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The three, Lando and his personal bookends, were whisked by a length of fluorescent monofilament—one of hundreds drifting handily around the cavernous room—to the center, where an obese giant took his ease.

The trillionaire was being read to by a frail, elderly male servant in a long white robe. Mutdah himself wore nothing but a pair of purple velvoid shorts that would have made a three-piece suit for Lando with an extra pair of trousers.

“Ah, Captain Calrissian,” hissed the enormous figure floating effortlessly in midair. His flesh billowed as he made a slight gesture. “I am given to understand you have a delivery for me and that you braved the perils of a solar storm to accomplish the swift completion of your appointed rounds, is that correct?”

Lando, angered by the condescension, cleared his throat, nodded in a way that someone foolish might have interpreted as a slight bow. He reached across his spacesuited chest to extract the lesai from his helmet.

“Hold it! Freeze where you stand!”

That from a guy who wouldn’t even discuss the weather with a fellow. He and his companion had their blasters drawn, pointed at the gambler’s head. The first guard looked to Mutdah. His employer nodded miseroscopically. The guard took the drugs, helmet and all, examined them one-handed without reholstering his weapon, gave them back to Lando.

The second gunman thrust a palm out. “Okay, let’s have it!”

Lando blinked. “What are you talking about?”

A wheezy chuckle emanated from the trillionaire. “Your pistol, Captain. Give him your pistol. You were thoroughly scanned in the elevator.”

With a disgruntled expression, the gambler carefully extracted his stingbeam, handed it to the security man.

“The other one, as well, please, Captain.”

Lando shrugged, grinned at Mutdah, bent over and removed an identical weapon from his boot. Straightening, he gave it to the guard on his right, who was having trouble handling three guns with two hands.

“What happens now?” the gambler asked mildly.

“That will be all, sergeant, thank you,” Bohhuah Mutdah said cheerfully, then, turning to the servant, who had remained impassive, added, “You may go as well, Ekisp.”

That left Lando and the trillionaire sitting all alone in thin air in the center of the cavern.

“I thank you sincerely for the trouble you have gone to on my behalf, Captain Calrissian. I ask you to forgive the concern for my continued health which my employees often demonstrate. It is personally gratifying, but sometimes a nuisance. Your property will be returned when you depart.”

Not knowing what to say, Lando said nothing.

“On that table, beneath the book old Ekisp left behind, you will discover another package. Please open and examine it; assure yourself that it contains what it is supposed to. The package you have brought may then be left in its place. Will you do that now, please?”

Pulling lightly on part of the monofilament mesh surrounding them, Lando drifted to the table, the sort usually found at either end of a sofa, incongruous there in freefall. The book, a heavy double roll of vellum written in an alphabet he didn’t recognize, had been tucked beneath an elastic band that stretched across the tabletop from edge to edge.

Beneath band and book, as the trillionaire had said, was indeed a bundle. Lando stripped opaque brown plastic from it, attempting to control his eyebrows when he saw the stack of hundred-thousand-credit certificates it contained. With an experienced thumb, he riffled through the pile, estimated that there were at least two hundred of them. Twenty million credits—the gambler suppressed a whistle.

What price lizard mold?

He placed the package of lesai under the restraining band, replaced the scroll, and pushed himself back from the table. “Thank you, sir,” the gambler said. “If that will be all, I’ll be getting back to my—”

Mutdah had opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he had been going to say was muffled by a

BRAAAMM!

Beneath them, the elevator door bulged and split, impelled by a highly directional charge. Two mutilated