She guided the vehicle with a jerky lack of skill. Failing to coordinate braking thrust and lift, she stalled it out completely. Giving it up, she dismounted and finished the rest of the way back on foot. By that time Han had risen and brushed much of the dust off himself.

She studied him, left hand on hip.

"That wasn't a bad move, rocketsocks," he admitted.

"Don't you ever pay attention to anybody?" she scolded. "I kept hollering 'look out, look out'; I was going to toss a rock at him but you kept getting in the way. I don't know what I would've done if he hadn't been right behind the engine pod. If he'd been any farther-Hey!"

Han had stepped forward, grabbed both her hands and pulled her palms up roughly, inhaling them deeply. He detected no scent of either the anesthetic that had impregnated the gloves of his a.s.sailant at the s.p.a.ceport or any solvent that might have been used to remove it. But her companion might have executed the ambush in the hangar, or it was possible that the stuff in the gloves might not have contacted her skin. This didn't prove she was innocent; it only failed to prove she was guilty.

He let her go. She was watching him with arch interest. "Should I sniff you back or clap my hands on your nose or what? You're a really strange one, Zlarb."

That explained a few things anyway, if she meant it. "My name's not Zlarb. Zlarb's dead, and whoever he worked for owes me ten thousand."

She stared at him. "That tallies, provided you're telling the truth. But you were where Zlarb was supposed to be, doing more or less what he was supposed to be doing."

Han angled a thumb at the vibroblader's body. "Who was that?"

"Oh, him. That's who Zlarb was supposed to meet at the lounge. I was playing off both sides, Zlarb and his boss. Or, I thought I was."

Han began warming up to an interrogation session when she interrupted. "I'd love to chat this over at length but shouldn't we get out of here before they arrive?"

He looked up and saw what she meant. Bearing down on them was a flight of four more swoops. "Scooters are too slow. Come on." He snagged his macrobinoculars from his repulsorlift scooter and ran for the swoop belonging to the late vibroblader. Climbing on, he brought the engine pod back to life. The woman was bent over the vibroblader's body.

Working the handlebar accelerator, he tugged the swoop through a tight turn, helping with his foot. A quick surge of power took him to her side in a moment.

He braked hard. "Are you coming or staying?" he asked as he fit his knees into the control auxiliaries. She set her boot on a rear footpeg and swung up into the saddle behind him, showing him the vibroblade she had stopped to collect.

"Very good," he conceded. "Now belt in and hold on." He did the same, securing the safety belt tightly at his waist, and each donned a pair of the flying goggles that hung from clips at the swoop's side. He gave the accelerator a hard twist and they tore away into the air, the wind screaming at them over the swoop's low fairing. She clasped her arms around his middle and they both bent low to avoid the fairing's slipstream.

The oncoming swoops were approaching from the direction of the city, so Han turned deeper into open country. At the edge of the table of land he threw his craft into a sudden dive over the brink, straight down into a chasm beyond. The ground rushed at them.

He threw his weight against the handlebars and leaned hard against the steering auxiliaries. The swoop came up so sharply that he was nearly torn from the handlebars by centrifugal force and the woman's grip on him. The rearmost edge of the engine pod brushed the ground, making it skip and fishtail. Han just avoided a crash, slewed in midair and headed off down the sharply zigzagged chasm.

He calculated that, due to the steep, twisty nature of the gulches and canyons in the area, his pursuers couldn't simply stand off at high alt.i.tude and search for him, for he might escape through a side canyon or simply hide under an overhanging ledge and out-wait them. If, on the other hand, they came in direct pursuit; they would have to hang on his tail through these obstacle course gullies and draws.

Han hadn't been on a swoop in years but had once been very good on them, a racer and a course rider. He was willing to match himself against the four who rode after him. The one thing that worried him was the chance that they might split their bet, one or two of them going high and the others clinging to his afterblast.

"What're you worried about anyway?" his pa.s.senger yelled over the engine's howl and the quarrelsome wind. "They won't have guns or that first man would've had one, right?"

"That doesn't mean they can't jump us," he called back over his shoulder, trying not to let it distract him from negotiating the crazy turns and switchbacks of the maze. He decided that she must have little experience with swoops. She made some remark he didn't catch, sounding as if she understood, but he was too busy conning the aircraft to answer.

Then he found out what she'd been worried about. Coming out of an especially sharp turn he almost lost control and had to touch his braking thrusters, swearing at the necessity.

It saved both their lives. A sudden blast of force erupted in the air to their right. Even the turbulence at its very edge was nearly enough to send them into the rock wall so close to their left. Under Han's desperate efforts the little swoop wobbled, then righted and flew on.

Overhead and to the right banked one of the other swoops; its pilot had brought it down in a steep dive and snapped past, opening his accelerator at the bottom of the dive in an effort to knock Han's vehicle out of the air or tear its riders from their saddle with the sheer force of an engine blast. Played for near-misses and scares, this sort of thing had been a game Han had known well in his youth; played for real, it was an efficient form of murder.

He knew there would be at least one backup man; they wouldn't leave more than half their number on high cover. He came up on a forking of the way, took a split second's bearing on the angle of the sun and dodged into the canyon he had selected. The woman was pounding him on the back, demanding to know why he'd taken the more confining way.

There was a long overhang running along one side of the canyon, but he clung to the other side, dividing his time between the harrowingly fast decisions of the ride and stolen, microsecond glances at the canyon floor. He fought the urge to pull up and get clear of the insane obstacle course; with its double burden, his swoop would almost certainly be overtaken and hemmed in and someone flying high cover was a good bet to buffet him right out of the sky.

A flash of warning was all he got. The sun's slanting rays showed him another shadow not far behind his own on the canyon's floor. His instantaneous brake-and-accelerate sequence was based more on intuition than on computation of angles and speeds. But it served its purpose; the other swoop overshot, its rider's aim thrown off by Han's maneuver. The other rider pulled out of his dive, but by then Han had pulled into a position to meet him as he brought his swoop into an ascending curve. As he rose, the other rider found himself gazing into the rear end of Han's swoop's engine pod.

He couldn't avoid Han's afterblast. The other swoop careened off the canyon floor, wobbled in the air for a moment, then plowed into the ground. Han didn't stop to see whether the rider survived the spill or not; he poured on all the speed he safely could, and considerably more besides. Climbing, diving, and sideslipping, it was all he could do to keep from having a collision of his own.

It was a shock when, coming out of a frantic bank that had their swoop's underside within centimeters of a vertical canyon wall, Han and his pa.s.senger broke into the open, leaving the hills behind. Unexpectedly, the other three pursuers, who had lost track of Han in the maze, came flying at an almost leisurely pace across his course.

He had a moment's view of their astounded faces, a human and two humanoids whose gold-sheened skins gleamed in the hazy sunlight of the long Bonadan afternoon. They swung their swoops around to resume the chase as Han accelerated.

Even as he did, he knew a straight run would be futile. With the woman aboard he was bound to be overtaken before he could reach the safety of the patrolled city traffic patterns. What he needed was something to break off the pursuit.

Something off to his left attracted his attention. The huge cylinder of the automated weather-control station was just beginning a slow swing on its aiming apparatus, realigning for a new a.s.signment. Han yanked at the handlebars and cut a new course for it.

His pa.s.senger screamed. "What are you doing? They'll catch us!"

He couldn't take time to tell her they would be overtaken anyway. Closing fast on the station's supporting framework, he had to cut speed. Quick looks told him that his swoop was being bracketed above and to either side by the remaining pursuers. He cut speed even more as the support framework loomed directly before him.

For the moment his pursuers held back, not sure why he was riding straight at this huge obstruction. They had no desire to be lured into a fatal accident.

At the last second he shed almost all his speed and threaded in through the girderwork support. It wasn't a particularly hard maneuver; the thick girders were widely s.p.a.ced, and his speed was, by then, comparatively low. The pursuers, closely grouped behind him, chose to follow rather than detour around the support tower. They were determined not to lose him as he broke out the other side. That wasn't, however, his plan.

He pulled at the handlebars and went into a vertical climb, straight up the central well of the support tower, hoping that this station followed standard design.

It did; he shot between two catwalks and directly out into the cavernous emission cylinder, a gridwork with open squares some meter and a half or so on a side. The emission cylinder was 150 meters long, less than a third of that in diameter. He swung down toward one end of the slowly rotating cylinder, orienting himself and figuring out just which way the station was pivoting.

He turned back to see the three pursuers soar into the cylinder in determined chase. They were moving a good deal slower than Han; they had never played this game before.

"Stay gripped," he shouted over his shoulder and swung back toward the others. The cylinder was more than s.p.a.cious enough for them to scatter and avoid him, thinking he was trying to ram. Then they dropped in on his tail again, following him down toward the far end of the cylinder where, they were sure, they could trap and halt him.

Until he speeded up again. The engine pod blared its power. The far end of the emission cylinder was still swinging and Han had to compensate carefully for its movement. He crouched forward, sighting carefully through the fairing, lining up the swoop precisely. The openings in the gridwork were frighteningly small.

The woman saw what he was about to do and burrowed her head into his back. The opening he had selected expanded before him. There was a terrible moment of doubt, far too late to change his mind.

The gridwork pa.s.sed him like a shadow. And he was in the open, pointed more or less toward the city, the swoop's engine howling. He took a quick look behind. Pieces of wreckage were raining slowly to the ground and some lengths of gridwork stuck out jaggedly; one of his pursuers had tried to emulate him and failed.

The woman's face was pallid.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Just fly this thing, you psychopath!" she shouted back.

He faced forward again with an arrogant smirk. "Deft hands and a pure heart triumph again! You were never in any-" He gulped as he saw that the top edge of the fairing had been neatly sheared away. He'd been spared by no more than millimeters.

"-danger," Han Solo finished in a much more subdued voice.

V.

CHEWBACCA, still some distance from the Millennium Falcon, smelled a strange odor and knew something was wrong. Black nostrils flaring in a futile effort to identify the aroma, he approached the starship as quietly as he could. Despite his great size and weight, the Wookiee, a veteran hunter, moved with total stealth.

After leaving the lounge, Chewbacca had made only a cursory check of the Falcon, eyeballing her to make sure no one on any of the grounds crews had attempted to move the freighter or block her in. Then he had begun a round of inquiries at the portmaster's headquarters and guild hiring halls. But the Falcon's first mate had turned up nothing of use.

His errand had caused him to miss both the abortive attempt to break into the ship and Han's subsequent appearance and departure. But now he had discovered still another threat to the starship. Silently easing up to the foot of the ramp, he saw an unfamiliar form hunched over and working busily at the freighter's main hatch lock. Next to the figure was an open tool bag containing a fusioncutter, some probes, a drill, and other instruments of illegal entry. The intruder's ears were covered with some sort of headphones.

Chewbacca ascended the ramp like a wraith, reached out, seized a broad handful of the nape of the intruder's neck, and lifted. The headphones shook loose and from the creature's neck dangled the thing to which they were attached, apparently a listening device for the opening of locks.

"Eee-ee!" The figure writhed and wriggled with such sinuosity that the Wookiee lost his hold. But as the would-be burglar sought to dodge past him, Chewbacca's long arms scooped out to either side, blocking the way. Trapped, the intruder shrank back against the Falcon's main hatch, panting and trembling.

The being was small, perhaps a head shorter than Han Solo when standing erect rather than cowering. He had the sleek, glossy pelt of an aquatic mammal, colored a deep gleaming black. He was a biped with short, strong-looking fingers and toes; between those fingers and toes were webs of pinkish-gray skin. He had a thick, tapering tail and pointed ears that stood close to his skull, moving independently, aiming this way and that, first at the Wookiee, then away. His long, moist snout snuffled and quivered nervously. From this whiskered snout protruded a set of long buckteeth. It was plain from his squinting eyes that his vision wasn't very acute.

The being seemed to gain a good deal of information by his ears; Chewbacca a.s.sumed it was only because he had been wearing the headphones that he'd failed to notice the Wookiee's approach.

The intruder collected himself and drew himself up to his full height (which wasn't very imposing against Chewbacca's), nose quivering and tail vibrating in righteous indignation. Unfortunately his voice, when it came, was something of a quavering squeak with a slight lisp, reducing the effect. Still, it held conviction.

"What's the idea of a.s.saulting me, you big overstuffed oaf of a Wookiee? How dare you? I'll have you know I'm a licensed collections agent. This vessel appears on the Red List!" He snagged a card out of his open bag and presented it with the formal flourish of a webbed hand.

It was a doc.u.ment of identification and authorization for one Spray, of the planet Tynna, to act in the interests and on the behalf of Interstellar Collections Limited, pursuant to the collection of debts, garnishing and repossession proceedings and any and all activities connected thereunto. On it was a flat two-dee depicting the little collections agent.

Chewbacca, satisfied that the doc.u.ment was real, looked up with a snarl of displeasure directed at all skip-tracers in general and at Spray in particular. Like Han, he sincerely detested them.

Jumping out on a debt seldom meant trouble with law enforcement agencies; it was such a common practice among members of the fringe society of independent s.p.a.cers that every lawman in the galaxy could have spent every waking moment looking for, apprehending, and prosecuting them to the exclusion of all other activity. Thus the Espos, Imperial forces, and other legal authorities tended to ignore the problem, leaving the collection of debts and/or repossession of s.p.a.cecraft to agency skip-tracers like Spray who roamed the galaxy with the voluminous and infamous Red List.

Spray appeared not to notice the Wookiee's snarl. Having identified himself, he reverted to being a company man. The Tynnan dug out, from somewhere, an incredibly thick little notebook, squinting into it, his moist nose nearly touching the page.

He mumbled to himself as he read. "Ah, here, yes," he said finally. "Would you by any chance be Captain, um, Solo?"

Chewbacca barked an irritated negative and jerked a thumb back at the s.p.a.ceport, indicating Han's present location as well as he could. Then he moved Spray rudely out of his way and bent to see what had been done to the lock. When he noticed the same damage Han had seen earlier he let out a horrible howl and turned back on the skip-tracer with mayhem in mind.

But the Tynnan, back on familiar territory, was indignant rather than intimidated. He snuffled. "I most certainly am not responsible for that damage! Do you mistake me for a bungler and a thug? A brainless primitive unconversant with modern technology? I am a trained collections agent, my dear Wookiee, equipped with the latest tools of my profession; I avoid doing any unnecessary damage to repossessed property. I have no idea who was tampering with the hatch lock before me, but you may depend upon it that it wasn't me! I simply deactivated the surveillance system and was about to neutralize the lock-without damaging it, if I may say so-when you so violently accosted me. Now that you're here, however, the need no longer exists."

Spray was burrowing his bucktoothed proboscis into the notebook again and lisping mumbles to himself, insinuating himself between the Wookiee and the Falcon's main hatch. Chewbacca found himself somewhat off stride; his wrath and threats were sometimes greeted by fear, sometimes by hostility, and occasionally with combat, but never had the towering first mate met anyone quite so preoccupied that he actually paid him no attention.

"Ah, here we are," Spray went on, having riffled back to the correct page. "Your captain has failed to settle on an outstanding debt of some two thousand five hundred Credits Standard owed to Vinda and D'rag, Starshipwrights and Aeros.p.a.ce Engineers Incorporated, of Oslumpex V. Your Captain Solo has ignored seven-no, eight dunning notices."

He glared myopically at the Wookiee. "Eight, sir. Vinda and D'rag have therefore presumed default on your captain's part and referred the matter to my employers. Now, if you'll be good enough to open the hatch, I can continue the repossession process. Of course, you're free to remove all personal effects and non-"

Chewbacca had been making deep, reverberating noises in his throat up to now, which someone more familiar with him would have taken as a danger signal. His annoyance burst forth in a roar that drove Spray back a step with its sheer physical impact, ruffling the little skip-tracer's nose fur and bending back his whiskers.

But he stood waiting patiently, eyes squeezed shut against the vocal gale, as Chewbacca railed horrible Wookiee oaths at him. The Tynnan flinched every now and then as the crescendo rose, his ears swinging back protectively, but he held his ground resolutely. The Falcon's first mate periodically punctuated his ranting by slamming his enormous fist against the ship's hull, evoking deep percussives from her armor.

But when he finally ran down, Spray began again in the mildest of tones. "Now then, as I was saying: I have a doc.u.ment here ent.i.tling me to take possession of-"

Chewbacca s.n.a.t.c.hed up the papers proffered by Spray. It was a thick legal instrument of several pages; the Wookiee crushed it into a tightly compressed wad in his powerful hands and stuck it into his fanged mouth. Sneering hideously at the skip-tracer, he chomped on the doc.u.ment a few times, shredding it handily, then swallowed it.

But it did little to alleviate his frustration over how to deal with Spray. This was the first time in memory that Chewbacca had ever had such difficulty with a creature whom he outweighed three to one. He was beginning to feel embarra.s.sed; the scene had already attracted the attention of several local idlers and a number of pa.s.sing automata. The idea of simply demolishing the Tynnan was now out of the question.

"That will do you precisely no good whatsoever, my dear Wookiee," Spray hastened to a.s.sure him. "I have many duplicates. Now, unless your captain is prepared to make immediate and total defrayal of the entire sum of his debt, I'm afraid I must demand that you open that hatch, or permit me to do so."

Chewbacca surrendered at last, growling and motioning Spray to follow him back down the ramp. He would take the skip-tracer to talk to his partner; he could see no alternative short of losing the ship or committing premeditated murder in a public place.

But Spray was shaking his head briskly, his whiskers quivering. "I'm afraid it just won't do, my good fellow. It's too late to begin negotiating; immediate payment or immediate repossession are your only choices."

In the course of a long life Chewbacca had learned that there come times when the most bellicose roar is insufficient. He clamped one vast paw on either of Spray's shoulders and effortlessly hoisted the skip-tracer up close, until their gazes were level. Suspended furry muzzle to bucktoothed muzzle with Chewbacca, his webbed feet dangling somewhere above the Wookiee's knees, the Tynnan watched as the Millennium Falcon's first mate wordlessly peeled his lips back from ferocious rows of teeth.

"Then again," the collections agent resumed hastily, "perhaps we could work out some sort of agreement and spare my employers the expense and inconvenience of public auction. Point well taken, sir. Where might I find your captain?"

Chewbacca carefully set Spray back down on his feet and, gesturing to the lock surveillance system, growled harshly. Taking his meaning clearly, Spray dug some tools from his bag and quickly reactivated the device.

Blue Max's chirp instantly sounded over the intercom. "Who's there? Why was this instrument deactivated? Reply at once or I'll notify port security!"

Chewbacca barked once at the comlink. "Oh, First Mate Chewbacca, sir," Max replied happily. "I thought the ship was being burglarized again. There was already one attempt earlier. Captain Solo's gone off to investigate. He dispatched Bollux to the Landing Zone with word, and said he'd meet you there. Are you coming aboard, sir?"

The Wookiee barked irritably as he marched Spray down the ramp. The Tynnan had to trot to match Chewbacca's long strides.

Blue Max called after them. "But what are my instructions?"

As the Wookiee dragged him off, the skip-tracer shrilly called back, "In the name of Interstellar Collections Limited, make sure no harm comes to the vessel!"

"What's your name, anyway?" the woman asked as they pa.s.sed through the entrance to the Landing Zone. It was a well-known spot among s.p.a.cers, prominent on the avenue of bars, rub-shops, gambling dens, and p.a.w.nbrokers' establishments outside the s.p.a.ceport's main crew gate. "Mine's Fiolla," she encouraged.

Han hadn't had much chance to talk to her on the ride back, at the end of which they had abandoned the swoop and the vibroblade several blocks away, in the middle of the teeming Alien Quarter. It was a good bet that the swoop already had a new coat of paint or was dismantled.

But he saw no reason to cudgel his brain for a cover; the slavers already knew his name, and anyone else who wanted to badly enough could find out.

"Han Solo," he said. She gave no sign of recognizing it.

Bollux, having failed to find Chewbacca in the s.p.a.ceport's wide confines, had had no more luck at the Landing Zone. But by soliciting the bartender's permission with particular fervor, he had been allowed to wait by the entrance.

Now he approached Han who, sighting the 'droid, sighed. "I don't feel like talking standing up. Come and have a seat, Bollux."

The Landing Zone and all its furnishings were built from pieces and fittings from the s.p.a.ceport salvage yards. Han led the way to a small table made from an obsolete charts-computer from an old survey ship.

When Bollux and Fiolla had taken seats he turned to her. "Bollux, general labor 'droid, at your service."

Han interrupted Fiolla's courteous reply. "Never mind that," he snapped. "Bollux, where's Chewie?"

"I was unable to locate him, Captain. I came here a.s.suming this to be the place where you'd eventually contact him."

The waiter came by, a many-tentacled Sljee with a broad tray firmly fastened to the top of its low, slab-shaped body. There was a hole in the middle of the tray and through it the Sljee's olfactory antennae waved like some strange centerpiece.

"What're you folks having?" it asked them hurriedly, the second afternoon rush just having begun. Then it noticed Bollux. "Sorry, but it's against house policy to allow 'droids at the tables. You two gentlemen will have to leave him outside."