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“Master, the computer has randomly altered your last card to an Eight of Flasks! That means—”

“Sabacc!” Lando said before the robot could finish. That made a hundred and eighty million credits the Oswaft owed him, if he’d kept his accounts straight. If he ever got out of that mess, life was going to be very, very different.

“This is a most diverting occupation,” Fey said. “Shall we have another hand, Captainmasterlandocalrissiansir?”

Swell: he’d been promoted by a syllable. At that rate, it would soon take all day to say his name. Maybe he should contrive to lose a few hands. It wouldn’t be easy, seeing that the computer was actually controlling the cards, but he’d think of something.

Just like he had when they’d been summoned to confront the Elders.

Authority comes in many packages, and the contents seem to vary just as much as the outer trappings. Imperial power was based on naked, lethal, brute force, pure and simple and no shilly-shallying. The position of decision-makers in the Oseon, to choose just one example, depended on wealth. In the Rafa System, some deference seemed to be paid to religious leadership, although in that system, things were so tied up in ancient science that what looked like high priests might actually be senior technicians.

The Oswaft were a conservative people. They deferred to age and experience. Lando had tried to ascertain how old the Oswaft got to be, but couldn’t. Like many lower species, they kept on growing throughout their lives. Lehesu was a young adult, say the equivalent of late teens or early twenties. He was about five hundred meters across the wingtips, and growing.

The pair of yes-men who’d picked them up near the ThonBoka mouth were apparently of middle years (or centuries or millennia), seven or seven hundred fifty meters in diameter and set in their ways. They hadn’t much liked calling on tiny strangers or having tiny strangers calling on them, and they’d liked it less that a youngster like Lehesu had gone and changed the nice, smooth, boring flow of life in the StarCave.

The three had pointed out that Lando and Vuffi Raa couldn’t simply go swimming off to meet the Elders. Lehesu wasn’t prepared to say what would happen if he attempted to transport them as he had his nutrient cylinder back in the foodless desert. Nor was Lando prepared to risk such a venture. With some haggling, the pair of outsiders was permitted to return to the Falcon where, with faster-than-light drives activated, they followed the Oswaft down into the hollow center of the nebula.

Under the triple suns of the StarCave, the Cave of the Elders was an impressive sight, glittering and gleaming from billions of points as it rotated slowly. Vuffi Raa, using the ship’s sensors, informed the gambler that there wasn’t a valuable stone in the known galaxy that wasn’t represented in huge quantities in the walls of the Cave. Moreover, the size of the gems would have sent a jeweler into a dead faint.

Senwannus’gourkahipaff and Feytihennasraof had awaited them within the Cave of the Elders. Lehesu, with his excellent grasp of Lando’s language, had spelled the names for the gambler and the robot, explaining that the apostrophe in Sen’s name represented another dozen or so minor syllables the Elder was too modest to insist upon, and that there was a third Elder around somewhere who was busy and would join them later.

“Our most cordial greetings, Captainmasterlando” had been Sen’s first words in the new form of speech Lehesu had taught the Elder in a matter of seconds. “I abjure you to forgive the somewhat overzealous invitation issued to you by our juniors.”

The senior Elder administered a mental nudge of admonishment to the pair—a maser bolt that would have holed the Falcon, deflectors and all.

“Think nothing of it, Senwannus’gourkahipaff, your Eldership; they’re not the first underlings to get carried away with borrowed authority. What can we do for you?”

“We are,” Fey replied, “given to understand that you have brought