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“Silence, insignificant one!” one of the creatures replied. “You know not of what you speak. We are here at the explicit request of the Elders themselves. The three of you are to come to them at once, in order to explain your impertinence and face their mighty judgment!”

• X •

“SABACC!” CRIED LANDO Calrissian, gambler, con artiste, and interstellar diplomat. He sat back on sheer nothingness with a satisfied look on his face and let the Millennium Falcon gather in his winnings, shuffle the “deck,” and deal out the “card-chips” once again. It was the weirdest and most profitable game he’d ever played.

Senwannus’gourkahipaff, senior Elder of the Oswaft, let a little ticklish signal be broadcast, indicating amusement and pleasure. “Truly it is amazing, Captainmasterlandocalrissian.” Lando gave a mental shrug: if the head vacuum-breather wished to address him with a title longer than his own, indicating deep respect and a relaxed sort of submission, the gambler wasn’t going to correct him. There was far too much at stake, and it had very little to do with the game of sabacc. “Amazing,” the thousand-meter being continued, “you cannot even see the cards, yet you have won hand after hand under fair and impartial conditions. I abase myself to your skill and intellect.”

Lando congratulated himself a little, too, principally on his luck. They were playing in the center of the Cave of the Elders, the only architectural structure, as far as he knew, within the ThonBoka, very probably the only such the Oswaft had ever constructed. Or thought to construct.

Located in the middle of the triangular plane formed by the three blue-white stars in the center of the nebula, the Cave of the Elders was a meticulous replica of the StarCave itself. From where he sat—hung might be a better word, as they were relaxing in free-fall—he could make out the folds and tucks he’d seen outside, duplicated in exact detail a mere ten kilometers away. A circular doorway repeated the pattern of the mouth of the ThonBoka (sans, he was happy for small favors, the blockading fleet), and what he’d seen of the detail outside spoke exceptionally well for the inferential powers of the Oswaft. With the exception of the adventurous Lehesu, they had never actually seen the outside of their nebula, yet they knew just what it had to look like.

The only flaw observable in the titanic modeling effort, and what made the Cave of the Elders really interesting, was that it was constructed entirely, all twenty klicks of its diameter, of precious gems.

From outside the entrance of the Cave, the Falcon’s computers pinged in his helmet phones, indicating two cards each had been dealt to Sen (Lando irreverantly abbreviated the being’s name for the sake of his overworked tongue muscles), to Feytihennasraof, the second Elder, on the senior’s left, and to Lehesu, who was also sitting in.

“You have a Three of Staves and a Commander of Sabres, Master,” Vuffi Raa informed him from the ship, “total value, fifteen.” The others would be “seeing” their cards by means of television signals produced by the computer. He wished the robot would let him count his own cards, almost as much as he wished the robot would stop calling him master, but there didn’t seem to be much he could do about it. To protect the privacy of Lando’s hand, they spoke in Old High Trammic, the ancient language of the Toka/Sharu of the Rafa System.

The Oswaft were too polite to mention that they’d “decoded” the language within five minutes of the game’s beginning. They’d play fair in any case, ignoring the robot’s signals. Both the translation and the refusal to take advantage were reflexive with the creatures; none of them had thought about the matter consciously. Honor and solving puzzles were instinctive with them.

“I’ll take one card,” Sen intoned, indicating thanks once the Falcon had electronically dealt it. Fey, too, required a card, while the precocious Lehesu stood pat. Lando asked for