"I have other business to take care of," said Boba Fett. That was true. The galaxy was wide, with lots of dark nooks and crannies, remote worlds and even entire planetary systems that could serve as hiding places. And there were always those entities with reasons to hide, either to save their epidermis from Emperor Palpatine's coruscating wrath or to clutch in their sweating hands the meager piles of credits they had managed to pry out of Jabba's coffers. Even with as much "business" as Boba Fett handled, there were still plenty of scraps left for the Guild to dole out to its members, the small stuff that he couldn't be bothered with. But the longer that Kud'ar Mub'at needlessly detained him here, cackling and wheezing at him inside the tangled corridors of its own expanded brain, the greater the chance that some hustling Guild member would be able to snatch some prize bounty away from him. That notion would have infuriated Fett, if any such word of passion could have been applied to the coldly unfeeling logic that dictated his actions. As it was, he let his masked gaze rest upon Kud'ar Mub'at's insectile face like the sharp point of a bladed weapon.
"Pay me, and I won't detain you from your own ...
business."
Everyone in the galaxy knew what Kud'ar Mub'at's business was. There was no other entity among the stars quite like the notorious assembler. If there were other members of its species on some distant planet, covered with skeins and nets of their extruded neural silk, that world hadn't been discovered yet. Perhaps Kud'ar Mub'at was the only existing assembler; Fett had heard rumors, dating back to a time before he'd become the galaxy's most-feared bounty hunter, of Kud'ar Mub'at's predecessor, another assembler of whom Kud'ar Mub'at itself had been a node, a semi-independent creature like the ones that scuttled around this web, dragging their neurofiber tethers behind them. That parent assembler had made the mistake of letting one of its offspring become a little too developed and independent, and had paid the price death and ingestion by the web's new owner, the usurper Kud'ar Mub'at. The assembler is dead, thought Boba Fett with distaste, long live the assembler. Even Hutts, with their monstrous appetites and vicious family rivalries, drew the line at actually eating one of their own clan that they might have beaten out for control of some typically shady enterprise.
With the web, drifting through interstellar space, and its contents had come the assembler's business. Some entity had to act as the universe's go-between and intermediary, especially among all the worlds' criminal elements and those who did business with criminals. If there had ever been a time when there had been honor among thieves, it was long over in this galaxy. Boba Fett had never cheated any of his clients, though he had been forced to kill quite a few. If everybody had held to his standards of business morality, there wouldn't have been any need for an operator like Kud'ar Mub'at. As it was, the assembler took a justifiable percentage for the services he provided, the setting up of deals between murderously inclined entities, the holding in escrow of bounty payments, the transfer of captives to those who had put up the credits for them. The Bounty Hunters Guild worked almost all their jobs through Kud'ar Mub'at; Boba Fett used the assembler when that was the client's preference and the percentage was raked off from the other side and not his own.
"But my highly esteemed Fett-" As Kud'ar Mub'at dangled from the web's ceiling, it rubbed its tiniest and most agile forelimbs together. "It is not entirely a matter of such highly enjoyable socialization that causes me to desire the extending of your visit to my abode. You speak of your own business, which you are naturally in such a haste to attend to. Very well; let us speak of business together. You know me-" The assembler's compound eyes twinkled. "I'm as delightedly happy to talk about that as any other subject. And right now your business and mine once again coincide. Is that not a pleasing hap penstance?"
Boba Fett studied the assembler's narrow face, looking for any clue that would reveal the creature's true intentions, always hidden beneath its oily chatter.
" What business are you talking about?" Usually, any news of a bounty being posted was caught directly by the Slave I's programmed comm scanners. "A private job?"
"Ah, you are so astute." The assembler's forelimbs made little scraping noises, like thin and cheap plastoid shells. "Little wonder that you are such a success in your chosen field of endeavor. Yes, my dear Fett, a very private job indeed."
That interested Fett. Of all the things that Kud'ar Mub'at could have said, that caught his attention more than any other. Private jobs were the cream of the bounty- hunter trade. There were times when clients, for reasons of their own, wanted some fugitive entity caught and delivered with a maximum of discretion. Posting a bounty galaxy-wide effectively eliminated any chance of maintaining secrecy; for the client to get what it wanted, arrangements would have to be made with one particular bounty hunter. More often than not, that would be Boba Fett himself; over the decades he'd built up a reputation for confidentiality as well as effectiveness.
"Who's the client?" It wasn't essential for Boba Fett to know, though it sometimes made the job easier. If it was all being arranged through Kud'ar Mub'at, the client's desire for secrecy might be absolute, without even the hunter knowing who was putting up the bounty.
"Is it one of the Hutts?"
"Not this time." Kud'ar Mub'at displayed his approximation of a smile again. "You and I have done so much business for Jabba and his brethren lately. After I turn over our little friend Posondum to them, I would not be greatly surprised if they decided to tighten their purse strings for a while. No, no; don't say a word-" The forelimbs waved about. "You don't need to remind me that I can hardly deliver anything to anybody until you've been paid. Balancesheet!" The assembler's screech rang down the length of the web. "Get in here! Immediately!"
Kud'ar Mub'at's accountant node carefully picked its way along the fibers and entered the central chamber. Of all of the subassemblies, this was the one that Boba Fett had always found most to his liking-and not just because it was the one that actually handed over the bounties that its parent would be holding in escrow. The crablike Balancesheet, as Kud'ar Mub'at had named its extruded creation, had a laconic, no-nonsense approach to its duties that Fett found similar to his own. He would be sorry- or as much so as he ever was-when Kud'ar Mub'at would determine that the little accountant node had developed as much intelligence as could be allowed.
Balancesheet, like other nodes before it, would be eaten by its parent before there was any danger of independence and mutiny of the kind that had made Kud'ar Mub'at master of the assembler web.
"Boba Fett, current account; balance due ..." The accountant node maneuvered its pliable shell close to his shoulder, extending its eyestalks parallel to the chamber's floor as it made an ID scan of the bounty hunter's distinctive helmet. "Just a moment, please."
"Take your time," said Fett. "Accuracy is a virtue."
Balancesheet said nothing, but a brief flicker in its gaze acknowledged that it and Boba Fett were kindred entities, in spirit if not species.
"Previous balance zero." Balancesheet had finished its show of calculation. "Due upon delivery of one humanoid, designation Nil Posondum, client being the Huttese business front Trans-Zone Development and Exploitation Consortium, the sum of twelve thousand five hundred credits." The accountant node swiveled its eyestalks toward its parent. "Our fee has already been paid by the Hutts. The entire bounty being held is now payable to Boba Fett."
"But of course," crooned Kud'ar Mub'at softly. "Who would deny it?"
The eyestalks turned back toward Fett. "And the individual Nil Posondum is in a living and desirable condition, certain nonessential injuries excepted, as per standard bounty-hunting practice?"
Boba Fett raised his wrist-mounted comm unit to the front of his helmet. A tiny red spark indicated that the link to Slave I's cockpit controls was unbroken. "Open inspection port Gamma Eight." That port allowed visual access to the cages in his ship's cargo hold. "Perimeter defenses on standby."