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red nonetheless. “The posse. I heard the Call go off!”
    “They heard it on Suurja, Doc,” Annileen said. “And Suurjans don’t have ears.” She didn’t know if Mon Calamari had ears, either, but she knew Doc Mell wouldn’t mind the joke. The Call was a gaudy display of decibels. Half the breakables in the store had fallen to the first test of the system, years earlier. Annileen had learned to tune it out—a talent perfected during a lifetime in retail.
    “They still might need a medic. I should meet them on the way back,” the doctor said, before cracking the door and pushing his young son inside.
    Annileen started. “Hey, wait. Don’t leave your kid here!”
    “I’ll be back!” The door slammed.
    Annileen pitched the datapad over her shoulder and felt her forehead. Yes, she was still here—and so were the four other younglings that had already been dropped off when their parents left with the posse. Two were at a table, eating food plucked from the shelf; two more were hiding somewhere. Babysitting wasn’t her job, but with people rushing out to help someone in need, she’d found it hard to argue.
    Except people frequently left their children when there was no emergency, too.
    Annileen looked down on the sniffling pink ragamuffin and rolled her eyes. She sighed. “Oh, all right.” She took the boy by the shoulders and pointed him to a rack near the wall. “Take a broom, kid. And nothing else.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” The child began to dutifully sweep the floor near the table where the other children were sitting.
    From inside the front door, Leelee laughed. “Good luck, Annie.”
    Annileen scowled, playfully. “Just go. You’re letting the tepid air out.”
    A low whine sounded from the west, slowly increasing in volume and crescendo. Annileen dashed to the counter to check the video feed from the southern hillside security cam. She saw what she expected to see: landspeeders, coming back from the Bezzard farm.
    And she also saw what she had feared to see. Jabe, perched precariously on the back of Veeka Gault’s snazzy landspeeder.
    Annileen opened the window and called out to her daughter. “Kallie! Bring me a bantha prod.”
    The girl looked up from her work. “You want the training prod or the big one?”
    Dark eyebrows made an angry vee. “Doesn’t matter.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    FOR ORRIN, RETURNING TO the Claim was always like coming home. It wasn’t his home, of course; it was Dannar’s. And then Dannar’s and Annileen’s, and for the last several years Annileen’s alone. But Orrin felt a tie to the compound that went beyond the law, or such law as there was on Tatooine. Orrin had laid the first bricks for the store, driven in the first landspeeder for repair, and eaten the first meal at the lunch counter.
    A place was a thing, and you weren’t supposed to get sentimental about things. But it was also his last link to the best friend he’d ever had, and that wasn’t something he’d ever be able to ignore.
    The Claim had been Dannar’s big idea. He was good with ideas, even better than Orrin was. Together they’d made great things happen in the oasis; one day, they’d imagined, Orrin’s farms and Dannar’s market would turn it into a second Anchorhead. Or even Bestine—Orrin could see that happening. The Pika had that much potential.
    But Dannar had changed after marrying his salesclerk. He’d always kept a foot in the store after that, never willing to risk more than he could afford at one time. And after Kallie was born? Forget it.
    Fatherhood had the opposite effect on Orrin; he couldn’t wait to hit the range each day, searching for treasure in the air. But Dannar’s bets were ever smaller, and on surer things. That had made Dannar’s Claim a strong operation, to be sure: a good earner, even by Orrin’s current standards. But it had meant that only one of them was able to go for the main chance, when opportunity came. By the time Jabe was in the cradle, Orrin’s