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invisible in the darkened room. “Not too loudly, Vuffi Raa, and no later than nine-hundred in the morning. Good night.”
    “Good night, Master.”
    KRAAASH!
    The door-field overloaded, arced and spat as the panel itself split and hinges groaned, separating from the frame.
    Lando awoke with a start, one foot on the floor, one hand reaching for the stingbeam on the nightstand before he was consciously aware of it.
    Four uniformed figures, their torsos covered with flexible back-and-breast armor, helmet visors stopped down to total anonymity, stomped over the smoking remains of the door as the room lights came up of their own accord. Their body armor failed to conceal the sigil of colonial peacekeepers. They carried ugly, oversized military blasters, unholstered and pointing directly at Lando’s unprotected midsection.
    He removed his hand from the nighttable, hastily, but without sudden, misinterpretable movement.
    “Lando Calrissian?” one of the helmeted figures demanded.
    He eyed the wreckage of the door.
    “Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if I weren—um, on second thought, let me revise that: yes, gentlebeings, I am Captain Lando Calrissian, in the flesh and hopeful of remaining thatway. Always happy to cooperate, fully and cheerfully, with the authorities. What can I do for you fellows?”
    The bulbous muzzle of its weapon unwavering, the imposing armored figure stepped closer to the bed, its companions immediately filling up the space behind it.
    “Master of the freighter
Millennium Falcon
, berth seventeen, Teguta Lusat Interstellar—”
    “The very same. I—”
    “Shut up. You are under arrest.”
    “That’s fine, officer. Just let me get my pants—or not, if it’s inconvenient. I’ll be happy to answer whatever questions His Honor may wish to ask. That’s my policy: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Support Your Local—
Umph
!”
    The big cop hit Lando in the stomach with his blaster, followed it with the empty hand, balled into a mailed fist. A second figure went to work on the hapless gambler’s legs. The other two swung crisply around the bed, started in on him from the other side.
    “Ow! I said I’d go peaceably—
ghaa
! I—
unhh
! Vuffi Raa,
help me
!”
    The robot cowered in its corner, manipulators trembling. Abruptly, it collapsed, curled up into a ball. Its light went out.
    So did Lando’s.

•  III  •
    S QUAT .
    Squat and ugly.
    Squat and ugly and
powerful—at
least locally, Lando reminded himself with an inward groan as two of the helmeted
officers
dragged him into the presence of Duttes Mer, colonial governor of the Rafa.
    Lando hadn’t had time yet—nor the inclination—to inventorythe indignities inflicted on him by the Colonial Constabulary. He seemed to be one solid, puffy bruise from neck to ankles. Avoid trouble with the cops in one system, get it in the next when you least expect it.
    It hurt, rather a lot.
    Yet nothing really serious had been done to him, he realized, nothing broken, nothing that would show if they ever gave him back his clothes. A thorough, workmanlike, professional beating, it had been, and, for all that it had seemed to go on and on forever, apparently a purely educational one, a few well-placed contusions meant to underline the fact that he was totally at their mercy.
    He’d bloodied his own nose, stumbling against the jamb as they’d frog-marched him over the broken door of his hotel room. In hopes of not acquiring any further damage, he wished they’d put a plastic sheet under him now, to keep him from getting blood all over the governor’s fancy imported carpet, the only extravagance apparent in an otherwise spare and utilitarian office.
    There was a useful clue, there, if only Lando’s head would begin working well enough to ferret it out.
    The governor blinked. “Lando Calrissian?”
    At least everybody seemed to know his name. It was a startlingly high-pitched, feeble voice, considering the ponderous bulk it