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This was darkness like Boba had never seen. Like he had never imagined. It was like a huge, smothering hand pressed upon his face. Boba couldn't see Nuri in front of him. He couldn't see his own hand. For a heart-sickening second Boba imagined that he himself had disappeared.

That he had somehow been transformed into antimatter. That he was

"Here!" exclaimed Nuri.

An explosion of light surrounded them. Purple, green, deep blue.

Boba blinked. The light flickered. It was not an explosion now, but flashes of color. Shapes. Buildings. Moving waves that were people. The familiar figures of droids, creatures, men, and women. Above them all was that terrible, strange darkness. It was like a cloud or a huge black curtain.

The capsule began to slow down. Boba let his breath out in relief.

"That was great," he said. "Kind of creepy at the end, though."

Nuri nodded. "That was the emptiness between the Undercity and the upper levels. Sunlight never comes here. Only artificial light. And darkness."

Boba shivered. The capsule came to a halt. He gazed out at a teeming city. It was more crowded than anyplace he had ever seen. A disorderly mass of living things, more like a hive than anything else.

The capsule lid popped open. Nuri jumped out. He bowed to Boba.

"Welcome to the Undercity," he said.

Boba had thought that Level Two was crowded. He had thought that Coruscant was crowded, and the Candaserri, too.

None of these compared to the Undercity. There were so many people, so many beings, so many droids, so many everything, that his head whirled.

"Stay with me!" said Nuri. "If you get lost, you'll never find your way out."

Boba scowled. "Don't bet on that," he said. "I've got a good sense of direction."

"That might not be enough to help you here," replied Nuri.

Boba hated to admit it, but he had to agree with the Bimm. High above them, the sky that was not a sky was crisscrossed with thousands of shining objects. They looked like ribbons, or rainbows. But they were actually other chutes, or slides, like the one Boba had taken down here.

He could see capsules speeding through them, up and down. The air was filled with bright airspeeders, swoop bikes, robo-hacks, even Podracers.

On the ground, streets and sidewalks wound around tall, crumbling buildings. The streets were filled with rubbish, broken stones, mangled airspeeders.

And everywhere he looked, he saw people - nonhumans, mostly, but a lot of humans, too. None of them looked friendly. A lot of them looked dangerous.

"Hey, watch it!" someone snapped at Boba. A tall, angry-looking Caridian glared down at him.

"Sorry," said Boba. The Caridian jostled past him. Boba looked around: Nuri was gone!

Ulp. Boba swallowed. A group of swaggering space pirates went by him, laughing. Boba stared back at them, trying to look unimpressed.

"Young sir!" Nuri's voice carried from a few meters away. "This way!"

Boba hurried to join him. Past shops and markets, through abandoned structures that looked like ancient starships, under a vast broken glass dome. They passed food vendors, too. Some of what they were selling looked disgusting - things with claws and tentacles and too many eyes.

But some of the food looked and smelled delicious. It made Boba's mouth water. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he had eaten. He was pretty sure it hadn't been today.

At first he tried to keep track of the way they were going. But after a while, Boba gave up trying to keep track. Their path wound in and out, back and forth. Once he was certain they were backtracking. He wondered if for some reason Nuri was trying to fool him. Keep him from being able to find his way back on his own.

And no matter where they went, there were crowds. Despite the rule against nonnatives being armed, most of those he saw carried weapons of one sort or another. Vibroblades, stun batons, blasters, wrist rockets.

Boba