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“Then carry them in something other than that skimpy little sack.”

Jacen wasn’t going to take them far. “Have your people watch for more.” He looked down the narrow lane. “This spot is close to the off-loading area. They probably came in on a supply ship.”

At Hydroponics Two, Jacen found Romany, the other clan leader—who’d been a biologist—working alongside Han and Jaina.

“Not my specialty,” Romany insisted when Jacen presented the wriggling sample sack. One of the wormlike creatures seized a pinch of synthplas and started chewing.

Han glowered. Jaina put down a hydrospanner and adjusted her goggle-mask.

Jacen flicked the creature off the synthplas. “Maybe not, Romany, but you’re the best authority we have, without sending over to Gateway. I didn’t want to do that.”

“Ri-ight.” Romany ran long fingers through his bushy mane. “They’d quarantine us. And if the Duros heard about this, they might not send any more ships. We were mighty glad to get that extra shipment.” He and Han exchanged a knowing look.

Jacen’s mind bounced back to the Duros. “I wonder if one of the CorDuro ships brought in the egg pod these”—he shook the little sack—“hatched from.” Each gray worm had nine segments and twice that many legs, with massive black eyes and mouthparts that were all out of proportion to the rest of their bodies.

Jaina shook her head.

“Can’t see them?” Han asked gently.

She blinked. “I am getting better. The blurs have edges.”

“Here we are,” the Ryn said, eyeing the creatures, “huddled under a synthplas dome.”

“Great,” Han said. “Just great.”

Jacen pulled his cloak around him a little tighter. “Romany, you and Mezza could organize the children into hunt teams. We’ve got a little sucrose set aside for treats. We could pay them by the worm.”

“Hey, Droma,” Han shouted over the top of a hydroponics vat. “I don’t suppose you people eat little wiggly bugs.”

A white-maned head appeared over the transparent lid. “With the right spices,” Droma said with grave dignity, “almost anything is edible. And—”

“Randa would probably love them.” This time, Jacen finished Droma’s sentence.

Then he looked aside. Han stared at Jaina, arching his eyebrows, his eyes soft and sad.

Jacen glanced from his father to his sister, comparing profiles. People generally claimed she resembled a young Leia, but below her bobbed hair, her forehead and cheeks really did have the same angles as Han’s. Jacen abruptly pitied any man who wounded Jaina’s heart with less than a galaxy between himself and her father.

As Jaina hiked off with Romany to look for Mezza, Jacen asked his dad, “Do you think all this is going to take the edge off her fighting ability?”

“If she doesn’t want it to, it won’t.” Han shifted his weight, frowning. “She’s too much like her mother.”

Jacen looked up sharply, hearing a depth of loneliness that Han never expressed openly.

“You’re right,” he told Han, not wanting to say too much. He hustled after Jaina, though.

He caught up at Mezza’s hut. “I think it’s time we went looking for Mom,” he told his twin.

* * *

Lenya, this morning’s comm operator, stared at the transceiver with her oblique eyes wide. Even Randa seemed flabbergasted. Jaina had found Admiral Dizzlewit’s soft spot: He had some sympathy for injured military personnel. Jaina had been given immediate access to the outsystem relay.

“SELCORE.” A human male wearing a high blue collar and short cape appeared on the relay screen, amid the usual cloud of blurred snowflakes. Deep-space relays went down or out of repair every day, blasted by the Yuuzhan Vong or sideswiped by space debris, but nobody dared to go out and fix them. They’d lost commercial HoloNet broadcasts completely. “How shall I direct your call?”

Jaina sat up a little straighter, and Jacen pulled his hand off her shoulder.

“We’re looking for Ambassador Organa Solo,” Jaina said.

“Do you have official business?”

Not again, Jacen groaned to himself. One more runaround.

“Yes,” Jaina said. “We’re calling in from a SELCORE locale.”

“Not bad, on the spur of the moment,” Jacen muttered while