by Timothy Zahn
Gheeta was caught up in a spiraling feedback loop, his own overexcited state mounting as it absorbed the frightened, lunatic pulse from the other Shell Hutts.
"And you were laughing, too! I know you were!" One of the mechanical hands slung beneath his floating cylinder suddenly jabbed toward Boba Fett, the metal shimmering with the fury of his accusation. "All the way back to whatever hole that scummy architect paid you to hide him in-" Gheeta's lipless mouth had stretched into a frenzied grimace, far enough that a trickle of blood seeped into the milky salivation leaking from its corners. "That was a good joke, Fett! But the best jokes always come with a price attached to them, don't they?"
"Ancient history," said Boba Fett. He could almost feel sorry for the Shell Hutt, locked inside an account that he could never settle to his profit. Almost, but not quite; sympathy was something else that he'd stripped from his nervous system, using the scalpel of his own transforming will. "We came here to talk about other merchandise. We're here for Oph Nar Dinnid."
"Ah, yes!" Gheeta's eyes grew wider and more maniacal as the IV tube pulsed like an artificial vein at the wattles of his neck. "And the merchandise should always be on the table, shouldn't it, before we can start dealing-that's how you want things, isn't it? Then by all means-"
The dangling mechanical hands suddenly shot forward from beneath Gheeta's encasing shell and seized hold of the edge of the dais's central platform. The remaining florals, oozing sap from their broken petals, slid from the top surface and landed wetly across the steps as the thin metal arms tensed, lifting one side of the rectangular shape. From the floating cylinder came a high- pitched whine as the repulsor-beam engines strained against the additional load. That was followed by the grinding, tearing noise of decorative masonry being ripped apart as the rectangular platform came loose from the dais and tilted toward one side. Gheeta gave a final, convulsive push, and the platform tore free and toppled down the dais's encircling steps.
For a moment the panicked motion in the great reception hall ebbed; the crash of the platform at the feet of Boba Fett and the other bounty hunters had been loud enough to distract the fleeing Shell Hutts from their attempts at escape. At the exits, still blocked by the insignialess mercenaries, the floating cylinders turned, their wide-faced occupants looking back toward the figures at the center of the vaulted space.
Plaster dust floated up from the wreckage of the platform; it now looked like a coffin that had been shattered open in a clumsy attempt at excavation, the thin plastoid sides forced apart from each other by the repeated impact of the steps. In the midst of the debris, draped shroudlike by the embroidered cloth, with a single broken-stemmed floral lying on its chest like a bad joke, was a humanoid form, empty eye sockets gazing up at the reception hall's distant ceiling. Without even looking at the man's face, Boba Fett knew who it was.
"There's your Oph Nar Dinnid." Gheeta's voice came from the top of the dais, gloating at the rubble strewn across the floor. "Not such valuable merchandise now, is he?"
From behind Boba Fett, the elder Shell Hutt Nullada pushed forward, hard enough to shove Bossk and IG-88 to one side; the riveted cylinder scraped sparks from the unmoving armor of D'harhan. Fett looked over at the massive figure hovering next to him and saw that Nullada's face was quivering with rage. The silken lines holding up the rolls of fat above the eyes and mouth were shimmering like the bowstrings of an ancient projectile weapon.
"This is madness!" As Nullada shouted at Gheeta he shook one of his mechanical hands, clenched into a compact fist. "Vengeance is one thing-we all desire that-but now ..." The old Shell Hutt sputtered with incoherent anger. "Now you're interfering with business!
That creature was valuable to us. He was credits ...
and now he's dead meat."
"Calm yourself." Gheeta sneered at the other Shell Hutt. " 'Business' has been taken care of. Perhaps not to your satisfaction, but to mine. And to the satisfaction of the Narrant-system clan whose trade secrets our late guest had stolen and was busily selling to us. I have been in direct communication with the unfortunate victims of Oph Nar Dinnid's larceny, and I encouraged them to set a price on those trade secrets-not on what it would cost to get those secrets back, but on what it would cost to make sure that no one else would be privy to them. In other words, the price of Oph Nar Dinnid's immediate death. The clan made their calculations, named their price, and I accepted on behalf of the Shell Hutts."
"You ... you had no right to do that... ."
"That shows how old and senile you've become."
Gheeta's sneer turned even more withering. "You've forgotten that there are no rights, except those that you take unto yourself." The mechanical hands rose, claws curling into sharp-edged fists. "Our treasury is richer now for the dealing that I have done on my own initiative."
"Idiot!" Thick drops of spittle flew from Nullada's mouth. "There's no way that you could have gotten a price from the Narrant system anywhere close to what the information inside Dinnid's head was worth."
"Perhaps not." Gheeta's hands spread apart in a gesture of unconcern. "But the price I got is paid now, and not doled out over some twenty years to come. Credits in one's pocket are worth more than the credits that might be sprinkled someday over your grave." An ugly smile welled up on his wide face, like inscribed driftwood surfacing in rubbish-clogged waters. "A grave that I think you'll be in sooner than I will be."
"Silence!" The roar was deafening; it came from Bossk, thrusting himself to the foot of the steps that surrounded the dais. One of his clawed hands shoved aside the floating cylinder of the elder Shell Hutt Nullada.
With his other hand, Bossk stepped forward and grabbed the front of the sprawled corpse's jacket, singed with laser fire and stiff with dried blood. "I've heard enough of your endless bickering-" He held the lifeless figure of Oph Nar Dinnid up in front of himself, the corpse's feet dangling inches above the tessellated floor. "This is what we came here for?" The corpse danced like a loose- limbed puppet as Bossk angrily shook it. No answer came from Dinnid's slack mouth, the skin of his face turned as pallid and gray as that of the surrounding Hutts. With an inarticulate growl, Bossk flung the corpse back down into the rubble of the dais's broken platform. "That creature's been dead for weeks! I can smell his death on him!" Bossk's nostrils flared back, showing his involuntary disgust. Just as with Hutts, Trandoshans were the type of carnivore that preferred its meat fresh. He turned his slit-eyed glare toward Boba Fett. "He was dead before we ever left the Bounty Hunters Guild. This is a fool's errand you've brought us on!" The corner of one scaly lip curled in a sneer. "The great Boba Fett, the master of bounty hunters, and he didn't even know that the merchandise was already worthless."
Boba Fett had known that that accusation would come before long, and he had briefly debated with himself about how to answer it. / could say nothing-he was not given to explaining his actions and strategies to anyone, let alone a crude, rapacious thug like Bossk. Or he could lie to Bossk, tell him that he hadn't known, or even suspected, that Oph Nar Dinnid had already been killed, long before he'd assembled this team of bounty hunters to come here to Circumtore. Or ...
"I knew," said Boba Fett quietly. "Why wouldn't I?
I've dealt with these creatures before, and I know how their minds work. Especially"-he gestured toward Gheeta, still floating at the top of the dais- "when what's left of one's mind is eaten away with the desire for vengeance."
"Wait a second." At Fett's other side, Zuckuss stared at him, astonishment detectable even through the curved lenses of the smaller bounty hunter's face mask. "You knew all along? But if you knew that Oph Nar Dinnid had already been killed ... then there was no point in coming here. ..."
"No point," growled Bossk, "unless Fett wanted to get us all killed as well." He tilted his head toward the perimeter of the great reception hall. The armed mercenaries had stepped farther from the alcoves and exits, herding the other Shell Hutts before them. "Is that it?" Bossk turned his hard gaze back toward Boba Fett.
"Maybe you were feeling suicidal-maybe you're tired of being a bounty hunter-so you decided to take some of us with you. That's why you were so willing to hand over our weapons and render us defenseless."
"Don't be an idiot." Fett returned the other's gaze.
"Or at least not any more of one than you have to be. You may be without weapons-for the time being-but we were never without defenses. No one walks naked into the midst of creatures like thes e."
"No one ... except somebody who's ready to die."
"I'll let you know," said Boba Fett, "when that time comes. But right now I have other business to take care of." He raised one arm, turning it so that the inside of his wrist faced him; between that and his elbow was a relay-linked control pad. With the forefinger of his other gloved hand, Fett began punching out a command sequence.
"Calling up your ship, are you?" Gheeta had caught sight of what Boba Fett was doing. "Do you really believe that your precious Slave I can get out of our landing docks? It's sealed down tight with tractor beams. And even if it could break away, what good would it do you?
It's as stripped of armaments as your pathetic selves."
Boba Fett ignored him. It was a long series of digits to get past the control pad's encryption circuits, and then another one to initiate the program he desired. That one was buried years deep in his memory, but on matters such as this, his memory was infallible. It had to be; in circumstances such as this, he wasn't likely to be given another chance.
"Is it a bluff, then?" The taunting voice of the Shell Hutt came from atop the dais. "How sad for you to think I'd fall for something as simpleminded as that. If you want me to believe that you have some secret plan that will save your skins, you'll have to do a lot better than punching a few meaningless control buttons."
Standing next to Boba Fett, Zuckuss fidgeted and gazed with alarm around the great reception hall. "Is there a plan?" His eyes were like curved mirrors, showing the distorted images of the dark-uniformed mercenaries.
"You have one, don't you?"
One of the other bounty hunters gave up waiting. With a guttural curse in his native Trandoshan tongue, Bossk reached down and snatched up a long, jagged-ended piece of the wreckage from the dais's top platform. As he lifted it shoulder-high, gripping one end with both his clawed fists, a tiny strip of 1 bloodstained cloth fluttered pennantlike, a scrap from the Dinnid corpse's torn and charred clothing. "They're not taking me down without a-"
Bossk's words were lost in the sudden roar of an explosion. Its force struck Boba Fett, a surge of heat and durasteel-hard pressure full against his chest. He remained upright in the storm, his own weight already braced against its impact. The visor of his helmet flashed darker for a microsecond, to protect his sight from the blinding glare. Sharp-edged pieces of debris struck his shoulders, then were swept on by the billows of smoke that poured out from where the dais and its surrounding steps had been.
As the smoke began to thin, restoring visibility to the center of the great reception hall, Boba Fett took his gloved hand away from the control pad on his opposite forearm. The command sequence, keyed to the long-dormant receptor buried in the hall's foundation, had done its job. Perfectly, just as it had been designed and he had expected it to.
The explosion had caught Gheeta unawares- also as Fett had expected-and its force had sent the Shell Hutt's cylinder tumbling and crashing against one of the hall's supporting pillars, hard enough to dent one of the riveted plates and bend the column, its top wrenching loose from the vaulted ceiling above. Gheeta's eyes were dazed, bordering on unconsciousness; a rivulet of blood seeped through the rolls and crevices of his broad face from where the pharmaceutical IV line had been torn out from the vein. The plastoid tube now lay on the rubble- strewn ground like a dead serpent, its single fang weeping drop after drop of a clear liquid.
Some distance behind Boba Fett, the larger cylinder encasing the elder Nullada slowly righted itself, like a planetary oceangoing vessel that had been swamped by a tidal wave. The cylinder rolled from side to side as Nullada groaned in dizzied confusion. The silken lines holding up his face's obscuring rolls of blubbery tissue had all snapped; his repulsive Hut-tese features, the large yellowed eyes and slavering lipless mouth, appeared and disappeared as gravity shifted the gray wattles back and forth.
"What ... what was ..." A gloved hand rose from the tangled, still-smoking rubble directly in front of Boba Fett. The explosion had knocked Zuckuss backward, his breath mask covered with dust and gray flecks of ash. A
few broken scraps of construction material, the charred remains of the dais's top platform, tumbled down his chest as he struggled to raise himself up on his elbows.
"I can't ..."
Right now Boba Fett couldn't give the fallen Zuckuss any assistance. The chaos into which the explosion had plunged the great reception hall was still at a peak-past the settling billows of smoke could be heard the cursing and shouts of the armed mercenaries as the frightened Shell Hutts gibbered and collided with each other and their floating cylinders pushed toward the building's exits. That wouldn't last long, Fett knew; even security guards as ill-trained and poorly paid as these would eventually be able to sort things out. He stepped over the struggling body in front of him-one of Zuckuss's gloved hands reached, but failed to catch hold of Fett's boot-and strode quickly into the center of the dais's smoldering wreckage.
As he reached down for the shock-protected container of hardened durasteel that he knew would be there, a bolt from a laser rifle shot a fraction of an inch to one side of Boba Fett's head, then struck and sparked against a pillar farther on. Fett quickly turned, his muscles tensing to dive away from the angle of the following shot- There wasn't one. The dark-uniformed mercenary that had come sprinting into the hall's center, rifle lifted, was felled by a long section of rubble swung level into his gilt. His momentum folded him around the improvised weapon; the mercenary then collapsed onto his face as Bossk's clawed fist struck him with a vertebra-cracking blow to the back of the neck. Bossk threw away the piece of scrap and scooped up the mercenary's blaster rifle.
Fett saw a look of fierce delight in the Trandoshan's eyes as Bossk whipped the rifle around, a level arc of bright fire cutting through the smoke and across the other mercenaries who had been foolish enough to move away from the security of the perimeter alcoves.
That'll hold them for a while, thought Boba Fett as he tugged at the end handle of the tube-shaped container, caught tight by the rubble collapsed around it. More laser bolts stitched the air around him with their burning tracery; he glanced over his shoulder and saw Bossk, standing with legs braced wide apart, squeeze the blaster rifle's trigger stud with wild disregard for the counterfire now coming from all directions. IG-88, with the cold rationality typical of droids, had grabbed the weapon of another dark-uniformed figure, that had been cut nearly in half by one of Bossk's initial shots; crouching down behind the corpse and a jagged sheet of bent plastoid construction material, IG-88 carefully aimed and picked off its targets.
Another sight had caught Boba Fett's eye even as he wrapped both hands around the durasteel tube's molded grip, braced his boot sole against the singed remnants of one of the platform's side panels, and tugged harder; as he tilted back, arms locked straight down to the tube, a laser shot sizzled through the exact space in which his head had just been. The streak of light temporarily set his helmet visor blind and opaque, so that it was only behind his eyelids that Boba Fett could still see the image of D'harhan, roused from his silent torpor by the sounds of combat echoing inside the great reception hall's spaces. As the mercenaries' fire streaked past D'harhan like a giant spiderweb set aflame, the barrel of the laser cannon, inert and silenced, rose upward, as though it were the neck and head of some primeval beast, taunted to madness by its captors. The optics of the cannon's tracking systems pulsed red through the clouds of hissing steam emitted from the apertures of the black metal housing; as the reptilelike balancing tail thrashed behind him D'harhan's arms spread wid
e, black-gloved hands clawing into themselves, trembling with their thwarted desire for destruction. A keening, wordless howl sounded from deep within the machinery curving into the creature's heart.
The visor of Boba Fett's helmet cleared as he looked back down at the container trapped in the dais's wreckage. Another tug, putting all of his weight and force into it, and the metal tube finally scraped through the debris, shedding flakes of rust. A dot of green light beside the handle told Fett that the container's seal was still intact, the object inside still as primed and ready to go as it had been when first hidden here, during the construction of the great reception hall.
With a last dragging rasp of metal against metal, the tubular container came free. Boba Fett caught himself from toppling backward, then cradled the heavy object in his arms. As he turned he saw Zuckuss pulling himself upright, a few meters away. The disorienting effects of the explosion had obviously faded from inside the smaller bounty hunter's head; Fett could see the enlightenment behind the other's insectoid eyes, the sudden understanding of all that Zuckuss had been told before.
Surrounded by the nois e and quick glare of laser bolts, he even managed a slight nod of acknowledgment, to show that he had just now realized what Boba Fett had meant when he had told him those few fragments of the deal that had been struck between a bounty hunter and an architect. An investment, that pays off later. In a big way ...
"Here!" That was Bossk's shout, from a few meters away. Another mercenary, braver or stupider than the rest, had come charging head down toward the Trandoshan, and had actually gotten close enough that Bossk had taken him out with a single blow to the chin, swinging the butt of the blaster rifle around in an upward arc. Another jab of the rifle butt, right between the mercenary's eyes, had made sure he'd be no further trouble. "Get busy!"
