[Black Fleet Crisis(75)

“General, I warned you that the key might not work a second time. The challenge to the ferret was different than the challenge to us-probably to stop someone from doing exactly what you tried to do, namely snoop and steal the key. If the vagabond’s protecting us, it’s only because it thinks we belong here. “

“Are you still claiming that all this is simply the outcome of a gambler’s lucky hunch? “

“Colonel, we’re breaking and entering. We’re not here to keep an appointment. “

“Then why is the vagabond still here? “

Lando looked up and stared outLady Luck’s front port. The weapon that had been used against the ferret would be equally effective against the interdiction pickets. And with even one of them destroyed or disabled, there would be nothing to stop the vagabond’s escape.

“I don’t know, Colonel, ” said Lando. “Maybe she’s waiting for us. I’m going to start closing with her again and see what happens. ” With a light touch he edged the thruster control forward. “In the meantime, if you’ll stop trying to send in the cavalry long enough to listen, we’ll pass along everything we know, or think we do. “

Artoo and Threepio had been having their own conversation at the rear of the yacht’s flight deck, and now Threepio stepped forward to where Lando and Lobot sat. “Sir-“

“Wait, Threepio. “

“Sir, Artoo says that the new sequence sent by the Qella vessel does not appear in the information from the survey archives. “

“What? “

“Artoo says he is unable to determine what the correct response might be. “

Lando shook his head. “I feel like I’m in a spelling bee and the kid in front of me just went out on a word I don’t know either. Colonel, are you getting all this? “

“Getting it, yes. Understanding it, no. “

“We matched the original signal from the vagabond to the genetic code of a species called the Qella. The correct response was the next portion of the code, ” Lando said.

“But it interrogated the ferret with a different sequence, and we don’t seem to know what comes next. Maybe Lobot has an explanation-he’s the one who found the match in the first place. “

“An explanation is readily available, ” Lobot said. “But it will not help us with our problem. “

“I’d like to hear it anyway, ” said Pakkpekatt.

Lando nodded his agreement.

“I have reviewed the history of the records concerning the Qella. They were discovered by the Third General Survey, which was the Republic’s first comprehensive examination of habitable worlds in the galactic arms, ” Lobot said. “But the only report is from the survey vessel. By the time the contact vessel arrived eight years later, all of the Qella were dead, and more than one-third of the planet was covered by ice up to a hundred meters thick. “

“All dead? What happened? “

“An asteroid impact was postulated, ” said Lobot. “The contact vessel collected genetic samples and technological artifacts from two sites, but it wasn’t equipped for archaeological work, and there were many worlds with live populations waiting for a contact vessel. Qella was marked for a follow-up visit by an archaeological team, and the contact vessel continued on. But there was no follow-up. “

“Why not? ” Lando demanded.

“The Third General Survey was never completed, ” said Pakkpekatt. “It was terminated at the outbreak of the Clone Wars. “

“The colonel is correct, ” Lobot said. “All survey and contact vessels were taken over by the Imperial Navy with the Third General Survey only sixty-one percent complete. “

“Which means we have all the information we’re going to have about the Qella? ” Lando asked. “There must be more somewhere. They obviously had interstellar travel. They must have had neighbors, trading partners-“

“Perhaps the colonel’s staff can locate such information, ” said Lobot. “I have been unable to locate any other references to this planet and its inhabitants. “

“I have people working on it, ” Pakkpekatt said curtly. “If I had been given this information when you first developed it, I might have had some results for you by now. “

The vagabond now nearly filledLady Luck’s forward viewscreen.

“Colonel, you can deal two different players the same hand; one of them will win with it, and the other lose. If we had given you the chance to play our hunch, what would you have done with it?

Where would Bijo Hammax be right now? “

After a long pause, the intelligence officer said, “Point taken, General. “