by Timothy Zahn
His eyes drifted away from the casino, into the bar area . . . and stopped. There, sitting at a shadowy table at the far end, were three men.
There was an unmistakable air about a general freight port, a combination of sounds and smells and vibrations that every pilot who'd been in the business long enough knew instantly. There was an equally unmistakable air about planetary security officers. "Uh-oh," he muttered.
"What?" Lando asked, throwing a casual glance of his own around the room. The glance reached the far table- "Uh-oh, indeed," he agreed soberly. "Offhand, I'd say that explains why Torve's hiding at a sabacc table."
"And doing his best to ignore us," Han said, watching the security agents out of the corner of his eye and trying to gauge the focus of their attention. If they'd tumbled to this whole contact meeting there probably wasn't much he could do about it, short of hauling out his New Republic ID and trying to pull rank on them. Which might or might not work; and he could just hear the polite screaming fit Fey'lya would have over it either way.
But if they were just after Torve, maybe as part of that landing pit raid he and Lando had seen on the way in . . .
It was worth the gamble. Reaching over, he tapped the center of the table. "Attendant?"
The holo reappeared. "Yes, gentles?"
"Give me twenty sabacc chips, will you?"
"Certainly," she said, and vanished.
"Wait a minute," Lando said cautiously as Han drained his glass. "You're not going to go over there, are you?"
"You got a better idea?" Han countered, reaching down to resettle his blaster in its holster. "If he's our contact, I sure don't want to lose him now."
Lando gave a sigh of resignation. "So much for keeping a low profile. What do you want me to do?"
"Be ready to run some interference." The center of the table opened up and a neat stack of sabacc chips arrived. "So far it looks like they're just watching him-maybe we can get him out of here before their pals arrive in force."
"If not?"
Han collected the chips and got to his feet. "Then I'll try to create a diversion, and meet you back at the Falcon."
"Right. Good luck."
There were two seats not quite halfway across the sabacc table from Torve. Han chose one and sat down, dropping his stack of chips onto the table with a metallic thud. "Deal me in," he said.
The others looked up at him, their expressions varying from surprised to annoyed. Torve himself glanced up, came back for another look. Han cocked an eyebrow at him. "You the dealer, sonny? Come on, deal me in."
"Ah-no, it's not my deal," Torve said, his eyes flicking to the pudgy man on his right.
"And we've already started," the pudgy man said, his voice surly. "Wait until the next game."
"What, you haven't all even bet yet," Han countered, gesturing toward the handful of chips in the hand pot. The sabacc pot, in contrast, was pretty rich-the session must have been going for a couple of hours at least. Probably one reason the dealer didn't want fresh blood in the game who might conceivably win it all. "Come on, give me my cards," he told the other, tossing a chip into the hand pot.
Slowly, glaring the whole time, the dealer peeled the top two cards off the deck and slid them over. "That's more like it," Han said approvingly. "Brings back memories, this does. I used to drop the heavy end of the hammer on the guys back home all the time."
Torve looked at him sharply, his expression freezing to stone. "Did you, now," he said, his voice deliberately casual. "Well, you're playing with the big boys here, not the little people. You may not find the sort of rewards you're used to."
"I'm not exactly an amateur myself," Han said airily. The locals at the spaceport had been raiding landing pit sixty-three . . . "I've won-oh, probably sixty-three games in the last month alone."
Another flicker of recognition crossed Torve's face. So it was his landing pit. "Lot of rewards in numbers like that," he murmured, letting one hand drop beneath the level of the table. Han tensed, but the hand came back up empty. Torve's eyes flicked around the room once, lingering for a second on the table where Lando was sitting before turning back to Han. "You willing to put your money where your mouth is?"
Han met his gaze evenly. "I'll meet anything you've got."
Torve nodded slowly. "I may just take you up on it."
"This is all very interesting, I'm sure," one of the other players spoke up. "Some of us would like to play cards, though."
Torve raised his eyebrows at Han. "The bet's at four," he invited.
Han glanced at his cards: the Mistress of Staves and the four of Coins. "Sure," he said, lifting six chips from his stack and dropping them into the hand pot. "I'll see the four, and raise you two." There was a rustle of air behind him-
"Cheater!" a deep voice bellowed in his ear.
Han jumped and spun around, reaching reflexively toward his blaster, but even as he did so a large hand shot over his shoulder to snatch the two cards from his other hand. "You are a cheater, sir," the voice bellowed again.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Han said, craning his neck up to get a look at his assailant.
He was almost sorry he had. Towering over him like a bushy-bearded thundercloud twice his own size, the man was glaring down at him with an expression that could only be described as enflamed with religious fervor. "You know full well what I'm talking about," the man said, biting out each word. "This card-" he waved one of Han's cards "-is a skifter."
Han blinked. "It is not," he protested. A crowd was rapidly gathering around the table: casino security and other employees, curious onlookers, and probably a few who were hoping to see a little blood. "It's the same card I was dealt."
"Oh, is it?" The man cupped the card in one massive hand, held it in front of Han's face, and touched the corner with a fingertip.
The Mistress of Staves abruptly became the six of Sabres. The man tapped the corner again and it became the Moderation face card. And then the eight of Flasks . . . and then the Idiot face card . . . and then the Commander of Coins . . .
"That's the card I was dealt," Han repeated, feeling sweat starting to collect under his collar. So much, indeed, for keeping a low profile. "If it's a skifter, it's not my fault."
A short man with a hard-bitten face elbowed past the bearded man. "Keep your hands on the table," he ordered Han in a voice that matched his face. "Move aside, Reverend-we'll handle this."
Reverend? Han looked up at the glowering thundercloud again, and this time he saw the black, crystal-embedded band nestled against the tufts of hair at the other's throat. "Reverend, huh?" he said with a sinking feeling. There were extreme religious groups all over the galaxy, he'd found, whose main passion in life seemed to be the elimination of all forms of gambling. And all forms of gamblers.
"Hands on the table, I said," the security man snapped, reaching over to pluck the suspect card from the Reverend's hand. He glanced at it, tried it himself, and nodded. "Cute skifter, con," he said, giving Han what was probably his best scowl.
"He must have palmed the card he was dealt," the Reverend put in. He hadn't budged from his place at Han's side. "Where is it, cheater?"
"The card I was dealt is right there in your friend's hand," Han snapped back. "I don't need a skifter to win at sabacc. If I had one, it's because it was dealt to me."
"Oh, really?" Without warning, the Reverend abruptly turned to face the pudgy sabacc dealer, still sitting at the table but almost lost in the hovering crowd. "Your cards, sir, if you don't mind," he said, holding out his hand.
The other's jaw dropped. "What are you talking about? Why would I give someone else a skifter? Anyway, it's a house deck-see?"
"Well, there's one way to be sure, isn't there?" the Reverend said, reaching over to scoop up the deck. "And then you-and you-" he leveled fingers at the dealer and Han "-can be scanned to see who's hiding an extra card. I dare say that would settle the issue, wouldn't you, Kampl?" he added, looking down at the scowling security man.
"Don't tell us our job, Reverend," Kampl growled. "Cyru-get that scanner over here, will you?"
The scanner was a small palm-fitting job, obviously designed for surreptitious operation. "That one first," Kampl ordered, pointing at Han.
"Right." Expertly, the other circled Han with the instrument. "Nothing."
The first touch of uncertainty cracked through Kampl's scowl. "Try it again."
The other did so. "Still nothing. He's got a blaster, comlink, and ID, and that's it."
For a long moment Kampl continued staring at Han. Then, reluctantly, he turned to the sabacc dealer. "I protest!" the dealer sputtered, pushing himself to his feet. "I'm a Class Double-A citizen-you have no right to put me through this sort of totally unfounded accusation."
"You do it here or down at the station," Kampl snarled. "Your choice."
The dealer threw a look at Han that was pure venom, but he stood in stiff silence while the security tech scanned him down. "He's clean, too," the other reported, a slight frown on his face.
"Scan around the floor," Kampl ordered. "See if someone ditched it."
"And count the cards still in the deck," the Reverend spoke up.
Kampl spun to face him. "For the last time-"
"Because if all we have here are the requisite seventy-six cards," the Reverend cut him off, his voice heavy with suspicion, "perhaps what we're really looking at is a fixed deck."
Kampl jerked as if he'd been stung. "We don't fix decks in here," he insisted.
"No?" the Reverend glared. "Not even when special people are sitting in on the game? People who might know to look for a special card when it comes up?"
"That's ridiculous," Kampl snarled, taking a step toward him. "The LoBue is a respectable and perfectly legal establishment. None of these players has any connection with-"
"Hey!" the pudgy dealer said suddenly. "The guy who was sitting next to me-where'd he go?"
The Reverend snorted. "So. None of them has any connection with you, do they?"
Someone swore violently and started pushing his way through the crowd-one of the three planetary security types who'd been watching the table. Kampl watched him go, took a deep breath, and turned to glare at Han. "You want to tell me your partner's name?"
"He wasn't my partner," Han said. "And I was not cheating. You want to make a formal accusation, take me down to the station and do it there. If you don't-" he got to his feet, scooping up his remaining chips in the process "-then I'm leaving."
For a long moment he thought Kampl was going to call his bluff. But the other had no real evidence, and he knew it; and apparently he had better things to do than indulge in what would be really nothing more than petty harassment. "Sure-get out of here," the other snarled. "Don't ever come back."
"Don't worry," Han told him.
The crowd was starting to dissolve, and he had no trouble making his way back to his table. Lando, not surprisingly, was long gone. What was surprising was that he'd settled the bill before he had left.
"That was quick," Lando greeted him from the top of the Falcon's entry ramp. "I wasn't expecting them to turn you loose for at least an hour."
"They didn't have much of a case," Han said, climbing up the ramp and slapping the hatch button. "I hope Torve didn't give you the slip."
Lando shook his head. "He's waiting in the lounge." He raised his eyebrows. "And considers himself in our debt."
"That could be useful," Han agreed, heading down the curved corridor.
Torve was seated at the lounge holo board, three small data pads spread out in front of him. "Good to see you again, Torve," Han said as he stepped in.
"You, too, Solo," the other said gravely, getting to his feet and offering Han his hand. "I've thanked Calrissian already, but I wanted to thank you, too. Both for the warning and for helping me get out of there. I'm in your debt."
"No problem," Han waved the thanks away. "I take it that is your ship in pit sixty-three?"
"My employer's ship, yes," Torve said, grimacing. "Fortunately, there's nothing contraband in it at the moment-I've already off-loaded. They obviously suspect me, though."
"What kind of contraband were you running?" Lando asked, coming up behind Han. "If it's not a secret, that is?"
Torve cocked an eyebrow. "No secret, but you're not going to believe it. I was running food."
"You're right," Lando said. "I don't believe it."
Torve nodded vaguely off to one side. "I didn't either, at first. Seems there's a clan of people living off in the southern hills who don't find much about the new government to appreciate."
"Rebels?"
"No, and that's what's strange about it," Torve said. "They're not rebelling or making trouble or even sitting on vital resources. They're simple people, and all they want is to be left alone to continue living that way. The government's apparently decided to make an example of them, and among other things has cut off all food and medical supplies going that way until they agree to fall into step like everyone else."
"That sounds like this government," Lando agreed heavily. "Not much into regional autonomy of any kind."
"Hence, we smuggle in food," Torve concluded. "Crazy business. Anyway, it's nice to see you two again. Nice to see you're still working together, too. So many teams have broken up over the past few years, especially since Jabba bought the really heavy end of the hammer."
Han exchanged glances with Lando. "Well, it's actually more like we're back together," he corrected Torve. "We sort of wound up on the same side during the war. Up till then . . ."
"Up till then I wanted to kill him," Lando explained helpfully. "No big deal, really."
"Sure," Torve said guardedly, looking back and forth between them. "Let me guess: the Falcon, right? I remember hearing rumors that you stole it."
Han looked at Lando, eyebrows raised. "Stole it?"
"Like I said, I was mad," Lando shrugged. "It wasn't an out-and-out theft, actually, though it came pretty close. I had a little semilegit clearinghouse for used ships at the time, and I ran short of money in a sabacc game Han and I were playing. I offered him his pick of any of my ships if he won." He threw Han a mock glare. "He was supposed to go for one of the flashy chrome-plate yachts that had been collecting dust on the front row, not the freighter I'd been quietly upgrading on the side for myself."
"You did a good job, too," Han said. "Though Chewie and I wound up pulling a lot of the stuff out and redoing it ourselves."
"Nice," Lando growled. "Another crack like that and I may just take it back."
"Chewie would probably take great exception to that," Han said. He fixed Torve with a hard look. "Of course, you knew all this already, didn't you."
Torve grinned. "No offense, Solo. I like to feel out my customers before we do business-get an idea of whether I can expect 'em to play straight with me. People who lie about their history usually lie about the job, too."
"I trust we passed?"
"Like babes in the tall grass," Torve nodded, still grinning. "So. What can Talon Karrde do for you?"
Han took a careful breath. Finally. Now all he had to worry about was fouling this up. "I want to offer Karrde a deal: the chance to work directly with the New Republic."
Torve nodded. "I'd heard that you were going around trying to push that scheme with other smuggling groups. The general feeling is that you're trying to set them up for Ackbar to take down."