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issued from—and perhaps a touch more nervous, Lando thought, than current circumstances seemed to warrant. Gamblers make much more careful studies of such nuances than psychologists. They have to.
    Thickly muscled, improbably broad, resembling more than anything else a deeply weathered tree-stump crowned in fine, almost feathery hair, the governor looked like the kind to play his cards close to the chest, never to take wild chances, to be a merciless, implacable player.
    Turn the tables and he’d holler like a baby. Lando knew the type well.
    In the present context, he felt the information wasn’t terribly helpful. He glanced uncomfortably at the armored visor-wearers either side of him, then back at the governor. It doesn’t matter a whit if a bully’s a coward at heart—as long as he has all the guns.
    The governor blinked, lifted a blocky arm, repeating the salutation—or, more likely, the accusation: “Lando Calrissian?”
    “Flatten the first A a bit,” Lando answered, more bravely than he felt. “A little more accent on the second syllable of the last name. Keep trying, you’ll get it right.”
    He ran a tongue across his lips, tasted blood. His head hurt. So did everything else. Egg-sized eyes under the silly head-thatching regarded him coldly from behind a small, uncluttered, impossibly delicate-looking desk of transparent plastic.
    “Lando Calrissian, we have here a list of very serious charges against you that have been brought to our attention. Very serious charges indeed. What, if anything, have you to say for yourself?”
    The governor blinked again as he finished, this time as if the very sight of Lando was painful to him. The young gambler bit back a second snappy reply. He wasn’t aware of anything illegal he had done. Lately, anyway. He hadn’t any qualms, particularly, about breaking the law: there were a lot of silly little planets with a lot of silly little laws. It was just that he’d rather—as an aesthetic point, mostly—be caught when he’d actually
done
something.
    He decided, more or less experimentally, to add truth to the courteous obsequiousness that had failed with the cops. One never knew, the combination might work on this fat tub of—
    “Sir—Your Excellency—I know nothing about any charges. To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t done anything to be charged with.”
    He left it at that; a complaint would be carrying things too far.
    The governor blinked.
    Lando opened his mouth to speak. A loop of fabric from his tattered pajamas chose that moment to slip embarrassingly from his shoulder and swing. He sniffed, lifted it with whatever dignity the occasion afforded, attempted to smooth it back in place.
    The governor blinked.
    It was not a large room they were in. There was a wide door—but then, it was a wide governor—either side of the desk. Like the door facing the desk, through which Lando had been escorted, both were framed in plain undecorative alumabronze, the spare motif echoed in wainscotting, baseboards, and a border around the high, somehow intimidating ceiling. The pace was tinted a bilious yellow to match the governor’s eyes. Instead of draperies, the windows displayed recorded scenes Lando recognized from other systems: greenishgravelly beaches, deep orange skies, scarlet vegetation. Entire
worlds
done up in bad taste.
    The governor, apparently deciding Lando had been sufficiently intimidated by the longish silence, lifted a thick arm from his desk, regarded the troopers half-holding the much-abused starship captain erect.
    “You are advised,” Duttes Mer squeaked menacingly, “to
improve
the best of your knowledge, then, young miscreant.”
    Miscreant
? Lando thought, did people really say
miscreant
? The governor perused a printout lying on his desk, raised downy eyebrows.
    “Quite a record! Reckless landing procedures. Illegal importation of dangerous animals. Mynocks, Captain—really? Unauthorized berthing of an interstellar—”
    “But,