V

“WHAT’D you say, Bollux? Quit whispering!”

Han, seated across the gameboard from Chewbacca, glared at a crate on the other side of the Millennium Falcon’s forward compartment, where the old ’droid sat. The compartment’s other clutter included shipping containers, pressure kegs, insulated canisters, and spare parts.

The Wookiee, seated on the acceleration couch, chin resting on one enormous paw, studied the holographic game pieces. His eyes were narrowed in concentration and his black snout twitched from time to time. He’d spotted Han two pieces, and was now on the verge of wiping out that advantage. The pilot had been playing poorly, his concentration wandering, fretting and preoccupied with the complications of the voyage. The new sensor package and dish were working perfectly, and the starship’s systems had been fine-tuned by the outlaw-techs. Nevertheless, Han’s mind couldn’t rest easy as long as his cherished Falcon was hooked up to the huge barge like a bug on a bladderbird. Furthermore, the trip was taking far longer than the Falcon alone would have required; the barge wasn’t built for speed.

Han could hear the barge’s engines now, their muffled blast vibrating through the freighter’s deck and his boots, into the soles of his feet. He hated that barge, wished he could just dump it and zoom off; but a bargain was, after all, a bargain. And, as Jessa had explained, the Waiver for the Falcon was being arranged by the people he was to pick up on Orron III, so it behooved him to hold up his end of the agreement.

“I didn’t say anything, sir,” Bollux replied politely. “That was Max.”

“Then what did he say?” Han snapped. The two-in-one machines sometimes communicated between themselves by high-speed informational pulses, but seemed to prefer vocal-mode conversations. It always made Han nervous when Bollux’s chest was closed up, with the diminutive computer’s voice rising spectrally from an unseen source.

“He informed me, Captain,” Bollux replied in his slow fashion, “that he would like me to open my plastron. May I?”

Han, who’d turned back to the gameboard, saw that Chewbacca had sprung a clever trap. While his finger hovered indecisively over the programming keys controlling his pieces, Han muttered, “Sure, sure, go on, you can fan the air for all I care, Bollux.” He scowled at the Wookiee, seeing there was no way out of the trap. Chewbacca threw his head back with a toss of red-brown hair and woofed with laughter, showing jutting fangs.

With a soft hiss of escaping air—his plastron was airtight, insulated, and shockproof—Bollux’s chest swung open as the labor ’droid moved his long arms back out of the way. Blue Max’s monocular came alive and tracked over to the gameboard just as Han punched up his next move. His gamepiece, a miniature, three-dimensional monster, jumped into battle with one of Chewie’s. But Han had misjudged the two pieces’ subtle win-lose parameters. The Wookiee’s simulacrum-beastie won the brief fight. Han’s gamepiece evaporated back into the nothingness of computer modeling from which it had come.

“You should have used the Second Ilthmar Defense,” Blue Max volunteered brightly. Han swung around with murder in his eye; even the precocious Max recognized the look, hastily adding, “Only trying to be of assistance, sir.”

“Blue Max is quite new, quite young, Captain,” Bollux supplied, by way of mollifying Han. “I’ve taught him a bit about the board game, but he doesn’t know much yet about human sensitivities.”

“Is that so?” Han asked, as if fascinated. “So who’s teaching him, Mr. Pick and Shovel, you?”

“Sure,” Max bubbled. “Bollux’s been everywhere. We sit and talk all the time, and he tells me about the places he’s seen.”

Han swiped at the gameboard’s master key, clearing it of his defeated holo-beasties and Chewbacca’s victorious ones. “Do tell? Well, now, that must be some kind of education: Slit Trenches I Have Dug—a Trans-Galactic Diary.”

“The great starship yards of Fondor was where I was activated,” Bollux responded, in his slow way. “Then, for a time, I worked for a planetary survey Alpha-Team, and after that, for a construction gang on weather-control systems. I had a job as general roustabout for Gan Jan Rue’s Traveling Menagerie, and as maintenance helper in the Trigdale Foun-daries. And more. But one by one, the jobs have been taken over by newer models. I volunteered for all the modifications and reprogramming I could, but eventually I simply couldn’t compete with the newer, more capable ’droids.”

Interested now despite himself, Han asked, “How’d Jessa pick you for this ride?”

“She didn’t sir; I requested it. There was word that a ’droid would be selected from the general labor pool for some unstated modification. I was there, having been purchased at open auction. I went to her and asked if I might be of use.”

Han chortled. “And for that they yanked out part of you, rearranged the rest, and stuck that coin bank inside you. You call that a deal?”

“It has its disadvantages, sir. But it’s kept me functioning at a relatively high level of activity. There would probably have been some lesser vacancy for me elsewhere, Captain, even if it were only shoveling biological byproducts on a nontechnological world, but at least I have avoided obsolescence for the time being.”

Han gaped at the ’droid, wondering if he were circuitcrazy. “So what, Bollux? What’s the point? You’re not your own master. You don’t even have a say in your own name; you have to reprogram to whatever your new owner decides to call you, and ‘Bollux’ is a joke. Eventually you’ll be of no further use, and then it’s Scrap City.”

Chewbacca was listening intently now. He was far older than any human, and his perspectives were different from a man’s … or a ’droid’s. Bollux’s leisurely speech made him sound serene as he replied, “Obsolescence for a ’droid, sirs, is much like death for a human, or a Wookiee. It is the end of function, which means the end of significance. So it is to be avoided at all costs, in my opinion, Captain. After all, what value is there to existence without purpose?”

Han jumped to his feet, mad without knowing exactly why, except that he felt dumb for arguing with a junk-heap ’droid. He decided to tell Bollux just what a deluded, misfit chump the old labor ’droid really was.

“Bollux, do you know what you are?”

“Yessir, a smuggler, sir,” Bollux responded promptly.

Han, confused, looked at the ’droid for a moment, his mouth hanging open, taken off balance by the reply. Even a labor ’droid ought to recognize a rhetorical question, he thought. “What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Yessir, a smuggler, sir,’ ” Bollux drawled, “like yourself. One who engages in the illegal import or export of “—his metal forefinger pointed down at Blue Max, nestled in his thorax—“concealed goods.”

Chewbacca, paws clasped to his stomach, was rolling around on the acceleration couch, laughing in hysterical grunts, kicking his feet in the air.

Han’s temper blew. “Shut up!” he shouted at the ’droid. Bollux, again with that strange literalness, obediently swung his chest panels closed. Chewbacca’s laughter had him close to suffocation, as tears appeared around his tight-shut eyes. Han began looking around for a wrench or a hammer, or another instrument of technological mayhem, not intending to have any ’droid one-up him and survive to tell the tale. But at that moment the navicomputer bleeped an alert. Han and Chewbacca instantly charged for the cockpit, the Wookiee still clasping his midsection, to prepare for reversion to normal space.

The tedious trip to Orron III had gnawed at their nerves; both pilot and copilot were grateful for the reappearance of stars that marked emergence from hyperspace, though it was accompanied by a wallowing of the gigantic barge shell. The barge’s ovoid hull bulged beneath them, a metal can of a ship with a minimum of engine power. Jessa’s techs had executed their hull mock-up so that the Falcon’s cockpit retained most of its field of vision.

Han and Chewbacca kept their hands off the ship’s controls, letting the computer do the work, maintaining the role of an automated barge. The automatics accepted their landing instructions, and the composite ship began its ungainly descent through the atmosphere.

Orron III was a planet generous to man, its axial tilt negligible, its seasons stable and, throughout most of its latitudes, conducive to good crop production, and its soil rich and fertile. The Authority had recognized the planet’s potential as a bread basket and wasted no time in taking advantage of its year-round growing season. Since the planet had more than adequate resources, room, and a strategic location, they had opted to build a data center there as well, thus simplifying logistics and security for both operations.

Orron III was undeniably beautiful, wreathed with strings and strands of white cloud systems, and showing the soft greens and blues of abundant plant life and broad oceans. As they made their approach, Han and Chewbacca ran sensor readings, taking the layout of the Authority installations.

“What was that?” Han asked, leaning forward for a closer look at his instruments. The Wookiee wooffed uncertainly. “I thought I caught something for a second, big blip in a slow transpolar orbit, but either it went around the planet’s horizon or we’ve dropped too low to pick it up. Or both.” He worried about it for a moment, then firmly instructed himself not to borrow trouble; whether or not there was a picket ship should make no difference.

Ground features began to resolve into gently rolling country divided precisely into the huge parcels of individual fields. The various shades of those fields reflected a wide range of crops at various states of maturity. Planting, growing, and harvesting must be done on a rolling basis on a large agri-world, for optimal utilization of equipment and manpower.

Eventually they could discern the spaceport, a kilometers-wide stretch of landing area built to the immense proportions of the great robo-barges. The main part of the port, which supported the Authority fleet ships, occupied only a small corner of the installation, even taking into consideration its communications and housing complexes. The majority of the place was simply mooring space for the barges, abysslike berths where maintenance gantries could reach them for repair work and the lumbering mobile silos, aided by gravity, could load them. A constant flow of bulk transports, ground-effect surface freighters, came by special access routes to the port, unloaded their cargoes of foodstuff into the silos, and turned back again, bound for whatever harvest was presently going on.

The bogus barge carrying the Falcon settled to its appointed berth among hundreds of others on the field. They touched down, and the computers stopped their chatter. Han Solo and Chewbacca locked down the console and left the cockpit. As they entered the forward compartment, Bollux looked up. “Do we disembark now, sirs?”

“Nope,” Han answered. “Jessa said these people we’re going to pick up will find us.”

The Wookiee went to the main lock and activated it. The hatch rolled up, and the ramp eased down, but didn’t admit light or air from Orron Ill’s atmosphere; the camouflaging hull design covered most of the Falcon’s superstructure, and a makeshift outer hatch had been installed just beyond the ramp’s end.

The ramp had barely lowered when there was a clanging on the outer skin there. The Wookiee snorted warily, and Han’s hand dipped and came up with his blaster. Chewbacca, seeing his partner was ready, hit the switch to open the outer hatch.

Standing just beyond was a man of incongruities. He wore the drab green coveralls of a port worker and had a tool belt slung at his waist. Yet he radiated a different aura, nothing like that of a contract tech. He was native to a sun-plentiful world, that much was apparent, for his skin was so dark that its black approached indigo. He was half a head taller than Han, with broad shoulders that strained the seams of his issue coveralls, and a body that spoke of waiting, abundant power. His tightly curled black hair and sweeping beard were shot through with streaks of gray and white. For all the size and weight of dignity of him, he had a lively glint of humor in his black eyes.

“I’m Rekkon,” he declared at once. He had a direct gaze, and although his tone was moderate, it resonated in the air, its quality deep and full. He replaced at his belt the heavy spanner he’d used to rap on the hatch. “Is Captain Solo here?”

Chewbacca gestured to his partner, who had just come further down the ramp. The Wookiee hooted in his own language. Rekkon laughed and—to their astonishment—roared back a polite response in Wookiee. Few enough humans even understood the giant humanoids’ tongue; fewer still had the range and force of voice of speak it. Chewbacca boomed his delight in an earsplitting yowl and patted Rekkon’s shoulder, beaming down at him.

“Now that you’re all through with the community sing,” Han interrupted, stripping off his flying gloves, “I’m Han Solo. When’s liftoff?”

Rekkon appraised him frankly, but there was still that jovial light to his face. “I’d like it to be as soon as possible, as I’m sure you would, Captain Solo. But we must make one brief trip to the Center, to cull the data I need and pick up the other members of my group.”

Han looked back to the head of the ramp, where Bollux waited, and gestured to him. “Let’s go, Rusty. You’re back in business.”

Bollux, his chest plates closed once again, clanked down the ramp, his stride as stiff as ever. He’d explained during the trip that his odd manner of walking came from the fact that he’d been fitted with a heavy-duty suspension system at one point in his long career.

Rekkon was holding out two cards for Han and Chewbacca, bright red squares with white identification codes stamped on them. “Temporary IDs,” he explained. “If anyone asks, you’re on short-term labor contracts as tech assistants fifth class.”

“Us?” Han sputtered. “We’re not going anywhere, pal. You take the ’droid, get your gang and whatever else, and you come back. We’ll keep the home fires burning.”

Rekkon’s grin was dazzling. “But what will you two do when the decontamination crew arrives? They’ll be irradiating the entire barge, and your ship with it, to make sure no parasites feed on the shipment. Of course, you could switch on your deflector shields, but that would surely be noticed by port sensors.” The two partners glanced at each other dubiously. It was true that a decontam-treatment would be normal procedure, and that a man and a Wookiee hanging around the landing area while the team did its work would make somebody curious.

“And there is another matter,” Rekkon continued. “The Waiver status for your ship, and its doctored identification codes; I shall be taking care of those, too. Since you and your first mate have a vested interest in that, I had thought you might wish to accompany me.”

Han’s mouth began watering at the thought of the Waiver, but he always got the sweats in the halls of power, and that Authority Data Center was precisely that. His inbuilt caution came forward. “Why do you want us on this side trip? What is it you’re not telling?”

“You’re right, there are other reasons,” Rekkon answered, “but I do think it best, for you as well as for me, if you come. I would be much in your debt.”

Han stared at the tall black man, thinking about the Waiver and the inevitable decontam-team. “Chewie, get me a tool bag.” He unfastened his blaster belt, knowing he couldn’t be seen armed in an area of tight security. Chewbacca returned with the bag and his bowcaster. Both dropped their weapons into the tool bag, and the Wookiee slung it over his shoulder.

With Bollux trailing after, they walked through the outer hatch, locked it closed, and followed Rekkon across the maintenance gantry. The barge’s hull stretched far below and to either side. A utility skimmer with a work platform and enclosed cab was hovering on the other side of the gantry. The living beings climbed into the cab, Rekkon getting behind the controls and Han crowding next to him, while Chewbacca filled the rear seat. Bollux settled himself on the work platform, securing himself with his servo-grip. The skimmer swung away from the barge.

“How’d you find us so fast?” Han wanted to know.

“I received word of what markings your craft would have, and its estimated time of arrival. I came as soon as the data systems registered your approach. I’ve been waiting here for some time, with forged field-access authorization. I presume this ’droid is my computer-probe?”

“Sort of,” Han answered as Rekkon upped the skimmer’s speed to the legal limit, guiding it between rows of berthed barges. “There’s another unit built into his chest; that’s your baby.”

The port was surrounded on every side by ripening grain, showing the ripples of the gentle winds of Orron III. While he glanced about, Han asked, “What’re you looking for in Authority computers, Rekkon?”

The man studied him for a moment, then turned back to the controls as he pulled onto a service road. Except for the immediate area of the barges, Han knew the skimmer would have to adhere to authorized routes, and would be intercepted if it flew too high, too fast, or cross-country. Off in the distance, gargantuan robot agricultural machines moved through the crops, capable of planting, cultivating, or harvesting vast tracts of land in a single day.

Rekkon adjusted the polarization of the skimmer’s windshield and windows. He didn’t make it reflective, or opaque to outside observation, which might have been conspicuous, but darkened it against the sun. The cab’s interior dimmed, and Han felt as if he were in one of Sabodor’s pet environment globes. As they sped along the service road, cutting between seas of bending grain, Rekkon asked, “Do you know what my mission here has been?”

“Jessa said it was up to you whether or not to tell us. I nearly passed up the bargain because of that, but I figured there must be a fair piece of cash involved for this kind of risk.”

Rekkon shook his head. “Wrong, Captain Solo. It’s a search for missing persons. The group I organized is made up of individuals who’ve lost friends or relatives under unexplained circumstances. Same thing’s begun to happen with suspicious regularity within the Corporate Sector. I found that a number of others were abroad, as I was, seeking their lost ones. I’d detected a pattern, and so I gathered about me a small group of companions. We infiltrated the Data Center in order to carry out our search, with Jessa’s help.”

Han tapped his finger on the window, thinking. This explained Jessa’s commitment to Rekkon and his group, her determination to see that he got all the required assistance. Doc’s daughter obviously hoped that Rekkon and his bunch, in locating their own lost ones, would turn up her father.

“We’ve been here for nearly one Standard month,” Rekkon continued, “and it’s taken me most of that time to find windows of access into their systems, even though I’m rated as a contract computer tech supervisor first class. Their security is diligent, but not terribly imaginative.”

Han shifted around on his seat to look at the other. “So what’s the secret?”

“I won’t say just yet; I’d rather be sure and have absolute proof. There is a final correlation of data for which I need a probe; the terminals to which I have access at the Center have governors and security limiters built into them. I lack the resources and parts and time to construct my own device. But I knew Jessa’s excellent techs could provide what I needed and thereby decrease the risk of detection.”

“Which reminds me, Rekkon. You haven’t told us that other very good reason why we should come with you to the Center.”

Rekkon looked pained. “You’re persistent, Captain. I selected my companions carefully; each of them was close to a lost one, yet—”

Han sat up. “But you’ve got a traitor in there somewhere.” Rekkon stared hard at the pilot. “It wasn’t just a guess. Jessa’s operation got hit while I was there; an Authority corvette dropped a spread of fighters on us. The chances of them just stumbling onto us, out of all the star systems in the Corporate Sector, are so small they’re not even worth talking about. That left a spy, but not one who was there at the time, or the Espos wouldn’t have been scouting, they’d have come in force. They must’ve been checking out a number of solar systems.” He leaned back, self-satisfied. He was proud of his chain of logic.

Rekkon’s face was a mask cut from jet. “Jessa gave us a contingency list of places where we might be able to contact her if our lines of communication were broken. Plainly, that solar system was one of them.”

That surprised Han. Jessa would never ordinarily have trusted anyone with that sort of information. She must be investing all hope of finding her father with Rekkon. “Okay, so you’ve got somebody who’s on two payrolls. Any idea who?”

“None, except that it cannot be either of the two members of my group who have already perished. I believe they discovered who the traitor was. There were indications in the final com-link conversation I had with one of them before she died. And so, of course, I’ve told no one of your arrival, and came to meet you myself. I wanted your help, to make sure none of them can give the alarm before we depart. I have called each of them to my office, without telling them the others would be there.”

Han disliked the idea of going to the Center even more now, but saw it was vital that Rekkon have help, vital to the survival of Han Solo. If the traitor managed to turn in an alarm, chances were that the Falcon would never raise ship again. He made a mental note to bill Jessa and whoever else he could for additional services rendered. He angled around in his seat again. “Who’re the other people you recruited for Amateur Night?”

Driving with only part of his attention, Rekkon responded, “My second-in-command is Torm, whose cover role is contract laborer. His family controlled large ranges on Kail, independent landowners under the Authority. There was some sort of dispute over land-use rights and stock prices. Several family members vanished when they wouldn’t yield to pressure.”

“Who else?”

“Atuarre. She is a female of the Trianii, a feline race. The Trianii had settled a planet on the fringes of Authority space generations before the Corporate Sector was chartered. When the Authority finally annexed the Trianii colony world recently, they met with resistance. Atuarre’s mate disappeared and her cub was taken from her and placed in Authority custody. They must have used some sort of interrogation procedure on the cub, Pakka, for when Atuarre finally managed to rescue him, he could no longer speak. The Authority is no respecter of ages or conventions, you see. Atuarre and Pakka eventually made contact with me; her cover here on Orron III is that of apprentice agronomist.”

The service road, winding through the fields, had met a main artery leading toward the Center. The place was a small city unto itself, handling record keeping, computations, and data flow and retrieval for much of the Corporate Sector. It radiated from an operations complex that rose like a glittering confection from the rolling farmland.

Rekkon, lips pursed in thought, wasn’t finished. “The last member of our group is Engret, who is scarcely more than a boy, but has a good heart and a kindly temperament. His sister was an outspoken legal scholar, and she too dropped from sight.” He was silent for a moment. “There are others abroad searching for their lost ones, and many more, I’m certain, who’ve been frightened into silence. But perhaps we shall be able to help them, too.”

Han half snickered. “No way, Rekkon. I’m just here as part of a trade-off. Save the old school fight songs until I’m clear, got it?”

Rekkon’s face was sculpted in amusement. “You only do this sort of thing so that you can become a wealthy man?” He eyed Han up and down and went back to his driving, but added, “A callous exterior isn’t an uncommon way of protecting ideals, Captain; it hides the idealists from the derision of fools and cowards. But it also immobilizes them, so that, in trying to preserve their ideals, they risk losing them.”

What this big, bluff, amiable man had just said carried so much of hit and of miss, insult and compliment, that Han didn’t take time to unravel it. “I’m a guy with a hot ship and places to go, Rekkon, so don’t let yourself get carried away with the philosophy.”

They entered the Center, maneuvering along wide streets between rearing buildings housing the various offices and storage banks, personnel dormitories and recreational areas, shops and commissaries. The traffic was thick—robo-hacks, ground-effect cargo lifters, skimmers, Espo cruisers, and innumerable mechanicals.

Making a final turn, Rekkon entered a subterranean garage and descended more than ten levels. Nosing the skimmer into a vacant spot, he cut the engine and stepped out. Han and Chewbacca followed as Bollux clambered down. The Wookiee and his partner affixed their badges to their chests and vests, respectively. Rekkon slipped out of his coveralls and tool belt and stuffed both into an equipment locker on the skimmer’s side. That left him attired in long, flowing robes of bright, geometric patterns. His supervisor’s badge was prominent on his broad chest. His feet were shod in comfortable-looking sandals. Han asked him how he’d gotten the skimmer and other equipment.

“Not difficult, once I’d made a partial penetration of the computer systems. A false job-request form, an altered vehicle-allocation slip—those things were elementary.”

Chewbacca took up the tool bag again. Bollux, who hadn’t had the chance before, now drew himself up before Rekkon. “Jessa has instructed me to place myself and my autonomous computer module completely at your service.”

“Thank you—Bollux, isn’t it? Your aid will be critical to us.” At this, the old ’droid seemed to straighten with pride. Han saw that Rekkon had found the way to Bollux’s heart, or rather, to his behavioral circuitry matrix.

The Authority had spared no expense on this Center, and so, rather than to an elevator or shuttle car, it was to a lift chute that Rekkon led them. They stepped into its confluence and, seemingly standing on air, were wafted upward by the chute’s field. Two techs drifted into the lift chute on the next level, and conversation among Han’s group stopped. The Wookiee, the two men, and the ’droid continued to ascend, with others entering or leaving the field, for another minute and more, rising past garage and service levels, the lower bureaucratic offices, and at last through the levels where data processing and retrieval operations of one kind and another took place. Most passengers in the chute wore computer techs’ tunics. Occasionally, one would exchange a greeting with Rekkon. Han gathered, from the lack of curiosity he and his companions drew, that it wasn’t unusual for a supervisor to have tech assistants and ’droids in tow.

Rekkon eventually tilted himself, to drift into the disembarkation-flow. Han, Chewbacca, and Bollux followed. They found themselves standing in a large gallery. Here, two floors had been combined, the upper one opening onto a balcony that ran around the gallery’s midsection, looking down on the banks of lift and drop chutes.

Rekkon led on, down a hallway of darkly reflective walls, floor, and ceiling. Han caught sight of himself in the tinted mirror of the walls and wondered how he had ever wound up a reckless-eyed predator, contaminating these antiseptic inner domains of the juggernaut Authority. What he did know was that he would much rather have been hotting the Falcon along between the stars, unencumbered.

Rekkon stopped at a door and covered its lock face with his palm, then stepped through as the door swished open. The others followed him into a spacious, high-ceilinged chamber, three walls of which were lined with a complex array of computer terminals, systems monitors, access gear, and related equipment. The fourth wall, opposite the door, a single sheet of transparisteel, gave a commanding view of the bountiful fields of Orron III from one hundred meters up. Han went over and took a bearing on the spaceport across the gentle rise and fall of the land. Chewbacca, seating himself by the door on a bench that ran the length of the wall there, laid the tool bag down between his long, hairy feet. He watched the chatter and wink of sophisticated technology with only mild curiosity showing on his face.

Rekkon turned to Bollux. “Now, may I see what it is that you’ve brought me?”

Han clucked to himself softly, amazed that anyone should be so palsy-walsy with a mere ’droid.

Bollux’s plastron opened as the stubby ’droid pulled his long arms back out of the way. The computer-probe’s photoreceptor came on. “Hi!” he perked. “I’m Blue Max.”

“You certainly are,” Rekkon answered in his full, amused bass. “If your friend here will release you, we’ll have a look at you, Max.”

Bollux said an unhurried, “Of course, sir.” There were minute clicks from his chest, the withdrawal of connector jacks and retaining pins. Rekkon drew the computer forth without trouble. Max was smaller than a voice-writer; he looked unimposing in Rekkon’s big hands.

Rekkon’s laughter rang. “If you were much smaller, Blue Max, I’d have to throw you back!”

“What’s that mean?” Max asked dubiously.

Rekkon crossed to one of several worktables. “Nothing. A joke, Max.” The table, a thick slab resting on a single service pillar, was. studded with outlets, connectors, and complex instrumentation. Along its front edge ran an extremely versatile keyboard.

“How would you like to do this, Max?” Rekkon asked. “I have background and programming data to feed you, information on systems-intrusion. Then I’ll patch you into the main network.”

“Can you feed it in Forb Basic?” Max piped in his high, childish voice, like an eager kid with a new challenge.

“That presents no difficulty; I see you have a five-tine input.” Rekkon drew a five-tine plug and line from his table and connected it to Max’s side Then he took a data plaque from his robes and inserted it into an aperture in the table, punching up the proper sequence on the keyboard. Max’s photoreceptor darkened as the little computer gave his complete attention to the input. Several screens in the room came to life, giving high-speed displays of the information Max was ingesting.

Rekkon joined Han Solo at the window-wall and handed him another plaque, one he’d taken from his worktable. “Here is the new ship’s ID for your Waiver. Alter your other documentation accordingly, and you should have no further problem with mandatory-performance profiles within the Corporate Sector.”

Han bounced the plaque once or twice on his palm, visualizing enough money to wade through with his pants rolled up, then tucked it away.

“The rest of this shouldn’t take terribly long,” Rekkon explained. “The others in my group are due to show up in short order, and I don’t expect someone with Max’s brainpower to find this task too difficult. But I’m afraid there’s nothing in the way of refreshment around here—an oversight of mine.”

Han shrugged. “Rekkon, I didn’t stop off to eat, drink, or observe quaint local ceremonies. If you really want to make me dizzy with delight, just wrap it up here as fast as you can.” He glanced around the room, with its perplexing lights and racing equations. “Are you honestly a computer expert, or did you get the job on sheer charm?”

Rekkon, hands on lapels, gazed out the window. “I’m a scholar by trade and inclination, Captain. I’ve studied a good many schools of the mind and disciplines of the body, as well as an array of technologies. I’ve lost track of my degrees and credentials, but I’m more than qualified to run this entire Center, if that’s of any importance. At one point I specialized in organic-inorganic thought interfaces. That notwithstanding, I came here with forged records, playing the part of a supervisor, because I wished to remain inconspicuous. My only desire is to locate my nephew, and the others.”

“What makes you think they’re here?”

“They’re not. But I believe their whereabouts can be discovered here. And when Max over there has helped me do that, by sifting through the general information here, I shall know where I must go.”

“You never did get around to mentioning your own lost one,” Han reminded him, thinking that he was beginning to sound like Rekkon. The man was infectious.

Rekkon paced to the opposite wall, stopping near Chewbacca. Han came after him, watching the man lost in thought. Rekkon took a seat, and Han did the same. “I raised the boy as if he were my son; he was quite young when his parents died. Not long ago, I was hired as instructor at an Authority university on Kalla. It is a place for higher education, mostly for Authority scions, a school rooted in technical education, commerce, and administration, with minimal stress on the humanities. But there were still some vacancies for a few old crackpots like me, and the pay was more than adequate. As nephew of a university don, the boy was eligible for higher study, and that’s where the trouble began. He saw just how oppressive the Authority is, stifling anything that even remotely endangers profit.

“My nephew began to speak out and to encourage others to do the same.” Rekkon stroked his dense beard as he thought back on it, “I advised him against doing so, although I knew he was right, but he had the convictions of youth, and I had acquired the timidity of age. Many of the students who listened to the boy had parents highly placed in the Authority; his words could not go unnoticed. It was a painful time, for although I couldn’t ask the boy to ignore his conscience, I feared for him. As an ignoble compromise, I decided to resign my post. But before I could do so, my nephew simply disappeared.

“I went to the Security Police, of course. They made an appearance of concern, but it was clear that they had no intention of exerting themselves. I began making inquiries of my own and heard accounts of other disappearances among those who’d inconvenienced the Authority. I’m accustomed to looking for patterns; one wasn’t long in emerging.

“Picking carefully—very carefully, I assure you, Captain!—I gathered a close group of those who’d lost someone, and we began a careful penetration of this Center. Word had come to me of the disappearance of Jessa’s father, Doc, as he’s called. I approached her, and she agreed to help us.”

“All of which leaves us sitting here,” Han interrupted, “but why here?”

Rekkon had noticed that the race of characters and ciphers across lighted screens had stopped. Rising to return to Max, he answered. “The disappearances are related. The Authority is attempting to remove those individuals who are most conspicuously against it; it has decided to interpret any natural, sentient individualism as an organized threat. I think the Authority has collected its opponents at some central location that—”

“Let me get this straight,” Han broke in. “You think the Authority’s gone into the wholesale kidnapping business? Rekkon, you’ve been staring at the lights and dials too long.”

The man didn’t look offended. “I doubt that the fact is generally known, even among Authority officials. Who can say how it happened? Some obscure official draws up a contingency proposal; an idle superior takes it seriously. A motivational study crosses the right desk perhaps, or a cost-benefit analysis becomes the pet project of a highly placed exec. But the germ of it was in the Authority all along—power and paranoia. Where no real opposition existed, suspicion supplied one.”

As he spoke, he paced back to the worktable, unplugging Max. “That stuff was really interesting,” the little computer bubbled.

“Please show a little less enthusiasm,” Rekkon entreated, taking Max up from the table. “You give me the feeling I’m contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” The computer’s photoreceptor zeroed in on him as he continued. “Do you understand everything I’ve shown you?”

“You bet! Just give me a chance, and I’ll prove it.”

“I shall. The main event’s coming up.” Rekkon took Max over to one of the terminals and set him down by it. “You have a standard access adapter?” In reply, a small lid in the computer’s side flipped down, and Max extended a short metal appendage. “Good, very good.” Rekkon moved Max closer to the terminal. Max inserted his adapter into the disklike receptor there. The receptor and the calibrated dial around it circled around and back as Max accustomed himself to the fine points of the linkup.

“Please begin as soon as you’re ready,” Rekkon bade Max, and took a seat again between Han and Chewbacca. “He’ll have to sift through an enormous amount of data,” he told the two partners, “even though he can use the system itself to help him at his work. There are numerous security blocks; it will take even Blue Max awhile to find the right windows.”

The Wookiee growled. Both humans understood the expression of Chewbacca’s doubt that the information Rekkon wanted would actually be found in the network.

“The location as such won’t be there, Chewbacca,” Rekkon responded. “What Max will have to do is find it indirectly, just as you must sometimes turn your eyes away to locate a dim star, finding it out of the corner of your eye. Max will analyze logistical records, supply and patrol ship routings, communications flow patterns and navigational logs, plus a number of other things. We’ll know where Authority ships have been stopping, and where coded traffic has been heaviest, and how many employees are on payrolls at various installations, and what their job categories are. In time, we’ll find out where the Authority is keeping the members of what it has come to believe is a far-flung plot against it.”

Rekkon got up again to pace the room briskly, clapping his hands with sounds like solid-projectile rifle shots. “These fools, these execs and their underlings, with their enemies’ lists and Espo informers, they’re creating just the sort of climate to make their worst fears come real. The prophecy fulfills itself; if we weren’t talking about life and death here, it would make a grand joke!”

Han was reclining against the wall, watching Rekkon with a cynical smile. Had the scholar actually thought that people were any different from the Authority execs? Well, anybody who let his guard drop or wasted his time on ideals was in for just the same sort of rude shock Rekkon had gotten, Han thought. And that was why Han Solo had gone and would always go free among the stars.

He yawned elaborately. “Sure, Rekkon, the Authority better watch out. After all, what’s it got going for it except a whole Sector’s worth of ships, money, manpower, weapons, and equipment? What chance does it have against righteous thoughts and clean hands?”

Rekkon turned his hearty smile on Han. “But look at yourself, Captain. Jessa’s communication mentioned a little about you. Just by living your life the way you chose, you’ve already committed deadly offenses against the Corporate Sector Authority. Oh, I don’t look for you to wave a banner of freedom or to mouth platitudes. But if you think the Authority’s the winning side, why aren’t you playing its game? The Authority won’t meet with disaster because it abuses naive schoolboys and idealistic old scholars. But as it increasingly hampers intractable, hardheaded individualists such as yourself, it will find its real opposition.”

Han sighed. “Rekkon, you’d better take it easy; you’ve got me and Chewie confused with somebody else. We’re just driving the bus. We’re not the Jedi Knights, or Freedom’s Sons.”

What Rekkon’s rejoinder would have been became academic. The door-lock buzzed just then, and a man’s voice at the intercom demanded: “Rekkon! Open this door!”

With a cold feeling in his stomach, Han caught the blaster Chewbacca tossed to him as the Wookiee leveled his bowcaster at the door.