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“Meaning that I cannot. You’re free to summon Gallandro back if you wish,” returned the Mor Glayyd stiffly. His sister looked apprehensive.

Fiolla broke in: “Forget that; it’s over with. But Zlarb’s people broke faith with Han. Doesn’t that mean anything to your Code? Do you shield traitors?”

The Mor Glayyd shook his head. “You don’t see. No one broke faith with me or mine; that’s the province of the Code.”

“We’re wasting our time,” Han rasped to Fiolla. He was thinking of Chewbacca and the Falcon. He was willing to put aside his quest for the ten thousand for the time being; it didn’t matter as much right now as the fact that Chewbacca was still somewhere out in the Ammuud mountains.

But as a parting shot he waved out at the city, at the departed Gallandro. “You saw what sort of people they are; you’re throwing in with slavers and double-crossers and poisoners! They—”

The Mor Glayyd and his sister came out of their loungers so suddenly that the furniture slid on the slick floor. “How’s that you say,” the girl whispered, “poisoners?”

He’d said it thinking of the kit he had found on Zlarb and wondered now what nerve he had hit. “Zlarb was a Malkite poisoner.”

“The late Mor Glayyd, our father, was killed with poison only a half-month ago,” Ido said. “Had you not heard of his death?”

When Han shook his head, the Mor Glayyd went on. “Only the most trusted of my clan circle know he was poisoned. It’s unprecedented; the clans almost never use poisons, but we take precautions against them. And none of our food tasters showed any ill effects.”

“They wouldn’t, from Malkite stuff,” Han told him. “Even some food-scanning equipment and air samplers miss it. And all a Malkite poisoner does to get around tasters is dose them with an antidote beforehand. The tasters never notice, and only the victim dies. Run tests on your tasters, and I bet you’ll find antidote traces in their systems.”

He looked to Fiolla. “The poisoning must be the suggestion Magg spoke about in the tape I found on Zlarb; I don’t know how the duel bears on it.”

The Mor Glayyd had been rocked by what he’d heard. “Then, then—”

His sister finished for him. “We, too, have been betrayed, Ewwen.”

Han Solo checked his pocket to make sure the plaque given him by the Mor Glayyd was secure and tugged at the too-tight collar of the suit he had borrowed. Bollux was just finishing loading the lifeboat with guidance components—shielded circuitry rather than those damned fluidics!—provided from his own repair shops by the Mor Glayyd.

The boat had been moved here to the Glayyd yards so that its departure would be less conspicuous. The Mor Glayyd had shown a grim openhandedness when quick tests had borne out Han’s suspicion that the food tasters’ bodies contained traces of a Malkite antidote.

“You’re certain you don’t want us to accompany you?” the boy was saying for the fourth time.

Han declined. “That would draw too much attention if the slavers or the other clans are watching. I just hope the port defenses don’t burn us out of the sky.”

“Many of my people are on watch today,” the Mor Glayyd answered, “and you’re listed as a regular patrol flight over hereditary Glayyd lands. You’ll go unchallenged. We’ll be listening; if you need us, we’ll come as quickly as we can. I’m sorry that your Millennium Falcon dropped beneath the detection ceiling when she bypassed the spaceport.”

“No stress; I’ll find her. But they should be getting the Lady of Mindor repaired any time now. Right after that, this place’ll be alive with Espos. Do you think you can stall them?”

The Mor Glayyd was mildly amused. “Captain Solo, I thought you understood; my people are very good at not answering questions. None will violate the Silence, especially to Security Police.”

Fiolla joined them. Like Han, she wore a borrowed Glayyd flier’s snugsuit of gleaming blue and high spacer’s boots. She’d been both awed and angered when she’d seen the names of Authority higher-ups who were implicated in the slaving ring by the Glayyd records, though the evidence was a bit tenuous, mostly official permits