"And when you do, you'll have either figured out how much you do need me, or I'll be under the protection of Prince Xizor—Black Sun also needs a go-between. Or I'll have some other surprise waiting for you. It doesn't mat-ter; I'm not exactly worried."
"Get worried." The thought of the stolen credits burned deep within Boba Fett's breast. "Get real worried."
"Until the next time," said Balancesheet. "I'll be wait-ing, bounty hunter."
The comm unit connection with the freighter broke off, and silence filled Slave I's cockpit once more. Boba Fett watched as the other ship's thruster engines flared into life, then dwindled into fading, starlike points.
For a moment longer, he gazed out at empty space, his own thoughts as dark and brooding. Then he turned again to the calculations of the slow journey ahead of him...
7
The story ended.
Or at least for now, thought Neelah. She had been sit-ting for a long time with her back against the cold dura-steel bulkhead of the Hound's Tooth's cargo hold. Sitting and listening as the other bounty hunter Dengar had fin-ished his account of Boba Fett's past, and all that had come out of the scheme to destroy the old Bounty Hunters Guild.
"That's it, huh?" She was glad she hadn't had to keep a blaster aimed at Dengar to motivate him to keep talk-ing. Her arm would have gotten tired by now. It had been a long story, though filled with enough action and vio-lence to keep her from getting bored. With one hand she rubbed at the small of her back, then unfolded her legs and stood up. "I take it that Boba Fett got everything sorted out after that."
"Good guess," said Dengar. He rapped his knuckles on the bulkhead behind himself. "Since you've been on Slave I, before we transferred over to this ship, you know it's in fully functional shape now. There were some inci-dents I heard about, though, that happened in the process of getting repaired. And redesigned, from the bulkheads to the engine core." Dengar pointed with his thumb to the cage. "Apparently, Fett decided that he needed bigger quarters for the amount of hard merchandise he was going to be ferrying around—so things had to be shifted around to make room for it. Otherwise, the ladder wouldn't be necessary to get to the cockpit. The whole refitting process took more than just credits, from all reports. And a few other creatures wound up getting killed. But that's not unusual with the way Boba Fett works."
"I'll say." After hearing the story of the war among the bounty hunters, Neelah found it a wonder that any-body who had ever come in contact with Boba Fett was still alive. Creatures he doesn't like, she thought wryly, have a habit of winding up dead. If Bossk, the Tran-doshan bounty hunter that Fett had stolen this ship from, was still alive somewhere, it was a triumph of the same dumb luck that had gotten him out of his previous scrapes with his rival. "Too bad for those creatures, I suppose."
And what about me? She had been warned by Dengar that the story wasn't going to answer all of her questions. It didn't matter how much she had found out about Boba Fett—as if she had needed more confirmation about how cold and ruthless he could be—she still hadn't found out anything more about herself. I still don't know who I am, thought Neelah glumly. Who I really am. All the mysteries, all the questions that repeated over and over inside her skull, were still infuriatingly present. They had been in there since she had found herself in Jabba the Hurt's palace, back on that remote world of Tatooine. Since then, little scraps of the past had slipped into her memory-scrubbed brain, tantalizing pieces of the world from which someone, some dark entity, had abducted her. The only constant, the only link between that past world and this harsh, threatening one in which she was forced to feel her way like a blind creature in a vibroblade-edged corridor, was Boba Fett—of that, Neelah was cer-tain. She could feel it in the tightening of her sinews, the white-knuckled clenching of her fists, that overtook her every time she found the reflection of her face caught in the dark visor of Boba Fett's helmet. Even in Jabba's palace, when she had seen his ominous form across the Hurt's crowded, noisy throne room, Neelah had been certain of the connection between herself and the bounty hunter. He knows, she thought bitterly. Whatever my true name is—he knows it. Her name, her past, all that she had lost. But as of yet, she had found no way of forc-ing him to reveal those secrets to her.
She was beginning to wonder why she had bothered to save his life.
Turning her head, Neelah looked around at the con-fines of the ship's cargo hold. This part of the ship that had formerly belonged to the Trandoshan Bossk was not much different from Boba Fett's own Slave I. Form and function, stripped bare metal, cages for hauling around a bounty hunter's unwilling merchandise. It smelled differ-ent, though; the acrid, reptilian stench curled in her nos-trils with each breath, reminding her unpleasantly of the blood-scented musk that had permeated the stone walls of the fortresslike palace where she had served as a danc-ing girl. And where I would've wound up, she knew, as rancor bait. The same mix of odors from dozens of the galaxy's species, their bodies' exudations and hormonal secretions, that had hung in the palace's close, stifling air, seemed to have penetrated the very metal of Bossk's ship. Slave I had been cleaner and closer to sterile, befitting the cold, precise logic of its owner. A clinical surgery, in its own way, with Boba Fett the doctor that took creatures' spirits apart, the better to convert them into the hard merchandise in which he traded. An involuntary shiver traced Neelah's spine as she saw in her mind's eye the scalpel that lay in Boba Fett's hidden gaze.
"Sorry it didn't do the trick for you." Dengar's voice broke into her thoughts. "But if you didn't know it be-fore, at least you do now. He's not anybody to fool around with. Not unless you don't care whether you live or die."
"I don't have that choice," replied Neelah. "Believe me, if I could have avoided meeting Boba Fett, I would have." She had the notion, unsubstantiated yet by any hard facts from memory, that the life she had led before had been one where bounty hunters, and all the sticky, spirit-corroding evil they brought with them, were on the scarce side. "I could have done without the pleasure of his acquaintance."
"Suit yourself." Dengar had made up a little pallet for himself near the bulkhead where he had sat while re-counting the story about Boba Fett's past. "Now for me, it's a real honor, hooking up with him and all. Being as I'm in the bounty hunter business myself. Not at the same level as him, though." Hands clasped behind his head, Dengar lay down on the thin nest of rags and pack-ing foam. "So for him to ask me to come along as his partner..."
Dengar didn't have to explain anything more than that. Good for you, thought Neelah. Back on Tatooine, in their hiding place below the parched surface of the Dune Sea, Dengar had told her about his hopes of actu-ally quitting the dangerous bounty hunter trade and set-tling down with his beloved Manaroo. The couple had been betrothed for some time, but had put off their mar-riage until Dengar had found some way of getting out from under the enormous weight of debt he carried. Fi-nancially, it had all been downhill for him since he'd quit—at Manaroo's gentle prodding—his previous spe-ciality as a Grade One Imperial Assassin. He was a dif-ferent person now, and a better one—working for the Empire ate away at one's spirit, sometimes fatally so, and he had Manaroo to thank for saving him from that fate. But it still left the mountain of debt that had accumu-lated so swiftly upon his back. Creatures who owed credits in this galaxy, and who didn't pay up, also had a good chance of winding up dead; even with Jabba the Hutt dead, there were plenty of other hard lenders who operated that way. A partnership with the notorious Boba Fett was the best, and maybe only, opportunity Dengar had for clearing his accounts. If, Neelah figured, he doesn't get killed along the way.