"Wait till you hear a pincer rap," Han said. "Those things will really ice your spine."

"Pincer rap?" Leia glanced over at the pilot's seat, wondering if there was something Han wasn't telling her. "Han, do you recognize-"

Han cut her off. "No-I'm just saying..." He raised his shoulders and shuddered at some memory he had kept buried their entire married life, then finished, "It's not something you want to experience. That's all."

The dust cloud finally began to thin, revealing the disk of light below to be a bulging hatch membrane more than a hundred meters across.

Several dozen insects were scuttling away from the middle of the hatch, oozing a thick layer of greenish gel from a valve at the rear of their pressure suits. Han eased back on the throttles, then-when the portal showed no sign of opening - brought them to a stop twenty meters above the center.

The insects reached the edge and turned around, the lenses of their dark helmets turned up toward the Falcon. Soon, the gel began to bleed off in green wisps.

"What are they waiting for?" Han turned his palms up and gestured impatiently. "Open already!"

Once the gel had evaporated, the insects returned to the center of the portal and began to mill about aimlessly.

"Is there anything on the comm channels?" Han asked.

Leia double-checked the channel scanner. "Only background static-and not much of that." She did not suggest trying to comm the Shadow.

Some insect species were sensitive to comm waves, a fact that had led to some tragic misunderstandings in the early days of contact between the Verpine and the rest of the galaxy. "I could wake Threepio. He might be able to tell us something about who we're dealing with here."

Han sighed. "Do we have another choice?"

"We could sit here and wait for something to happen."

"No," Han said, shaking his head wearily. "You can't outwait a bug."

Leia rose and flipped the droid's circuit breaker. After the light had returned to his photoreceptors, he sat turning his head back and forth as he calibrated himself to his surroundings, then finally fixed his gaze on Leia.

"I do wish you would stop doing that, Princess Leia. It's most disorientating, and one of these times my file allocation table will be corrupted. I could lose track of my personality!"

"Wouldn't that be too bad," Han replied.

"Threepio, we need your help," Leia said, allowing the droid no time to process Han's sarcasm. "We're having trouble communicating with the indigenous species."

"Certainly!" C-3PO responded cheerily. "As I was saying before you debilitated me, I'm always happy to help. And you are certainly aware that I'm fluent in-"

"Over six million-we know," Han interrupted. He pointed outside.

"Just tell us how to communicate with the bugs."

"Bugs?" C-3PO stood and turned toward the roiling ma.s.s of insects.

"I don't believe those are bugs, Captain Solo. They appear to be a sentient hybrid of coleoptera and hymenoptera, which often use complex dances as a means of communication."

"Dances? You don't say!" Han returned his hands to the control yoke and throttle. "So what are they telling us?"

C-3PO studied the insects for a moment, then emitted a nervous gurgle and moved forward to the control console.

"Well?" Han demanded.

"How odd." C-3PO continued to study the creatures. "I have no record of this happening before."

"Of what happening?" Leia stepped to the droid's side. "What are they saying?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you, Princess Leia." C-3PO kept his photoreceptors focused below her eyes. "I have no idea."

"What do you mean, no idea?" Han demanded. "You're always bragging about how many forms of communication you're fluent in!"

"That's quite impossible, Captain Solo. Droids are incapable of bragging." C-3PO returned his attention to Leia. "As I was explaining, my memory banks contain no record of this particular language. However, syntactic a.n.a.lyses, step comparisons, and pattern searches do suggest that this is, indeed, a language."

"You're sure?" Leia asked. "It couldn't be random wandering?"

"Oh no, Mistress Leia. The pattern and period of circulation bear a statistical correspondence that is quite significant, and the recurring oblique head bobs suggest a syntax far more sophisticated than Basic-or even Shyriiwook." C-3PO turned back to the viewport. "I'm quite sure of my conclusions."

"Then let's hear 'em," Han demanded. "Who are these guys?"

"That's what I'm trying to explain, Captain Solo," C-3PO said. "I don't know."

They all fell quiet, C-3PO carefully doc.u.menting the mysterious dance while Leia and Han tried to see how this fit into the mystery of why the survivors of the Myrkr mission had been summoned here. None of it made any sense. It seemed almost impossible that the insects could have any tie to the Myrkr strike team. And even Leia could feel that they were not strong enough in the Force to send the call Jaina and the others had reported.

C-3PO suddenly stepped away from the canopy. "I've identified the basic syntactical unit! It's really quite simple, a matter of positioning the abdomen at one of three levels to indicate whether a step is-"

"Threepio!" Han interrupted. "Can you tell us why they're not opening the door?"

C-3PO tipped his head slightly. "Why, no, Captain Solo. To do that, I'd have to understand what they're saying."

Han groaned. "What's wrong with the Imperial blink code those dartships were using?"

"Unfortunately, their pressure suits don't seem to be equipped with strobes," C-3PO explained. "But I am making progress with their dance-language. For instance, I've established that they're repeating the same message time after time."

"Exactly the same message?" Leia asked.

"Of course," C-3PO said. "Otherwise, I would have said similar-"

"Long or short?"

"That's quite impossible to say," C-3PO said. "Until I can establish the average number of units it requires to express one concept- ".

"How long does it take to repeat the message?" Leia peered out at the bulging hatch, studying its membranous segments. "Seconds? Minutes?"

"Three point five-four seconds, on average," C-3PO said. "But without a context, that datum is entirely worthless."

"Not entirely worthless." Leia returned to the copilot's seat.

"Edge us ahead, Han. I want to see something."

As Han complied, Leia stared out at the bulging hatch, looking for any flaw in her thinking. The insects suddenly arranged themselves in the center of the membrane, then started to scuttle toward the edge and ooze green gel again.

"Keep going," Leia said. "I know what they've been saying."

"That's quite unlikely!" C-3PO objected. "Even I don't have enough data to establish a grammar-much less attempt an accurate translation."

Instead of arguing, Leia reached for the glide switches that controlled the Falcon's shields. Han eyed her hand warily, but continued forward. When the hatch began to bow inward, Leia lowered the shields, and a moment later the flexible membrane was sucked tight against the Falcon by the external vacuum.

Han let out a breath, then said to Leia, "Good call."

"Yes, Princess Leia, it was quite an extraordinary translation." C-3PO sounded crushed. "In how many forms of communication did you say you are fluent?"

FIVE.

Luke felt as though he had swallowed a jug of minnows. Ben had turned an alarming hue of green. Mara, who could normally whirl-dance for hours in weak gravity, held her jaws clamped tight against the possibility of an embarra.s.sing eruption. The Skywalkers were hardly micro-g novices, but their stomachs were rebelling at the utter strangeness of the asteroid colony - at the sticky gold wax that lined the corridors, at the constant thrum of insect sounds, at the endless parade of six-limbed, meter-high workers scurrying past on the walls and ceiling.

Saba, however, seemed entirely comfortable. She was moving along in front, trotting along a wall on all fours, her head swinging from side to side and her long tongue licking the sweet air. Luke suspected that the heat and mugginess reminded her of Barab I, but maybe she just liked the way her hands and feet squished into the corridor's wax lining. Barabels, he had noticed, took pleasure in the oddest things.

They came to a c.o.c.keyed intersection, and Luke stopped to listen to a strange pulsing sound that was rumbling out of a crooked side tunnel.

It was muted, eerie, and rasping, but there was a definite melody and rhythm.

"Music," he said.

"If you're from Tatooine, maybe," Mara said. "The rest of us would call that a rancor belch."

"This one likez it," Saba said. "It makez her tail shake."

"I've seen squeaky thrust impellers make your tail shake," Mara said. She pointed at the floor, where a steady flow of booted feet had worn the wax down to the stone. "But it is popular. Let's check it out."

They started up the pa.s.sage, and Ben asked, "Is this where Jaina is?"

"No," Luke said. Ben had been repeating the same question since they had emerged from hypers.p.a.ce. "I told you, she's not in the asteroid colony. "

"Then where is she?"

"We don't know." Luke looked over his shoulder at Ben. "That's what we're trying to find out."

Ben considered this a moment, then said, "If you don't know where she's at, then maybe she is here, and maybe you just don't know it."

This sent Saba into a fit of sissing. "He has you there, Master Skywalker."

Ben retreated behind his mother, and Luke found himself worrying about the boy's strange fear of Saba. They had made a point of exposing him to friends of many species early in his life, and only Saba still seemed to frighten him.

Luke smiled patiently, then explained, "Ben, if Jaina were here, I would feel her in the Force."

"Oh."

Surprised that Ben was willing to drop the matter with that, Luke added, "But I do feel Aunt Leia. She's here with Uncle Han."

Saba stopped on the wall ahead and peered back down at Luke. "The Soloz are here? This one thought they were going to hunt Three-Eye."

"So did this one." Luke could not quite keep the displeasure out of his voice. "Apparently, they decided it was more important to join us."

"And they have every right," Mara said. "We've seen Jaina more than they have in the past year, and with Jacen still off chasing Force-lore... Han and Leia must be lonely." She ruffled Ben's hair. "I would be."

"I know," Luke said, feeling guilty now for his irritation. He had grown so accustomed to everyone doing as the council asked that he tended to forget that it had no formal authority; everyone-especially the Solos-served at their own pleasure. "They've already done more than we have a right to ask."

"And what of Three-Eye?" Saba asked. "Who will stop her?"

"It might not be a bad thing to let the Reconstruction Police handle that one until we find Jaina," Luke said. "After that, the council can send her and Alema back with Zekk. It shouldn't take the three of them long to clean up the problem."

"If they will go." Saba continued up the corridor shaking her head.

"This one is beginning to doubt the wisdom of our council. Every pack needz a longfang, or itz hunters will scatter after their own prey."

"The Jedi are a different kind of pack," Luke said, following after her. "We're an entire pack of longfangs."

"A pack of longfangz?" Saba let out a trio of short sisses and disappeared around a bend. "Oh, Master Skywalker..."

As they continued up the pa.s.sage, the music grew clearer. There was an erratic chirping that struck Luke as singing, a rhythmic grating that pa.s.sed for percussion, a harsh fluting that provided the melody. The overall effect was surprisingly buoyant, and Luke soon found himself enjoying it.

After about fifty meters, the pa.s.sage opened into a cavernous, dimly lit chamber filled with rough-looking s.p.a.cers. The music came from a clear area in the center of the room, where a trio of stick-like Verpine stood playing beneath the chemical glow of a dozen waxy shine-b.a.l.l.s. Luke found himself studying their instrument, trying to imagine how they made so many different sounds sharing only one string.

"Astral!" Ben left Mara's side and started into the cantina. "This is gonna blast!"

Mara caught him by the shoulder. "Not a chance."

He gave her a knowing smirk, for they had left Nanna behind to help R2-D2 watch the Shadow. "You can't leave me out here alone. I'm only eight. "

"What makes you think you'll be alone?" Mara nodded Luke toward the cantina, then said to Ben, "You and I will stand watch out here."

Luke and Saba stepped through the door. The usual a.s.sortment of riffraff s.p.a.cers-Givin, Bothans, Nikto, Quarren - were gathered in the middle of the room, sitting on synthetic stone benches and holding their drinks in their laps. A few hard cases, such as the Defel "shadow Wraith"

hiding in the corner and a Jenet hoodlum holding court on the far side of the chamber, sat apart from the group. Many of the patrons were listing in their seats, but there was none of the latent hostility that usually permeated the Force in s.p.a.ceport cantinas.

Luke followed Saba to the service area, where a distracted Duros stood at the end of a long bank of beverage dispensers. There was no counter or ordering station, nor anything that looked like a payment terminal, but a soft clicking noise was coming from a darkened alcove beneath the middle dispenser. As they drew near, the clicking stopped and a worker insect emerged from the alcove. It stared up at them for a moment, then handed an empty cup to both of them and retreated into its alcove.

Luke and Saba studied the unmarked dispensers for a moment, then Saba hissed in frustration. She walked over to the inattentive Duros and thrust her mug into his hands.

"Bloodsour."

The Duros swung his noseless head around sharply, then saw he was being addressed by a Barabel. The blue drained from his face.

"Don't have bloodsour," he said in his flat Duros voice. "Only membrosia."