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“Good,” the gambler answered, once the native’s gaze returned from its rafter rapture, “but I think we’ll—”

“Master!” The little droid’s tone was urgent.

“What is it, Vuffi Raa?”

“Master, I hear trouble coming!”

“Just what we needed.” Lando groaned.

Suddenly, a man with a gun in his hand burst through the door.

“All right, spaceboy,” he growled, pointing his massive weapon at the gambler, “get ready to die!”

• VII •

“MR. JANDLER!” THE barkeep shouted, a panicky harmonic apparent in its electronic voice, “I’m terribly sorry, sir, but my employer has permanently restricted you from entering this—”

“Shut up, machine! Now where in blazes was I? Oh, yeah—you there! Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you! It’s just like Bernie down to the Pyramid told me! And not only with a snivelin’, job-stealin’ droid at the table, but a dirty Toka, too! What are you sailor, some kinda pervert?”

The few patrons in the establishment instantly cleared a broad aisle between Lando and the intruder.

“I don’t know,” Lando replied evenly. “It wasn’t my turn to watch. Now just who in the galaxy are you?”

The man was good-sized, maybe eighty-five kilos, perhaps a shade under two meters tall. Over the powder-blue jumpsuit that draped his broad frame, he wore a dark blue tunic and neckcloth. He was neat, clean, shaved, and surprisingly sober for a thug, Lando thought. And with surprisingly good taste, as well.

The man walked closer; the muzzle of his pistol didn’t waver.

The robot bartender hurried to Lando’s table, placing himself between the two men. “He’s the former owner of the Spaceman’s Rest, Captain Calrissian, that was before I worked here. When the place changed hands, he tried to get a clause put in the agreement, never to allow—”

“What do you mean ‘tried,’ you miserable junk heap? A contract is a contract! People got a right to make any contract they want!”

Apparently undecided whether to shoot the young gambler or the bartender, Jandler was waving his gun around in a manner that tied knots in Lando’s stomach. If it came to a choice, Lando hoped he’d choose the bartender as less messy—the bigot did seem to have some aesthetic sensitivities. The robot stood its ground.

“Not when there’s a system-wide ordinance against discrimination, sir, and especially not when you lost the place in a table game to a being who doesn’t believe in discrimination.”

The man swiveled on the machine—Lando thought about jumping him just then, but it remained a thought—and brought the weapon down hard on its plexisteel dome-top with a sickening crunch!

“That for your ordinance!” he hollered, “and that—OWCH!”

“You should never kick a droid, sir,” Vuffi Raa advised sympathetically as the man hopped around on one foot, cursing. Somehow Jandler found the concentration to peer menacingly at the starfish-shaped robot.

“Quite right,” Lando offered, diverting Jandler’s attention even further. “He might have another droid. Sic ’im, Vuffi Raa!”

Jandler whirled on Vuffi Raa again. The five-tentacled ’bot stared at his master in bewilderment, but the distraction worked. The stranger took an ugly step toward Vuffi Raa, on his guard against the totally harmless little droid, and the bartender, despite its severely dented cranium, walloped the fellow on the back of the neck with a chair Lando toed over toward it.

Jandler went down like a sack of mynock guano.

A cheer rose from the dozen or so patrons in the room. They began gathering about Lando’s table—somewhat unjustly ignoring the injured and heroic ’tender—lining up to shake the gambler’s hand and pat him on the back.

“I’m gratified,” Lando observed with a highly necessary shout—he hadn’t so much as risen from his chair during the excitement and was taking a far worse beating now from his new admirers—“I’m gratified to see that not all robots are programmed categorically against violence.” More specifically to the crowd he said, “Thanks, it was nothing, honestly, thank you very much.”

“He’s only programmed against starting it, sir,” the bartender answered. “I’ll just haul this fellow