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With a clank at the doorsill betraying whatever weary clumsiness robots happen to experience, Vuffi Raa chose that moment to return from the drive area aft, clambered into the right-hand seat, which Lando had replaced after sending the pilot droid back to the Oseon. The little automaton was uncharacteristically subdued.

“Everything shipshape and tidy to your liking, then?” Lando asked conversationally. “Good. Did you happen, by the way, to overhear that guard captain out there? He more or less directly identified himself as the unreconstituted son-of-a—”

“Yes, Master,” the robot responded somewhat dully. “I must say, it was something of a surprise.”

Lando mused. “I don’t know about that. I don’t suppose it’s all that great a coincidence. In the first place, they can’t have an endless supply of uniformed thugs to call upon in Teguta Lusat to do their dirty work. And in the second place, assigning that particular one to greet us would be Duttes Mer’s idea of a joke. Actually, I thought it rather sporting of the fellow to apologize and ask after my health and all that sort of thing.”

Once more imitating human beings, Vuffi Raa did a double take, turning to “face” Lando. “And especially considering the effective way in which you got even, afterward, Master.”

It was Lando’s turn to blink surprise. “Got even? What in the name of the Galactic Drift do you mean?”

“Why, Master, I thought we were talking about the same so-called coincidence. Aren’t you aware of who that—”

“Certainly: the paramilitary bully from the hotel, last night.”

“And more recently, Master, a civilian ‘Mr. Jandler’ from the Spaceman’s Rest. I thought you recognized his voice, as I did—and the painful stiffness with which he moved his neck.”

“You don’t say!”

Perhaps there is some justice in the universe, after all, Lando thought with satisfaction. Then he screwed his face up sourly: another blasted mystery! What had that charade in the saloon been all about, then? He’d taken it for a bit of bigoted random stupidity on a highly bigoted and randomly stupid planet. And what did it all imply about the robot bartender (or its owner), who seemed—

A previous idea demanded Lando’s attention quite suddenly: “Tell us about the Emissary, Mohs, old fellow—no, don’t sing it! Make it short, intelligible, and to the point.”

The Toka ancient stirred. “Legend foretelleth of a dark adventurer, an intrepid star-sailor with preternatural luck at games of chance, who shall come with a weird inhuman companion in silvery armor arrayed. They shall possess the Key with which to liberate the Mindharp, which in turn shall liberate the—”

Lando slammed a palm on the armrest of his chair. “Well, I’ll be doubled-dyed, hornswoggled, and trussed up like a holiday fowl! We were set up, Vuffi Raa! Gepta must have had his convict spies watching the port for months—possibly years—to find a sucker with the right qualifications: gambler, spaceship-captain, with an unenameled droid and a weak mind. That’s why neither a creepy old Tund magician nor that ugly neckless governor of his could play this hand themselves: they don’t fit the Toka legend!”

“And we do, Master?”

“Ask Mohs, here; he’s the local Keeper of the Flame.”

“Master?”

“Never mind, a figure of speech. Let’s go back aft and get some shut-eye. We’ve got some heroing to do in the morning—and don’t forget to polish your armor, old can-opener!”

• IX •

CAME THE DAWN, with a full night’s rest under his stylish if somewhat wrinkled satyn semiformal cummerbund, Lando was in a worse mood than ever. He loathed the idea that he might have been taken by one of the marks, and the nasty suspicion was growing within him that he’d only begun to discover the extent to which he’d been outmaneuvered by Rokur Gepta.

The takeoff of the Millennium Falcon shortly after sunrise, had proceeded as smoothly as clockwork, as fluidly graceful as a textbook exercise. Even the Teguta Lusat control tower had complimented Lando on it. This failed to cheer him. He passed the compliments along