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Lando cut his spin—that time, he had been the victim of Vuffi Raa’s machine guns—and halted, hanging in space, resenting being catapulted back into adulthood, watching the stupidily unnecessary fleet operations with an angry grimace clearly visible through his transparent bubble helmet. Life was so simple, he thought bitterly, so thoroughly enjoyable. Why were there always people whose chosen profession was to louse it up for everybody else?

Vuffi Raa swam up beside the gambler, not needing to be telepathic to read his master’s thoughts. They were joined by Lehesu. All three stared out through the mouth of the nebula, watching the evil net of beams that did its work of making life impossible for the Oswaft. All knew of the enzymes drifting into the ThonBoka, as well.

“The nutrient current grows impoverished, my friends,” Lehesu observed sadly. He was not actually breathing heavily from the hour’s exercise, but the effect was much the same. Lando and Vuffi Raa didn’t know his kind quite well enough to understand it was a bad sign.

“Core forgive me!” Lando exclaimed, “I’d almost forgotten why we came here in the first place!” He turned toward the Millennium Falcon, applied thrust to his suit. “We’ll get you a little snack, old skate, then you can show us where best to place the rest of our cargo.”

The robot and the man scooted underneath the starship, began manipulating the locks on a small cargo hatch. In a moment, clinging to the hull, they had it open and delivered of a small canister that Vuffi Raa held out.

“Here you are,” Lando heard through his helmet phones. “Shall I just spray it around, or would you prefer—”

“That will be quite suitable, my friend, and many thanks.” Lehesu tried hard to keep hunger out of his voice. He hadn’t noticed until now how famished he’d become. As the specially selected amino acids and other compounds began drifting around the ship, he moved slowly and with dignity, scooping them up and ingesting them. He could feel them sing through his body and knew a joy akin to that which Lando felt at the prospect of freedom.

“Well, I certainly trust you’re enjoying yourself in your selfish gluttony!”

It was a strange new voice over the ether, one incomprehensible to Lando, but Vuffi Raa understood it—and correctly interpreted its hostile tone. Both of them jetted quickly out from under the hull of the Falcon, which was blocking their view, as a pair of titanic monsters slid casually alongside, making even Lehesu appear small and meek.

He may not have had the robot’s talent for languages, but the air of sarcastic disapproval hadn’t been missed by the gambler, either. Reflexively, he patted the spacesuit pocket where he kept his stingbeam—then laughed inwardly at himself as he thought of pitting its miniscule power against these … these …

“These are the Elders you told us about, Lehesu?” he asked finally. “Tell them we’re here to help them, and that, at the very least, we mean them absolutely no harm.” He removed his hand from the pocket and tried to sound sincere.

And almost succeeded.

Easily seven hundred meters from wingtip to wingtip, the pair of Oswaft dwarfed the Falcon, and everything else in view. They positioned themselves on either side of Lando’s younger vacuum-breathing friend, as if that worthy were being arrested. Or sent to bed without his dinner.

“No,” Lehesu replied in words the gambler could understand, “these are most assuredly not the Elders, and they have no right or authority to interfere with us. Elders are much larger.”

He’d directed the final comment to the two interlopers. Apparently it was some kind of insult, although it was probably lost on the pair, spoken as it had been in human language, Lando thought. If Elders were even larger than these creatures, the gambler reflected, he certainly didn’t want to mess with them.

Vuffi Raa put on a burst of speed, whipped around as if to block the progress of the three giant beings—as if a microbe could block the progress of a bantha. “I suggest,” the droid radiated in a businesslike