Han walked down to the ramp's hinged foot. Closing in from all sides were rows of lumbering metal power wagons, petro-engines chugging, sirens ripping the night, high wheels making the landing field tremble. Arc-spotlights swung to converge on the Millennium Falcon and the freight truck.

Han shouldered past Hissal and dashed to the ramp head. "Chewie! We've got problems; get into the c.o.c.kpit and charge up the main guns!" He rejoined Hissal halfway down the ramp.

The college volunteers stood surprised and unmoving on the bed of their truck, unsure of what to do. In moments the cordon of power wagons had been drawn tightly. Doors flew open and squads of figures came leaping from the vehicles. They were obviously government troops, carrying old-fashioned solid-projectile firearms. But something about their uniforms seemed odd. The troops wore human-style military regalia ill-suited to the gawkish Brigian anatomy. Han surmised that remnants and leftovers had been foisted off on the unsuspecting New Regime as part of their overall military purchase.

The soldiers marched in badly fitting battle harness, far-too-loose helmets perched precariously on their heads, filigreed epaulets sagging forlornly from their narrow shoulders, embroidered dispatch cases flopping against their skinny posteriors. Their legs and feet were too narrow for combat boots, so the warriors of Brigia wore natty pink spats with glittering b.u.t.tons over bare feet. Among what Han a.s.sumed to be their officer corps were an abundance of medals and citations, one or two ceremonial swords, and several drooping c.u.mmerbunds. A number of troopers with no detectable talent were blowing bugles.

In moments, the soldiers had taken the shocked college volunteers captive at bayonet point. Other units advanced on the starship.

Han had already grasped Hissal's thin arm and was dragging him up the ramp. "But, this is an atrocity! We have done nothing wrong!"

Han released him and plunged through the main hatch. "You want to debate that with a bullet? Make up your mind; I'm sealing up."

Hissal hurried up the ramp. The main hatch rolled down just as the troops reached the ramp's foot; Han heard a salvo of bullets ricocheting off it.

In the c.o.c.kpit, Chewbacca had already activated defensive shields and had begun warming up the engines. Hissal, trailing Han, was still protesting. Han couldn't take the time to reply; he was completely absorbed in readying the ship for takeoff.

The volunteers were being dragged, pushed, and thrown into confinement in the waiting wagons. The few who protested were summarily struck down and towed off by their slender, strangely boned ankles. Han noticed that the Brigians' war-bannered personnel carriers were, in fact, garbage trucks of an outdated model.

Chewbacca made a grating sound through clenched teeth. "I'm mad about our money, too," Han replied. "How do we get the other half if we can't get a delivery receipt?"

The troops were taking up firing positions in ranks around the starship. "They couldn't have waited another ten minutes?" Han muttered. A Brigian stepped out in front of the firing lines. Because of the glare of the spotlights, Han had to shield his eyes with his hand to see that the Brigian held a loudhailer in one hand and an official-looking scroll in the other.

Han donned his headset and flipped on an external audio pickup in time to hear "-no harm will come to you, good friends from s.p.a.ce! The peace-loving New Regime requires only that you surrender the fugitive now onboard your vessel. The Brigian government will trouble you no further."

Han keyed his headset mike over to external-speaker mode. "What about our pay?" He avoided looking at Hissal, but kept one hand close to his side arm.

"Agreements can be reached, honored offworlder," the Brigian below answered. "Allow me to come onboard and parley."

Han keyed his mike again. "Pull the soldiers back and turn those spotlights off. Meet me at the ramp, no weapons, no stunts!"

The Brigian pa.s.sed his loudhailer to a subordinate and motioned with the scroll. The ranks fell back and the spotlights flickered out; the martial garbage trucks withdrew. "Keep an eye on things," Han instructed his first mate. "If anyone moves wrong, let me know."

Hissal was outraged. "Is it your plan to treat with these hoodlums? Legally speaking, they haven't got a receptacle to skloob in, I a.s.sure you. The courts-"

"-don't concern us now," Han interrupted, motioning him aside. "Go find a seat in the forward compartment and don't worry; we won't hand you over to them."

With great dignity Hissal corrected him. "My concern is for my friends."

Bollux, the labor 'droid, was waiting in the pa.s.sageway, the crated duplicator components loaded on his handtruck. In his measured drawl the automaton asked, "What are your instructions, Captain?"

Han sighed. "I don't know. Why is it I never get the easy jobs? Go up forward, Bollux. If I need you, I'll holler." The machine's heavy feet clattered on the deckplates. Chewbacca yeowled that the area was clear.

Han pulled his blaster. The main hatch rolled up, and at the ramp's foot waited the Brigian. He was taller than Hissal, broadly built for his species, his color a little darker than average. He wore a chrome-studded battle harness, rhinestone shoulderboards with dangling brushes at the ends, several colorful aiguillettes, a salad of decorations, and impressive, red-sequined spats. A plume bobbed from his tilting helmet.

Han beckoned warily. The creature marched up the ramp, the scroll tucked under one arm. Han stopped him at the head of the ramp. "Shuck the harness and the tin lid and toss them back down."

The creature complied. "Welcome to our fair planet, fellow biped," he said with an-effort at heartiness. "I am Inspector Keek, Chief of the Internal Security Police of the very progress-minded New Regime of Brigia." He cast his harness and helmet away with a racket of clanking metal.

"I figured you weren't the Boosters' Club," Han said wryly, making the inspector raise long, skinny arms high. He cautiously poked at the security chief's lateral folds to make sure he had no hidden weapons there. Keek wriggled. This close, Han could read Keek's medals. Either these, too, had been obtained secondhand, he thought, or the inspector was also spelling champ of the planet Oor VII.

"All right, into the forward compartment there. Best behavior now; I've had all the games I'm going to play today."

Entering the forward compartment, Keek gazed without comment at Hissal, who was seated in an acceleration chair near the holo-gameboard. The inspector found his own seat by the tech station. Bollux had seated himself on the curved acceleration couch behind the gameboard.

Han rested one hip on the gleaming gameboard. "Now, what's the hitch? I've got my clearances. The Imperials aren't going to be too happy about you local enforcers trying to hijack an authorized shipment."

Keek spoke with forced jocularity, "Ah, you scaredy-norg human. Nothing's wrong! The benevolent Inner Council held an emergency session when word of this transaction reached them and placed all teaching materials and off-world literature on the restricted list." He waved the beribboned scroll. "I have here the Edict, which I am to present to you."

"And just who's the flaming Inner Council? Listen, slim, no little slowpoke world alters Imperial trade agreements." That he himself had often broken Imperial laws-shattered them to fragments would be more accurate-was something he chose not to mention.

"We are merely here, my troops and I," Keek replied evenly, "to take temporary custody of the cargo in question, until a Tion representative and an Imperial adjudicator can be summoned. The arrests were strictly an internal matter."

And the Tion representative and the Imperial adjudicator would undoubtedly come with price tags attached, Han reflected. "So who pays me?"

Keek attempted to smile; he looked preposterous. "Our supply of Imperial currency is depleted just now, due to repairs to our s.p.a.cefleet. But our Treasury's note, or our planetary currency-"

"No play money!" Han exploded. "I want my cargo back. And besides, one run-down gunboat is no s.p.a.cefleet."

"Impossible. The cargo is evidence for the trial of certain seditionists, one of whom you've been deceived into sheltering. Come, Captain; cooperate, and you'll be well received here." Keek winked, with effort. "Come! We'll pa.s.s intoxicating liquids through our bodies and boast of our sporting abilities! Let us be jolly and clumsy, as humans love to be!"

Han, who hated being played for a sucker worse than anything, gritted his teeth. "I told you already, I don't want any of your homemade cash-"

A sudden thought struck him, and he jumped up. "You want part of my cargo? Keep it! But I'm going to come across to Hissal with what's left."

The security chief seemed amused. "You seek to extort me with educational materials? Come, Captain; we're both worldly chaps."

Han ignored Keek's attempt at flattery. Carrying a power prybar, he began breaking packing straps from a crate on the hand truck. "This is a duplicator, just the thing to set up a college press with. But it's a top-of-the-line model, and it's versatile. Hissal, I'll take that tip after all."

Confused, Hissal handed over the Brigian currency. Han showed them one of the duplicator's components.

"This is the prototyper; you can program it for what you want or feed it as a sample. Like this." He inserted a Brigian bill and punched several b.u.t.tons. The prototyper whirred, lights blinked, and the original bill reappeared together with an identical copy. Han held it up to the light, eyeing the duplicate critically. Keek made choking sounds, comprehending now that the pilot was holding his planet's entire monetary system hostage.

"Hmm. Not perfect," Han noted, "but if you supplied the machine with local materials, it would work. And for different serial numbers on each bill you just program that into the machine. That consulting firm must've been a cut-rate operation; they didn't even bother to set up a secure currency." The New Regime had obviously been the victim of aggressive salesmanship. "Well, Keek, what do you-"

Keek had snapped the end off his scroll's wooden core and pointed it directly at Han, who didn't doubt for a second that he was looking down the barrel of a gun.

"Lay your pistol on that table, alien primate," hissed Keek. "You will now have your automaton take the hand truck and he, you, and the traitor Hissal will precede me down the ramp."

Han gave Bollux the order as he carefully put his blaster on the gameboard, knowing Keek would shoot him if he tried to warn Chewbacca. But as Keek reached to take possession of the blaster, Han inconspicuously touched the gameboard's master control.

Miniature holo-monsters leaped into existence, weird creatures of a dozen worlds, spitting and striking, roaring and hopping. Keek jumped back in surprise, firing his scroll-weapon by reflex. A beam of orange energy crashed into the board, and the monsters evaporated into nothingness.

At the same instant Han, with a star-pilot's reflexes, threw himself onto the security chief, catching hold of the hand holding the scroll-gun. He groped for his blaster with his free hand, but Keek's shot had knocked it from the gameboard.

The security chief possessed incredible strength. Not stopped by the pilot's desperate punches, Keek hurled him halfway across the compartment and brought his weapon around. Just then Hissal landed on his shoulders, making Keek stagger against the edge of the acceleration couch. The two Brigians struggled, their arms and legs intertwining like a confusion of snakes.

But Keek was stronger than the smaller Hissal. Bit by bit he brought his weapon around for a shot. Han got back into the fight with a side-on kick that knocked the scroll aside so that the charge meant for Hissal burned a deep hole in one of the safety cushions.

The scroll-gun was apparently spent, and Keek began to club Hissal with it. Han tried to clock him, but Keek knocked the pilot to the deck with stunning force, then turned to grapple with the other Brigian, their feet shuffling and kicking around the downed human. Unable to get around them and recover his blaster, Han tripped Keek. The inspector sank, taking Hissal with him.

Suddenly the scroll, which Keek had dropped, rolled into Han's palm. As Keek was kneeling over the fallen Hissal, Han swung the scroll, connecting solidly with the security chief's skull. Keek's lank body shook with spasms and stiffened. Hissal merely pushed him, and the security chief toppled to the deck.

A roar came from behind them. Chewbacca, seeing his partner unharmed, was visibly relieved. "Where were you?" Han cried. "He just about put out my running lights!" Rubbing the bruises he had received, Han recovered his pistol.

Hissal, collapsed in an acceleration chair, tried to catch his breath. "This isn't my usual line of endeavor, Captain. Thank you."

"We're sort of even," Han replied with a laugh. Keek began to stir, and Chewbacca the Wookiee s.n.a.t.c.hed him to his feet with one hand. Keek, strong as he was, had better sense than to resist an enraged Wookiee.

Han covered Keek's small bud of a nose with the muzzle of his blaster. The security chief's bulging eyes crossed, watching the weapon. "That little trick of yours wasn't nice, Keek; I hate sneaks even more than hijackers. I want Hissal's people and my cargo back onboard this ship in five minutes or else you're going to have the wind whistling through your ears."

When Hissal's freed colleagues and the controversial cargo were back onboard, Han brought Keek to the ramp's head. "The Empire will hear of this," the Brigian vowed. "It's the death sentence for you."

"I'll try not to lose sleep over it," Han replied dryly. With the ship's forged papers he had used this trip, he doubted any law agency would be able to trace him. Moreover this would be, by the preoccupied Empire's lights, a very minor incident. "And do yourself a favor: don't try anything funny when you get clear. There's nothing on this planet with enough fire power to take this ship, but you might make me mad."

Keek looked at the other Brigians. "What of them?"

Han sounded casual. "Oh, I'll drop them off somewhere away from the noise and the crowds. It's legal; a s.p.a.cer can contract for a surface-to-surface hop if he wants. We're going to take a long orbit, so Hissal can try out his broadcasting rig, hook it into ship's power systems."

Keek was no fool. "With that much alt.i.tude and power, he'll be reaching every receiver on the planet!"

"And what do you think he'll say?" Han asked innocently. "Something about what the New Regime's pulling? It's nothing to me, of course, but I told you pulling a gun on me would be a mistake. I'd be thinking about early retirement if I were you."

Chewbacca gave the security chief a shove to start him on his way. Han closed the hatch. "By the way," he called over to Bollux, "thanks for handing me that scroll during the fight."

The 'droid replied with characteristic modesty. "After all, sir, the inspector had said it was for you. I can only hope there'll be no repercussions, Captain."

"What for?"

"For destabilizing a planetary government to get even for having your ship shot up, sir."

"Serves them right for cheating!" Han Solo declared.

III.

HAN stepped into the sunlight of Rudrig's brief afternoon with the balance of his pay safe in his pocket. Around him the spires, domes, towers, and other buildings that housed this part of the university stood in harmony with the lacy flowers, thick-boled trees, and purple lawns.

The university made use, in one fashion or another, of the entire planet. Its vast campuses and housing, recreation, and field training sectors were scattered over the globe. Students from all over the Tion Hegemony were compelled to come here or else leave the Tion entirely if they wanted advanced education of top quality. Centralization wasn't the best method of offering schooling, Han supposed, but was symptomatic of the languid, inept Hegemony.

He idly studied pa.s.sers-by for a moment, noting many species flocking between cla.s.ses, holding conversations, or playing a.s.sorted sports and various instruments. Stepping gingerly across a broad boulevard between rolling service automata, quiet ma.s.s-transit vehicles, and small ground-effect cargo transporters, he ascended a low access platform and boarded a local pa.s.senger beltway. It zipped him along between huge lecture halls and auditoriums, theaters, administrative buildings, a clinic, and a variety of cla.s.sroom configurations.

Reading the glowing route markers and recalling the coordinates he had memorized from a holo-map, he stepped off the beltway again at that sector's spa, an annex of its sprawling recreation center. He had just started for the spa when he heard a voice. "Hey there, Slick!"

Han hadn't gone by that nickname in many years. Still, as he turned he kept his right hand high and near his left lapel. Though the carrying of weapons was prohibited on this quiet world, having one, Han's pragmatic philosophy ran, was a risk he was willing to take. His blaster was suspended slantwise, grip lowermost, under his left armpit and was concealed by his vest.

"Badure!" His right hand moved away from his blaster and closed in a grip on that of the old man who had called him. He used Badure's own nickname, "Trooper! What are you doing here?"

The other was a big man with a full head of hair going white, a sly squint, and a belly that had come to overlap his belt in recent years. He stood half a head taller than Han, and his grip made the younger man wince.

"Looking for you, son," Badure responded in the gravelly voice Han recalled so well. "You're showing up good, Han, real good. It must be a Wookiee's age since I've seen you. Which reminds me, how is Chewie? I was trying to find you two, and they said at the s.p.a.ceport that the Wook rented a groundcoach and left word for it to be dropped off here."

Badure-Trooper-was a friend of long standing, and he seemed to have come on hard times. Han tried not to take notice of his faded, patched laborer's tunic and trousers or the scuffed and torn work boots. Still, Badure had held on to his old flight jacket, covered with its unit insignia and theater patches, and his jaunty, sweat-stained beret with its fighter-wing flash. "But how'd you know we were here?"

Badure laughed, his belly rolling. "I keep track of landings and departures, Slick. But in this case I knew you were coming."

Much as he liked this old man, Han was suspicious. "Maybe you'd better tell me more, Badure."

He looked pleased with himself. "How do you think those university types got your name, son? Not that it doesn't get around as is; I heard about that stunt at the Saheelindeeli airshow-and some rumors from out in the Corporate Sector, and something about water smuggled down the Rampa Rapids. I was here tracking down a few things on my own and heard someone was asking about capable skippers and fast ships. I pa.s.sed your name along. But before we go into that, shouldn't you be saying h.e.l.lo to my business partner here?"

Han had been so preoccupied that he had ignored the person standing beside Badure. Chiding himself silently for this unusual lapse in caution, he looked her over.

The girl was short and slender, not long into womanhood, with a pale face and disorderly red hair that hung limply. Her brows and lashes were so light that they scarcely showed. She wore a drab, baggy brown outfit of pullover and pants, and her shoes appeared to be a size too large. Her hands had seen hard work. Han had met many men and women just like her, each bearing the stamp of the factory drone or mining-camp worker, lowest-echelon tech or other toiler.

She in turn studied him with no approval whatsoever. "This is Hasti," Badure said. "She already knows your name." Indicating the flow of beings moving around them to and from the busy spa, he gestured that they continue toward the entrance.

Han acceded, moving slowly, but a sideways slide of the older man's eyes confirmed something. "What do I watch for?" he inquired simply.

Badure laughed and said, more to himself than to Han or Hasti, "Same old Han Solo, a one-man sensor suite."

Han's thoughts were on Badure. The man had been his friend many years before and his partner on various enterprises a number of times since. Once, in an uncomfortable situation stemming from an abortive Kessel spice run, Badure had saved both Han's and Chewbacca's lives. That he should have sought them out here could mean only one thing.

"I won't waste your time, kid," Badure said. "There are some that would like to see my hide hung out to dry. I need a ship with punch, and gait to spare, and a skipper I can trust."

Han realized that Badure wasn't going to be first to mention the life-debt the two partners owed him. "You want us to put our necks in the slot for you, is that it? Trooper, saving someone's life doesn't give you the right to risk it again. We're finally ahead of the game; do we owe it all out again this soon?"

Badure countered in neutral tones. "You're answering for the Wook, too, Han?"

"Chewie'll see it my way." If I have to reason with him with a wrench!

Hasti joined the conversation for the first time. "Now are you satisfied, Badure?" she asked bitterly.

The old man hushed her gently. To Han he went on, "I'm not asking you two to work for nothing. There'd be a cut-"

"The thing is, we're flush. Uh, in fact, we can cut some loose to see you through for a while."

He felt he had gone too far and thought for a moment that Badure was going to swing at him. The old man had made and spent a number of fortunes and had always been open-handed to his friends; but the offer of charity to himself had the ring of an insult. Favoring Han with a venomous look, Hasti put a hand on Badure's arm. "We're wasting time; our luggage is still at the district hostelry."

"Clear skies, Han," Badure said in a quiet voice, "and to the Wook as well."

Han gazed after the two long after they had disappeared on a pa.s.senger beltway.