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“How dweadfuw!” the creature to Lando’s left responded. It was something nasty looking, with a small trunk dangling beneath its bloodshot eyes. Even more unfortunate, its blood was green. The veins clashed with the deep blue of the irises. “Does that mean theah won’t be any mowe wife-cwystals?”

The creature had a large Rafa orchard-crystal pendant from a chain around its thick, wrinkled neck. It wasn’t the only one here to sport the expensive gems. Lando had learned that they collected a sort of ambient life force given off by all living things, collected and refocused it on the wearer. He shunned them himself; they made him feel like a vampire.

“No,” he answered, handing the creature its second card. “I think the new management will eventually start shipping them again. Probably at substantially higher prices.”

Lob Doluff took his second card without comment. It was obvious to Lando that he had a winning hand—and that he’d managed to lose the advantage somehow before the play was over with.

The player to the Administrator Senior’s left was a female human being, younger than Lando, blond and not unattractive. She had been introduced to him as Bassi Vobah, and some vague reference made to her being an administrative officer. The young gambler wondered where she got her money. He was unimpressed with her playing so far, and more than a little bothered by the fact that she seemed to be watching him closely.

And not in a friendly way.

He handed her a card, dealt to Del Cycer and himself, then, without looking at his cards, took a tiny sip of snillik. “Cards?” he inquired.

The trunk-being nodded, its proboscis flopping obscenely, then threw all three down in disgust. “Thirty-seven!” it exclaimed. “Amazing!”

Lob Doluff stood pat.

Bassi Vobah took another card, said nothing.

De Cycer accepted a card, laid his hand down gently. “Out, confound it.”

“Anybody again?” Lando asked. Bassi Vobah responded, took the card, stared grimly at her hand. This time the centerpiece was not as rich. Lando finally looked at his cards: Nines, of Flasks and Staves. “Dealer takes one.”

Sweat began forming on Lob Doluff’s shiny pate, his fingers seemed to tremble a little. Finally, in an explosive gesture, he threw his cards on the table, face up. “Twenty-two! Can you beat that?”

Lando glanced at Bassi Vobah.

“Fourteen,” she said. “Forget it.”

With the Four of Sabres Lando had drawn, he, too, had twenty-two. He displayed the hand, picked up the deck to deal again. “Sudden Demise.”

Doluff received the Three of Staves, breaking his hand. Lando could have stopped there, but flipped the next card over. The Idiot, worth exactly zero. The pot was his again.

“Let’s take a break.”

Since it was his winning streak, he could recommend a rest without engendering resentment. That was easy: he didn’t believe in winning streaks, and wasn’t afraid of interrupting them. He did need to consider, though, whether to begin losing a few hands deliberately. His livelihood, well-being, ultimately his survival depended on maintaining goodwill—which meant losing on the small bets and winning quietly on the big ones. He’d believed such a ploy to be unnecessary in a rich-man’s playground, but was discovering that it wasn’t any different from playing in a hard-rock miner’s bar. Psychology, human and otherwise, remained the same.

“Five minutes to breakout, Master.”

Once again, Lando sat in the lounge of the Millennium Falcon, riffling through the cards and thinking odd-shaped thoughts to himself. He and Vuffi Raa had repaired the damage to the ship as best they could. Luckily they carried a good many replacement parts in stores, and the boarding ramp seemed to be something that needed fairly constant upkeep in any event. Moving parts.

Then, they’d gone over the interior of the Falcon centimeter by centimeter, being the untrusting types that they were, looking for additional sabotage. They had found nothing. Vuffi Raa had wanted to climb outside and check the hull, but had been severely vetoed: