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Dorvan’s face remained placid, his expression unreadable. “It’s your ship, Captain Terrik. While I’m aboard, you have every right to call me whatever you wish.”

“I suppose I do.” Booster pulled a cigar from his pocket and offered it to Dorvan. “Nobody calls me Captain around here. I’m Booster.”

“Very well, Booster.” Dorvan eyed the cigar warily, then waved it off. “Thank you, but … well, whatever it is you do with those, I don’t.”

“No?” Booster returned the cigar to his pocket, growing more curious every moment about Dorvan’s real reason for approaching him. “Sorry Lando didn’t send you an invite to our little charity tournament—”

“A top prize of fifty million credits is not a little tournament,” Dorvan interrupted. “It’s enough to attract every serious player on the planet—and you know it, Booster.”

Booster shrugged. “So you’re a serious player?”

“I’d like to think so, yes,” Dorvan replied.

“Then how come we haven’t heard of you before?” Lyari asked. “As a sabacc player, I mean.”

“Probably the same reason no one learned that the Tendrando Arms Celebrity Sabacc Charity Challenge would be hosted aboard the Errant Venture until after they paid their million credits,” Dorvan replied. “Sometimes a high profile can work against you.”

Booster chuckled and spread his hands. “Well, we all have to work with what we are.”

Dorvan nodded. “We do, but even with Lando’s name attached to the tournament, the Venture was nearly denied orbit. You’re just lucky General Jaxton was invited.”

“What makes you think that was luck?” Booster bragged. “Besides, the entry fees were nonrefundable. Trust me, Merratt Jaxton wasn’t the only one pulling strings at Orbital Control.”

“But we don’t have your money yet,” Lyari observed, clearly as suspicious of Dorvan’s arrival as Booster. “And you brought your own shuttle. If we have such a ‘high profile,’ why are you looking for an invitation?”

“Because Lando Calrissian is too wealthy to involve himself in something untoward, and the Errant Venture has a reputation for running a clean game,” Dorvan said. “Whatever else may be going on here, I see every reason to believe that the tournament will be an honest one, and I have some very good uses for fifty million credits.”

“Assuming you win,” Booster reminded him.

“I always assume I will,” Dorvan replied smoothly. “Do you have a seat available or not?”

“I’ll have Lyari check.”

Booster nodded toward the comlink in the Ishi Tib’s sleeve pocket. Dorvan was such a valuable addition to his guest list that he would have made a seat available even if there hadn’t been one. But when he went into something, he liked to know all the angles, and something smelled wrong about Dorvan’s claim. Wynn Dorvan was one name he would not have expected Han Solo to leave off the invite list.

Booster was still pondering the problem when he felt the large red eyes of his Duros communications officer watching him. He glanced over and found her holding one finger on the MUTE button on her console and the other to the speaker bud in her recessed ear. When she noticed Booster watching her, she signed off and turned to face the command deck, then shot a frown in Dorvan’s direction to indicate she needed to talk privately.

Booster excused himself and stepped over to the communications station. “We have a problem?”

The Duros shook her head. “Just a change of plans,” she said. “Our dirtside friends want us to start the tournament now.”

Booster cocked a bushy gray brow. The tournament wasn’t even scheduled to begin for another quarter hour, and just a few minutes earlier Saba had instructed him to hold the start until the last stragglers were aboard.

“Do they know Senator Treen is still running late?”

The comm officer nodded. “I reminded them. They want us to start anyway.”

Booster resisted the urge to tug at his beard, but could not quite keep himself from glancing back at Wynn Dorvan. Something important had clearly changed on the ground, and he could not