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Synopsis:
Not long after winning the Millennium
Falcon, Lando Calrissian visits the Oseon system in
the Centrality. In a sabacc game on the asteroid Oseon
2795, Lando meets the Ottdefa Osuno Whett, who tells him
of the supposed treasure of the Rafa system, one-time
home of a highly advanced race called the Sharu and also
source of the extremely valuable life-crystals, which
are harvested at a penal colony on Rafa IV. Running
short of credits, Whett persuades Lando to let him put
up a droid as a gambling stake. When Lando wins the
hand, he discovers that the droid is actually in storage
on Rafa IV.
Hoping to claim his prize long enough to resell it,
Lando travels to Rafa IV and picks up the droid, a
chrome-plated, five-tentacled model called Vuffi Raa. He
is subsequently waylaid by the local police force and
beaten and arrested on trumped-up charges. Brought
before the system's governor, Duttes Mer, and Mer's
sinister associate, Rokur Gepta (a Sorcerer of Tund),
Lando is railroaded into searching for a legendary
artifact called the Mindharp. He is given the Key, a
miniature version of the Mindharp, and set free,
although Mer and Gepta disable the Falcon's
hyperdrive to insure that Lando does not attempt to
renege on their deal.
Lando and Vuffi Raa soon encounter an old man named Mohs,
one of the Toka (the Rafa system's primitive, apparently
servile humanoid population). Mohs, who identifies
himself as the High Singer of the Toka, tells them that
he believes Lando is the Key-Bearer and Vuffi Raa the
Emissary described by Toka legend. He convinces them to
travel to Rafa V, the next planet in the system, to find
the Mindharp. Unfortunately for Lando and the droid,
Mohs leads them into a trap. On Rafa V, the pair are
waylaid by a group of Toka armed with primitive weapons,
who nearly destroy Vuffi Raa and leave Lando to die of
exposure.
Lando manages to free himself and rejoin Vuffi Raa,
whose self-repair systems have enabled him to survive
the damage inflicted on him. Overcoming a group of Rafan
policemen sent by Mer to waylay them (in the hopes that
Lando had already succeeded in his mission), Lando and
Vuffi Raa patch their wounds and set out to find Mohs.
The Toka Singer, unexpectedly contrite for his earlier
betrayal, leads them to the base of one of the Sharu's
massive pyramids and shows them how to use the Key to
enter it.
Separated, Lando, Vuffi Raa, and Mohs make a
disorienting journey into the interior of the pyramid,
which seems to have the ability to warp both space and
time. Mohs undergoes an epiphany, his previously stunted
mental capacity begins to expand, but he is mysteriously
blinded at the same time. Lando and Vuffi Raa,
meanwhile, appear to be wildly different sizes,
experiencing time at different rates. After observing a
tableau of the planet's evolutionary time scale and the
development of the Sharu themselves, Mohs disappears,
and Lando and Vuffi Raa find themselves in a vast hall
containing the Mindharp.
Lando takes the Mindharp, and he and Vuffi Raa exit the
pyramid, only to find themselves back on a street in
Teguta Lusat, the capital of Rafa IV, with no evidence
of how they got there. Vuffi Raa, responding to
previously established programming, immediately has
Lando arrested and brought before Duttes Mer. The
governor informs them that they have been gone not for a
few days, but for four full months. Mer tells Lando that
everything that brought him to Rafa in the first place,
including his encounter with Osuno Whett in the Oseon,
had been a set-up; Mer and Gepta needed someone who
would fit the description of the Toka prophecy. The
Mindharp, Mer explains, is an enormously powerful device
capable of controlling every sentient mind in the Rafa
system, even across interplanetary space.
Having achieved his goal, the governor has Lando sent to
one of the Rafa system's life-crystal orchards for what
is likely to be a very brief life sentence. Lando is
rescued, however, by Vuffi Raa, now free of his
programmed imperative, and rather guilt-stricken at
having betrayed his master. Lando tells the droid that
he realizes he recognized some of the Toka language as
Old High Trammic, a language with which he has some
familiarity. He realizes that there are going to be
serious consequences if Mer attempts to use the Mindharp.
Rafa IV is wracked by a series of violent earthquakes.
Lando and Vuffi Raa make their way to the Teguta Lusat
spaceport, where they find that the governor has
retrieved the Millennium Falcon from Rafa V.
Rokur Gepta, meanwhile, leaves his cruiser, the Wennis
(which has been in orbit around Rafa V, awaiting Lando's
return, for months), desperate to take the Mindharp from
Mer before the governor causes a disaster.
Lando and Vuffi Raa encounter Mohs aboard the Falcon.
The Singer, whose intellect is no longer that of a
primitive man, Mohs confesses what he has now learned:
the primitive Toka are themselves the long-vanished
Sharu. Generations earlier, the Sharu were threatened by
some unknown external menace; to hide from it, they
deliberately concealed their cities (and indeed, the
minds of their entire population) beneath the massive
pyramids that cover most of the Rafa system. The
activation of the Mindharp will reverse the process,
causing the Sharu cities to emerge from beneath the
surface, with catastrophic results for the Imperial
cities built over them and the minds of the "Toka"
will be restored.
Rokur Gepta reaches the governor's office too late to
stop Mer from activating the Mindharp. Mer is
obliterated by the unleashed energy, and Gepta himself
only narrowly escapes. Although his ship is hit by a
burst from the Millennium Falcon's guns, Gepta
survives, swearing revenge on Lando and his mechanical
partner.
Lando and Vuffi Raa, meanwhile, make a hasty escape from
the Rafa system, carrying the last load of valuable
life-crystals that will ever be harvested there.
Synopsis abridged
from Wookieepedia
entry.
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