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away from Spiker, Gizz's obnoxious second in command. "Looks like the
Q'nithian seat it over here, all stuffed with information."
"What else?" Hamame's partner was equally villainous-
looking; the mucus-lined pleats of his nasopharynx fluttered wetly with each
breath. "That's what these things are for." The mimbrane's tiny legs wriggled
futilely as Phedroi flipped it onto its glistening back.
"Let's see what it's got for us."
Only one of the Q'nithian system's moons had its own atmosphere; it was there,
on deeply creviced fault lines, grinding constantly against each other from
the tidal pull of the moon's captor planet, that the thick clusters of the
mimbrane creatures grew and multiplied like the shelf fungi found on arboreal
worlds. They lived on acoustic energy, absorbing sound vibrations and
incorporating them layer by layer into their own simple bodies. Millennia of
seismic shifts and groans were recorded in the oldest mimbranes, buried
beneath the weight of their overlapping offspring and grown into undulating
masses big enough to wrap around an Imperial cruiser like a shining blanket.
Small, fresh mimbranes had more practical uses. They were the perfect
eavesdropping device, recording into their gelatinous fibers any sounds that
struck the tympanic cells in which the creatures were sheathed.
Being totally organic, they couldn't be detected by the usual antibugging
sweep devices.
Hamame's jag-edged fingertip pressed down on the bulging center of the
mimbrane. The stored energy converted back into sound.
"I heard you mention poor Santhananan's name." The
Q'nithian's familiar squawk spoke the words. "He met a sad demise, I'm
afraid."
"That's right." Phedroi gave a smirking nod. "You had us murder him for you."
"Shut up," said Hamame. "Let's hear the rest." He prodded the mimbrane again.
"Yeah, I'm sure it was tragic." The mimbrane emitted
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Dengar's recorded voice. "What I want to know is, did anybody pick up on his
business?"
The two thugs listened to all of the deal that had gone down between Dengar
and the Q'nithian. "Now, that's interesting." Hamame leaned back on his side
of the booth. "That Q'nithian is a sneaky type, but he's earned his keep with
this bit." On the table between him and
Phedroi, the mimbrane was now perfectly flat, all the stored acoustic energy
drained from its cells. "So Boba
Fett's still alive."
"That's one tough barve." Phedroi gave an admiring shake of his head, the
coarse and dirty ringlets of his beard scraping across his tunic collar. "You
just can't kill him. If falling down a Sarlacc won't do the trick, then what
will?"
Hamame reached inside his jacket and pulled out his blaster. He pointed the
muzzle up toward the cantina's ceiling. "This will."
19
It had taken a long time for him to come into his own. To receive, to possess
all that should have been his from the beginning. To be known as the toughest,
hardest, most feared bounty hunter in the entire galaxy . . .
Bossk leaned back in the pilot's chair of the Hound's
Tooth, savoring the pleasures that came with success.
Mingled with a simmering anger that never completely ebbed from the essence of
a Trandoshan; he folded the claws of both hands across the scales of his chest
and gazed slit-eyed at the stars visible through the viewport. Too long, he
brooded; too long a time. If all the creatures on all those worlds had had any
sense, they would have recognized him as the best. The absolute best.
Instead-and this brought the fire inside him to a hotter pitch-he'd had to
wait until Boba Fett was dead.
And that had been much too long in coming.
A thread of regret mingled with the other emotions.
He would have liked to have killed Fett himself, torn out his competitor's
throat with one roundhouse sweep of his claws. Or to have focused the
crosshairs of a blaster rifle's sight upon that nar-row-visored helmet, then
pressed the firing stud and seen Boba Fett's masked visage replaced by a quick
explosion of blood and bone splinters ...
Bossk slowly nodded. Now, that would have been a real pleasure. And one that
he would have deserved to savor, just like the taste of Fett's blood leaking
between his fangs, after having suffered so many humiliations at the hands of
that sneaking, underhanded barve.
Some of the anger was replaced with self-pity. There
were so many things of which he had been cheated in this life. The leadership
of the Bounty Hunters Guild-that should have been his as well. Now it could
hardly be said that the Guild existed at all. Granted, a lot of personal
satisfaction had come with killing old Cradossk, his father-that was the sort [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]