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But more than anything else, it was the air of danger that filled the place, the edginess, the watchfulness, that soaked Trevagg’s cones like drugged wine. After a walk in the marketplace he always came away wondering if he shouldn’t pack in the Imperial service and go back on the hunt.

But as always, he looked around him a second time, and saw how many of these people were dressed in castoffs or shabby desert gear. He stroked his new jacket of deep green yullrasuede, his close-fitting trousers tailored for his form and no other, and thought again. He might not have made his fortune on this blasted piece of rock, but at least he could make a little.

And the opportunity would come.

Had come.

His pulses quickened at the implications of the vibration he’d sensed two weeks ago, walking through this very market. All he needed to do, he told himself, was be a hunter, and wait. The chance of his lifetime had come, and if he waited, it would come again.

If things went right.

Jabba the Hutt’s go-between, an enormously obese Sullustan named Jub Vegnu, was waiting for him by Pylokam’s Health Food booth. Pylokam, an aged and fragile human in trailing dirt-colored rags and a garish orange scarf, had been optimistically peddling fruit juices and steamed balls of vegetable gratings for years now, surrounded on all sides by a dripping banquet of dewback ribs and megasweet fritters—no sugars, no salts, no artificial additives, and no customers. Even Jabba had given up trying to get a percentage of his nonexistent takings.

Vegnu was leaning on the counter eating a caramelized pkneb—something Pylokam would never have stocked—the juice of it running down what chin he possessed; Trevagg bought a sugar fritter from a nearby stand and joined him. At Pylokam’s they could be assured of being completely uninterrupted.

“I need to set up a go-between and a loan deal,” grated Trevagg in his harsh, rather monotonous voice. “Immediate takeover in three days, complete secrecy from everyone. Ten percent to Jabba of all subsequent take.”

They haggled a little about the percentage, and about what the deal was, Trevagg knowing full well that if word got to the Prefect—or indeed, to several other members of the Imperial service that he knew about—he’d be very likely outbid before the widowed Modbrek even decided she had to sell. In time Trevagg got guarantees of secrecy, for what they were worth, but at the cost of another four percentage points. At that rate, he thought bitterly, it would take him a year to make back his investment …

“Is that it, then?” the Sullustan inquired, licking his stubby fingers of the last traces of caramel and grease.

Trevagg hesitated, and the go-between—with almost Gotal sensitivity—tilted his head, waiting for what would come next. Seeming to feel, Trevagg thought, how big the coming deal was.

“Not … quite.”

There was no need to scan the marketplace visually. Trevagg knew the hint he’d gotten, the buzzing, shivering sense he’d picked up in passing through two weeks ago, was nowhere around. And he didn’t know when it would return, when the person—the creature—that had caused it would next pass through Mos Eisley.

But it was as well to be ready.

“I will need a go-between on another deal,” he said slowly.

“For what?”

“I can’t say.” He held up his hand against Vegnu’s impatient protest. “Not yet. But I need someone to act for me in a situation where, as an employee of the Imperial government, I would be expected to perform as a part of my duties.”

“Ah.” Vegnu leaned back against the counter. “But a civilian, performing the same task, would be rewarded?”

“Well rewarded,” said Trevagg, his pulses stirring again at the thought of just how well rewarded. “And it’s a task well within, say, your capabilities.”

“How much?”

“Twenty percent.”

“Gaah …”

“Twenty-five,” said Trevagg. “And that five is for secrecy, for absolute secrecy, at the time.”

“About you?”

“And about the … nature of the task.”

The nature of the task, thought Trevagg, threading his way swiftly through the blazing