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The Chadra-Fan turned indignantly on his seat, and waved an expansive little paw at the other five patrons of the bar. “You think they’re going to care? All of you!” He raised his voice to a sharp tenor shout. Fifteen assorted eyes focused briefly on him, with a certain degree of effort. “I propose to buy from you all rights to the time and talents of these good musicians for the price of a drink apiece. Done?” He whipped a handful of credits from the sporran at his silken belt, slapped them down on the bar.

“Festerin’ classical chunder,” groused the barkeep, lumbering back to her ale taps but pocketing the credits.

The Chadra-Fan signaled Threepio with a peremptory wave of his paw and settled back in his chair, eyes shut, all his silk-fringed nostrils quivering. “Maestro, overwhelm me.”

The swelling strains of Mondegrene’s Fuge had the effect of emptying the bar of all customers still clearheaded enough to walk, but Threepio didn’t care. Even on the concertinium and twitch bells—with Artoo’s enthusiastic if inaccurate assistance on the drum—the Fuge in K was an intellectual masterpiece, like a closely reasoned philosophical argument, and the transposition to the unfamiliar instruments added, in an odd way, to Threepio’s understanding and appreciation of the complex structure of the piece. The barkeep, with no customers to claim her attention, leaned back against the corner of the bar sucking plug after plug of zwil, listening to the wide-ranging variety with skepticism that, Threepio felt, was slowly turning into something else. Respect, perhaps. Appreciation of his capabilities. Maybe even a dawning enthusiasm for classical music.

Or maybe not. At the conclusion of the piece she crossed the room to them, hands tucked through the heavy leather of her belt, blue eyes sharp and calculating under their (to Threepio’s mind) excessive maquillage of blue-and-gold paint and all the diamond rings through her snout twinkling in the bar’s intestinal light. She looked down into the basket on Artoo’s cap and said, “Ten creds. You boys ain’t half bad.”

“Why, thank you, Madame.” Threepio removed the violion jack from his chest so the bells wouldn’t jingle an accompaniment to his speech.

“Your boss going to be by here later? Maybe he and I could work out a deal of some kind.”

“Oh, we don’t have a boss, Madame. Our master is …”

“Now, don’t confuse the poor lady, Threesie.”

Threepio turned in complete astonishment as the Chadra-Fan—who had at the conclusion of the Fuge in K gone to the doorway to listen to such street noises as were audible above the steady patter of the rain and to sniff at the dark moving air of the coming night—came padding back.

“Igpek Droon—he’s a buddy of mine on the Antemeridian route—he hates to have even his droids call him ‘boss,’ ” the Chadra-Fan went on, looking up at the barkeep with his sharp little black-coal eyes. “Spent a pile reprogramming every droid on his ship to call him ‘friend’ and ‘comrade.’ He was raised by Agro-Militants—would you believe it?—and he says it’s just sand in his gills to have anything subordinate to him. Has a terrible time whenever he gets a Gamorrean or a Griddek in his crew, spends the whole time arguing with them over what they’re going to call him. I’ll be heading back with these boys …” He slapped Threepio with one hand, Artoo with the other, with a familiarity the protocol droid found more than a little offensive, “… to Pekkie’s ship, just to make sure they get there okay and don’t get picked up.”

“I beg your pardon,” protested Threepio. “But do I …?”

“Sure you remember the way,” cut in the Chadra-Fan, and the next moment snapped at him in the meeping, flurrying speech of Chad’s indigenous inhabitants, “Go along with me, you silly pile of tin! You want to end up playing sparkle-bop at this meat market for the next thirty-five years? She’s trying to steal you!”

Threepio squeaked, “What?” in the tongue in which he had been addressed. “Steal us?”

The Chadra-Fan rolled his eyes,