Bortrek knelt and flipped open Artoo's back panel, reaching in with an extractor he'd produced from the pocket of his reptile-leather vest.

"So you are told that, are you." Artoo emitted a little squeak, then withdrew his data jack from the port. "Well, Goldie, I been told that, too. So I'll tell you what. You and him just head on back to the primary lock and wait for me on the bridge of the Sabacc. I'll be over in a while."

"We really are very fortunate, you know," Threepio said, as he and Artoo crossed through the narrow neck of the port-to-port tunnel that linked the two ships. "With trade being turned away and rebellion on the planet, and now plague as well, no ships of hypers.p.a.ce capability are going to be leaving the Durren system for quite some time. The Meridian sector is very thinly inhabited and well out of most trade routes. We could have drifted for years-centuries, perhaps before we were discovered.

By that time, goodness knows what might have befallen Her Excellency."

Artoo vouchsafed no reply. Threepio guessed that Captain Bortrek had disabled a portion of the little astromech's motivator, a wise precaution, perhaps. Artoo was unaccountable sometimes and might have refused to abandon the patently useless scout.

"Once we reach Cybloc XII, we can notify the proper authorities of Her Excellency's whereabouts. I doubt it would be safe to do so from this ship or in fact to let Captain Bortrek know' of the matter at all.

Grateful as I am for the rescue, one cannot be sure of such a man's loyalties. But I'm sure that we can put in a voucher to the Central Council to make ample remuneration to him for his trouble..."

He broke off; leaving his speculation unfinished, as they emerged from the Pure Sabacc's lock into her main holding bay. Strongboxes were stacked casually against the walls-one of them, open, showed bundles of bearer bonds and a considerable quant.i.ty of gold coins. Another was filled beyond closing point with platinum and electrum cast into shapes that Threepio immediately identified as sacred to four of the six main faiths currently fashionable on the planet Durren: Reliquaries, mon-strances, jeweled prayer-wheels tumbled at random and bent to accommodate the confines of the chest. Items too large for easy storage-statues and pieces of furniture clearly valuable for their workmanship and materials-were tumbled and shoved in corners, along with roughly tied ma.s.ses of embroidered velvets and precious stohl fur, and more sacks that had the unmistakable shape of coinage.

"Good heavens!" Threepio exclaimed in surprise. "Judging from the latest market valuation statistics of gold and platinum, there must be several million credits in this hold alone! Whatever is a man like Captain Bortrek-who does not appear to be of the more prosperous cla.s.ses, nor is he even a native of the planet Durren-doing with all this wealth?"

"Taking it on commission, my friend."

Threepio turned, and Artoo swiveled his cap to align his visual receptors with the scar-lipped captain as he emerged from the airlock at their heels. He carried a huge square of plastic casing that had been a console housing, filled to overflowing with components and wire, and had a thick black remote unit in one hand.

"Commission, sir?"

He grinned a slow grin, reminding Threepio, who was not fanciful, of some semisentient species less developed from its hunting ancestors than standard humankind. "For absent owners and their-uh-heirs.

There's a lot of unrest back there in Durren. Partisans coming in out of the countryside, riots in the streets. Lots of houses being burned, lots of people getting the h.e.l.l away before things get worse. Some of 'em decide now's a good time to clean out their closets, get rid of all that excess gold and platinum they got lyin' around. You."

He gestured with the remote unit at Artoo. "I burned out my main navicomputer after a little difference of opinion with the Port Authorities, pox eat their lying hearts. I'm gonna need you."

Artoo hesitated and let out another protesting wail that caused Bortrek to point the remote in his direction and Threepio to admonish, "Artoo, behave yourself! If Captain Bortrek is being so good as to transport us to Cybloc XII, it's only right that we a.s.sist him with his ship by any means in our power."

The astromech wavered, rocking on his wheels, but Captain Bortrek had quite clearly disabled the upper level of motivators. After a despairing little beep, Artoo followed Bortrek through the door.

Threepio started after them, saying, "Now, Captain Bortrek, once we reach Cybloc XII it is imperative that we get in touch with Admiral Ackbar of the Republic fleet..."

The door shut in his face. After a considerable period of time, during which he amused himself by pricing the contents of the hold at somewhere between twenty-three and twenty-eight million credits (allowing for an inflation index as a result of the unrest in the sector and fluctuations in the average price of Durren artwork), Threepio's auditory sensors picked up the sc.r.a.ping and rocking of the port-to-port tunnel being retracted. Calling up a readout on the pad near the storage hold's door-the binary language was a very simple one-Threepio ascertained that the Pure Sabacc was being put into pretravel mode.

"How - very curious," the droid remarked to himself. "I quite distinctly heard Captain Bortrek say that his navigational computer was non functional."

He addressed a few further remarks to the computer core, which when phrased in quite standard codes caused the mechanism to blurt everything it knew' on any number of subjects in a succession of high-speed bursts.

It took Threepio a few seconds to download the bursts from his temporary holding memory and process the information into existing systemic memory, but when he did, he felt as close to outrage as a well-programmed protocol droid is capable of being.

"Why, that course that's being laid in is nowhere near Cybloc XII!" he exclaimed. "The man is a thief! We're being stolen!"

"The entire mission has disappeared." Mon Mothma, guiding spirit of the Rebellion and former Chief of State of the Provisional Government, held her wasted hands close to the semicircular iron fender of the hearth, and the flame outlined her fingers in threads of amber light.

Han Solo, though he'd come to know the tall, beautiful woman well over the past several years, still felt in awe of her. Her picture was everywhere, in histories of the Rebellion and of the last days of the Empire. It was like sitting across the fire from a G.o.d of ancient legend, or finding oneself in the same room with smashball center guard Rip "Iron One" Calkin who'd made seven hundred last season.

"Disappeared?" Something within the cage of his ribs went still and cold.

Winter had taken the children to the nursery, a vine-hung tower room at the top of a long flight of steps. The small parlor was dim, the lamps cached in discreet niches casting warm patterns of light on the painted ceilings with a wavery gleam indistinguishable from that of combustible fuel. The fire that played over the lumps of coal and wood on the hearth's white sand was genuine, though it issued from a buried gas pipe, and Han remembered with a sudden pang making love to Leia on the rug of milk-white stohl fur, the night before her departure.

"We're keeping the news quiet for as long as we can." Mon Mothma straightened up a little, luminous dark eyes catching the firelight.

She looked a million times better than she had the last time Han had seen her, lying in the hospital after yet another round of bacta-tank therapy to combat the wasting effects of an attempted poisoning, and a million times worse than the woman he had first met in the ragged chaos of some temporary headquarters of the Rebel fleet. She had never lost the gaunt look of death, and the skin hung loose under jawbone and wrists.

Her hair, dark through the horrors and vicissitudes of the fight against Palpatine, had begun to gray with the poisoning and was white now, and she still walked with two canes when she was not on public view.

She was still beautiful.

"The matter is complicated by the fact that Minister of State Rieekan has fallen gravely ill. At first we were afraid it might be related to the plague that has been reported in the Meridian sector, but..."

"Plague?" demanded Han, and cold touched him again. Not Leia..

"Reports are too fragmentary to be sure," she said, in a tone that told Han that she was darn sure. "When it broke out on the Durren orbital base it was suspected to be poison, but there's no evidence of that.

No evidence of an actual illness, either. No bacteria, no virus, no polyphagous microorganisms Nothing.

Only men and women dying.

We can't get med teams in because of the revolt that has broken out on Durren itself. Local factions have the base under siege..."

"Siege? said Han "With two cruisers there?"

"The cruisers were-are-out, investigating what is either a pirate attack on Ampliquen or what might be a rupture of the truce between Budpock and Ampliquen. We haven't heard. Nor have we heard anything of Leia's flagship or its escort after they reported the meeting 'acceptably'

concluded and entered hypers.p.a.ce at the scheduled jump point."

An R-10 trundled in, dispatched by the house timer with a gla.s.s of beer for Han and cocoa for Mon Mothma. Like everything else in the house, the little droid was designed to fit in with the rustic fantasy, hand-crafted in patinated wood and old green bronze. if the Emperor still owned the house, reflected Han, the droid would probably have been replaced by a synthdroid, which according to the ads could be shaped to exactly resemble any sentient or semisentient life form in the Registry. Han wasn't sure how comfortable he'd have been with them around, in the unlikely event that Leia's salary would even cover the cost of such a thing.

"Have you checked Ashgad's part in this?"

She nodded, and sipped her cocoa, setting the cup down on the droid's worn-looking bronze top. "Final report from the Borealis includes sensor readings from Ashgad's vessel, which indicate nothing unusual.

The captains of both the flagship and the escort reported no other vessels closer than Pedducis Chorios, and Leia herself said that Ashgad seemed content with the outcome of the meeting. We've sent a message to Ashgad..."

"Which means nothing if he's in on it."

"Maybe." She rubbed her arms, and Chewbacca picked up one of Winter's shawls, whose pattern and colors changed kaleidoscope-like every few'

minutes, and draped it over the former Chief's shoulders. She looked her thanks to him with a smile.

"Nov, I know an Interdictor can extract a ship from hypers.p.a.ce....

"It can," said Han. "But Intelligence has been keeping a pretty close eye on everybody who's Got Interdictors-everybody that we know about.

As far as I know we haven't heard a peep. I mean, yeah, they can pull a ship out of hypers.p.a.ce, but then they've got a ship on their hands that has to be explained. We've been watching for that one."

"As you said," murmured Mon Mothma, "you can only watch those you know about. Might someone alter a jump point by remote? Re-route them?"

"Not possible," said Han. "I mean, I'm not a scientist or anything, but those navicomputers are shielded like a Valorsian harem against every kind of solar flare and gamma particle for just that reason, but when I was in the game there were always rumors about either the Imps or some one of the big smuggler chiefs figuring out a way to do that."

The chill behind his sternum seemed to tighten as he said it. All his life he'd played tag with the black hollows of eternity, and he knew just how immense were the s.p.a.ces between stars. Anything could be out there.

It was every deep-s.p.a.cer's nightmare to be somehow disoriented in the interstellar gulfs. It was why he had labored to memorize hundreds of starfields, why he still kept reams of hardcopy starcharts on the Millennium Falcon in spite of the teasing he got about it from Lando and his other smuggler buddies of years past.

Just the thought that someone might be able to alter a jump point by remote was enough to scare the pants off him.

It was something else. It had to be something else.

Angrily, he said, "So whose great idea was it for the Council to select a pro tem successor if both the Chief of State and the First Minister bought it? The minute they know she's missing they're gonna deadlock, and then you won't be able to do anything."

"We can't do anything now."

"What about a hologram?" asked Han. "We could get some holo faker to splice together recent footage..."

"That," said Mon Mothma coldly, "has already been tried. Once by the Daysong Party, who have heard rumors of the disappear ance...

"From whom? Where?"

She shook her head. "Rumors are already beginning to fly, Han.

Admiral Ackbar has put the Council on a twelve-hour hiatus to prevent violence between Senator Typia of the Daysong Party and Senator Aras-tide of Gantho. The second faked hologram we haven't been able to trace, though we suspect the Tervigs, since it declared that trade in Bandie slaves from Tervissis was acceptable. In any case, it was so badly put together that it obviates any connection with the original disappearance.

"And no matter what the circ.u.mstances," she went on, measuring her words with arctic exactness, "subst.i.tution of a holographic fake for the Chief of State of the Republic is not a precedent I wish to see set. Nor, I think you would agree, does Leia."

Han felt like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "No. I guess not."

Another reason, he reflected, not to rule the galaxy.

"What about Luke?" he asked into the silence that followed.

"Luke?"

"He was on the Borealis. He was here to see her off Then she got a message at the last minute from Callista-saying for Leia not to trust Ashgad as far as she could throw him-and Luke went along. He planned to take a small craft down to the surface past the gun stations, to see if Callista was on Nam Chorios."

"Ashgad," said Mon Mothma softly. "I didn't know' that. We've been trying to reach Luke on the moon of Yavin. His students thought he might have returned and gone into the jungle to meditate."

Han grunted. Then the silence returned, save for the wickering of the fire, and the murmur of the fountain in the corner of the parlor.

Firelight caught in Chewbacca's eyes, twin blue glimmers beneath the shadow of his brows. Beyond the tall, magnetically guarded opening that made up the room's southern wall, the magic skies of the Corus-cant system shimmered with ropes and veils and spilled treasures of prodigal starlight.

"I'll need to get in touch with Lando," he said at length.

Mon Mothma nodded. She seemed to have read his mind from the first.

He reflected that it was probably part of the Chief of State's job description.

"He'll have his own ship for the search. We have to keep this small-we'll probably never know who originally blabbed, among the crews of the Borealis and the Adamantine. Any objections to Mara Jade knowing? She knows how to quarter a sector."

Mothma nodded. "Anyone else?"

"Kyp Durron, from the Academy. Wedge Antilles, if he can be spared.

Kyp'll need a ship. Nothing that'll get noticed, but it has to be fast."

"It's done," said Mon Mothma. She held out to him a red plast cube.

"These are the final reports from Leia, Commander Zoalin, and Captain Ioa, and the sensor readings on Ashgad's ship and on all the surrounding five pa.r.s.ecs. You'll also find the coordinates for the jump point where they disappeared."

"Doesn't matter where they went in," said Han. "If someone found a way to alter the jump, they could have come out anywhere from here to the backside of last week." He stood up, and helped her to her feet. It was an indication of her ease with him-her trust in him-that she had brought her canes with her. She took them from him with a smile, and Han felt curiously honored. For her to let him see her walking with the canes meant that she regarded him as her friend.

"How long can you hold off the Council?

"A few - day's," she said. "Maybe a week." The house was equipped with NL-6 courtesy droids, but Han escorted Mon Mothma to the vestibule himself. "We're still trying to get a medical support team out to Durren, or escorts to take teams in from the Medical Research Facility on Nim Drovis. As I said, the reports are fragmentary, but it doesn't sound good."

"Unknown?" said Han, looking across at her in the reflected fire glow.

She hesitated, and in her eyes he saw that it was known. She just didn't want to admit what it might be.

The vestibule doors slid open before them. Mon Mothma's courtesy guard-c.u.m-footman got to his feet, a gloomy looking, sandy-haired young man whose expression never seemed to alter no matter what was done or said around him.

"You be careful."

Han gave her a grin. "Your Excellency, the day I start being careful is the day I buy myself a foot warmer and a rocking chair. I'll find her."

But when the door closed behind her and her bodyguard, Han stood for a long time in the vestibule, the little red hunk of plast closed in his fist, staring at nothing. Thinking about hypers.p.a.ce. Thinking about interstellar s.p.a.ce.

Thinking about Leia.

Five years since they'd married. Thirteen since they'd met, in the Death Star's corridors with blaster fire zapping around them. If he couldn't find her...

There was no conclusion to that sentence. No conclusion to the thought.

Only a darkness as deep as the nightmare of disorientation in realtime s.p.a.ce, with no starcharts, no navicomputer, no spectroscope, no clue as to which of those tiny, infinitely distant lights to aim for.

His hand tightened around the datacube, and he turned back toward the firelight of the parlor, to tell Chewie to get the Falcon into preflight.

They would head out just before dawn.

"Sir, I must protest!" The bridge doors of the Pure Sabacc slid open before Threepio's determined advance-a considerable improvement over those of the storage hold in which he had been incarcerated for the past 2.6 hours while the vessel jolted into hypers.p.a.ce-and the protocol droid marched through to behold Captain Bortrek ensconced at the main console, picking his teeth with a laser extractor.

"Artoo-Detoo and I are duly registered to Her Excellency Leia Organa Solo, and misap-propriation of any duly registered droid is contrary to Sections Seven, Twelve, and Two Hundred and Forty-Three A of the New Republic Universal Galactic... Artoo-Detoo!" Threepio exclaimed in astonishment, as he cleared the doorway and got a better view of the bridge.

The astromech droid made a sorry little sound.

As well he might, See-Threepio reflected. All of his access hatches had been bodily removed, some to admit sinewy snakes of data cables, some to accommodate blocky add-on patches of machinery, which themselves connected into at least three of the bridge stations. An enormous switch box had been screwed into the little droid's domed cap, connected to what Threepio vaguely recognized as the navigational computer; another housing had been affixed to his side with silver s.p.a.ce tape, to pipe information to and from the vessel's central core station. His st.u.r.dy legs had been unscrewed and lay in a corner, the connecting hydraulic cables dangling sadly at his sides. The general impression was that of a small life form half-absorbed within a carnivorous flower, streaked with grease and glinting with green and orange lights.