Scoundrels

by Timothy Zahn

  Lando turned to Zerba and nodded. Zerba nodded back and set the case gingerly down on the mosaic floor. He did something complicated-looking with the fasteners, then swung open the top and turned the case around toward Lando and Villachor.

  There, in all its quiet glory, was their counterfeit cryodex.

  Lando held his breath, forcing his expression to stay calm. He’d never seen a cryodex before—even Rachele hadn’t been able to find any holos of them. He only had Winter’s assurances that their version was even close, let alone a perfect copy.

  To his relief, it apparently was. “Very nice,” Villachor said, taking a couple of cautious steps forward and craning his neck for a closer look. “Of course, anyone can fake a casing. What matters is what’s inside.”

  “Which we’re ready to demonstrate,” Lando said, gesturing to the door behind the Zeds. “Shall we?”

  “Not we, Master Kwerve,” Villachor corrected. “I’ll get the card. You’ll wait out here.”

  “My instructions are to never let the cryodex out of my sight,” Lando said.

  “You’ll wait out here,” Villachor continued with strained patience, “while I retrieve one of the cards and bring it to you.”

  He headed for the door, leaving his two bodyguards behind. “It would be simpler for all of us to go in there together,” Lando offered. “I think it highly unlikely that either of us would try to steal anything.”

  “You can wait out here alive, or you can wait out here not alive,” Villachor said. “Your choice.”

  “Point taken,” Lando said, feeling a twinge of annoyance. Dozer and Bink had insisted that a really good con artist should have no trouble talking his way into Villachor’s vault, especially with the cryodex as bait. Bink had gone so far as to offer to bet Lando fifty credits that he could do it, with Zerba acting as judge as to how hard he’d tried.

  Lando had turned down the bet. Now he wished he’d taken it.

  Still, while a look inside the vault would have been helpful, it wasn’t necessary. Han had assumed that Villachor would keep them out, and the plan took that into account. At least he and Zerba were going to get a look at Villachor’s entry procedure.

  Most vault owners used some combination of keypads, voiceprints, and visual recognition to gain access to their property. But Villachor had come up with an added twist. He walked up to the nearest of the Zeds, held his hand directly in front of the droid’s face, and waited. The droid stared at the hand a moment, then gave a short bow and stepped out of the way. Taking the cue, the rest of the droids similarly moved to the sides, leaving the entryway clear. Villachor walked through the group to the door, folded down a keypad from the wall beside it, and punched in a series of numbers. An almost inaudible background hum faded away as the magnetic seal cut off, and with a deep thud the door swung inward. Villachor walked through the opening, tapping something on the wall as he passed, and the door reversed direction and thudded closed behind him.

  Lando eyed the guards, wondering if a casual question or two might give him a clue as to what the Zed had been looking for with his scan. But none of them seemed like the small-talk type.

  He obviously couldn’t ask the Zeds themselves, either. In fact, at this point even approaching the droids was out of the question. Along with heavy blasters holstered at their right hips, each of them also carried a coiled neuronic whip lashed to its belt with quick-release straps.

  Lando winced as memories flickered back. He’d run into neuronic whips before—sometimes quite literally—and while they were primarily used as interrogation and slave-control devices, they also made terrific close-range weapons. This particular model, he knew, had a primitive droid brain of its own built into the handle, which would take a quick electronic echo sample from whatever skin or hide the whip was touching and instantly adjust the electric discharge to the precise frequency and pulse pattern for maximum pain to that particular being’s nervous system.

  He wasn’t sure what the whips’ maximum setting was. He wasn’t anxious to find out.

  They’d been standing there for about five minutes, and Lando was visually tracing a complex knot mirror on the wall to see if it had indeed been woven from a single thread, when Villachor returned, a black data card in his hand.

  “Excellent,” Lando said, walking toward him and holding out a hand. “As we agreed, I’ll decrypt one file, drawn at random—”

  He stopped as Villachor twitched the data card out of his reach. “Something you should bear in mind,” the other said quietly. “I know the sound the cryodex makes when it’s simply reading and decrypting a file. I also know the sound it makes when it’s copying an entire data card. If I hear that latter sound, I’ll kill both of you. Do you understand?”

  “Of course,” Lando said. Winter had implied that she’d seen cryodexes in operation back when she’d worked the royal palace on Alderaan. But he had no idea whether it had occurred to her to add the proper sound effects to her tricked-out datapad. “I have no intention of copying the card or trying any other tricks,” he said as sincerely as he could manage. “Why would I take such a foolish risk when there are much higher profits waiting down the line?”

  “If I agree to work with you.”

  “You will,” Lando assured him. “Those higher profits are there for you, too.”

  For another moment Villachor stared at him. Then he held out the data card. “One file,” he instructed. “And I want to see the readout. Do you have to enter an access code first?”

  “I do, and it’s already in place,” Lando said, wondering uneasily if that had been a test. Winter hadn’t mentioned anything about an access code.

  Of course, she hadn’t said there wasn’t any coding, either. Presumably that was something a diplomatic tool would have as a matter of course.

  He headed back to Zerba, glancing casually at the card as he walked. Matte black, with the proper-sized Black Sun logo in shiny black in the center. Perfect. “Any particular item number you want?” he asked as he handed Zerba the card and then stepped back away from him.

  “Surprise me,” Villachor said dryly.

  Lando gestured to Zerba. “Surprise him.”

  Zerba nodded and keyed the cryodex. There was a soft, almost chuckling sound, and with a small flicker the display came on to show the bony-ridged head and flabby jowls of a Houk. Lifting the cryodex from the case, Zerba held it out toward Lando. “Here we go,” Lando said, peering at the display. The guards’ blasters were still pointed at the floor; Winter must have gotten the sound effects right. “A Houk named Morg Nar. He’s currently employed by a crime lord named Wonn Ionstrike who runs an operation out of Cloud City on Bespin.”

  “What about him?” Villachor asked.

  “Ionstrike seems to have it in for Jabba,” Lando said, trying to ignore the warning bells going off in the back of his mind. There’d been something odd in Villachor’s voice just then. “He’s paralyzed—moves around in a hoverchair—and has apparently dedicated himself to putting Jabba out of business. Nar is the strongbeing who gets to do all his heavy lifting.”

  “And?”

  “And it seems that Nar is actually on Jabba’s payroll,” Lando said, mentally crossing his fingers as he scrolled through the file the fake cryodex was pretending to read from the unreadable data card. Han had supplied the pointer toward Nar, keying off a few bits of gossip he’d picked up in Jabba’s place on Tatooine, and Rachele had used her sources to fill in some of the gaps. But there was no way to know if the gossip or Han’s assessment of it had been accurate. “He’s supposedly helping Ionstrike throw out the Hutts, but behind the scenes he’s helping Jabba close down some of his operations in an orderly way, while shifting the rest to other venues that Ionstrike doesn’t know about.”

  “And Black Sun’s interest in all this?”

  “It doesn’t say, but they’re obviously looking to play the third hand in the game,” Lando said. “It looks like Prince Xizor hasn’t made a move on Nar yet, but he’s probabl
y just waiting for the right moment.”

  “Interesting,” Villachor said. “There’s only one problem.”

  Steeling himself, Lando turned around. “Which is?”

  “There’s no possible reason that particular file should be on that particular data card,” Villachor said calmly. “That one is osk through usk, and neither Nar, Ionstrike, Jabba, Hutt, Bespin, nor Cloud City begins with that letter.”

  And suddenly the blasters were no longer pointed at the floor. “And now,” Villachor continued quietly, “you’ll tell me what’s really going on.”

  From the whistling and churning sounds coming from the northern end of Marblewood’s grounds, Dayja surmised that the Grand Tempest spectacle that was supposed to be the early evening highlight was in full swing. From the approving roars coming from the crowd, it seemed to be fully living up to Villachor’s promises and the audience’s expectations.

  For Dayja, though, the far more interesting show was going on somewhere past the mansion’s southwest door fifty meters away.

  Only he had no idea how that show was going. Or even exactly what it was.

  He scowled to himself, taking a sip of the sour-tang drink he’d been nursing for the past hour. Eanjer had been remarkably cagey about the identities of his co-conspirators in this little con game they were running. He’d refused to give Dayja any names or even the participants’ areas of expertise.

  But Dayja had seen all of them the night he’d dropped onto their balcony, so he at least had their faces.

  And two of the group had gone through that door fifteen minutes ago. Under escort from Villachor’s head security man.

  He eyed the door, wondering if there was some way he could talk or hotwire his way through it, or whether he should even try. The last thing he wanted was to find that he’d been scammed himself, that Eanjer and his gang were actually working for or with Villachor and Black Sun.

  The second-to-last thing he wanted was for the gang to get themselves killed. Especially if they mentioned Dayja and his interest in Qazadi before they died.

  “Hey,” a voice came from behind him. “You.”

  Dayja turned. The two men walking up to him had the look of hired muscle, with the suspicious expressions and solid, confident strides he’d long since come to associate with men on a mission who were carrying concealed blasters.

  But neither of them was wearing the glazed-stone key pendants he’d spotted on all of the official Marblewood security men. Extra thugs Villachor had hired for the occasion? Or something else entirely?

  He had a fraction of a second to decide on his persona. Under the circumstances, he decided, slightly oblivious visitor would be his best approach. “Me?” he asked, putting on a blandly cheerful expression.

  “Yes, you,” one of the men said. He took a couple more steps forward, leaving his partner standing backup behind him. If they were thugs, at least they were well-trained ones. “What are you doing here? You’re missing the big show.” He pointed toward the sounds of the crowd.

  “I know,” Dayja said with a sigh. “But my lady friend needed to use the ’fresher. I’m waiting for her to come out.”

  The man glanced around. “What ’fresher?”

  “There,” Dayja said, pointing to the mansion door. “The ’fresher’s in there, right?”

  The man stared at him, probably wondering how anyone could be this stupid. “The ’freshers are over by the west courtyard,” he said, again pointing toward the distant noise. “North and south of the main food pavilions.”

  Dayja dropped his mouth open a couple of millimeters. He threw a startled look at the mansion, then turned back. “But she said the south—” He broke off and sent another look at the door. “At the Covv’ter venue, the ’freshers were always inside.”

  “This isn’t the Covv’ter estate,” the man reminded Dayja patiently. “South ’fresher’s about a hundred fifty meters that direction.”

  “You’d better get there before she gives up and finds someone else to enjoy the Honoring with,” the second man added.

  “Oh, no,” Dayja breathed, letting his eyes go wide. “No. She wouldn’t—oh, blast it all. Excuse me.”

  He turned and hurried away toward the crowd and the refresher stations, making sure to use the most inept shambling trot in his repertoire. A carefully controlled stumble gave him the chance to glance behind and see if they were following.

  They weren’t. They weren’t interested in Dayja. They were interested in that door.

  And whatever the reason for that interest, he suspected Eanjer’s team wasn’t going to like it.

  A couple of security types had chased a lone visitor away from the area around the otherwise deserted garden area by the southwest door, but aside from that there hadn’t been any activity south of the twist fountains since Lando and Zerba had gone into the mansion twenty minutes ago. Readjusting the electrobinoculars pressed against her face, Winter refocused on the nearest of the building’s skylights—where there was nothing to be seen—shifted her view to the massive crowd watching the Grand Tempest—where there was way too much to be seen—and then returned to the door.

  “Did you spot Bink?” Tavia asked, coming up to the window beside her.

  “Sorry—I lost her in the crowd,” Winter apologized. “But she seemed fine half an hour ago when Sheqoa left her for the meeting with Lando and Zerba.”

  “You’re sure?” Tavia asked. “You remember her distress signals, right?”

  “Yes,” Winter assured her, passing up the obvious reminder that she would carry that list of subtle hand signals to her grave. “There were no signals. In fact, as near as I could tell from the body language, they seemed to be getting along quite well together.”

  “Of course they were,” Tavia said with a sigh. “Another of Bink’s many talents is getting people to do what she wants.”

  Including you? “It’s a useful skill in your line of work,” Winter said instead.

  “I know,” Tavia said. “And I don’t mean to be prickly. I’m just … people say you can get used to anything. But I’ve never gotten used to this. I don’t think I ever will.”

  “Maybe this is the last time you’ll have to,” Winter suggested. “The credits from this job should let you quit the business for good.”

  “It should,” Tavia said tiredly. “But it won’t. Bink’s promised a hundred times to quit, practically every time she thinks she’s looking at the big score. But somehow the credits are never as good as they looked going in, or the fence steals them, or we have to abandon most of the take, or there are other complications. There are always complications.”

  “Sometimes life itself seems to be nothing more than a series of interlinked complications,” Winter agreed, forcing her mind away from the horrible complications that Palpatine and his Empire had forced on her and Leia and so many, many others. “All of them doing their best to get in the way of what you expected or wanted.” She lowered the electrobinoculars, giving her eyes a moment to rest. “What were you expecting to get out of life, Tavia?”

  “To be honest, just more of the same,” Tavia said. “More poverty, more living hand to mouth, more of the two of us running and fighting the universe and trying to make it through one more day. What I wanted …” She smiled suddenly. “Remember I said that Bink liked what she does because she’s good at it? That’s what it is for me and electronics work.”

  “You can make a good living that way,” Winter murmured.

  “And I’ve tried,” Tavia said, her smile fading. “I’ve tried, and tried, and tried. But every time I get a foothold somewhere, Bink manages to find something wrong with the job. Either it doesn’t pay like it should, or the boss is rude, or the jobs I’m getting are menial or insulting, or my co-workers drink their soup too loudly. There’s always something.”

  “Life’s also sometimes a series of compromises.”

  “And I’m willing,” Tavia said. “I try to tell Bink it’ll be all right, that I can work through th
e problem. But you know Bink. Before I know it, we’re back out on the street and she’s breaking into someone’s private office looking for that next big score.”

  Winter nodded ruefully. She knew people like that, many of them, men and women who could feel alive only when they were risking everything and defying the odds.

  They had their place, certainly. In fact, without them the Rebellion would probably have come to a screeching, bloody halt long ago. But at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel intensely sorry for them.

  One day this war would be over. Maybe one day all wars would end. Distantly, she wondered what such people would do then.

  “But at least we don’t have to live one day at a time anymore,” Tavia continued with a touch of wry humor. “Now it’s more like month to month. Definitely an improvement. Maybe after this it’ll be decade to decade.”

  “We can only hope,” Winter agreed, turning back to the window and raising the electrobinoculars back to her eyes. Still nothing.

  She could also only hope that, whatever was going on in there, Lando was on top of it.

  There were times, Lando reflected, when you were outnumbered, outgunned, with all exits blocked, and holding a losing hand. In situations like that, there was only one option.

  Bluff.

  “Interesting,” he said calmly. “Are you sure?”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” Villachor demanded.

  “Am I?” Lando countered, putting an edge on his voice. He was a high-ranking member of a shadowy criminal organization, after all. Men like that didn’t intimidate easily. “I saw that card, Master Villachor. I don’t remember seeing any letters on it.”

  “They’re not on the card itself,” Villachor said. “And you’re stalling.”

  “Then what makes you think this card has anything to do with those letters?”

  “Master Villachor is asking the questions,” Sheqoa growled.

  “Master Villachor is angling for a second free sample,” Lando said bluntly. “First of all, there’s no reason for Prince Xizor to organize his blackmail files according to such an obvious system. In fact, I can think of a dozen reasons for him not to do so. An unauthorized person searching for a specific file could search until Imperial Center goes dark without finding it.”