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Rekkon paced to the opposite wall, stopping near Chewbacca. Han came after him, watching the man lost in thought. Rekkon took a seat, and Han did the same. “I raised the boy as if he were my son; he was quite young when his parents died. Not long ago, I was hired as instructor at an Authority university on Kalla. It is a place for higher education, mostly for Authority scions, a school rooted in technical education, commerce, and administration, with minimal stress on the humanities. But there were still some vacancies for a few old crackpots like me, and the pay was more than adequate. As nephew of a university don, the boy was eligible for higher study, and that’s where the trouble began. He saw just how oppressive the Authority is, stifling anything that even remotely endangers profit.

“My nephew began to speak out and to encourage others to do the same.” Rekkon stroked his dense beard as he thought back on it, “I advised him against doing so, although I knew he was right, but he had the convictions of youth, and I had acquired the timidity of age. Many of the students who listened to the boy had parents highly placed in the Authority; his words could not go unnoticed. It was a painful time, for although I couldn’t ask the boy to ignore his conscience, I feared for him. As an ignoble compromise, I decided to resign my post. But before I could do so, my nephew simply disappeared.

“I went to the Security Police, of course. They made an appearance of concern, but it was clear that they had no intention of exerting themselves. I began making inquiries of my own and heard accounts of other disappearances among those who’d inconvenienced the Authority. I’m accustomed to looking for patterns; one wasn’t long in emerging.

“Picking carefully—very carefully, I assure you, Captain!—I gathered a close group of those who’d lost someone, and we began a careful penetration of this Center. Word had come to me of the disappearance of Jessa’s father, Doc, as he’s called. I approached her, and she agreed to help us.”

“All of which leaves us sitting here,” Han interrupted, “but why here?”

Rekkon had noticed that the race of characters and ciphers across lighted screens had stopped. Rising to return to Max, he answered. “The disappearances are related. The Authority is attempting to remove those individuals who are most conspicuously against it; it has decided to interpret any natural, sentient individualism as an organized threat. I think the Authority has collected its opponents at some central location that—”

“Let me get this straight,” Han broke in. “You think the Authority’s gone into the wholesale kidnapping business? Rekkon, you’ve been staring at the lights and dials too long.”

The man didn’t look offended. “I doubt that the fact is generally known, even among Authority officials. Who can say how it happened? Some obscure official draws up a contingency proposal; an idle superior takes it seriously. A motivational study crosses the right desk perhaps, or a cost-benefit analysis becomes the pet project of a highly placed exec. But the germ of it was in the Authority all along—power and paranoia. Where no real opposition existed, suspicion supplied one.”

As he spoke, he paced back to the worktable, unplugging Max. “That stuff was really interesting,” the little computer bubbled.

“Please show a little less enthusiasm,” Rekkon entreated, taking Max up from the table. “You give me the feeling I’m contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” The computer’s photoreceptor zeroed in on him as he continued. “Do you understand everything I’ve shown you?”

“You bet! Just give me a chance, and I’ll prove it.”

“I shall. The main event’s coming up.” Rekkon took Max over to one of the terminals and set him down by it. “You have a standard access adapter?” In reply, a small lid in the computer’s side flipped down, and Max extended a short metal appendage. “Good, very good.” Rekkon moved Max closer to the terminal. Max inserted his adapter into the disklike