The leader of the small band sat down. For a moment Han saw the strength and determination leave Rekkon's features. Then it was back, that special vitality. "I suspected that was the case," he admitted. "Engret would not forgo contact for days, no matter what. I trust your instincts in this completely, Atuarre. We must presume him to have been eliminated."

He had said this with absolute finality. This wasn't the first time he had come up against an unexplained disappearance. Han shook his head; on one side was the near-absolute power of the Authority, and on the other, nothing more substantial than friendship, than family ties. Han Solo, loner and realist, considered it a gross mismatch.

"How do we know he's what he says he is?" Atuarre was demanding, pointing to Han.

Rekkon looked up. "Captain Solo and his first mate, Chewbacca, come to us by way of Jessa. I presume we all trust her aid and counsel? Good. We leave as soon as possible; I'm afraid there'll be no time for luggage or arrangements. Or com-calls, for any of us."

Atuarre took her cub's paw-hand as Pakka studied Han and Chewbacca silently. "When do we go?"

Rekkon went back to Max, to find out just that. Just then the computer module's photoreceptor came back on. "Got it!" he chirped. A translucent data plaque emerged from the slot at the terminal's side.

Rekkon seized it eagerly. "Fine. Now we must match it against the Authority's installations charts-"

"But that's not all," Max blurted.

Rekkon's dense brows knit. "What more, Blue Max?"

"While I was in the system, I monitored it, you know, to get the feel. This intrusion is fun! Anyway, there's a Security alert on in the building. I think it's directed at this level. The Espos are moving into position."

Atuarre hissed and pulled her cub closer. Torm's face seemed impa.s.sive at first, but Han noticed a tic of anxiety along his jaw. Rekkon tucked the data plaque into his robes, and from them drew a big disrupter pistol. Han was already buckling on his gunbelt, as Chewbacca settled his ammo bandolier over his shoulder and threw the empty tool bag aside.

"Next time I fall for one of these tempting offers," Han instructed his partner, "sit on me till the urge pa.s.ses."

Chewbacca growled that he definitely would.

Torm had taken a handgun from his tight pocket, and Atuarre had produced another from one of her belt pouches. Even the cub, Pakka, was armed; he pulled a toylike pistol from his belt.

"Max," Rekkon said, "are you still in the network?" Max indicated he was. "Good. Now, look at deployment plans for alerts in this Center. At what corridors, junctions, and levels will the Espos be stationed?"

"I can't tell you that," Max answered, "but I could clear a way through them, if that's what you want."

That grabbed Han's attention. "What'd that little fusebox say?"

The computer-probe elaborated. "The Security Policemen are all supposed to respond to alarms, it says here, and redeploy to cover any new trouble spots. I could just make enough alarms in other places and draw them away in different directions."

"That may not get them all out of the way," Han pointed out, "but it could sure thin out the opposition. Do it, Maxie." Another thought struck him. "Wait a second. Can you fake alarms anywhere else?"

Max's voice burst with pride. "Anywhere on Orron III, Captain. This network's got so much capacity that they've hooked just about everything into it. Good cost reduction, but bad security, right, Captain?"

"No foolin'. Yeah, give it everything you've got: fires in the power plants, riots in the barracks, indecent exposure in the cafeteria, whatever appeals to you, all over the planet." He was thinking that if there were a picket ship in orbit, she might also be kept busy by a rash of false alarms.

Bollux, who had remained silent during all this commotion, now came to the terminal and prepared to take Max back the moment the computer's work was done. Rekkon stood with him.

"There're two ways out of here that might be open," Max announced, and flashed the positions on the screen. The two paths, picked out on the level's layout, both led back to the gallery where the lift and drop chute banks were located. One route was on their floor, the other on the floor above.

Security alarms began clanging and warbling in the corridors. The room's equipment blazed with ripples of light as every circuit reacted to Max's prompting. Then, suddenly, the room became dim, except for light from the window-wall. The Center's automatics had shut down main power sources in response to the supposed emergency. Alarms continued to sound, running on reserves.

"Illumination in the corridors will be very low, on standby power," Rekkon told the others as they gathered by the door. "We may be able to slip by." He carefully set Blue Max back into his emplacement. As his plastron swung shut, Bollux, followed by Rekkon, joined the rest of them at the door.

"If I may suggest," said the 'droid, "I would, perhaps, attract less suspicion than any other individual here. I could walk well in advance of you others, in case there are Security Policemen present."

"That makes sense," Atuarre said. "Espos won't waste time and power shooting a 'droid. They'll halt him, though, and that will warn us off from any traps."

The door slid up, and Bollux started off down the corridor, preceded by the noise of his stiff suspension. The others followed after-Rekkon and Han in the lead, with Torm behind. Atuarre and Pakka came next, and Chewbacca brought up the rear, his bowcaster c.o.c.ked and ready. The Wookiee was watching the conspirators as well as rear-guarding. With the possibility of a traitor in the group, he and Han trusted no one, not even Rekkon. The first wrong move on the part of any of them would be the Wookiee's signal to shoot.

They came to a turn. Bollux went around first, but as the others approached it, they heard: "Halt! You, 'droid, get over here!"

Han, peeking cautiously around the corner, spied a contingent of heavily armed Espos cl.u.s.tered around Bollux. He picked up bits of the conversation, mostly questions about whether the 'droid had seen anyone else. Bollux put up a front of supreme ignorance and lethargic circuitry. Beyond the gathered Espos, the corridor opened onto the chute gallery, but it might just as well have been on the other side of the Corporate Sector.

"It's no good this way," Han said.

"Then it's the more desperate route for us," Rekkon replied. "Follow me." They went back the way they had come, at a trot. As they rounded the next corridor, the footfalls of the Espo detachment drifted to them. They hadn't gone far when they heard another squad approaching from the opposite direction.

"Nearest stairwell," Han instructed Rekkon, who led them a few meters more, then ducked through a door. "Keep it as quiet as you can," Han whispered in the semidarkness of the emergency-lighted stairwell. "Up one floor, and we'll make our way to the balcony overlooking the chutes." Of course, Chewbacca, for all his bulk, moved quietly, as did the sinuous Atuarre and her cub. Rekkon, too, seemed used to running with stealthy efficiency. That left only Han and Torm to guard their steps, both laboring to keep the noise of their movements to a minimum.

When they reached the second floor of that level, they found it empty. Blue Max's flurry of crazy alerts had drawn the security forces away from their contingency posts. The fugitives raced along the corridors as through a hall of mirrors, keeping close to the walls.

They came to the balcony overlooking the gallery. Crouching low, they edged up to its railing. Han risked a quick peek over the top, then drew his head down again. "They're setting up a crew-served blaster down by the chutes," he told them. "There're three Espos working it. Chewie and I will fix that up; the rest of you get set to jump. Chewie?"

The Wookiee rumbled softly, his finger tightening on the bowcaster. He moved off, staying low, along the railing. Han leaned close to Rekkon's ear and whispered, "Do us a favor and watch things here; we can only look one way at a time." He scuttled off in the opposite direction from his partner. With Rekkon armed and watchful, Han doubted that any turncoat would show his hand now.

He paralleled the railing, rounding its corner, down to the far wall. Peering over the rail, he saw the Wookiee's big blue eyes edging up over the opposite railing. Halfway between them and several meters below, the gun crew was making final adjustments on the heavy blaster and its tripod mount. In a moment they would be ready to activate the weapon's deflector shield; going after them would then become an almost hopeless venture, and the drop chutes would be inaccessible. Apprehension would be a matter of time. One of the Espos was bending even now to throw on the shield.

Han stood, drew, fired. The man who had been about to activate the shield slumped, clasping a burned leg. But one of the others, with no regard for niceties like fire-discipline, spun and sprayed a steady stream of destructive energy from a short riot gun. The riot gun's fire blasted material from the walls and railing; the Espo slewed the weapon around carelessly, searching for his target.

Han was forced to duck back out of the way as the rain of energy lashed through the air, striking walls, ceiling, and most things in between. That innocent bystanders might've been hurt didn't seem to have entered into the Espo's calculations.

But the Espo gave a cry and fell, his finger easing off the trigger, accompanied by the metallic tw.a.n.g of Chewbacca's bowcaster. Han looked over the rail again and saw the second man slumped over the first, brought down by one of the short quarrels from the Wookiee's weapon. Now Chewbacca stood, jacking the foregrip of his bowcaster down to rec.o.c.k it and strip another round off its magazine.

The third gun crewman kicked the bodies of his fellows out of the way while firing wildly with his pistol and yelling for help. Han shot him just as the Espo's hands were closing on the heavy blaster's grips. Chewbacca was already over the balcony railing. Han, straddling the railing on his side, called, "Rekkon, get 'em moving!" He pushed himself off.

He missed his footing and fell to all fours, then raced to help his partner throw a.s.sorted Espos off the blaster cannon. Torm leaped down, landing lightly for all his weight, and Atuarre came after him, all grace and form. Her cub launched himself off the rail, gathered his limbs and tail in for a somersault, and landed next to her. Atuarre slapped him on his way, as if to say this was no place to show off, even for an acrobatic Trianii.

Last to come was Rekkon, moving skillfully, as if this were something he did all the time. Han wondered for a half-second about this versatile university don who never seemed to lose track of the problems at hand. In sending all the others ahead, Rekkon made sure no potential spy remained behind, to be tempted by an unguarded back.

Torm stopped short of the drop chutes, luckily for him. "The fields have been shut off!" he shouted. Rekkon and Atuarre were with him in a moment, fumbling at the emergency panel beside the chute opening. Rekkon's st.u.r.dy fingers closed around the panel's grille, and he yanked it away without apparent effort.

Calls and a general hubbub could be heard in the upper corridors. Han squirmed himself down behind the blaster cannon, setting his feet on the pegs of its tripod, and switched on the deflector shield. "Heads up!" he warned his companions. "The party's starting!"

A squad of Espos, wearing combat armor and carrying rifles and riot guns, burst out onto the balcony above, fanning out along the rail, and started firing down. Their bolts splashed in polychrome waves from the cannon's shield. Torm, Rekkon, and the others, directly behind Han as they worked on the drop-chute panel, were protected, too, for now. Chewbacca stood behind his partner, firing his bowcaster whenever he had an opening. Soon his weapon was empty, and he pulled another magazine from his bandolier. He chose explosive quarrels and started firing again. The detonations filled the gallery with smoke and thunder.

Han had raised the cannon's snout to extreme elevation, and now he swept it across the railing. Heavy blaster charges flashed and crackled; parts of the railing and the balcony's edge exploded, melted, or burst into flames. Several Espos were hit, falling to the floor below, and the rest backed hastily out of the line of fire, darting out to snap off a volley when they could, in a constant, determined exchange of shots. The firefight and its echoes, heat, and smoke enveloped the gallery.

Han kept the Espos' heads down with long traverses of the cannon, letting go at the floor of the balcony, scoring the walls. The gallery heated up like a furnace from the energies unleashed. Red beams of annihilation bickered back and forth, and Han knew that the cannon's shield wouldn't hold out forever against constant fire from the riot guns and rifles.

A squad of armored figures appeared in the low corridor, the one leading directly onto the gallery. Han depressed the cannon's mouth and filled the lower hallway with raging destruction. These Espos drew back, too, like the others, stayed just out of range to risk firing whenever they could. Atuarre, Pakka, and Torm, drawing their guns, joined Han and Chewbacca in returning fire, while Rekkon kept working at the chute.

"Rekkon, if you can't get that drop field working, that'll be all for us," Han hollered over his shoulder. A Security man leaned out from the balcony above and snapped off a shot. It rebounded from the gun's shield, but Han could tell from the residual heat the deflector let through that it was beginning to fail.

"It's no use," Rekkon decided as his strong, sensitive fingers probed the mechanisms. "We'll have to find another way out."

"This is a one-way street!" Han shouted without looking back. Chewbacca's angry, frustrated roars sounded above the din.

"Then you dive headfirst down the shaft!" Torm bellowed back. Han's rejoinder was lost in an electronic whooping that filled all their ears, catching at their hearts. It was a warning signal, standard throughout much of the galaxy.

"Hard radiation leak," Rekkon shouted. "That wasn't one of the alarms Max put in."

Not only that, Han thought, but it had only just begun to sound, and it was sounding right in the corridors off the gallery. A hard radiation exposure would leave little chance for any of them to live; they'd be receiving lethal dosages even as they listened. Han swore at himself for ever having gotten out of a nice, cushy racket like gunrunning sideways through mountains. He scrambled up. "Get ready. We're going to have to shoot our way through them, or else we all get signed off."

Over the alert sirens, Atuarre shrilled, "Wait-look!"

Han's blaster was out again, ready to target on what he presumed to be another Espo. But the figure tottering down the lower hall toward them was moving stiffly, its arms extended horizontally, holding some burden.

"Bollux!" cried Torm, and it was. The 'droid stiff-legged out into the stronger light of the gallery, holding a globular public-address speaker in either hand. Wires from them ran back to his open chest, patched in near Blue Max's emplacement. From the speakers beat the whooping radiation alarm.

They gathered around Bollux, yelling in Standard, Wookiee, Trianii, and one of two other tongues, but n.o.body could hear anybody else because of the alarms. Han was getting a headache that he was willing to ignore only because he was too overjoyed at being alive.

Then the alarms stopped. Bollux carefully lowered the P.A. speakers and patiently unplugged their cables from himself while the others clamored for an explanation.

"I'm gratified that my plan worked, sirs and ma'am; but I confess it was merely an extension of Max's false alarms," Bollux told them. "He learned about the radiation alarms while he was in the network. Under his guidance, I vandalized these two speakers from the corridor walls and adapted them. The corridors are empty now; the Espo armor is for combat, not radiation protection. They appear to have withdrawn hastily."

Han broke in, "Get Max over there by the drop chutes. If he can't get one running again, we're still gonna be old news." He tugged Bollux over that way.

"All the chutes cut out, right?" Blue Max piped up. "No sweat, Captain!"

"Just turn 'em on, huh?" Han pleaded, adding, "What's a runt like you know about sweat, anyway?"

Bollux's plastron swung wide as the 'droid approached the panel. But the adapter input was too high. So Chewbacca, who was closest, slung his bowcaster, took Max out of his emplacement, and held the computer up to the chute's control panel. Max's adapter extended itself and engaged the receptor. The metal tumblers twirled back, forth, back again. The panel lit up.

"It's working!" Rekkon exulted. "Quickly, follow me, before someone notices and has the thing shut down again." He made a hand motion to Han, so fast that no one else caught it, and the pilot knew he was to go last. Rekkon was still unsure of the loyalty of his people. He hopped into the drop chute and Atuarre followed after him. Then came Pakka, spinning, tumbling, and chasing his own tail playfully in the chute's field. Torm leaped after, gun in hand.

They could hear the tread of cleated boots in the corridor. With Blue Max still tucked under his arm, Chewbacca jumped into the drop chute, too. Han held back long enough to fire at the blaster cannon from its unshielded side. There was a bright eruption as its power pack began to overload. Han spun and dived headlong down the shaft, as Torm had invited him to do. Behind, he heard the explosion of the portable cannon.

They plunged down, in varying postures and att.i.tudes, strung out behind Rekkon in a ragged line. Craning their heads upward, they waited nervously for the first blaster bolt to come raving down the chute, but none did. Han decided that the Espos had been delayed by the exploding cannon. He hoped it would take them awhile to figure out that the drop chute was on, but feared that any moment would bring the stomach-wrenching fall, once the field was shut down again, that would plunge him, Chewie-all of them-to their deaths.

They descended all the way to the garage levels. Rekkon left the chute at last, beckoning them to do the same. They found themselves standing in a large parking area as alarms sounded off in the distance. "I thought there would be a flyer of some sort here," Rekkon said sourly; "worse luck."

"We're not going back into that chute, and that's that," Han stated.

"There's a ground skimmer. Let's take it," Atuarre suggested. They piled in, with Han taking the controls and Rekkon next to him. Chewbacca sat back in the cargo bed with the others, keeping his back to his partner and his eyes on the others as he fit a new magazine into his bowcaster. Before the Wookiee could take time to return Max to Bollux's chest, Han had thrown the skimmer into motion and shot away, barely making the turn onto the up-ramp, scarcely avoiding the wall.

He kept the control stem's steering grips pushed forward, giving the skimmer all the acceleration she could safely stand and a good deal more. The ramp went by in a wild corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g of Formex, the walls whirling past the skimmer's front cowling at hair-raising speed. Rekkon saw at once the wisdom of yielding the controls to the younger man.

Han hoped that n.o.body had gotten around to sealing off the computer complex yet, and they hadn't. The security network was inundated with everything from reports of insurrection to drunk-and-disorderly calls from the executives' club, spread across the Center and the face of Orron III. The skimmer left the garage like a missile out of a launch tube. In his haste, Han had departed through a door clearly marked ENTRANCE. A traffic-monitoring scanner dutifully logged the skimmer's license number for a citation and mandatory court appearance.

The skimmer tore through the city, guided partly by Rekkon's instructions and partly by Han's instincts. Han left the city's edge behind in a blur, drilling a hole through the air down the fusion-formed road, as other traffic dodged and skidded hysterically away from him. He was glad he'd taken the time to orient himself on the s.p.a.ceport while in Rekkon's office. Since its cab was open, the wind plucked and tugged hard at everyone on the skimmer, ruffling hair, fur, and clothing alike, making conversation impossible as the pa.s.sengers braced however and wherever they could.

But rounding a turn in the last stretch approaching the s.p.a.ceport, Han discovered that somebody somewhere in the bureaucracy had actually done a bit of thinking. The skimmer nearly crashed head-on into a roadblock, an Espo troop-hovervan parked across the roadway, its twin-mounted guns nosing for a target.

Han jerked the controls hard, kicking the foot auxiliaries, and sent his small vehicle sailing off the road's surface. The engine sang with effort; the low-built skimmer slammed down among the rippling grain and raced off through it erratically. The tall grain, an Arcon Multinode hybrid, was so high that it instantly swallowed them up, hiding them from the startled Espos. But Han zigzagged anyway, for luck, and sure enough, the Espos fired even though they had no clear target, most probably from sheer frustration. The troop-hovervan was a ground-effect vehicle, unable to climb above the field, Han knew. That meant that if his pursuers wanted to give chase, they'd have to eat a little cereal themselves.

He had to stand up, poking his head above the windscreen as he drove, in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to see where he was going. The skimmer sliced through thick rows of hybrid grain, sending a spray of mangled plants and chaff back over and around it. Han slitted his eyes and tried to peer through the hurricane of vegetable matter as best he could, which wasn't very well. In moments, all of the skimmer's grillework and trim was decked with stalks of grain that had gotten lodged there, and the craft looked like a strange agricultural float.

Chewbacca, standing and exhorting, reached forward over his partner's shoulder and pointed. Han, asking no questions, changed course. He had to steer hard to slide past the hazard, a mountain of yellow metal, one of the enormous automated farm machines slowly and patently working this part of Orron Ill's limitless fields.

Han broke out onto bare ground, reaped clean by the harvester. He conned the skimmer around in a wide arc, got his bearings on the s.p.a.ceport and the ranked colossi of the berthed barges, and hotted off that way.

At that moment the Espo hovervan broke through, too, but farther down the field, away from the s.p.a.ceport. Han couldn't take time to watch it; instead he tried to throw enough twists and dodges into his course to keep them out of the Espo gunner's sights. Heavy blaster salvos scored around the skimmer, starting small fires smoldering among the stubble of shorn stalks.

Han took the skimmer through a hairpin turn, trying to jump out of the line of fire, but the hovervan's twin-mounted guns scored closer and closer to starboard, making the shaven field erupt. He jammed the control stem back to port. But the Espo gunner, trying for a bracketing salvo, had outguessed him. The ground blew apart just beyond the skimmer's undercarriage.

The skimmer jarred violently, its nose plowing at the rich soil, crumpling, as the engine cowling was smashed and compressed. Smoke rolled from its engine compartment, and the little craft grounded, carving long scars in the crop-stubble.

Han, fighting to keep control, lost his grip on the control stem at the last moment, clipped his head on the windscreen, and was flung clear of the cab as it stopped short, ending up on his back. He watched the sky of Orron III, which appeared to be spinning, and wondered if his entire skeleton had actually been turned into confetti. That was just how he felt.

"Everybody off," he announced woozily; "baggage claim to your left."

The others tumbled off the wrecked skimmer. Han found himself being lifted as easily as a child; Rekkon's dark fists were hoisting him by his vest. He was pleased to find himself more or less whole. "Run for the s.p.a.ceport fence!" Rekkon ordered the others. The whine of the Espo hovervan grew in the distance.

Han shook off the fall. The hovervan was closing quickly. Rekkon pulled him down into the shelter of the skimmer's nose and began working at the adjustments of his oversized disrupter pistol. Han drew his blaster. "Chewie, get 'em moving," he called.

The vociferous Wookiee, still lugging Blue Max in one arm, shoved or shouted the others into motion. Atuarre and Pakka sped away, the Trianii female half dragging her cub, half carrying him, with Torm not far behind. Even Bollux moved at top speed in long, jarring bounds made possible by his heavy-duty suspension system, disregarding the damage he might do his gyros and shock absorbers. Chewbacca came last, casting frequent glances over his shoulder. Before them rose another stand of grain, being reaped by another of the giant machines, and past that was the s.p.a.ceport security fence.

Han felt a warm liquidity on his forehead, swiped at it, and saw blood on his fingers, courtesy of the skimmer's windscreen. Rekkon, having finished adjusting his disrupter, was waiting for the hovervan to come into range, which it was doing with frightening speed.

The hovervan driver, watching the figures running for the fence, failed to notice the two men hiding behind the disabled vehicle. When the Espo was close enough, Rekkon, forearms braced across the skimmer's nose, fired. He'd set his disrupter on overload, and now the powerful handgun emptied itself in a brief flood of ruinous energy. Han had to shield his face from it, thinking what a chance Rekkon was taking; the disrupter could just as easily have blown up in his hands, killing both men.

But the jet of disrupter fire splashed across the hovervan's cowling and windshield. The Espo craft slid side-on, spun once, and planed into the ground, plowing up a mound of soil before it.

Han, lowering his hands, saw that the barrel of Rekkon's pistol was white-hot, and the scholar's face was sweating and seared. Rekkon tossed aside the useless pistol. "You must've taught in some tough d.a.m.n schools," was Han's only comment as he struggled to his feet, preparing to run again.

Rekkon, watching the overturned hovervan, didn't hear. Body-armored Espos were already stumbling from it, to continue the pursuit on foot. The twin-gun mount, twisted underneath the vehicle, was useless. Rekkon, backing away a step or two, said, "The moment has come for our departure, Captain Solo!"

Han pegged a couple of shots at the Espos. The range was long, but they still hit the dirt. Then he put his head down and pounded off behind Rekkon, wondering if the Espos could get into range before the fugitives made the fence and somehow got over, under, or through it. All things considered, the smart money appeared to be with the Espos, he conceded.

For long moments all he did was race after Rekkon's flying sandals and wait for a blaster bolt to fry his shoulder blades. Then he raised his head, gulping breath. The monstrous harvester was working its way back down the rows of grain, its gaping maw cutting down a swatch twenty meters wide, pouring the grain into a tandem load-carrier. Han and Rekkon cut wide around it, and Han scanned the terrain in front of him. He spotted figures thrashing through the stalks, but could make none of them out.

A shot kicked up dirt and flame off to the left, proof that the Espos were gaining. Han and Rekkon dodged right to put the enormous agrirobot between themselves and their pursuers. Then they were shoving, running, tearing through a world of golden-red stalks, occasionally spying one of their companions in the distance.

Han dug his heels in, sliding to a stop. Rekkon, who'd come abreast of him, caught the movement and halted, too. Both of them panted hard, as Han demanded, "Where's Chewie?"

"Ahead of us, to the side; who can tell in this field?"

"He's not. He's the only one who'd be easy to spot, even here." Han straightened, his side aching. "That means he's back there!" He s.h.a.gged back the way he'd come, ignoring Rekkon's cries.

When he broke into the open again, he saw at once what had happened. Chewbacca had realized the Espos stood a good chance of overtaking his companions before they could make it to the s.p.a.ceport and get past the fence. Some major distraction had been needed to save all their lives, and so the Wookiee had paused to set one up.

As Han cried out for him to come back, Chewbacca, his bowcaster slung over his shoulder and Blue Max under his long arm, pulled himself up the side of the giant harvester as the machine went on its pre-programmed way. The harvester had already borne the Wookiee most of the way back toward the Espos. He finished climbing the last few feet, reaching the top of the agrirobot, where its control center was situated.