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I made it to the shower before I collapsed. I got the cold water turned on and sat in it until morning, trying to decide how badly I wanted to live.

By morning the apartment half reminded me of home. I stayed in it and did not go out, kept the heat-exchange coils running all day. Around midday I found the strength to pull a slab of womp rat the length of my arm from the freezer, heat it to blood temperature, and drag it into the shower with me. I sat under the water, nude, eating until my stomach bulged, and when there was nothing left but bones on the floor of the stall, turned the water off and staggered to my bedpit.

It took me some time before I felt safe going out in public again. Several times someone came to my door; I didn’t open it. Some information travels Mos Eisley faster than light. Mos Eisley is like a living creature: It eats the sick and weak. I’d survived all these years without having to kill more than a few of my fellow residents. They’d have heard by now of the attack on me—the humans who’d robbed me might have boasted of it, in which case I’d have them in my freezer, whoever they were, before the month was out.

But in any event I dared not go back to the cantina until my strength was returned.

The arm took longest to heal; weeks later it was still stiff and it hurt when I moved it wrong. But I was almost out of food, so I had no choice. Early one morning I dressed, set my alarms, and headed for the cantina.

Wuher looked up and nodded at me when I entered. First one in the door. He put a glass on the counter and poured a shot of golden liquid. “On the house. Drink it before someone else comes in.”

I looked at the drink, and then at Wuher, almost as much at a loss for words as I’d been when Jabba told me to send the merc over by himself. “Many thanks,” I finally got out. He nodded and I lifted the glass—

And stopped. Predators have better noses than leaf eaters. There was something wrong with the alcohol. It was—

He poured himself a shot while I was staring at my glass, raised it to me, and knocked it back.

Merenzane Gold. The real stuff. Precious, pure, real Merenzane Gold.

Wuher corked the unlabeled bottle while I was still staring at him, put it away under the bar, and wandered away from me to finish opening up.

I took the glass to my booth, sat and drank it very slowly. I hadn’t known there was a bottle of real Gold on all of Tatooine. I’d almost forgotten what it tasted like.

I wondered how many years he’d had that bottle down there without saying anything about it.

By the Cold, I’m a lousy spy.

That’s something to be proud of.

I spent the morning listening to the talk throughout the bar. I’d been out of touch … and interesting things had happened while I’d been hidden away from the world. Last night an Imperial battle cruiser had fought in orbit with a Rebel spaceship, and today stormtroopers were looking all over Tatooine for someone, or something, that had escaped them.

And a piece of horrifically bad news: The damn mercenary I’d recommended to Jabba had picked a fight with a pair of Jabba’s bodyguards and shot them both up before getting himself fed to the rancor. There was some rumor that perhaps the merc had been an assassin paid by the Lady Valarian, whose real target had been Jabba himself—

Maybe Jabba had forgotten who had recommended him.

And maybe Long Snoot would give me my fifty credits back.

It came to me in a vision.

Okay, that’s not true, but it’s close. Long Snoot stopped by and mentioned something interesting: The Lady Valarian was getting married. Max Rebo and band were going to play at the wedding.

I barely noticed when Long Snoot left. I stared straight ahead, through the noonday crowd come to escape the heat, not seeing them, not seeing the cantina. Just thinking.

“Wuher.”

He turned away from a conversation with a pair of human females who looked like clones; the Tonnika sisters, they’d introduced themselves as. He did it grudgingly; they were attractive,