Han heard his named called. Skynx and Hasti crouched at the edge of the field. Firing and scrambling, the others joined them.

"We can't retreat down that snowfield; it's too steep," Hasti declared, "and even Chewbacca couldn't carry that gong down. We'd make perfect targets out there."

Han dealt out a few more shots, pondering her reasoning and their lack of alternatives. Then Chewbacca, surveying the situation, barked a quick scheme to him.

"Partner, you are crazy," Han exclaimed, not without a certain respect. But he saw no nonfatal alternative. "What's keeping us?" He pulled the others closer and explained the plan. They readied themselves, having no time for fear or doubts.

Then Han yelled. "Chewie! Go!" The Wookiee backpedaled to the edge of the field, whirled, stooped, and laid the concave gong down, its curved surface indenting the hard, icy snowfield. Han fired furiously.

Badure dropped awkwardly onto the gong and grabbed a carrying handle. Bollux climbed onto the opposite side of the rim, locking servo-grips onto two more handles. Skynx swarmed aboard and clung tightly around the 'droid's neck, antennae flailing. Hasti braced herself next to Badure, and Chewbacca had to brace his broad feet in the snow at the tug of the gong's weight.

Han still stood, keeping up a heavy volume of fire. He shouted, "I'll pile on last!"

Chewbacca didn't take time to argue; he swept out one long arm, gathered his friend in like a child, and threw himself onto the gong. Shots from the Survivor flankers crisscrossed overhead. The Wookiee's impetus and weight gave them a quick start.

The gong gathered speed, spinning and sliding as it cut along the icy slope. Chewbacca lifted his head and uttered a foghorn-like hoot of elation, to which Skynx added a "Wee-ee hee-ee!"

The gong tilted and rotated to the left as it swished across the snow. Chewbacca threw his weight the other way; they bounced and slid on a fairly even keel for a few seconds, then hit a small rock outcropping in the snowfield.

They were airborne, all hands seeking a grip and flailing to stay aboard; to fall from the gong now and slide the rest of the way without protection would mean severe laceration by ice shards and shattered bones from the hardened patches and rocks.

They came down again with a breath-stealing jolt; everyone, miraculously, contrived to cling to the bucking, jarring gong. Han grabbed Hasti, who, in helping Badure, had nearly lost her own grip. The Falcon's master encircled her waist with his free arm while she clenched a handful of Badure's flight jacket. Badure, in turn, had locked legs with Chewbacca, helping the Wookiee steer by leaning and tugging at the handles. Chewbacca, like the others, could barely see; their headlong speed through the icy air had stung everyone's eyes to tears and was numbing their exposed skin.

In leaning abruptly to the side, the Wookiee succeeded in guiding their mad descent around a prow of stone that would have smashed them all, but in the process he lost his balance. Bollux quickly shifted his central torsional member and secured his legs around the Falcon's first officer's.

Badure held on to Chewbacca, too, reaching out with a free hand to help steady the Wookiee. But in doing so he saw he was about to lose Chewbacca's bowcaster and bandoleer. He cried out, his words stolen instantly by the wind, but Han was busy clinging to a handle and hanging onto Hasti and she to Badure, while Badure and Bollux were committed to keeping Chewbacca aboard. Meanwhile, the Wookiee devoted all his attention to what could only in the most ludicrous sense be termed "steering."

And so Skynx, facing the fact that only he was free to act, released his grip on the 'droid with all but his last set of limbs. He was dragged around at once, very nearly snapped like a whip, reaching with his free extremities. Just as Badure's scrabbling efforts to hang on to the bowcaster failed, Skynx got close enough to grasp the weapon and was abruptly thrown in the other direction as the gong changed course again.

The small Ruurian now clung to his only mainstay, Bollux, by the digits of his lowermost limbs, which clenched precariously on the 'droid's shoulder pauldron. But he determinedly hung on to the weapon and ammunition, knowing they might be needed badly and that there was no one to catch them if he failed. With each b.u.mp and rotation of the gong, Skynx felt his grip loosening, but he hugged his burden resolutely. One by one, he began to find purchase for his other limbs. Chewbacca felt him fumbling, shifted his leg as much as he was able, and Skynx managed to fasten two sets of limbs to the Wookiee's thick knee.

They were at the steepest part of the insane plunge, shearing through the snowfield, rocking in furrows, and smashing out of depressions in the surface. Several times Han saw energy beams of various hues register hits in the snow, but always far wide of their mark. As targets go, we must be pretty fast and furious.

He clung doggedly, fingers, ears, and face numbed by the cold, eyes streaming a constant flow of tears. "My fingers are slipping!" cried Hasti with unmasked fear. "I can't feel them."

Han knew with a sense of utter futility that he could do little to help her. He griped her as tightly as he could, hoping that his frozen fingers would hold.

Badure yelled, "We're slowing down!" Chewbacca bellowed pure joy. Hasti began to half-laugh, half-sob.

The gong had reached a gentler portion of the slope close to the foot of the snowfield and was losing speed moment by moment. The b.u.mps and jolts became less dramatic, the spinning less p.r.o.nounced. In seconds they were coasting.

"An excellent job, First Mate Chewbacca," Bollux was saying, when suddenly the gong's rim hit a slab of rock that lifted it into the air like a jump ramp. Frozen hands, servo-grips, Ruurian digits, and Wookiee toes, all lost their final struggle. The gong threw them free. Human bodies, the tubular Skynx, a yeowling Chewbacca, and gleaming Bollux sailed through the air on a.s.sorted trajectories, cartwheeling, tumbling, spinning-and falling.

XIII.

HAN heard the whine of servo-motors over the moan of wind. From where he lay, mostly buried by the mound of snow he had sc.r.a.ped up on his landing approach, he could see Bollux draped belly-up over a low s...o...b..nk. The halves of the 'droid's chest plastron opened up and outward.

Blue Max's vocoder bl.u.s.tered. "Hey! Let's get moving; we're not out of it yet!"

A drift to Han's right sloughed and erupted. Chewbacca appeared, spitting out snow and rumbling an acid remark to the diminutive computer module.

"No, he's right," Han groaned to his partner. He raised himself on unsteady arms and gazed up the slope, foggily curious about whether his head was actually going to fall off or if it simply felt that way. A bobbing column of lights was wending its way down the snowfield from the Survivors' base. Their former captors were in hot pursuit.

"The short circuit's right on the money, folks; everybody up!" Han thrashed and floundered in the snow for a moment, then pulled himself to his feet and began beating his hands together to bring some sensation back.

Hasti was also struggling up. Han caught her hand and pulled her to her feet. She ran over to see to Badure. Chewbacca had just reclaimed his bowcaster and bandoleer from Skynx, whom he had dug free. The Wookiee growled his grat.i.tude, patting and stroking the Ruurian's woolly back in a gruff gesture of thanks.

Hasti was chafing Badure's hand's and wrists, trying to get him upright. Han moved to help and saw that the tip of the old man's nose and patches on his cheeks were whitened.

"He's getting frostbite. On deck, Trooper; time to depart the area." They pulled him up. Meanwhile, with Chewbacca's help, Bollux was once more upright.

Counting heads before striking off, Han spied Skynx bent over the gong, which had fallen face up, a flattened dome in the snow. The Ruurian was making minute examination of the whorls and patterns on the ancient metal, laboring to see in the light of moons and stars. When Han called him, the academician yelled back. "I think you'd better see this first, Captain."

They all gathered around him. His small digits traced the raised characters. "I thought I recognized these when I first saw this object, but I was too hurried to study them. All these," a splay of digits indicated groups of characters, "are technical notations and operating instructions. They have to do with pressure equalization and fastening procedures."

"Then it comes from a hatch," Badure concluded, his m.u.f.fled voice coming through hands cupped to thaw out his cheeks and nose. "Some kind of decorative facing off an airlock hatch, a big one."

Skynx agreed. "A peculiar and rather ostentatious appointment, but that is the case. Those several larger characters there in the center give the vessel's name." He turned bulbous red eyes to them. "It's the Queen of Ranroon!"

In the middle of a tumult of voices-human, non-human, and electronic-Han stood imagining the treasure of entire worlds. Though cold, near exhaustion, pursued, and starved, he suddenly found himself charged with limitless energy and a dramatic determination to live and to claim the Queen's wealth.

They were interrupted. Han's thoughts and the confused conversations springing from Skynx's revelation were cut short by a long note sounding in the night, a wail from a hunting horn or other signaling device.

That brought them all up short. The bobbing lights of the pursuing Survivors' column were now well down the slope. Now and then one would drop from the line and disappear as its bearer lost footing on the treacherous snowfield and fell tumbling.

Led by Han, the escapees set out in a staggering string, helping one another as well as they could; fortunately, the snow wasn't very deep. They reached down to scoop up handfuls of the stuff to melt in their mouths, trying to relieve the dehydration of their captivity. Beating his gloved hands together, Han considered what the hatch cover might mean. Were the Survivors guarding Xim's treasure in their mountain warren? What had become of the Queen of Ranroon?

Hasti caught up to him in the struggling line of march. "Solo, I've been doing some thinking. The congregation back there isn't just tooting their horns to hear the echoes and let us know they're coming. I think they have patrols out and are calling the forces out on us."

He stopped, deriding himself for having been preoccupied with the treasure. Hasti repeated her reasoning to the others. "We're not too far from the snow line," Badure observed. "Perhaps that's the limit to their territory."

Han shook his head. "We messed up church for them and left quite a few of them in some pain. They're coming for blood and they won't stop just because the snow does. We'd better take up a better formation. Chewie, walk the point."

The Wookiee padded off quietly; cold and snow didn't bother him. Protected by his thick pelt, he slipped off, keeping to the cover of the increasingly frequent rocks and boulders. The others followed more slowly in his wake, slowed because they were bereft of his giant, supportive strength.

But within minutes the Wookiee was back to draw them down into the cover of a particularly large boulder and tell Han, in quick gutterals, what he had encountered.

"There're more of them, coming up this way," Han translated. "Chewie thinks we can hide here and wait them out. When they're past, we go on. Still and quiet, everybody."

They waited for oppressive minutes, straining to make no noise, no shift of position or other movement that might betray them. Han slowly turned his head to check the progress of the Survivors from their base. The lights had made their way to the gentler part of the slope and fanned out for a ground search.

There was a slight sound, the smallest movement of rock and crunch of ice. Everyone tensed. A shape moved stealthily into view, keeping to available cover. The approaching Survivor was uncostumed but wore a hood and heavy clothing. The scout's head turned slowly, searching the area carefully as he went. Moments later another sentinel appeared, farther across the valley on a parallel course.

Han thought he understood. The valley widened abruptly from here, and a few sentries, farther along, might not be able to stop the escapees from getting past. The sentries kept moving warily. When they were well past the escapees' position, Han-using hand-touches to alert his companions and dictate the order of march-slipped out from behind the boulder. The servo-motors of Bollux's body were smooth and quiet, but sounded unbearably loud to Han. He could only hope the sound didn't carry over the wind and other noises in the night.

They had wound their way among the rocks for another half kilometer and gotten out of sight of the snowfield, and Han had just begun to let himself believe they were clear, when a yellow heatbeam flashed out of the night. It scored on a rock two meters to Bollux's right, throwing up sparks and globs of molten mineral.

Chill, shivers, frozen feet, and caution were forgotten. Everybody scattered for cover. Hasti brought her disrupter pistol up for a return shot but Han whispered, "Don't! He'll pick up your position from the flash. Anybody see where the shot came from?" n.o.body had. "Then, sit still. When he fires again, we'll nail him. Aim for the point of origin."

"Solo, we haven't got time to sit here!" Hasti rasped fiercely.

"Then start tunneling," he suggested.

But instead she groped, found a stone that fit her palm, and heaved it. It clattered among the loose rocks. Another heatbeam flashed yellow from the shadows at the side of the valley.

Han fired instantly and kept on firing. The others, slower than he, joined a moment later with a torrent of blaster, power pistol, disruptor, and bowcaster shots.

"Hold it, hold it," Han ordered. "I think we got him."

"Do we move on?" asked Badure.

Han didn't think the light and reports of the shots would have been detectable back on the slopes. "Not yet. We have to be sure we won't get backshot. Besides, I saw a gleam of metal where the heatbeams came from. Maybe there's a vehicle there, or some supplies." He shivered from the mountain air. "Anything'd be a help."

"Then someone must investigate," Skynx declared and was away before anybody could stop him, flowing between the rocks with his antennae held low, nearly impossible to see. I'll have to warn him about those heroics, Han thought, he's come a long way. To break the tense silence, he whispered to Badure, "See what happens? First you go off medal-chasing to get our weapons back and now Skynx figures he's the valiant warrior."

The old man chuckled softly. "The guns came in handy, didn't they? Besides, it gave Chewbacca a chance to pay back his Life-Debt."

Han blinked. "That's right. Hey, what do you mean Chewbacca? We both came back for you!" Badure only laughed.

Just then Skynx called over excitedly, "Captain! Over here!" They went, slipping and stumbling with haste but still keeping low. They came to an overhang of rock, having to duck to pa.s.s under it. From the black regions within issued Skynx's voice. "I found a glow-rod, Captain Solo. I'll turn up the rheostat a bit." A faint glimmer showed them the Ruurian's face.

He had found a low, wide cave that reached in farther than they could see. The body of the single sentry was sprawled in death, hit by several of their blasts. But what excited Skynx was what had been under guard there.

"Look, a cargo lifter!" Han took the glow-rod. "Hover-raft of some kind." He climbed into the open c.o.c.kpit of the flatbed aircraft. "Looks like it was on down time; there're a lot of burned-out components on the floorboards, and the control-panel covers are still off."

He brightened the glow-rod. There were two more hover-rafts nearby, access panels open, gutted and cannibalized for the parts that had gone to repair the first. Han slid the notched hover bar down; the craft rose a bit.

He flicked controls; the board was clear. "Hop in; my meter's running."

They rushed to comply, ducking to keep from b.u.mping heads on the cave ceiling. With one foot on a mounting step, Badure paused. "What was that?"

They all heard it-the sounds of running, voices, and the clatter of weapons. "Hot pursuit," answered Han. "No time to punch tickets, folks: stay gripped!"

He rammed up the impeller control, red-zoning the engine. The hover-raft shot out of the cave, nearly losing Bollux, who had been in the process of boarding. Badure and Chewbacca dragged him aboard.

The Survivors were closer than Han had thought; they had a.s.sumed positions around the cave and were closing in on it. The hover-raft zoomed from the cave near ground level, engines complaining. One or two Survivors had the presence of mind to shoot as the raft flashed by, but most either stood frozen or sought a lower elevation to keep from being run down. The few shots went wild, and Hasti put out a few rounds at random to keep the Survivors' heads down. The raft tore through a wide arc and headed down the valley.

"Where to, citizens?" Han grinned.

"Just turn on the heaters!" yelled Hasti.

The valley widened quickly, then gave way down to an open plain carpeted with bobbing, spindly amber gra.s.s. The hover-raft was equipped with rudimentary navigational gear. Han set a course for J'uoch's mining camp. Not wanting to use the raft's running lights, he cut his speed back and peered through the windshield, thankful it was a bright night.

The wind of their pa.s.sage s.n.a.t.c.hed the warmth out of the heater grids. Hasti discovered a folded tarp in one corner of the cargo bed and pulled at it, but stopped and called to the others. "Look at what they had onboard!"

Han couldn't turn from his steering, but Chewbacca, sitting next to him, pulled a handful of the tarp over the back of the driver's seat. Carefully fastened to the tarp were strands of plastic, meticulously fashioned to look like the amber gra.s.s of the plains. A camouflage cover.

"This crate comes equipped with an aerial-sensor, too," Han noted. "With a little warning and time to cover up, this thing would be just about impossible to spot without first-rate equipment." And the cave had been big enough to hold more rafts like this one. But that left the question of how a group of primitives like the Survivors, on a back-eddy planet like Dellalt, had set up an operation like this.

Han slowed just enough for Chewbacca to wrestle the collapsible canopy into place. They crowded onto the short couches of the cramped pilot-pa.s.senger compartment, lit by the glow of the dashboard instruments and Bollux's photoreceptors. Outside, the moons and stars lit a sea of waving gra.s.sland as it blurred under the raft's darkened bow. Eventually the heaters made some headway, and Han opened his flight jacket.

Badure sighed. "If that was the Queen's log-recorder disk back there, we can write it off. The antenna mast destroyed it completely."

Han posed the question: "But how did the Survivors get it in the first place? I thought it was back in the vaults."

"They were talking like it's been theirs all along," Hasti put in, shifting in a futile attempt to find more room between Bollux and Badure in the back seat.

Skynx, in his best cla.s.sroom voice, chimed in. "The facts, as we know them, are as follows. Lanni somehow obtained the log-recorder disk and deposited it in a lockbox in the vaults. She evinced an interest in the mountains. J'uoch discovered her secret, or some part of it, and killed Lanni in trying to obtain the disk. And, here were the Survivors with either the same disk or one identical to it.

"Now, Lanni was a pilot, flying freight and operational missions, isn't that right? Suppose she happened to be airborne when the Survivors were holding one of their outdoor ceremonies, and either traced their signal or saw the light?"

Han nodded. "She could've landed somewhere, scouted, and bagged the log-recorder!" He trimmed the craft and corrected its course a bit.

Hasti agreed. "She could have. Dad taught her to fly, and a lot about wilderness survival and reconnaissance."

Badure picked up the thread. "So she put the disk in the lockbox and stopped off across the lake to see if she could detect a bounce or signal leakage or find out anything about the Survivors' base, or if she'd stirred them up. I bet the treasure's back there under the mountain."

They rode in silence for a time. Then Han spoke: "That would only leave two questions: how to get the Falcon back ... and how to spend all that money."

Han's best efforts failed to nurse much speed from the antiquated raft. He kept the airwatch sensor on, depressed as low to the horizon astern as possible, but he detected no pursuit. He was still unsatisfied, having come up with no conclusions as to what the Survivors had been doing with those cargo craft, what the hatch face off the Queen of Ranroon actually meant, or how it was all connected with the treasure.

Dellalt's sun set off a purple dawn; gra.s.sland disappeared under the hover-raft's bow. They had nearly crossed the basin of gra.s.sland formed by a curve in the mountain range and were bearing toward the mining camp when Bollux leaned over the driver's seat and said, "Captain, I've been making communication monitoring sweeps as you ordered, listening for activity on the Survivors' frequency."

Han immediately became anxious. "Are they on the air?"

"No," answered the 'droid. "After all, their antenna mast was destroyed. But I also checked other frequencies mentioned in Skynx's tapes, and I've found something peculiar. There are transmissions on a very unusual setting coming from the direction of the campsite. They're odd because, although I can't pick them up clearly, they appear to be cyber-command signals."

Han's brow furrowed. Automata-command signals? "Mining equipment?" he asked the 'droid.

"No," answered Bollux. "These aren't the usual heavy-equipment patterns or industrial signals."

Badure turned the raft's commo rig to the setting Bollux had been monitoring but was unable to pick up anything clearly. Taking a bearing from the 'droid, Han changed course minutely and made a slow approach toward the mountains. Setting the airwatch sensor to full-scan, he readied Chewbacca and the others to pull the camouflage tarp over the raft at a moment's notice.

He came in slowly, taking his direction from the 'droid. They had already walked into one trap by investigating signals and, though it was important that they find out what these new ones meant, Han had no intention of being ambushed a second time. He lowered the raft's lift factor until it was bending the gra.s.s down, barely clearing the ground.

"Signals strengthening, Captain," advised Bollux.

They were approaching a rise in the plains, a ripple in the landscape preliminary to the sloping of the mountains. Han settled the hover-raft in behind the rise and got out of the craft. Parting the gra.s.s delicately, he and Chewbacca belly-crawled to the crest to have a look.

Less than a kilometer away the foothills began. Han squinted through his blaster's scope. "There's something down there, where that gully comes down to the plain."