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Aside from the floating cities, Tibanna gas refineries, and storage tanks that drifted in Bespin's atmosphere, the planet had no habitable landmasses. The view was exhilarating, and Lowie gave a contented sigh.

It was so high up! His friends from the Jedi academy joined him.

"Ah," Tenel Ka said. "Aha. An interesting sensation."

Zekk said, "Whoa-and I thought the trees you liked to climb were high!"

He gave Lowie an admiring look and stepped back from the edge of the platform. "I sure wouldn't want to fall."

"Hey, they've got some neat indigenous animals," Jacen said, pointing at a flock of small creatures flying below them in the clouds.

"Bespin has life-forms different from any place else in the galaxy."

Anja seemed completely at ease with the height and moved up close beside Lowie at the edge of the platform, standing with one hand cocked on her hip. "Nice view," she commented.

As Lando and Jaina emerged after shutting down the Lady Luck's systems, a small and somber group of Exex, the city officials, marched across the docking platform toward the space yacht. At first Lowie thought it might be a small committee to welcome home the former Baron-Administrator of Cloud City-but he could sense immediately that something was wrong.

Lando raised a hand in greeting. "Good to be back. How ya doing?" He looked at them, perplexed. "This is all the fanfare you could manage?"

But the tiny group of officials converged around Lando and all began speaking at once in hushed voices.

"What? Wait a minute, now! One at a time." Lowie, hearing Lando's voice rise in alarm, moved closer so he could hear. His sensitive Wookiee ears picked up the words, and he froze as one of the female officials spoke in a low firm voice.

"It's true, sir. I saw him fall myself. The Wing Guard has ruled it a suicide. Your partner Cojahn is dead."

When the young Jedi Knights accompanied Lando into the sprawling construction site of his high-tech entertainment complex, Jaina looked around in wnazement.

Once completed, the amusement park would be an imaginary city within the floating city, with rides, games, food booths, themed "shopping environments," and live-action shows. SkyCenter Galleria would be a fabulous vacation spot for sentient creatures of all ages. There was no doubt that the high-altitude entertainment center offered fun for everyone.

But the sad news about Cojahn had not left Lando and the young Jedi Knights much in the mood for fun.

Lando held a small datapad that projected a holographic model of the SkyCenter Galleria plans, but he rarely consulted the schematics as he walked along through the bustling, confusing construction site. Since learningabout the death of his friend and partner, Cloud City's former Baron-Administrator seemed to lack enthusiasm for the promising investment.

Lando used his passcard to enter the site's work areas, and his guests followed him, curious but also wary around the sparking laser welders and the groaning repulser-cranes. Temporary fabric walls and force-field windows protected the structures and circuitry from the elements.

"Pretty different from when the New Republic engineers rebuilt the Great Temple at the Jedi academy," Jaina said.

"This is just a bit more modern than a four-thousand-year-old pyramid in the jungles," Lando pointed out.

Tenel Ka peered upward at the girders and levitating scaffolds that Ugnaught construction workers were using to build the upper gondolas and sweeping tracks of amusement rides. "Impressive," she said.

"D'you think we could have fun here?" Jacen asked her. "When it's all done, I mean."

"It seems designed to be most amusing," Tenel Ka observed in a deadpan voice.

As they walked along, Lando squinted up at the uniformed workers.

A gray-tufted Ugnaught shift supervisor chittered at him, then squeaked what must have been an announcement for all the construction workers to take a brief break. The shift supervisor descended from the top of a tall hovercoaster section, swinging down arm over arm from a lattice of support structures