by Brian Daley
“Nope,” Han answered. “Jessa said these people we’re going to pick up will find us.”
The Wookiee went to the main lock and activated it. The hatch rolled up, and the ramp eased down, but didn’t admit light or air from Orron Ill’s atmosphere; the camouflaging hull design covered most of the Falcon’s superstructure, and a makeshift outer hatch had been installed just beyond the ramp’s end.
The ramp had barely lowered when there was a clanging on the outer skin there. The Wookiee snorted warily, and Han’s hand dipped and came up with his blaster. Chewbacca, seeing his partner was ready, hit the switch to open the outer hatch.
Standing just beyond was a man of incongruities. He wore the drab green coveralls of a port worker and had a tool belt slung at his waist. Yet he radiated a different aura, nothing like that of a contract tech. He was native to a sun-plentiful world, that much was apparent, for his skin was so dark that its black approached indigo. He was half a head taller than Han, with broad shoulders that strained the seams of his issue coveralls, and a body that spoke of waiting, abundant power. His tightly curled black hair and sweeping beard were shot through with streaks of gray and white. For all the size and weight of dignity of him, he had a lively glint of humor in his black eyes.
“I’m Rekkon,” he declared at once. He had a direct gaze, and although his tone was moderate, it resonated in the air, its quality deep and full. He replaced at his belt the heavy spanner he’d used to rap on the hatch. “Is Captain Solo here?”
Chewbacca gestured to his partner, who had just come further down the ramp. The Wookiee hooted in his own language. Rekkon laughed and—to their astonishment—roared back a polite response in Wookiee. Few enough humans even understood the giant humanoids’ tongue; fewer still had the range and force of voice of speak it. Chewbacca boomed his delight in an earsplitting yowl and patted Rekkon’s shoulder, beaming down at him.
“Now that you’re all through with the community sing,” Han interrupted, stripping off his flying gloves, “I’m Han Solo. When’s liftoff?”
Rekkon appraised him frankly, but there was still that jovial light to his face. “I’d like it to be as soon as possible, as I’m sure you would, Captain Solo. But we must make one brief trip to the Center, to cull the data I need and pick up the other members of my group.”
Han looked back to the head of the ramp, where Bollux waited, and gestured to him. “Let’s go, Rusty. You’re back in business.”
Bollux, his chest plates closed once again, clanked down the ramp, his stride as stiff as ever. He’d explained during the trip that his odd manner of walking came from the fact that he’d been fitted with a heavy-duty suspension system at one point in his long career.
Rekkon was holding out two cards for Han and Chewbacca, bright red squares with white identification codes stamped on them. “Temporary IDs,” he explained. “If anyone asks, you’re on short-term labor contracts as tech assistants fifth class.”
“Us?” Han sputtered. “We’re not going anywhere, pal. You take the ’droid, get your gang and whatever else, and you come back. We’ll keep the home fires burning.”
Rekkon’s grin was dazzling. “But what will you two do when the decontamination crew arrives? They’ll be irradiating the entire barge, and your ship with it, to make sure no parasites feed on the shipment. Of course, you could switch on your deflector shields, but that would surely be noticed by port sensors.” The two partners glanced at each other dubiously. It was true that a decontam-treatment would be normal procedure, and that a man and a Wookiee hanging around the landing area while the team did its work would make somebody curious.
“And there is another matter,” Rekkon continued. “The Waiver status for your ship, and its doctored identification codes; I shall be taking care of those, too. Since you and your first mate have a vested interest in that, I had thought you might wish to accompany me.”
Han’s mouth began watering at the thought of the Waiver, but he always got the sweats in the halls of power, and that Authority Data Center was precisely that. His inbuilt caution came forward. “Why do you want us on this side trip? What is it you’re not telling?”
“You’re right, there are other reasons,” Rekkon answered, “but I do think it best, for you as well as for me, if you come. I would be much in your debt.”
Han stared at the tall black man, thinking about the Waiver and the inevitable decontam-team. “Chewie, get me a tool bag.” He unfastened his blaster belt, knowing he couldn’t be seen armed in an area of tight security. Chewbacca returned with the bag and his bowcaster. Both dropped their weapons into the tool bag, and the Wookiee slung it over his shoulder.
With Bollux trailing after, they walked through the outer hatch, locked it closed, and followed Rekkon across the maintenance gantry. The barge’s hull stretched far below and to either side. A utility skimmer with a work platform and enclosed cab was hovering on the other side of the gantry. The living beings climbed into the cab, Rekkon getting behind the controls and Han crowding next to him, while Chewbacca filled the rear seat. Bollux settled himself on the work platform, securing himself with his servo-grip. The skimmer swung away from the barge.
“How’d you find us so fast?” Han wanted to know.
“I received word of what markings your craft would have, and its estimated time of arrival. I came as soon as the data systems registered your approach. I’ve been waiting here for some time, with forged field-access authorization. I presume this ’droid is my computer-probe?”
“Sort of,” Han answered as Rekkon upped the skimmer’s speed to the legal limit, guiding it between rows of berthed barges. “There’s another unit built into his chest; that’s your baby.”
The port was surrounded on every side by ripening grain, showing the ripples of the gentle winds of Orron III. While he glanced about, Han asked, “What’re you looking for in Authority computers, Rekkon?”
The man studied him for a moment, then turned back to the controls as he pulled onto a service road. Except for the immediate area of the barges, Han knew the skimmer would have to adhere to authorized routes, and would be intercepted if it flew too high, too fast, or cross-country. Off in the distance, gargantuan robot agricultural machines moved through the crops, capable of planting, cultivating, or harvesting vast tracts of land in a single day.
Rekkon adjusted the polarization of the skimmer’s windshield and windows. He didn’t make it reflective, or opaque to outside observation, which might have been conspicuous, but darkened it against the sun. The cab’s interior dimmed, and Han felt as if he were in one of Sabodor’s pet environment globes. As they sped along the service road, cutting between seas of bending grain, Rekkon asked, “Do you know what my mission here has been?”
“Jessa said it was up to you whether or not to tell us. I nearly passed up the bargain because of that, but I figured there must be a fair piece of cash involved for this kind of risk.”
Rekkon shook his head. “Wrong, Captain Solo. It’s a search for missing persons. The group I organized is made up of individuals who’ve lost friends or relatives under unexplained circumstances. Same thing’s begun to happen with suspicious regularity within the Corporate Sector. I found that a number of others were abroad, as I was, seeking their lost ones. I’d detected a pattern, and so I gathered about me a small group of companions. We infiltrated the Data Center in order to carry out our search, with Jessa’s help.”
Han tapped his finger on the window, thinking. This explained Jessa’s commitment to Rekkon and his group, her determination to see that he got all the required assistance. Doc’s daughter obviously hoped that Rekkon and his bunch, in locating their own lost ones, would turn up her father.
“We’ve been here for nearly one Standard month,” Rekkon continued, “and it’s taken me most of that time to find windows of access into their systems, even though I’m rated as a contract computer tech supervisor first class. Their security is diligent, but not terribly imaginative.”
&n
bsp; Han shifted around on his seat to look at the other. “So what’s the secret?”
“I won’t say just yet; I’d rather be sure and have absolute proof. There is a final correlation of data for which I need a probe; the terminals to which I have access at the Center have governors and security limiters built into them. I lack the resources and parts and time to construct my own device. But I knew Jessa’s excellent techs could provide what I needed and thereby decrease the risk of detection.”
“Which reminds me, Rekkon. You haven’t told us that other very good reason why we should come with you to the Center.”
Rekkon looked pained. “You’re persistent, Captain. I selected my companions carefully; each of them was close to a lost one, yet—”
Han sat up. “But you’ve got a traitor in there somewhere.” Rekkon stared hard at the pilot. “It wasn’t just a guess. Jessa’s operation got hit while I was there; an Authority corvette dropped a spread of fighters on us. The chances of them just stumbling onto us, out of all the star systems in the Corporate Sector, are so small they’re not even worth talking about. That left a spy, but not one who was there at the time, or the Espos wouldn’t have been scouting, they’d have come in force. They must’ve been checking out a number of solar systems.” He leaned back, self-satisfied. He was proud of his chain of logic.
Rekkon’s face was a mask cut from jet. “Jessa gave us a contingency list of places where we might be able to contact her if our lines of communication were broken. Plainly, that solar system was one of them.”
That surprised Han. Jessa would never ordinarily have trusted anyone with that sort of information. She must be investing all hope of finding her father with Rekkon. “Okay, so you’ve got somebody who’s on two payrolls. Any idea who?”
“None, except that it cannot be either of the two members of my group who have already perished. I believe they discovered who the traitor was. There were indications in the final com-link conversation I had with one of them before she died. And so, of course, I’ve told no one of your arrival, and came to meet you myself. I wanted your help, to make sure none of them can give the alarm before we depart. I have called each of them to my office, without telling them the others would be there.”
Han disliked the idea of going to the Center even more now, but saw it was vital that Rekkon have help, vital to the survival of Han Solo. If the traitor managed to turn in an alarm, chances were that the Falcon would never raise ship again. He made a mental note to bill Jessa and whoever else he could for additional services rendered. He angled around in his seat again. “Who’re the other people you recruited for Amateur Night?”
Driving with only part of his attention, Rekkon responded, “My second-in-command is Torm, whose cover role is contract laborer. His family controlled large ranges on Kail, independent landowners under the Authority. There was some sort of dispute over land-use rights and stock prices. Several family members vanished when they wouldn’t yield to pressure.”
“Who else?”
“Atuarre. She is a female of the Trianii, a feline race. The Trianii had settled a planet on the fringes of Authority space generations before the Corporate Sector was chartered. When the Authority finally annexed the Trianii colony world recently, they met with resistance. Atuarre’s mate disappeared and her cub was taken from her and placed in Authority custody. They must have used some sort of interrogation procedure on the cub, Pakka, for when Atuarre finally managed to rescue him, he could no longer speak. The Authority is no respecter of ages or conventions, you see. Atuarre and Pakka eventually made contact with me; her cover here on Orron III is that of apprentice agronomist.”
The service road, winding through the fields, had met a main artery leading toward the Center. The place was a small city unto itself, handling record keeping, computations, and data flow and retrieval for much of the Corporate Sector. It radiated from an operations complex that rose like a glittering confection from the rolling farmland.
Rekkon, lips pursed in thought, wasn’t finished. “The last member of our group is Engret, who is scarcely more than a boy, but has a good heart and a kindly temperament. His sister was an outspoken legal scholar, and she too dropped from sight.” He was silent for a moment. “There are others abroad searching for their lost ones, and many more, I’m certain, who’ve been frightened into silence. But perhaps we shall be able to help them, too.”
Han half snickered. “No way, Rekkon. I’m just here as part of a trade-off. Save the old school fight songs until I’m clear, got it?”
Rekkon’s face was sculpted in amusement. “You only do this sort of thing so that you can become a wealthy man?” He eyed Han up and down and went back to his driving, but added, “A callous exterior isn’t an uncommon way of protecting ideals, Captain; it hides the idealists from the derision of fools and cowards. But it also immobilizes them, so that, in trying to preserve their ideals, they risk losing them.”
What this big, bluff, amiable man had just said carried so much of hit and of miss, insult and compliment, that Han didn’t take time to unravel it. “I’m a guy with a hot ship and places to go, Rekkon, so don’t let yourself get carried away with the philosophy.”
They entered the Center, maneuvering along wide streets between rearing buildings housing the various offices and storage banks, personnel dormitories and recreational areas, shops and commissaries. The traffic was thick—robo-hacks, ground-effect cargo lifters, skimmers, Espo cruisers, and innumerable mechanicals.
Making a final turn, Rekkon entered a subterranean garage and descended more than ten levels. Nosing the skimmer into a vacant spot, he cut the engine and stepped out. Han and Chewbacca followed as Bollux clambered down. The Wookiee and his partner affixed their badges to their chests and vests, respectively. Rekkon slipped out of his coveralls and tool belt and stuffed both into an equipment locker on the skimmer’s side. That left him attired in long, flowing robes of bright, geometric patterns. His supervisor’s badge was prominent on his broad chest. His feet were shod in comfortable-looking sandals. Han asked him how he’d gotten the skimmer and other equipment.
“Not difficult, once I’d made a partial penetration of the computer systems. A false job-request form, an altered vehicle-allocation slip—those things were elementary.”
Chewbacca took up the tool bag again. Bollux, who hadn’t had the chance before, now drew himself up before Rekkon. “Jessa has instructed me to place myself and my autonomous computer module completely at your service.”
“Thank you—Bollux, isn’t it? Your aid will be critical to us.” At this, the old ’droid seemed to straighten with pride. Han saw that Rekkon had found the way to Bollux’s heart, or rather, to his behavioral circuitry matrix.
The Authority had spared no expense on this Center, and so, rather than to an elevator or shuttle car, it was to a lift chute that Rekkon led them. They stepped into its confluence and, seemingly standing on air, were wafted upward by the chute’s field. Two techs drifted into the lift chute on the next level, and conversation among Han’s group stopped. The Wookiee, the two men, and the ’droid continued to ascend, with others entering or leaving the field, for another minute and more, rising past garage and service levels, the lower bureaucratic offices, and at last through the levels where data processing and retrieval operations of one kind and another took place. Most passengers in the chute wore computer techs’ tunics. Occasionally, one would exchange a greeting with Rekkon. Han gathered, from the lack of curiosity he and his companions drew, that it wasn’t unusual for a supervisor to have tech assistants and ’droids in tow.
Rekkon eventually tilted himself, to drift into the disembarkation-flow. Han, Chewbacca, and Bollux followed. They found themselves standing in a large gallery. Here, two floors had been combined, the upper one opening onto a balcony that ran around the gallery’s midsection, looking down on the banks of lift and drop chutes.
Rekkon led on, down a hallway of darkly reflective walls, floor, and ceiling. Han caught sight of
himself in the tinted mirror of the walls and wondered how he had ever wound up a reckless-eyed predator, contaminating these antiseptic inner domains of the juggernaut Authority. What he did know was that he would much rather have been hotting the Falcon along between the stars, unencumbered.
Rekkon stopped at a door and covered its lock face with his palm, then stepped through as the door swished open. The others followed him into a spacious, high-ceilinged chamber, three walls of which were lined with a complex array of computer terminals, systems monitors, access gear, and related equipment. The fourth wall, opposite the door, a single sheet of transparisteel, gave a commanding view of the bountiful fields of Orron III from one hundred meters up. Han went over and took a bearing on the spaceport across the gentle rise and fall of the land. Chewbacca, seating himself by the door on a bench that ran the length of the wall there, laid the tool bag down between his long, hairy feet. He watched the chatter and wink of sophisticated technology with only mild curiosity showing on his face.
Rekkon turned to Bollux. “Now, may I see what it is that you’ve brought me?”
Han clucked to himself softly, amazed that anyone should be so palsy-walsy with a mere ’droid.
Bollux’s plastron opened as the stubby ’droid pulled his long arms back out of the way. The computer-probe’s photoreceptor came on. “Hi!” he perked. “I’m Blue Max.”
“You certainly are,” Rekkon answered in his full, amused bass. “If your friend here will release you, we’ll have a look at you, Max.”
Bollux said an unhurried, “Of course, sir.” There were minute clicks from his chest, the withdrawal of connector jacks and retaining pins. Rekkon drew the computer forth without trouble. Max was smaller than a voice-writer; he looked unimposing in Rekkon’s big hands.
Rekkon’s laughter rang. “If you were much smaller, Blue Max, I’d have to throw you back!”
