by K. W. Jeter
"That's your idea of a lead?" Boba Fett shook his head in disgust. "That droid—if it still exists at all—is completely unavailable to us. Once I pulled the data records out of the droid's memory unit and stored them on my ship's computer, I didn't do anything more with the droid itself. When I took over Bossk's ship Hound's Tooth, the one that brought us here, I transferred that in-formation over to its computer. But the original cargo droid was still left aboard Slave I—and that ship is in the hands of the Rebel Alliance now. A Rebel patrol found and confiscated it, where I had abandoned it in orbit above Tatooine." Fett recited the events in his customary emotionless tone, though Neelah knew how great the at-tachment was between him and his own ship. "Whatever contacts I've still got inside the Alliance, they're preoccu-pied right now with other things, like what's shaping up to happen out near Endor. They're not likely to go root-ing around through their storage units for some anti-quated cargo droid found onboard an empty ship. Why should they? They wouldn't know that it might have any value, except as scrap."
"So you have a record of the fabricated evidence against Prince Xizor—an incomplete copy, as it were—but not the fabricated evidence itself. That is a pity." Balance-sheet smiled. "Because if you had the actual evidence, the original that was inside the modified cargo droid, then you might be able to examine and analyze it further, for clues that you didn't have time to find before."
"As I said," growled Boba Fett. "The cargo droid is gone. Lost. It might as well not exist, for all the good it does us."
"Perhaps so. But that doesn't mean that the original of the fabricated evidence, from which you took the information you possess, is lost." The jagged smile on the assembler's triangular face grew wider. "In fact, I know where it is. And it's not in the hands of the Rebel Alliance."
For the first time, Neelah saw something take Boba Fett by surprise. The bounty hunter stepped back as if from a blow, then he peered closer and harder at Balancesheet.
"What're you talking about? It has to be still inside the droid. That's where I left it."
"Let me tell you something more," said the smiling as-sembler. "You and your associates here are not the only ones who are interested in it. Some very powerful forces are searching for that same fabricated evidence."
"Who?" Boba Fett's hand shot toward the smaller creature, as though he were about to seize Balancesheet within his fist. "Who else is looking for it?"
"While you've been making your way here, I've been in contact with my own information sources; that's what I do. I hear all sorts of interesting and potentially prof-itable things. Only this time, I was approached directly by the other party involved; a representative from one of the most powerful men in the galaxy searched me out, to inquire whether I knew the whereabouts of that fab-ricated evidence against the late Prince Xizor, the same evidence that you found aboard Ree Duptom's ship Venesectrix."
"It must have been somebody from Black Sun, then. From whoever took over that organization after Xizor's death—"
"Not at all." Balancesheet gave a slow shake of his head. "From what I've been able to find out, neither Xi-zor nor Black Sun ever knew anything about whatever plot had been cooked up with this fabricated evidence. Besides, even if somebody in Black Sun found out about it now, why would they care? Prince Xizor is dead. Tying him to an Imperial stormtrooper raid on the planet Ta-tooine doesn't mean anything now."
"Then who—"
"Oh, but it gets even more interesting." On the metal ledge, Balancesheet seemed to vibrate with the pleasure of telling so many secrets. "The person who sent their representative here, looking for information about the fabricated evidence's whereabouts, seems to bear a con-siderable hostility toward you, Boba Fett. Or else he sim-ply doesn't want to risk the possibility of you finding that fabricated evidence before he does. Because he's the one who ordered the bombing raid on the Dune Sea, back on Tatooine. The bombing raid in which you yourself came very close to being blown to atoms. You managed to escape—obviously—but I wouldn't say that this very powerful individual has ceased wishing you were dead. And he'd be happy to make that come about, given the op-portunity." Balancesheet, multiple eyes glittering, leaned forward from its perch. "So you should appreciate the fact that I'm betting a lot on our doing business together, Fett. Because I could sell the information about your whereabouts to that other party, for a handsome pile of credits indeed."
"That'd be more efficient, at least," Dengar spoke up. "If all Balancesheet wanted was to eliminate us, it'd be easier to do it that way rather than firing off its own laser cannons." He shrugged. "Maybe the little guy's got a point."
"Maybe." Boba Fett appeared to mull it over for a second. "It all depends upon who this other person is, who not only tried to kill all of us, but is also looking for the same thing we are."
"Fine," said Balancesheet. "I'll tell you, and then you can make your own determination about what to do. The person in question is Kuat of Kuat, the head of Kuat Drive Yards."
Neelah was unable to stifle a gasp of surprise. I know him —the thought jumped unbidden into her mind, com-plete with an image of the powerful Kuat. That faded away as quickly as it came; she blinked and saw Boba Fett glancing in her direction. He said nothing, but turned back toward the assembler on the metal ledge.
"How do you know it was Kuat of Kuat who did all that?" Boba Fett's voice was tinged with suspicion.
"Why would the head of one of the largest engineering firms in the galaxy be interested in fabricated evidence against the late Prince Xizor? And why would he want me dead?"
"Questions, questions, questions." Balancesheet shook its head in mock despair. "They wouldn't be necessary if you trusted me more."
"I haven't stayed alive as long as I have in this busi-ness by trusting other creatures. So just answer them."
"Very well; I know it was Kuat of Kuat who ordered the bombing raid on the Dune Sea, because his represen-tative told me so, on his instructions. Kuat wanted me to be assured of his desire to have you dead, so that I would be confident of getting paid in case I came across any news of your whereabouts. And as to why he'd want you dead, and why he'd be interested in this fabricated evi-dence against the late Prince Xizor—" Balancesheet spread his raised claw tips apart. "Of that, I have not the slightest notion. But it does confirm in my mind that if we had what he was looking for, and given the vast wealth of Kuat Drive Yards at his disposal, we'd be able to force him to pay a substantial sum for it. And let's face it: you and I have considerable experience at bargaining for that kind of thing."
"Then the only problem," said Dengar, "is getting our hands on what he wants."
And what I want, thought Neelah to herself.
"How fortunate then that the fabricated evidence isn't with the Rebel Alliance, but someplace where it can be gotten at instead." Balancesheet's jagged smile almost seemed to split its triangular face in half.
"And also, that your new business associate—myself—knows where it is." The assembler looked back over toward Boba Fett. "We are in business together, aren't we?"
"All right," answered Boba Fett. "We'll work out the split later. After we get hold of the fabricated evidence and figure out the best way to cash in on it."
Balancesheet laughed, a sound like tiny, mistuned bells.
"What's so amusing?"
"It's so paradoxical." One of the claw tips wiped at the largest of the multiple eyes, in another parody of hu-manoid emotional gestures. "You've come all this way, looking for the answers you want, and the only means of getting those answers now is to find this phony evidence against the dead Xizor—and it's back on Tatooine!"
Neelah and both bounty hunters were stunned into si-lence for a moment. She found her voice first.
"Tatooine? How ... how did it get there?"
"Simple." Balancesheet wrapped its forelimbs around itself, the better to contain its growing mirth. "It's been there for quite a while now. You see, when our associate Boba Fett here"—the assembler gestured toward the he
l-meted bounty hunter—"managed, through his impressive personal skills, to chase Bossk off Slave I, the fabricated evidence went with him, inside the emergency escape pod he used to get away."
"And how do you know this?" Boba Fett regarded the assembler with skepticism.
"My friend, you've been out of the loop, this whole time that you've been making the journey to this remote sector. If you were in contact with your own information sources, the way I am with mine, you might have heard an interesting piece of news that's been circulating through some of the seedier watering holes and meeting places of the galaxy. It seems that your fellow bounty hunter is holed up in the Mos Eisley spaceport back on Tatooine, and he has a certain ... item to sell. And he's looking for the right buyer for it. The item is rather unique, as I'm sure you'll appreciate; it's the fabricated evidence against the late Prince Xizor that supposedly linked him to the Imperial stormtrooper raid on a certain moisture farm on that planet. Of course, Bossk's attempts to unload these goods are complicated by the fact that he doesn't know the phony evidence's significance, its real value, or that Kuat of Kuat is in fact trying to locate it. If Bossk knew that, he could sell it in a heartbeat, for a very good price. But alas ... he doesn't know." The assembler's voice filled with a mocking sympathy for the absent bounty hunter. "That's what happens when you try to do things yourself, for which you should have contacted an expert like me."
"Advertise on your own time," said Boba Fett irrita-bly. "So Bossk has got it..." He nodded slowly, mulling over the information. "He must have found the cargo droid when he was aboard Slave I, before I called it down to the Dune Sea to pick us up. And he discovered the fabricated evidence about Xizor inside the droid and removed it, without knowing its significance but hoping that he'd be able to find some way of cashing in on it. I didn't have time to check the storage areas inside Slave I before abandoning it. So it seems I finally underestimated Bossk; I wouldn't have thought he had the native intelli-gence to have discerned any value in that cargo droid's contents."
"And then he must have shoved it inside the emer-gency escape pod." Dengar had managed to keep up with the others' explanations. "Right when you were coming down on him. Either he got lucky with what he decided to grab and take with him, or he's gotten a lot smarter than any of us would've ever have taken him for."
"What does it matter?" With growing exasperation, Neelah looked from one bounty hunter to the other.
"The only thing that's important is that this fabricated evidence still exists. And if we can get our hands on it—" The possibilities had already leapt up in her mind, of finding the answers to the remaining questions about her own past. "Then we might be able to figure out who cre-ated it in the first place, and why they did it, and ..."
"And that person's connection to you, of course." Boba Fett glanced over at her. "Don't worry; that mys-tery might not have the same personal significance for me that it does for you, but it still represents a potential source of profit. That makes it important enough to me."
"So it's back to Tatooine," said Dengar. The notion seemed to cheer him; Neelah figured that was because he would be able to see his betrothed, Manaroo, once again.
"If only it were as easy as all that." The jagged smile had vanished from Balancesheet's face. "But I'm afraid it's not. My poor lumbering freighter, as comfortable a home and place of business as it provides for me, would never reach Tatooine before Bossk found a buyer for the item he's trying to sell."
"So what's the problem? The Hound's Tooth is plenty fast enough—"
"Yes," interrupted Balancesheet, "and it's a marked ship. It's the one vessel in which it would be a dead cer-tainty you'd never be able to reach Tatooine. Or, at least, not alive. Bossk has apparently kept silent about losing his ship to his enemy Boba Fett, but Kuat of Kuat hasn't. After the bombing raid he ordered didn't succeed at kill-ing you off, and after his information sources had let him know that the Rebel Alliance had confiscated the aban-doned Slave I, Kuat was able to figure out that you must be aboard the Hound. So Kuat has put out the word that he wants the Hound's Tooth found and intercepted— and if that means killing whoever's aboard it, so much the better. Which means that there are a lot of bounty hunters looking for it. Given that a great many of them still bear a grudge against you, for what you did to break up the old Bounty Hunters Guild, this is their perfect op-portunity to get paid a substantial pile of credits and get their revenge, all at the same time." The assembler's tri-angular head tilted to one side, regarding Fett. "Ironic, isn't it? You've been the hunter for so long ... and now you're the hunted."
"If I still had Slave I," said Boba Fett, "none of them would have a chance of stopping me."
"But you don't. And Bossk's ship is nowhere near the equivalent of your own, even if you were completely at ease with its weapons systems. The other bounty hunters would pick you off long before you got anywhere near Tatooine. There's probably not much time remaining be-fore one of them finds you here in this remote sector. So it's no longer just a matter of realizing profits, or discov-ering the secrets of some stolen past." Balancesheet's glit-tering eyes took in the others, one by one. "For all of you, it's a matter of survival now."
"Great," muttered Dengar. The lifted spirits he had shown just minutes before had now evaporated.
"We're dead. I knew this was going to happen ..."
"Come, come." Balancesheet sounded almost pitying. "Would I have thrown my lot in with yours if I had thought you were all doomed? I'm a better business-creature than that."
"Then you've got a plan," said Boba Fett. "What is it?"
"Very simple. You just need to find another way to get to Tatooine. That's all."
"Easier said than done. It's a long walk from here."
"No need to, even if that were possible." The jagged smile returned to Balancesheet's narrow face. "I took the liberty of making other arrangements while you were on your way here to my ship. I've been in contact with a cer-tain individual, with whom you've done business before— in a manner of speaking—and his ship is close enough to this sector, so that he can be here shortly."
Boba Fett regarded the assembler with suspicion evi-dent even through the helmet's dark visor. "Who is it?"
"Oh ..." The assembler's smile widened even further than before. "You'll see soon enough ..."
"Well, well." A thin figure had emerged from the trans-fer hatchway, leaving his smaller craft tethered to the exterior of Balancesheet's freighter. From a face with youthfulness sharpened by feral cynicism, his gaze met with that of the helmeted bounty hunter. "Balancesheet told me he had a surprise in store. This is a good one."
"I knew you'd be amused," replied Balancesheet. "For a lot of reasons."
With a cocky swagger, the new arrival approached Boba Fett. "The last time we ran into each other, you just about killed me. I'm still wondering why you didn't."
Fett gazed back at him coldly. "Don't make me start wondering, Suhlak."
"Suhlak?" Dengar studied the youth for a moment, then glanced over at Balancesheet. "As in N'dru Suhlak? You called in a hunt saboteur?"
"Who better?" The assembler's response was mild and unruffled. "He is uniquely qualified for the task we need performed."
"Yeah, but ..." Dengar's expression soured as he shook his head in disgust. "I don't like dealing with this kind of lowlife. It ... it just goes against everything I be-lieve in."
"What?" Neelah turned and looked at the bounty hunter standing next to her. "That's hard to believe. Since when did people in your line of business start getting moral attitudes?"
Suhlak smiled at her. "You'll have to excuse him, lady. But once a bounty hunter, always a bounty hunter. That's his job. And my job is to mess things up for him, and for every other bounty hunter." He made a small, mocking bow. "That's just what I do."
"You see, Neelah ..." From the metal ledge, Balance-sheet gestured toward Suhlak. "The existence of special-ized entities such as bounty hunters has inevitably given rise to other, competing specialiti
es. Such as this young— and very gifted—hunt saboteur. What he does is get cer-tain individuals from point A to point B as quickly and safely as possible; that in itself is not so special. But Suhlak here performs this service for individuals who have had bounties placed on their heads, and whom bounty hunters such as Dengar and Boba Fett are seek-ing to capture. He, in essence, spoils their hunt. You can hardly expect bounty hunters to approve of someone like that."
"Yeah, and like I care." Suhlak leaned his shoulder against a bulkhead and folded his arms across his chest. "They do what they do for credits, and I do what I do for the same. Which brings up the matter at hand. I take it you called me here for a reason, Balancesheet. That rea-son better be a nice, high-paying job."
"I think it's one for which we can offer you satis-factory terms." Balancesheet pointed a minuscule claw tip toward Boba Fett. "Our mutual friend here needs to reach Tatooine as quickly—and as unobtrusively—as possible."
"That's going to be a little bit difficult for him." Suh-lak aimed a smirk in Boba Fett's direction, then turned back toward the assembler. "There's a lot of other crea-tures out there gunning for him. I mean, he wasn't too popular before; now that there's a pile of credits offered in exchange for his hide, his chances have gone way down."
"We're aware of the difficulties," said Balancesheet. "And while of course there's a certain, shall we say, irony that comes with asking a hunt saboteur to assist in con-veying a bounty hunter past other bounty hunters, we still think your services might be useful in that regard."
"Useful?" Suhlak gave a slow nod. "Yeah—and expensive."
"There's a surprise," said Dengar sourly.
"Shut up." Neelah hissed the words at him. "This is the only way we've got."
Suhlak pointed toward Balancesheet. "You mentioned a certain sum of credits when you contacted me."
"Yes—" The assembler nodded. "That was to get your interest."
"Oh, you got it, all right. But now that I see exactly what you're talking about..." Suhlak made a show of reluctantly shaking his head. "I'm not sure it's enough. Given the risks involved, and all. And . . . certain per-sonal issues that have to be overcome."