Slave Ship (star wars)

by K. W. Jeter

  The Trandoshan's musings turned bitter. Real sweet. . . Bossk nodded slowly. Until Boba Fett screwed it up. Not for himself-but for the Bounty Hunters Guild. And worst of all: for Bossk.

  "You seem pensive," commented Kud'ar Mub'at, nesting across from where Bossk sat." And so unfortunately melancholy. How that grieves me! Perhaps it would be better if we let the past be the past. And let go of those thorny memories that impinge upon the tender flesh of our bosoms."

  "Easy for you to say," growled Bossk. As far as he could tell, nothing was poking at the assembler's globular abdomen hard enough to draw blood. Whereas he could just about taste his own, filling his mouth. It was in Kud'ar Mub'at's nature to have profited from the debacle that had befallen the Bounty Hunters Guild; Bossk wasn't exactly sure how the assembler might have gained from it, but he was sure that it had happened. No wonder the spidery creature could be so gracious; it was doing all right, as it always had. But for himself and the Guild. . .

  Properly speaking, it wasn't even" the" Bounty Hunters Guild; not anymore, at least. That was more of Boba Fett's doing, the tragic result of having let him into the Guild in the first place-a perfect example of how senile old Cradossk had gotten, for him to have fallen for that gambit. Bossk had been suspicious of Boba Fett's intentions from the beginning. And his suspicions had turned out to be accurate: the outcome of Fett's joining the Bounty Hunters Guild had been to split the organization into two, neither one of them as powerful as the original, and both factions locked in combat with each other. One faction-the True Guild, as it called itself-was led by the elders that had been the original Guild's governing council behind Bossk's father Cradossk. The other faction was primarily made up of the younger Guild members, who had chafed for so long underneath the increasingly slow and inept leadership of the bold bounty hunters, and who had seized upon the internecine turmoil created by Boba Fett as their chance to break away and form a new organization.

  Bossk had thrown his lot in with the latter group, the Guild Reform Committee. It was a committee in name only; group leadership had ceased upon the Trandoshan's assumption of its chairman position-now it was more of an efficient and brutal one-creature dictatorship, the exact image of what he had always intended the original Bounty Hunters Guild would become when his father Cradossk died. And it will be, Bossk had vowed. There was no room in the galaxy for two rival bounty hunter organizations; one of them would have to be exterminated. When that was taken care of-and Bossk had already set into motion his plans for accomplishing that particular task-then the Committee would resume the name of Bounty Hunters Guild. The one and only. . .

  He had already removed a few personal obstacles to his control of the committee; if the bodies of some of the younger bounty hunters turned up in deliberately conspicuous places, it only served to illustrate the consequences of objecting to Bossk's one-creature, top-of-the-food-chain management style. And if some-quite a number, actually-of the Guild Reform Committee's rank-and-file decided that it was safer to go over to the old, stodgy True Guild, then Bossk considered it no great loss to his organization. Or to his plans. Who needs them? Bossk had long ago decided that it would be better to have fewer bounty hunters on his side, as long as they were also the tougher and more bloodthirsty and credits-hungry ones.

  That had been the problem with the old Bounty Hunters Guild, one that he wasn't going to repeat when he had finished his campaign to take over and install himself as the head of what should have been his rightful inheritance all along. There had been just too many bounty hunters in the original Guild; sheer numbers had kept individual profits down, as well as making the whole organization slow and inefficient. It was small wonder that a private, non-Guild operator such as Boba Fett had been able to steal all their action. And even less of a wonder that when Fett had applied for membership in the Bounty Hunters Guild-and had been accepted by that fool Cradossk and his council of advisers-he had been able to split the organization into fragments in hardly any time at all. Those other Guild members, brooded Bossk, they just weren't up to Boba Fett's speed. They had fallen for Boba Fett's smooth line of talk-all that business about what the future was going to be like, and how they all had to work together-and they had suffered the consequences. The old Bounty Hunters Guild had been the only place where some-or even most-of those types had been able to survive. . . and without it, they were dead meat.

  There weren't many, out of the number that had gone over to the True Guild faction, that Bossk wasn't going to let back into the reconstituted Bounty Hunters Guild. He had other plans for them, and their names on a list that he kept securely locked inside his head. Before it was all done, there would be quite a few corpses showing up in places where the right creatures would find out about them. Some might get dumped in the unlit doorway of the Mos Eisley cantina, back on that hole of a planet Tatooine. The silent bodies of onetime bounty hunters would serve as an effective message to all concerned: that Bossk was in business, and in charge of that business. All the galaxy's creatures-whether they were underlings of Emperor Palpatine or criminals in league with Black Sun, Huttese independent operators or members of the Rebel Alliance-if they wanted to do business with the Bounty Hunters Guild, they would have to deal with Bossk, and on his terms. And those terms would be rough for them-all of them-and sweet, and profitable, for Bossk. He had already decided that.

  But right now, he had other business to take care of. With an internal push of will, Bossk ended his idle-but pleasant-imaginings. Time enough later, he thought, for all that. After his own plans and schemes had come to glorious fulfillment. There would be a lot of bones added to Bossk's memory chamber-including those of his archrival Boba Fett. That severed skull would be a particularly fine trophy, encased in its dark-visored helmet of a Mandalorian armor. But right now, if all those plans were to bear fruit, Bossk had to attend to his present business, no matter how unpleasant the surroundings. And repellent the creature to whom he had to speak.

  Kud'ar Mub'at's high-pitched voice cut through the last fragments of the Trandoshan's reverie." Please," spoke the assembler," consider yourself under no unseemly obligation to hurry. At least, do not do so for my benefit. As your humble servant, I wait upon your convenience."

  "Yeah, right." Bossk focused his slit-pupiled gaze on the arachnoid squatting across from him, its spidery legs tucked around the pale globe of its abdomen. He was already wondering if there was some

  way to include Kud'ar Mub'at in his plans, so that the assembler's hollowed-out exoskeleton wound up among his other trophies.

  Kud'ar Mub'at watched. . . and approved.

  The assembler's most trusted creation, the accountant subnode named Balancesheet, was doing a good job of handling the Trandoshan bounty hunter Bossk. Balancesheet took care of so many things now; the subnode's responsibilities had expanded far beyond those for which Kud'ar Mub'at had designed it. Simple number-crunching and tracking the ebb and flow of credits in the web's coffers-Kud'ar Mub'at should have known from the beginning, when he had just spun Balancesheet's essential brain matter from the assembler's own neurocortex, that the subnode would eventually turn out this way. It's just like me, thought Kud'ar Mub'at with an unavoidable trace of parental pride. Cold and calculating, and so nicely devious.

  Deviousness was called for, when one had twice as many visitors to the web-and twice as much business to conduct-as a single entity could take care of. Even as versatile and multitasking a creature as the arachnoid assembler had its limits. Plus there were additional difficulties with this particular pair of visitors: much trouble would ensue if either one found out that Kud'ar Mub'at was engaged in talks with the other. Gleed Otondon was here representing the interests of the True Guild, the loyalist faction of the now-splintered Bounty Hunters Guild, and Bossk. . .

  Bossk represents himself, thought Kud'ar Mub'at with an inward, appreciative smile. Any other claim was a useful fiction, both for the Trandoshan and any other creature doing business with him. The Guild Reform Committee's members
might have been fooled, but Kud'ar Mub'at wasn't. Bossk was an ambitious and ruthless individual, much as his father Cradossk had been before advancing age had rendered the elder Trandoshan slow and gullible-and dead, at the claws of his own offspring.

  Using the neural feed from the optical subnode perched in one of the web's smaller chambers, Kud'ar Mub'at viewed Bossk-and itself. The latter was also a useful fiction, though Bossk certainly wasn't aware of it. Some time ago, years or even decades of Standard Time Units, the assembler had shed its external carapace but hadn't discarded the hollow replica of itself. Kud'ar Mub'at had decided there might be other uses for the empty exoskeleton, and had even spun out from itself enough neurofiber and simple muscular tissue to turn its former shell into a controllable likeness of its own physical form. The masquerade was completed when the clever accountant subnode Balancesheet proved itself capable of crawling inside the shell, linking up to the neurofibers' synaptic receptor points, and performing a passable imitation of its creator, the original Kud'ar Mub'at. Right down to my ornate language, Kud'ar Mub'at had judged. Such an apt pupil! The assembler's own calculating nature was tinged for a moment with a warming emotional glow, a phenomenon otherwise unknown to him.

  The simulated Kud'ar Mub'at, the carapace with the subnode Balancesheet inside, made its excuses to the grumbling Trandoshan. A moment later, the real Kud'ar Mub'at felt the tickle of the subnode's consciousness, like a tug on the neurofiber connecting them.

  Well done. Kud'ar Mub'at directed its own thoughts toward the subnode. You have this bounty hunter completely deceived.

  Balancesheet responded with appropriate and becoming modesty. Your praise is unearned. It was easy. He wishes to believe the things he hears. My speaking is but your words in another mouth.

  But nevertheless-performed with meritorious acuity. Kud'ar Mub'at had never lavished such words or thoughts on any of his other subnodes; that would have been like praising one of the compound eyes in the inverted triangle of its head or one of his multi-jointed legs, or any other mere part of itself. For that was all that the subnodes were, mere created extensions of the assembler's self. To make such statements about the little accountant subnode only indicated how different Balancesheet was from the others in the web, and how much Kud'ar Mub'at had come to depend upon it.

  Another emotion, that of anticipated regret, welled up inside Kud'ar Mub'at's chitin-mantled breast. I'll miss it when it's gone. That thought was carefully kept from the subnode. Kud'ar Mub'at had no intention of letting Balancesheet discover the fate planned for it. The assembler had already decided that the accountant subnode's days were numbered, no matter how useful and important it had become. The mere fact that Balancesheet had evolved and taken on such importance, becoming Kud'ar Mub'at's most valuable creation, sealed its doom. Balancesheet already had developed more intelligence and independent volition than all of the web's other subnodes combined-that was why it could handle such a task as imitating Kud'ar Mub'at, from inside the otherwise empty carapace.

  In the far reaches of Kud'ar Mub'at's memory, before it had become the galaxy's leading fixer, arranger, and go-between for the various worlds' criminal and semicriminal elements, it could remember having become just as valuable for the affairs of its predecessor, the arachnoid assembler that had spawned it as a mere subnode. That predecessor had wound up making the mistake that Kud'ar Mub'at had sworn not to repeat, that of letting one of its creations become too intelligent and independent. However valuable and convenient such a node's services might be, they weren't worth the price of eventual rebellion, mutiny, and murder. Patricide might be in the natural order of things for some species, an inevitable segment of the passage from one generation to the next-that was the way it was for Trandoshans like Bossk, from all reports. Whether it was the same for assemblers such as itself, Kud'ar Mub'at had no idea. The only other member of its species that Kud'ar Mub'at had known had been the one that had created it and that it had murdered and consumed in turn.

  Those acts had seemed natural enough-or at least easy and satisfying-when Kud'ar Mub'at had done them. Sometimes though, in the web's dark and silent drifting between stars, in those brief intervals when there was no business to be conducted, the assembler allowed itself to wonder if it might be the exception, an aberration from the natural order. Perhaps its millennia-old predecessor had grown old and tired, and had created and groomed its chosen successor with an innate capacity to rebel, kill, consume, and usurp. Perhaps it hadn't been rebellion so much as fulfillment. The notion didn't bother Kud'ar Mub'at; in fact, it gave the assembler a little glimmer of hope, deep inside itself. Perhaps Kud'ar Mub'at could trust the little accountant subnode named Balancesheet, no matter how smart and independent it had evolved to be; perhaps Kud'ar Mub'at wouldn't have to destroy this most precious and worthy of all his creations, ingest its matter and spin out a new bookkeeping subnode, but one that could never replace dear little Balancesheet. . .

  Kud'ar Mub'at pushed those thoughts away, as it had done so many times before. I can't allow it. Thoughts such as those were not the cold and precise calculations by which it had reached its present position of real if hidden power and influence. Kud'ar Mub'at knew that any emotions, even those directed toward its most faithful subnodes, constituted a trap. A trap with Kud'ar Mub'at's own death loaded into the catch of its spring.

  Better it than me, Kud'ar Mub'at had already decided. Even though the assembler was connected by neural strands to all the web's subnodes, it didn't consider the whole lot of them to be identical with its own precious self. With the viewpoint from the dangling optical node, Kud'ar Mub'at regarded its own shed exoskeleton; the smaller form of Balancesheet, like a miniature version of its creator, was just barely visible, if one knew to look, behind the glossy transparency of the carapace's compound eyes. How sad, thought Kud'ar Mub'at. With intelligence came deceit. It was ever thus, Kud'ar Mub'at supposed, inside the web and throughout that larger galaxy beyond it.

  Nevertheless, the resolve to eliminate the accountant subnode had to be delayed, at least for a little while. Necessarily so, and not out of mere weakening sentiment; at this stage in the complicated plans regarding Boba Fett and the remnants of the former Bounty Hunters Guild, the assistance of little Balance-sheet was still required. Kud'ar Mub'at knew the dangers of the game it was playing. When the pawns on the gameboard were like the Trandoshan Bossk, the results of one's deceptive maneuvers being found out were inevitably fatal, and in the most unpleasant manner possible. Bossk didn't yet know-and Kud'ar Mub'at was determined that he never would-that Boba Fett wasn't the only creature involved in the breakup of the old Bounty Hunters Guild. The scheme hadn't originated with Kud'ar Mub'at either, but had been brought to the assembler by that veritable eminence among plotters and double-dealers, Prince Xizor.

  The Falleen noble was an altogether different type of creature from the so-easily hoodwinked Bossk. Both Falleens and Trandoshans were reptilian species, and equally cold-blooded. But a hot-tempered streak diluted the chill of Trandoshan blood; given the choice between successful scheming and disastrous violence, a creature such as Bossk would always go for the latter option. With Prince Xizor, as with all Falleens, nothing raised the temperature of his moods-the emotions that ran hot in other creatures, whether lust or other violence, were merely tools of Xizor's precise and merciless mind. That was what Kud'ar Mub'at appreciated the most about doing business with him. When Xizor had been here at the web, laying out the scheme against the Bounty Hunters Guild, Kud'ar Mub'at had perceived more than a mere business associate in the Falleen. Xizor at least was a worthy opponent on the other side of the gameboard.

  This one, however

  Another thought leaked into Kud'ar Mub'at's central cortex. A moment passed before the assembler realized the thought wasn't its own.

  This one, came Balancesheet's unspoken words, is too easy.

  Another moment, as Kud'ar Mub'at recovered from its surprise. The accountant subnode's thoughts had broken into Kud'ar Mub'
at's own, entirely unbidden. That had never happened before. And it had been in response to Kud'ar Mub'at's interior musing about the differences between Trandoshans and Falleens. Those thoughts, the contrast between Bossk and Prince Xizor, had not been directed out along the web's neural pathways, toward the subnode hidden inside Kud'ar Mub'at's discarded exoskeleton.

  It was listening, thought Kud'ar Mub'at. To me. And then Kud'ar Mub'at was unable to keep from wondering if the subnode had heard that thought as well.

  Kud'ar Mub'at stilled all its thoughts, creating a perfect silence inside itself. For a few moments, all it did was wait and watch, letting the image from the optical node fill the momentary vacuum of its consciousness.

  What would you have me do now?

  Balancesheet had spoken again, the words forming inside Kud'ar Mub'at's cortex, as real as the assembler's own thoughts. Across from the sheltering carapace, the bounty hunter Bossk sat in the web chamber, unaware of the silent conversation taking place.

  Only a few seconds had passed since the accountant subnode, pretending to be Kud'ar Mub'at, had made its excuses to the bounty hunter Bossk. Given the impatient nature of all Trandoshans, it was probably not a good idea to make him wait much longer. Kud'ar Mub'at regained enough of his internal composure to address the waiting Balancesheet.

  Proceed with the negotiations, spoke Kud'ar Mub'at along the neurofibers connecting him to the subnode. The Trandoshan's confidence has obviously been gained, due to the excellence of your masquerade performance. Kud'ar Mub'at kept the tone of its thoughts carefully unemotional and controlled, suppressing any sign of anxiety or suspicion on its part. If that is easy for you, so much the better.