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The shore-gang chief felt the vibrations in the hawser, saw Han, and sawed more furiously at the tough fiber. The chief took a moment to slash at the pilot. Han suddenly realized how impetuous he had been, as if another man entirely had occupied his body for a moment. He didn’t quite avoid the stroke and the knifepoint cut across his chin. The water pulled at them both.

But Han avoided the back-slash with dexterity gained in zero-gee acrobatics drills. He lashed out flat-handed in a disarming blow, and the knife plunked into the water. As the knife fell, the shore-gang chief began to lose his grip on the hawser. He grabbed at Han, and both men plunged into the water. The lakewater was agonizingly cold and had a peculiar taste.

Han dove as deeply as he could, his clothes dragging at him. Underwater he heard the thud of the raft’s bow striking the chief’s head. Cheeks puffed, the pilot glanced up through the icy, dark water as the raft passed over him, and then surfaced just behind it. He grabbed for the stern rail, missed, and was himself grabbed.

Chewbacca pulled his partner over the stern rail in one motion just as the raft began drifting to a halt. Shaking wet hair out of his eyes, Han gave an involuntary cry of surprise, seeing why they had stopped. Kasarax’s maneuver had been Shazeen’s needed provocation for combat under Swimmer Law. Both the monstrous bulls had ducked out of their tow-harnesses; now they met in resolute battle.

They charged into collision, a butting of great heads whose report sounded like the crack of a tree trunk, and an impact of muscular necks and broad chests that sent waves racing outward. Neither seemed hurt as they circled for position, flippers whipping the water into foam. The shore-gang boss was paddling toward his raft, eager to be out of the behemoths’ way.

Han felt Bollux’s hard finger tap his shoulder. “You’ll no doubt be wanting this, sir. I caught it before it could go overboard, but you didn’t seem to hear me call you.” He passed over Han’s blaster.

Without taking his eyes from the battle, Han promised, “I’m doubling your salary,” ignoring the fact that he had never paid the ’droid a thing.

Kasarax wailed; he had been too slow on the withdrawal after nipping Shazeen. The older bull hadn’t gotten a full grip with his fangs, and Kasarax had gotten away, but now blood flowed down his neck scales. Kasarax, wild with rage, charged again.

Shazeen met him head-on, each of them trying to butt and bite, to press the other under the surface, shrieking and trumpeting. Shazeen failed to repel a determined assault by Kasarax and slid back as the younger creature surged up over him seeking a death grip on his uncle’s throat. But he had been too eager. Shazeen had drawn him out and now the older bull dropped his pretext and dove, rolling. His blunt tail slammed Kasarax’s skull, and the younger combatant fell back in pain. They resumed butting heads, biting, thrashing flippers, and colliding with one another.

“Hang on!” warned Hasti, the only one who had thought to watch for other danger. The raft shuddered and timbers splintered as the bow was tipped into the air.

It was one of Kasarax’s followers, a very young bull from the looks of him. He had closed crushing jaws on the raft’s stern, shaking it, spouting wrathful blasts from his blowhole. He tore a meter-wide bite out of the raft, spat the wood aside, then came at them again. Han set his blaster to maximum power.

“Don’t kill him!” Hasti shouted. “You’ll have them all down on us!”

As the sauropteroid butted the raft, nearly capsizing it, Han bellowed. “What do you want me to do, sweetheart, bite him back?”

“Leave it to them,” she answered, pointing. She meant the other Swimmers, who were closing in. Kasarax’s over-eager follower had ignited a general fray. One—Han thought it was the female who had surfaced at the dock and offered support to Shazeen—kicked up an impressive bow-wave, making straight for the raft. But once again the creature closed jaws on the raft’s stern.

The trick’s