"That doesn't mean I know it personally." Dengar stepped closer and peered at the viewport. "I was just re-peating the stuff Fett told me. But that must be the freighter that Prince Xizor gave to it, after the web was destroyed the first time. So ..."
"It's Balancesheet, all right." Boba Fett turned away from the comm unit. "I've heard its squeaky little voice enough times to recognize it." He pressed the transmit button again. "You've got some explaining to do, As-sembler. So presumably there's some accounting for what you're doing in this sector—since there's not a lot of your kind of business going on here at the moment—and why you're so prepared to fire on other creatures before you even know who they are."
"Yeah—" Dengar scowled in annoyance as he wiped some of the dried blood from his face. "Even bounty hunters don't do that."
"Very well," said the high-pitched voice from the comm speaker. "I agree that I owe you an explanation for these otherwise inexplicable actions. And it's in my best interests to give you one; I'd just as soon stay in your good graces, Boba Fett—or at least as far as that is possi-ble for any creature to do—plus I'd regret acquiring a reputation for being, as you might say, trigger-happy. So please, by all means, let us have a conference, as it were. But not like this, over a comm unit; it's so ... impersonal."
"Right," Dengar muttered to Neelah. "Like unloading a few laser-cannon bolts on us was so warm and caring."
"Actually," continued Balancesheet's voice from the speaker, "it would give me great pleasure if you would ac-cept my hospitality here aboard my ship. I am in fact the only living creature aboard it, so I confess to experiencing bouts of loneliness when I'm between business meetings."
"You'll have to bring your ship alongside," said Boba Fett. "Our transfer hatch suffered considerable damage during this little fracas."
"Wait but a moment. And then we'll talk."
Fett reached over and broke the comm unit connec-tion. "Let's get ready to make our visit."
"What?" Neelah stared at him in amazement. "You trust this creature?"
"About as much as I trust anyone. You included."
The last comment caught her by surprise. It wasn't the first time that Neelah had felt his penetrating glance, hid-den by the dark visor of his helmet, penetrate to some re-mote part of her spirit. She wondered if he could somehow discern her thoughts, her secrets—was he aware that she had learned so much of her own past while he and Den-gar had been over in the reconstructed web? There's just no hiding from him, thought Neelah. In any way...
"But we didn't find the answers we were looking for," continued Boba Fett. "We could bring the dead—or at least one of them—back to life, but Kud'ar Mub'at didn't know anything. Or if it did, there's no point in trying to find out now; that assembler is gone for good. It was gone before the laser-cannon bolts hit."
"So you think this former subnode of Kud'ar Mub'at knows something?" Dengar pointed with a thumb toward the slowly approaching freighter, visible in the viewport. "That the old assembler didn't?"
"Balancesheet wouldn't be hanging around in this sector if it wasn't important to him. And the only thing that's here is the past, in the form of Kud'ar Mub'at's web, or what was left of it."
"Not much of that now," said Neelah.
"So Balancesheet is our only lead." Boba Fett headed for the cockpit's hatchway. "So we talk to it."
By the time Neelah had descended the ladder to the Hound's cargo hold, following after the two bounty hunters, the freighter's transfer hatch had sealed onto the exterior hull. She noticed, as they left the Hound, that Boba Fett hadn't armed himself with anything more than he had already been carrying. Then again, she thought, that's quite a bit.
The air inside the freighter smelled sterile and scrubbed by high-filtration recyclers, in contrast to the fetid Tran-doshan odors that lingered about the Hound's Tooth. All of the spaces were less cramped as well; stepping from the transfer hatch, Neelah was able to tilt her head back and look up at the curve of the main container area's up-per limit, far above her. Whatever interior bulkheads the freighter had once possessed, they had apparently been stripped out to make one large enclosed space, spanned with retrofitted control circuits. In that much emptiness, even the brace of laser cannons—Balancesheet must have picked them up from one of the Empire's military hard-ware suppliers—looked small.
And Balancesheet itself looked minuscule. The tiny arachnoid assembler scuttled across the freighter's inte-rior girders and taut wiring networks, its multiple eyes glittering and largest forelimbs raised in greeting. "How delighted I am to see you here!" Balancesheet halted and perched on an eye-level metal ledge near where Boba Fett stood. "Really—it's been too long."
"Not long enough," growled Boba Fett. "I have a real good memory for creatures who steal credits from me."
"Oh, that." The assembler dismissed the comment with a wave of a tiny claw tip. "A different time—and a different situation, my dear Fett. Given the exigencies of your present situation, I'd hardly think it wise of you to go on brooding about such matters."
Neelah glanced over at Boba Fett. Even through the dark visor of the bounty hunter's helmet, the fierce radia-tion of the glare directed at Balancesheet was discernible.
"Especially since you brought more company with you!" Balancesheet tapped its claws together. "Let's not spoil the occasion for them."
It was the first time that Neelah had seen one of the creatures that had been described to her by Dengar. The repulsiveness of its spiderlike form was mitigated for her by its relatively small size; she could have picked it up and held it in the palm of her hand. Well, thought Neelah, maybe both hands. At any rate, there had been uglier— and more immediately dangerous—creatures back in Jabba the Hutt's palace.
"Let me think for a moment..." Balancesheet pointed one of its claw tips at Dengar. "I remember you; one of my predecessor's customers, I believe."
Dengar nodded. "Yeah, I did a couple of jobs that'd been arranged through Kud'ar Mub'at."
"And you survived—that's a credit to your skills. Not everybody in your position did."
"Yeah, well ..." Dengar shrugged. "I didn't get rich from them, either."
"Nobody did," said Balancesheet. "Kud'ar Mub'at was a fool in many ways. You can't do business with creatures as dangerous as bounty hunters and the like, and just keep shortchanging them the way it did. Eventu-ally, all that catches up with you."
Dengar glanced back through a small viewport beside the transfer hatch. Through it, some of the remaining fragments of Kud'ar Mub'at's web were visible, drifting in space. "You could say that, all right."
"You, however ..." Balancesheet turned his bright multiple gaze toward Neelah. "I haven't met you before. But you might be surprised at how much I know about you."
"Maybe not," replied Neelah coldly. "Depends upon how much you know about Nil Posondum. And Ree Duptom. And whoever it was that used your predecessor to hire Duptom to kidnap me and have my memory wiped."
"I see." Balancesheet nodded its small triangular head. "You're a very clever young human female, Neelah— that's what you're called, isn't that correct?"
She hesitated a moment, then nodded in agreement. She had decided to keep a few of her secrets awhile longer, until there was a way of knowing how much the small assembler knew.
"You've come to some interesting conclusions." Balancesheet continued to regard her. "But it might or might not have been the late Ree Duptom who did all those unfortunate things to you." A tiny smile showed on the assembler's face. "Doesn't really matter, though, does it? The effect is largely the same, my esteemed guest."
She made no reply.
"It must be genetic," said Boba Fett. "You've gotten as bad as Kud'ar Mub'at ever was, with all the cheap pleasantries."