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“I will not leave my mate in the hands of the kind of people who would do that,” Atuarre was saying. “We are Trianii; death, if it comes to that, is not something we fear.”

“Not a very linear analysis,” Blue Max piped up.

“Well, who said you’d understand it, birdhouse?” Han scoffed.

“Oh, I comprehend it, Captain,” Max said with what Han could’ve sworn was a note of pride. “I just said it wasn’t very—”

He was interrupted by a beep from the commo monitoring suite. Han was out of his chair and halfway to the cockpit by the second beep. Just as he slid into the pilot’s seat, a last, sustained beep signaled the end of the transmission.

“The recorder bagged it,” Han said, hitting the playback. “I don’t think it was encrypted.”

It was a cleartext message, sent economically, in burst. He had to slow down the playback by a five-to-one factor before it ungarbled.

“To: Corporate Vice-President Hirken, Authority facility at Stars’ End,” the audio-reconstruction began. “From: the Imperial Entertainers’ Guild. We beg the Viceprex’s indulgence and forgiveness, but the troupe scheduled to stop at your location has been forced to cancel its itinerary because of transportational mishap. This office will schedule a replacement immediately, when a troupe with a ’droid of the requisite type becomes available. I am, distinguished Viceprex, your abject servant, Hokkor Long, Secretary in charge of scheduling, Imperial Entertainers’ Guild.”

Han’s fist hit the console on the last syllable. “That’s it!”

Atuarre’s expression mixed befuddlement with doubt of Han’s soundness of mind. “Solo-Captain, that’s what?”

“No, no, I mean that’s us. We’re in! We just got dealt a wild card!”

He whooped, slammed his fist in his palm, and nearly ruffled Atuarre’s thick mane from glee. She retreated a step. “Solo-Captain, has the oxygen pressure dropped too low for you? That message was about entertainers.”

He snorted. “Where’ve you been all your life? He said replacement entertainers. Don’t you know what that means? Haven’t you ever seen the broken-down acts the Guild’ll throw in to fill a play date, just so they can hang on to their agent’s fee? Haven’t you ever gone to some bash where they promised a class act, then at the last second they pull a switch and stick in some …”

It dawned on him that they were all staring at him now, photoreceptors and Trianii eyes. He half sobered. “What else can we do? The only other thing I’ve thought of is to fly into Mytus VII backward so they’d think we were leaving. But this is even wilder. We can do it. Oh, they’ll think we stink like banta droppings maybe, but they’ll buy the lie.”

He saw Atuarre was far from convinced, and turned to Pakka. “They want entertainers. How’d you like to be an acrobat?”

The cub made a little bounce, a kind of strain to speak, then, frustrated, sprang into a backflip to swing upside down from an overhead control conduit by his knees and tail.

Han nodded approval. “What about it, Atuarre, for your mate’s sake? Can you sing? Do magic tricks?”

She was nonplused, resenting his appeal to Pakka and his invocation of her mate. But she saw, too, that he was right. How many chances like this would come their way?

The cub began clapping his paws for Han’s attention. When he got it, Pakka shook his head energetically in answer to Han’s last question; then, still hanging upside down, he put paws on hips and made wriggling motions.

Han’s eyebrows knit. “A … dancer? Atuarre, you’re a dancer!”

She cuffed her cub’s rump sharply. “I am not, er, unskilled in the rites of my people.” Han saw she was embarrassed; she riveted him with a defiant stare. “And what of you, Solo-Captain? With what will you astonish your audience?”

He was too exhilarated with the prospect of action to be dampened. “Me? I’ll think of something. Inspiration’s my specialty!”

“A dangerous specialty, the most dangerous of all, perhaps. What of the ’droid? What ’droid? We don’t even know what kind of ’droid they meant.”

“Ah,