Star Wars - The Adventures of Lando Calrissian 02 - Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon

by L. Neil Smith

  Bassi Vobah was nearly as scandalized as her professional colleague. Lob Doluff, however, chuckled and appeared to relax for the first time since the interview had started. His smile became a grin to match the gambler's, then became outright laughter. He glanced, guiltily at first, at the feathered VIP, then shook his head and laughed again, this time without qualms.

  “By the Core, Captain Calrissian - Lando, if I may - I do admire you! You're a gambler through and through, not just at the table. Please allow me to make this unpleasantness more comfortable. Have you had anything to eat?”

  Lando nodded. “Best food I've ever had in jail. I could use some coffeine, though, and maybe a cigar.”

  “And by Core, Edge, and Disc, so shall you have them! Bassi, see to it immediately!”

  The police officer stared at her boss indignantly, decided he was serious, and stalked out of the room to attend to the chore.

  Doluff snapped a finger at one of the guard-robots who had retired to the corners of the room behind Lando.

  “Bring this gentleman his clothing, this very minute! By the Eternal, if I have to go through with this charade, I'll bloody well go through with it in my own way!”

  Lando had sat quietly through it all. Now he sat up a little straighter as the Administrator Senior settled back, fully relaxed.

  Coffeine and tobacco arrived in due course, delivered by a seething Bassi Vobah. A police-robot brought Lando's personal property, which the gambler ignored for the time being as more interesting matters occupied his attention.

  “Now,” Lob Doluff said, when everyone was settled in again. At his insistence, a strange-looking rack the size and shape of a pair of sawhorses had been brought in by a robot, and Waywa Fybot encouraged - at the Administrator Senior's insistence - to perch on it. The bird got a dreamy look on its face, its feathers smoothed once again, and it was quiet.

  “Now, sir, I will tell you the plain truth - as much as I have been told, in any case - and we will all understand. You're quite right, of course. Bohhuah Mutdah's corporate enemies and business rivals are preparing to overthrow his commercial empire. But they fear him greatly, sir, as I would in their place, and, accordingly, are seeking to put him personally and physically out of the way.

  “I rather guess they hope he will resist arrest, providing them with an excuse to make things permanent. But that is only a surmise. The point is, Lando, I must ask you to help make all of this possible, and there is no way I can refuse to do so. I have what amounts to direct orders - by Gadfrey, it feels good to tell the truth! Were it simply my position, I would tell them - well, I hold this office quite voluntarily - quite unnecessarily if the truth were told. I like it, but not so much that I'd betray a fellow sabacc enthusiast and gentleman adventurer I admire.”

  Bassi Vobah squirmed uncomfortably in the chair she'd been ordered to take.

  “Why do I have the feeling you're going to find another reason to betray me, then, old bureaucrat?” Lando asked. “That's what you're leading up to, isn't it?”

  The Administrator Senior sighed. “I'm afraid so, my dear fellow. I offer no excuse. Means have been found to exert leverage upon me which my scruples cannot withstand. I do not ask you even to understand my position. I am attempting to arrange things so as to minimize the damage the situation inflicts on us both. I'll thank you to believe that much, at least.”

  Lando shrugged again, noncommittally. “How much does a hangman's apology count for, Administrator Senior?”

  Doluff grimaced uncomfortably, then nodded. “You're quite right, sir. But took here, this is how I am prepared to hold up my end of a bad bargain.” He turned to Waywa Fybot. “Listen to me, you ridiculous creature, and listen well-”

  “Adminis-” interrupted a shocked and outraged Bassi Vobah.

  “Hush, child, I'll get to you in a moment. Are you listening to me, you absurd collection of flightless feathers?”

  The Imperial narcotics agent blinked stupidly. Apparently the position it had been forced to assume triggered some reflexive sleep reaction. It shook its head, peered at the Administrator Senior, but said nothing.

  “Very well, then, and you can inform your mercantile-class sponsors that I gave you this direct order: you may arrest Bohhuah Mutdah, I haven't the power to stop you. But you will return him to me, alive and in condition to stand trial in the Oseon, or I'll have you plucked, dressed, and roasted for Founder's Day. Am I making myself clear?”

  The bird-creature nodded, a look of hatred latent in its large blue eyes.

  Doluff turned to Bassi Vobah. “And as for you, my dear, remember who it is you work for. Your orders are to see that my orders are carried out. And you are to use that oversized chicken-roaster of yours” - he indicated her energy pistol -”if the occasion calls for it, on whomsoever merits it.”

  He nodded significantly toward Waywa Fybot.

  “Now, Captain Calrissian - Lando - this is what you are to do. As you probably are aware, it is perilous in the extreme, and also illegal, for ships to travel from asteroid to asteroid in the Oseon during Flamewind.”

  As if to underline the Administrator Senior's words, lightning flared briefly outside the window, washing the colors from every object in the room. The flash subsided.

  “Nonetheless, I am required to instruct you to take this pair of law-enforcement officers to Oseon 5792, the home and estate of Bohhuah Mutdah, so that they may make their arrest.”

  Lando shook his head. “I don't get it. Why not just-”

  “Because, my dear Captain, it seems he must be caught in the act. His enemies lack sufficient evidence at the moment, and even they dare not move without it. You are the goat because of your avocation as captain of a tramp freighter. It must appear that you are taking him his regular shipment of the drug; apparently he supplies himself every year under the cover of the Flamewind, and-”

  Lando stood up suddenly. “Now wait just a minute, Admin-”

  The bureaucrat slammed his large hands down on the arms of his chair. “You wait a minute, Captain! I have no latitude in this; my instructions are clear, detailed, and unavoidable. We will provide you with a large amount of lesai, which has been seized from Mutdah's regular connection. You will make transit to the next Belt inward, to the particular rock owned by Bohhuah Mutdah, and sell him the drug. You will be observed doing so by Officer Waywa Fybot and Oseon Peacekeeper Bassi Vobah, who will then seize both drug shipment and payment and take Mutdah into custody. That is how it has been ordained; that is how it shall be done.” Doluff subsided once again and took two or three deep breaths.

  Lando sat quietly for a moment, thinking, then asked a question. “All right, so we're boxed in, if I'm to believe your word. But - well, I've won rather a deal of money here in the Oseon in the last few days, nearly two hundred thousand creds. I can anticipate that it would suit certain interests if I'm arrested in the same illegal exchange, wouldn't it?”

  A predatory gleam became visible in Bassi Vobah's eyes.

  Lob Doluff, on the other hand, simply smiled sadly. “Lando, we already have you on the weapons charge; I repeat, a capital offense. Those whose interests I serve desire that no one besides themselves possess the means of deadly self-defense, and they enforce the rules - or expect me to, which amounts to the same thing - quite severely.

  “Besides, although you have been quite fortunate - no, let us acknowledge your skill - at the gaming table, I assure you that no one you played with, excepting Miss Vobah here, who was appropriately subsidized, will miss so much as a micro of your winnings. We are a wealthy people.

  “However, if it will make you feel more comfortable, you'll recall I offered you an additional assurance of my goodwill in this awkward matter. This is what I had in mind: transport these two individuals and help them make the arrest. In return, I shall see that you take your winnings with you, along with every other item of your property, and you may depart the system directly from Bohhuah Mutdah's estate. He owns a large number of small interasteroidal craf
t, and I believe that the Flamewind may have quieted enough that Bassi, here, and Officer Fybot can make their way with evidence and prisoner back to this place unassisted. Is that fair enough?”

  Lando thought it over, nodded reluctantly.

  “And you, my dear, have I made myself sufficiently clear to you? Should you oppose my will in this, inconvenience Captain Calrissian in any way, I shall expect you to leave the system directly from Mutdah's asteroid, in his place.”

  The policewoman gulped visibly and nodded fully as reluctantly as Lando.

  Once more Lob Doluff frowned at Waywa Fybot. “And as for you, you hyperthyroid whooping crane, should you interfere in my wishes concerning the good captain here, after you have been plucked and roasted, I shall stuff a cushion with your feathers and rest my fundament upon it for the remainder of my life. Do you understand?”

  The bird nodded, adding a third portion to the general grudging atmosphere in the room.

  Doluff folded his hands across his paunch, a satisfied expression on his face. “Very well, then, we are agreed, and everything is settled. By the Center, it is good doing business with a group as straightforward and understanding as you all are. I am feeling extremely fond of the three of you. Shall we see about having lunch, then?”

  IX

  IN THE OSEON System during Flamewind, the inhabitants and their guests have little to do but party and watch the fireworks.

  But even the most spectacular display in the known universe begins to pall after sufficient time, and attending parties has its limits - and its consequences.

  Thus it is an interesting fact of demographics that, although the majority of Oseoni, owing to what is required of them to achieve their high place in the general scale of galactic society, are long beyond childbearing age, yet the human birthrate in the system inevitably jumps every year nine months after Flamewind.

  One reason for the increase is the peril of traveling during Flamewind. The deadly rain of radiation accompanying the display vastly accelerates the decay of electronics that control navigation and life-support equipment.

  Even travel on the surface of an asteroid is dangerous.

  And yet, Lando Calrissian, once resigned to the journey, was anxious to be underway. Freedom in the Oseon, he was discovering rapidly, had its severe drawbacks. There would be no more sabacc games for a variety of reasons: he had effectively cleaned out the available talent, not, so much depriving them of their discretionary funds as convincing them that it was pointless to oppose him at the gaming table. In this he had been, if not directly careless, then overly enthusiastic. It was not a mistake he would have made in less opulent surroundings; he had yet fully to appreciate how much more tenaciously the rich hold on to what they have. Had he been a waitress or a bell-bot, no one would have needed to tell him. The wealthy are notoriously lousy tippers.

  What was worse, given the local standard of living, the fact that there were so many wealthy inhabitants and that the commercial overhead was so high, he was once again watching his money - his winnings - being eaten up. Everything was expensive, from a simple meal in the humblest eatery to the equipment and supplies his ship required for the journey ahead.

  As usual, Lando's luck, both good and bad, was operating at full blast.

  The day after his revealing conference in the Administrator Senior's office, he and Vuffi Raa were bolting down the weirdly shaped seating rack that had been sent over for Waywa Fybot.

  “One more turn ought to do it!” Lando grunted. “I wish there was room for an autowrench in this corner-unh!”

  The head of the bolt had twisted and torn off. This meant they had to undo all the other bolts and move the rack while Vuffi Raa drilled out the broken hardware and removed it for a second try.

  “Master, why is the installation necessary? We could override the gravfield in this part of the ship and let Officer Fybot spend the trip in free-fall. It would be much more comfortable.” Having drilled a hole through the soft metal of the bolt, he inserted a broken-screw remover, the twist of its threads being opposite those of the bolt, and tightened it, turning the offending artifact neatly out of the deck.

  “What, and have his birdseed floating everywhere? Not a chance. Besides, his physiology is supposed to be delicate or something, like a canary's. Don't ask me why they made somebody like that a cop - that would require an assumption that logic functions at some level of government.”

  Together, they moved the distorted chair back into place over the boltholes drilled for it in the decking. Somehow, thought Lando, the parties responsible for this - the final straw of messing up his nice, neat spaceship - would be brought to a reckoning.

  The first three bolts went in perfectly. Again. Lando and Vuffi Raa looked at each other with resigned expressions (Lando reading the little droid's body posture since it had no face), placed the fourth bolt in its hole, and locked the wrench around its hexagonal head.

  “If it doesn't work this time, old power-tool, we're going to send for a big wire cage!”

  Deep within the honeycombed recesses of Oseon 6845, down where enormous pipes the diameter of a man's height conveyed air and water and other vital substances from fission-powered machinery to hotels and offices and stores and other places habituated by human beings, down where no one but an occasional robot made its perfunctory rounds, a meeting was being held.

  “So you came,” a gray-clad figure whispered. The clothing had the look of a uniform, although it was barren of the insignia of rank or unit markings. The face above the stiff collar, below the cap, was young. It was the first officer of the Wennis, lurking in the shadows of a ship-sized power transformer, his voice drowned within a meter or two by its titanic humming.

  The other figure was even less conspicuous, hidden more deeply in shadows, cloaked for anonymity in many yards of billowy fabric. It was taller than the Wennis second-in-command, and stood there silently, acknowledging the greeting with a nod.

  “Good,” the officer hissed. “And do you understand what you are supposed to do when you get to 5792? There must be no mistake, no hesitation. The Administrator Senior has found a legal means of circumventing our intentions in this matter, and it must not work! The orders come from very nearly as high as they can.”

  Once again, the tall disguised figure nodded.

  “All right, then. In return, you will be richly rewarded. Our, er... principal understands the pragmatic value of gratitude. Be sure you understand the consequences of failure.”

  The cloaked form shuddered slightly, but that may have been the cold. Even with the machinery in full operation, there was a chill in the air that converted both their breaths into clouds of barely visible vapor.

  It shuddered again. And it may not have been the cold.

  The gray-uniformed officer departed without further conversation. He was in a hurry. Before he returned to the Wennis, he had another meeting, even deeper in the planetoid's core, and it was not one he was looking forward to particularly.

  Behind him the tall, cloaked figure departed as well, leaving a single, downy yellow feather that trembled in the cold draft along the floor, then was still.

  With understandably mixed feelings, Lando tucked his freshly recharged stingbeam into the waistband of his shipsuit.

  Mere possession of the thing inside the Oseon System was a capital offense, and the manner of execution made hanging, gassing, perhaps even the nerve rack seem desirable ways to end it all.

  On the other hand, he was operating under the direct verbal orders of Administrator Senior Lob Doluff, whose concern for Lando's continued existence, it appeared, was sincere and rivaled only by his desire that Bassi Vobah and Waywa Fybot carry out the mission precisely as the administrator had instructed. Lando's pistol was a small but additional guarantee he had insisted upon.

  On the third hand (Lando looked at Vuffi Raa, whose capable tentacles were flicking switches, turning knobs, and doing other things mandated by the preflight checklist), the Administrator Senior had a
damantly refused to issue the young gambler a written permit to carry the weapon, fearing, perhaps, that his original leverage on Lando would be weakened thereby.

  Ah, well, Lando thought, if things went according to plan (he had no great confidence that they would, being a cynic by inclination and having lived long enough to see his natural suspicions confirmed more often than not), he and Vuffi Raa would be out of the confounded system in a few days, and the whole issue would be irrelevant. He had taken some pains of his own to assure this.

  He intended to take even more.

  As Lando and his mechanical partner warmed things up in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon - illuminated through the forward canopy by the multicolored glare and flash of the Flamewind - their passengers were in the lounge area, each keeping his or her trepidations about the coming voyage to him- or herself. Bassi Vobah, having reluctantly abandoned the psychological protection of her police uniform, sat in a sort of semicircular booth with an electronic table in its center, glumly watching an entertainment tape from the Falcon's meager library.

  It was the saga of some early star travelers, marooned on a harsh and barren world through the failure of their spacecraft during a magnetic storm. At present, the characters were casting lots to determine which of them would eat the others.

  Somehow it failed to elevate her mood.

  Waywa Fybot was essentially a bird in his anatomy and physiology, although no more bound by the characteristics of such creatures than are men by their fundamental origins.

  While he was nervous, he could remind himself that what he was about to endure was in the line of duty, what Emperor and Empire expected of him, and consistent with future promotion and increases in salary. While he felt murderously angry at the local administrator who had verbally savaged him (Fybot's own people had plenty of snappy remarks applicable to mammalian species in general and simian ones in particular, but Doluff's office hadn't seemed the place to trot them out), the prospect of bigger game and future rewards helped him smooth his ruffled feathers.