Scoundrels

by Timothy Zahn

  Still, Chewbacca was on it, and the Wookiee had never let Han down yet. Han wasn’t expecting this to be the first time.

  The others had plenty of work of their own to do. Kell set up an explosives shop in the room next door to the twins’ and spent the three days creating charges of various sizes and shapes. Zerba busied himself with the quick-change tear-away outfits Han had commissioned from him, with frequent breaks to rest his eyes and practice his sleight of hand. Eanjer, in contrast, had little to do but wander around the suite, ask questions, and otherwise make a nuisance of himself.

  Lando and Han spent most of their time in the conversation room, staying out of everyone else’s way and reading through the ever-increasing volume of material Rachele was able to pull up on Villachor, his staff, his mansion, and the people he most often dealt with, many of whom were probably also associated with Black Sun.

  At times Han found the sheer amount of data a little overwhelming. Villachor had his fingers in practically every aspect of life in Iltarr City, with half the police and probably more than half the governmental officials apparently ready to drop everything at his command. It was a sobering confirmation that the team had set up shop in the middle of seriously hostile territory.

  Lando, typically, didn’t seem bothered by that. Possibly, as a gambler, he was more used to facing tables full of enemies. Possibly he was just better at hiding his uneasiness. He went through Rachele’s data quickly and methodically, occasionally making comments about some particularly insightful or useful bit of information. Sometimes he experimented with various accents he thought might serve him when he finally met Villachor face-to-face.

  It was a little irritating to see him so calm, but Han had to admit that maybe Lando had the better take on things. Jabba and the other Hutts weren’t all that different from Villachor and Black Sun, except that their influence was more or less open and obvious instead of being buried in a maze of underground roots. Han had survived Hutt intrigues and animosity. He could get through whatever Villachor threw at him, too.

  Dozer was the main exception to the others’ general stay-at-home pattern. From the first time Tavia sent him out for some fresh power cells, he settled into the role of unofficial messenger boy, fetching everything from detonator components to fresh medseal bandages for Eanjer to Rodian carryout one evening when Zerba suddenly had an overpowering craving.

  Rachele joked once that he was spending more time outside the suite than inside, and wondered aloud if she could get a discount for his part of the rental fee. It was an exaggeration, of course, but everyone had noticed that Dozer was often gone for hours at a time, tracking down his current objective.

  Han just hoped none of them suspected the real reason for the man’s lengthy absences.

  And as they worked, Villachor’s grounds far below were in the process of being turned into something that was half street fair and half exhibition grounds. From the sky, the displays and pavilions beckoned with the promise of a return to Old Republic magnificence.

  From the ground, they more than delivered.

  “This is amazing,” Bink commented as the group walked along the drive toward the mansion. “I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve been everywhere.”

  “This is just the first day, too,” Kell reminded her, sounding even more awestruck than she was. “Who knew there were so many ways to move rock and dirt?”

  “Stone,” Dozer corrected dourly. “It’s the Honoring of Moving Stone.”

  “Rock, stone—same difference,” Kell said, still looking around.

  “No, one is correct and the other isn’t,” Dozer insisted. “You want to sound like a wide-eyed tourist?”

  “We are wide-eyed tourists,” Lando pointed out calmly. “So are probably half the people here.”

  “If not this bunch, then the ones who’ll be here later,” Han agreed, looking at the streams of people on both sides of them. It was barely midday, with the event not even officially supposed to open for another two hours, and already hundreds or even thousands of people were here, with more streaming through the gates, all of them staring and oohing with the same amazement as Bink and Kell.

  To be honest, Han couldn’t blame them. Overhead, miniature solar systems drifted through the air, their planets, moons, and asteroids moving swiftly or lazily around their glowing suns. Some of the systems had tiny, sparkling ships moving through them, and occasionally one would flicker as if jumping to lightspeed and reappear in a different system dozens of meters away. Alongside the road, tethered near clumps of sculpted trees, were twisting sand tornadoes, their tall funnel shapes spinning with carefully confined fury. Farther away, he could see the cones of something Rachele had called cold-lava volcanoes, which seemed to erupt randomly, with even more violence and harmless ferocity than the tornadoes.

  Han had seen more impressive sights in his travels around the galaxy. But seldom had he seen a display delivered with this kind of flair. It was easy to get caught up in the glitz and the carnival atmosphere.

  It was a lot easier to resist the pull when he remembered that the whole thing was funded by blood credits.

  “Fine,” Dozer growled. He, at least, was in no danger of getting caught up in the spirit of the Festival. “Whatever. I just want him to show a little dignity. You know—dignity?”

  “Sorry,” Kell said, his earlier excitement noticeably muted.

  Han looked sideways at Lando. The other looked back and gave a small shrug. Dozer hadn’t wanted to come to Marblewood with them this morning. But at the same time he’d refused to be left behind.

  “There’s one,” Bink said, nodding to the side.

  Han looked in that direction and saw a droid standing motionlessly beside the road, probably put there to give directions or advice to first-timers. Unlike pretty much every other droid Han had ever seen, this one was wearing clothing: a long, stone-patterned gown with leggings down to its feet and sleeves and even loose gloves on its hands. Its head was covered with a draped cowl that had holes for the eyes and mouth and no other openings. It looked for all the world like a pile of rocks that just happened to be stacked in the shape of a droid, which presumably was the whole idea.

  “Impressive,” Lando murmured. “Slightly ridiculous, but still impressive.”

  “I can’t wait to see the outfits for the Honoring of Moving Air,” Bink commented. “Something flimsy and airy, no doubt. Rachele’s right—there’s not a chance of figuring out what kind of droid that is through all that.”

  “From the shape, I’d guess it’s either an SE 4 or SE 6,” Kell said. “Its voice might give us a clue. You want me to try that?”

  Dozer snorted. “Yeah, good luck,” he said, craning his head to peer over the crowd. “I can see at least a dozen droids right from here, and that doesn’t even count the servers at the pavilions and whoever’s stoking the volcanoes and geysers. You want to play question-the-Quarran with all of them?”

  “Let’s just stick to the plan,” Han said.

  “So what’s our timing here?” Lando asked. “I assume we’ll want to mill around a little and take in the sights before we make our respective moves?”

  “Sounds good,” Han agreed. “The minute you move on Villachor you’ll be at the center of attention. Might as well use our anonymity while we’ve still got it. Let’s take an hour, get the lay of the land, and then get to work. And remember that some of those floating planets up there are probably cam droids. Play everything like you’ve got an audience, because you probably do.”

  “And keep an eye out for Villachor,” Lando added. “There’s no guarantee he’ll be out and about this early. If he doesn’t show, this whole trip will be for nothing.”

  “I don’t know that I’d call it nothing,” Bink said, sniffing at the air. “There are still the food pavilions.”

  “Mind on the job, Bink,” Han admonished. “One hour. And watch yourselves.”

  Marblewood’s guest suite complex took up nearly a third of the top floor
of the mansion’s northeast wing and was equipped with all the finest amenities and décor that the Empire had to offer. In many ways, it was more magnificent even than Villachor’s own suite, since Villachor’s was intended merely for comfort while the guest suite was designed for comfort and to impress its occupants. The suite had played host to dozens of officials and Black Sun colleagues over the past eleven years, and by all accounts it had succeeded admirably in both goals.

  But up to now, none of Villachor’s guests had been so impressed by the suite that they’d refused to leave it.

  As usual, there were two Falleen guards flanking the suite door when Villachor arrived. “Sector Chief Villachor, requesting an audience with His Excellency,” he announced formally as he came to a halt a couple of meters away.

  “The purpose of the audience?” one of the guards asked.

  Villachor suppressed a snarl. It was the same arrogant and demeaning challenge he’d put up with for three straight days now. Yes, Qazadi was a vigo, but there was still no call for a simple bodyguard to talk to a Black Sun sector chief with such obvious lack of respect. Not even when the bodyguard was one of Prince Xizor’s precious Falleen. “I want to invite His Excellency to the presentation balcony for the Festival’s grand opening ceremonies later,” he said between clenched teeth. “He’ll have a much better view of the geyser eruptions from there.”

  The guard pulled a comlink from his belt and spoke briefly into it. There was a reply, and he returned the device to its loop. “His Excellency thanks you for your offer,” he relayed. “He believes he can observe the events of the Honoring of Moving Stone quite adequately from his own balcony.”

  “I see,” Villachor said, managing with a supreme effort to keep his voice civil. “Please thank him for his time and consideration.”

  Sheqoa was waiting by the turbolift where Villachor had left him. “Will he be coming, sir?” the security chief asked.

  “No, he will not,” Villachor bit out. “He apparently has no interest in anything except his own room and his own people.”

  Sheqoa gave a small grunt. “Maybe he doesn’t have any interests,” he said, “but his people sure do. Dorston and his patrol caught two more of them last night, this pair in the kitchen.”

  Villachor swallowed a curse. Qazadi’s guards had been all over his mansion in the past three days, poking their noses and fingers everywhere. There’d already been several tense confrontations between them and Sheqoa’s people, one of those altercations nearly reaching the point of drawn blasters.

  And like Qazadi’s self-imposed isolation, the skulking and prying had started the same night Crovendif had brought in that mysterious glitterstim sample.

  “Did they say what they were doing?”

  “Just that they wanted to look around,” Sheqoa said. “But I think there was more to it than that. He said they were in the east-central end, near the dumbwaiter, and that one of them had a sensor probe with him.”

  Villachor scowled. The dumbwaiter was a leftover of the previous owner’s time in the house, a narrow vertical lift shaft for carrying food or other items from the first-floor kitchen level to the fourth floor, where the basket or tray could be transferred to one of two horizontal conduits that led to either the main guest suite or Villachor’s own master suite in the southeast wing. Apparently the owner had wanted a way to have meals delivered without having to open his door to servants or droids. “What were they doing with the probe?”

  “I don’t think they’d actually started anything yet,” Sheqoa said. “As usual, they claimed that the freedom of movement you gave Qazadi also applied to them.”

  “Of course they did,” Villachor said. It was a molecule-thin excuse, and he and Sheqoa both knew it.

  But there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Qazadi had to be given the run of the mansion—he was a vigo, after all. And once he’d been granted that autonomy, there was no way Villachor could restrict his bodyguards without looking petty or suspicious.

  If there was one thing Villachor knew for certain, it was that petty and suspicious weren’t labels he could afford to have attached to his name right now.

  “I want the nighttime patrols doubled,” he ordered Sheqoa. “And put an extra guard in the kitchen, somewhere where he can watch both the pantry and the dumbwaiter. With all the food prep we’re doing for the Festival, we should have another man down there anyway.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sheqoa said. He didn’t sound any happier about the situation than Villachor felt, but it was obvious he didn’t have any better ideas or suggestions.

  “After you do that, I want you to get in contact with that street manager, Crovendif,” Villachor continued. “I want him here, every day of the Festival, wandering around and keeping his eyes open. If the glitterstim peddler shows up, I want him.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sheqoa said again. “Whenever you’re ready to go outside, Tawb and Manning are waiting at the west portico.”

  Villachor glanced up through one of the skylights as one of the floating solar systems drifted past. He wasn’t all that excited about going out there right now, out among the simple and stupid, forced to smile and chat with hundreds of his fellow Iltarr City citizens and pretend he actually cared that they existed. Especially not in his current mood.

  But the new Minister for Trade Relations would be dropping by in less than half an hour. Villachor needed to be on hand to greet him, casually invite him into a more quiet, more private room inside the mansion, and explain to him the true realities of government service on Wukkar.

  “I’m ready,” he told Sheqoa. “You’d better get out there, too. This is one year we don’t want any problems or incidents.”

  “Understood, sir,” Sheqoa said grimly. “Don’t worry. There won’t be.”

  As usual, the crowds had already started streaming onto the grounds, even though most of the other Festival venues around the city and the planet weren’t even open yet. But despite the numbers and the fact that the food service was really only now beginning, the crowd seemed happy and polite. As each visitor or group spotted their host approaching they stopped their activities or conversation, offered nods of respect or gestures of thanks and good cheer, then courteously moved aside to make way.

  Sheep, every single one of them. But at least they were polite and friendly as Villachor and Black Sun stripped the wool and flesh from their bones.

  He’d made his first circuit around the inner yard and was following the fresh stream of people heading toward the food pavilions when Tawb stepped close and touched his arm. “Sir?”

  “What is it?” Villachor asked, exchanging nods with a Koorivar wearing a merchant’s cowl and making a mental note to have someone check on the alien’s status and travel plans. Many Koorivar traders also engaged in weapons smuggling, and Villachor could always use another such pipeline.

  “I just had a report from one of Master Qazadi’s guards,” Tawb said, lowering his voice. “He thinks he’s spotted the man from Quickline Courier Service who was at Lord Aziel’s suite during the Lulina Crown incident.”

  “Really,” Villachor said, frowning. The morning after the incident Aziel had told him that he was convinced the courier had been an innocent bystander. So why were Qazadi’s people watching for him? “Where is he?”

  “Near the northwest pavilion and volcano.”

  Which was also the closest public display to the mansion’s north wing entrance. Coincidence?

  Actually, it probably was. The cold-lava volcanoes were already proving to be a crowd-pleaser, and that particular pavilion was the one serving white sausage, a favorite of many of the locals. Certainly a common courier’s presence here was nothing to raise eyebrows—one of the grand traditions of the Festival was that it was open to royal family and lowly worker alike.

  Still, Villachor had no intention of taking any chances. “Have security keep an eye on him,” he told Tawb. “No approach or detain, just observation.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tawb said, an
d as he drifted back toward his guard flank position, he was already speaking quietly into his comlink clip.

  With an effort, Villachor put his smile back in place. Qazadi and Aziel were playing some kind of game under the table—that much he was sure of. Whatever that game was, he was determined to cut himself in. Whether they wanted him in or not.

  Dozer was eyeing the white sausage at the blue-topped food pavilion, wondering if Solo’s orders to look around could be stretched to include a proper tasting tour of the grounds, when he realized he was being watched.

  The first signs were subtle, as such things usually were. There was a glance from a hard-faced man that lingered just a bit too long. Another hard-faced man loitering near the pavilion looked in Dozer’s direction, then turned away, his lips moving as if he were talking to himself. One of the two uniformed security men standing by the mansion’s main entrance, who were probably there just for show, nudged his partner and nodded in Dozer’s direction.

  Dozer had been spotted.

  With an effort, he forced himself to continue his casual wandering, his heartbeat thudding suddenly in his ears. He’d been spotted, but what did that mean? Were Villachor’s men looking for an opportunity to sneak him out of the crowd and haul him inside for interrogation? Maybe even to face Lord Aziel again? He’d survived Aziel’s last questioning purely through luck, Rachele’s skill at creating cover stories, and the fact that Aziel had already been convinced of his innocence before they began their little chat. There were no guarantees that he’d get off so easily the next time around.

  Steady, he cautioned himself. For starters, there was no reason a lowly courier company employee shouldn’t be here. In fact, there were probably dozens or hundreds of Iltarr City citizens Villachor and his men knew by name or sight or reputation on the Marblewood grounds right now.

  For another, this was a happy, cheerful planet-wide festival. Surely Villachor wouldn’t do anything to wreck the mood until and unless he had some solid evidence that Dozer was up to mischief.