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sorry, but spiders really give me the creeps." "Spiders?"
    See-Threepio said. "Are there spiders? Where? I must be careful that they do not spin their webs in my
    joints. Why, I knew a droid once--" "I meant the driver," Han said.
    "But the driver was not a spider," See-Threepio said.
    "Metaphorically speaking," Han said.
    "But--" "Never mind," Han said. "Forget I said anything." "He.was a good businessman," Luke said.
    Han laughed. "Yeah, you're right. He was pretty grabby." See-Threepio took a few nervous steps
    forward and looked around.
    "I'm certain our contact is here somewhere!" he said, despite their being alone in the entry bay.
    Han glanced at Luke. "Now what? Do you have any idea where to start looking for your lost Jedi?" Luke
    shook his head. His hair fell across his forehead andfora moment he looked like the green kid he had
    been when Han first met him. But he was not a green kid anymore. Far from it. Over the years, he had
    developed an otherworldly presence that Han found both touching and alarming.
    "I expected to be able to sense--" Luke shrugged unhappily. "There's nothing. Maybe they're shielding
    themselves. Hiding. After the way the Empire hunted them down, who can blame them?" "You'd think
    they'd notice," Han said, "that there hasn't been any Empire for years." "But there are plenty of people
    who want it to return," Luke said stubbornly.
    "Okay, okay." Han did not believe a group of lost Jedi existed. On the other hand, the longer Luke
    searched for them, the longer Han's vacation would last.
    Maybe I'd better go easy on the teasing, he said to himself.
    Beneath the transparent radiation shields, the carnival light of the burning whirlpool turned gray and soft.
    Small shadows appeared and disappeared, dappling the ground.
    Han glanced up. As Crseih Station spun on its axis, the black hole and its accretion disk created a violent
    dawn. The burning whirlpool stretched across a quarter of the sky.
    When it set, its white dwarf companion would rise. As the white dwarf plunged toward the center of the
    star system, it and its companion would rise closer and closer to the same time, until they rose together
    and burned the heavens.
    Han was careful not to look directly at the accretion disk of the black hole, even with the protection of
    the shields. In an instant, the natural fireworks display expended more energy than all the celebrations
    conceived by civilization since the beginning of history.
    He proceeded through the airlink toward the first dome of the station proper. Hot, moist air, tropical and
    fetid, closed in around Han.
    He could practically see the air, practically open his fingers and grab a handful of it.
    Most of the folks who live here must be from tropical worlds, he thought. It's easy to keep a space
    station cool--But not a station like Crseih. Overworked cooling machinery vibrated the floor. The shields
    protected the living space by absorbing X rays. But the enormous energy re-radiated as heat, and the
    heat had to go somewhere. The cooling machinery strained to transport it to Crseih's night side, where
    the heat could be radiated into the vacuum of space. With the black hole on one side of the station, and
    the white dwarf on the other, Crseih's night side was barely a sliver of shadow.
    Han held his palm a finger's width from the surface of the airlink. After a moment he pulled back. Even
    with the efforts of the cooling machinery, the surface was uncomfortably hot.
    See-Threepio hurried on ahead, strutting stiffly, strange in his purple-lacquer disguise. He continued his
    futile search for his contact.
    "I distinctly told our correspondent to meet us," Threepio said querulously. "I cannot understand--" Luke
    strode past Han--He did go by me, didn't he? Han thought.
    Did I see him? Or didn't I? Damn, I hate it when he does that!
    "Threepio," Luke said, "it would be better not to broadcast our plans." "But, Master Luke, I never
    would--I assure you I wasn't engaging my