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Han cut them off with a wave of the blaster. “Everybody relax. I’ll take care of Rekkon; Bollux can help. The three of you move down to that cargo hold off the main passageway.” He stifled their objections with a motion of the gun’s muzzle. First Torm, then the two Trianii, began to move.

Han stood to one side as they filed into the empty hold. “If anybody sticks his face out of here without my say-so, I’ll figure he’s out to get me, and I’ll fry him. And if anybody’s hurt in here, I’ll space whoever is left, no questions asked.” He closed the hatch and left them.

In the forward compartment, Bollux waited silently, with Blue Max on a console nearby. Han regarded the corpse. “Well, Rekkon, you did your best, but it didn’t get you far, did it? And you dumped it into my lap. Now my partner’s captured and your murderer’s onboard with me. You weren’t a bad old man, but I somehow wish I’d never heard of you.”

Han picked up one heavy arm, dragging at the corpse. “Bollux, you get ready to take the other side; he was no lightweight.”

Then he noticed the scrawl. Han pushed Rekkon’s body back clumsily and bent to examine a stylus’s scribble on the gameboard that the dead man’s arm had hidden. The writing was difficult to read, dashed off in a pained, distorted hand, hastily and weakly. Han turned his head this way and that, puzzling the message out aloud: “Stars’ End, Mytus VII.” He knelt and quickly found Rekkon’s bloodstained stylus on the floor by the gameboard base. With his last strength, after he’d been left for dead, Rekkon had managed to leave word of what the computer plaque had told him. Dying, he hadn’t abandoned his campaign.

“Foolish,” Han told himself. “Who was he trying to tell?”

“You, Captain Solo,” Bollux answered automatically. Han turned on him in surprise.

“What?”

“Rekkon left the message for you, sir. The wound indicates that he was shot from behind, and therefore quite probably never saw his assailant. The only living entity he could trust would be you, Captain, and it would be logical to assume you would be present when his body was moved. He made sure in this manner that the information would reach you.”

Han stared down at the body for a long moment. “All right, you stubborn old man; you win.” He reached over, smearing and eradicating the words with his hand. “Bollux, you never saw this, understand? Play dumb.”

“Shall I erase that portion of my memory, sir?”

Han’s answer was slow as if he was catching the habit from the ’droid. “No. You may be the one who’ll have to pass it along if I don’t hack it. Make sure Blue Max keeps zipped, too.”

“Yes, Captain.” Bollux moved to take Rekkon’s other arm as Han prepared to hoist again. His joints creaked, and his servos whined. “This was a great man, was he not, Captain?”

Han strained under the corpse’s weight. “What d’you mean?”

“Just, sir, that he had a function, a purpose he cared about above and beyond his life. Doesn’t that indicate a greatness to the purpose?”

“You’ll have to read the obituaries, Bollux; all I can tell you is, he’s dead. And we’re going to have to eject him through the emergency lock; we might get boarded yet, and we can’t have him around.”

Without further conversation, the two dragged at Rekkon, who had reached out from beyond death and given Han the answers he needed.

Han opened the hatch. Atuarre, Pakka, and Torm looked up in unison. They’d taken seats on the bare deck, the man at the opposite side of the empty hold from the two Trianii.

“We had to ditch Rekkon,” Han told them. “Atuarre, I want you and Pakka to go square away the forward compartment. You can throw some eats into the warming unit, too. Torm, come with me; I need a hand repairing the damage we did on liftoff.”

Atuarre objected. “I am a Trianii Ranger, and a rated pilot, not a drudge. Besides, Solo-Captain, that man is a traitor.”

“Save it,” Han cut her off. “I’ve locked up all the other weapons in the ship, including Chewie’s other bowcaster.