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He was buzzed now, and saw no reason not to get a little bit more so. He’d cleared his bar tab when the payment for his last story—the puff piece for Beings holozine on Uli Divini, Boy Surgeon—had come in. Now he signaled Teedle, who rolled over to his table. “Another Johrian whiskey, Teedle—on the rocks.”

“You got it, hon.” She wheeled away, and Den shouted after her, “And I mean ice!” He’d learned the hard way that the serving droid’s idiomatic programming in Basic was not as extensive as it could have been.

Teedle shot back over her shoulder, “I suppose you want it in a glass, too?”

Den laughed. The comeback had been unexpected— whoever’d initiated her neural programming had at least had a sense of humor.

He glanced at the remnants of green liquid in his glass and swirled it about, thinking about recent conversations he’d had with both Jos and I-Five. The droid had said once that all of his kind had a sense of humor. Den wondered how much of Teedle’s personality had been programmed in, and how much was intrinsic. There was supposedly a very simple test, developed centuries ago, which postulated that if one could carry on a conversation with another, unseen entity and not be able to tell if that entity was organic or cybernetic, then said entity had to be considered self-aware.

He’d never really heard of any droid being put to that test—at least, not in a widely publicized way. Which wasn’t surprising—after all, if you’re the CEO of a huge manufacturing corporation like Cybot Galactica or Industrial Automaton, you don’t want your product suddenly thinking it has the same rights as a sentient organic.

He was sure I-Five could pass the test easily. Perhaps Teedle could, too.

Teedle brought his drink. “On the rocks, hon. Solid H2O.”

Den took a sip of the whiskey. It was cold and yet fiery, warming his insides. He shook the glass, listened to the ice globes tinkle together. There certainly wasn’t any shortage of the frozen stuff these days. It had been over a week now since the force-dome had first malfunctioned, and still no indication as to when it was going to be fixed. They had at least stabilized the temperature, albeit at a not-terribly-comfortable minus six degrees. It had stopped snowing, but only after three kiosks had buckled under the weight. It wasn’t as bad as being stuck in an outpost on Hoth—that he knew from experience—but it definitely wasn’t pleasant.

From what he’d heard, there were at least two vital parts that had to be brought in from outside the system. Until they were delivered, it was going to be a long, cold winter.

He noticed a couple of the entertainers at a table not too far from him. He’d love to work up something on them—they were getting antsy about being stuck here, and who could blame them? Their schedules were already hopelessly shot. Doing a story about their plight, however, would require revealing the dome’s malfunction, and the powers-that-be had decided that, for now, that fact was classified. He’d gotten a bit persnickety about it, but Vaetes had been adamant. Den couldn’t see how the Separatists could take advantage of the knowledge, since everyone was claiming it was a malfunction. Still, the lid remained firmly in place, and was likely to stay there for a while.

Little to do, then, except have another drink.

The sabotage of MedStar certainly wasn’t expediting matters. As far as Den had been able to determine— which wasn’t much, even with his sources—the explosion had definitely been intentionally set. That in itself was horrifying enough—blowing up a hospital ship was an act of barbarism, not war—but the fact that it might be linked to the earlier transport explosion seemed to indicate that, somehow, a spy walked among them.

Needless to say, he wasn’t being allowed to file that bit of news, either. Not via official channels.

He shook his head. It seemed absurd—a spy, in an out-of-the-way Rimsoo on a star-forsaken world like this? To think that, when he’d drawn this assignment, he’d come steeling himself for boredom and enforced idleness. The