Lando shrugged. "We can sit and wait or we can go see. The bounty hunter should have delivered Han to Jabba months ago. He's got to be someplace.

I've got a contact in that system, an old gambling buddy who does a little, uh, freelance cargo delivery. Name is Dash Rendar. He's checking it out for us."

Leia smiled again. "Freelance cargo delivery" was a euphemism for "smuggling."

"You trust him?"

"Well, as long as my money holds out, yeah."

"Fine. How soon will we know?"

"A few days."

Leia looked around. "Anything would be better than waiting here."

Lando flashed his bright smile again. "Mos Eisley is known as the galaxy's armpit," he said. "I guess there are worse parts of the anatomy where we could be stuck."

Chewie said something.

Lando shook his head. "I don't know why he'd be there. There's a shipyard on the moon; maybe he needed repairs. Something serious had to hold him up because Jabba won't pay him until he gets here."

Chewie said something else.

"Yeah, I'm afraid so." Lando looked at Leia. "Gall is an Imperial Enclave. Got a couple of destroyers based there, plus all the attendant TIE fighters. If Fett's ship is there, it won't be easy to get to him."

"When has anything been easy since I met you?" she said. "Let me ask you something. Of all the crummy places in this port, why did you choose this one? "

"Well, I do know the owner. He owes me for a bet we once made. I get to eat and drink here for free whenever I'm in town."

"Oh, boy. What a thrill that must be. You ever try to eat anything in this place?"

"I haven't been that hungry yet, no."

She shook her head. Her life had certainly been interesting since she'd fallen in with these guys. But it was like Lando had just said about Boba Fett: Every-body had to be someplace.

Until they found Han, this was as good as any.

Leia said, "Maybe we better go tell Luke."

Xizor left his four bodyguards in the antechamber and went into Darth Vader's personal meeting room. The guards were trained in half a dozen forms of handto-hand combat, each armed with a blaster and each an expert shot; still, if Vader wanted to harm him, it wouldn't matter if he took four or forty men with him. The mysterious Force would let Vader block a fired blaster bolt with his lightsaber or his hands, and he could kill with a gesture, could freeze your lungs or stop your heart, just like that. It was a lesson many had learned the hard way: One did not stand toe-to-toe with Darth Vader and challenge him directly.

Fortunately, Xizor enjoyed the Emperor's patronage. As long as that was the case, Vader would not dare harm him.

The room was spare. A long table of polished, dark greel wood, several nonreactive chairs made from the same kind of wood, a holoplate and viewer. A faint tang of something spicy hung in the air. There were no pictures on the walls, no conspicuous signs of the wealth Vader commanded. He was nearly as rich as Xizor and, like the Dark Prince, cared little for wealth itself.

Xizor pulled one of the chairs away from the table and sat, allowing himself to appear completely relaxed, legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back. Somewhere in Vader's castle monitoring technicians would be watching every move he made, recording it all. Xizor knew that Vader's spies followed him everywhere he went, onor offplanet; here in the dark heart of the serpent's nest itself, there could be no doubt that his slightest gesture would be watched and a.n.a.lyzed. If Vader wished it, he could likely know how much air Xizor breathed, the volume, weight, and composition of that air, the percent of carbon dioxide in the residue.

Xizor allowed himself a tight grin. Give the techs something to think about: Uh-oh, he's smiling-what do you suppose that means?

Of course, he had Vader under constant surveillance, too, every time he set foot outside his castle. On Coruscant-yes, it had been renamed the Imperial Center, but Xizor did not care for the new name-virtually everyone of any importance had his or her own spynet keeping track of all the other people of importance. It was necessary. And Black Sun's spynet was second to none, not even the Empire's own. Well. Perhaps the Bothans were slightly better...

The wall at the opposite end of the room slid aside silently, and Vader stood there, quite dramatic in his cape and black uniform, his breathing audible inside the armored helmet and mask.

Xizor stood, offered a military bow. "Lord Vader."

"Prince Xizor," Vader offered in return. No bow - he bent the knee only to the Emperor-but Xizor did not acknowledge the small breach of etiquette. This was all being recorded. The recording might find its way before the Emperor-in fact, Xizor would be greatly surprised if it did not come under the Emperor's scrutiny; the old man was not one to let much get past him. Instead, Xizor intended to be the soul of grace, the epitome of politeness, the acme of good manners.

"You asked to see me, Lord Vader. How may I be of service to you?" Vader stepped into the room, and the door slid shut behind him. He made no move to sit, no surprise. Xizor also remained standing.

Vader said, "My master bids me to arrange for a fleet of your cargo ships to deliver supplies to our bases on the Rim."

"But of course," Xizor said. "My entire operation is at your disposal; I am always happy to aid the Empire in any way that I can."

Xizor's legitimate shipping operations were quite extensive, among the largest in the galaxy. Much of the money from Black Sun's illicit activities had been funneled into Xizor Transport Systems, and XTS alone was enough to make him a wealthy and powerful man.

Vader was also aware that the holocams were upon him. He made a comment for the record. "In the past, it seems as if your company has been slow to respond to Imperial requests."

"It embarra.s.ses me to say that you are correct, Lord Vader. Certain individuals who worked for me were lax. However, those individuals are no longer employed by my company."

Point, counterpoint. Vader jabbed, carefully, using a fine point, and Xizor parried. Each conversation he had with the Dark Lord of the Sith was thus, an obvious surface dialogue with much hidden in the depths below it. It was a kind of fugue, in which each player tried to score, like two brothers trying to outdo each other in the eyes of a critical father.

Xizor did not consider Vader anything like a nestbrother, however. The man was an impediment to be removed and-though he did not know it-a mortal enemy.

Ten years ago, Vader had a pet project, research on a biological weapon.

He established a hazard lab on Xizor's home planet of Falleen. There had been an accident at the supposedly secure facility. A mutant tissuedestroying bacterium somehow escaped quarantine. In order to save the planet's population from a horrible, rotting, always fatal infection for which there was no cure, the city around the lab had been "sterilized."

Sterilized, as in: baked, torched, seared, burned to cinders; houses, buildings, streets, parks-And people.

Two hundred thousand Falleen had been killed by the sterilization lasers crisscrossing the doomed metropolis from orbit. The Empire counted itself lucky to have lost only that number when the necrotizing bacteria could have killed billions, maybe even escaped offworld to infect other planets. It had been a close call, but the cost had been relatively minor-in the opinion of the Empire.

In Darth Vader's opinion.

Among the dead had been Xizor's mother, father, brother, two sisters, and three uncles. He'd been offworld at the time, cementing his control of Black Sun into place; otherwise he would have been one of the victims himself.

He had never spoken of the tragedy. He had, through the offices of Black Sun, caused his family's deaths to be erased from Imperial records. The operatives who had done that deed had been themselves eliminated. n.o.body knew that Xizor the Dark Prince had personal reasons to detest Darth Vader. It would be natural to see the two as rivals for the Emperor's favor, and there was no way to hide that, but of the other, no one save Xizor had any inkling.

He had been patient, Xizor had. It was never a question of "if," only a matter of "when" he would repay Vader in kind.

Now at last, revenge was in the making. Soon he would have it. He would spear two fleek-eels with the same trident: Vader the impediment to his power and Vader the killer of his family would both be... removed.

Xizor felt a smile but held it from observation by Vader and his hidden holocams' gazes. Killing the Dark Lord might be possible but much too good for him - and dangerous in the extreme. Dishonor and disgrace were ever so much more painful at this level of existence. He would break Vader, would cause him to be tossed upon the trash heap by his beloved master.

Yes. That would be justice-"We shall need three hundred ships," Vader said, cutting into Xizor's thoughts. "Half of them tankers, half dry cargo transports. Standard Imperial delivery contracts. There is a large... construction project of which you are aware. Can you supply the vessels?"

"Yes, my lord. You need but tell me where and when you desire them and I will make it so. And Imperial terms are acceptable."

Vader stood silently for a moment, the only sound the mechanical wheeze of his breathing.

He didn't expect that, Xizor thought. He thought I might argue or try to haggle over the price. Good.

"Very well. I'll have the fleet supply admiral contact you with details."

"It is my honor to serve," Xizor said. Again he gave Vader a military bow, a bit lower and slower than before.

Anybody watching would see only how courteous and eager to please Xizor was. Without another word Vader turned. The wall slid back again, and he swept from the room. And anybody watching would see how close to the edge of rudeness Lord Vader walked.

Again Xizor allowed himself a tiny smile.

Everything was going according to plan.

3.

Luke stared at the little furnace, as if so doing could hurry the process. Inside, the ingredients for a lightsaber gem cooked at an incredible heat and pressure, hot enough to melt denscris, intense enough to collapse durasteel into a liquid ball. And yet from a meter away, except for the red operating diode, you couldn't tell the thing was even on. Well, except maybe for a little bit of a smell something like a blaster bolt, a kind of ozone odor.

The furnace had been working for hours and the little yellow diode had not yet begun to blink, the signal that the process was in the final stage.

He looked around at the inside of what had been Ben Ken.o.bi's home. It was a small place on the edge of the Western Dune Sea, made, as so many of the local structures were, of synstone-crushed local rock mixed into a slurry with dissolvants and cast or sprayed onto frames to harden. The resulting buildings were st.u.r.dy and proof against the sandstorms. Ben's house looked almost as if it could have been a natural rock formation, smoothed and rounded by centuries of too-hotby-day and too-cold-by-night desert weather.

Ben. Struck down by Vader on the Death Star. The memory was equal parts grief and rage.

His teacher hadn't left much behind, not for a man who had once been Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi, a Jedi Knight and a general in the Clone Wars. Perhaps the most valuable thing was the old and intricately carved boawood trunk and its contents, including an ancient leather-bound book. A book that contained all manner of wondrous things for a would-be Jedi, such as plans for building a lightsaber. The thumbprint clasp on the volume had accepted Luke's right thumb to unlock it, and once it was open, he saw the flashpacket rigged inside the cover. Had anybody tried to force the clasp, the book would have burst into flame.

Somehow, Ben had known Luke would find this book. Somehow, he had prepared it so that only he could open it safely.

Amazing.

According to that book, the best lightsabers used natural jewels, but there weren't a lot of the kind he needed lying around where he could find them on Tatooine. He'd managed to collect most of the electronic and mechanical parts in Mos Eisley-power cells, controls, a high-energy reflector cup-but he had to make his own focusing jewel. Ideally, the best lightsabers also had three of those, different densities and facets, for a fully adjustable blade, but for his first attempt at building the Jedi weapon, Luke wanted to keep it as simple as possible. Even so, it was trickier than the book made it out. He was pretty sure he had the superconductor tuned right, the amplitude for the length set where it was supposed to be, and the control circuitry boards correctly installed. He couldn't be positive until the jewel was finished, and the book didn't mention exactly how long that took. Supposedly the furnace would shut down automatically when it was done.

If everything went right, he'd be able to cut the jewel, polish and install it, tune the photoharmonics, and then he'd only have to hit the switch to have a working lightsaber. He had followed the instructions to the letter; he was pretty good with tools and it ought to be okay, but there was a small worry that when he switched it on it might not work.

That would be embarra.s.sing. Or worse, it might work in a way it wasn't supposed to. That would be worse than embarra.s.sing: Luke Skywalker, up-and-coming Jedi Knight, a man who had gone one-on-one with Darth Vader and lived to tell of it, vaporized when his faulty lightsaber blew up. So far he'd been very careful constructing the thing, triple-checking each step, and to get this far had taken almost a month. The book said a Jedi Master in a hurry could construct a new lightsaber in a couple of days.

Luke sighed. Maybe after he'd built six or eight of them he might be able to speed it up, but he obviously had a long, long way to go to get there-Suddenly he felt something.

It was like hearing and smelling and tasting and seeing somehow combined, and yet it was none of those things. Something... impending, somehow.

Could it be something coming from the Force? Ben had been able to sense events happening light-years away, and Yoda had spoken of such things, but Luke wasn't sure. His own experiences in his X-wing and in his practice had been so limited.

He wished Ben were here to tell him. Whatever it was grew stronger. For a moment, he had a flash of recognition: Leia?

He had been able to call to her when he was about to fall from beneath Cloud City after his encounter with Vader. She had somehow received his cry for help.

Was it Leia?

He buckled on his blaster, adjusted the belt on his hip so he could draw the weapon quickly if needed, and went outside. Normally the Tusken Raiders-the Sand People-stayed clear of Ben's house. They were superst.i.tious, Ben had told him, and with his control of the Force, he had shown them a few tricks, enough so they marked his place as haunted.

But Ben was gone, and whatever he had done might not work forever. Luke didn't have Ben's control; the Raiders might not be so impressed with him picking up a few rocks with the Force. Then again, there was nothing wrong with his aim, and however inelegant it was, a blaster bolt splashing off a rock next to them would make just about anybody stop and think.

Once he got the lightsaber built and working, he hoped he could put the blaster away. A true Jedi did not need any other weapon to protect himself, Ben had told him.

He sighed. He had a way to go to get to that level, too.

A hot wind blew grit off the desert, abrading and drying his skin. In the distance, he saw a thin dust cloud. Somebody approached across the barrens from Mos Eisley, probably in a landspeeder. Since n.o.body else was supposed to know he was here, it was probably Leia or Chewie or Lando-if the Empire had located him, they would have dropped on him from the air, raining ships and stormtroopers. In that case, he'd be lucky to get to his camouflaged X-wing before they blasted the place to a smoking ruin-as they had blasted Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru at the farm...

Luke felt his jaw muscles go tight at the memory.

The Empire had a lot to answer for.

The protected corridors in the core of the Imperial Center were available only to those with proper identification, and admissions were, supposedly, strictly lim-ited and enforced. Such corridors were large, well lighted, lined with fanciful botanicals, such as singing fig trees and jade roses, and often patrolled by hawkbats, which preyed on the rock slugs that sometimes infested the granite walls. These corridors were designed to be pathways in which the rich and famous could stroll without being bothered by the rabble.

But as Xizor walked along one such enclosed path, his four bodyguards ahead of or behind him, an interloper appeared in front of them and started shooting at the Dark Prince with a blaster.

One of the pair of bodyguards in front took a bolt in the chest that pierced his concealed hardweave armor and dropped him. Xizor noticed the chest wound smoked as the guard groaned and rolled onto his back.

The second guard, whether through skill or luck, re-turned fire and scored a direct hit on the a.s.sa.s.sin's blaster, knocking it from his hand.

The threat was over.

The attacker screamed and charged at the remaining guards and Xizor barehanded.

Intrigued, Xizor watched the man come. The a.s.sa.s.sin was big, bigger than any of the guards and much larger than Xizor himself, built like a heavy-gravity weight lifter, and he was obviously crazed if he would charge three armed men without a weapon.

How interesting.

"Don't shoot him," Xizor said.

The running man was only twenty or so meters away and closing fast.

The Dark Prince allowed himself one of his tightsmiles. "Leave him alone, " he said. "He's mine." The trio of bodyguards tucked their own blasters away and moved aside. They knew better than to question Xizor's orders.

Those who did could wind up like the still-smoking guard lying on the polished marble floor.

The a.s.sa.s.sin continued his run, screaming incoherently.

Xizor waited. When the man was nearly upon him, the Dark Prince pivoted on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet and slapped a hard palm against the back of the man's head as he charged past. The extra momentum of the strike was enough to off-balance the yelling man so that he overstepped and fell. He managed to turn the fall into an awkward shoulder roll. He came up, spun, faced Xizor. He was a bit more wary now. He moved in, more slowly, hands held in tight fists.

"What seems to be the problem, citizen?" Xizor asked.

"You murdering sc.u.m! You bog slime!"

The man lunged in closer, swung a roundhouse punch at Xizor's head. Had it connected it would have shattered bone. Xizor ducked and sidestepped, kicked the attacker in the belly with the toe of his right boot and knocked the man's wind out.