by Timothy Zahn
He let his face harden. “And second, I happen to know that one of the Falleen slang terms for Hutt is slivki. Which starts with the letter senth, which does fall in the osk to usk range.”
Villachor’s eyes flicked to Zerba, back to Lando. There was still suspicion in his eyes, but there was also a growing uncertainty. “Slivki,” he repeated. “You’re certain of that?”
“Quite certain,” Lando said frostily. “I was there when a Falleen called a Hutt that to his face. It took the owner of the place three days to clear out the wreckage.” He gestured toward the door. “Go ahead and look it up if you want. I’ll wait.”
Villachor looked at Zerba again. “Perhaps later,” he said. “Morg Nar, you say.”
“Yes,” Lando said. “And that’s all I’ll say. You’ve had the sample I promised. You’re welcome to check that out as well. But the moment of decision has come.”
For another moment Villachor gazed at him, his face expressionless. It seemed to be the man’s favorite pose, probably designed to keep the recipient off-balance while he thought something through. “One decision, at least, is at hand,” he amended. He lifted his finger, and once again the three blasters were lowered toward the floor. “I’m no longer ready to kill you where you stand.”
“I think that’s a decision we can all get behind,” Lando agreed.
“But the decision of whether or not to deal further with you is still in the future,” Villachor continued. “Before I take any such step, I need to know more about your operation and how I would fit into it.” His eyes narrowed. “For one thing, I need to know what you get out of any such deal.”
“I’m what you might call a talent scout,” Lando said with an off-handed wave. “I study the field and find those I think could do better elsewhere. If I’m right and the person joins the group, I’m paid a small fee.”
“That fee being dependent on the value of the client?”
“Something like that,” Lando said.
“And that value would be enhanced if the client brought valuable objects or knowledge to your superiors?”
“Most likely.”
“Good,” Villachor said briskly. “Then you won’t mind if I speak directly to your superior. After all, who can better define the value of these files?”
Lando suppressed a grimace. Han had warned him that the conversation would probably end up here. “My superior usually doesn’t like to make direct contact this early in the negotiations,” he said. “I assure you that I have full authority to answer any questions and make any deals.”
“I’m sure you do,” Villachor said. “You’ll nevertheless bring him to me.”
Lando pretended to consider, then gave a little shrug. “Very well. I’ll contact him tonight with your request and bring you his answer tomorrow.”
“That answer had better be yes.”
“I’ll bring you his answer tomorrow,” Lando repeated.
Villachor’s lip twitched. “Not tomorrow,” he said. “Bring the answer in two days, during the Festival of Moving Water. Your visit will be less conspicuous that way.”
“Again, whatever you want,” Lando said, inclining his head in a bow. So Villachor wanted Lando’s visits to get lost in the Festival crowds, did he? Maybe he was genuinely starting to consider defecting from Black Sun.
Or else he was just trying to make Lando think that. Mind games, unfortunately, were a multidirectional spacelane. “One last question, if I may,” he said. “Simply for my own curiosity. If the data card wasn’t marked, how did you know which one it was?”
“It came from that slot in the file box,” Villachor said.
“Ah,” Lando said, nodding. And a spread of seven letters per card also implied there were five of them, just as Eanjer’s contact had said. So far, this mysterious informer had been dead-on with everything he’d said. “Again, that makes perfect sense. Your other invited visitors presumably see the card as their rather bleak futures are being read to them, and you don’t want them knowing how the information is organized. Speaking of which …” He half turned and held out his hand. “Bib?”
Obediently, Zerba pulled out the data card and stepped forward. He handed the card to Lando, then immediately backed up again and carefully lowered the cryodex back into its case. “Your property, Master Villachor,” Lando said formally, offering Villachor the card.
Silently, Villachor took it, the bulk of his attention on Zerba as he manipulated the booby-rigged case. “You call him Bib?” he asked.
Lando shrugged. “A small joke. Recognizable only to those who are already familiar with Jabba’s history.”
“Yes,” Villachor said. “Kwerve and Bib, together again.”
“Indeed,” Lando said. Bib Fortuna and Bidlo Kwerve had been two of Jabba’s highest-ranking servants, always jockeying for power and position until Kwerve’s death and Fortuna’s subsequent promotion to majordomo. Han had suggested that bringing Hutt history into their aliases would add an extra layer to Lando’s story that Villachor might find intriguing. From the expression on Villachor’s face, it looked like Han had been right. “I’m glad you appreciate it.”
“I do,” Villachor said. “Two days, Master Kwerve.”
“Two days,” Lando promised, giving another small bow.
Ninety seconds later they were once again out in the clean air, with the rumbling of the Festival crowd refreshingly welcome after the dangerously tense silence of the vault anteroom. “Well?” he asked quietly.
“Well what?” Zerba answered. “Did I switch the cards, or have the data come through yet?”
“The first,” Lando growled, annoyed in spite of himself at the other’s flippancy. Zerba’s neck had been as much on the line in there as Lando’s had, after all.
Or maybe not. It was possible that the extra senses Balosars claimed to have had given Zerba some insight into that face-off that Lando hadn’t picked up on. Could Villachor’s threat have been pure bluff, nothing more than a probe to see if Lando would bend under unexpected pressure?
“Yes, I switched the card,” Zerba said calmly. “Actually, the answer to the other one is yes, too. Whether Bink and Rachele will be able to get anything useful out of it is a different question.”
Lando shrugged. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
“So is slivki really an insulting term for Hutt?”
“Not that I know of,” Lando said. “But that’s the great thing about slang. There are so many versions and varieties—in anyone’s language—that you can never be sure you’ve gotten all of it. Villachor can search the archives for the rest of the month without ever being able to prove I was bluffing.”
“Nice,” Zerba said. “I’ll have to remember that one. Ready to head back?”
Lando nodded. “Let’s go.”
“I think not,” a deep voice muttered in his ear as a set of strong fingers locked unexpectedly around Lando’s right arm. “Nice and quiet.”
Lando twisted his head around and found himself looking up at a pock-marked human face half a head above his own, a floppy-brim hat pulled down almost to the eyebrows. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What in the—”
“He said quiet,” another voice cut him off.
Lando turned in the other direction, to see that a second man had similarly taken hold of Zerba’s arm. “Whoever you are, I suggest you let go of us immediately,” Lando said coldly. “We’re special guests of Master Villachor himself. One shout from me to any of the security men roaming the grounds—”
“Oh, you wouldn’t want to do that,” the first man admonished. “My little friend hates loud noises.”
Lando winced as the hard muzzle of a blaster pressed into his ribs beneath his right arm. “I suppose we should try to keep him happy,” he murmured.
“That’s the spirit,” the first man said encouragingly. “We’ll be heading around the south end of the house and going out the southeastern service entrance. Much quieter over that way. Folx, be a good man and relieve your friend o
f that heavy-looking case, will you?”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Lando said quickly as the second man reached for the cryodex case. “Especially since your little friend hates loud noises.”
The second man paused, his hand touching the case’s handle. “Wolv?” he asked.
Wolv hesitated, and Lando could sense his shrug. “He can keep it,” he said. “We’ll figure out something at the other end of the ride.” He dug his blaster a little harder into Lando’s side. “Come on, step it up. We haven’t got all night.”
“We’re going on a ride, then?” Lando asked as the group picked up their pace.
“A nice little ride to a nice quiet room,” Wolv said. “Where we’ll have a nice little talk.”
“And after that?” Lando asked.
“After that—” Wolv shrugged again. “Well, that’ll be up to you.”
“Yes,” Folx agreed, his voice dark and ominous. “Mostly.”
“They’re heading for the southeast gate,” Rachele’s tense voice came over Han’s comlink. “They’ve already started around the end of the mansion.”
“Yeah, got it,” Han said, striding along the edge of the crowd watching the Grand Tempest, ducking past the people gathered around the food pavilions and trying desperately to strike the balance between speed and caution. If this was a genuine kidnapping attempt, he needed to get there as fast as he could.
But if it wasn’t genuine—if it was a trick of Villachor’s to draw out any allies Lando and Zerba had hidden in the crowd—then rushing full throttle to the rescue would do nothing but play perfectly into his hands.
“They’re opening up the distance,” Winter warned from her observation spot in the suite. “If you don’t hurry, you’re never going to catch them before they hit the gate.”
“We can’t go any faster,” Dozer’s voice snarled over Han’s comlink. The ship thief sounded even more frustrated than Han felt. “We do, and they’ll tag us for sure.”
“What a wonderful idea,” Bink cooed over the comlink, her voice still perfectly matched to her air-brained persona despite the tense danger facing them at the moment. “I haven’t been shopping there in ages. When do you want me to meet you?”
“Just stay where you are,” Han ordered her. “You’re too far away to help, and we can’t have you blowing your cover. Is Sheqoa there?”
“No, no,” Bink said, still cooing. “I can hardly wait to tell you about this new guy I’ve met.”
“Yeah, we can’t wait, either,” Dozer growled. “Come on, kid—we need to know whether he and the rest of Villachor’s people are in on this.”
“Ooh—got to go,” Bink said, pumping some extra excitement into her voice. “Here he comes now. You’re going to love him, Jessie—he is so hot. And so cool.”
Han snarled an old curse under his breath. Bink’s impromptu verbal code was hard to wade through, but so hot and so cool had to mean that she couldn’t tell whether Sheqoa had any of the tension telltales that would indicate the abduction was Villachor’s idea.
More delay and more uncertainty. And all the while Lando and Zerba were getting farther and farther out of range.
And then, suddenly, it was too late. “Dial it back,” Rachele’s tense voice came over the comlink. “You’ll never get there in time now. Not without sprinting across open ground where they’ll be bound to tag you.”
Reluctantly, Han slowed from his fast walk to a slower one and shifted direction instead toward the southwest gate. “At least tell me Chewie’s on it.”
“He’s on it,” Rachele confirmed. “He headed for the roof the minute they were grabbed. Maybe he can get one of the airspeeders in the sky fast enough to follow them.”
“There they go,” Winter cut in. “Looks like an Incom PT-81 airspeeder—dark red, with yellow pinstripes around the front and canopy.”
“Heading?”
“East,” Winter said. “They’re lifting … they’re in the lower airlane. Lifting again …”
“Chewie?” Han demanded.
Even someone like Eanjer who didn’t understand Shyriiwook would have had no trouble recognizing the anger and frustration in Chewie’s roar. He was in the air, but the kidnappers were already gone.
“Too late,” Rachele said, sounding close to tears. “We’ve lost them.”
“Well?” Han demanded.
“Nothing,” Rachele said, her head almost touching Winter’s as the two of them peered together at Rachele’s computer display. “There are just too many dark red PT-81s in the city’s records.”
“And the pinstripes are probably aftermarket add-ons,” Dozer muttered. He was sunk deeply in one of the chairs, staring morosely at the tips of his boots.
Han looked around the room. Tavia was peering at another computer display, her face grim. Kell was sitting across from Dozer, tapping the fingers of his left hand soundlessly on the padded arm of his chair and fiddling with a blaster power pack with his right. Eanjer was standing at the window, framed against the lights of the city, staring out into the night as if his prosthetic alien eye could pierce the darkness and spot the missing airspeeder.
“I’ll know it when I see it,” Winter offered hesitantly. “For whatever that’s worth. I could see some scratches and dents in the sides.”
“But that kind of minor damage won’t be in any official records,” Rachele said.
Like Han hadn’t already known that. “Tavia?”
“Sorry,” Tavia said, shaking her head. “Those hats were blocking most of their faces. The bits I could see just weren’t definitive enough for a search. And the ID tag had some kind of sparkledust on it that made it impossible to read from this distance.”
Han nodded heavily as he keyed his comlink. Dead ends, all the way across the board. Whoever these guys were, they knew what they were doing. “Chewie? Anything?”
The Wookiee’s report was short, frustrated, and as negative as everyone else’s.
“Well, keep at it,” Han told him. “It’s sure as Kessel that none of the rest of us are going to spot him from here.”
Chewbacca acknowledged and keyed off.
“Maybe we should go out,” Rachele suggested hesitantly. “We’ve got another airspeeder on the roof, and Dozer could probably boost a few more off the street.”
“And then what?” Han demanded. “Zoom around at random and hope we spot them?”
“It would beat hanging around here waiting for them to come get us,” Dozer muttered.
“For who to come get us?” Kell asked.
“That’s the point, isn’t it?” Dozer bit out. “We don’t have the slightest idea who they are. And until we do, we haven’t got a hope of tracking them down.” He jabbed a finger at Han. “You ask me, the thing to do now is get out of here. And I mean right now. Sooner or later, one of them will break. We need to be somewhere else when that happens.”
“No,” Han said firmly before anyone else could voice an opinion. “If they get loose, they’ll be coming back here. We stay.”
“If they get loose?” Dozer retorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. Who do you think they are, Revan and Malak? I’m telling you, they’re hammer squash. And so are we if we stay here.”
“So go,” Han said, waving at the door. “But you walk through that door and you’re out.”
“Oh, really?” Dozer snarled. He bounded to his feet and grabbed for his blaster—
And froze, the weapon halfway out of its holster, his eyes wide as he found himself staring down the barrel of Han’s fully drawn blaster.
“Really,” Han assured him quietly.
Dozer flashed a look around the room. Whatever he saw in the others’ expressions apparently wasn’t very encouraging. “Fine,” he muttered, lowering his weapon back into its holster and flopping back down into his chair. “So what’s our next move?”
That was, Han knew, a damn good question. In a single heartbeat this whole grand scheme had gone sideways, and suddenly he was flying blind. How this would end he couldn�
��t even begin to guess.
Except for one thing: they were going to get Lando and Zerba out alive. Guaranteed. Han had lost enough people for one lifetime. He would see Villachor in hell before he lost anyone else.
“We change course,” he said, putting away his own blaster. “Rachele, forget the airspeeder. Lando and Zerba were talking to Villachor. Start making a list of people who might not like that.”
“Got it,” Rachele said, and turned back to her computer.
Han threw a look outside at the deceptively cheerful lights of the city. Somewhere, somehow, they needed to catch a break.
And they had better catch it soon.
“You’ve certainly been busy little banthas,” Wolv commented as the airspeeder wove its way through the nighttime traffic. “I understand this was your second audience with Master Villachor.” He cocked his head. “Or was it your third? That glitterstim peddler was one of yours, wasn’t he?”
“I didn’t realize Master Villachor’s guest list was under such scrutiny,” Lando said, feeling his forehead creasing. A glitterstim peddler? When had a glitterstim peddler come into any of this?
“Everything Master Villachor does is under scrutiny,” Wolv said. “Especially when it interferes with his proper business activities.” He pointed to the case on Zerba’s lap. “So is that the fancy glitterstim? Or is that the payout?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lando said with as much haughtiness as he could manage. “But I promise you that when Master Villachor learns about this, he is not going to be pleased.”
“Oh, I agree,” Wolv said, an evil smile flicking briefly across his face. “The only question is whether or not you two are going to go down with him.”
“I wouldn’t count him out just yet if I were you,” Lando warned.
“And I wouldn’t count on him digging you out of this,” Wolv shot back. “Your best bet right now is to open that case and hand over whatever’s inside. You do that, and I promise you’ll walk away.”
