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“Well, go warn him he’s headed for permanent lockup, and then keep an eye on him. Keep him out of Leia’s way. Somebody tried to sabotage her mining laser last night.”

“Then I’ll stay out of her way, too.” Jaina pulled her soft, SELCORE-blue cap low, warmly covering her ears, and went out.

She found Randa’s tent quickly. Blubbering noises filtered through its blue walls.

She pulled open the flap. Randa sat on his sleeping mat, holding a leathery ball in one little hand. He twitched that hand, as if to hide it—then thrust it forward, more forcefully. His blubbering and moaning shut off.

“Take it,” he ordered. “I expected Ambassador Organa Solo, or her security people.”

Jaina recognized the villip. Her stomach wrenched. Randa, a spy? No wonder he’d been hanging out in the communication centers!

“How long have you been working for them?” she demanded, holding herself ready to fend off an attack.

“I am not,” the Hutt growled. “I asked to speak with them, hoping to negotiate on behalf of my people. They rebuffed me—”

“When?” Jaina took another step forward. “When did you contact them?”

“Yesterday.”

“Only once?”

“I swear it by my—”

“Oh. Right, I believe you,” she said, loading her voice with sarcasm. “So that’s why you tried to warn Senator Shesh there were Yuuzhan Vong on the way. Because you somehow found a villip, somewhere inside Gateway dome.”

“The senator assured me that reinforcements will arrive shortly.”

Jaina worked the tip of her thumb with one fingernail. If Jacen was right, if Shesh wasn’t to be trusted, then the woman would not lobby to send reinforcements. She might even report Randa to the Yuuzhan Vong.

“I made an error,” the Hutt assured her. “Truly I did. But I have repaired it, now—”

“Do you think anyone will believe that? Give me that.”

Jaina snatched the leathery villip. That brought her momentarily chest-to-belly with the Hutt, close enough to catch a whiff of his fetid body odor. Clutching the stiff villip under one arm, she stalked out of the shelter and hustled toward the gray admin building.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mara was ordered not to land at Gateway’s main gate. “The decontam area just inside’s under quarantine,” they told her—doubtless from the evacuation of infested Settlement Thirty-two. A young voice directed her northeast, to a smaller, blasted-out landing area that was actually bordered by green plant growth. The scientists really had made progress here. The world was coming back to life. Whether or not it survived could depend on what she found out.

A fringe of slender boarding tubes clustered from the northeast gate. Mara waited shipboard until Gateway’s crew connected one to Shadow’s starboard access hatch, then threw a thin cloak over her finery and hurried up the synthplas tube.

Inside the huge Gateway dome, to the southwest, she spotted a gray building, two stories tall, ringed with lower constructs. Steam boiled out of one of the outbuildings. In an open area to her left, sandy soil had been raked into short rows that suggested settlers’ private gardens. To the right, behind a powder-blue city of tents, low ruins bit into the skyline. A distant rumble pulsed, some kind of digging or mining apparatus.

Not bad, for a refugee city. She pulled a deep breath. It even had good air, when most refugee settlements were stinking mudholes.

Sympathetic administration.

She decided to speak with Leia before she poked around. If her mysterious contact gave her trouble, she might have to leave in a hurry.

The admin building’s lower story was centered on a staircase instead of lift tubes, its duracrete blocks crumbly in spots. She climbed the stairs, found a door marked ORGANA SOLO, and strode in.

A familiar protocol droid stood inside. “Good morning,” he greeted her. “I am See-Threepio, human-cyborg relations—”

“So I see.” Remaining in character, she dropped her cloak on a metal-frame chair and looked haughtily around the room. Large desk, cot, focus cooker, storage lockers—one room for all functions. But no Leia. “I am Baroness Muehling of Kuat. I wish to speak with