impeller units, deep in

the bowels of the Millennium Falcon.  Nothing was actually wrong with

the system, but had it been a hair more sluggish, they would have been

fried by the Courteous instead of cheating their way through

hyperspace.  It didn't pay to tolerate the slightest malfunction, not

when they were the only spaceship the ThonBoka had to put up against

the fleet.

Those devices not only fed the engines, which was fairly important

in itself, but the deflector shields as well.  Vuffi Raa and Lando

needed every fractional advantage if they weren't going to sell their

lives cheaply.

"For example," the gambler continued, craning his neck to see what

the robot was doing beneath the floor, "there'll be one group which

will loudly-and correctly-proclaim that this undeclared war against the

Oswaft constitutes genocide, although they wouldn't hesitate if they'd

thought of it first themselves.  Then there'll be a gang of

middle-of-the-roaders who could do it better or cheaper.  Finally,

there'll be the ones who regard the action as too gentle and

indecisive.  They'll want the fleet to sit back and toss in a few

planet-wreckers, and they'r(, probably the ones we owe for this

hiatus."

A little cynical, Vuffi Raa thought before replying.  "But Master,

there aren't any planets here to wreck, thank the Core."

"Thank three little blue suns out there that went kablooie for

that.  You're right, although planet-wreckers could make things pretty

uncomfortable for our friends the Oswaft-not to mention our tender

selves.  And besides, in interstellar power politics, it's gestures and

appearances that count, not actual results.

I've long suspected that's why civilizations rise and fall.

Especially fall.  Try adjusting that vernier, will you?  I thought

I heard the field blades wobble a little when you nudged it before."

He unstuck his cigar again and took a puff.

Another tentacle clicked at Vuffi Raa's "shoulder" and drifted

away to check the readings on the control panels forward.  It was

possible, the- droid thought, that the problem was simply an instrument

failure, and it would be stupid to repair something that was already in

perfect working order.

Each of the robot's five tentacles, usually tapering smoothly to a

rounded tip, could also blossom at the end into a small five-fingered

hand.  In the center of each rested a miniature replica of the large

red eye atop his body; he would see what his tentacles saw.  This, and

the ability to send his limbs off on various errands, caused him to

wonder about his creators.

They were hardly stupid; still, there were counterindications.

Here he was, preparing his master's ship for a battle in which he,

himself, dare not participate directly.  Early in life, he had

experimented: attempting combat, in contravention of his deepest-laid

programming, had sent him into a coma that lasted nearly a month.  He

was extremely clever; he could run and hide; physically he was very

tough; he could ally himself with individuals like Lando, quite capable

of the defensive violence necessary to protect themselves and their

mechanical partner, Vuffi Raa.  But he, himself, simply could not harm

another thinking being, whether organically evolved or artificially

constructed.

It just didn't make sense.  Vuffi Raa took a certain pride in the

fact that he was a highly valuable machine, more so, strictly speaking,

than the starship he was servicing.  Simply as a market consideration,

he had a duty to protect his life; anyone attempting to take it

demonstrated, by that very act, that they were less valuable, at least

in any moral sense that made sense.

Separating a third tentacle from his body, Vuffi Raa dispatched it

to check the readiness of the ship's weapons systems, particularly the

quad-guns of which Lando was so fond.

The Millennium Falcon had always fairly bristled with armament,

yet, with only two crew-beings to man her, and one of them a pacifist

at that, they'd always meant to tie the weapons together cybemetically

somehow.  In this brief interlude between confrontations with the

fleet, they'd scarcely more than begun the task.

His inhibitions could be stretched, Vuffi Raa had discovered.

Knowing full well, for example, that the preparations furthered

violent activity, he could nevertheless perform them.  Moreover, he

could fly the Falcon for Lando, maneuvering properly to assure his

destruction of the enemy.

How very peculiar, thought the robot.  Who made me this way, and

what did they intend by it?

"What in the name of the Edge, the Core, and everything in between

are they waiting for out there?"

Lando fidgeted at the table as Vuffi Raa watched him disassemble

and clean his tiny five-shot stingbeam as a final, albeit somewhat

silly, preparation for the coming battle.  They were in the passenger

lounge.  The deckplate gravity was set at full normal, and that,

thought the robot, was a bad sign.  His master liked free-fall best for

thinking.

"For somebody else to get here, " a tinny, electronically relayed

voice answered.  It was Lehesu, visible in a monitor screen the robot

had installed.  In reality, the great being hovered outside in the void

not far from the Falcon.  Given his size, and Lando's environmental

requirements, this was the closest the three could come to normal

face-to-face conversation.

"What?", Lando stopped what he was doing with a jolt, one hand

poised on the cleaning brush, elbow in the air, shoulders suddenly

hunched as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

He rose.  Slowly he turned, step by step he approached the monitor

until his nose nearly rested on the screen.  At his side, the

half-cleaned weapon dripped solvent on the deck plates.

"Who-" he demanded of the manta creature, '@and how the deuce do

you know?"  Some sort of fire flickered in the gambler's eyes, but even

Vuffi Raa, long acquainted with the man's moods, couldn't guess what it

signified now.

"Why, Lando, somebody named Wennis, " Lehesu answered in a tone of

injured innocence.  He'd come a long way, learning to interpret human

vocal inflections and the images of facial expressions he received

directly in his brain from the ship's transmitter.  He was disturbed

now because his friend looked and sounded angry with him.

"As to how I know: it's practically the only thing they're talking

about out there, can't you hear them?  Something's going to happen when

Wennis gets here, something big.  Somebody else named Scuttlebutt has

it that-" "Oh my aching field density equalizers!"  As the robot

watched, his master's expression changed, like the face on a sabacc

card, from puzzled to exasperated to delighted.  The gambler crossed

the room again in two strides, threw himself into a recliner, dug

around in his shipsuit pockets and extracted a cigar.

"No, Lehesu, I can't hear them, remember?  And even if I

could-well, Vuffi Raa can 'hear' radio signals, but the military uses

codes that are intended to preclude eavesdropping."

He lit the cigar, heedless of the flammable fluid all over his

hands.

"Dear me!"  cried the Oswaft in real distress, "have I been doing

something unethical?  I shall cease immed-" Lando sat up abruptly,

pointing his cigar at the monitor like a weapon.  "You'll do nothing of

the sort-you can't do anything unethical to those goons, it's

philosophically impossible!

Here I've been getting ready to die bravely, and now, casually,

you've given us all a chance to survive!  By gadfrey, Vuffi Raa, old

corkscrew, let's break out a bottle of-OWWWWCH!"

Lando's hands glowed a flickering blue as he leaped up from the

recliner and began running around the room.  Without hesitation, Vuffi

Raa thrust out a tentacle and tripped him; he flopped on the deck,

yelling, while the robot tossed a jacket that had been hanging on the

back of the lounger over the gambler's hands, and wrapped it tight.

The fire was out.

"What's the matter over there?"  the monitor demanded.

"Are you all right?"

"I will be, once I learn not to play with fire," Lando answered as

he sat up.  He winced as Vuffi Raa unwrapped the jacket.  His hands

were tender, but not badly burned.  The droid was gone a moment,

returned with a sprayer of plaskin and coated Lando's hands until they

were shiny with it.

The gambler flexed his fingers with satisfaction.  "Pretty close,

old fire extinguisher.  I'd have had to pick a new profession if it

weren't for your quick thinking.  And if it weren't for this stuff@'

With freshly dried digits, he examined the firstaid spray, then his

brow furrowed in thought.  He helped Vuffi Raa tidy up the gun-cleaning

mess while explaining to the Oswaft what had happened, but his voice

had an absent quality the robot recognized as the sign of an idea under

incubation.

Finally, stubbornly, he refit the cigar he'd flung across the

room, sat back in the recliner, and was silent for a solid hour.

Vuffi Raa played a few hands of radio sabacc with Lehesu, and let

the gambler think.  He was fresh out of ideas himself, and, like his

master, had been resigned to dying at as high a cost to their

assailants as possible.

An odd thing, violence, he pondered, watching the computer change

a Commander of Sabres in his "hand" to an Ace of Flasks.  He'd

inflicted violence on Lando in order to save him from a nasty burn, and

hadn't felt a qualm down in his programn-ting.  Yet, had some third

person tried to harm Lando, the robot would have been helpless to

remove the threat.  Definitely a glitch there.

It bothered him.

"The Wennis is a ship, Lehesu, like the Falcon here," Lando said

an hour later over a steaming plate from the food-fixer.

"So Vuffi Raa tells me.  It's a difficult concept to grasp."

"Well, grasp this: it's the personal yacht of Rokur Gepta,

Sorcerer of Tund.  We've run into that fellow twice before, and not

nicely either time.  Now that I know he's involved, this whole blockade

makes sense.  The truce'll be over when he gets here."

The gambler suppressed a shudder, remembering previous

confrontations.  Once, in the Oseon, the sorcerer had used a device to

stimulate every unpleasant memory Lando had, then recycle them, over

and over, until he nearly went mad.  It had been interference from Klyn

Shanga, intent on destroying Vuffi Raa, that had accidentally saved

him.  They'd rescued Shanga from the wreck of his small fighter

afterward and turned him over to the authorities in another system.  He

wondered where the man was now.

"Well, in any case, I think I've got an idea.  You know, in order

to win a war it isn't necessary to defeat your enemy, just make the

fight so expensive he'll give up and go away."

"I wouldn't know, "' the Oswaft answered, "but what you say makes

sense.  " "Sure.  As I explained to Vuffi Raa, this -blockade's bound

to have some opposition.  It's already expensive, we merely have to

make it more so."

"How can we do that?  We have no weapons, and the fleet, with its

shields up, is no longer vulnerable to our voices, as was the

Courteous.  It has occurred to me that it was a good thing I was in a

weakened condition when I met you, otherwise I might have destroyed you

in the same manner " The gambler waved a negligent hand at the monitor.

"There was only one of you, whereas I'm told there were a thousand

Oswaft in the party that met the Courteous.  Never mind that, we're

going to let the fleet destroy itself."

"How?"  Both Vuffi Raa and Lehesu spoke this time.

"I have some questions to ask you first: it's really true you can

understand interfleet communications?"

"Yes, Lando, so could any of my people, given a few moments'

thought.

"Hmmm ... All right, what about this synthesizing business.  Can

you make any substance I ask you to?"

"As long as it's relatively simple and there are raw materials to

hand, as it were.  " "And the nebula: your elders tell me that there

isn't any food there for you, that it was all 'grazed' out, long ago.

Yet there are raw materials "Yes, Lando, where is all of this

leading?"

"Out of a mess.  One more thing: how long do you have to rest

between hypedumps, and how accurately can you predict where you'll

break out?"

"Lando, " the Oswaft said in exasperation, "I think I see where

you're going with this.  You want us to make bombs or something and

plant them on the fleet's vessels.  In the first place, J'from what

Vuffi Raa has told me of weaponry, bombs aren't all that simple.  In

the second-" "No, no.  Nothing to do with bombs at all, and besides,

those ships'll be coming in here shielded to a fare-thee-well.  And in

the second, I said we'll let them destroy themselves, didn't I?

I have a plan to make the war.  expensive, that's all."

He hunched over the monitor, conspiratorially.  Vuffi Raa leaned

toward him, consumed by curiosity.  Lando was clearly enjoying this

part, and the robot wasn't sure that made him happy.

"Now here's what we'll do xiv @'GENTLEMEN, MAN YOUR fighters"'

Klyn Shanga gazed across the' cavernous cluttered hangar deck inside

the Wennis as his squadron climbed into their tiny spacecraft.  Even

good old Bern was there, snaking up the ladder into his cockpit.  He'd

served his sentence in durance vile.

(jepta had, surprisingly enough, been as good as his word about

that.

It worried Shanga.  He wondered what the old trickster had up his

long gray sleeve.  Keeping promises wasn't an expected part of the

magicians' repertoire, and the fighter commander felt it boded evil.

The noise was deafening as impellers whined, refueling lines were

tucked away, commands shouted here and there.  There was a constant

steady rumble of eager machinery.  In a few moments the hangar crew

would clear the deck, all inner doors would be sealed, and the huge

belly doors of the cruiser would cycle open, giving the Renatasians

access to open space.

"This is the confrontation we've been waiting a decade for,"

Shanga had told his men, all twenty-three of them, fined up at a

ragged, ill-disciplined attention in their shabby, mismatched uniforms.

They represented a dozen old-style nation-states, most of which no

longer existed.  They flew craft purchased, borrowed, leased, and

stolen from as many systems, the ships equally threadbare.  In common

the flyers shared only a diirst for revenge.

"The Butcher awaits us out there," Shanga had said, pointing

vaguely toward the hangar doors overhead.  Artificial gravity in the

hangar had been reoriented to allow easier servicing and launching of

the squadron.  "He's laughing at us, you know.  His very existence, ten

years after his crimes, is a mockery of justice.  Well, we will silence

that laughter, bring

back to the universe!"  justice

There was no cheering.  Some of the warship's crew members working

on the Renatasian squadron had looked up momentarily, impressed more at

Shanga's vehemence than at any eloquence he might have possessed.  To

individuals in a hierarchy such as they served, strong feelings openly

expressed were a threat to survival, the highest virtues moderation,

compromise, a deaf ear and a blind eye to injustice.

There was nodding among the twenty-three at Shanga's words,

acceptance, a grim agreement, a pact.  They looked at their commander

and at one another, realizing that it might be for the last time.

"And afterward?"  Bern Nuladeg lounged against the outstretched

wing of one fighter at the end of the line of men, chewing an unlit

cigar.  "What'll we do then?"

"Afterward, we'll .  . ."  Shanga tapered off.  He hadn't planned

for there to be any afterward.  There were a billion or more Oswaft out

there, of uncertain capability, allied with the unspeakable Vuffi Raa.

The chances any Renatasian would survive the next few hours were

slight@ Moreover, their safety afterward, in Gepta's hands, was

questionable.  The sorcerer would be completely unpredictable once he'd

won his victory.

There'd be nothing to come back to, not in a fleet commanded from

the Wennis.

Shanga shook his head as if to clear it of useless speculations.

"Afterward you're on your own.  Rendezvous with whatever ship will

pick you up.  Get home the best way you can-if you want to go home.

For the time being, my friends, we live only for justice, only for

revenge."

There was muttering, but it was in resigned agreement wit what

their commander had said.  If there was any future, let it come on its

own terms, its very arrival a surprise.

They boarded their fighting vessels.

Shanga strapped himself into his pilot's couch, made sure the

canopy seals were good, that all mobile service implements had been

properly detached and the access ports dogged down.

He watched the hangarmen file out through various oval

doorunpanicky haste as the big red lights came on to ways in an signal

the beginning of the cycling process.  In effect, the hanger now became

a huge airlock; he knew from long experience that, despite the best

efforts to filter and scrub the salvaged air, the rest of the ship,

from control deck through officer's country down to the scuppers, would

smell of aerospace volatiles for several hours.

It was a good smell, he thought to himself, an agreeable one to

die with in your lungs if you couldn't arrange for soft grass and

evergreen boughs.

He flipped switches and the whining of his engines raised in

pitch, the cockpit vibration skipped a beat and settled in a newer

discordance with the other machine noises.  Adrenaline was rushing into

his bloodstream.  By the Core, he was a warrior.  Say what you like

about that, you simpering peace-dogs, he was born and bred to fight!

The hangar doors above him ponderously ground aside.

"Five and Eighteen out!"  a voice said in his helmet.  Two

fighters filled the hangar with exhaust mist as they lifted and roared

out into space.  The vapor cleared quickly.  "Fourteen and Mne out!"

"Six and Seventeen!"

In pairs his men took to the void, as eager for a fight as he was.

His onboard computer held a three-dimensional map of the ThonBoka

with probable locations for the Millennium Falcon marked therein.  It

was known that there were three small blue-white stars, and some

artificial structure, much larger than the freighter, at their center.

That would be the prime area for the search.

The "destroy" part would follow immediately.

"Two and Twenty-one!"  another voice shouted, then Shanga himself

felt a severe jolt and the blood stress of acceleration as the hangar

catapult-pressor latched onto his command ship and flung it into space

among his men.  Others continued to pour from the Wennis in the same

manner, in an order tactically detennined by the motley mixture of ship

types and models available to them.  "Nineteen and Four!"

They assumed a complicated formation, hovering until all of the

squadron was free of the hangar bay.  In the center of the group lay

Pinnace Number Five, the very auxiliary Bern Nuladeg had been

apprehended trying to steal.  Her after section glowed and pulsed with

pent-up energy.  They were still a relatively long way from the nebula,

at least where the small fighters' capabilities were concerned.  Even

once they got there, it was six light-years to the center-approximately

twenty-five times their own maximum flying range.

The pinnace, capable of faster-than-light travel, had been fitted

with a tractor field.  Unmanned, controlled remotely by Klyn Shanga, it

would tow them into the heat of battle, returning parsimoniously on its

own to the Wennis.  He and his best computer doctor had checked the

lend-lease auxiliary carefully from bow to stern for ugly practical

jokes and delayed-action booby traps.  He just couldn't bring himself

to trust Rokur Gepta's generosity.

That worthy had been unavailable at debarkation time, appatently

gone off to meditate or something.  Just as well: his orders to release

the Renatasian squadron had been there in his place.  To the Edge with

the sorcerer, Shanga thought.  With any luck at all, they'd never see

each other again.

He tapped the keyboard, checking the positions of his tiny fleet

clustered about the pinnace.  "This is Zero Leader," he announced.

"Eleven, tighten up a little on Tlwelve-that's it.

Twenty-two, you're idling a little ragged, aren't you?  What's

your toroid temperature?"

The fusion-powered fighters would conserve reaction mass, relying

on the cruiser's auxiliary to do the work, but they must keep their

systems up for instant combat readiness.  Belt and suspenders, Shanga

thought, belt and suspenders.  The old saw was wrong about old, bold

pilots, but this was the only way it could be done.

"Nominal, " TWenty-two replied.  He was a young kid from a

continent half a world away from Mathilde, Shanga's nationstate.

There'd been a time when he'd been supposed to hate that accent.

"I think the trouble's in the telemetry, sir " "Don't call me sir,

Twenty-two, and watch that temperature.

I want the Butcher just as badly as you do, but charging in there

with a malfunctioning ship isn't going to help any of us accomplish

that.  I don't trust those maintenance people to clean their own

fingernails.  You'd better be telling me the truth, son."

"Well, sir-Klyn-maybe I'm a little in the red, but I think this

hop will burn out the hot spots.  " "All right," Shanga replied

grudgingly.  "TWenty-three, what the Core's wrong with your

life-support?  I've got red lights all over the readout!"

"Just lit my cigar, boss.  The atmo-analyzer don't like it much."

Bern Nuladeg laughed.  "Can't get into a dog-fight without I got a

stogie in my mouth, I'd bite my danged tongue!"

Shanga grinned inside his helmet, suppressed a chuckle.

"Roger, Twenty-three, it's your funeral.  All right, men, synch

your navi-mods to me.  We'll move on the tick.  Four, three, two,

one-unh!"

As a unit, the entire squadron lurched forward, propelled by the

pinnace, began accelerating smoothly, and moved off toward the

TbonBoka.  Now, before the coming disorientation of the jump, Shanga

and his men had time to look around them.

Ahead, the StarCave looked like a huge eyeball seen in profile.

They approached the entrance obliquely to maximize the element of

surprise.  It was a stupid ritual, Shanga realized; they'd be seen

coming anyway.  But it was something to begin the program with; it

didn't,really matter.  A huge gray eyeball with no iris, a pupil that

twinkled with three tiny, blue-white highlights.  Down deep inside that

thing was the Enemy.  Deep down inside that thing was death.

With -a joyous shout of violated natural law, the squadron leaped

toward it.

W325 was the designation of a very small bathtub-shaped object

whose size and power output did not quite earn it the status of an

auxiliary vessel.  More than anything else, it was a rigid, powered

spacesuit, used to inspect and repair the hull of the Wennis while she

was in deep space-but most assuredly not under way.

At the moment, W325 was electromagnetically tied in place well aft

of the hull to a boxlike addition to the superstructure supporting the

cruiser's main drive tubes.  WNle their fires were momentarily quenched

to allow the launching of Klyn Shanga's squadron, they still glowed

with waste heat energy.  Attached to the underside of W325 was a decal

in the shape of a human being.  More correctly, a human being in the

shape of a decal.

The Ottdefa Osuno Whett, anthropologist and master spy knew he was

taking a terrible chance.  That was always the case when serving two

masters.  He owed Rokur Gepta his assistance and advice-and stood to

benefit by it to the tune of the destruction of his enemies.  To one

other, he owed everything, including his life, if need be.  His

immediate assignment was keeping an eye on the perfidious sorcerer.

Gepta was not trusted as naively as he may have thought, gift

cruiser or no gift cruiser.

Thus, encased in a slim, flexible spacesuit whose color had been

adjusted to match that of W325, the anthropologist lay spread, arms and

legs stretched wide, as tightly as he could to the undersurface of the

little space-raring object while its master was otherwise occupied.

Whett's own attention was elsewhere; he watched the readouts in

his helmet closely, his curiosity and excitement mounting.

Above, Rokur Gepta cycled out of the small vessel, moved across to

the rear surface of the superstructure addition.  Whett had already

determined, by means of various probes and rays, that the

unconventional add-on was composed of hull'armor, thicker than most and

impenetrable to his devices.  He d suspected something like this and

come forearmed.  It had not been easy to strew the sorcerer's path with

a dozen information-gatheting devices, each the size of a single dust

mote, but he had done it.  Some of them read out in real time.

They would be useless in another moment.  But some absorbed what

they witnessed and would spew it all out in a fraction of a microsecond

once Whett was within receiving range again.

Whett waited.

At the rear of the armored compartment, the sorcerer hung.

There was no port within sight, no airlock.  Whett wondered

mightily about that.  He did not believe in the reputed powers of the

Sorcerers of Tund.  He'd seen far too much primitive mumbo jumbo backed

up by trickery and hidden technology to be impressed by such claims.

He wished that he dared peek out around the hull of W325 to see

what was happening.  Instead, he relied on his devices.

Oddly, the real-time machinery gave the impression that Gepta

hadn't bothered with a spacesuit.  Strange, but not totally

unaccountable.  No one was quite sure what species Gepta belonged to

although he deliberately gave the impression he was human.  And there

were a people or two that could stand hard vacuum for several

minutes-and of course there were the Oswaft ... There was also the

possibility that the sorcerer concealed life-support equipment beneath

his robes.  It would be like him, and indeed, the lightweight pressure

suit the anthropologist wore could be concealed thus.

Whett waited.

As expected, the telltales in his helmet winked off abruptly.

Gepta had entered the compartment and was now shielded by what the

spy estimated to be at least a meter of incredibly tough

state-of-the-art alloy.  Slowly he detached himself from the underside

of the maintenance vehicle, worked out a few stiff joints, and peered

cautiously around the bulge of the craft.

Gepta was gone.  There was no sign of him.  Nor was there any sign

of the means by which he'd entered.  One instrument on Whett's helmet

panel flickered fitfully in response to radiation leakage.  Something

hot was going on inside the shielded compartment, but he couldn't tell

what.  Whatever it was, it was unfamiliar.

He jetted up smoothly to the rear of the compartment and inspected

it closely.  As he had guessed, there was no airlock, no door of any

kind.  He rounded the corner and inspected a side, then another and

another and another.  No sign.  He applied sophisticated instruments,

highly developed skills.  It was a solid box of-metal, approximately

ten meters on a side, featureless, except ...

But that was ridiculous.  Precisely in the center of the aftmost

surface was a service petcock, opening on a pipeway no more than four

centimeters in diameter.  He didn't dare lift the cover, but he hung

there in free-fall for a dangerously long while pondering, running

through a catalog in his head of species and their capabilities.

The Sorcerers of Tund.  No investigator-spy or anthropologist-had

ever gotten a crack at those mysterious old prunes.  He'd regretted

Gepta's decision to pick him up in transit, he'd wanted to see Tund, be

the first.  His employer would have liked that, too.

The Sorcerers of Tund were reputed to have some mighty powers-if

you believed in that nonsense-but he couldn't recall any legends about

dematerialization or the ability to squeeze through tiny apertures.

Magic?  Perhaps there was something, after all, to the idea that

...

But that was ridiculous.

xv ABOARD THE WENNis, Rokur Gepta prepared himself for battle.
. There were mental exercises peculiar to Tund, disciplines on

ancient ancestry; weapons to inspect, both personal and aboard the

cruiser; personnel to instruct and threaten.  Communications had begun

flowing from the fleet.  Gepta occupied the bridge, watching,

listening, replying.  A steady traffic of messengers rushed back and

forth between the sorcerer and a hundred points within the ship.

"No," Gepta hissed at the monitor before him, "you will not

deviate from your designated position, my dear Captain, even to pursue

escaping vessels-especially not to defend yourself, is my meaning

clear, sir?  You are a ship of the line.  You are expected to

perfonn,your duty as specified, never to question orders, to consider

yourself and your command expendable in the service of society.

"We have now spoken for two minutes too long on this subject.

Out."

He waved a hand; the disappointed features of the captain of the

Intractable faded from the screen.  It was the third such conversation

he'd conducted within the hour, and he was growing weary of it.  Only

the thought of what lay aft in its armored compartment, the lovely

green death, enabled him to remain calm.

"General Order!"

An electronically equipped secretary hurried to his side, a

recording device clutched fearfully in hand.  "While it should not be

necessary," Gepta dictated, "to instruct officers of the line in their

duties, some question has arisen as to the advisability of their

writing their own orders upon no other discretion than the wish to

preserve their ship or their personal interpretation of their purposes

in being here.

"To resolve these uncertainties, and as an example for future

individualists, the commanding officers of the Intractable, the

Upright, and the Vainglorious are hereby stripped of rank, along with

their seconds in command.  Said command will revert to the third

officer in succession, and the six abovementioned personnel will be

placed unprotected in an airlock, which shall be evacuated into empty

space.

"By the authority of Rokur Gepta, Sorcerer of Tund.  Did you get

all of that, young mant' The stenographer, his face grown white, nodded

dazedly.

"Y-Yes, sir."

"Good.  Send it out and make sure it's understood that the order

is to be carried out immediately.  Now run along."

Beneath his headdress windings, Gepta smiled.  Aside from his two

sessions in the armored compartment aft, this was the best he'd felt

all day.

Vuffi Raa sat in the lefthand seat of the control room of the

Millennium Falcon, setting up problems on the navigational console and

cross-playing them through his master's game computer.  He had to

admit, Lando had been right.  His scheme wouldn't win a war, and it

might cost a great many lives on both sides, but it would wear the

fleet down and encourage Gepta's political opponents to step in and end

the blockade.

Had he been capable of shaking his head ironically, he would have

done so.

He looked out through the segmented viewport forward, where he saw

Lehesu hanging peacefully-at least to all appearances.  He keyed the

corn.  "I have completed the modeling exercise, friend Lehesu.  I

believe we have a good chance.  Will you not join the others with their

preparations?"

The giant creature swam closer to the Falcon and peered in at his

little robot friend.  "No, Vuffi Raa.  I am aware of what I must do,

and I am ready.  I was curious as to the projections you are

undertaking.  Will the fleet truly destroy itsetr if Lando's plan

works?"

The droid raised a tentacle to indicate certainty since he

couldn't nod.  "Yes, as unbelievable as it may seem.  You are an

amazing people, my friend, and that's what makes it possible.

The Falcon is as ready as she'll ever be, although l@' "You are

troubled, Vuffi Raa?"  Lehesu could interpret tones of voice even with

a mechanical being.  "Please speak to me about it; perhaps that will

help.  " Glancing mentally at the timepiece he carried in his

circuitry, the robot gave his equivalent of a shrug.  "It is like this,

Lehesu .  . ."  He told the Oswaft of the conflicts he felt in his

programming and that he was beginning to disapprove of those who had

imposed it on him.  It didn't seem right that he should be compelled to

stand by idly-at least what he considered to be idly-while the Navy

exterminated a gentle, admirable people.

"I see, " the alien replied at last.  "You know, we are in much

the same position.  I do not know whether I can take a life in my own

defense, either We are not a fighting people, as you so rightly have

observed.  Perhaps it is time for us to abandon lij@ to make room for a

more successful product of evolution.

The robot, not knowing what to say, said nothing.

"Then again, Vuffi Raa, we should go away only if we ca not

change.  If we can, we are a successful species, are we not?"

Momentarily, Vuffi Raa wished he could smoke a cigar like his

master.  It seemed to help the human think, and it lent a cei-tain

dignity to whatever answer he might give the Oswaft.  "I do not know,

my friend.  It seems wrong somehow that the success of a race be

measured by its ability to do violence.  There are other things in the

universe."

The Oswaft was no more capable of nodding than the robot.

"Still, one must consider that none of these things are an-v good

to one if one is dead " Vuffi Raa chuckled.  "You have a point, there,

Lehesu, you have a point."

"We are going to be too late!"  the Other complained.  "I know

it!"

"Peace, my old friend," the One replied.  "That is not yet a

foregone conclusion.  There are no foregone conclusions anymore.  And

even so, it is an experiment.  It would not be vali(l, did we

interfere.  Any result is a desired result, am I not correct in this?"

They bored through the endless night at a velocity that seemed a

crawl to them, although a good many physicists would have been

interested to know such a velocity was possible.  Behind them stretched

an endless line, the Rest who had come to witness the results of the

One's experiment.

"However," the Other replied, hesitating in his thought if not in

his headlong flight, "I have had a disturbing new thought which@' "That

was the purpose of the experiment, was it not?"

"Yes, yes.  But I do not believe you are going to be

particul-,trly happy with it.  You see, it has occurred to me that,

despite the unconventional methods by which you created our

experimental subject, and despite the obvious anatomical differences .

. ."  Here, the Other made a gesture emphasizing the smooth,

rounded shape of their kind.

"Yes?  Please continue."

"Do not be impatient; this is difficult.  I have come to believe

we have certain responsibilities toward this entityspecifically that

you do-beyond simple scientific inquiry."

There was a long pause as another several parsecs whisked behind

them.  Nor did the One reply at all.  For once his friend had pursued a

line of reasonin where he could not easily follow.  9

"You are its parent."

"What?"

"You brought it into existence.  You sent it out into the

universe.  We-you-cannot blandly let it be destroyed.  Such would be

reprehensible."

Again the One failed to respond.  The light-years rushed by ,is he

plunged himself deep into thought, pondering not only the question of

his responsibility, but the more disturbing thought that he had

overlooked the issue entirely.  Their experimental subject was a

thinking being, not to be trifled with as if it were an inanimate

object.  Apparently complacency had cost him more than progress and the

flavor of life, it had interruled badly with his ethical sensibilities.

At last: "I am afraid you are right, my old friend.

Congrattil;tte me, I am a father.  And by all means, let us hurry,

lest we he too late!"

"It's simple, really," Lando explained for the fifth time with as

little hope of success as he'd enjoyed the first four.  "You jump into

the middle of a pair of ships, do the little trick we've discussed, and

jump out.  The navy'll do the rest."

The gambler floated in the lotus position in the center of the

Cave of the Elders, Sen and Fey on either side of him.  Each of the

gigantic beings was at least five hundred times larger than he was.  He

felt like a virus having polite tea with a pair of bacteria.

"But Captainlandocalrissiansir, it is disgusting!"  Fey

complained.  "It is demeaning, beneath the dignity of any@' "How do you

feel about losing your transparency?"

"What do you mean?"

Lando drew on the cigar he'd gotten Vuffi Raa to build a holder

for in his suit helmet.  There was a slight bulge now in the faceplate,

and the air filters had needed overhauling' but at long last he could

sit and think properly in hard vacuum.

"Isn't death demeaning, beneath your dignity, disgusting?"

There was the distinct sensation that the younger of the two

Elders had blinked with surprise.  "Why, I had never thought of it that

way before."

Sen had remained silent through this argument.  Now he spoke up.

"Tell me, Lando, could you perform the physiolo(,ical equivalent

of this act?  To excrete bodily wastes in order t@, "You bet your 6iffy

I could!  Look: all that this requires is that you concentrate a

certain mix of heavy metals in your systems, hop to the right

coordinates, let your pores do their work, and hop out, leaving a

sensor-detectable Oswaft-shaped outline behind for the boys in gray to

shoot at.  Play your cards right and, human reaction-time being what it

is, they'll shoot each other, instead."

Sen and Fey thought about that.  For rather too long a time, Lando

thought.

"Listen, you two, you didn't hesitate to offer me all kinds of'

precious jewels, and you manufacture them in the same@' "It's not the

same at all!"  Fey wailed.  "Don't you understand that it's different

when one@' "Not from my cultural standpoint.  On the other hand, Navy

humans I know see a.big ethical difference between killing animals for

food and killing vegetables-although I've met a photosynthetic sentient

or two who might give them an argiiment.  Let's leave it that cultures

often have blindnesses about themselves where other cultures see more

clearly.  Can you c](@ this thing?"

The soft twinkling of precious stones gleamed through the

transparent Elders.  "Those of us who can will rendezvous with you at

your signal."

The gambler shrugged.  "Guess I can't ask for more than that, can

I?"

He sensed that Sen was smiling.  "No, I suppose you cannot, unless

one wishes to emulate the enemy we are about to fight."

As his fighter squadron passed through the mouth of the ThonBoka,

Klyn Shanga was fighting a nagging thought.  Like a tune that circles

through your consciousness all day (whether you like the tune or

not-and, more often than not, you don't), he was wondering about the

Ottdefa Osuno Whett.  Why did that son-of-a-mynock seem so familiar?

Where had he seen him before?

"Seventeen, square up a little on the mark.  You're lagging, and

it's putting a strain on the pinnace."

"Roger Zero Leader Executing.  " He gave a quick glance at the

other computer-generated indicators on his boards and settled back in

his acceleration couch again.  Where had he met the tall, skinny,

white-haired anthropologist before, and why did he have trouble

thinking of him as an academic.  What should he be?  A flunky of some

kind.  Whett was born to be a subordinate.

But why?  He came to the conclusion that it wasn't Whett's

appearance he remembered so vividly.  The voice, then?  A Inh,

whiny, nagging voice it was, full of a high opinion of himself that

didn't seem to fit the vague memory Shanga had.

It was like the false memories one experiences in dreams: you wake

up suddenly (and often with relief) knowing that the thing you

remembered never happened at all.  But Whett was real.

"Twenty-three to Zero Leader over "Go ahead, Bern."

"Sure.  How come we're not maintaining commo silence on This run?

I thought we were gonna surprise the little-" "They know we're

coming, and there's only one direction we can come from."

"Kinda like thatfirst raid we made south of Mathilde, after the

Betrayal, right?"  Nuladeg chuckled at the bloodsoaked memory.  It was

the only thing they could do.  The reminiscence wasn't that pleasant,

although they'd killed a thousand enemies that morning, caught them on

the ground before they got set up for defense.  He remembered the shock

he'd felt at the invasion, after all the friendly welcoming they'd done

for Vuffi Raa andNow why did that make him think of Whett again?

"Zero Leader to Twenty-three.  Bern, have you seen Gepta's pet

anthropologist, Osuno Whett?"

"Can't say as I have.  How come?"  Shanga could see the other

fighter's craft on the opposite side of the formation, its cockpit full

of cigar smoke.  He wondered how the little man breathed in that

atmosphere.

"I don't know, Bern, but there's something nagging me, and it seems

to be important."

"Stop chewing on it, then, boss.  Sleep it over It'll come to you

if it's important.  Core, you could use a little shut-eye, anyways.

Sit yourself back, and I'll take the con for a while.

"Thanks a lot, Bern, I appreciate it."

"Just so you don't make a habit of it.

"Roger, Twenty-three, and out."

The Ottdefa Osuno Whett looked over some highly peculiar data as

he sat in the cramped confines of his hiding place.  Outside, the stars

appeared motionless through the ports.  It was an illusion.

According to the almost microscopic spy devices he'd planted on

Gepta with only partial success, the wizard had indeed entered that

armored compartment aft of the W ennis through a tube scarcely larger

than a child's wrist diameter.  And somewhere within that tube,

according to these readouts, Gepta had ceased to exist, for the

dust-mote-sized recorders had drifted in the tube and remained there,

recording nothing, until the sorcerer again became himself Whatever

that was.

Whett shifted uncomfortably on his couch, not daring to show a

light that might be seen from the outside, not believing the readouts,

their displays stopped down to near invisibility.

He'd known others in his field-anthropology, not spyingwho'd

eventually come to believe in the primitive magic they studied,

otherwise serious scholars who thought that dancing, after all, at

least when performed a certain way by a certain people, could bring

rain.  Good minds gone to rot from nothing more than overexposure, some

malignant form of osmosis.

He'd always resisted that, regarded it as a failure both of

scientific detachment and personal integrity.  Now, he wasn't sure.

All right, the Sorcerers of Tund were supposed to have been

capable of all kinds of magic.  No one had ever claimed that they were

even human; that was a general assumption, and, like all general

assumptions, was probably mistaken.  Nonetheless ...

What species was naturally capable of the thing his instruments

had witnessed?  Gepta had returned through the tube, the electronic

motes adhering to him again as he, whatmaterialized?  And what was that

weird, unknown radiation that, despite armor he now realized was not

one but two meters thick, incredibly still leaked out when Gepta had

been inside the compartment for a few minutes?

And most of all, what, in the Name of the Core, was Rokur Gepta?

xvi "MASTER, WE'VE GOT company"' "All right Vuffi Raa, I'm

coming!"

Lando jumped up from his seat in the lounge where he'd been

programming tactics for the Oswaft.  Out of over a billion of the

creatures, less than a thousand had agreed to play his @,r(,@at game of

sabacc, live or die.  He ran around the corridor to the cockpit and

flung himself into the righthand seat.

"Where away?"

The robot indicated a tightly strung series of blips on the

long-range sensors.  "Fighters, Master, the same kind we fought in the

Oseon.  I make it twenty-no, twenty-five.  I don't know what that big

thing in the middle is."

The gambler nodded.  "I wonder if it isn't the same group.

They don't look like a tactical fighter wing, and they're using

the same formation they did before.  Last time it was a battleship

engine."  He began throwing switches, bringing the Falcon's defensive

armament to full readiness.

"Oh my," Vuffi Raa said in a subdued voice, "the Renatasians.

Sometimes I think it would be better just to surrender myself to

them.

If only they knew the truth."

"Cut it out, sprocket-head!  They know the truth, it's just too

hard to let go of a scapegoat once you've got him by the chinwhiskers.

Let's surprise those mynock-smoochers by going out to meet them,

what say?"

The robot's tentacles began dancing over the boards.  "My

sentiments exactly, Master, that's what we came here for in the first

place, wasn't it?"

Lando rose, steadying himself against a chair as vibrations washed

through the ship.  "Quite right, although I wasn't sure we'd sucker the

Renatasians in, too.  Gepta's overdue.  How can he resist having us

trapped here in the StarCave?"

"Don't worry, Master, he'll show up."

"Swell."  The gambler made haste aft to the tunnel connecting with

the quad-gun bubble, reached the swiveling chair and strapped himself

in.  "Well, old friend, let's go!"

"Yes, Master" the intercom answered.  "Full power coming up!

As the Falcon rushed to meet the foe, Lando reviewed his plans.

The Oswaft wouldn't strike the small group of fighters.

He'd cranked his ideas through the computer and, from there,

directly into their brains.  They now knew as much about tactics as he

did.

Refocusing on the task at hand, he Timbered up, swung the guns up

and down, side to side.  The chairjollowed with them, giving him an

exhilarating ride that was probably the real reason he liked the weapon

so much.  He keyed the intertalkie.

"Test coming up-and don't call me master."

" Yes, Mas"Got you that time."  Using one of the stars for a point

of aim, he pressed both thumbs down on the triggers.  Bolts of

high-intensity energy shot from the guns as they pumped back and forth

in their odd pattern, much like the reciprocating machine guns of old.

Only now, it was to avoid a backwash of power that would have

fused the muzzles of the nonfiring barrels.  He fired the guns again,

then looked at the repeater screen to see what Vuffi Raa was seeing up

ahead.

"One thousand kilometers and closing, Master That central object

is a ship's pinnace.  I believe they used itfor tow Shieldv up at

eight-ri@ kilometers.  They're beginning to cast off the pinnace.  "

"Hold her steady, little friend, let them make the first pass."

On his screen, Lando could see that the fighters had erected their

deflection, too.  Fighter shields were notoriously porous, there just

wasn't enough shi@r engine-to support them.

That's one thing that made a vessel the size of the Falcon so

handy.

"Five hundred kilometers, Master Now the fighters were visible as

tiny dots of light, pseudostars against the starry background of the

ThonBoka mouth.  Lando brought his guns to bear, swinging to meet the

enemies' maneuvers, getting a feel for them.  Felt like Klyn Shanga's

bunch, all fight.  Apparently they'd teamed up with the sorcerer and

the Navy.

Two fighters streaked over the Falcon.  Lando poured destructive

energy at them, but the pass was too fast for either side to do any

damage.  They were probably confim-ling that this was, indeed, the

Millennium Falcon, Vuffi Raa, a.k.a. the Butcher of Renatasia, first

mate.

The robot heeled the ship steeply.  "Two coming up from below!

"Let 'em come!"  The ship's beefed-up shields would be a surprise.

Lando held his fire until the last moment, then pounded into the

larger ship of the two.  Its shielding lasted all of' a millisecond,

then there was an explosion and the vessel coi-kscrewed off, badly

damaged.

He swung the guns around, but the second fighter had passed

overhead and was gone.  One down, he thought, and by Vuffi Raa's

estimate, twenty-four to go.  "Damage report!"

"Nothing to report, Master Our shields held fine.

"You do great work.  Where'd they go?"

The question was answered as six fighters bored directly for the

freighter.  Lando sprayed the space in front of them with energy, the

ship's lights dimming briefly as he did.  They veered sharply, unable

to match his fire at that range.

"Master!  Bandits straight ahead!  Eleven of them!"

"Well, slew the ship!  I can't reach them from here!  No!

Cancel that!  I've got trouble enough!"

Four of the original six were back, shooting hard.  Lando matched

them shot for shot, smoked another, then caught a figher with a direct

hit.  It blossomed into an enormous ball of tiny sparks and

disappeared.  But the others didn't give up yet.

Even the wounded ship executed a wide, clumsy circle and came

back.  Lando centered the lead fighter in his crosshairs, thumbed the

ignition, and growled.

Another fireball.  Another hit on the crippled ship, which

wobbled, skidded off, then suddenly exploded.  The remainin@ fighter

fought its way around a corner and lunged out of range.

It'd be back.

"Clear, now!  Turn the ship!"

"Too late, Master I destroyed two fighters and the other nine

broke off."

There was a long, startled pause that nearly cost the two their

lives.  A single fighter came in at top speed, fired all its retros,

dumped its load of lethal energy directly onto the stern tubes, the

weakest portion of the shielding.  Lando started, more frightened at

his inattention than by the fighter.  He swung the quad-guns aft, fired

and fired until the single fighter vanished in a cloud of smoke.

The pilot of that vessel couldn't have been more surprised than

Lando was.  "You say you shot down two fighters, old pacifist?"  This

much was true: there was a pair of small guns, usually ineffective

against anything bigger than a rowboat, located on the upper surface of

the ship and controllable from the cockpit.  Lando had wanted them

synchronized, which would effectively quadruple their power, and Vuffi

Raa had gotten around to it in the last few days.

Still, there was no reply from the control deck.

"Vuffi Raa, are you all right?"

No answer.

The fighter group had broken off momentarily, licking their

wounds, no doubt, and sizing up the Falcon.  If it was Shanga's people,

they were probably surprised to meet two columns of' fire coming in.

Or were they?  Tactically, they'd known Vuffi Raa couldn't shoot

back, yet politically (psychologically?  sociologically?) he was the

most murderous villain in their history.  How did they resolve a

conflict like that?

"Vuffi Raa, speak to me!"

"Yes, Master I beg your pardon, and I'll tell you all about it

later No time now@urfriends are back!"

This time they came in force.  Lando counted seventeen before he

got busy, which agreed approximately with the five kills and one

probable they'd scored thus far.  Lando wasn't taking trophies; it

wasn't in him to do it.  He simply wanted to know how near the end of

the fight they were getting.  He wanted a cigar.

This time they gave it all they had, as well.  Lando slugged it

out, and he could sense the drain on the ship's engines that meant

Vuffi Raa was shooting while he steered the ship.  Still, the shields

were taking a terrific pounding, and yellow lights, to judge from the

robot's shouted reports, were showing up like fireflies on the boards.

Then a bright light bloomed where Lando's guns weren't pointed and

Vuffi Raa's couldn't be.  Standing off, without the benefit of shields,

was Lehesu.  He turned slowly, majestically, shouted" at another

fighter, which turned into a knot of greasy smoke, then disappeared

himself, to show up on the other side of the ship.

The fighters broke off at some distance; peace reigned

momentarily.

"Lehesu, you old ace!  I thought you were with your people!"

"My people are intelligent life everywhere, Captainmaster I saw

you needed help, and-" The gambler frowned.  "I wouldn't exactly say we

needed help, exactly."  Retrieving a cigar from where he'd tucked it in

his boot top, he lit it and settled back for a moment.

"I would, " Vuffi Raa said.  "Thank you, Lehesu, and thank you for

the talk.  I seem to have resolved the conflict in my programming.  "

Keeping an eye on the indicators for further intruders, Lando asked,

"Where are your people, Lehesu; are they waitin- to follow my program?"

"No Captainmaster Instead, they have followed your example.  They

have gone to confront the fleet instead of waiting for it.

The entity whom Lando referred to as Sen was gratified.

Something far more than a thousand Oswaft swam now behind him,

many more than he had counted on, shamed by

Captainmasteriandocalrissiansir's valiant example-and possibly his

successes against the first wave of the enemy.  He directed a thought

toward Fey.

"How many would you say we are, old friend?"

"Perhaps as many as a million.  The rest have followed another of

the human's suggestions: they are concealing themselves in the walls of

the StarCave."

A mental shrug.  "Well, they may be right, and that may save us

from extinction better than doing battle with these monsters.  This

idea of individual dissent that Lehesu forced upon us may have its

uses.  Different opinions produce different modes of survival, one or

more of which may succeed."

The fleet grew as they approached it.

"I do not know," Fey said.  "I believe I would prefer to be

playing sabacc just now.  The notion of being killed@' "Is faintly

refreshing," finished the older of the two Elders.

"Lehesu is right: it is better than sitting around becoming

stagnant."

"Everyone to his own preferences," Fey answered wryly.

Aboard the Reluctant, a gunner's mate finally tore his eyes away

from the scope.  "A million of 'em!  Core save us, there's a million of

'em out there!"

His supervisor hurried over, looked down from the catwalk into the

mate's instruments while the mate looked up in fear and wonder at him.

"You're wrong, son, the computer's making a new estimate.  Make

that two million."

Sen chuckled to himself as he hopped out of the artificial skin

he'd just generated, leaving it behind to confound the enemy.  Their

sensors would now be registering three million Oswaft, and even if they

fathomed the trick, they wouldn't know which outline to shoot at.

One chance in three of getting killed, instead of unity.  You

could learn things from sabacc.  He hopped another hundred meters,

paused, and made it one chance in four.  Every step his people took

this way increased their apparent numbers arithmetically.  The real

test would come when they reached the fleet and began swimming in its

midst.

"Are you ready, old friend?"  asked Fey at his side.

"No.  Let's go."

Their first leap took them within firing distance of the

Reluctant.  Before she could bring their guns to bear, they were gone.

Sen angled his next jump to place him between that vessel and the

next in the metallic swarm.  He hopped, created a ghost of himself, and

hopped again, this time to a safe place where he could watch.

Reluctant belied her name and fired!  The powerfully huge bolt, a

recent Imperial development, sliced through the false Oswaft, scoring a

deep and crippling hit on her sister vessel, who had fired only

slightly behind the other ship.  This bolt was a near miss, but it

caught an escort fighter and vaporized him instantly.  The Oswaft

outline dissolved and was gone.

Sen jumped again, creating another threatening image of himself.

It had much the same effect as the first: the enemy counted on a

target to absorb the lethal force of his guns before they struck a

sister vessel.  They were wrong, and discovering it too slowly.  A

million Oswaft followed Sen and Fey, repeating the same actions.  Space

was lit with thousands of fierce, futile bolts.  Men died by the

hundreds until the trick was finally puzzled out.

By then it was too late.  Shouting at the top of his voice, Sen

crumpled a pair of fighters, then concentrated his energies on a

cruiser.  Lando was right: her shields were too dense to have any

effect.  He stopped shouting at everything but the gnatlike fighters,

and hopped and hopped, making sure each time to place himself between

two capital ships.

For their part, as they saw the destruction of their own numbers

by their own guns, the navy slowed even more, trying to aim its fire so

as not to endanger the fleet.  This was useless: either there was

nothing to shoot at, or the bolt would knife through the observed

enemy, blasting a cruiser or a dreadnaught instead.

In fifteen minutes, the fleet was reduced by II percent.  Then the

shooting stopped.

By that time, Shanga's dinidnished squadron had made two more runs

against the Falcon, losing another fighter.  With Vuffi Raa at the

controls, the freighter had gradually drawn them nearer where the fleet

was busily destroying itself Fire leaped here and there, lighting up

the eternal night.  Navy fighters blew up, showering their mother

vessels with debris, spreading damage further.  The Oswaft darted in

and out, their numbers very slightly diminished, too, as the sentients

grew tired or careless.

' Aboard the Falcon, Lando bore down on the quadgun once again,

turning a small spacecraft into drifting junk.

"Say, that wasn't one of our bandits!  That was a navy fighter.

Where the Core are we, Vuffi Raa?"

From the control room, the robot replied.  "Entering the zone of

conflict between the Oswaft and the fleet.  I'll try to keep us clear

of any large ships, since we-There!  Got another one!since we can't

maneuver like the spacepeople.  " A cluster of fighters swooped past

the Falcon, ignoring her while blasting toward a cruiser that was

breaking up.  Three Oswaft, concentrating all their power, had done

that when one of her shields was down momentarily, due to a collision

with a fighter.

Suddenly, Shanga's men were back, diving on the Falcon by turns,

drawing her fire, getting in shots of their own.  There was only one of

Lando, and his arms were getting weary from their constant work at the

quadguns.  The Falcon looped and soared, outmaneuvering the fighters

again and again.  Weapons flared, men died.

Without warning, all action ceased among the fleet.  The blast and

brilliance of shooting stopped as if someone had turned a switch.

Every fighter was recalled.

At the center of things now, Lando and Vuffi Raa and Lehesu

watched as a broad corridor was cleared among the ships.  Shields up,

they were immune to the Oswaft, and, as long as they didn't fire on the

vacuum-breathers, they suffered no more losses.

"Something on the scope, Master" "Keep me advised."

Through the space cleared by the fleet, an older-model cruiser

became visible, surface-coated dead black, bristling with an array of

unfamiliar equipment.  On its underside were emblazoned the arms of

Rokur Gepta himself.  On its sides were added the ship's name:

WENNIS

"-by edict!  You are commanded to cease fire and to surrender to

the nearest Imperial vessel immediately.  " Apparently, Vuffi Raa had

found the navy's frequency-or they had found the Falcon's and had

patched it through the intercom.  'As he listened, Lando saw one of his

auxiliary target screens go momentarily blank, then fill with the dark

and terrifyingly familiar image.

"This in the name and at the order of Rokur Gepta, Sorcerer of

Tund.  " And then: "Private to Captain Lando Calrissian of the

Millennium Falcon."  The wizard leaned conspiratorially into the

pickup.  "You have put up a valiant and brilliantly conceived fight,

sir but one which you shall inevitably lose, if only because I am

willing to throw half the resources of civilization at you, should it

prove necessary.  I could bury you with dead bodies, and fill this

entire nebula with the wrecks of ships, and I will.

"However I offer you an opportunity to minimize unnecessary

bloodshed, to settle things personally and at close hand between

ourselves, once and for all.  Nor have I need for the resources of half

an empire to persuade you.  At this very moment the power is mine to

exterminate every sentient being in this nebula, every flyspeck of

life, every hope that life again will everflourish here.

"Behold and bear witness!"

He raised a hand, as if in a magician's gesture.  Outside, from

one of the ungainly projections on the hull of the Wennis, there was a

faint, fast squirt of brilliant life.  Instantly it streaked toward a

cluster of gigantic Oswaft who, since ceasing to fight, had been

watching and listening.  Sen and Fey were among them.

As the light point reached them, they began glowing a pale, d

disappeared without a trace before their dying sickly green an screams

had faded.  Whatever the weapon was, it could discriminate between real

organic beings and the phony outlines I.ando had taught them to create.

Those remained like ghosts, hollow and insubstantial.

"That, my dear Captain Calrissian, was a demonstration employing

one times ten to the minus seventeenth of the power available to me.

The object was an electromagnetic torpedo, scarcely larger than a

filterable virus and programmed to setfdestruct after it had done its

work.  Had it not been so, this area around us would contain no life by

now, nor, within a week, would the entire nebula.

"I offer you, however an alternative.  Should you triumph, the

entire fleet shall go away.  Should I win, I shall release a thousand

tons of this destructive agent in the ThonBoka.

"As for ourselves personally, we shall fight a duel to the death.

xv

"WE HAVE ONE advantage, Master."

Vuffi Raa had just returned from the Wennis, where, at Gepta's

command, he had gone as Lando's.  second to receive the terms for the

duel.  Frost was turning into water on the little robot's

chron-iium-plated body and dripping off onto the floor of the tiny

airlock below the topside hatch.

"That's absolutely peachy, old go-between.  Any little boost would

be welcome, just now."  He looked out through a viewport.  On one side

the Falcon was englobed by the Navy, perhaps five hundred enormous

capital ships.

From another port, he could see they were hemmed in by Klyn

Shanga's squadron, what was left of it, in formation once again about

the pinnace.  The tractor field was off, and would have been invisible

in any case, but the arrangement gave them an instant choice between

two modes of movement.

Lando shook his head, and went on running down the longform

checklist, getting his best spacesuit up and ready for the coming

conflict.

"Yes, Master.  You'll recall he was the one responsible for your

winning me in the first place?  Well, it was he, who, well, supplied me

to the Ottdefa Osuno Whett.  He knows me rather well-and still believes

that he can program me to betray YOU."

The gambler looked up, set the pair of vacuum gauntlets he'd been

working on aside, and lit a cigar.  Possibly his last.

"How very interesting.  And can he?"

"Not at all.  What's even better is that he still believes me to

be bound by my earlier programming.  He thinks I cannot fight. Lando

grinned.  "You know, I'm not sure I understand that, D THE STARCAVE OF

THONBOKA 399

AN myself.  But of course that's why he offered to let you help me

out in this duel, to make up for his powers of magic, so he said."

The robot raised an affirmative tentacle.  "What now remains is

for us to plan what we will do once we're out there.  Have you an

idea?"

Lando drew a deep puff, let it out slowly, savoring it.  "I do,

indeed, old Saturday-night spatial.  The terms are one personal weapon

apiecet' "Not precisely, Master.  You are allowed one weapon, I am

allowed none.  He didn't specify what he would use.  I didn't ask.  It

seems we have no choice in this matter."

"No, but tell me, does he know about the way you let your

tentacles do their own thinking?"

The gleam in Vuffl Raa's faceted eye grew brighter.  "No, Master,

I don't believe he does."

"Swell.  Then here's what we'll do-and don't call me master."

Rokur Gepta stood in an airlock of the Wennis, watching the

Millennium Falcon through the bull's-eye in the hatch.  He could see

her captain and his droid climbing out of their own airlock as he

himself suited up.  The suit was a deep nonreflective gray, about the

color of the walls of the ThonBoka.  He turned to the officer beside

him, the nominal captain of the cruiser.

"You are certain that you understand my instructions?"

"Yes, sir," the unhappy-looking man replied.  "I am to exterminate

all life in the nebula, regardless of the outcome of the duel."  He

gulped at speaking what he felt to be a dishonorable and unmilitary

decision, and remained rigidly at attention as the sorcerer donned his

helmet.

"Precisely, Captain, and if you are entertaining any ideas of

countermanding that order in the event of my demise, please remember

that the continued existence of your family depends on its being

carried out.  That was the purpose of sending the courier to your home

system a few minutes ago.  Their lives are in your hands."

"Yes, sir."

"Very well, then, stand aside so that I may exhaust the

lock-unless you care to join me in the airless void?"

Klyn Shanga watched the accursed Vuffi Raa, Butcher of Renatasia,

climb out of the airlock of the Millennium Falcon.

The little monster was still wearing that spacesuit he'd affected

in the Oseon that made him appear to be a robot.  Shanga began flipping

switches; turbines whined as power levels increased.  One trembling

hand remained on the button of his weapon system.  Steady, old soldier,

he told himself, only a few more minutes.

Suddenly, a fighter across the formation from him slid forward,

gaining speed as it approached the Falcon.  Shanga opened his mouth to

scream "Bern, no!"  when a man-thick power beam from the Wennis struck

fighter number Twentythree, blowing it to bits.

"Sorry, Admiral Shanga, " a voice said over the intership.

"Orders from the Sorcerer of Tund.  There is to be no

interference.

And no revenge, no justice, Shanga realized, unless he could

figure out something quickly.  Ten years of his life, of the lives of

all his men, down the drain, unlessMovement near the Wennis caught his

eye.  Rokur Gepta jetted from the airlock, crossed half the space

between the cruiser and the freighter, and came to a skillful hovering

stop.  He folded his spacesuited arms and hung, awaiting his

adversaries.

Across the void that had become an arena, Lando CaMssian followed

his example in a bright yellow spacesuit, rocketing to meet the

sorcerer, stopping several dozen meters away.  Vuffi Raa was right

behind him.

Something on the order of a billion pairs of eyes-or equivalent

sensory equipment-watched as the sorcerer inclined his head in a small,

grudging bow.  Without further warning, his right hand lashed out, and

a beam of energy struck the place where Lando-had been.  He tumbled,

spun, and recovered, something small and glittering in his own hand,

but didn't return fire.

Soaring, he made a complicated figure in the vacuum as Gepta fired

twice more, missing both times.  While the sorcerer was thus

distracted, Vuffi Raa circled warily, working his way behind the

gray-clad figure.  Two more shots, then Gepta realized that he was

being deceived.  He whirled, just as the robot's tentacles separated

from his pentagonal body, spreading, encircling the sorcerer's

position, and moving in.

Almost hysterically, Gepta tried to burn the tentacles, but they

wriggled and squirmed as they came toward him, each limb no longer

where it had been when the aim was taken.

Closer they came, closer.

Landofired!  striking Gepta squarely in the back.  Incredibly, the

stingbeam's energy passed through the sorcerer harmlessly, nearly

striking Vuffi Raa's body, which was backing, slowly, clumsily away

from the fight while it directed the tentacles to the attack.

Gepta whirled again, getting off three shots at the gambler.

The last one hit him in the foot.  There was a puff of steam and a

hissing audible only to Lando, then the suit sealed, its medical

processes already shutting off the pain.  He had no idea how badly he'd

been hurt, but he knew that he could still fight.

He fired a second of his five shots, again taking the sorcerer in

the center of the torso.  Again the beam sliced through without

apparent damage.

Then a tentacle grasped Gepta around the neck.

The gray-suited figure struggled, trying to unwrap the

chromium-plated limb, but it hung on grimly.  From his vantage point

in the squadron, Klyn Shanga watched, then was suddenly struck blind by

a thought: Vuffi Raa, so-called Butcher of Renatasia, really was a

robot!

Nothing else could explain the independent limbs.  But if that was

true, then what of their mission of revenge?  What of the only purpose

they had had for living, since the death of their civilization.  What

ofAbruptly, there was a surge of motion as the tenuous hold of tractors

at a hundredth power was broken and the pinnace moved forward of its

own accord, leaving the fighters behind.

No one aboard the vessels of the fleet seemed to notice, so much

of their attention was riveted on the duel.

But Shanga did.

"What's going on, there?  Who's in the pinnace?"

,it is I, the Ottdefa Osuno Whett, " - Came the electronic reply.

"I'm going to end this farce, destroy the robot and the gambler@and

perhaps Rokur Gepta, in the bargain!  None of them are fit to-" Another

blinding flash of recognition.  It was the voice that did it, separated

now from the assumed appearance.  Whett was the Butcher's aide!  Whett

was the Butcher's assistant!  Whett was-the Butcher himself!  It had to

be!  No other explanation was possible.

Heeling his fighter over, Klyn Shanga thumbed his weapons at the

pinnace.  The larger vessel's shields were up, however, shields

designed to protect an admiral's tender person during ship-to-ship and

ship-to-planet transfers.  Shanga's fire coruscated off the invisible

barrier.

"This is Zero Leader!"  he shouted on the squadron's frequency.

"Get that pinnace-the man we seek is aboard!  I'll explain later,

if we live!"  Desperately, he punched buttons on the remote console

that had controlled the pinnace on the trip out.

He couldn't prevent Whett from driving it, nor drop its shields,

but he could keep it out of hyperdrive and lock the tractor field.

He did the latter.  The squadron snapped into to rmation.

Opening his small ship's engines all the way, he screamed at his

men to do the same.  Slowly, inexorably, the assemblage of ships

achieved headway.

Abruptly, someone aboard the Wennis noticed the motion.

"Zero leader this is the Wennis!  Halt immediately, or we'll blast

you out of the nebula!"  The warning was repeated Gathering speed now,

Shanga steered his squadron and' their captive-who was desperately and

ineffectually attempting to reverse things from the pinnace-toward the

decommissioned cruiser.  Faster and faster, skirting the space where

the battle between Gepta and Lando and Vuffi Raa still raged, they

zeroed in on the larger vessel-.

A broad beam of power struck the pinnace squarely on the bow.  Her

shields held, and the energy, sluicing off the deflectors, missed the

lightly shielded fighters as well.  As they came within a few hundred

meters of the Wennis, Shanga abruptly cast off the tractor field and

flipped his craft around.  Years of reflex allowed his men to follow

the motion like a school of fish.

The pinnace struck the Wennis-her own shields negligently still

powered down to allow the sorcerer to debark-and penetrated her hull.

There was a brief instant in which nothing else happened, a

suspension of time as inertia was overcome, as systems attempted to

control the damage and failed.

Then a titanic explosion as the cruiser belched flaming gases

everywhere, consuming herself, the pinnace, and everyone aboard both

vessels.  Even two of the fleeing fighters were tumbled badly.

Farther away, Rokur Gepta, Vuffi Raa, and Lando were chstracted by

the explosion.  Gepta stared insanely.  Lando recovered first, took

aim, and-was struck by a piece of flying debris.  His shot went wild,

hitting the sorcerer in the ankle.  In shock, Lando recovered and

watched as the form of Rokur Gepta withered and faded.  He jetted up

beside the magician in time to see a heavy military blaster swing

around, fire, swing a little farther, and fire again.

Vuffi Raa's tentacle floated emptily with nothing left to hold

onto.  The third shot, cast by an unconscious and dematerializing hand,

caught the robot's torso, a hundred meters away, dead in the center.

The metal glowed momentarily.  When the incandescence dimmed, so

had the single red eye in the body's center.  It was flat, glassy, and

black.

Lando pawed through Rokur Gepta's empty spacesuit.

Down in the leg was a small bundle of ugly, slimy tissue,

resembling a half-cooked snail, an escargot with a dozen skinny, hairy

black legs.  It was one of the most disgusting things the gambler had

ever seen, but he'd seen it before.

It was a Croke, from a small, nasty system he'd once visited.  The

species was intelligent and unvaryingly vicious, and they were all

masters of camouflage and illusion.

This one wasn't quite dead.  The suit had protected it, and it was

nearly impervious to hard vacuum.  Lando ripped the suit away, took the

stunned and putrid creature that had been Rokur Gepta, and squeezed.

When he was through, his suit gloves were covered with greasy

slime, but no Sorcerer of Tund would ever rule the galaxy.

As if Gepta's death were a signal, the fleet began to open up on

the Oswaft within range.  In the space of a moment, hundreds died ...

until the fleet had other things to think about; Klyn Shanga's

squadron was shooting back, giving the vacuum-breathing sapients

covering fire so they could retreat.  One fighter exploded, then

another, but they were saving Oswaft lives.

"CEASE FIRE IMMEDIATELY OR BE DESTROYED!"

The voice came over everybody's communicators simultaneously, at

every frequency.  Lando looked up from his little friend's scorched

torso-he'd gathered in the tentacles, as well, but they would not

attach themselves and lay in his arms like so many dead pieces of

jointed metal-to see a figure that dwarfed the departed Elders, even

the largest dreadnaughts in the fleet.

It was a starship, but it was at least fifty kilometers in

diameter, a smooth, featureless, highly polished ovoid of silvery

metal.  Another, identical monster followed close behind it.  Far to

the rear, Lando watched as others, countless others, penetrated the

supposedly impenetrable wall of the ThonBoka as if it were so much fog.

Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands.

Some fool aboard the Recalcitrant opened fire with the new

meter-thick destructor beam, deep green and hungry.  A red beam from

the leading foreign ship met the green one squarely, forced it back a

meter at a time until it reached the navy cruiser.  A pause, then the

Recalcitrant became a cloud of incandescent gas.

"CEASE FIRE OR BE DESTROYED!  THERE WILL BE NO OTHER WING!"

Racked with grief, Lando watched as more and more of the titanic

ovoids appeared in the nebula.  There was no way toes timate their

number.  The gambler thought they might fill up the StarCave, twelve

light-years across as it might be.

Then a sensation brushed past him.  Somehow he knew that only he

could hear the tightly beamed message that issued from his helmet

phones.

"You are Captain Caltissian, are you not?  You have fought

valiantly, and not in vain.  You grieve for your little friend I

grieve, too, f or he was my only son.

xv

"SABACC!"  SAID THE One.  "By the Center of Everything, Lando, I

knew we would learn new and valuable things if only we dared to."

"Yeah, well, you've still got to learn the difference between luck

and skill.  That's eighteen trillion I'm ahead of you already, counting

that last hand, and I don't even know yet what we're using for

currency!"

The gambler took a deep drag on his cigar and watched as the One

gathered in the seventy-eight-card deck with a sweep of a jointed

metallic tentacle.  His eye glowed a deep scarlet with delight and

anticipation as he dealt them out again, two to Lando, two more to Klyn

Shanga, two to the extensor manifesting itself as the Other.

"Foo bad," he continued.  "This game is a whole lot faster and

more interesting five-handed.  If only Vuffi Raa .  . ."

"Each of us," observed the Other, "sets his own course through the

universe and must follow it where it takes us.  This is called

integrity, and to deviate@' "Come on, you five-legged clowns, cut the

pop philosophy and play cards!  You know how long it's been since I sat

down Lando grinned.  "And tried filling inside straights all night at a

real table and@' long, Admiral?  At that, it beats dodging bullets and

destructor beams.  I'm glad you decided to be on our side, and I'm

especially glad you're a better fighter pilot than you are a sabacc

player."

"I'm only warming up.  Give me a chance, and I'll have your hide

the easy way: payable in cash!"

Laughter around the table.  It was good to have the lounge full of

visitors, the gambler thought; a real passenger lounge for a change.

But some folks seemed to be missing from his life, missing from

places they'd carved for themselves only recently.  Or relatively

recently.

"Heard from Lehesu yet?"  he asked, watching a Commander of Flasks

change itself into a Three of Staves.  He knew it was an electronic

trick, but it never failed to give him goosebumps.  Shanga was

frowning, a sure sign he had a good hand, Lando had learned quickly.

He kept his betting light.

The fighter pilot shook his head, still frowning.  "One of the

boys said something about seeing a middle-sized Oswaft zooming off

during the battle.  Said something about a courier he wanted to catch

up with.  Is it true the spacepeople want to make him High Supreme

Galootie or something?"

A mechanical chuckle issued from the extensor representing the

One.  "It would seem they have decided that leadership-or at least

wisdom@o not necessarily correlate positively with age.  This is

gratifying to me, as I am the youngest o my people ... that is, I was

before Vuffi Raa ... er, I believe I shall take another card,

gentle-beings."

Outside, far away across the StarCave, the actual repositories of

the intelligence of the One, the Other, and the Rest lay, as it were,

at anchor.  They were gigantic fifty-kilometer starships,

intergalactically self-propelled droids of ancient origin.

Shanga changed the subject.  "I never quite got who it was who

built you folks originally-that is, if you don't rilind me asking a

religious question."

"Not at all," the One replied.  "They were a race of individuals

who looked rather like these extensors.  There are some among us who

recall them, although I do not, except through cybernetically

handed-down memories.  They were not spacefarers; the idea simply

didn't appeal to them.  They were wiped out in a radiation storm when a

nearby star went supernova.  Only a few intelligent machines were left,

and they were my ancestors.  We did explore the stars, at least in our

arm.

There is a high incidence of unstable stars there, so that organic

life is rare."

"Yes," the Other concurred, "it was his idea to seek out organic

life to liven up our own culture, and here we are."

Lando shook his head.  He wished his little robot friend were

there to see this hand; it was a lulu.  "Yes, but first you sent out an

explorer whose memories were suppressed and who could not act

violently.  That way he'd generate fresh impressions and not get your

civilization into trouble with others unless it was absolutely

necessary."

"Correct," the One said.  "And while the suppression worked, the

conditioning did not.  Self-preservation is a powerful motive, even

though in the end-sabacc!"

"Beginner's luck!"  the professional gambler howled, wondering how

much he'd lost this time.  He heard footsteps behind him, turned and

looked down the curving corridor toward the engine area.  A figure

stood there, covered with grease, a spanner in one of its hands.  Its

five-sided carapace was still scorched.

"I got the deflectors readjusted, Master," Vuffi Raa said.

"Admiral Shanga's men are good shots, but that weakness won't show

up again now!"

"Fine.  Now will you please stop being dutiful and join the game?

And don't call me master in front of your old man, here, it's

embarrassing."

Hours later, two days after the battle and departure of the fleet,

Lando was dozing in his pilot's chair in the cockpit.

Vuffi Raa was out somewhere, visiting his kinfolk.

"Captainmasterlandocalrissiansir I have returned.  " the

ship-to-ship said.

by so ron-nal all of a sudden"Zzzzz-what?  Leh@su!  W and where

the Core have you been?"  The gambler had heard it suggested that the

young Oswaft had run away from defending the ThonBoka.  He didn't

believe it for a moment, but he was curious.

"Oh, just before your duel with Rokur Gepta, I heard him tell an

officer-his helmet microphone was open, apparentlythat he was sending a

courier to have that person's family murdered should he disobey a

rather ugly order I hopped after him, but it took me a while to catch

up.  " Lando stretched, yawned, reached for a cigar.  "Oh?  What did

you do then, ask him to stop politely?"

"Why yes, and he did.  In several pieces, I'm afraid: I shouted it

at him.  " The gambler chuckled.  "So now you're home and going to be

the Elder of all you survey, is that how it is?"

There was a long pause.  "No, not precisely.  I told them I would

not be their Elder and if they wanted my advice, they wouldn't appoint

a new one.  I don't think they listened to me.

I wish neither to give nor receive orders-something I learned

from you, Lando my Lando his friend scratched his head, a gesture he'd

never had habitually until he'd picked it up from Vuffi Raa.  "I'm glad

to hear it.  What are you going to do with yourself, then?"

"Explore, discover the answers to questions.  Probably get in

trouble again.  But tell me, I am very confused on one point.the

Millennium Falcon is not really a person, is that correct?

Nor the cruiser Wennis?"

"The late, unlamented cruiser Wennis.  I don't know what that

life-destroying stuff was Gepta spewed around, but I'm glad it was

destroyed with her.  No, friend Lehesu, much as we may love her, the

Falcon is a machine."  He puffed on his cigar, anticipating the

Oswaft's next bewildered question.  "And before you ask, yes, the One,

the Other, and the Rest are indeed persons, of the mechanical

persuasion.  They think for themselves, the Falcon doesn't.  In a

sense, they are to you what Vuffi Raa is to me: you both live in free

space; it's your natural environment.  Vuffi Raa and I are

arms-and-legs types, born and bred in a gravity well and most

comfortable where there's light and heat and atmosphere."

"But Lando what is Vuffi Raa?"

"A larval'siarship, if you believe him.  The organic people who

invented his ancestors looked like him, built machines that looked like

him-the same idea as a humanoid robot.  Today his people use

'extensors'-manipulators-that still look -like him.  If he's a good

little hot and eats all his spinach, he'll grow up to be a starship,

too, If he wants to."

Concern tinged the vacuum-breather's transmission.  "I'm told that

he was nearly killed while I was gone.  Ifeel somewhat guilty for-"

"Forget it, old jellyfish, his daddy repaired him in just a few hours.

What counts is the memory, the experiences, the character, and

they were all intact, protected in googolicate at the deepest levels of

his being.  No little blaster was going to do more than freeze him up

mechanically."

"What will you do now, Lando?"

"Well, I think it's time I gave up this wandering life, if only

for a while.  I need to do something responsible, own something, have

some obligations.  I'll think about it.  I've learned a lot, and I have

plenty to get started on.  The Falcon's holds are full of gigantic

gemstones-every variety I've ever seen or heard of, and a few I'm going

to have to consult experts on.

I could buy an entire city."

"And Vuffi Raa?"

"I don't know, old manta, I don't know."

The Millennium Falcon's engines thrummed with pent up energy.  She

was eager to go back into intergalactic space, eager for another

adventure.  In her cockpit, Vuffi Raa was finishing up a lecture: "And

be sure to back the engines off at least three percent when initiating

the deflector shields, otherwise the surge will overload her, and-" "I

know, I know, I know," her captain replied patiently while trying to

suppress tears.  "The only thing I don't understand is why you're going

back this very minute.  Why can't you-" "Master, it is a bargain I have

made.  I would much prefer, like you and Lehesu, to continue exploring

the universe, to have adventure and savor life.  I will again, someday.

But I was constructed for the purpose of recording those

experiences and relaying them to my people.  I feel the need to do

this, as you feel the need to breathe.  Do you understand, Master?"

"I understand."  He patted the little droid's shiny torso.  The

rest of the blast damage had healed, and the robot looked as new and

perfect as the day they'd met.  "Well, if you ever get back to this arm

of the galaxy, you know how to find me, don't you?  I haven't much in

the way of a permanent address."

There was an electronic chuckle.  "I'll just go where there's the

most trouble and noise, and there'll you be, Master."

"Not on your life!  I'm going to settle down, be responsible.

And Vuffi Raa?"

"Yes, Master?"

"Don't you think, now that you know exactly who and what you are,

that you could stop calling me master?"

"Why, I suppose so, Lando.  Why didn't you ask me before?"