"That was clever of him." As with the rest of the story that Bossk had just related, Boba Fett feigned hearing it for the first time. "But it also means that the Shell Hutts aren't going to let go of him for a good long time."
"Damn straight," agreed Bossk. He tapped a single claw against Boba Fett's chest. "It's not going to be easy, prying him out of their hands. That's why the bounty hunters aren't going out one by one to try and pull off this job. It's going to take a team to nail down this piece of merchandise."
Fett had been expecting this as well. "Are you making me an offer?"
"Maybe." Bossk pulled back, taking another scan around the chamber and toward the rough-hewn door. "Let's face it things have been pretty tense around here since you showed up." The Trandoshan's slitted eyes bored fiercely into the dark visor of Fett's helmet. "There's a lot of talk going on, from the old guard like my father and the rest of the Guild council, all the way down to the rawest bounty hunter on the membership list."
"What kind of talk?"
"Don't mess with me," growled Bossk. "You're valuable to me right now, but if you start getting funny, I'll eat your brains out of your helmet like a soup bowl. If I'm making you an offer, then it isn't just about catching hold of this Oph Nar Dinnid guy-though that should be reason enough for you to be interested. But it's about the future of the whole Bounty Hunters Guild. There's going to be some big changes coming down here, and people are lining up on one side or another, depending on which way they think it's going to go. Frankly, I'd rather have you on my side than not-but whatever side you're on, I'm still going to win. It'll just be easier with you than without. And it'll be easier if you and I and a couple other handpicked barves pull off this Dinnid job. The bounty we'll get from it will buy us a lot of friends.
But more than that, it'll show some of the fence-sitters around here just who's got what it takes to snag the hard merchandise. The ones who can do this job are the ones who should be running the Guild."
"You've thought a great deal about this." Boba Fett kept his own voice level and free of emotion. "Again-I'm impressed."
"Cut the flattery." The point of Bossk's claw dug a little deeper into Fett's chest. "All I want to know is, are you with me on this one?"
Bossk's eyes widened in surprise as Boba Fett's hand suddenly grabbed the other's fist, squeezing the bones hard enough to grate them together beneath the overlapping scales. Fett slowly and deliberately moved Bossk's captured hand away from himself, like setting a peculiar and unlovely art object at a distance.
"All right." Fett released his durasteel-hard grip.
"I'm with you."
Sulkily, Bossk rubbed the joints of his hand. "Good," he said .after a moment. "I'll talk to some of the others. The ones who'll make the kind of team we need."
He stood up from the stone bench. "I'll let you know how it's going."
Boba Fett watched the Trandoshan pull the chamber's door shut behind himself, then listened to the sound of his footsteps fading down the corridor outside. It's almost sad, thought Fett. The poor barve didn't know just how well things were already going.
But he'd find out. Soon enough ... "That's because you and they are fools alike." The thought depressed Cradossk; all the burdens of leadership weighed upon his shoulders. There was no one to help him guide the Bounty Hunters Guild through these perilous shoals, in which conspiratorial enemies thronged like pack sharks. Not even his own son. Spawn of my seed, Cradossk mused gloomily. It just showed that true rapacious savvy was derived more from experience than genetics. I shouldn't have been so easy on him, when he was just a little reptile.
"Someone else is here to see you." The major-domo made a few more final adjustments to Cradossk's garb.
"Did you call for him? Should I grant him admittance?"
"Yes to both questions." The fawning Twi'lek was getting on his nerves. "And it's a private matter. So your presence is not required."
The majordomo ushered in the bounty hunter Zuckuss, then disappeared on the other side of the door he closed behind himself.
Of all the younger, rawer bounty hunters who'd gained admittance to the Guild, Zuckuss had always seemed one of the least suited for the trade. Cradossk gazed at the breathing-masked figure in front of him and wondered why any rational creature would place himself at such risk; it was like a child playing a dangerous adult game, where the wagers were one's own life and the forfeits were measured out in pain and death. His original motivation for pushing Zuckuss, with that less-than-imposing stature and dangling tubes of breathing-assistance apparatus, onto Bossk had been to give his son an easily disposable partner, someone who could be sacrificed in a tight situation with little regret or loss to the organization.
There were more where Zuckuss came from; would-be bounty hunters, with inflated notions about their own skills and toughness, were always lining up at the Guild's doors.
This particular situation had changed, though; Cradossk had another use for young Zuckuss.
"I came as quickly as I could." Zuckuss was visibly nervous. And audibly the breath tubes curving at the bottom of his face mask fluttered. "I hope it isn't anything that-"
"Calm yourself." Cradossk lowered himself into a folding campaign chair made of femurs reinforced with durasteel rods. "If you were in any kind of trouble, believe me, you'd know about it already."
Zuckuss didn't appear reassured. He glanced over his shoulder, as though the door of the chamber had been a trap mechanism snapping shut.
"Actually, there's nothing wrong at all." The bones of the chair were worn smooth beneath Cradossk's palms.
"Much of what you've done has met with my approval."
"Really?" Zuckuss turned his gaze back toward the Guild leader.
"Of course," lied Cradossk. "I have had reports concerning you. My son Bossk is not easily impressed-that is, with anyone other than himself. But he spoke quite highly of you. The business with that accountant ...
what was his name?"
"That was Posondum." Zuckuss gave a quick nod. "Nil Posondum. It's really a shame that didn't go better. We nearly had him."
Clawed hands spread wide, Cradossk's shrug was both elaborate and soothing. "One does the best one can. Not everything happens the way it should." To say something like that required genuine acting ability on his part.
"Bad luc k can happen to anyone." Inside himself, Cradossk still felt like pulling off both his son's and Zuckuss's heads for screwing up that job so badly. Boba Fett had made complete fools out of both of them, and then repeated the ignominy when he'd slipped past them to come sailing into the Bounty Hunters Guild headquarters.
"Don't worry about it. There'll be other times, other chances. There's always another piece of merchandise."
"I'm ... glad you feel that way... ."
"You have to take the long view in this business." He had given the exact same lecture to Bossk, and had been sneered at, years ago. "You win some, you lose some. The trick is to win more than you lose. Go for the averages."
"That's true, I guess." Zuckuss's anxiety level now seemed genuinely lowered. "Except for Boba Fett. He always seems to win."
"Even Boba Fett." One of Cradossk's hands made a grand, all-encompassing gesture. "You wouldn't know it just by his reputation, but he and I go back a long way, and I can tell you that he's had his share of times when he's come up empty. Don't let that general aura of invincibility fool you."
"Well ... it's hard not to be impressed. The things that are said about him ..."
Cradossk leaned forward in the campaign chair and jabbed a claw into Zuckuss's chest. "I've been in the bounty-hunter trade a long time, boy, and I'm telling you now, you're every bit as tough a barve as the great Boba Fett."