by Timothy Zahn
“What?” Villachor snapped.
“I’m getting reports of a commotion outside,” the bodyguard said urgently.
“What kind of commotion?” Qazadi’s voice wafted across the room.
Villachor turned around. The Falleen and his guard had paused near the foot of the stairway and were looking back at Villachor and the others.
Villachor turned back to Tawb. And curse Tawb and his big mouth, too. “You heard him,” he growled. “What kind of commotion?”
“It appears—” Tawb frowned and leaned closer to his comlink clip. “It appears that some of the droids are … going crazy.”
The sky was darkening, and Bink was wondering if something had gone wrong, when she finally spotted Chewbacca drifting casually toward them.
She breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Sheqoa’s comlink clip had been spitting out new orders or updates every few minutes for the past hour, and though she couldn’t hear any of them distinctly as she nestled against his side, she could tell by his facial muscles and body tension that something wasn’t going well in Villachor’s little corner of paradise. The fact that Sheqoa apparently was ignoring the updates in favor of continuing to wander the crowds and pretending to enjoy Bink’s prattle confirmed that Bink was still his current assignment.
Which was, of course, exactly how she wanted it.
Chewie was moving closer, his attention apparently on something off to the side. Bink hadn’t seen Tavia yet, but she had no doubt her sister was moving up behind her, exactly as she was supposed to.
Casually, she extricated her right hand from Sheqoa’s left arm, reaching up to brush a lock of hair out of her eyes and taking the opportunity for one last visual check of the fingersnips fastened all but invisibly beneath her nails. They were set and ready to go. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Chewbacca moving in from her left …
And suddenly there he was, angling sideways straight into her as he looked at something off to his own left. Bink jerked away from the big furry wall bearing down on her and ducked sideways in front of Sheqoa. She pivoted around to face him as she continued her evasive motion, her left hand clutching at Sheqoa’s shoulder, her right pressed briefly against his upper chest as she breathed a startled and panicky gasp into his face.
As she continued around to his other side, the fingersnips on her right hand deftly cut through the small chain connecting the key pendant to the choker around his neck. The fingertip-sized glazed stone dropped into her hand, and as she palmed it, she continued on to Sheqoa’s right side, grabbing his right arm with both hands.
Which was his gun hand, which he’d already warned her not to grab. Sure enough, before she could even get her feet planted, his forearm lurched reflexively up and back, throwing off her hands and sending her falling backward into the flowing mass of people behind her. She half turned as someone grabbed her, caught a glimpse of a brown dress and floppy hat and Tavia’s face. As the two of them spun around, fighting for balance against Bink’s momentum, Bink’s flailing right hand came up beneath the brim of Tavia’s hat, flipping it back and off her sister’s head. As the hat sailed up into the air, Bink’s left hand slipped into a fold of her skirt and caught hold of Zerba’s magic egg. She squeezed the activator—
And in the blink of an eye, as the two of them toppled to the ground, Bink’s red silk dress was ripped instantly away into the egg, leaving her dressed in a duplicate of Tavia’s brown dress, as Tavia’s brown dress similarly vanished to reveal the copy of Bink’s red one.
Their twirling movement as they fell had landed Bink on the bottom of the two-woman heap. Tavia was off her in an instant, rolling away so as to give Bink the necessary freedom of movement to flip over onto her stomach and get her face turned away from Sheqoa. She finished the roll, then got her hands under her and pushed herself shakily up onto her knees. A second later, half a dozen hands closed around her arms, another half dozen grabbed Tavia’s, and a moment later both women were back on their feet. Standing behind her sister, listening tensely for the cues that would mean Sheqoa hadn’t been fooled by the trick, Bink brushed herself off and drifted farther into the crowd, murmuring her assurances to the anxious people around her that she was fine. Someone handed her Tavia’s floppy hat as she passed; she smiled her thanks and set it carefully onto her head.
“You okay?” Sheqoa said gruffly from behind her. Bink tensed—
“I’m fine,” Tavia said, sounding breathless. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to grab you like that.”
“It’s okay,” Sheqoa said. His voice was still gruff, but Bink could hear that the growl was coming from embarrassment, not suspicion. “Stupid clumsy oaf of a Wookiee. Did he hurt you?”
“No, no, I’m fine,” Tavia said again. “I thought for sure he was going to run me straight down.”
“It’s okay now,” Sheqoa said, and Bink could visualize him taking her arm and pulling her gently but firmly back to his side.
Somewhere in the near distance, audible over the roar of the crowd and the hissing of the various flame jets, came the sound of crashing tableware. “Uh-oh—sounds like someone’s going to have some cleanup to do,” Tavia commented. “I guess Wookiees aren’t the only clumsy oafs here today.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when two more crashes sounded across the grounds, each of them coming from a different direction. A half second later, an even louder crash echoed off the mansion wall, this one accompanied by a woman’s or child’s scream.
“That’s not someone being clumsy,” Sheqoa bit out. “Come on.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Bink saw them head off quickly in the direction of the latest crash, disappearing within seconds into the crowd.
She smiled tightly to herself as she made a more leisurely departure from the area. So much for her worries that something had gone wrong.
The plan was back on schedule. Chewbacca and Tavia had done their jobs, and from the ever-growing cacophony of crashes, screams, and shouts it was clear that Kell and Zerba had done theirs.
Time for Bink to do hers.
The others would be waiting for her at the garage door. Picking up her pace, wondering just how big a mess the droids were making, she headed north.
Dayja had never been hit by a Falleen before, and if Qazadi’s slap was a representative sample of their work, he was pretty sure he never wanted to be hit by one again. That single blow was still throbbing through his cheek, his head, and most of the upper half of his body.
But the residual effects from the slap paled in comparison to the mental dizziness that had been created by the revelations ricocheting across his brain.
A cryodex. So that was how Xizor had encrypted his blackmail files. Imperial Intelligence had managed to collect alleged bits of those files over the years but had never been able to crack the encryption or even to figure out how it was done. There were many analysts, in fact, who flatly rejected the idea that those bits were genuine Black Sun files and assumed they were simple disinformation designed to keep Intelligence running in loops.
A cryodex explained everything. And if the blackmail files, why not other sensitive information? In fact, why not the whole Black Sun information network?
Dayja wrinkled his nose. Intriguing, but highly unlikely. There might yet be other cryodexes still floating around, any one of which could instantly slice the unsliceable code. Xizor was far too smart to put too many hatchlings in the same basket.
But even if it was just the blackmail files, getting hold of that cryodex would be a major accomplishment. Especially now that most of the remaining models were part of the expanding dust cloud that had once been Alderaan. Dayja had no idea how Eanjer’s team had gotten hold of Aziel’s device, but he had no intention of letting Qazadi or anyone else kick it back into the shadows.
Assuming, of course, that the device he’d left Qazadi holding was indeed the real cryodex.
Mentally, he shook his head. He was with Villachor on this one. Stealing Aziel’s cryodex o
r duplicating it both seemed to be at roughly the same level of impossibility. The whole thing was smelling suspiciously like a con man’s shell game, and until he knew which shell the real cryodex was under, there was no point making any moves.
Except, of course, for the first move in any and all future plans, which was to get free of Qazadi’s thugs.
“Get in,” one of the thugs growled as the turbolift door slid open. Hunching his shoulders in the very image of demoralization, Dayja obeyed. The guards joined him, and they headed up.
Holodrama writers, Dayja had noticed over the years, had a strange fascination with turbolifts. They especially liked casting such places as the perfect spot for a captured hero or heroine to burst into action against evil captors, using hands or feet or concealed weapons to render their opponents dead or unconscious, usually before they even reached their designated floor. Maybe it was the drama of the close quarters that the producers liked, or maybe it was simply that turbolift fights required no set dressing and left minimal damage to clean up afterward.
It was, of course, ridiculous. The close quarters meant there was nowhere a would-be escapee could run to, along with the added disadvantage of having to fight an entire circle of enemies at the same time. The lack of furniture or decoration meant no impromptu weapons close at hand. There was also no telling what kind of setting or situation the turbolift door would open up on. Even if the hero made it through all that, a turbolift car had no place in which to hide the bodies.
Finally, the fact that the bad guys watched those same holodramas meant that they fully expected trouble to break out in turbolift cars. As a result, guards had a tendency to press even more closely around a prisoner in such a setting, their senses alert to any sign of trouble.
Unfortunately for them, the fact that they were watching for signs of impending violence tended to make them oblivious to everything else. Which made turbolifts the ideal place for a prisoner to pick his binders.
Dayja had his unfastened by the time the door slid open on the fourth floor. “Where are we going?” he asked, peering nervously out through the opening. The hallway was exquisitely decorated, with potted plants and expensive artwork along the walls, a thick carpet on the floor, and a molded glitter-coated ceiling above them. A guest floor, undoubtedly, with Qazadi and his guard contingent probably the only current residents. Several of the doors lining the hallway stood open, but there was no one in sight.
“To your own personal hell,” one of the guards answered, giving him a shove out of the car. “Move.”
Turbolift cars were rotten places to pick a fight. Turbolift car doorways, on the other hand, were ideal.
The nearest open door led into a sleeping room that was even more nicely furnished than the hallway. The walk-in closet had a lock, but there was enough room on the far side of the massive bed for both of the bodies. Dayja paused long enough to relieve the late guards of his appropriated comlink and holocamera, then headed back to the turbolift. It would have been nice to take one of their blasters, too, but he wouldn’t put it past Qazadi to have all his guards’ weapons track-chipped. Once the alarm went up and the hunt began, there was no point in making it too easy for them to find him.
The original plans for the governor’s mansion had included a roof stairway beside the dumbwaiter shaft that led up from the kitchen in the building’s central section. There was a chance Villachor had sealed it up as unnecessary and a possible security risk, but it was worth a try.
To his mild surprise the stairway was still there, its entrance concealed behind an impressive four-panel wall painting. He got the door open and slipped inside, closing the painting behind him as best he could.
Rooftops were traditionally a bad place for a fugitive to be trapped, especially rooftops high enough that jumping would almost certainly lead to death or serious injury. But his escape probably would be discovered within a very few minutes, and the same logic that argued against rooftops as a hiding place should send Villachor’s searchers running off to check all the other likely places first. At the very least, it should buy Dayja a little more time.
And right now, time was what he needed most.
Taking the stairs as quietly as he could, he pulled out his comlink. He only hoped his call wouldn’t be too late.
Across the darkening grounds came the sound of crunching wood. “There,” Tawb said, pointing in that direction. “There goes another one.”
“Sounds like a maintenance droid kicking over a bench,” Manning added. “Yes—make that an affirmative. Tallboy’s heading over to try to tackle it.”
With an effort, Villachor held on to what was left of his patience. A few malfunctioning droids, and his so-called professional security men were panicking? “We have tech people for this,” he growled, spinning around and heading back toward the open doorway behind him. “Call them.”
“No,” Qazadi’s voice came from inside the doorway.
Villachor stopped, swallowing a curse. “They’re malfunctioning droids, Your Excellency,” he bit out. “It happens all the time. Probably a frequency bleed-through between motivators—”
“Or a deliberate attack,” Qazadi cut him off. “Your security chief himself seems to think so.”
Villachor frowned. “What?”
“He comes to you now,” Qazadi said.
Villachor turned back around. Sure enough, Sheqoa had appeared from the edge of the crowd and was hurrying toward him, his hand locked around the wrist of a young woman in a red dress as he half pulled, half dragged her behind him.
And there was definitely a hard set to his face.
Villachor bared his teeth. Treason and betrayal all around him, prisoners who might hold the key waiting to be interrogated, and all these fools could worry about were a few rampaging droids?
But Qazadi was concerned, and Qazadi was the one calling the shots. All Villachor could do was get the mess fixed as quickly as possible and get back to the real issues.
“It’s the droids, sir,” Sheqoa said as he came up to them. “Serving and maintenance both.”
“Yes, I can hear them,” Villachor snarled as another crash and startled scream came from somewhere to the northwest. “I’ve already called Purvis. If there’s a programming glitch, he’ll fix it.”
“I don’t think it’s a glitch,” Sheqoa insisted. “I think this is a deliberate diversion. My men are already stretched thin, and this is distracting them even more—”
“Sheqoa!” Villachor snapped, feeling a surge of horror and fury. The man’s neck—“Your key pendant!”
Sheqoa’s free hand went to his throat, his eyes widening in the same horror as he touched the spot where the pendant should have been. Then, with a curse, he hauled the woman around in front of him. “Where is it?” he bit out as she stumbled to a halt between him and Villachor. “Curse you, where is it?”
“Where is what?” she protested, shrinking back from his glare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sheqoa swore again and shoved her toward Tawb. “Hold her,” he ordered as he dug into his pocket and pulled out his glow rod. Spinning the selector to ultraviolet, he grabbed the woman’s right hand, pulled it close, and turned the light on it. Villachor took a step closer and peered down at the hand.
Nothing. Just plain skin, the calcium in her fingernails glowing the usual white, with no signs anywhere of the tracking dye that coated all the key pendants.
Sheqoa flashed Villachor an unreadable look, dropped the girl’s right hand, and tried the UV light on her left. Still nothing.
“And?” Qazadi prompted from inside the doorway.
“She took it,” Sheqoa said blackly. “I don’t know why there’s no dye, but I know she took it.” He dropped her hand, all but throwing the arm back to her side. “Maybe with—” He grabbed her left hand again, this time turning it so that he could look closely at the undersides of the fingernails. He swore under his breath and swapped it out for her right hand, giving that set of nails th
e same scrutiny.
“Fingersnips?” Villachor asked.
Again Sheqoa flung the woman’s hand back at her. “She must have gotten rid of them somehow,” he growled.
“What are you talking about?” the woman demanded. “Look, I don’t want to bring any trouble on you people, but enough is enough. I have rights, and I don’t have to—”
“Shut up,” Sheqoa cut her off. He turned and looked out over the crowd, reaching for his comlink clip. “Kastoni should be closest. I’ll have him take her inside and do a complete search.”
“No,” Qazadi said calmly. “I will take her.”
Villachor turned, frustration surging through him. “With all due respect, Your Excellency, you have other prisoners to interrogate,” he said as civilly as he could. “Prisoners we know are involved.”
“She’s involved, too,” Sheqoa insisted.
“The others will keep, Master Villachor,” Qazadi said. “But this one’s a female. We Falleen have a certain way with females.”
Villachor looked at the woman. Her face had gone rigid. “Anything you want to tell us?” he invited.
She swallowed. “I have nothing to do with whatever it is you’re all talking about,” she said firmly. “I came here today to honor moving fire, and—”
“Take her inside, Sheqoa,” Villachor said, jerking his head toward the door. “If His Excellency wants her, His Excellency can have her.”
“Yes, sir.” Sheqoa took her wrist and once again half pulled, half dragged her to the door and the waiting Falleen.
“And then pull some men from the grounds and do a sweep of the mansion,” Villachor called after him. “Starting with the prisoners.”
“Yes, sir.”
Villachor turned back to the grounds, snarling under his breath at each distant crash or thud or scream. Apparently, Kwerve’s boss wanted his people back.
Time to see just how big a price he was willing to pay for them.
“They’ve taken her inside.” Rachele’s tense voice came from Lando’s comlink. “Someone in there took her—I couldn’t see who it was.”
