Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire
Author: Timothy Zahn
Date: 2011-02-09 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Dystopia; Novels; Fiction; Post Apocalyptic; Action; Media Tie In; Robots; Horror; Science Fiction
Description: Following the dramatic events of Terminator Salvation , a recovering John Connor grants Barnes permission to return to the destroyed VLA lab and bury his brother, killed in the explosive opening of the movie. At the ruins Barnes and Blair Williams hunt through the debris for the remains of their comrade but instead uncover a mysterious cable leading up into the mountains. The two Resistance fighters head into the wilderness to investigate. What the pair discovers is an entire village that appears largely untouched by Judgment Day and its aftermath. Suspicious of the villagers, Barnes and Blair
Publisher: Titan
Rights: Copyright © 2012 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™

BY TIMOTHY ZAHN

STAR WARS

STAR WARS: Scoundrels
STAR WARS: Choices of One
STAR WARS: Allegiance
STAR WARS: Outbound Flight
STAR WARS: Survivor’s Quest
STAR WARS: Vision of the Future
STAR WARS: Specter of the Past
STAR WARS: The Last Command
STAR WARS: Dark Force Rising
STAR WARS: Heir to the Empire

Cobra Alliance
The Judas Solution
Conquerors’ Legacy
Conquerors’ Heritage
Conquerors’ Pride
Cobra Bargain
Cobra Strike
The Backlash Mission
Cobra
The Blackcollar

Star Wars: Winner Lose All is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

2012 Del Rey eBook Original

Copyright © 2012 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.

Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Cover design: Scott Biel
Cover art: Paul Youll
eISBN: 978-0-345-54491-9
www.starwars.com
www.delreybooks.com
facebook.com/starwarsbooks
v3.1

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

First Page

Every sabacc tournament, Lando Calrissian had learned over the years, had its own special flavor and texture. Games on the upper levels of Imperial Center and other Core worlds were elegant and refined. Games run by other gamblers were more intense, populated by players acutely aware that the winners would go home rich while the losers might not eat for a few days. Games run by Hutts or Hutt clients usually involved blasters at least once before the final hand.

But it wasn’t until he walked through the doors of the High Card Casino in Danteel City that Lando had felt an atmosphere he could truly label as electric.

Small wonder. Veilred Jydor, master gambler, financier, and the High Card’s owner, was giving away his Tchine.

Lando actually hadn’t even heard of the Tchines when the tournament was announced two standard weeks earlier. But it hadn’t taken long to get up to speed. The Tchines were a set of sculptures sometimes called the Seven Sisters: slender, thirty-centimeter-tall figurines, delicately humanoid, created from a unique and incredibly tough gray stone by an unknown and certainly ancient artisan. Even more mysterious was the fact that all seven figurines were identical.

Lando hadn’t believed that part at first. But as he sifted through the HoloNet and read the reports, he was forced to the same conclusion that all the rest of the researchers over the years had been forced to. However impossibly it had been done, the sculptures were indeed perfectly and precisely identical.

There were many strange things throughout the galaxy, and Lando had learned to take them in philosophical stride. What raised the Tchines above the level of mere academic interest was the fact that each one was valued at between forty and fifty million credits. And Jydor was offering his as the tournament’s prize. Winner take all.

A pair of Rodians shoved their way past Lando, nearly knocking him over. He caught his balance and forced back his reflexive annoyance. He’d never seen those particular Rodians before, but with an incredibly valuable art object up for grabs he expected to see a lot of unfamiliar faces before this was over. Speculation was rampant as to the reason Jydor had suddenly decided to part with one of his collectible treasures, the most popular theory being that he’d made some bad investments and needed to raise a stack of credits fast.

If so, he’d found the perfect way to do it. There were eight seats at the tournament table, with six of them going for ten million credits each. All six had been instantly snatched up, which meant that before the game even started Jydor was up ten to twenty million over where he’d have been if he’d simply sold or auctioned off the statuette. And that didn’t take into account the extra visitors the game was drawing to his casino and the attached hotel.

Just to add to the excitement—and to swell the ranks of the crowd—he’d announced that the final two places at the table would be going to the winners of a preliminary wild-card tournament.

Lando meant to win one of those seats.

Ahead, in the direction the crowd flow was taking him, he could see a floating holo marking the sign-up table. Keeping an eye out for familiar faces, especially familiar faces who might be carrying grudges, Lando headed toward it.

“Well, well,” Tavia Kitik murmured from across the dining table in the tapcaf overlooking the High Card’s grand entryway.

Bink Kitik looked up from the delectable shrimpi cup she was currently eating her way around to find her twin sister gazing out at the crowd of hopefuls headed toward the registration table. “Well, well, what?” she asked.

“Another familiar face,” Tavia said with a microscopic nod. “Lando Calrissian.”

At the third corner of the table, Zerba Cher’dak stirred. “I’ve heard that name before,” he murmured.

“Probably,” Bink agreed. “Possibly from us.”

“We’ve run into Lando on and off over the years,” Tavia added. “A pleasant, relatively cultured sort.”

“Only because we’re cute,” Bink said drily. Casually turning her head, she followed Tavia’s eye line into the crowd of players, would-be players, and soon-to-be spectators.

It was Lando, all right. He was weaving his way upstream through the crowd, a blue data card in his hand and an intent but satisfied expression on his face. “Looks like he’s got a spot on the blue track,” she added. “Roving eye or not, the man does aim high.”

“So he’s here to play,” Zerba muttered. “Wonderful.”

“Relax,” Bink said. “He’s on the blue track; you’re on the red. Who knows? Maybe you’ll both win seats at the big table.”

“I don’t plan on hanging around long enough to find out,” Zerba countered. “I’m more wondering if he’ll spot one of you and give the whole game away.”

“Don’t worry, Lando’s smarter than that,” Tavia assured him. “He’s seen us work, and he knows better than to address us by name in public.”

“At least not until he knows what our current names are,” Bink added. “He’s heard half a dozen of them over the years.”

“Wait a minute,” Zerba said. He leaned forward, as if better proximity to the two women would give the antenepalps concealed in his lacquered hair better access to their thoughts or emotions, or whatever it was Balosars were currently claiming their antenepalps could do. “He’s seen you work? He knows you’re a ghost thief?”

“Yes, and yes,” Bink said. “And Tavia’s right. He’s not going to turn us in.”

Zerba gave a little snort. “Anyone can be bought, Bink,” he said. “It’s just a question of price. Maybe I should switch to the blue track and made sure he gets bounced before he sees you.”

“No,” Tavia said firmly. “Lando hasn’t done anything to deserve that.” She looked at Bink. “Besides, he looks hungry. I’m guessing he needs a score.”

“When hasn’t he?” Bink agreed. “Not likely to happen here, though, not with the big names Jydor’s already got at the table. Relax, Zerba. Whatever happens, he’s not going to be a problem.”

“Whatever you say,” Zerba said, still not looking convinced. “Just remember, if you get caught I have no idea where you got that fancy dress and keycard.” With that, he returned his attention to his plate.

Bink looked across the table at Tavia. Her sister had also resumed eating her dinner, but there was a stiffness in her shoulders that hadn’t been there earlier.

Probably she was just ramping up her concern level as the timer ticked down toward the job. Tavia hated the whole ghost-thief business and would be worried from the moment Bink headed up to Jydor’s hundredth-floor penthouse until the moment she returned with whatever loot she was able to grab from his art display room.

Or maybe she was worried about Lando, and Zerba’s all-too-true reminder that anyone could indeed be bought.

The moment had arrived, and Jydor was playing it like a true showman.

Not that it was easy to see from the table against the far wall where Lando had been seated for his first game. The double line of guards crossing the High Card’s grand ballroom was little more than a stately procession of big, heavily armed men. Jydor was just another figure in the middle of the bunch, though he was far more elegantly dressed, in a mid-length layered tunic with a blue plume-feather upswept collar that contrasted nicely with his red-frosted white hair. The Tchine statue, which he carried in front of him in a protective transparisteel pyramid as if it were the royal Alderaanian crown or something, was visible only as a small, slender, gray lump.

Still, Lando counted himself lucky that he was in the ballroom at all. A lot of the players who’d made the cut had landed in various outlying rooms, where they would be refereed by the casino’s game judges and watched over via unobtrusive cam droids hovering close to the high ceilings.

The procession ended at the round sabacc table that had been set up on the top level of a two-tier platform in the center of the ballroom. As the guards formed themselves into protective circles on the floor and the lower tier, Jydor climbed to the upper tier and carefully set the pyramid and figurine in the center of the table. “Herewith is the prize,” he intoned, his voice booming through the ballroom’s speakers. “Winner take all.”

He stepped back, seated himself in the chair usually reserved for the game judge, and raised a dramatic hand. “Let the games begin.”

With a deep breath, Lando turned his attention back to his table. The player who’d been chosen by lot to deal this first hand, a smooth man with a permanent half smile plastered across his face, was already shuffling the cards.

I can do this, Lando thought firmly. Flexing his fingers in anticipation, watching closely to make sure the dealer wasn’t playing fast and loose with the cards, he prepared his mind for the game.

“Well?” Bink asked quietly.

“I count twenty guards.” Tavia’s equally quiet voice came from the comlink clip on Bink’s shoulder. “Four appear to be newcomers, probably brought in from one of Jydor’s other properties. The others are all from his penthouse rotation.”

Which meant the art display room three hundred meters above their heads was effectively deserted. With a forty-million-credit art object on public display, Jydor’s security setup had been rearranged exactly as she’d anticipated. “Keep an eye on them,” she said. “I’m going in.”

The hotel’s main turbolifts were arranged in three banks just outside the ballroom. An open car was waiting as she arrived, with half a dozen people filing in. Bink slipped in among them and punched for the ninety-ninth floor, the one directly beneath Jydor’s penthouse. It would have been more convenient to ride all the way to the top, but none of the public turbolifts went to that floor, and Jydor hadn’t been careless enough to pull the guards off his private turbolifts to add to the ballroom contingent.

Fingering her small, clutch-type handbag, she watched the indicator and waited for the car to clear out.

The last person finally exited on the eightieth floor. As the car doors closed again, Bink slipped a small egg-shaped device from a fold of her dress and cupped it in the palm of her right hand, then turned her handbag on its side and balanced it on her left palm. The turbolift passed the ninety-eighth floor, and as it slowed to a halt, she activated the egg’s hidden trigger.

Her thin silk dress vanished instantly, ripped along its tear-away seams, the pieces pulled into the egg by the nearly invisible attaching threads to reveal the demure white-trimmed black uniform that had been hidden beneath it. Opening her handbag, she pulled out the pair of compressed hand towels that had been squeezed inside, quickly fluffed and refolded them, then slipped the handbag and egg into concealment between them.

When the turbolift doors opened, it wasn’t an elegantly dressed guest who stepped out into the corridor, merely one of the casino’s maids on her way to deliver some towels.

She headed down the corridor, taking on the quiet, unassuming posture and expression she’d noted on all of the casino’s service staff. On any other floor this masquerade wouldn’t have been necessary—after all, few overnight visitors knew who else was sharing a floor with them, or whose room was whose. And even a rookie ghost thief would know that hotel staff were normally forbidden to use the guest turbolifts.

But there was a subtle trap in play here on the ninety-ninth floor, one that same rookie ghost thief might have walked straight into. Fortunately for Bink, Tavia had done her homework. The rooms up here were a special group, a mixture of VIP guests, the casino’s upper managers, and off-duty bodyguards. On this floor, and really on this floor alone, there was a good chance that everyone had at least a passing acquaintance with everyone else. A total stranger, no matter how elegantly dressed, would likely raise enough suspicion for a closer look.

But not even managers noticed the service staff. As long as Bink made it off the turbolift without anyone witnessing that policy violation, she should be fine.

She had a chance to prove that theory twice on the way down the hallway as well-dressed visitors strode past her without even breaking stride. Reaching her target room, she knocked discreetly on the door and then pulled out her keycard and slid it into the slot. The keycard, unlike the uniform, was genuine casino-issue, lifted two hours earlier from a maid who was heading off-duty. The card Zerba had left in its place was an exact copy, though of course without any of the access coding. Since even the best keycards occasionally suffered scratch degradation, the maid would most likely never even realize it had been switched. The first time she tried to use it, which probably wouldn’t be until tomorrow, she would almost certainly simply go to the housekeeping supervisor and get it reprogrammed.

The room was deserted, as Bink had known it would be, given that its occupant was one of the men currently guarding Jydor’s Tchine. Going to the refresher, she tucked her towel bundle into a corner and added her maid outfit to the stack, leaving herself dressed in her usual working catsuit. Tavia’s research had shown a narrow access crawl space between the ninety-ninth and hundredth floors that contained some of the emergency systems, and access panels into such spaces were often hidden in refresher linen closets.

There was no such panel in this one. But three minutes’ work with her mono-edge wheel cutter and she’d made one of her own. Pushing the disconnected slab of ceiling ceramic out of the way into the crawl space, she pulled herself up.

If her calculations were correct, she was now directly beneath Jydor’s art display room.

The next step was to see what kind of internal security the room had. Pulling out her microdrill, she got to work.

The penthouse flooring was considerably tougher than the closet ceiling had been. But the drill was heavy-duty, and within another five minutes she had a pinhole punched through. Swapping out the drill for her optic line viewer, she worked it through the opening and adjusted the eyepiece over her eye.

Now to figure out how hard it would be to get through the display room’s heavy, vault-class door. Turning the optic line in that direction, she keyed for light and full magnification.

She’d expected Jydor to be the type to trade extra security for convenience, and she was right. The door was an open-back design, where the mechanism was visible through a protective layer of transparisteel. That sort of setup made it easier for the owner to change the combination; it also made it easier for someone other than the owner to see straight into the coding bars and figure out the sequence. A couple of minutes’ study, and she had it.

Of course, getting into the suite and to the door presented its own set of challenges. But it should be easy enough. An exit from the window of the room below her, a quick climb up the wall using her syntherope dispenser and some rock putty anchors, a popped catch on the ventilation aperture at the top of the window—after disabling the alarms, of course—a twitched noose through the aperture to trip the catch on the main window, and she would be in. Nothing to it.

And now came the fun part: figuring out what would be worth stealing.

Turning the optic line again, she began a slow sweep of the room. It was every bit as lovely a sight as she’d hoped it would be. The Tchine might be Jydor’s priciest art object, but there were plenty of lesser artifacts in the display room that should keep her and Tavia in food and shelter for a couple of months. There was a Vomfrey sculpture on one of the nearest display pillars that would probably bring a few thousand credits. The antique Bocohn medtext hardbook would be trickier to fence, but would be worth a lot more if she could find someone who would take it. On another pillar on the far side of the Bocohn, hidden from the room’s entrance by a half-draped black cloth, was a square transparisteel case.

Bink felt her whole body stiffen. Inside the case was a Tchine figurine.

For a long moment she just gazed at it. Then, reaching to her collar, she keyed her comlink clip. “Tav?”

“Yes?” her sister’s voice came instantly.

“Is Jydor’s Tchine still in the ballroom?”

There was a short pause. “Yes, of course.”

“You can see it?”

“Of course. Is something wrong?”

Bink took a careful breath. Jydor had one Tchine. Just one. Every data list agreed on that.

So if Jydor’s Tchine was here, what was on the table in the ballroom?

“Bink?”

“I’m coming down,” Bink said, pulling the optic line from the pinhole and packing it and the eyepiece away. “Meet me in the lounge. Any idea when Zerba will be free?”

“There’s supposed to be a quarter-hour break every three hours,” Tavia said. “You’re not going in?”

“Not yet,” Bink said as she started working her way back down through the opening she’d cut. “We may have just changed targets.”

“No,” Zerba said firmly. “All Seven Sisters are accounted for.”

“You’re sure?” Bink asked.

“Three on Imperial Center,” Zerba said, lifting fingers. “One on Rendili, one on Corellia, one across town with that Devaronian noble—whatever her name is—”

“Lady Carisica Vanq,” Tavia murmured.

“Right—Lady Vanq,” Zerba said. “And one with Jydor. That’s seven.”

“You’re sure there couldn’t be an eighth?” Bink asked hesitantly, wondering if the question would sound stupid.

From the look on Zerba’s face, it apparently did. “The Sisters were discovered three hundred standard years ago,” he said. “They’ve been bought, sold, and traded among the elite for two hundred ninety-nine and a half of those years. Trust me, if someone had found an eighth, we’d have heard about it.”

“Ditto if another collector had sold his to Jydor,” Tavia added. “Big sales and trades are covered by the upscale news feeds, and I’ve been watching all of them lately.” She looked at Zerba. “Which leaves just one possibility.”

“Jydor’s built himself a fake,” Zerba said heavily. “Question is, which one is which?”

Bink gazed off across the lounge, crowded with players rushing to get food and drink during the brief time-out. “He wouldn’t bring the fake down here,” she said, trying to work it through. “Someone might spot that.”

“But then how would he make the switch at the end?” Zerba objected. “I assume he is planning to foist off the fake as the genuine article.”

“The tournament’s going to last at least a couple more days,” Tavia pointed out. “I doubt he’ll leave the Tchine here overnight. It could be he’s got the real one there right now, and plans to switch it for the fake at the beginning of the final day.”

“On the other hand, why not just bring in the fake at the beginning and be done with it?” Zerba countered. “It has to be good enough to pass eventual inspection, after all.” He gestured toward the ballroom. “Besides, the people in there are gamblers, not art experts. I doubt any of them has ever gotten closer to a Tchine than a holo on a data list.”

Tavia stirred. “Except maybe Lando,” she murmured.

“True,” Bink said, frowning as she thought back to the incident Tavia was referring to. How close had Lando been to the Tchine? She couldn’t remember.

“Wait a second,” Zerba said. “You’re talking about the Lando who’s in the game? When did he see a Tchine?”

“He was at Qarshan’s game a few years back when Nintellor made that famous bet where he put half his collection on the table,” Tavia said. “Nintellor’s Tchine was part of that bet.”

“Nintellor won it back, but the Tchine was right there in the open,” Bink added. “I wonder if we should bring Lando in and see what he knows.”

“Why?” Zerba asked. “I mean, why do we even care?”

“Because it would be embarrassing for me to grab the wrong one,” Bink told him.

Zerba’s eyes widened. “Whoa—back up, back up. What do you mean, grab the wrong one? We’re not going after the Tchine.”

“We weren’t going after the Tchine,” Bink corrected. “But that was before we had an actual possible shot at it.”

“You’re joking,” Zerba breathed, his eyes going even wider. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Look, Jydor is running some sort of scam,” Bink said. “If part of that scam requires him to leave his most precious art object unguarded, we owe it to the galaxy to teach him a proper lesson.”

Zerba stared at her another moment, then turned to her sister. “Tavia?” he pleaded.

Tavia sighed. “I’m on your side,” she said. “But I’ve seen her in this mood. She’s not going to back down.”

“Hey, you’re the one who always says you should set your sights high,” Bink reminded her. “That’s all I’m doing.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” Tavia said with that patient look Bink had seen on her so many times over the years. “But you know that. How do you suggest we start?”

“Like I said: we bring in Lando.”

“You’re insane,” Zerba insisted. “Both of you. Completely insane.”

“Oh, come on, Zerba,” Bink said, mock-severely. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Cowering behind my sense of self-preservation,” Zerba retorted. “Look, Bink, whatever game Jydor’s playing, it has to be for huge stakes. Can’t we please just grab something he won’t care about and get out of here?”

“Let’s at least talk to Lando,” Bink said. “If we decide the Tchine’s too risky, we’ll go back to the original plan.”

Zerba eyed her. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

He sighed. “You’re the boss. But I still don’t like it.”

“Noted,” Bink said. “Tav? You want to do the honors?”

There was a warning hoot from the ballroom’s speakers. “Sure,” Tavia said. “Next break’s in three hours?”

“Yes,” Zerba said, standing up. “Unless he loses before then.”

“Then we’ll meet here in three hours,” Tavia said. She raised her eyebrows. “All of us.”

“Sure,” Zerba said sourly. “Wouldn’t miss it for anything.” He headed back toward the ballroom.

“You really think Lando can help us?” Tavia asked.

Bink shrugged. “He couldn’t hurt. He’s also smart and he knows gamblers better than we do.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Besides, you think he’s cute.”

“You think he’s cute,” Tavia said stiffly. “Not me.”

Bink suppressed a smile. “Right.”

As far back as he could remember, Lando had always had an eye for the ladies. Even in the midst of a sabacc game, occasionally even when the other players were standing over him with drawn blasters, a passing beauty would still trip a switch in some back corner of his brain.

Fortunately, most of the time those distractions didn’t rise to the level of potentially lethal. Nonetheless, the ladies passing through his life always caught his attention.

Which was probably why, even while facing an uphill climb in a tournament with stakes as immensely high as this one, he still managed to spot the twins Bink and Tavia at the far end of the ballroom.

Not that they looked like twins at the moment. Even at this distance he could see that they were using their usual tricks of makeup, hairstyle, and carefully positioned hats to create the illusion that their faces were merely similar instead of identical. There were times when Bink’s schemes relied heavily on that accident of nature; even when that wasn’t a part of her plan, there was no reason to advertise the fact that they were twins.

Under normal circumstances, Lando would have known not to approach them or even acknowledge that he knew them. But the circumstances here were hardly normal. The women were undoubtedly up to something—he’d never heard of them going anywhere just for their health—and he had no intention of letting them derail the tournament. Not without at least knowing what they were planning. Certainly not while he still had a chance of winning.

Which meant he was going to have to confront them. The question was how to do so without potentially ruining things for himself or them.

The next break had been called, and he was still working on the problem as he headed toward the bar with the rest of the players when one of the twins sidled up beside him and took his arm. “Hello, Lando,” she murmured in his ear. “Thirsty?”

“Always,” Lando assured her. “You have a table?”

“Right over there,” she said. “Bink’s already ordered your favorite cognac.”

“Great,” Lando said. So it was Tavia hanging on to his arm, not Bink. Good thing mental bets didn’t count against the tournament’s single-elimination. “Lead the way.”

They found Bink seated at a small corner table at the rear of the lounge along with a dour-faced human male. Bink did the introductions as Lando and Tavia sat down. “Lando; Zerba.” The crisp professionalism in her voice ended Lando’s last lingering hope that this was a social gathering. “Zerba; Lando.”

“Zerba,” Lando said, nodding. The other wasn’t actually human, he realized now, but a near-human, probably a Balosar. “What’s up?”

“Fasten your restraints,” Bink advised. “There’s a hell of a ride ahead.”

Lando listened with a growing mixture of fascination and disbelief as she described her probe into Jydor’s display room and what she’d seen there. “So what do you think?” she asked when she’d finished.

“I think Jydor’s angling for an early grave,” Lando said, looking around the lounge. “There are some big players here, and their patrons aren’t going to be happy if he tries to pass off a fake.”

“I didn’t know gamblers had patrons,” Bink said.

“They do on this one,” Lando told her. “None of them could have managed a ten-million-credit buy-in on their own. I’m guessing the six players already in the game have been hired and funded by individual collectors to play on their behalf.”

“Makes sense,” Zerba commented. “It gives the collectors a better chance of winning than if they played themselves. It also masks their identities, which can be handy.”

“Like sending a ringer to an auction,” Bink agreed. “So what’s Jydor’s game?”

“No idea,” Lando said. “Unless one of the players is secretly working for Jydor. If he can win the Tchine back … but then why bother with a fake in the first place?”

“Well, whatever the plan, the first thing we have to do is figure out which figurine is which,” Bink said. “Any chance we could get a little closer to the one down here? Preferably with a small scanner in hand?”

Zerba gave a snort. “Sure,” he said. “All we need to do is win one of the wild-card seats. Then we’ll be right up there with it.”

“Or win both seats,” Bink suggested. “You two are on different tracks, you know.”

Lando eyed Zerba. “What’s your ranking?” he asked.

“Don’t have one,” Zerba said. “Don’t need one, either.” He smiled tightly. “I cheat.”

Lando swallowed. A lot of sabacc players cheated. Few of them admitted it. “Really.”

“Really,” Zerba confirmed.

“He’s quite good at it, too,” Bink added. “Sleight of hand, reshuffles, skifters—you name it, he can do it.”

“I’ve got a couple of spare skifters, if you want one,” Zerba offered.

“No, thanks,” Lando said. The last thing he wanted was to get caught with an adjustable card in his possession. “I trust you know what happens if you get caught.”

“I do,” Zerba assured him. “And I won’t.”

“Right.” Lando picked up his glass and drained the last of his cognac. “In that case, I guess things are on hold until we see if we can win one of the wild-card spots. Or both of them,” he added, inclining his head to Bink.

“May I make a suggestion?” Tavia spoke up.

Lando looked at her, feeling a mild flicker of surprise. She’d been so quiet since they sat down that he’d almost forgotten she was there. “Sure.”

“You’ve seen a real Tchine close up,” she reminded Lando. “But none of the rest of us has. More important, we really don’t know how one shows up on a scan.”

“Isn’t that data on file?” Lando asked.

“Some of it is,” Tavia said. “But not all of it. Probably deliberately.”

“So that no one knows all of the readings that would have to be faked to make a copy,” Lando said, nodding. “Makes sense.”

“So we don’t have complete sensor data,” Zerba said. “So what?”

“So there’s another Tchine right across town,” Tavia said. “Lady Carisica Vanq’s. If we could persuade her to let us take some readings, we’d have a head start on identifying the fake.”

“I’m guessing that’ll take a lot of persuasion,” Lando murmured.

“Maybe not,” Bink said thoughtfully. “Depends on how much security she has.”

Tavia gave her sister a look of strained patience. “Bink—”

She broke off as the warning hoot sounded. “You two sort it out,” Lando said, standing up. “Zerba and I need to get back to the tables.”

“How soon before you find out if you’ve made it to the main game?” Bink asked.

“I don’t know,” Lando said, running a quick calculation. “Not before tonight, though.”

“Probably not until sometime tomorrow,” Zerba said. “Depending on how late in the day the session runs, Jydor may postpone the beginning of the big game until the day after that.”

“So you’ve got until then to break into Lady Vanq’s house,” Lando concluded. “Have fun.”

He headed back toward the ballroom, wondering if there was any reason for him not to simply turn around and walk out of the casino. If he was going through all this for a fake …

He smiled tightly. No, of course he was going to keep going. There were a lot of big players here, and if he could help expose a scam before one of them was taken in, he would have bought himself a fistful of goodwill and possible future favors. In his line of business, both could mean the difference between success and failure.

Sometimes even between life and death.

“Thank you,” Tavia said quietly as she and Bink reached the end of the long hedge-lined walkway of Lady Carisica Vanq’s estate and came within sight of the main house. “I appreciate you trying it this way first.”

“You’re welcome,” Bink said.

Tavia winced. Bink was trying hard to make it sound like she meant it, but Tavia knew her sister’s moods and body language, and she could tell that Bink thought this was a waste of time. Worse, she probably thought that asking politely and straightforwardly for a scan would alert Lady Vanq to the more clandestine approach Bink obviously expected they would eventually have to use.

On one level, Tavia had to agree. Still, it seemed only right to try the polite approach first.

They reached the door, and Tavia rang the chime.

There was a moment’s pause, and then the door swung ponderously open to reveal an LOM protocol droid. “Yes?” it asked stiffly.

“Lady Pounceable and Lady Michelle to see Lady Vanq,” Bink said in that condescending, high-snoot-value voice she’d spent years perfecting.

“Lady Vanq is not at home,” the droid said.

“Do you expect her back soon?” Bink asked.

“I cannot say,” the droid said. “She has gone on a long journey.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Tavia saw Bink cock her head slightly. Probably wondering whether they should give the LOM a high-power jolt into its motivator from her concealed sparker and simply walk in right now.

Fortunately, Bink was smarter than that. “Very well,” she said. “We’ll call another time.”

“Yes,” the droid said. Taking a step back, it closed the door.

“Now what?” Tavia asked. Her sister, she noted, was giving the house and windows a casually penetrating visual examination. “Plan B?”

“Actually, it was always Plan A,” Bink said. She finished her survey and turned away from the house. “Let’s get back to the casino.”

“We’re not hitting it tonight, are we?”

“No,” Bink assured her. “First I need to dig up everything we can on the old—what is she?”

Tavia suppressed a sigh. For Bink, objects and targets were everything. People were just what you had to deal with along the way. “Devaronian.”

“Right—the old Devaronian,” Bink said. “We’ll want her house schematics, her alarm setup, and any servant or droid information we can get. We’ll work out a plan tonight and go in tomorrow.”

Tavia thought back on the timing Lando and Zerba had laid out. “I hope that won’t be too late,” she warned. “If the wild-card rounds finish tonight, the main game will begin tomorrow.”

“Not a chance,” Bink said flatly. “With every game the field’s average talent goes up a notch, which means the last few games will be long and brutal. No, the final table isn’t going to start until the day after tomorrow at the earliest.”

“I suppose,” Tavia murmured. “I wonder if Zerba or Lando will make it through.”

“That’s their problem.” Bink nodded back over her shoulder at the house. “This is ours. Come on—we’ve got work to do.”

Lando had known going in that his chances of making it all the way to the big table were extremely slim. There were a lot of players who’d swarmed in for the tournament, and many of them were as good as or better than he was.

But for once, Lady Luck seemed to be solidly at his side. Often the better players drew positions where they were competing at other tables and more often than not ended up taking one another out. On the occasions when he faced someone whose skills were superior to his own, the cards invariably ran in Lando’s favor.

In a normal tournament, that kind of luck wouldn’t gain him more than a temporary reprieve. In the long run, the whims of fortune would even out, and the better player would eventually emerge triumphant. But Jydor had set up the wild-card games to be single-elimination, which meant Lando only had to hold off his equals and betters for a single game each.

As the afternoon turned to evening and then to night, he slowly but steadily made his way from the edge of the ballroom inward toward the elevated table. By the time the games were called for the night, he was more than halfway toward his goal. Exhausted but with a deep satisfaction he hadn’t felt in a long time, he watched as the bodyguards formed their protective curtain around Jydor and the Tchine and they all marched from the ballroom and disappeared into the private turbolifts.

He hadn’t seen Bink or Tavia since that one meeting, but he caught a glimpse of Zerba as the players filed out and began dispersing to their own rooms. Apparently, the Balosar had also survived the night’s combat.

It was a good sign, he decided as he settled tiredly into bed in his own modest room. He could only hope Bink and Tavia were making similar progress.

The games downstairs were still going strong when Bink finally conceded defeat to her drooping eyelids and said her good nights. Tavia muttered a distracted good night in return, the bulk of her attention clearly still on the array of four datapads laid out in front of her.

Bink ran quickly through her pre-bedtime routine, wondering yet again at the complicated dance that must go on inside her sister’s head. For someone who hated the whole idea of stealing from people, Tavia nevertheless threw her whole heart, mind, and strength into the prep work that went into each job. Obviously, she was trying to make sure Bink made it through without getting caught; but the whole thing was still an interesting and no doubt tension-filled compromise between ethics and sisterly love.

Or maybe it was the challenge of the hunt that intrigued Tavia, the art and science of digging through floor plans and alarm zones as she searched for weaknesses and opportunities.

In some ways, Bink knew, the two of them really weren’t all that different.

By the time Bink awoke the next morning, the entry plan was finished and laid out on her datapad. Moving quietly so as not to wake her sleeping sister, she got herself a cup of caf and settled down to study the plan.

She was halfway through her second cup by the time she finished her examination. It would work, she decided as she gazed thoughtfully out the window at the city stretching toward the horizon. A nighttime sortie; and by the time the games once again broke for the night, she and Tavia should have a complete sensor scan of Carisica Vanq’s Tchine. All they would need then would be close access to the figurine Jydor had on display in the ballroom.

Hopefully, Lando and Zerba would make that happen.

“I just heard from Zerba.” Tavia’s voice came softly over Bink’s comlink clip. “He and Lando are both still in the game.”

“Glad to hear it,” Bink murmured back, studying the bedroom window as she hung in midair half a meter from the glass. The defenses at the edge of Lady Vanq’s grounds had been easy enough to penetrate, and she’d avoided the lower wall sensors by the simple expedient of using her syntherope dispenser to travel from hedge top to roof and then come down to her target window from the eaves. Now, as she swung gently back and forth in the warm night air, the last barrier lay before her.

As barriers went, it wasn’t much. Satisfying herself that she’d spotted all the alarms and sensors, she pulled out her mono-edge wheel cutter and got to work. Five minutes later, with the glass cut, the alarm disabled, and the window open, she eased herself carefully inside.

Most collectors Bink had gone after over the years had situated their vaults or display rooms near their offices or, if they enjoyed showing off their collections, near the conversation room or some other public area. Lady Carisica Vanq’s vault, in contrast, was right off her bedroom.

That wasn’t entirely unheard of—Bink had known of other, mostly elderly, art hoarders who liked to look over their lifetimes’ accomplishments every night before retiring. But it wasn’t very common. It was rare enough, in fact, that Tavia had speculated that the vault had actually started life as a safe room and only been retasked after Lady Vanq decided that life in Danteel City was safe enough not to require a place of instant refuge.

Breaking into someone’s bedroom always made Bink a little nervous. The house droid had said Lady Vanq was out, but for all their electronic memories, droids occasionally got things wrong.

The room was dark, the only illumination coming from the muted city light leaking in through the drapes across the row of windows. Bink moved carefully across the floor, noting the shadowy shapes of chairs and lounge tables and wondering idly what sort of furnishings a wealthy Devaronian noble would indulge in. The bed was a little too big for her taste, with tall posts at each corner rising nearly to the ceiling and lifting the main part of the bed about half a meter off the floor. Probably an airflow thing, she decided, for nights when the temperature outside was uncomfortably high—

She froze, her breath catching in her throat.

The house droid had indeed gotten it wrong. Lady Vanq wasn’t gone. She was right there, lying beneath the blankets in the middle of the bed.

Bink stood motionless, her heart thudding, silently cursing her carelessness as she tried to figure out what to do. If the Devaronian was asleep, there might still be a chance to backtrack and escape.

And then, as Bink’s mind began to catch up with her, a fresh shiver ran up her back. Something was very wrong here. The figure in the bed was way too still.

She took a careful breath. “Tav?” she murmured.

“What is it?”

“Hang on.” Steeling herself, she headed toward the bed. The figure still didn’t move, and as Bink drew closer she realized with a sinking feeling that she couldn’t see any rise and fall of blankets across the figure’s chest.

Lady Carisica Vanq was dead.

Bink took another careful breath. This time she caught a hint of a spicy-sweet aroma. “Tavia?”

“Bink, what’s wrong?” Tavia’s anxious voice came back. “If you need to get out—”

“There’s no hurry,” Bink said, the words aching through a suddenly burning throat. “She’s dead.”

“Who’s dead?”

“The lady of the house.” A ripple of half-hysterical laughter bubbled through the acid taste in Bink’s mouth. Sternly, she choked it back down. “The droid said she was on a long journey. I guess he was right, after all.”

“I don’t understand,” Tavia said, her voice starting to shake. “You mean she died of—I don’t even know what kind of diseases Devaronians can die quickly of.”

“In this case, the same thing a lot of other people in the Empire die from these days,” Bink said, gingerly lifting the edge of the blanket from the body. One look was all she needed. “She was shot.”

“She—what?”

“Single blaster bolt to the upper torso,” Bink said. “Close range.”

There was a muffled gasp from the comlink clip. “Bink, get out of there. Get out of there now.”

“There’s no hurry,” Bink said, gently laying the blanket back and looking around. “From the smell of bio-suppressant around the body, I’m guessing she’s been dead for a while. Several days at least.”

“Or maybe two weeks?”

An eerie feeling seemed to flow across the room with the wind drifting through the open window. Was Tavia suggesting what Bink thought she was suggesting? “Stay with me,” she said, heading toward the massive door at the far side. “I’m going to check out the safe.”

Tavia hissed out a breath. “Be careful.”

Safes of this class usually took ten to fifteen minutes to crack. This one took less than two. Clearly, someone had already made it through the barriers. “I’m in,” she murmured as she pulled the door open and stepped inside.

“And?”

Bink played her glow rod around the room. The late Lady Vanq’s collection was even more eclectic than Jydor’s, with art objects ranging from fist-sized flutterines to Wookiee-sized flat sculpts, their vintages stretching from the days of the ancient Rakatan Empire all the way up to modern oddments with no intrinsic value that Bink could see. Off to one side was an empty display pedestal.

The Devaronian’s Tchine was gone.

“You’re right,” Bink said. “Jydor’s second Tchine must be Lady Vanq’s—”

Behind her, the bedroom door opened.

Bink froze, her head half turned toward the doorway. It was a cleaning droid, running a vacuum attachment across the threshold to the hallway and a meter or so inside the room. It finished its job, and its head rose and swiveled slowly around. Bink tensed …

The mechanical eyes passed the open safe door without any reaction that Bink could detect. Its gaze likewise swept without pause across the dead body in the bed. Backing out of the room, it closed the door behind it.

Bink took a careful breath. “Still there?” she murmured.

“Of course,” Tavia said. “What’s happening?”

“Oh, it’s pretty much bad news all around,” Bink said. She stepped out of the safe and closed the door behind her. “Any idea when the players’ next break is?”

“Actually, they’re finished,” Tavia said. “I don’t suppose it matters now, but Lando and Zerba both won their tracks.”

“No, it probably doesn’t,” Bink agreed, sitting down on the windowsill and reattaching her harness to the syntherope. “Go find them and get them to our room. We all need to have a serious conversation.”

Zerba’s eyes widened, the top part of his lacquered hair undulating like a small animal as the hidden antenepalps beneath it twitched. “She’s dead?”

“Take it easy,” Lando said, keeping his voice and face under rigid control. So neither of Jydor’s Tchines was fake … and one of them was in his possession because of theft and murder. The fake-Tchine thing had been bad enough, throwing an unpleasant pall over the whole tournament. With this new revelation, the situation had risen to an entirely new level of nastiness. “This is no time to panic.”

“Do be good enough to let me know when that moment comes,” Zerba retorted acidly. “Are you insane?”

“Lando’s right,” Bink said firmly. “Yes, it’s bad. But it could be a whole lot worse.”

“Bink, you were seen in there,” Zerba bit out. “Seen and recorded in a droid memory. The fact that you saw the body and didn’t immediately report it automatically makes you an accessory after the fact.” He snorted. “In fact, given that we all now know about it, we’re all accessories after the fact.”

“Two points,” Bink said. “First of all, Danteel law on these things allows for reporting delays based on certain mitigating factors.”

“Such as?”

“Such as it’s acceptable to hold off if you think that reporting it will put your life in danger.”

Lando grimaced. “With Jydor involved, that’s a pretty safe bet.”

“And second,” Bink continued, “I’m pretty sure I wasn’t seen. Not really.”

“You said the droid looked right at you,” Zerba reminded her.

“It looked, but it didn’t see,” Bink said. “The fact that none of the droids has apparently even noticed their mistress is dead implies that someone’s fiddled with the house’s overall programming matrix. They’re not being allowed to see anyone inside the house, alive or dead.”

Zerba snorted. “Call me stupid,” he said. “But this makes no sense at all.”

“It does if you’re a thief and murderer,” Lando pointed out.

“I meant it makes no sense from Jydor’s point of view,” Zerba said. “Why in the galaxy would you kill someone for something as easily traced as a Tchine?”

“Why not?” Lando countered. “There are plenty of collectors who keep their prizes hidden away for their own private viewing. A lot of them probably wouldn’t much care if an item or two in their vault happened to have been stolen from someone else.”

“Or it might have been the other classic motive for murder,” Bink said. “Tavia’s been digging into Jydor’s money deals, and it looks like Lady Vanq suckered him out of a big contract and a lot of money a few months ago.”

“How much money?” Lando asked.

“It’s rumored to be in the neighborhood of fifty to sixty million credits,” Tavia said.

“Which is the same amount he’s just made back by selling those first six tournament seats,” Bink added. “Takes a creative man to combine revenge and profit into the same murder.”

“But it’s stolen,” Zerba persisted. “Sooner or later, someone’s going to notice that Lady Vanq is dead and that her Tchine is missing. The minute they find that Jydor still has one, it’ll be obvious what happened.”

“Except that there’s a cute little glitch in Danteel law,” Bink said. “Possession of stolen property is a major crime on Danteel. But the Tchines are identical. Once Jydor’s gotten rid of one of them, unless the police can figure out which is which, they can’t touch him for that.”

“But they’ll know he had both of them at one point.”

“But they won’t have any proof that he was the one who stole it,” Bink said. “Without that, and without proof that the one in his display room is the hot one, they’ll have no grounds to dig any deeper.” She shrugged. “Like I said, it’s a glitch.”

Zerba shook his head. “Ridiculous. Who else could have stolen it?”

Bink’s lip twitched. “Yes, well, that’s the other problem,” she said reluctantly. “Aside from bringing in enough credits to make up his loss, this tournament has the side benefit of attracting a whole bunch of thieves to Danteel City. Which means that when the balloon goes up, there will be a lot of people Jydor can point fingers at.”

Lando winced. “People like you,” he said. “And since you’ve actually been in Lady Vanq’s home …”

“… the finger-pointing will likely start with me,” Bink agreed heavily. “Especially since, depending on what the thief did to the matrix programming, I may also have been recorded as having come to the front door yesterday afternoon.”

Zerba muttered something under his breath. “That’s it, then,” he said. “Nice seeing you again—nice meeting you, Lando—and I hope we run into each other under happier circumstances.” He started to get up.

“Wait a second,” Lando said, grabbing for the Balosar’s shoulder and missing. “Didn’t you hear her? She’s on the hook for this.”

“Which is why we need to scatter to the wind,” Zerba countered. “What else are we going to do?”

Lando looked at Bink. She was tempted, he could see. Tempted to run, to change her name from whatever she was using today to whatever she’d been planning to use tomorrow, and hope she could hide herself in the shadows of the fringe until Lady Vanq’s murder was forgotten. And really, given the state of justice in Palpatine’s Empire, it probably would be the smartest move.

And then he looked at Tavia. At her composed but smoldering expression.

Tavia had no intention of letting Jydor get away with this. Unlike most fringers—unlike even Lando himself, on certain days—she hadn’t totally given up on right and wrong.

Especially not when her sister was poised to take the fall for murder.

Lando squared his shoulders. A pity, really, that this wasn’t one of those certain days. “Fine,” he said to Zerba. “Go.” Turning to Tavia, he raised his eyebrows. “So how do we nail him?”

Zerba, already two steps toward the door, came to a confused-looking halt. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about nailing Jydor,” Lando said. “Tavia?”

“The reprogramming of Lady Vanq’s house is the key,” Tavia said, her eyes narrowed in thought. “If I can figure out what he did, I might be able to backtrack to the programmer. Then we’d have some proof.”

“At which point, we can sic the police on him,” Bink said, eyeing her sister. She was still not sure running wouldn’t be the best option, Lando decided. “If he’s smart, he’ll make a deal that fingers his boss.”

“It’s a start,” Lando said. “What do you need?”

“Right now, I mostly need time,” Tavia said. “If Bink’s right about the droids, we should be able to get back into the house without trouble. But it’ll take time for me to slice into the system.”

“Too bad Rachele Ree isn’t here,” Bink murmured. “She could slice it in nothing flat.”

“Well, she’s not,” Tavia said, a little crossly. “We’ll just need to figure out a way to stall the tournament.”

“We could call in a bomb threat,” Bink suggested. “Plenty of people don’t like Jydor. Or we could finger the Rebellion—that would stir up every Imperial in the hemisphere.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Zerba growled, coming back to his chair and sitting down. “The way to stall a game is to make sure no one wins for a while.”

Lando eyed him. “You mean throw our hands?”

“Or cheat a little on behalf of whoever’s losing.” Zerba gave a theatrical sigh. “And since I doubt you can cheat worth anything—no offense—I guess that’ll be my job.”

Bink reached over and laid a hand on the Balosar’s forearm. “Thanks, Zerba,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome,” Zerba said sourly. “The main game starts at five tomorrow evening. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’ll be in by then?”

Tavia shook her head. “I first need to find a datapad with the right programming hardwired into it.”

“I know a couple of places to look,” Bink said. “But it’ll probably take most of tomorrow, and I don’t want to risk going back to the house until it’s dark. That’ll be about an hour after you start.”

“Can you stall the game that long?” Tavia asked.

“No problem,” Zerba assured her.

“In fact, given the caliber of the players we’ve got, it’ll probably drag out at least six hours without any finagling at all on our part,” Lando added. “Sounds like we’ve got a plan.”

“Right,” Zerba muttered. “Lucky, lucky us.”

The players assembled at the table precisely at five, after Jydor had once again made his grand entrance and placed the Tchine in the center of the table. After looking at it for two days from across the ballroom, Lando decided the thing didn’t look all that impressive close up.

Maybe it was because he couldn’t look at it anymore without seeing a sheen of blood on it. Or maybe it was because the double ring of Jydor’s guards now encircled him as well as the figurine.

Still, at least all the guards were facing away from him. That was worth something.

Jydor gave the standard best-of-luck speech that tournament hosts always made, resumed his seat in the game judge chair, and the game began.

As Lando had already noted, the assembled players were some of the best in the galaxy. Most of the main six were far better than he was, and they certainly knew it. More than once he caught a side look from one of them directed at him or Zerba that clearly carried the unspoken question of what such rank amateurs were doing in their company. It was just as well, he thought, that he was no longer trying to win.

But all the rest of them were, and the play was every bit as cutthroat as he’d expected. It was going back and forth so much, in fact, that they were two hours into the game before he noticed something odd.

One of the players, a craggy-faced Rodian named Mensant, had settled into a pattern of winning every few hands. Every eight hands, in fact, plus a handful of others.

The logical suspicion was that the guy was cheating. The problem was that he wasn’t winning the hands he himself was dealing. Instead, it was the hands being dealt by a blank-eyed man named Phramp.

Lando gave it another dozen rounds, just to be sure. Then, during one of the deals, he casually looked over at Zerba and gave a microscopic nod toward Phramp.

Zerba’s lip twitched, and he gave an equally small nod in response. So he’d caught it, too.

An hour later, Jydor called for a break. Heading toward the bar, carefully avoiding getting anywhere near Zerba, Lando pulled out his comlink and keyed for Bink. “We need a conference,” he said when she answered. “Can you add in Zerba?”

“Sure.” There was a short pause. “Yes?” came Zerba’s voice.

“What do you think?” Lando asked.

“I was wondering why Jydor had set it up so that the players took turns dealing instead of having one of his own people do it,” Zerba said. “Looks to me like he’s got Phramp trying to throw the game to Mensant.”

“He’s throwing the game?” Bink echoed. “What in chaos for?”

“I don’t know,” Lando said. “Before you told us about Lady Vanq I would have said Mensant and Phramp were working for Jydor and that he was trying to scam the Tchine back into his collection.”

“But now it looks more like he’s trying to unload the stolen one onto someone in particular,” Zerba said.

“Let’s see if we can find out who Mensant is fronting for,” Bink said. “I’ll see if Tavia can track that down after she finishes the coding search.”

“Good,” Lando said. “How’s that going?”

“Slow,” Bink said. “But she’s making progress.” There was an indistinct voice in the background. “She says it’s creepy in here.”

“You’re in the bedroom?” Zerba asked.

“It’s the only place we’re absolutely sure the droids can’t see anyone,” Bink pointed out. “Talk to you later.”

She clicked off. Grimacing to himself, Lando put away his comlink—

“Excuse me,” a voice behind him said.

Before Lando could even start to turn, a large man appeared beside him. “Master Chumu’s compliments,” the man continued. “He’d like a word with you.”

“And Master Chumu is …,” Lando prompted, edging away.

“Master Jydor’s business manager,” the man said, staying right with him.

“Maybe later,” Lando said. “I’ve got a game to get back to.”

“I’m afraid I have to insist,” the man said. “Don’t worry about the game—it won’t resume for at least twenty minutes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Master Jydor’s gone to the private dining room for a snack,” the man said. “He always has crab rotoven, and it always takes him twenty to thirty minutes to eat it.”

Lando frowned. “And how do you know that?”

“Because I’m one of his household guards,” the man said tightly. “Call me Rovi.” He gestured in the direction of the private turbolifts. “And I really must insist.”

“Did you see where he took him?” Bink asked, gripping her comlink tightly.

“Straight to one of Jydor’s private turbolifts,” Zerba said, his voice strained. “And the guards there obviously knew the guy.”

“They probably play cards together after hours,” Bink said, staring at the body lying on the bed. She’d known this charade couldn’t last. But she hadn’t expected it to fall apart this fast. “But you’re still free?”

“Free and clear, as far as I can tell.”

“Then it must have been something he said that was overheard,” she concluded, trying to remember Lando’s exact words. He’d said Lady Vanq’s name, she remembered. That might have been all it took, especially if that particular guard knew the old Devaronian had been murdered.

Even if they didn’t know the details, Jydor certainly did. Lando was in it, all right, all the way up to his neck.

Unless Bink could manufacture another interpretation for his comment …

“Okay,” she said, crossing over to Lady Vanq’s safe. “I’ll handle this. Stay put and pretend you don’t know anything. That means rejoining the game if and when it starts up again.”

“I know what it means,” Zerba growled. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Me, too,” Bink said. “Let me know if anything interesting happens.”

“What are we going to do?” Tavia asked tightly.

“You’re going to keep on the programming patch,” Bink said, setting to work opening the safe. “Where are you right now?”

“I’ve got the patch itself figured out,” Tavia said. “But I haven’t been able to backtrack it yet. There’s something funny in one section of the coding, too.”

“What kind of funny?”

“The confusing kind,” Tavia said. “It reads like encrypted text. I’m trying to clear it so I can see if it’s something we should be worried about.”

“But you could cut out the patch and let the droids see what’s happened in here?”

“Anytime you want,” Tavia confirmed. “I’d like to decrypt that text first, though.”

“Go ahead and give it a shot,” Bink said. “But if we run out of time, we’ll just have to pop the patch and hope the text isn’t a problem.”

The safe lock snicked open. Pulling on the door with one hand, she keyed Lando’s comlink with the other. “Here goes nothing.”

Darim Chumu was a middle-aged human with the look and feel of a born huckster. From his casual body language as he sat comfortably in one of the chairs in the penthouse entryway lounge, to the deep smile lines in his face, it was clear that he was a man who’d closed countless deals over the years.

But that face wasn’t smiling now. And the languid posture carried the same underlying tension of a gambler trying to read an opponent’s hand. “I apologize for the abruptness of my invitation,” he said after the somewhat strained introductions had been made and Lando had been seated across from him. “But you mentioned Lady Vanq, and that name is not to be spoken casually in the High Card Casino.”

“I’ll make a note,” Lando said, striving to match his host’s tone. “Was there anything else?”

Chumu’s eyes narrowed microscopically. “I don’t think you fully understand, Master Calrissian,” he said. “Lady Vanq cheated Master Jydor out of a great deal of money a few months ago. Friends of hers aren’t welcome here.”

“I’m hardly a friend,” Lando protested mildly. So Chumu was probing to see just how close Lando and the murdered Devaronian had been. “More a business acquaintance.”

“I didn’t know she did business with gamblers,” Chumu said. “Do you own a casino or gambling pit?”

“Actually, it was regarding one of my other professions,” Lando said. “It’s rather confidential, I’m afraid.”

Chumu’s eyes narrowed a little more. “I’m afraid I must insist on an answer.”

“I don’t know if I can—” Lando broke off as his comlink twittered.

“Go ahead and answer that,” Chumu said.

“They’ll call back,” Lando said, leaving the comlink where it was. Odds were that it was Zerba calling to chat, and cheating, scams, and murder were the absolute last topics of conversation he wanted brought up right now.

“Answer it,” Chumu said, his tone making it clear it was an order. “Or Rovi will.”

With a grimace, Lando pulled out the comlink. As he did so, Rovi reached over his shoulder and closed a massive hand around Lando’s. “On wide-focus, if you please,” Chumu added.

There was nothing for it but to comply. Mentally crossing his fingers, Lando clicked it on. “Lando.”

“It’s Michelle,” Bink’s voice came. “Listen, do you know where Lady Vanq is? I’ve tried all the comlink numbers I have, but I can’t get ahold of her.”

“I don’t have any numbers you don’t,” Lando said, trying to hide his relief. Bink calling—and using a pseudonym—meant that she was on to the problem. Probably Zerba had spotted the grab and alerted her.

Of course, he had no idea where she was going with this. But whatever it was, it would probably beat anything he could come up with on the fly. “Is it important?”

“Of course it’s important,” Bink said stiffly. “She still owes me the last payment on that Tchine copy.”

And with that, Lando was suddenly up to speed. “She hasn’t paid yet?” he asked, feigning surprise.

“And she’s late on the initial for the Caffreni flutterine,” Bink said. “You told me she could be trusted to pay on time.”

“That’s her reputation,” Lando agreed. “I’ll see if I can get hold of her.”

“You do that,” Bink said. “When you do, tell her the Jam’arn circlet’s also done. That one I’m not so worried about—it was a lot easier than the others. Don’t tell her that, of course.”

“I won’t,” Lando promised. “I’ll get back to you.”

He clicked off. “I suppose there’s no point in being coy now,” he said to Chumu. “I also act as intermediary on small art jobs.”

“You mean forgeries?” Chumu growled.

“They’re not forgeries,” Lando countered. “Forgery implies intent to deceive, and there’s no such intent here. Collectors are well within their rights to have decoys fabricated to throw off potential thieves.”

“Perhaps,” Chumu said. His expression was still under control, Lando noted, but his face seemed a couple of shades whiter than it had been.

Small wonder. He clearly was in this with Jydor, and was now facing the horrible possibility that they might have committed murder for nothing more valuable than a high-quality forgery.

“Trust me,” Lando said. “I always check out the legal issues before I accept a job of this sort.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Chumu said. “Interesting you should happen to pop up here. Master Jydor was just wondering a few days ago whether we should do something similar for a few of the pieces in his own collection. But he was never convinced that anyone could make copies good enough to fool a knowledgeable thief.”

“Michelle can,” Lando said. “I’ve brokered quite a few of these deals, and I’ve never seen anyone better than she is.”

“I’d like to meet her,” Chumu said. “Do you think she’d be willing to drop by?”

“I’m sure I could set something up,” Lando said. “Right now, though, I have a game I need to get back to.”

“Of course,” Chumu said. “Just call and set up a meeting, will you? Then Rovi will take you back down.”

Lando sighed. “Fine,” he said, pulling out his comlink again.

“And ask her to bring samples of her work,” Chumu added. “I’d like to see them.”

Bink finished her conversation and clicked off. “I’m in,” she announced. “Any progress on that text?”

“Not yet,” Tavia said, frowning at her datapad. “How much time do I have?”

“I can stall him for at least a day,” Bink said. “That should give you plenty of time.” Her eyes flicked to the body in the bed. “That is, if you don’t mind staying here overnight.”

“I’m not staying any longer than you do,” Tavia declared with a shiver. “I’ve got a recording. I can work on it from our room.”

“Good enough,” Bink said. She wrapped the Caffreni and Jam’arn carefully and slipped them into her hip pouch. Just borrowing them, she thought with a twinge of guilt toward the dead Devaronian. “Grab your gear, and let’s go.”

Chumu was impressed by Bink. He was even more impressed by the Caffreni and Jam’arn she’d brought. “These are really forgeries?” he asked, peering closely at each of them in turn.

“They’re copies,” Bink corrected. “Forgery implies intent to deceive. A copy is intended only for whatever legal purpose the owner wishes to put it to.”

“You sound like your friend Calrissian.”

“He’s a colleague, not a friend,” Bink again corrected.

“My mistake.”

Casually, Bink looked around. Chumu had brought her deeper into the penthouse than Lando had been, right into the main conversation room. Presumably because there was more privacy here, along with more comfortable chairs.

The view was certainly better. Directly behind Chumu was the massive but artistically decorated door to Jydor’s art display room. “Let’s cut to the core,” she said. “What do you want copied?”

“Not so fast,” Chumu admonished. “I’m still not convinced your copies can stand up to a sensor scan. How close a match is one of these to the real thing?”

Bink suppressed a smile. “It’ll pass any test a normal thief could run on it,” she said. “You’d need a special sensor array to tell the difference.”

“How special?”

“Special enough that I doubt there’s anyone in the sector except me who knows how to put one together.”

“Interesting,” Chumu murmured. “I’d like to see one.”

Bink cocked her head. “Why?”

Chumu’s lip twisted. “There were some rumors going around at the time Master Jydor bought his Tchine figurine,” he said with just the right mix of reluctance and embarrassment. “Hints that the statue might be a forgery. Naturally, we had it checked out, and it came through clean.” He set the other two art objects onto the conversation room’s low center table. “But at the time we had no idea that a special sensor was needed.”

“Hold on,” Bink said, frowning. “You’re saying the big prize on display downstairs might be a fake?”

“I think the likelihood of that is extremely small,” Chumu assured her hastily. “But if there’s even a chance that it is, we need to know about it before the tournament ends.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Bink agreed, peering thoughtfully off into space. “I can certainly put a sensor together and take a look. Unfortunately, I can’t do so until tomorrow.”

“Not tonight?”

“There are some special components I need to get.” Bink smiled faintly. “Components I can’t simply carry around with me, for various legal reasons. You may also need time to collect the necessary money.”

“What money?”

“My money,” Bink said. “The fee for the test will be ten thousand.”

Chumu didn’t even bat an eye. “That will be satisfactory,” he said. Standing up, he pulled out a data card. “Here’s my contact information,” he said, handing it to her. “Call me when you’re ready.”

“I will.” Tucking the data card away, Bink returned the two art objects to her bag. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Have my fee ready.”

As best as Lando could tell, Phramp was the only player at the table doing any serious cheating, and he was still cheating toward Mensant.

Or at least he was the only one until Zerba got going.

Lando had seen plenty of cheating over his years at the gaming tables. He’d seen it done well and badly, adroitly and so incompetently that he wondered how the perpetrator avoided getting blasted on the spot.

Zerba was an artist.

His eyes never betrayed his moves. His hands never fumbled or twitched. His tells, which Lando suspected had been carefully designed to give the other players the illusion that they knew everything they needed to about him, never wavered.

And slowly, Mensant’s steady climb toward victory began to falter.

Zerba didn’t throw the hands to himself or Lando, of course. That would have been too obvious, not to mention dangerous. Instead, he threw his deals to the other players around the table, never falling into a pattern, chipping away methodically at Mensant’s lead.

Naturally, Mensant himself didn’t seem bothered. He was a professional gambler, well accustomed to the ebbs and flows of fortune.

Far more interesting was Phramp’s reaction.

It came gradually, as gradually as the reversal of fortune itself. But Lando could see his change from confusion to suspicion to certainty as he realized someone else at the table was playing his game straight back at him.

Only he wasn’t quite as good at spotting cheaters as he was at being one. Lando watched in dark amusement as Phramp’s eyes darted back and forth around the table, trying to tag his unknown opponent. But as far as Lando could tell he never completely narrowed it down.

Of course, the task was made harder by the fact that Zerba wasn’t operating alone. Lando didn’t dare risk any actual cheating, not with this crowd, certainly not with the cam droids hovering at the ceiling showing the hand-by-hand action to the spectators spread out around the ballroom. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t judiciously throw a hand whenever it would help one of Mensant’s rivals.

And as the game progressed through the late-night hours into those of early morning, he wondered what Jydor was going to say when Phramp warned him that someone was messing with his plan.

What he would say, and what he would do.

“The game’s certainly getting interesting,” Bink reported, her tone giving Tavia a quick mental image of her sister’s smugly satisfied expression. “Hard to tell from back here, but it looks like Phramp’s about to burst a blood vessel.”

“That’s nice,” Tavia said mechanically, only a fraction of her attention on Bink’s running commentary. She almost had the encryption solved now. The right nudge, in the right direction, and it should shatter, leaving the mysterious text clear and open.

She took a deep breath, feeling a surge of satisfaction. This kind of computer slicing wasn’t really her forte—her strengths ran more to the hardware side of the electronics spectrum. To have gotten this far this quickly was highly gratifying.

Of course, the person who’d created the patch didn’t seem to be all that skilled at such things, either. But that was okay. An achievement was an achievement, and there was no point in muddying it up with ifs, ands, buts, and qualifiers. She gave it one final tweak—

And the encryption was gone. Smiling, Tavia ran her eyes down the mysterious text.

Her smile faded, the glow of satisfaction vanished into something cold and unpleasant. She read the note three times, her sense of bewilderment growing deeper with each pass.

Distantly, she became aware that Bink was still chattering cheerfully. Reading through the text one final time, she groped for the comlink. “Bink?”

“What’s wrong?” Bink asked, all levity gone from her voice. She knew Tavia’s verbal cues as intimately as Tavia knew hers.

“Something very strange,” Tavia said. “And very wrong.”

“I’m on my way,” Bink said. “Looks like the boys will be going on for a while. Do you need them, too?”

“There’s no rush,” Tavia said. “Actually, the longer they’re in the game, the longer we’ll have to figure out what’s going on. And I’m thinking we’re going to need every bit of that time.”

“No,” Zerba said firmly, his eyes narrowed, his hair again doing that rippling thing Lando had noticed once before. “I don’t buy it.”

“It’s right there,” Bink said, gesturing toward Tavia’s datapad.

“But it’s ridiculous,” Zerba said. “Who leaves a murder note?”

“Lady Vanq, apparently,” Lando murmured, his eyes tracking down the text:

To the Danteel City police authorities:

If I am found dead by violence, be advised that my killer is Master Veilred Jydor. He has been a business rival for many years, and currently holds me responsible for his failed bid for the Lockyern account. He is a violent and vindictive human, and I have no doubt that he will soon make a deadly move against me for pride’s sake.

I have arranged for this note to be transmitted upon news of my death. I beg from the dark beyond that you will bring justice to my fate.

Lady Carisica Vanq, Danteel City, Danteel

“It can’t be legit,” Zerba insisted. “The only way it could work is if the programming patch was in place before the murder, and Lady Vanq somehow managed to intertwine a message into it, and that she did it while dying of a massive blaster burn.”

“And that it didn’t occur to her to simply call the police directly instead of doing all that,” Lando added.

“Exactly,” Zerba said, nodding. “That sort of thing only happens in badly written mystery holodramas.”

“Agreed,” Bink said. “And you’re right about the patch having been created before the murder—otherwise, the droids would have seen the killer come in. As you also said, the message had to have been intertwined at the same time.” She seemed to brace herself. “And since the message implicates Jydor, that means he’s not the murderer.”

Lando looked at Tavia. She’d always been the less talkative of the pair, though she was perfectly capable of relaxing and having fun if the circumstances and company were right. But at the moment her usual reserve had descending into something dark and brooding. “If not Jydor, then who?” he asked. “Tavia?”

Reluctantly, she raised her eyes from her contemplation of the floor. “There’s only one person that makes sense,” she said. “Jydor’s business manager, Chumu.”

“Chumu?” Zerba echoed, his eyes widening briefly. “No—that’s ridiculous. He’s a businessman. An accountant and deal maker. They’re not the murdering type.”

“That guard, Rovi, is probably in it with him,” Bink pointed out. “From what I saw, he could definitely be the murdering type.”

“But—” Zerba began.

“Look at the facts,” Bink interrupted. “Or rather, look at the situation if this all goes down the way it looks like it was supposed to. Lady Vanq, a serious business rival, is now gone. Her supposed warning note will be enough to launch an investigation, and under Danteel law Jydor will be barred from running his business until the probe is complete. That leaves Chumu in charge.”

“There’s more,” Tavia said. “I’ve done a correlation analysis with HoloNet communications and credit transfers, and I’m pretty sure Mensant is playing the tournament on behalf of another of Jydor’s business rivals, a Twi’lek named Arvakke. If Phramp can throw a charge of cheating against Mensant, and make it stick, that’ll wash up against Arvakke under Danteel’s agent–principal felony linkage laws.”

“Meaning that Arvakke won’t be able to run his business, either, until the charges are cleared up,” Bink said. “With two major rivals out of the way—three if you count Jydor himself—Chumu is in the perfect position to move in and take over.”

Zerba gave a little snort. “Winner take all, just like Jydor said.”

“Except it’s not the winner he had in mind,” Bink agreed tightly. “The question is what we do about it.”

Zerba shrugged. “I’m still good with running, especially if Chumu’s targeting Jydor. With a fish that big on the hook, he’s not going to bother hunting minnows.”

“Only if the big fish stays on the hook,” Tavia said. “If he wiggles free, I don’t doubt Chumu would go back to pointing fingers in the most convenient direction.”

“That direction being toward Bink?” Lando asked.

“Exactly,” Bink said. “With the bio-suppressant masking the decay profiles and time-of-death readings, the cops won’t know whether she died two weeks ago or yesterday until they do a complete layer-autopsy. There’s no way Jydor or I or anyone else will be able to come up with an alibi for that long a window.”

“And the whole thing will be triggered by the supposed murder note,” Lando said. “I assume the encryption vanishes when the programming patch is taken off?”

“Basically,” Tavia said. “And it doesn’t just sit in her computer system, either. Like the note said, it’s set to be transmitted straight to the police.”

“So Bink’s only way out is for us to prove that Chumu did it?”

“Basically,” Bink said, eyeing him closely. “You have an idea?”

“I think so,” Lando said. “Tavia, can you get into the text of that note? I mean far enough to change it and then put the encryption back on without that being obvious?”

“Probably,” Tavia said. “But not from here. This is just a copy—I’d have to get back into Lady Vanq’s house to do that.”

“Good,” Lando said. “One more question: can you also get into the casino’s computer system?”

“How deep in do you need?”

“Not very,” Lando assured her. “I just need access to low-level functions. Housekeeping, environmental functions—that sort of thing.”

“She’ll need a tap,” Bink said. “But I can pop one in anytime and have it ready whenever she needs it.”

“Good.” Lando looked at Zerba. “Winner take all, you said? I think it’s time we realigned Chumu’s way of thinking.”

The next evening’s session was well under way when Bink arrived at Jydor’s private turbolift and announced she was there to see Master Chumu. There was a short comlink conference, after which the guard allowed her passage.

Not surprisingly, Chumu was waiting when the turbolift doors opened. Also not surprisingly, he didn’t look happy to see her. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“You said you wanted me to check out the Tchine downstairs,” Bink reminded him.

“The operative word being downstairs,” he retorted. “I don’t need you up here.”

“You do if you want your readings,” Bink said, slipping past him and heading for the lounge outside the art display room where the two of them had held their meeting the previous day.

“Wait a minute,” Chumu said, hurrying to catch up. “Where are you going?”

“I can’t exactly wander the streets with an illegal sensor,” Bink said over her shoulder. “I have to assemble it, and for that I need privacy.” She reached the lounge and sat down in the chair directly in front of the security holocam.

“You might be more comfortable at the kitchen counter,” Chumu said, dithering uncertainly in the doorway as she opened her bag and started laying out the collection of electronic components she and Tavia had thrown together. “There’s more space and considerably more privacy.”

“This is fine,” Bink assured him. “If you really want privacy, you can shut off that holocam behind me. Or feel free to leave it on—I’m sure you’ll be able to explain my presence somehow.”

Chumu threw a hooded look at the holocam. “You’re here to take some acoustical readings for a possible new entertainment system,” he said. “There’s no sound on that holocam, so you don’t have to worry about what we say.”

“Fine,” Bink said. “Incidentally, you’re welcome to watch. But I promise you won’t see anything.”

For a moment she continued laying out her gear in silence. Chumu looked at the security holocam again, then crossed reluctantly to one of the other chairs around the table. Pulling out a datapad, he settled down to read.

Bink finished laying out the components. As she started putting them together, she surreptitiously checked her chrono. Her timing, as usual, was perfect.

Any minute now …

Theoretically, Tavia knew, the maid outfit Bink had worn a couple of days ago should fit her just as well as it had her sister. But where Bink had worn it with casual ease, Tavia could feel the clothing pressing against her torso and arms, the effect hovering on the edge of claustrophobia. The stack of towels she’d collected from their room as camouflage felt as heavy as an Imperial cruiser balanced across her forearms. The plush carpet and carved ceiling and walls of the ninety-ninth-floor hallway seemed to stare accusingly at the intruder even as they echoed her heartbeat back at her.

She hated this. She really, truly hated this.

“You! Stop!”

Tavia’s breath froze in her lungs, her muscles fortunately stiffening instead of betraying her by jerking with obvious guilt. Sternly ordering her body to behave, reminding herself that by all appearances it was perfectly reasonable for her to be here, she turned around. “Yes?” she asked diffidently.

An elegantly dressed Togruta was striding down the hallway toward her, his striped upper horns gleaming as if freshly polished, the dark eyes in the red-and-gray-patterned face staring at and through her.

“Yes?” Tavia repeated, this time hearing a slight shaking in her voice.

The Togruta reached her and, without a word, plucked the top towel off the stack in her arms, then turned and walked away.

For a moment Tavia watched as he headed back to his room, her heart slowly calming down. He could have just asked. He should have just asked.

But she was simply a maid, a human doing a droid’s work, here for no better reason than that Jydor thought living servants made for a more elegant background than mechanical ones. Why shouldn’t one of the guests treat her as if she were nothing?

She turned back around and continued on her way. She really, truly, passionately hated this.

But it was Bink’s life on the line. What else could she do?

The suite Bink had specified was, thankfully, unoccupied. Locking the door behind her, Tavia crossed to the window and set down her small pile of towels on a nearby chair. She pulled out Bink’s ghost-burglar sensor and the rest of the equipment that had been hidden in the middle of the stack, and set to work.

Her first task was to find and neutralize whatever alarms had been set up on the windows. Fortunately, there was only one, which the sensor quickly spotted. Bink, Tavia knew, could probably have disarmed it in five seconds or less. It took Tavia two nerve-racking minutes.

Most hotels in Danteel City employed the standard opaquing window glass common throughout the galaxy. But true luxury places still used curtains or drapes, especially in their finest suites, and Jydor was clearly determined that his ninety-ninth floor be as elegant as the best of them. The window had two sets of curtains: one set gauzy, with a half-twist weave that turned stars and city lights into individual spinning galaxies, the other set a much heavier and more luxurious material that would block the morning sunlight from late sleepers.

The gauzy ones would be faster and easier to work with, she decided. Pulling down one of them and its support rods, she arranged the curtain and rods in a square on the floor. Two minutes later, she had the curtain stretched across the rods like a wind sail, all of it glued solidly together with dabs of rock putty. She fastened two more curtain rods to the far end of the square, angling them back and upward.

Now came the tricky part. Opening the window, she eased the net outside, setting it horizontally just beneath the window and gluing the near end to the wall. Two more daubs of putty on the ends of the support struts, likewise anchoring them to the wall, and it was ready.

For a moment she gazed out at her handiwork. Bink had assured her this would work, and Bink was almost always right about these things. Tavia could only hope she was right about this one, too.

She checked her chrono. Any minute now …

It started subtly, with Zerba muttering under his breath as he gazed hard at the Tchine sitting in its display pyramid in the center of the table. But it didn’t stay subtle for long. Gradually, his volume increased until the whole table could hear him.

“I’m telling you, there’s something wrong with it,” the Balosar insisted. “I saw another Tchine up close once. There’s just something wrong with this one.”

Lando looked around the table. The current dealer—Mensant, as it happened—was still shuffling, either oblivious to Zerba’s monologue or simply ignoring it. The other players, though, were paying attention, and some of them were now also staring hard at the figurine.

Time for Lando to put in his half credit’s worth. “It’s probably some kind of optical illusion,” he told Zerba. “I saw one once, too, and I agree it looks odd. It’s probably just some kind of reflection off the transparisteel.”

“Maybe,” Zerba said darkly. He half turned into his seat and gestured to Jydor. “How about letting us see it without its fancy dress?”

“I think not,” Jydor said, his tone polite but with an edge to it. “I owe it to the eventual victor to keep his prize safe.”

“Besides, I’m sure he has a certificate of authenticity,” Lando said. “He would hardly have bought it without one.”

“Maybe he could show that to us,” Zerba suggested, still gazing suspiciously at Jydor.

“I’m sure Master Jydor is trustworthy,” Lando said. “As I said before—”

“A trick of the light,” Zerba growled. “Yes, we all heard you. I’d still like to see the certificate.”

Across the table, Phramp cleared his throat. “With all due respect, Master Jydor, it wouldn’t take long, and we’re about due for a break anyway.”

Jydor hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod. “If it’ll put an end to this nonsense, fine,” he said. He pulled out his comlink.

Right on schedule, Chumu stirred and pulled out his comlink. “Yes?”

There was a moment of silence as the person at the other end spoke. Watching out of the corner of her eye, Bink saw Chumu’s lip twitch. “Yes, of course,” he said. “I’ll bring it down immediately.”

He clicked off and stood up. “I have to go downstairs for a minute,” he said, crossing the lounge in the direction of Jydor’s private office.

“Take your time,” Bink said, not raising her head from her work. “I’d just as soon not have an audience anyway.”

Chumu reached the door and hesitated, and she saw his eyes again flick up to the security holocam. The reminder that she was under constant surveillance seemed to calm him a little. “There’s a guard in the next room over,” he added. He was trying to project a gruff forcefulness, but Bink could hear the tension and nervousness beneath the words. Clearly, he wasn’t happy with all these changes that were interfering with his neat little frame-up. “If you need anything, just call. If he asks, don’t forget—”

“I’m taking acoustical readings,” Bink cut in. “Yes, I’ve got it.”

Chumu hesitated another second, then finally left, closing the door behind him.

Bink gave him thirty seconds more, just to make sure he wouldn’t pop back in unexpectedly. Then, making a final minute adjustment to the angle of the projector she’d set up under Chumu’s nose, she turned it on.

And with the projector sending the video she and Tavia had created straight into the surveillance holocam, whatever guard or droid was watching the feed would see nothing except her working industriously at the table.

For the next two minutes, she was invisible.

She’d been able to read the vault door’s coding sequence during her earlier soft probe through the display room floor, but there was always the chance that Jydor might have changed it during the past couple of days. But luck was with her. She punched in the sequence, and the door popped. Pulling it open just far enough to slip through, she headed inside.

The Tchine was right where she’d last seen it, hidden away in the corner of the room. She pulled off the cloth covering it, grabbed another similar-sized object, and put it in the Tchine’s place with the cloth again draped over it. Then, with her prize in hand, she slipped back out to the lounge. She closed and sealed the door, and headed over to the line of windows.

Hopefully, Tavia was ready. Even more hopefully, she’d gotten the correct room and the correct window.

Bink opened the ventilation aperture at the top of the window, maneuvered the Tchine through the narrow gap, and let it fall.

When it finally happened, it came almost as an anticlimax. One minute the net was empty, the curtain material fluttering in the wind flowing across the city. The next minute there was a muffled thud, and a priceless art object lay within Tavia’s reach, bobbing gently in the breeze.

Three minutes later, with the curtains and rods back in place and the window alarm reset, she walked back through the door and the relative safety of the hallway, the Tchine concealed inside her stack of towels. On one level, she always expected Bink’s plans to work. On another level, she was always terrified they would fail.

So far, this one seemed to be working.

So far.

Bink gave her sister five minutes to complete her part of the operation, then another three just to be sure. Then, putting three final pieces into the ridiculous-looking device she’d been building, she called for the guard.

“I’m ready to go,” she said, stuffing everything back into her bag. “Master Chumu said I should meet him downstairs.”

“All right,” the guard said, stepping forward and taking a quick look into her pouch. Apparently satisfied that she hadn’t somehow teleported the fancy tableware out of the dining room cabinet, he escorted her to the turbolift and gestured her in.

Twice on the trip down she almost called Tavia to see if everything had gone according to the plan. Both times she left her comlink in her belt.

Tavia was good at this, far better than Tavia herself realized. Besides, if you couldn’t trust your own sister to come through for you, who could you trust?

Lando took his time examining the Tchine certificate Chumu had brought down from the penthouse. The other players were equally thorough. By the time they finished, nearly fifteen minutes had passed, and Chumu was clearly starting to sweat.

“Satisfied?” Jydor asked as the last player handed back the datapad.

“Absolutely,” Phramp said, apparently having decided that he was authorized to speak for the entire table. “Thank you, Master Jydor.”

Jydor looked at Zerba. “Satisfied?” he repeated.

“I suppose,” Zerba muttered.

“Then I suggest we continue with the game,” Jydor said, settling back in his chair and handing the datapad to Chumu. “Take it back upstairs,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Chumu said. Tucking the datapad under his arm, he climbed down from the double platform, eased between the guards, and headed across the ballroom.

Lando watched him go, then turned back to the table. Bink had said ten minutes should be enough, and he and Zerba had given her fifteen. They should be good to go.

Mensant finished his fresh shuffle and began dealing the cards. Smoothing out his mustache, Lando prepared his mind for the game.

Tavia had expected Chumu to spot her in the restaurant on his way out of the ballroom. But he apparently wasn’t expecting things to have moved this quickly and bypassed the restaurant in favor of heading straight to the private turbolift. Tavia thought about chasing him down, decided it wasn’t something Michelle the professional art forger would do, and remained seated at her table. Sipping the nonalcoholic drink she’d ordered, she nurtured her patience.

Three minutes later he was back. This time he spotted her and hurried over.

“There you are,” he growled as he dropped into the seat across from her. “What are you doing here?”

“My job,” Tavia said, trying for the sardonic-edged professional tone that Bink had said she’d used on the man earlier. “What kept you?”

“What kept—” He broke off, glaring a little harder. “How long have you been down here?”

“Almost as long as you have,” Tavia told him.

Which wasn’t quite true, of course. In actual fact, she’d arrived at the table barely a minute before he’d left the ballroom, after her quick exchange of clothing and equipment with Bink in the ladies’ refresher. “You need to pay better attention to your surroundings,” she added.

“Don’t be cute,” he bit out. “How are you planning to do this?”

“No planning needed,” Tavia said. “It’s done.”

He seemed taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I took the readings.” Tavia gestured toward the ballroom. “You were right. It’s a copy.”

“Wait a minute,” he growled. “How could you have taken the readings? I didn’t see you in there.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” Tavia said, adding some strained patience to her voice. That one was easy—it was a tone she used with Bink a lot. “Did you hear what I just said? Master Jydor’s Tchine is a copy.”

Chumu’s face stiffened, then seemed to close in on itself as the words finally penetrated. His eyes shifted to her equipment bag, resting on the chair beside her, then to the ballroom entrance, then back to her face. “You’re sure?”

“Positive,” Tavia said. “It’s a very good copy, actually. The artist used the same techniques and materials I do.”

Chumu swallowed visibly. “No way to tell who that artist is, I suppose?”

“Not without a closer look.” Tavia wiggled her fingers. “You have my ten thousand?”

Chumu looked back into the ballroom. “Yes, of course,” he said, pulling a credit tab from his pocket and sliding it across the table to her. “You said you made a similar copy for Lady Vanq?”

“I did,” Tavia said sourly. “Though if I don’t get paid soon I’ll be taking it back.”

“Assuming you can even find it.”

“Oh, it’s probably in her vault with the real one,” Tavia said, peering at the credit tab. Ten thousand as agreed, nonencrypted, ready for her to simply take somewhere and deposit or cash. “She was talking about taking it to Devaron with her, and according to the spaceport records her ship’s still here,” she continued, tucking the credit tab into a pocket. “So what are you going to do about your little tournament problem?”

“That’ll be up to Master Jydor,” Chumu murmured, his mind clearly elsewhere. “I’ll let him know and we’ll go from there. Thank you for your assistance. I’ll be in touch.”

Tavia frowned. “About …”

“About making copies of some of Master Jydor’s other artwork.”

Tavia felt her stomach tighten. With the end of her masquerade in sight, she’d briefly forgotten that that had been Bink’s entry vector into this whole thing.

Luckily, Chumu seemed too preoccupied to notice her slip. “Of course,” she said, standing up and looping the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “Good luck.”

She headed across the restaurant, her shoulder blades itching with the vivid image of a blaster bolt flashing across the open space and burning between them.

But the shot didn’t come. Chumu had apparently bought the story. Now if only he would react the way Bink and Lando hoped.

From that last lingering look he’d sent toward the ballroom, Tavia rather thought he would.

It was late evening when Jydor finally called for a dinner break.

It had been a good few hours, Lando decided as he eased himself out of his chair, wincing as unused muscles were suddenly recalled to duty. Mensant was still ahead of the pack, but his once commanding lead had been whittled down to nearly nothing. The other players had noticed and were brimming with fresh confidence as they realized it was once again a wide-open game.

Phramp, unsurprisingly, was fit to be tied.

So, apparently, was Chumu, though for entirely different reasons. As Lando and the other players and spectators filed out of the ballroom, he caught a glimpse of the business manager pushing his way upstream against the crowd, making for the platform where Jydor was still sitting, studying something on his datapad.

Pulling out his comlink, Lando keyed for Zerba.

“Yeah, I saw him,” the Balosar said after Lando gave him the news. “He’s worried, all right.”

“The question is whether he’s worried enough,” Lando said. “You want to watch him, or should I?”

“No need,” Tavia’s voice cut in. “I’ve got electrobinoculars and a clear view. You two go get some food. I’ll let you know what happens.”

Tavia’s first report came as Lando was ordering a light meal: Chumu was telling Jydor of rumors that a professional armed robbery team was in the city, and that he was concerned the Tchine might be their target. Jydor seemed unimpressed, but Chumu was pressing his point and urging that the figurine be returned to the safety of the penthouse display room.

Jydor didn’t seem inclined to bow to pressure, especially not pressure from a gang of robbers. But Chumu kept at him, and as Jydor headed to his private dining room for his own meal he finally gave in. As Jydor disappeared into the dining room, Chumu collected the Tchine and the guards, and they marched together out of the ballroom and into the turbolift.

Tavia’s second report, midway through Lando’s meal, was that the guard Rovi had emerged alone from the turbolift, a carrybag looped securely over his shoulder, and was heading for the exit.

“Better warn Bink that company’s on the way,” Lando said, though he doubted Tavia needed any such nudging.

She didn’t. “Already done,” she said. “By the time the game resumes, it should all be over.”

Lando made a face as he put away his comlink. Their part of it would be over, certainly. But his wouldn’t.

Though it could be. Things were far enough along that even if he left right now Chumu’s grand scheme would still lie in ruins. Jydor would be in the clear; and while Chumu might not get all the punishment he deserved, Lando had long ago recognized that it wasn’t a perfect universe.

He scowled. On the other hand, if he bailed Bink wouldn’t be pleased. And Bink not pleased wasn’t something he was ready to face right now. Probably not ever.

With a sigh, he turned back to his meal. Not exactly what he’d signed up for when he first arrived on Danteel. But he’d come this far. He might as well see it through.

Tavia, Bink knew, hated the rare situations where she had to impersonate her ghost-thief sister. But even hating it, she still did a good job of it.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said in reverse.

“You finished?” Tavia’s anxious voice came over Bink’s comlink clip.

“Almost,” Bink growled, glaring at her datapad and Tavia’s supposedly simple, step-by-step instructions on how to break into the encryption. Step-by-step, maybe. Simple, absolutely not.

“You mean you aren’t? Come on, Bink—he’ll be there any minute.”

“Then shut up and let me work,” Bink shot back, irritably swiping at a lock of hair that had fallen down in front of her eyes. She could do this. She had to do this.

And then, from somewhere outside, she heard the unmistakable sound of a closing door.

“He’s here,” she whispered urgently. “I’ll call you back.” She keyed off the comlink clip and looked quickly around the bedroom. Even with half a dozen chairs and wide lounge tables scattered around, there was really only one place she could reasonably hope to hide.

She was under the bed, as far back as she could get, when the door opened and someone stepped into the darkened room. From what she could see of his boots, it was almost certainly Rovi.

Bink held her breath, wondering if he would take a moment to clear the room before he got down to business. Most thieves made that a habit, and she suspected thieves who also dabbled in murder would be even more likely to do so. She had a small hold-out blaster, but it was buried beneath her in a belly holster. If he decided to look under the bed, she was finished.

But for once he missed a bet. Closing the door, he headed directly across the room to Lady Vanq’s safe. Bink heard the faint sound of clicking code bars, and with a soft thud the door unlocked. The heavy panel swung open, and Rovi disappeared inside.

Keeping one eye on the door, Bink keyed her datapad again. With cracks starting to show at the edges of Chumu’s plan, she had little doubt that Rovi’s orders were to dissolve the computer patch as soon as he’d replaced the supposedly fake Tchine with the real one and was safely out of the house. Bink had until then to break in and change the text of the murder note. She finished the last two steps in Tavia’s instructions …

And with gratifying and about-time speed, she was in.

She’d hidden the Tchine she’d gotten from Jydor’s display room just well enough to make it plausible that Rovi could have missed it on his first pass through the safe after the murder. Barely a minute later he’d done the switch and emerged from the safe, closing it behind him and retracing his steps across the room.

But that minute had been all Bink needed. She’d altered the text, put the encryption back in place, and extricated herself from the house computer system.

She waited thirty seconds after Rovi closed the bedroom door behind him. Then, slipping out from beneath the bed, she hurried to the window and the harness tucked out of sight there. Rovi would be returning to the High Card, no doubt wanting to be present when the police swooped in on his soon-to-be-former boss.

Bink had no intention of letting the show start without her.

The hand had just been dealt when Lando spotted Chumu making his way through the crowd of observers to the base of the platform. Apparently all was set, and he’d come to watch firsthand the culmination of his plan.

Lando looked at his cards. It wasn’t a bad hand, but it certainly wasn’t a great one. Even with the shifting-card system that was part of sabacc, it wasn’t likely to get much better.

He set down his cards and took a deep breath. This was going to hurt. “All in,” he announced, pushing his small stack of chips into the center of the table.

The other players looked at him, their expressions ranging from disbelief to contempt to suspicion.

Lando agreed pretty much with all of them, especially the contemptuous ones. Unfortunately, he needed to be away from the table when the police arrived, and this was the fastest way to make that happen.

The bidding began, with some fresh spirit infusing the proceedings as the others saw a chance of eliminating one of their number. A few minutes later, after equally spirited play, the hand came to an end.

To no one’s surprise, Lando lost.

He stood up, offered the traditional gracious thanks to the other players and to their host, then headed down the steps to the floor below. Choosing a seat where he was in Chumu’s line of sight, he sat down and waited.

The wait wasn’t long. Phramp had dealt the next hand and the bidding was under way when a sudden surprised murmur rippled across the floor from the ballroom entrance. Lando craned his neck to look just as half a dozen men and women in the uniforms of Danteel City Police strode into the room and headed toward the double platform.

Lando looked at Jydor. The man was still just sitting there, his face unreadable as he watched the officers’ approach. The players, concentrating on the game, seemed largely oblivious.

“Good evening, Lieutenant Stenberk,” Jydor called courteously as the group reached the platform and came to a stop outside the lower guard ring. “May I ask what brings you to the High Card at this hour?”

“I’m afraid I have some unpleasant news, Master Jydor,” Stenberk said. His tone was also courteous, but it had a grimly official edge beneath it. “I suggest we continue our conversation in your office.”

“What kind of unpleasant news is it?” Phramp asked before Jydor could reply. The players had finally become aware of the looming drama, their cards forgotten in their hands as they stared at the police. “Is it something that might affect the tournament? If so, we deserve to know what it is.”

“I’m sure it has nothing to do with any of you,” Chumu soothed.

“How can you possibly know that?” Phramp retorted scornfully. “No, on behalf of all of us players, I formally request that this be handled out in the open where we can hear what’s going on.”

“Master Phramp—” Chumu began.

“In fact, I’ll go farther,” Phramp cut in. “Having paid ten million credits for a seat at this table, I insist that what Lieutenant Stenberk has to say be said right here and now.”

Chumu looked up at Jydor and held his hands out helplessly, as if the whole scene hadn’t been carefully scripted between him and Phramp. “Master Jydor?” he asked.

“I have nothing to hide,” Jydor said, his voice steady but his eyes narrowed. “You may proceed, Lieutenant.”

“As you wish,” Stenberk said. “I regret to inform you, sir, that Lady Carisica Vanq has been found dead in her home.”

Jydor sat up a bit straighter. “She’s dead? How?”

Lando shifted his attention to Chumu. There was just the hint of a satisfied smile playing at the corners of the manager’s lips.

“It was suicide, sir,” Stenberk said. “She shot herself with a blaster.”

The smile on Chumu’s face vanished. “Suicide?” he gasped. “But … how do you know?”

“She left a note,” Stenberk said, turning to face him. “More precisely, she had it transmitted to us.”

“There was a—” Chumu clamped his mouth shut. “I mean …”

“The reason we’re here, sir,” Stenberk continued, looking back up at Jydor, “is that Lady Vanq also possessed a Tchine statue like yours. Under the circumstances—I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course,” Jydor said. “I’ll have Master Chumu get my certificate of purchase and authenticity.”

“That would be very helpful, sir,” Stenberk said. “We’ll also want—a moment, please,” he interrupted himself, pulling out his comlink. “Stenberk.”

There was a moment of silence as he listened. “Understood,” he said. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

He put the comlink away. “It turns out the certificate won’t be necessary after all,” he told Jydor. “We’ve now been allowed into Lady Vanq’s safe, and her Tchine is there.”

Chumu’s eyes were bulging now, his breath quick and shallow, his face tight with utter bewilderment. “Are you sure it isn’t—” He broke off. “I understand some collectors make copies of their artworks,” he continued, his voice strained, his words obviously being chosen very carefully. “Are you sure the Tchine you found isn’t something like that?”

“Quite sure,” Stenberk said, eyeing Chumu thoughtfully. “The sensor profile precisely matches that of a genuine Tchine.” He looked at Jydor again. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, sir.” He started to turn away.

“Hold it!” Zerba snapped, jabbing a finger at Phramp. “What the—that’s a skifter. You’ve got a skifter!”

“What are you talking about?” Phramp demanded, frowning at his cards. “I don’t use skifters.”

“Like hell you don’t.” Zerba gestured emphatically at Stenberk. “You—Lieutenant. Come up here. I want a witness.”

“Master Jydor?” Stenberk asked.

“Of course,” Jydor said, gesturing to the lieutenant as he stared hard at Phramp. “Let’s have a look.”

He stepped over behind Phramp as Stenberk climbed the steps. Lando looked at Chumu again, to see that the manager’s earlier bewilderment had turned to frozen horror.

Stenberk stepped behind Phramp and plucked the cards from his hand. He touched each corner in turn—“He’s right,” he told Jydor, offering the other one of the cards. “It’s a skifter.”

“That’s impossible,” Phramp protested. “It must have been planted on me.”

“How?” Jydor asked. “You dealt that hand.”

“I—” Phramp sputtered, looking around the table in bewilderment. “I don’t know. But it must have been.”

“Get out of here,” Jydor said, his voice deadly soft. “I don’t ever want to see you in the High Card again.”

Silently, his face a mass of confusion and anger, Phramp stood up and headed down the steps, moving like a man in a bad dream.

“Do you want me to arrest him?” Stenberk asked.

“Don’t bother,” Jydor said, watching Phramp as he moved through the crowd toward the exit. “Someone paid ten million credits to get him into the game. I doubt the punishment he’ll receive from his patron for his failure will be easier than the legal penalty for cheating at sabacc.”

“You’re probably right,” Stenberk agreed. “Speaking of sabacc, I’d best let you get on with your tournament. Sorry to have interrupted.”

“Not a problem,” Jydor said, his eyes still on Phramp. Lando turned to look at Chumu again.

This time, Chumu was looking back at him. And there was murder in those eyes.

Time for Lando to make himself scarce. Standing up, he turned his back on Chumu and headed across the ballroom.

But not toward the main entrance, the direction Phramp had gone. For the next few minutes, that area might not be healthy for Lando to be in.

Fortunately, there was another option. The previous night at this time, he’d noticed that one of the large side chambers separated from the main ballroom by a high archway had been closed for cleaning. Cleaning schedules being the rigid things they often were, there was a good chance it would be closed now, as well.

It was. Slipping past the simple rope barrier that had been set up between the chamber and the ballroom, he picked up his pace, making for the emergency exit at the far end.

“Stop.”

Lando allowed himself two more steps before coming to a halt. Keeping his hands visible, he turned around.

Chumu was striding toward him, his face thunderous, a small hold-out blaster gripped in his hand.

“I’d think you’d have better things to do right now,” Lando suggested. “Finding a way to clean up your mess, for starters.”

“The mess is yours, not mine,” Chumu retorted, stopping three paces away and leveling the gun at Lando’s stomach. “Who are you? Who are you working for?”

“My name’s on the tournament application,” Lando said. “And I’m not working for anyone.”

“No, of course you’re not,” Chumu ground out sarcastically. “You just happened to stumble on my plans and decide to spit on them?”

“Actually, that’s pretty much exactly what happened,” Lando conceded. “Though I suppose in your place I wouldn’t believe it, either.” He nodded toward the blaster. “You’re not seriously thinking about going the revenge route, are you? I doubt the police will believe two blaster suicides in the same day.”

“Oh, and that was especially cute,” Chumu growled. “What did you do, slice into Rovi’s droid-block programming and change the message?”

“Basically,” Lando said. “It was a great plan, though. Really. Freezing Jydor out of his own operation while simultaneously taking down his two biggest competitors was sheer genius. Winner take all, just as Jydor announced at the beginning.” He considered. “Though now, I suppose, it’s more like winner lose all.”

Chumu snorted. “What makes you think I’ve lost?”

“Please,” Lando said disdainfully. “What are you going to do, find another of Jydor’s rivals you can kill and frame him for? Police do know how to look for patterns, you know.”

“What pattern?” Chumu countered. “There’s no pattern here. Thanks to you, Vanq’s death will go into the data list as a suicide.” He raised the blaster a little higher. “And you’re right about two suicides looking suspicious. I guess we’ll have to kill you in self-defense.”

“We meaning you and Rovi?” Lando asked. “Or do you just mean Rovi? Generally, you mastermind types don’t handle any of the actual killing yourselves.”

“Not normally, no,” Chumu agreed. “But in your case, I think I’ll make an exception.” With his free hand he pulled out another hold-out blaster and tossed it onto the floor at Lando’s feet. “Pick it up.”

“I don’t think so,” Lando said, making no move toward the weapon. “I’d hate there to be any misunderstandings when the police arrive.”

Chumu shook his head. “Nice try, but the police all went in the other direction.”

“They’ll be back,” Lando assured him. “Right now, they’re probably just enjoying the show.”

Chumu frowned. “What show?”

“That one.” Smiling, Lando raised his hand and pointed upward …

… at the cam droid that Tavia had retasked with the job of following Lando around.

“Winner lose all,” Lando said quietly. “And my friend is right. You really do need to pay better attention to your surroundings.”

Chumu was standing motionless, apparently with nothing left to say, when Stenberk and his men arrived.

“So how does it feel?” Tavia asked as the police escorted Chumu through the murmuring crowd and out through the ballroom exit. “Doing the right thing, I mean?”

A flip, slightly sarcastic answer popped into Lando’s mind. But Tavia deserved better than that. “It feels good,” he admitted. He looked back at the platform where the tournament was already in progress again. “It also feels expensive.”

“You wouldn’t have won,” Bink reminded him. “You know that, right?”

“Maybe,” Lando said. “Probably.” He exhaled a sigh. “You know the worst thing about being a gambler? It’s all the wondering about what might have been. How a different play—a different card—a different hand might have made all the difference in the universe.”

Bink gave a little snort. “I’ve got news for you, Lando. That’s not a gambler’s problem. That’s life, for everyone.”

“She’s right,” Tavia said soberly. “Once you make a decision, you can never go back and change it. Sometimes, farther down the line, you have a chance to alter its effects. But the original decision is there forever.”

“And we all have those wonderings and regrets,” Bink agreed. “There’s really only one way to soothe them.”

“Time?”

She smiled. “Money.” Taking his hand, she pressed something into it. “Here’s the ten thousand credits Chumu paid me to tell him the Tchine was a fake.”

Lando frowned. “For me? Shouldn’t we split it four ways?”

“We should,” Bink agreed. “But we aren’t going to.”

“After all, we dragged you into this,” Tavia reminded him. “It’s not like winning a forty-million-credit figurine, but it should at least get you off the planet and someplace more promising.”

“But—”

“And don’t worry about us,” Bink admonished, closing Lando’s fingers firmly over the credit tab. “If I know Zerba, he’s off looking for another job as we speak.”

“Or going through other people’s pockets,” Tavia said disapprovingly.

“Either way, we’ll be fine,” Bink said. “So go. Shoo.”

Lando made a face. But there was a time to object, and a time to simply accept something with thanks.

And it wasn’t like he hadn’t earned it. “You two take care,” he said. Scooping up their right hands, he lifted them to his lips for a quick kiss each.

“We will,” Tavia said.

“Until the next job,” Bink added with a roguish smile.

“Which will probably be a long time coming,” Lando warned.

Bink shrugged. “Maybe. But you never know.”