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The Ryn’s forward-facing eyes darted between the container and Cracken’s lined face. “Chew carefully, Major,” he said, just loud enough to be heard. “Expect the unexpected.”

Cracken straightened, whispering the message to Page, who in turn whispered it to the Bith behind him in line. Surreptitiously, the message was relayed again and again, until it had reached the last of the one hundred or so prisoners.

By then Cracken, Page, and some of the others had carried their bowls to a crude table, around which they squatted and began to finger the gruel carefully into their mouths, glancing at one another in understated anticipation.

At the same time, three prisoners moved to the doorway to keep an eye out for guards. The Yuuzhan Vong hadn’t installed villips or other listening devices in the huts, but warriors like S’yito, who displayed obvious curiosity about the enemy, had made it a habit to barge in without warning, and conduct sweeps and searches.

A Devaronian hunkered down across the table from Page made a gagging sound. Faking a cough, he gingerly removed an object from his slash of dangerous mouth, and glanced at it in secret.

Everyone stared at him in expectation.

“Gristle,” he said, lifting beady, disappointed eyes. “At least I think that’s what it is.”

The prisoners went back to eating, the tension mounting as their fingers began to scrape the bottoms of their bowls.

Then Cracken bit down on something that made his molars ache. He brought his left hand to his mouth, and used his tongue to push the object into his cupped hand. The center of attention, he opened his hand briefly, recognizing the object at once. Keeping the thing palmed, he set it on the table and slid it to his left, where, in the blink of an eye, it disappeared under the right hand of Page.

“Holowafer,” the captain said softly, without taking a second look. “It’ll display only once. We’re going to have to be quick about it.”

Cracken nodded his chin to the horned Devaronian. “Find Clak’dor, Garban, and the rest of that crew, and bring them here quickest.”

The Devaronian stood up and hurried out the doorway.

Page ran his hand over his bearded face. “We’re going to need a place to display the data. We can’t risk doing it in the open.”

Cracken thought for a moment, then turned to the long-bearded Bothan to his right. “Who’s the one with the sabacc deck?”

The alien’s fur rippled slightly. “That’d be Coruscant.”

“Tell him we need him.”

The Bothan nodded and made for the doorway. As word spread through the hut, the prisoners began to converse loudly, as cover for what was being said by those who remained at the table. The Ryn banged his ladle against the side of the pot, and several of the prisoners distributed fruits to the others by tossing them through the air, as if in a game of catch.

“How are things in the yard?” Page asked the lookouts at the doorway.

“Coruscant’s coming, sir. Also Clak’dor’s bunch.”

“The guards?”

“No one’s paying any mind.”

Coruscant, a tall, blond-haired human, entered grinning and fanning a deck of sabacc cards he’d fashioned from squares of leather. “Did I hear right that someone’s interested in a game?”

Page motioned for everyone to form a circle in the center of the hut, and to raise the noise level. The guards had grown accustomed to the boisterous activity that would sometimes erupt during card games, and Page was determined to provide a dose of the real thing. A dozen prisoners broke out in song. The rest conversed jocularly, giving odds and making bets.

The human gambler, three Bith, and a Jenet were passed through the falsely jubilant crowd to the center of the circle, where Page and Cracken were waiting with the holowafer.

Coruscant began to dole out cards.

Highly evolved humanoids, Bith were deep thinkers and skillful artists, with an ability to store and sift through immense amounts of data. The Jenet, in contrast, was short and rodentlike, but possessed of an eidetic memory.

When Page was satisfied that the inner