The screech of the a.s.sembler"s words followed Prince Xizor as he stalked down the tunnel toward the docking area. He"d already decided that as soon as he got back to the Emperor"s court, he"d spend a few soothing hours listening to the dulcet croon of his own personal troupe of Falleen altos, to flush any residue of that drilling and defiling voice from his ears.
"What a fool." Kud"ar Mub"at muttered the words with a grim satisfaction. Right at this moment the designation could apply to either of two ent.i.ties. Both Prince Xizor and Boba Fett were somewhere in hypers.p.a.ce, speeding toward their destinies; the bounty hunter to a rendezvous with the despised Bounty Hunters Guild, Xizor to the Empire"s dark corridors of power. Neither one of them suspected what they had gotten themselves into, the finer web in which they were already enmeshed. They don"t know, thought Kud"ar Mub"at. That was how it preferred things. I spin the traps, then pull them in.
It reached out with one of its smallest forelimbs and stroked the sh.e.l.l of its accountant node. "Soon," said Kud"ar Mub"at. "Soon there will be a great many credits for you to tally up and keep track of." As far as Kud"ar Mub"at was concerned, true power equaled riches, something that one could rake delicate claws across. Only maniacs like Palpatine and his grim lieutenant Lord Vader valued the trembling, bootlicking fear of a galaxy of underlings. That was the kind of power that Prince Xizor wanted as well; his criminal a.s.sociates in Black Sun were no doubt unaware of their leader"s long-range intent. They might not ever find out, either. Some traps were woven for their prey to die in.
"Very well." Balancesheet tapped its own tiny claws together, as though the numbers involved could be counted that simply. "Your accounts are all in good order."
Something in the node"s bland response troubled Kud"ar Mub"at. It had extruded this particular sub-a.s.sembly some time ago, and had developed it into one of the web"s most valuable components. Flesh of my flesh, mused Kud"ar Mub"at, silk of my silk. And a part of its brain as well: Kud"ar Mub"at could look into Balancesheet"s compound eyes and see a calculating replica of itself. Had the node discovered the joys of greed yet? That was the important question. I must watch for that, decided the a.s.sembler. Greed was a higher sense, perhaps the most important of all. When Kud"ar Mub"at perceived that in the little tethered node, it would be time for death and re-ingestion. Kud"ar Mub"at didn"t want to wind up as its own parent had so long ago, a meal for rebellious offspring.
It watched as Balancesheet picked its way into some darker recess of the web. I hope that won"t be for a while yet, thought Kud"ar Mub"at. Its interconnected business affairs were at a crucial point; much inconvenience would be suffered if it didn"t have a fully functioning accountant on claw.
Kud"ar Mub"at decided to think about that later. It closed its several pairs of eyes and happily contemplated all that would soon be added to the web"s coffers.
After every job came the cleanup. The Slave I was a working vessel, not some pleasure schooner fitted out for languorous cruising between the stars. Even so, Boba Fett preferred keeping the craft as neatly functional as possible. Minor dings and sc.r.a.pes to the exterior hull were war badges, emblems of encounters that he had survived and someone else hadn"t. But future survival might depend on his being able to lay his armor-gloved hand on one of the Slave I"s weapon-systems remotes in a split second, without the firing b.u.t.tons or data readout being obscured by dirt or dried blood.
Besides, thought Boba Fett grimly, / can"t stand the smell. He squeezed his fist tighter, a soapy antiseptic wash trickling into the bucket set on the floor of the cargo area. There was something nauseating about the humanoid scent of fear that seeped into the very metal of the cages. Of all the sensory data he had ever experienced, from the acrid steam of the Andoan swamp islands to the blinding creation-swirl of the Vinnax system"s countervacuum, those molecules signaling panic and desperation were what Fett found to be the most alien. Whatever minute subcutaneous organ produced fear sweat, it was missing in him. Not because he had been born without it-no sentient creature was-but because he had forced it into nonexistence, excised it from his mind with the razor-sharp scalpel of his will. The ancient Mandalorian warriors, whose lethal battle-gear he wore, had been just as coldly ruthless, according to the legends that were still told and retold in whispers throughout the galaxy. Long ago, when he had first gazed upon one of their empty helmets, a relic of an extinguished terror, he had seen in its narrow, un readable gaze an image of his own future, of the death-bringing ent.i.ty he would become.
Less than human, mused Boba Fett as he swabbed down the bars that his most recent captive had been held behind. That was what fear did, that was the transformation it wrought in those who let it spring up in their spirits. The thing in the cage, which had carried the name of Nil Posondum, had been some kind of talking, fruitlessly bargaining animal by the time Fett had transferred it to Kud"ar Mub"at"s web. Fear of death, and the pain that Hutts enjoyed producing in the targets of their vengeance, had swallowed up all the human parts inside the little accountant.
An odd notion moved in Boba Fett"s thoughts, one that he"d turned over and examined like a precious Gerinian star-stone many times before. Perhaps . . . I became more human than human. Not by adding anything to himself, but through a process of reduction, of stripping away the flawed and rotten parts of his species. The antiseptic rag in his glove slid over one of the cold-forged bars, leaving no microbe behind. The ancient Mandalorian warriors had had their secrets, which had died with them. And I have mine.
Fett dipped the rag in the bucket again. He could have left these ch.o.r.es to one of Slave I"s maintenance droids, but he preferred doing it himself. It gave him time to think, of just such matters as this.
The soapy liquid trickled from the battle-gear"s elbow as Fett checked the forearm-mounted data-screen patched into the Slave I"s c.o.c.kpit. Rendezvous with the Bounty Hunters Guild"s forward base was not far off. He was ready for that-he was never not ready, for anything that might happen-but he would still regret the termination of this little slice of nontime, the lull and peace that came between jobs. Other sentient creatures were allowed to enjoy a longer rest, the ultimate peace that came with death. Sometimes he envied them.
He unlocked the empty cage and stepped inside. The fear scent was already diminished, barely detectable through the mask"s filters. Posondum hadn"t left much of a mess, for which he was grateful; some merchandise let their panic devolve them well past the point of maintaining control of their bodily functions.
The floor of the cage was scratched, though. Bright metallic lines glinted through the darker layer of plastoid beneath Boba Fett"s boot soles. He wondered what could have caused that. He was always careful to take any hard, sharp objects away from the merchandise, with which they might damage themselves. Some captives preferred suicide to the attentions they were scheduled to receive from those who had put up the bounties for them.
Fett glanced over to the corner of the Slave Fs cargo area, where he had tossed the food tray. None of the gray slop had been touched by Nil Posondum, but one of the tray"s corners had been bent into a dull-pointed angle. Just enough to sc.r.a.pe out the markings on the cage"s floor-the accountant must have been working on it right up until Kud"ar Mub"at"s suba.s.semblies had crept in through the access portal. The spiderlike minions had looped restraining silk around him, then carried him from one prison to another. He might have had time enough to finish whatever message he"d wanted to leave behind.
But there wasn"t time now to read it. A red light pulsed on the data readout, alerting him that a return to the craft"s piloting area was necessary. The jump out of hypers.p.a.ce couldn"t be accomplished by means of a remote; the Slave I"s maneuvering thrust-ers were too finely gauged, set for zero lag time, in case any of Fett"s many enemies and rivals might be waiting for his appearance. And right now he would be sailing straight into the nest of all those who bore him a grudge. He supposed that lizard-faced b.u.mbler Bossk would already have returned to Guild headquarters, licking his wounds and complaining to his sp.a.w.n-sire Cradossk about the impossible a.s.signment he"d been given. What Bossk wouldn"t mention would be why it had been impossible, and just who had beaten him to the goods. Cradossk was a wilier old reptile, though-Boba Fett even had a grudging respect for the head of the Bounty Hunters Guild, from some long-ago encounters with him-and would know just what the score was with his f.e.c.kless underlings.
The Mandalorian battle-gear had a built-in optical recorder, its tiny lens mounted at one corner of the helmet"s visor. Boba Fett leaned over the scratches left by the captive accountant, not even bothering with an effort to decipher them. A second later he had scanned the marks and inserted them into the helmet"s long-term data-storage unit. He could deal with them later, if he grew curious about what pathetic epitaph the accountant might have devised for himself. Maudlin self-pity held little interest for Boba Fett. Right now an additional beeping tone was sounding in sync with the red dot; Slave I, his only true companion, demanded his attention.
He left the bucket of cold, dirty water on the cage"s floor. If it spilled and slopped across the plas-toid-clad metal, if the feet of all the captives to come scuffed out the scratched message, whatever it was, there would be no great loss. Memory was like that: the leavings of the dead, best forgotten and erased after payment for their sweat-damp carca.s.ses was made. The moment when his hand was about to seize the neck of the merchandise was the only time that mattered. Readiness was all.
Boba Fett climbed the ladder to the interstellar craft"s c.o.c.kpit, his own boots ringing on the treads. The new job that he had taken on, this scheme of the a.s.sembler Kud"ar Mub"at, was about to commence. Soon there would be more payments to add to his account. . . .
And more deaths to be forgotten.
7.
NOW.
"I want to see him." The female had a gaze as sharp and cold as a bladed weapon. "And to talk to him."
Dengar could barely recognize her. He remembered her from Jabba"s palace; she had been one of the obese Hutt"s troupe of dancing girls. Jabba had liked pretty things, regarding them as exquisite delicacies for his senses, like the wriggling food he"d stuffed down his capacious gullet. And just as with those squirming tidbits, Jabba had savored the death of the young and beautiful. The pet rancor, in its bone-lined cavern beneath the palace, had merely been an extension of Jabba"s appet.i.tes. Dengar had witnessed one of the other dancing girls, a frightened little Twi"lek named Oola, being ripped apart by the claws of the beast. That had been before Luke Skywalker had killed the rancor, followed sometime later by its owner"s death. No great loss, thought Dengar. With either one of them.
"Why?" Leaning against the rocky wall of his hiding place"s main chamber, he kept a safe distance from the female. "He"s not exactly a brilliant conversationalist at the moment."
Her name was Neelah; she had told him that much when he had caught her sneaking down the sloping tunnel from the surface. He had gotten the drop on her, catching her off guard from behind a stack of empty supply crates. With her throat in the crook of his arm, as Dengar"s other hand had painfully bent her wrist up toward her shoulder blades, she"d answered a few questions for him. And then she had caught him in the shin with a hard, fast back kick, followed by a knee to the groin that had sent a small constellation of stars to the top of his skull.
"That"s personal." They were in a standoff now, glaring at each other from across the cramped s.p.a.ce. "I have my own business with him."
What business would an ex-dancing girl have with a bounty hunter? Especially one as close to death as Boba Fett was right now. Maybe, mused Dengar, she thinks she can get a discount from him, since he"s so messed up. Though who would she want him to track down?
He glanced over to the doorway of the hiding place"s other chamber. "What condition is our guest in today?"
The taller medical droid tilted its head unit to study the display of vital signs mounted on its own cylindrical body. "The patient"s condition is stable," announced SHS1-B. "The prognosis is unchanged from its previous trauma-scan indices of point zero zero twelve."
"Which means?"
"He"s dying."
That was another question: Why couldn"t these fnarling droids just say what they meant? He"d had to bang this one around until the solenoids had rattled inside its carapace just to get it to speak this much of a plain Basic.
"Wounds," added SHSl-B"s shorter companion. "Severity." le-XE gave a slow back-and-forth rotation of its top dome. "Not-goodness."
"Whatever." Dengar was looking forward to being rid of this irritating pair. That would come with either Boba Fett"s death-or his recovery. Which was looking increasingly less likely.
"If that"s the case," said Neelah, "then you"re wasting my time. I need to talk to him right now."
"Well, that"s sweet of you." Arms folded across his chest, Dengar nodded as he regarded her. "You"re not really concerned with whether some bounty hunter pitches it or not. You just want to pump him for some kind of information. Right?"
She made no reply, but Dengar could tell that his words had struck home. The look the female gave him was even more murderous than before. A lot had changed since she"d been one of Jabba"s fetching playthings; even in this little time the harsh winds of Tatooine"s Dune Sea had scoured her flesh leaner and tauter, the heat of the double suns darkening her skin. What had been soft, nubile flesh, revealed by gossamer silks, was now concealed by the coa.r.s.e, bloodstained trousers and sleeveless jacket that she must have scavenged from the corpse of one of Jabba"s bodyguards; a thick leather belt, its attached holster empty, cinched the uniform tight to her waist and hunger-carved belly.
Starving, thought Dengar. She had to be; the Dune Sea didn"t exactly abound with protein sources. "Here-" Keeping an eye on her, Dengar reached into one of the crates and dug out a bar of compressed military rations, salvage from an Imperial scoutship that had crash-landed years before. He tossed the bar to the female. "You look like you need it."
Appet.i.te widened her eyes, showing their deep violet color. Her fingers quickly tore open the thin metallic wrappings; she raised the slab, already softening as it absorbed what moisture it could from the air, to her mouth, but stopped herself before taking a bite.
"Go ahead," said Dengar. "I"m not in the habit of poisoning people." He reached behind himself to one of the niches concealed in the chamber"s stones. "If I wanted to get rid of you"-his fist came out with a blaster in it; he raised the weapon and pointed it at Neelah"s forehead-"I could do it easier than that."
Her gaze fastened on the blaster, as though its muzzle were doing the talking.
"Good," said Dengar. His groin still ached from the blow he"d received. "Now I think we understand each other."
A few seconds pa.s.sed, then the female nodded slowly. She took a bite of the rations bar, chewed and swallowed.
"I must inform you," came SHSl-B"s voice from the subchamber doorway. "That any further casualties will have a deleterious impact on our ability to perform our functions in a manner consistent with an appropriate level of therapeutic practice."
Dengar swiveled the blaster toward the droid. "If there"s any more "casualties" around here, I"ll be sweeping them up with a magnet. Got me?"
SHSl-B leaned back, b.u.mping against his companion. "Understanding," said le-XE, speaking for both of them. "Completeness."
"That"s nice. Go take care of your patient," said Dengar, slipping the blaster inside his own belt. He glanced back over at Neelah. "You enjoying that?"
She had virtually inhaled the rations bar. Her pale fingernails plucked out a few last crumbs from the wrappings.
"Give me some answers," said Dengar, "and you can have another one."
She crumpled the foil into a shining ball inside her small fist.
I"m getting soft, thought Dengar. There had been a time when he wouldn"t have bothered asking questions. He wouldn"t have lowered the blaster, either, until there had been a corpse lying in front of him, with a hole burned through its brain. That was what letting himself fall in love-not with this female, but with his betrothed, Manaroo-had done for him. That was always a fatal mistake for a bounty hunter. Somebody like Boba Fett survived at this game for as long as he had by stripping those useless emotions out of his heart. To look at Fett, even when he was unconscious on the pallet in the other chamber, was to look at a weapon, an a.s.sault rifle fully primed and charged for maximum destruction. Peel away that Mandalorian battle armor of his, and something equally hard and deadly was found beneath. And that, Dengar knew, was the difference-one of them, at least-between himself and the galaxy"s most feared bounty hunter. There was still something human inside Dengar, despite his having worked the bounty-hunter trade, with all its spirit-eroding capabilities. That was the part that had looked upon Manaroo, and had decided, despite all the rest of his scrabbling, callused nature, to twine his fate with hers. Manaroo had asked him to marry her, and he had said yes; that human part had wanted to stay human, like a dwindling flame that struggles to keep from being snuffed out. He didn"t want to wind up like Boba Fett, a killing machine with a blind, unfathomable mask for a face.
It was that human part that had also decided to send Manaroo away, once she had helped him get Boba Fett into this hiding place. Their separation from each other would continue at least until this business with Boba Fett was over. Dengar knew the risks in getting involved with someone who had as many grudge-bearing enemies as Fett; there were plenty of diehards from the old Bounty Hunters Guild who had good reason to hate his guts. If they found out that Boba Fett was still alive, they"d be swooping down on Tatooine en ma.s.se to finish him off. And me, Dengar had told himself. That hot-tempered Trandoshan Bossk would naturally a.s.sume that anyone befriending his longtime rival Boba Fett was an enemy to be killed with quick dispatch. This little hiding place would get filled up with corpses pretty quickly.
Risks meant profits, though, in the bounty-hunter trade. And profits were what Dengar needed if he was going to have any chance of paying off the ma.s.sive debt load he was carrying and then have any kind of life with Manaroo. He wanted out of this game, and the only way to accomplish that was to keep on playing it, for at least a few more rounds. And the best way to do that, he"d decided, was with a partner like Boba Fett. And that"s what he offered me-when Dengar had discovered him, half-digested by the gullet of the Sarlacc, lying in the suns-baked wasteland, Fett had had enough remaining strength to speak, but not to protect himself. Dengar could have put him out of his misery right then and there, but had stayed his hand when Fett had spoken of a partnership between the two of them. The only card he"d had left to play . . .
And a good one. We could clean up, Dengar had decided. Him and me. A real good team. It all depended on just one thing.
Whether Fett had been lying to him.
He could have been just playing for time. Time enough for his wounds to heal, and for him to get his act back together. Dengar had been mulling it over ever since he had carried Fett down here. There was no history of Boba Fett ever working with a partner before; he had always been a lone operator. Why should he want a partnership now? What there was a history of was playing it fast and loose with the truth. In that, Boba Fett was no different from any other bounty hunter; it was that kind of a business. Fett was just better at it, was all. What had happened to the Bounty Hunters Guild was proof of that.
Things might be different, Dengar knew, when Boba Fett got his strength back. Fett might not want to repay Dengar with a partnership, for all that he"d done to keep him alive and safe. Dengar"s reward might be a blaster charge right into his chest, leaving a scorched hole big enough to put a humanoid"s fist through. Fett"s obsession with secrecy was notorious in all the sc.u.mmy dives and watering holes across the galaxy; his past was largely unknown, and was likely to stay that way, given how those who poked into his affairs had a way of turning up dead. That was the real reason Dengar had sent Manaroo away. It was one thing for him to risk Fett"s lethal treachery; he didn"t want the female he loved to wind up facing a blaster muzzle.
"So what did you want to know?"
Dengar pulled himself back from his grim meditations to the hard-eyed female regarding him from the other side of the chamber.
"Same thing I wanted to know before." He nodded toward the entrance to the subchamber. "What"s your connection with Boba Fett?"
Neelah shook her head. "I don"t know."
"Oh, that"s a good one." Dengar gave a quick, derisive laugh. "You come sneaking in here-not exactly the smartest thing to do-and you don"t even know why."
"That"s what I came here to find out. That"s why I wanted to talk to him." Neelah glanced toward the subchamber, then back toward Dengar. "That"s why I left him where you would be sure to find him-"
"Wait a minute," said Dengar. "You left him?"
She nodded. "I found him before you did. But I knew there was nothing I could do for him, not with what the Sarlacc had done. He needed medical attention-more than anything I could do. I took a chance that you"d take care of him. That you"d keep him alive."
"And why"s that so important to you? He"s a bounty hunter, and you were a dancing girl in Jabba"s palace." Dengar peered more closely at her. "What"s he got to do with you?"
"I told you before-" Neelah"s voice rose to a fierce shout. "I don"t know! I just know that there is a connection-some kind of connection-between the two of us. I knew that back when I first saw him. In the palace, in Jabba"s court. When that fat slug had poor Oola killed .
. . when she was tugging against the chain, and the trapdoor in front of the throne was opening . . ." Both of Neelah"s fists were trembling and white-knuckled. "All of the other girls were watching from the pa.s.sageway . .
. and there was nothing any of us could do. . . ."
"There never is," said Dengar. He could taste his own bitterness in his mouth. "That"s how things happen in this universe."
She wasn"t here in this chamber with him; she was lost in her own memory. "And then we could hear her screaming . . . and I couldn"t look anymore. That was when I saw him. Just standing there at the side of the court . . . and watching. ..."
"Bounty hunters," said Dengar dryly, "make it a habit to stay out of other creatures" business. Unless they"re paid to do something about it."
"And when the screaming was over, and Jabba and the others were still laughing ... he was still there. Just as before. And still watching." Neelah closed her eyes for a moment as a shudder ran through her slight body. "And then ... the strangest thing ... he turned and looked at me. Right into my eyes." Her voice filled with both fear and wonder. "All the way across Jabba"s court .
. . and it was like there was n.o.body else there at all. That was how it felt. And that was when I knew. That there was something between the two of us." She refocused her gaze on Dengar. " "Connection" isn"t the right word. It"s something else. Something from the past. I even knew his name, without asking anyone else." Neelah slowly shook her head. "But that was all I knew."
"All right." The story intrigued Dengar. A matter of practical interest as well: If this female meant something to Boba Fett, then knowing just what it was might give him an additional bargaining chip. "You said it was something from the past. Your past?"
She nodded.
"Well, that"s a start. But nothing you can remember, I take it?"
Another nod.
"So how did you wind up at Jabba"s palace?"
"I don"t know that, either." Neelah"s fists uncurled, empty and trembling. "I don"t know how I got there. All I remember is Oola . . . and the other girls. They helped me. They showed me . . ." Her voice ebbed softer. "What I was to do . . ."
Her memory had been wiped; Dengar recognized the signs. The confusion and welling fear, and the little bits and pieces, sc.r.a.ps of another existence, leaking through. No wipe was ever complete; memory was stored in too many places throughout the humanoid brain. To go after every bit, eradicating them all, would probably be fatal, a reduction beyond basic life-maintenance processes. There were easier, and less expensive, ways of killing a sentient being. So someone, thought Dengar, wanted her alive. Fett?
"What about your name?" Dengar nodded toward her. " "Neelah"-was that something you remembered?"
"No; Jabba called me that. I don"t know why. But I knew . . ." Her brow furrowed with concentration. "I knew it wasn"t my real name. My true name. Somebody took that from me . . . and I couldn"t get it back. No matter how hard I tried . . ."
What she told Dengar coincided with his own suspicions. Neelah was a slave name-it didn"t fit her. The aristocratic bearing she possessed was too obvious, even in the ill-fitting, scavenged outfit she wore now. She wouldn"t be alive now-the Dune Sea"s loping predators would be cracking her bones-if there weren"t some tough fighting spirit inside her. Things would have gone differently if Jabba had tried to throw her, instead of the other girl, Oola, to his pet rancor. It would"ve been Neelah rather than Princess Leia wrapping the chain around Jabba"s immense throat and choking the life out of him.
Dengar had more suspicions, which he didn"t feel like voicing right at the moment. Fett must"ve done it. The other bounty hunter must"ve brought her to Jabba"s palace; he"d probably also been the one who"d performed the memory wipe on her. The big question was why. Dengar couldn"t believe it had been done on Jabba"s orders; the Hutt had enjoyed young and beautiful objects, but he"d also been too tight with his credits to have commissioned the kidnapping of the daughter of one of the galaxy"s n.o.ble houses. The only reason Leia Organa had wound up on the end of one of Jabba"s chains was that she had come into Jabba"s lair of her own accord, seeking to rescue the carbonite-encased Han Solo. A captured n.o.blewoman, with a blanked-out memory, wasn"t exactly the same kind of a bargain.
So Fett must have been working for someone else while he had ostensibly been in Jabba"s employ. That wouldn"t have been unusual; Dengar knew from his own experience that bounty hunters nearly always had more than one gig going on at a time, with no particular loyalty to any creature whose payroll they might be on. Or-the other possibility-Boba Fett might have had his own reasons for wiping the memory of this female, whoever she really was, and bringing her to Jabba"s palace, disguised as a simple dancing girl.
The puzzle rotated inside Dengar"s mind. Maybe Fett had been stashing her away, in some place where she wouldn"t be likely to be found. That was one of the sleazier bounty-hunter tricks: finding someone with a price on his or her or its head, then keeping the merchandise hidden until the price for it was raised higher. Dengar had never done it, and he hadn"t heard of Boba Fett doing it, either. Fett didn"t have to; he already commanded astronomical prices for his services.
"Is there anything else you remember?" Dengar rubbed the coa.r.s.e stubble on his chin as he studied the female. "Even the littlest thing."
"No-" Neelah shook her head. "There"s nothing. It"s all gone. Except . . ."
"Except what?"
"Another name. I mean . . . another name besides his." She tilted her head to one side, as though trying to catch the whisper of a distant voice. "I think it"s a name that belongs to a man."
"Yeah?" Dengar unfolded his arms and hooked his thumbs into his belt. "What"s the name?"
"Nil something. Wait a minute." She rubbed the corner of her brow. "Now I remember ... it was Nil Posondum. Or something like that." Neelah"s expression turned hopeful. "Is that somebody important? Somebody I should know about?"
Dengar shook his head. "Never heard of anybody like that."
"Still . . ." Neelah looked a little crestfallen. "It"s something to go on."