Scoundrels

by Timothy Zahn

  Or he could just pocket the credits. But that really would be too much to hope for.

  Still, Dozer had two other guards on his list to follow home as their shifts ended. Maybe one of them would be gracious enough to accept the bribe.

  Hopefully, none of them would be discourteous enough to shoot him in the back.

  Sheqoa had never liked the Festival of Four Honorings. Even as a kid he’d found the spectacle too long, the venues too crowded, the food too weird, and the shows alternating between bombastic and boring. As an adult, he’d learned to enjoy some of the food and, even more, some of the drinks. Still, he’d continued to find the shows long and predictable.

  As head of Marblewood security, he’d learned to utterly hate the event.

  He understood why Villachor liked to host one of the celebrations. It raised his status among Wukkar’s upper echelons, which in turn brought more unsuspecting flies within range of Black Sun’s webs. The Festival also provided perfect cover for clandestine meetings with those flies who were already trapped, as well as giving anonymity to potential new contacts with arms dealers, smugglers, and spice merchants. If the price for all those meetings had been merely the cost to feed and entertain a sizeable fraction of Iltarr City’s population, he would have considered it credits well spent.

  But the food and fireworks were only the snowy crest of the mountain. Having crowds of unwashed citizens wandering around the grounds strained Sheqoa’s security forces to the limit. The oblivious or drunk pounded on locked doors, tripped over furniture, damaged serving droids, and sometimes started fights. At least once per festival his men had to roust a pickpocket or two and relieve various thieves of items both valuable and petty.

  It was an extra strain and cost that Villachor never considered. And it was a cost that, if Sheqoa did his job properly, Villachor shouldn’t even notice.

  Except this year. This year was grimly, darkly different.

  The mysterious glitterstim merchant. The cryodex man. The flash bomb incident outside Aziel’s suite at the Lulina Crown Hotel. The still-unexplained firefight at the half-abandoned Golavere Industrial Complex, which might or might not have had something to do with one of the other three.

  And now, just earlier this afternoon, the bizarre attempts to bribe three of his men.

  It was Qazadi’s fault, of course. Sheqoa had no doubts on that score. Whether the Falleen and his entourage had done something directly to cause all this chaos or whether their mere presence had sparked it was largely irrelevant. Either way, Qazadi was still the focal point.

  And so, as he had most of the previous nights, Sheqoa had drifted off to sleep with unfriendly thoughts of Qazadi and his people floating through his mind.

  Which, he dimly supposed, made it only fitting and proper that Qazadi’s face was the first thing he saw when he was jolted violently out of that same deep sleep.

  “You will be silent,” Qazadi said, his voice soft and yet utterly vicious as Sheqoa’s hand reflexively tried for the blaster under his pillow. A wasted effort; his arms were already pinned solidly to the bed. “I will ask questions. You will answer them. Or you will die. Do you understand?”

  Sheqoa nodded, a barely perceptible movement of his head that was all he could accomplish with yet another hand entwined in his hair and a blade resting against his throat.

  “Good,” Qazadi said. “Tell me about the two men who came to see Master Villachor yesterday in his vault.”

  “He didn’t—” Sheqoa broke off, fighting to work moisture into his mouth and fighting even harder to keep his voice from shaking with fear. A small part of him recognized that his terror wasn’t real but was being driven by Falleen pheromones. But that knowledge did him little good. “He didn’t take them into the vault,” he managed. “Just to the anteroom.”

  “What did they do there?”

  Sheqoa swallowed, his throat brushing unpleasantly against the knife blade, wondering fleetingly what he could say. Villachor was his superior, and Villachor had ordered him and the others not to say anything about that visit.

  But he had no choice. A lie, or even a half-truth, and his own gushing blood would be the last thing he ever saw. “The visitors claimed they had a cryodex,” he gasped.

  Something in Qazadi’s expression changed. “And did they?”

  “Yes,” Sheqoa said. “Master Villachor had them bring it to him so he could test it and see if it actually worked.”

  “Test it how?”

  Again Sheqoa struggled with his conscience and his orders. But orders were one thing. Death was something else. “He brought a data card from the vault,” he admitted reluctantly. “He wanted to see if their cryodex could decrypt it.”

  Qazadi’s eyes flashed with anger, and Sheqoa braced himself for death. But the blade against his throat didn’t move. “And could it?”

  “Yes,” Sheqoa said. “They decrypted the file of a Houk named Morg Nar on Bespin. He’s supposedly trying to drive out Jabba’s people but is secretly working with him.”

  “I presume you checked this out?”

  Sheqoa started to nod, remembered the knife. “Yes.”

  Qazadi looked briefly at someone outside Sheqoa’s field of view, then turned back. “Tell me about Dorston, Bromly, Uzior, and Tallboy.”

  Sheqoa frowned, trying frantically to figure out what those four particular guards had in common. But he couldn’t think of anything. “Well, the first three had bribes delivered to them this afternoon,” he said, stalling for time. “But Tallboy didn’t—” He broke off as it suddenly hit him. “He was bribed, too?”

  “Possibly,” Qazadi said. “All I know is that the first bribe was sent to him.”

  “I don’t understand,” Sheqoa said. “He never reported it.”

  “Because he never knew about it,” Qazadi said. “At least, not about this particular bribe. Unbeknownst to him, Lord Aziel had appropriated his name for use in various transactions at the Lulina Crown Hotel. The incident six days ago, when the small bomb was thrown at his suite, also involved a messenger delivering what appeared be a bribe to that name.”

  Sheqoa felt his eyes narrow as some of the stranger aspects of that event suddenly became clear. “That’s why you had the investigation halted,” he said. “You didn’t want the bribe part to come out in case Tallboy was actually involved in something.”

  “Correct,” Qazadi said, an edge of unspoken threat in his voice. “And I still don’t want it coming out.”

  “I understand,” Sheqoa said.

  Qazadi’s eyes narrowed as he again glanced briefly away. “But Tallboy himself is of no especial importance,” he said. “The larger question is not which of your guards received bribes and reported them, but which ones received bribes and didn’t report them.”

  “My men are loyal, Your Excellency,” Sheqoa said, again fighting the quaver in his voice. He already knew what happened to people in Black Sun who betrayed their loyalty.

  “I’m certain they are,” Qazadi agreed. “But are they loyal to Master Villachor, or are they loyal to Black Sun?”

  Sheqoa swallowed again. “Surely those loyalties are the same,” he said as firmly as he could.

  “Perhaps,” Qazadi said. “Perhaps not. Now that Master Villachor has confirmed that the strangers’ cryodex is indeed genuine, what are his plans for it and for them?”

  Finally, some relatively safe ground. “He’s leading them on, hoping to learn who they work for,” Sheqoa said. “If he can’t draw them out for destruction, he should at least be able to obtain a spare cryodex for Prince Xizor.”

  “A noble goal,” Qazadi said. “Yet yesterday he had the cryodex in a mansion full of armed men. Why didn’t he take it then?”

  Sheqoa swallowed again before he remembered not to do that. “The cryodex and case were booby-trapped,” he said. “Detonite.” He felt his eyes widen as another piece fell into the puzzle. “That firefight at the Golavere Complex. You were able to get the case open?”

  “No,�
� Qazadi said, and Sheqoa’s already pounding heart picked up its pace a little as the other glared off into space. “I had ordered the services of two of the local police to take Master Villachor’s visitors for questioning. When I learned of the detonite I also brought in Master Dempsey.”

  So that was where Villachor’s explosives expert had disappeared to, and why he’d been so nervous and shaken when he returned to his lab in the north wing a few hours later. “Only their friends intervened?”

  “For the first and last time,” Qazadi said, his voice heavy with menace. “The only question remaining is whether they will die quickly or slowly.” He cocked his head to the side. “Is there anything more you wish to tell me? Others, perhaps, who might be involved in this conspiracy against Black Sun?”

  “There’s a girl,” Sheqoa said. “A human woman. Young, black hair, very—well, attractive to human eyes.”

  “And you think she wouldn’t be attractive to my nonhuman ones?”

  “I’m—I don’t know,” Sheqoa said, hurrying to get off the subject. “She’s attached herself to me, probably hoping I can get her inside the mansion. She says her name’s Katrin, but it’s undoubtedly an alias.”

  “And you believe her to be with the cryodex merchant?”

  “I don’t know,” Sheqoa said. “She might just be a regular thief hoping to rob the mansion. We get some of those at every Festival.”

  “You’ll keep close watch on her.” A faint smile briefly creased Qazadi’s lips. “You’ll see to that personally.”

  “Of course,” Sheqoa confirmed. “Perhaps we should—”

  He broke off as the knife suddenly pressed harder against his throat. “Silent unless asked a question,” Qazadi reminded him coldly. He looked past Sheqoa again and twitched his head in an unspoken order. There was the sound of movement from that direction, a shuffling of multiple feet.

  And out of the corner of his eye Sheqoa saw Villachor step into view, an armed Falleen on either side of him.

  “Congratulations, Master Villachor,” Qazadi said with ironic courtesy. “As you said, your people are indeed loyal.”

  “As am I,” Villachor countered with the same hard-edged courtesy. He was standing stiff and defiant, but Sheqoa could see a sheen of sweat on his face. “And as you heard—again—my goal is and always has been to find out who this Kwerve and Bib are and whom they’re working for. Nothing more.”

  “Perhaps,” Qazadi said, his tone still courteous. “Still, the temptation to take the blackmail files for yourself must be nearly overwhelming. Especially with those files currently accessible only to you.”

  Sheqoa cleared his throat quietly.

  “I believe Master Sheqoa was about to make a suggestion,” Villachor said. “I’d like to hear it.”

  Qazadi considered, then looked down at Sheqoa. “Speak,” he invited.

  The knife eased back a fraction. “I was going to suggest that if Kwerve and Bib are trying to steal the files, perhaps we should simply move them,” he said. “So far, all their activities have been under cover of the crowds at the Honorings. If we move the files tonight, when no one’s watching, any future efforts they might make will be against an empty vault.”

  “Have you a suggestion as to where they should go?” Qazadi asked.

  “Your ship was secure enough to protect them for the journey here,” Sheqoa pointed out. “There’s also Master Villachor’s country estate in Baccha province. The safe there isn’t as secure as the Marblewood vault, but the thieves would never think to look for the files there.”

  “How do you know?” Qazadi countered. “How do you know such a transfer isn’t exactly what they’re hoping for? How do you know they don’t have people already in place at Baccha and Iltarr City Spaceport, waiting for us to deliver the files straight into their hands? How do you know they don’t have people lying in wait outside the Marblewood wall even now for the airspeeders or landspeeders that would take the files away?”

  “I …” Sheqoa looked helplessly at Villachor.

  But Villachor wasn’t looking at him. Villachor was looking at Qazadi. Thinking, measuring, perhaps scheming. Looking for a way to reinstate himself in the Falleen’s good graces.

  Trying to save himself.

  “You make a good and valid point, Your Excellency,” Villachor said. “Until we know the full extent of our enemies’ reach, we can’t afford to make any assumptions.”

  “On the contrary,” Qazadi said. “There are two assumptions we can certainly make. First, they’ve offered you a functional cryodex. Therefore, they hope to lure you into treason against Black Sun.”

  “Which won’t happen,” Villachor said firmly.

  “We shall hope not,” Qazadi said darkly, and again Sheqoa felt his heart rate briefly increase. “Second, we know they’re trying to subvert your security force.” He looked down at Sheqoa. “And that they may have succeeded.”

  Never, Sheqoa wanted to say. But he remained silent. One warning about unsolicited comments was all he was likely to get.

  “Since we can no longer trust your men,” Qazadi continued, “you will immediately withdraw all human guards from the vault. From this point on, only the 501-Z droids will be stationed in that area.”

  Sheqoa felt his breath catch in his throat. That was a terrible idea. The whole point of mixing droids and humans was that potential intruders wouldn’t know which they were facing at any given time.

  SoroSuub claimed their Zeds were impossible to break or deprogram. But nothing in the universe was truly impossible. If Kwerve’s people found out that the vault was guarded solely by droids, they might find a fatal weakness in their mechanism or programming and exploit it.

  From the expression on Villachor’s face, it was clear he was thinking the same thing. But it was also clear that he had no intention of arguing the point. “As you wish,” he said. “I’ll give the order immediately.”

  “Good,” Qazadi said. “The guards can be reassigned to Festival duty. Perhaps a few extra eyes will provide a better view of those who seek to rob us. You did say immediately, did you not, Master Villachor?”

  Villachor’s lip twitched as he pulled out his comlink and gave the night duty officer the order for the guard change. “Will there be anything else, Your Excellency?” he asked as he returned the comlink to its holder.

  “Not for now,” Qazadi said. His eyes flicked down to Sheqoa, back to Villachor. “The Honoring of Moving Water begins in eight hours. You should both get some rest.”

  He turned and strode out of Sheqoa’s view, followed by the Falleen flanking Villachor. A few seconds later, the knife at Sheqoa’s throat and the hands gripping his arms and hair also disappeared. There was the sound of a door opening and then closing.

  And Sheqoa and Villachor were alone.

  Sheqoa looked up at his boss, trying to come up with something to say. If Villachor took Sheqoa’s admissions to Qazadi as a betrayal, he was dead.

  But the words wouldn’t come. And even with Qazadi and the Falleen’s pheromone tricks gone, his pulse continued to pound in his neck.

  Because, down deep, Sheqoa knew his statements to Qazadi were a betrayal.

  Finally Villachor stirred. Sheqoa braced himself.

  “He’s right about the Honoring,” Villachor said calmly. “Go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Without another word, he left.

  Sheqoa took a deep breath, staring at the closed door. Something critical had just happened, he knew. Villachor had come to a decision.

  Only Sheqoa had no idea what that decision was.

  Slowly he rolled over onto his side. Like he was really going to get any sleep now.

  It had been said that there were only three absolutes in life: death, taxes, and bad liquor. But as Lando strolled across the Marblewood grounds, he decided he could add a fourth to the list. When you traveled with a Wookiee, people would move out of your way.

  Of course, Chewbacca’s two-meter-plus height also made the
two of them easier for Villachor’s security men to spot as they moved through the crowds. But then, that was the whole idea.

  Chewie rumbled.

  “Yeah, I see them,” Lando said, making a face. He’d expected the entire Marblewood security force to be on their tail today. He hadn’t expected to find himself also being watched by a pair of Falleen.

  He especially hadn’t expected one of those Falleen to be the would-be interrogator from the factory incident two nights earlier.

  Chewie rumbled again.

  “Don’t worry, they aren’t going to try anything,” Lando assured him. “Not here.”

  Chewie warbled a not entirely confident comment.

  “Sure they’re probably mad,” Lando agreed. “But they want to question us, not kill us. At least not right away.”

  Or so he hoped. The logic certainly tracked, and most of the people Lando had faced across sabacc tables over the years would follow that same line of reasoning.

  But there were species out there who would unhesitatingly pass up profit and vested self-interest in favor of immediate revenge. The Hutts tended that way. Maybe the Falleen did, too.

  Still, they were on Villachor’s grounds, and in the middle of one of his favorite bits of self-promotion. Surely he would keep them in line.

  Which wasn’t to say he and Chewie should press their luck. “Over there,” he said, pointing away from the loitering Falleen. “That hanging waterfall looks interesting. Let’s wander over and take a closer look.”

  Chewie growled.

  “Right,” Lando confirmed with a tight smile. “Looks like there’s a spot right beside those other two Wookiees.”

  “I have to say,” Bink commented as she peered up into Sheqoa’s face, “that you really look tired.”

  “Thanks,” he said dryly. “You look lovely, too.”

  “You’re too kind,” Bink said, smiling cheerfully. She let the smile fade into concern. “But I was being serious,” she continued. “I guess people don’t realize how hard something like this is on the folks who run the show. How long since you’ve had a real night’s sleep?”