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“I’m sorry, Ottdefa, you know I can’t. Will you have a card or not?”

Whett assumed an expression of conspicuous concentration that might have been a big success in his university classes. Ottdefa was a title, something academic or scientific, Lando gathered, conferred in the Lekua System. It was the equivalent of “Professor.”

Its owner was a spindly wraith, ridiculously tall, gray-headed, with a high-pitched whiny voice and a chronically indecisive manner. It had taken him twenty minutes to order a drink at the beginning of the game—and even then he’d changed his order just as the drink arrived.

Lando didn’t like him.

“Oh, very well. If you insist, I’ll take a card.”

“Fine,” Lando dealt it. Either the academic had an excellent poker face, or he was too absentminded to notice whether the resulting hand was bad or good. Lando looked to his right. “Constable Phuna?”

The squat, curly-headed tough-guy he addressed was T. Lund Phuna, local representative of law-and-order under the Administrator Senior of the Oseon. It was not, apparently, the happiest of assignments in the field. The uniform tunic hanging soddenly over the back of his chair looked nearly as worn as his companions’ work clothes. He lit cigarette after cigarette with nervous, sweaty fingers, filling the cramped, already stifling room with more pollution. He wiped a perspiration-soaked tissue over his jowls.

“I’ll stand. Nothing for me.”

“Dealer takes a card.”

It was the Idiot, worth zero. Given the circumstances, Lando felt it was altogether appropriate. If only he’d headed for the Dela System as he’d planned, instead of the Oseon. He’d seen richer pickings in refugee camps.

Bets were placed again. Vett Fori took another card, her fourth, as did her assistant, Arun Feb, asking for it around the stub of his cigar. Ottdefa Whett stood pat. A Master of Sabres brought the value of Lando’s hand up to a positive ten, as a final round of wagering commenced.

Arun Feb and Vett Fori both folded with a nine and minus-nine respectively. The cop Phuna hung grimly on, his broad features misted with sweat. Lando was about to resign himself, when Whett excitedly cried, “Sabacc!” slapping the Mistress of Staves, the Four of Flasks, and the Six of Coins down on the worn felt tabletop.

The Ottdefa raked in a meager pot: “Ah … not exactly the Imperial Crown jewels, nor even the fabulous Treasure of Rafa, but—”

“Treasure of Rafa?” echoed Vett Fori.

She might as well ask, thought Lando, she isn’t doing herself any good playing cards.

“I’ve heard of the Rafa System,” the mine supervisor continued, “everybody has. It’s the closest to our own. But I haven’t heard of any treasure.”

The academic cleared his throat. It was a silly, goose-honk noise. “The Treasure of Rafa—or of the Sharu, as we are now compelled to call it, not for the Rafa System, my dear, but for the ancient race who once flourished there and subsequently vanished without a trace—is a subject of some interest.”

This had been delivered in Whett’s best professional tones. Vett Fori’s weathered face, impassive enough when it came to playing cards, plainly displayed annoyance at being patronized. She picked up her cigar, stuck it between her teeth, and glared across the table.

“Without a trace?” Arun Feb snorted with disbelief. “I’ve been there, friend, and those ruins of your—what’d you call ’em?—‘Sharu,’ are the biggest hunks of engineering in the known galaxy. What’s more, they cover every body in the system bigger than my thumbnail. They—”

“Are not themselves the Sharu, my dear fellow, of whom no trace remains,” Whett insisted, his tone divided between pedantry and insulted reaction. “I certainly ought to know, for, until recently, I was a research anthropologist for the new governor of the Rafa System.”

“What’s a bureaucrat want with a tame anthropologist?” Feb asked blandly. He blew a final smoke ring, mashed his cigar out on the edge of the vacuum tray, and took a long drink of water. It dribbled down his chin, soaking the collar of his soiled shirt.

“Why, I suppose,” sniffed Whett,