by Timothy Zahn
"Well ..."
"Bossk was only the first one. The first that had to be eliminated." A bone shard had been left on the back of Cradossk's hand, caught underneath one of his rough-edged scales. He extracted it and used it to pick his fangs, nodding in grim thought all the while. "There will be others; I've got a list."
I bet you do, thought Zuckuss.
"Not all of them young and foolish, either." Cradossk examined a still-wriggling fragment of food on the end of the improvised toothpick, then resumed his meditative work with it. "Some of my oldest and most trusted advisers ... bounty hunters that I've known and supped blood with for decades ... so to speak ..." He ruefully shook his head. "I should've anticipated it-but then again, how could I? I loved these killers."
"Anticipated what?" Zuckuss knew that as well, but figured the question would keep Cradossk going awhile longer. By his calculations, the Twi'lek major-domo would need a little while longer to finish up his conspiratorial rounds.
"Traitors ... backstabbers ..." Cradossk's voice was a low, muttering growl. "That's what you get in this galaxy for being nice to creatures. Taking them in when they were runny-nosed little scavengers who wouldn't have known how to get their claws on a piece of merchandise if it'd been given to them with a ribbon tied around it. I taught most of these Guild members everything there is to know about this business."
"I imagine that's quite a lot."
"You better believe it," Cradossk said fiercely.
"There's parts of the bounty-hunter trade that I in vented. And if these scum think they can get it all away from me ..." He chomped down on the bone toothpick, grinding it between his back fangs. "They'd better think again."
"What particular scum are you talking about?"
Cradossk's mention of a list still had Zuckuss worried.
The old Trandoshan might have gone senile, perhaps forgetting just who he was talking to. Just my luck, thought Zuckuss glumly, to find my own name on there.
"They know who they are. The same as I know. Though maybe ..." Cradossk gave another slow nod. "Maybe I shouldn't take any chances. Maybe I should just have everyone killed. Wipe clean the whole roster of the Bounty Hunters Guild. Start fresh ..."
Great, thought Zuckuss. He had been warned about this, by Boba Fett on the way back from Circumtore. Up in the Slave I's cockpit area, Fett had given him another insight into the way Cradossk's mind worked. The Trandoshan had always been paranoid, long before he had clawed to the top of the Bounty Hunters Guild. Arguably, a personality trait like that was what had enabled him to do it, or had at least helped. Hard on his associates, though, figured Zuckuss.
"But first," said Cradossk, "we'll get rid of the obvious targets. The ones who have already announced their intentions, to either take over the Guild or split from it and set up a new bounty-hunters organization of their own. As if I'd ever let that happen."
Zuckuss and the others returning from Circum-tore had already heard about these developments over the Slave I's comm unit. The breakaway faction was eager to get as many Guild members onto its side as possible-especially the great Boba Fett and anyone associated with him. Just having been on the team Fett had assembled for the Oph Nar Dinnid job meant that Zuckuss and IG-88 were now being heavily courted by the bounty hunters who wanted to go out on their own, with an organization that wasn't controlled by the elders such as Cradossk. Always pleasant to be wanted, he supposed-as long as Cradossk and his loyalists didn't get the notion that he had switched allegiances.
"All of them?" It would be better, Zuckuss figured, if he kept the old Trandoshan brooding about creatures who weren't here in his chamber with him. "I mean-like you said-some of them have been with the Bounty Hunters Guild for a long time. Since the beginning; or at least, since you took over."
"Those are the ones I'm going to enjoy getting rid of." An ugly smile showed on Cradossk's face, as though he were already relishing the details of that process.
"The younger bounty hunters could almost be excused for being stupid. They haven't been around long enough to know any better. But the others, the veteran bounty hunters, who've thrown in their lot with them-they could have predicted how I'd react to their treachery, their assault upon the sanctity of our brotherhood."
Zuckuss rolled his eyes upward; it was just as well that Cradossk couldn't see that reaction. He'd found out that brotherhood with carnivores, at least of the Trandoshan variety, was a negotiable concept.
"There's big changes coming," said Cradossk.
"Everybody who's said that has been right-and will continue to be so. The Bounty Hunters Gui ld will be different from what it was before; this galaxy belongs to Emperor Palpatine now, and we'll just have to deal with that. If this breakaway faction had just bided" their time and remained loyal to the Guild, they very likely would have gotten everything they want."
"Except," Zuckuss pointed out, "for getting rid of you."
Cradossk shot him a glance of venomous fury, enough to push him back a step with its intangible force.
"That's right," he growled. "That's the one thing that's not going to happen. Count on it. The Bounty Hunters Guild is going to be a lot smaller than it was before-a lot of dead wood is going to be cleared away. I admit I should've seen it sooner, myself; that some of the elders in the organization have lost their edge. Well, they'll be gone before very much longer, whether they made the mistake of going with the breakaway faction or whether they're still sucking up to me. There's going to be a lot of blank spaces in the organizational chart; that means room for advancement. Room for someone ... like you."
He reached over and tapped a claw against Zuckuss's chest, right below the dangling tubes of the breathing apparatus. "A smart, young bounty hunter such as yourself could do pretty well. If you play your cards right."
"I'll ... try to do my best."
"Ah, don't worry about it." Cradossk pulled the claw back and scratched his scaly chin. "The main thing you have to do is-be careful who you choose to follow, and who you choose as your associates. You've made a good start by letting yourself become a tool of my intentions.
Don't screw it all up by thinking you can also be friends with ... certain other parties."
"Like who?"
Cradossk didn't answer him for a moment. The old Trandoshan's gaze drifted again to some inner point of contemplation. "You know," he said finally, "as inevitable as I suppose this all is, it had to be brought to this crisis by one individual. If it hadn't been for him-the Bounty Hunters Guild might have continued as it was for quite a while, Emperor or no Emperor."
Zuckuss knew the individual to whom he referred. "You mean Boba Fett?"
"Who else?" Cradossk gave a slow nod, as though in admiration of that absent other. "It's all because of him. Everything that has happened, and that is going to happen; all the changes, and all the deaths. Well ...
most of them, at any rate. He is the unaccountable factor that has been entered into the equation. It makes you wonder ... what were his real reasons for journeying here."
"But he told us," said Zuckuss. "When he first arrived. Because of all the changes, with the Empire and everything else-"
"And you believed him?" Cradossk shook his head.
"Time for another lesson, child. There is no one you can trust-least of all someone who trades in the deaths and defeats of others. You can trust Boba Fett now, if you wish, but I promise you The day will come when you'll regret it."
A chill ran through Zuckuss's spirit, or whatever was left of it after having become a bounty hunter. Part of him knew that the old Trandoshan had spoken truly; another part hoped that the day he had foretold was still a long way off.
"Well ... I better be going." Zuckuss gestured toward the door of the private quarters. "There's still a lot I have to take care of." He was pretty sure that the Twi'lek majordomo would have had enough time by now to contact everyone that needed to be. "You know ... since coming back from the job ..."
"Of course." Cradossk bent down and pi
cked up the pieces of the shattered rib bone. "I've got to learn to control my temper." Clutching the white splinters in one clawed hand, he smiled at Zuckuss. "Or do you think it's just too late for that?"
Zuckuss had stepped back toward the door. "To be truthful ..." He reached behind himself and grasped the door's edge. "It's too late."
"I suppose you're right." Cradossk looked suddenly older, as though weighed down with the burdens of leadership. Carrying the broken trophy from his younger days, he shuffled toward the entrance of the bone chamber, the repository of all his precious memories.
"It's always too late... ."
The door to the private quarters creaked as Zuckuss pulled it farther open, but he didn't step out to the corridor beyond. He stayed where he was so he could watch what he knew was about to happen.
Which took place within seconds Cradossk found his way blocked by his offspring Bossk. The younger Traridoshan stood with his arms folded across his chest; a wide smile split his face as he gazed down into his father's startled eyes.
"But ..." Cradossk gaped at his son. "You ...
you're supposed to be dead. ..."
"I know that was the plan," said Bossk, with feigned mildness. "But I made some changes to it."
Cradossk whirled about, looking back toward the private-quarters door and Zuckuss. "You lied!"
"Not entirely." Zuckuss gave a small shrug. "Just the bit about him not getting up again after he was shot."
With a single foreclaw, Bossk pointed to the sterile bandage running diagonally across his chest, from one shoulder and under the opposite arm. "It really hurt," he said, still smiling. "But it didn't kill me. You should know how hard our species is to get rid of. And also-whatever doesn't destroy one of us just makes us that much more pissed off."
A look of panic appeared in Cradossk's yellowed eyes; he took a step backward from the figure looming in front of him. "Now wait a minute... ." The bone shards fell on the floor as he raised his scaly hands, palms outward.
"I think you might be making some ... rash assumptions here... ."
One of Bossk's hands shot out, grabbing his father by the throat. "No, I'm not." The smile was gone from his face. On the other side of the private quarters, Zuckuss could see the red anger tingeing the younger Trandoshan's eyes. "I'm making the same assumption I made a long time ago, before I ever left for Circumtore. And you know what that is? It's that there isn't room in the Bounty Hunters Guild for both you and me."
"I ... I don't know what you're talking about... ."
Cradossk grabbed the other's wrist, in a futile attempt to ease his hold and get another breath into his own lungs. "The Guild... the Guild is for all of us. ..."
"I'm talking about the same thing you were talking about, just now." With his other hand, Bossk pointed a clawed thumb back toward the unlit depths of the bone chamber behind him. "I was in there the whole time the two of you have been blabbing away. And I heard everything you said. All that stuff about clearing out the undesirables from the Bounty Hunters Guild. And you know what?" Bossk tightened his hold, his fist at Cradossk's throat lifting the older Trandoshan up onto the claws of his toes. "I agree with you about all that.
You're absolutely right The Guild is going to be a lot smaller. Real soon.'"
"Don't... don't be an idiot...." Cradossk managed to summon up a reserve of courage. "You can't kill me ...
and get away with it...." His claws dug deeper into Bossk's wrist, enough to let a trickle of blood seep down his son's forearm. "I've got ... connections ...
friends... ." His voice became weaker and more fragmented as the hold at this throat constricted tighter. "All the ... council of elders..."
"Those old fools?" Bossk sneered at his father. "I'm afraid you're a little behind the times; there have been things happening already that you just don't know about.
Maybe if you didn't waste so many hours in here, mumbling and fondling your moldy reminders of past glories, these things wouldn't have sneaked up on you quite so fast."
Still holding Cradossk upright, he turned and slammed the older reptilian against the table outside the bone chamber's entrance; the impact against his spine visibly dazed Cradossk. "Some of your old friends, your beloved elders, have already seen the light; they've come over to my side. In fact, some of them have been on my side for quite a while, just waiting for the right moment to-shall we say?-force your retirement. One way or another." The elaborate wording, so much different from Bossk's usual blunt speech, was a cruel way of toying with his father.
"Of course, some of the elders weren't so smart; they per sisted in their folly. Right up to the end."
"What ..." Cradossk could barely squeeze any words out at all. "What do you mean ... ?"
"Oh, come on. What do you think I mean?" Bossk looked disgusted. "Let's just say there are going to be some fresh acquisitions in my little trophy chamber. The skulls of some of your old friends will look very nice mounted on its walls-"
"Watch out!" Zuckuss shouted a warning to Bossk.
As Cradossk had fallen back against the table one of his hands had reached back and grasped an ornate ceremonial dagger; the gems embedded in its hilt flashed as he swung his arm around, the point of the blade aiming straight for Bossk's throat.
There was no way for Bossk to avoid the blade; if he had leaned back, the movement would only have presented a wider target for the blade to slash across. Instead, he lowered his head, catching the razor-sharp edge with the corner of his brow. The impact of flesh and bone against metal was enough to knock the weapon out of his father's hand and send it spinning off into a far corner of the room.
Ta king a hand from his father's throat, Bossk wiped away the blood seeping down through his face scales and into his eyes. "Now that," he said with eerie self- possession, "didn't hurt at all." With a shake of his head, he sent blood spattering across Cradossk's face, as though sealing the bright ideogram of a death sentence there. "But I promise you- this will."
From the doorway, Zuckuss could hear shouts and blaster fire coming from somewhere else in the Guild compound. That didn't surprise him; it had been pretty much what he'd been expecting since the Twi'lek majordomo had gone off to notify the others in the breakaway faction.
He turned back toward Cradossk's private quarters and watched the rest of what happened in there. For as long as he could. Then he stepped out into the corridor, shaking his head.
Bossk was certainly right about one thing, he had to admit. It did take a lot to kill a Trandoshan.
as he swung his arm around, the point of the blade aiming straight for Bossk's throat.
Perhaps even a little too excited; ostentatiously so, it seemed to Kud'ar Mub'at. Sometimes he detected a certain false note to Balancesheet's displays of enthusiasm. For a simple number-crunching node, Kud'ar Mub'at found himself thinking, that's a bit much. He made a mental note, one that was carefully shielded from the synaptic connections that would have let the subassembler nodes in on it, to reabsorb this balancesheet and begin growing a new one. Just as soon as this business with Boba Fett and the Bounty Hunters Guild was finished ...
It didn't seem like that would be much longer, from what the identifier node had just told Kud'ar Mub'at.
Ignoring the jabbering of the nodes surrounding itself, the assembler adjusted its soft, globular abdomen into a more comfortable position in the self-generated nest; when it was done making adjustments, it contemplated the news with a calmer, more tranquil attitude. No sense getting agitated, it admonished itself, over something I knew was going to happen. Empires might rise and fall-they had before-and the galaxy might even collapse upon itself in one dark ball of relentless gravity. But until then, Kud'ar Mub'at, or some creature very much like it, would still be trading in the folly of other sentient creatures. That was its nature, just as it was the nature of those less wise to find themselves enmeshed in the traps spun for them... .
"Sometimes," mused Kud'ar Mub'at aloud, "they don't even know until it's too late.
And sometimes they never know."
"Know what?" Balancesheet, a little calmer after its initial burst of enthusiasm, dangled itself close to the spiky mandibles of its parent's face. "What do you mean?"
That kind of curiosity on a subassembler's part indicated the degree of independence that Kud'ar Mub'at had let develop in the node. There hadn't even been a mention of numbers, and still this tethered offspring wanted to know. A sharp paternal feeling twinged inside Kud'ar Mub'at; it would be a shame, however necessary, to pluck the node's legs one by one and crack its shell to extract the recyclable proteins and cellular matter inside.
Kud'ar Mub'at reached out one thin black leg and stroked the ridges of Balancesheet's small head.
"Creatures are dying," said Kud'ar Mub'at, "even as we speak." That had been the gist of the message transmitted through the web by the listener and identifier team of nodes. With the transport engines that had been salvaged decades ago and incorporated into the web's external structure, Kud'ar Mub'at had slowly brought its drifting home-and-body within communication range of the Bounty Hunters Guild. It had wanted to be close to where the action was happening, the pulling shut of the snare he had woven, with no delay in getting word sent out by an encrypted tight-beam signal from his contacts in the Guild compound. "Of course," it said, "there will be other deaths after these; that's all part of the plan."
One snare led to another, a universe of entangling strands, as though the contents of Kud'ar Mub'at's web had been turned inside out and transmogrified into something big enough to loop whole planets into its grasp. It spoke matter-of-factly, without sympathy or remorse. "Even the ones who think they're on my side, who believe they are still free-they'll find out the truth soon enough. No one escapes forever."
Balancesheet folded a couple of its own legs across its smaller abdomen. "Not even Boba Fett?"
That question surprised Kud'ar Mub'at. Not that the answer wasn't known to it, but that the question had come from a source such as one of his subassembler nodes. Even from a developed one such as Balancesheet; that indicated a level of strategic thinking that Kud'ar Mub'at hadn't expected.
