II

THEY knew they’d be watched, of course, from the moment they docked their battered freighter.

Etti IV was a planet open to general trade, a world where dry winds swept amber, moss-covered plains and shallow, saline seas beneath vermilion skies. It had no remarkable resources in and of itself, but was hospitable to humans and humanoids and occupied a strategic spot on star-routes.

On Etti IV, great wealth had been gathered by lords of the Corporate Sector, and with this wealth had come its universal corollary, a thriving criminal element. Now, Han and Chewbacca made their way down a street of fusion-formed soil, between low buildings of press-bonded minerals and tall ones of permacite and shaped formex. They wove through the spaceport toward the Authority Currency Exchange, with the Wookiee guiding a rented repulsor-lift handtruck. On the handtruck were cases resembling strongboxes, and it was for that reason that the two assumed they’d be watched. The boxes were just the sort of thing to pique the curiosities of assorted criminal types.

But the duo also knew that any watchers would weigh risk against revenue. In the risk column would be Han’s gunman’s rig and his loose, confident gait, plus Chewbacca’s looming presence and ready bowcaster, not to mention the strength and ferocity to twist any attacker’s body into new and different shapes.

So they went their way in confidence, knowing that, as targets, they would appeal to neither the good business sense nor the survival instincts of any would-be stickup artist.

The Authority Currency Exchange had no idea it was abetting a transaction involving gunrunning and insurrection. Han and Chewbacca had already managed to unload the gems with which they’d been paid, exchanging them for precious metals and rare crystalline vertexes. In a Corporate Sector encompassing tens of thousands of star systems, the kind of record-keeping that could keep track of every debt and payment was beyond even the most sophisticated data system. So, without a hitch, Han Solo, tramp freighter captain, smuggler, and freelance law-bender, had converted most of his payment into a nice neat Authority Cash Voucher. If he’d had a hat, he’d have tipped it to the chirping disbursements auto-clerk that spat the voucher at him. He tucked the little plastic chit into a vest pocket.

When they’d left the Exchange, the Wookiee let out one of his long, hooting barks. Han answered, “Yeah, yeah, we’ll pay Ploovo Two-For-One, but first we’ve got one stop to make.”

His sidekick growled loudly, startling bystanders with his displeasure and inviting a dangerous sort of attention. A detachment of Security Police appeared out of the swirl of humans, ’droids, and nonhumans moving along the street.

“Hey, lighten up, pal!” Han murmured out of the side of his mouth. The brown-uniformed Security Police, their suspicious eyes darting beneath battle helmets, sauntered along four abreast, their weapons held ready, as pedestrians moved quickly out of their way. Han saw two of the black battle helmets bob, and knew they’d heard the Wookiee’s outburst. But the disturbance apparently didn’t merit their attention, and the detachment went its way.

Han stared after them, shaking his head. There were all kinds of cops in the galaxy, some of them good, some not. But the Authority’s private Security Police—“Espos,” in slangtalk—were among the worst. Their enforcements had nothing to do with law or justice, but only with the edicts of the Corporate Sector Authority. Han had never been able to figure out what turned a man into an unquestioning Espo bully-boy; he merely tried to ensure that he didn’t cross trails with any of them.

Remembering Chewbacca, he resumed their conversation. “Like I said, we’ll pay Ploovo. This stop-off won’t take a minute. We’ll meet him right after, like we planned, square things, and go our way free and clear.”

The placated Wookiee carped noncommittally but fell in beside his partner again.

   Because Etti IV’s monied classes required conspicuous means of demonstrating their wealth, the spaceport harbored several exotic pet stores, featuring rare or unique stock from the immeasurable expanses of the Empire. Subodor’s was, by general consensus, the best of them. It was there that Han went.

The store’s muting system, expensive as it was, couldn’t mask all the scents and sounds of the curious life forms somewhat loosely collected there under the dubious classification: Pets. Among the species on display were such premium specimens as the spidery night-gliders of Altarrn, the iridescent-feathered song serpents from the deserts of Proxima Dibal’s single planet, and the tiny, tubby, clownish marsupials from Kimanan that were commonly called furballs. Cages and cases, tanks and environmental bubbles, teemed with glowing eyes, restless tentacles, clicking chelae, and wobbling pseudopodia.

The proprietor instantly appeared, Sabodor himself, a denizen of Rakrir. His short, segmented, tubular body scuttled along on five pairs of versatile limbs, his two long eyestalks moving and rotating constantly. Seeing the pair, Sabodor rose up on his last two sets of limbs, his uplifted eyestalks reaching nearly to the level of Han’s chest, inspecting him from all angles.

“Ever so sorry,” Sabodor’s voice twittered from the cantilevered vocal organ located at the center of his midsection. “I don’t deal in Wookiees. They’re a sentient species; can’t use them as pets. Illegal. I’ve got no use for a Wookiee.”

Chewbacca cut loose with a furious roar, showing his fearsome teeth, stamping a hairy foot the size of a platter. Display racks shook and cases vibrated. Emitting a squeal, the terrified Sabodor scooted past Han, his foremost limbs clapped over his hearing orifices. The pilot tried to calm his big friend, while dozens of pets began chorusing their answering chitters, hums, screams, and tweets, bouncing around their respective confinements in fear and agitation.

“Chewy, easy! He didn’t mean it,” Han soothed, blocking the Wookiee from a violent laying of hands upon the quivering shopkeeper.

Sabodor’s trembling eyestalks appeared, one to either side of Han’s knees. “Tell the Wookiee no offense. An honest mistake, was it not? No insult intended.”

Chewbacca quieted somewhat. Han, remembering all the Security Police in port, was grateful. “We came in to buy something,” he told Sabodor as the proprietor rippled away from him in reverse gear. “Hear me? Buy.”

“Buy? Buy! Oh, come, sir, and see-see-see! Any pet worth having is to be had at Sabodor’s, best in the Sector. We have—”

Han had waved him to silence. He laid a friendly hand on the spot where the overwrought little shopkeeper’s shoulder would have been, if he’d had one. “Sabodor, I’m going to make this transaction easy. What I want is a Dinko. You have one?”

“Dinko?” Sabodor’s tiny mouth and olfactory cluster somehow cooperated with his recoiling eyestalks to convey disgust. “What for? A Dinko? Revolting, ugh!”

Han’s mouth tugged in a wry smile. He produced a handful of cash, riffling it invitingly. “Got one for me?”

“Can do! Wait right here!” Sabodor, undulating excitedly, flowed away into a back room. Han and Chewbacca barely had time to gaze around before the proprietor was back. In his upper two pairs of appendages he held a clear case. Inside was the Dinko.

Few creatures enjoyed the dubious notoriety accorded to Dinkoes, whose temperament came quite close to pure psychopathy. One of the mysteries of the zoological world was how the little terrors tolerated one another long enough to reproduce. Small enough to fit in a man’s palm—if that man were indiscreet enough to pick it up—the Dinko glowered out at them. Its powerful rear legs moved constantly, and the twin pairs of grasping extremities on its chest pinched the air, longing for something upon which to fasten. Its long tongue flickered in and out between wicked, glittery fangs.

“Is it de-scented?” Han asked.

“Oh, no! And it’s been in rut ever since it was transshipped. But it’s been de-venomed.”

Chewbacca grinned, his black nose wrinkling.

Han asked, “How much?”

Sabodor named an exorbitant sum. Han counted through his sheaf of cash. “I’ll give you exactly one half that, agreed?”

The eyestalks, flopping about in distress, seemed close to tears. The Wookiee, snorting, leaned down at Sabodor, who shrank again behind the dubious safety of Han’s knees. “Admit it, Sabodor,” Han invited cheerfully, “it’s a good deal.”

“You win,” wailed the proprietor. He proffered the case. The Dinko threw itself from side to side of its container, foaming at the chops.

“One more thing,” Han added blithely. “I want you to give it a light sedation dosage so I can handle it for a moment. Then you can give it to me in a different box, something opaque.”

That was really two things, but Sabodor agreed dejectedly, eager to have the Wookiee, the human, and the Dinko all out of his establishment as soon as possible.

   Ploovo Two-For-One, loan shark and former robber, smash-and-grab man, and bunko-steerer out of the Cron Drift, looked forward with pleasure to collecting the outstanding debt from Han Solo.

He was elated, not only because the original loan would reap a splendid profit for himself and his backers, but also because he thoroughly hated Solo, and an interesting form of revenge had materialized.

The message from Solo, promising repayment, had stipulated a meeting here on Etti IV, in the spaceport’s most elegant bistro. That had been all right with Ploovo Two-For-One; his creed was that toil and enjoyment should be combined whenever feasible. The Free-Flight Dance Dome was more than satisfactory; it was opulent. Ploovo himself was far from charming, a bad-tempered hulk of a man whose face was subject to a nervous tic; but his income gave him a certain conspicuous social viability.

He sprawled onto a conform-lounger at a corner table, joined by the three retainers he’d brought along. Two of these were humans, hard-bitten men with a number of weapons concealed on and about their persons. The third was a long-snouted, scaly-skinned biped, native of Davnar II, who possessed a true flair for execution.

Ploovo, flashing more than enough currency to create an inspired sense of hospitality in the waitress, primped at his black, oily topknot. While he waited, he gloated over his anticipated revenge on Han Solo. Not that the pilot wouldn’t repay. The loan shark was certain of getting his money. But Solo had long been an irritant, always ready with some dazzling evasion of payment, jeering Ploovo and bewildering him at the same time. On a number of occasions Ploovo had lost face with his backers because of run-ins with Solo, and his backers weren’t the sort to be amused by that. The code of ethics necessary to the conduct of illegal enterprises kept Ploovo from turning in the captain-owner of the Millennium Falcon to the law; nevertheless, a convenient local circumstance would serve the loan shark’s purpose just as well.

* * *

Entering with Chewbacca beside him, a metal case in hand, Han Solo appraised The Free-Flight Dance Dome with a great deal of approval.

As on almost any civilized planet, many species mixed and mingled here in a taxonomic hodgepodge, their appearance familiar or alien by turns. Having seen about as much of the galaxy as a man might reasonably expect to, Han still found he couldn’t identify half the nonhuman types he saw here. That wasn’t unusual. The stars were so many that no one could catalog all the sentient races they’d spawned. Han had lost count of the times he’d entered a room like this one, filled with a kaleidoscope of strange shapes, sounds, and odors. Without straining, he could spot a dozen types of respirators and life-support apparatus being used by entities whose biology wasn’t compatible with standard human atmosphere.

Han particularly appreciated those human and near-human females dressed in shimmersilks, chromasheaths, and illuminescences. One swept up to him, fresh from the bank of coin-games that offered such diversions as Mind-Jam, Senso-Switch, Reflex Races, and Starfight. She was a tall, lithe girl with a wine-dark cast to her skin and hair like plaited silver, wearing a gown that seemed to have been knit from white mist. “Welcome down, spaceman,” she laughed, throwing an arm around him. “How about a turn through the dance dome?”

Han shifted his burden to his other arm as Chewbacca looked on disapprovingly; several of their less auspicious adventures had begun just this way. “Sure!” Han responded enthusiastically. “Let’s dance, let’s snuggle up, let’s get grafted together!” He gently pushed her away. “A little later.”

She showed him a truly stunning smile—to let him know it was nothing personal—and moved on to greet another customer before he’d moved out of earshot.

The Free-Flight Dance Dome was a first-class trough. It was equipped with a top-of-the-line gravity field, its console visible among the bottles, spigots, and taps, and other paraphernalia encircled by the bar. The field permitted the management to alter gravity anywhere on the premises, and so the dance floor and the dome over it had become a low-gee acrobatic playground in which singles, couples, and groups looped, floated, and spun with effortless grace. Han also spotted individual booths and tables where species from low-gravity worlds were taking their ease in comfort, the specific gravity of their area having been lowered for them.

Han and Chewbacca moved farther into the twilight of the place, hearing the clink of drinking vessels of many kinds and the interweaving of any number of languages over the blast from the sound system. They breathed in the aromas of diverse inhalants and aerosols; a profusion of smoke and vapors of various hues, defying the ventilation unit, had drifted by thermoclines into multicolored strata.

He had no problem spotting Ploovo Two-For-One; the big glom had found a large table in the corner, the better to watch for his debtor. Han and Chewbacca sauntered over. Ploovo applied a labored, unconvincing smile to his well-upholstered face. “Solo, old colleague. Come, sit.”

“Spare us the guano, Two-For-One.” Han sat down next to Ploovo. Chewbacca slung his bowcaster over his shoulder and took a place across the table so that he and Han could watch each other’s backs. Han set down the box he carried. Ploovo’s greedy eyes caressed it. “Feel free to drool,” Han bade him.

“Now, Solo,” Ploovo chided, volubly ready to ignore any insult in the heady presence of money, “that’s no way to talk to your old benefactor.” Ploovo had already been informed by contacts here that these two freighter bums had exchanged a large quantity of negotiables for cash. His hand went for the box. Han’s got there first.

The pilot challenged the loan shark with a raised eyebrow. “Your payment’s in there. With interest. We’re quits after this, Ploovo.”

Strangely unperturbed, Ploovo nodded, his topknot jiggling along with his jowls. Han was about to question this when Chewbacca’s warning snarl interrupted. A detail of Security Police had entered The Free-Flight. Some stationed themselves at the doors while the others made their way around the room.

Han snapped the retaining strap off his holstered blaster. The sound made Ploovo turn. “Now, um, Solo, I swear I had nothing to do with this. We are, as you so recently pointed out, quits. Even I wouldn’t presume to turn informer and risk my livelihood.” He put a fat, covetous hand on the box. “I believe those gentlemen in institutional brown are seeking a man who answers your description. While I no longer have any interest in your well-being, I suggest that you and your fuzzy comrade absent yourselves from here at once.”

Han didn’t waste time wondering how the Authority had gotten on his tail after he’d obtained new registration for the Falcon and identification certificates for himself and Chewbacca. He leaned close to Ploovo, right hand still close to his blaster.

“Why don’t we just sit here awhile, colleague? And as long as we’re at it,” he addressed Ploovo’s flunkies, “you all have my permission to put your hands right up on the table here, where Chewie and I can see them. Now!”

Ploovo’s upper lip beaded with sweat. If anyone made a play now, he would certainly become corpse number one. He stuttered an order; his men complied with Han’s proposal.

“Compose yourself, Solo,” Ploovo implored, though Han was quite serene; it was Ploovo’s face that had become pasty white. “Don’t let that, er, renowned temper get the better of you. You and the Wookiee can be so irrational at times. Take the occasion when Big Bunji was careless enough to forget to pay you, and you two strafed his pressure dome. He and his staff barely had time to get into their survival suits. Things like that give a man a bad reputation, Solo!” Ploovo was shaking now, having very nearly forgotten his money.

The Security Police had been circulating. They stopped by the table, two rankers and a sergeant. Their timing couldn’t have pleased Ploovo less.

“Everyone at this table, produce identification.”

Chewbacca had assumed his most innocent expression, his big, soft blue eyes upturned to the soldiers. He and Han offered their falsified IDs. The pilot’s hand hovered near his weapon’s grip, even though a shootout now, in this position and at these odds, with the door firmly held by reinforcements held little promise of survival.

The Espo sergeant ignored the credentials of Ploovo and his gang. Skimming Han’s he asked, “These are correct? You’re the master-owner of that freighter that made planetfall today?”

Han saw no margin for deception there. And if the Authority had already connected his new persona with events surrounding the illegal landing on Duroon, he was as good as dead. Still, he managed to look faintly amused and somewhat bewildered by all this interrogation.

“The Sunfighter Franchise? Why, yes, Officer. Is anything wrong?” Guileless as a newborn, he gazed up at them.

“We got your description from the docking bays supervisor,” the Security Police sergeant answered. “Your ship’s been impounded.” He threw the IDs back on the table. “Failure to conform to Authority safety standards.”

Han’s mental processes switched tracks. “She’s got all her approvals,” he objected, thinking he ought to know, having forged them himself.

The Espo waved that way. “Those’re outdated. Your ship fails to meet new standards. The Authority redefined ships’ performance profiles, and from what I heard, buddy, your freighter violates hers about ten different ways and doesn’t appear on the Waivers List. Just on external inspection, they found her lift/mass ratio and armaments rating way out of line for nonmilitary craft. It looks like a lot of radiation shielding got removed when the thruster ducting was chopped and rechanneled. Also, she’s got all that irregular docking tackle, augmented defensive shields, heavy-duty acceleration compensators, and a mess of long-range detection gear. That’s some firecracker you’ve got there.”

Han spread his hands modestly; this was one time when he didn’t feel like boasting about his pride and joy.

The Espo sergeant went on. “See, when you run a hot rig like that, small payload, overmuscled, the Corporate Sector Authority starts thinking you might take a notion to do something illegal with it. She’ll have to be refitted to original specs; you’ll have to appear and make arrangements.”

Han laughed airily. “I’m positive there’s some error.” He knew he’d been lucky they hadn’t forced the locks for an inboard search. If they’d seen the anti-sensor equipment, jamming and countermeasures apparatus, and broad-band monitoring outfit, this would have been an arrest party. And what if they had found the contraband compartments?

“I’ll drop by the portmaster’s office as soon as my business is done,” Han promised. He now realized that this was why Ploovo Two-For-One had been so content. The loan shark hadn’t even had to violate criminal protocol or risk his own rank hide going against Han and Chewbacca; Ploovo had known the Millennium Falcon, under any name, would run afoul of these Authority regulations.

“No good,” the Espo sergeant was saying. “My orders are to escort you down as soon as you’re found. The port-master wants this matter cleared up right away.” The Espos were suddenly more alert.

Han’s smiled became pained and sympathetic. Platitudes of understanding rolled from him. Meanwhile, he considered his dilemma dispassionately. The Authority would want a full accounting of ship’s papers, log, master’s credentials. When those showed discrepancies, there’d be a full ID scan: pore patterns, retinal and cortical indexes—the whole routine. Eventually, they’d find out who Han and his first mate were, and then the trouble would really start.

It was axiomatic to Han Solo’s philosophy that you never go one step closer to jail than necessary. But seated here, he could offer no decent resistance. He shot a glance at Chewbacca, who was amusing himself by showing his teeth to the wary Security Police in a frightening smile. The Wookiee caught Han’s look, though, and inclined his head slightly.

Whereupon the pilot rose. “Shall we get this unpleasantness taken care of, then, Sergeant, so we can all go our way?” Chewie shuffled away from the table, his attention on Han, one paw on the sling of his bowcaster. Han leaned down for a last word with Ploovo.

“Thanks for the good time, old colleague. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can, I promise. And before I forget, there’s your payment.” He flipped down the box’s front end and stepped back.

Ploovo dug into the box, expecting to fill his itchy palm with wonderful, sensuous money. Instead, sharp little fangs clamped down on the fleshy part of his thumb. Ploovo screamed as the enraged Dinko swarmed out and sank its needlelike claws into his pudding of a stomach. Fastened to the Dinko’s dorsal vane was the Authority Cash Voucher, Han’s thoughtful way of repaying debts both financial and personal—with interest.

The Espos’ attention switched to the table as the criminal boss howled. One of Ploovo’s henchmen tried to tear the Dinko off his employer while the others gaped. The Dinko wasn’t having any; it slashed the fumbling hands with the serrated spurs on its rear legs, then sprayed everyone at the table with vile squirts from its scent sac. Few things in nature are more repugnant than a Dinko’s defensive secretion. Men and humanoid fell back, coughing and gagging, forgetting their boss.

The Security Police were trying to understand what was happening as beings stumbled from the table, lurching past them, leaving Ploovo to the mercies of the rabid little beast. The Dinko was now trying energetically—if overoptimistically—to devour him, starting with his nose, which rather reminded it of one of its many natural enemies.

“Yahhh!” Ploovo complained, wrenching at the determined Dinko. “Ged it off of me!”

“Chewie!” was all Han had time to yell. He punched the nearest Espo, not wanting to shoot at close quarters. The Espo, caught off guard, fell backward, thrashing. Chewie did better, picking up the other two by their harnesses and bashing them together helmet to helmet, eliciting a gonging sound from the ultrahard surfaces. Then the Wookiee ducked into the crowd with notable agility, following his friend.

The Espos at the doors were unlimbering wide-bore, shoulder-fired blasters, but the confused crowd was milling around and no one had a clear idea yet of just what was going on. The antigrav dancers began alighting as beings raised their attention from assorted intoxicants, stimulants, depressants, psychotropics, and placebos. The room buzzed with a sort of befuddled, translingual “Huh?”

Ploovo Two-For-One, having finally dissuaded the Dinko from his abused nose by main force, flung it across the room. The Dinko landed upon the dinner of a wealthy dowager, destroying the appetite of everyone at that table.

Ploovo, still caressing his wounded snout, turned just in time to see Han Solo vault the bar. “There he is!” the underworld boss exclaimed. The two bartenders rushed to stop Han, swinging the stun-staves they kept behind their bar for the preservation of order. He met the first with crossed wrists intersecting the bartender’s, stopping the descending stun-stave, brought his knee up, and elbowed the first mixologist into the second. Chewbacca, following his partner over the bar with a joyous bellow that made the lighting fixtures tinkle, fell on top of the bartenders.

A blaster bolt, fired by one of the Espos at the doors, shattered a crystalline globe of four-hundred-year-old Novanian grog. The crowd bleated, most of them diving for the floor. Two more shots blew fragments out of the bar and half slagged the cash repository.

Han had struggled past the vigorous tangle of Chewie and the bartenders. He grabbed for his blaster and threw down on the Espos, peppering their general location with short bursts. One dropped, his shoulder smoking, and the others scattered for cover. Off to one side, Han could hear Ploovo and his men clubbing their way through yelling, charging customers. He headed for the bar.

Han turned to his objective, the gravity controls. With no leisure to analyze them, he frantically began moving indicators toward maximum. Luckily for everyone not within the insulated area of the bar, he noticed when he’d happened on the general field override, and there were no longer any free-flight dancers in the air. Thus, no one was crushed, or dashed to smithereens.

As it was, Han ran the place’s gee-load up to three-point-five Standard. Entities of all descriptions sank to the carpets, borne down by the staggering weight of their own bodies, proving there were no heavy-gee natives here today. The Espos flopped with the rest. Ploovo Two-For-One, Han noted in passing, strongly resembled a beached bloatfish.

There was silence except for the grunts of determined breathing and the smothered groans from those who’d suffered some minor mishap in hitting the deck. No one seemed badly hurt, though. Han put his smoking blaster away, studying the gravity-field’s controls, telling himself, Yo, now; what we need is a tight corridor out of here. But he was biting his lip, and his fingers poised indecisively over the adjustments.

With an impatient hoot, Chewbacca, who’d put away both bartenders, picked Han up by the shoulders and set him aside. The Wookiee stood over the console, his long fingers moving with nimble precision, peering frequently from his work to the door. In moments the bodies of the two or three patrons lying along his corridor of lighter gravity stirred weakly. Everyone else, the Espos and Ploovo’s underworld contingent included, remained pasted to the floor.

Chewbacca eased himself carefully back over the bar and into the normal-gee passageway. He clamored smugly to Han.

“Well, I was the one who thought of it, wasn’t I?” the pilot groused, trailing after his friend. Outside The Free-Flight, he discreetly closed the doors behind him and straightened his clothes, while Chewie gave himself a fastidious brushing.

“Hey, Chewie, you were slow with your left just now, weren’t you?” Han queried. “Is your speed going, old-timer?” Chewbacca belched savagely; age was a standing joke between them.

Han stopped a group of laughing revelers who’d been about to enter the Free-Flight. “This establishment is officially closed,” he proclaimed with weighty importance. “It’s quarantined. Frank’s Fever.”

The merrymakers, intimidated by the sinister sound of that imaginary malady, didn’t even think to question. They left at once. The two weary partners grabbed the first robo-hack they saw, and sped off toward their ship.

“Things are getting tough for the independent businessman,” Han Solo lamented.