"Watch out," said Zuckuss in a low voice. From the corner of his sight, behind the dark visor of his helmet, Boba Fett saw Zuckuss's warning nod toward the edges of the space. But Fett was already conscious of what was happening there Some of the black-uniformed mercenaries had stepped forward from the alcoves and adjoining corridors where they had first appeared. There were other motions, of weapons being raised, the shoulder straps of the blaster rifles slackening as the barrels were swung up into firing position, the rifle butts braced against the mercenaries' hips. He could see Bossk and IG-88 turning their heads, scanning the details of the trap closing tighter around them. Zuckuss's voice sounded tight with apprehension "I think they're going to make their move... ."
Fett knew that nothing was going to happen, at least not for another few seconds; the cylindrical shapes of the Shell Hutts were still bobbing and floating around, too close to the dais and the team of off-planet bounty hunters. Even as trigger-happy as this bunch of thugs was likely to be, they would still know better than to start shooting while their employers were in the line of fire.
And besides, there was one more thing that he was absolutely sure of. Gheeta's little show wasn't over yet....
"You wanted to talk business?" The Shell Hutt's voice had spiraled up into a screech, loud enough to flutter the wattles at his pallid throat. "Fine! Let us do just that! But as you said, there's no point unless the merchandise in question is there on the table, right in front of us!"
"Gheeta ..." The elder Nullada grabbed hold of the collar of Gheeta's cylinder with a metal-clawed hand.
"Don't make more of a fool of yourself than you already have-"
"Silence!" One of Gheeta's crablike hands furiously knocked away the larger Shell Hutt's grasp. "You'll see as well! All of you!" The faces of the other Shell Hutts, protruding from the collars of the floating cylinders, turned toward Gheeta, some with expressions of muddled astonishment, others cruelly relishing the spectacle that was being played out before them. "You were all pleased enough when this scoundrel"-the claw point of one of Gheeta's hands shot out, gesturing toward Boba Fett-"when this thief stole from me that which was to be my crowning glory!" Both of the crablike mechanical hands flung upward, indicating the great reception hall's vaulted roof and all that it contained. Gheeta's maddened gaze crossed over Nullada and the other Shell Hutts. "Don't think I didn't hear your sniggering jeers and laughter! You were happy to see me fallen and disgraced, weren't you?"
Boba Fett discerned now that Gheeta's escalating shrillness was due to more than the intoxicants released by the mounds of flowers and their viscous, oozing centers. Enough of Gheeta's thick neck had protruded from his floating cylinder that a thin tube could be seen, almost buried in the folds of his gray skin; the tube ended in a surgically implanted IV tap, a needle plunged and sealed into Gheeta's bloodstream. The tube's other end was concealed inside the cylinder; Fett could surmise that it was hooked up to a time-metered dispensary module, leaking some rage-provoking stimulant through the Shell Hutt's central nervous system. Just as Boba Fett had already suspected, the sight of the pharmaceutical tube confirmed that Gheeta had prepared for this confrontation by chemically stripping out any sense of caution that might still have been lingering inside his brain. Suicidally so; with his having gone this far out of control, there would be no way that the other Shell Hutts would let him continue living and operating in their midst. There was a line beyond which honor and the desire for vengeance interfered with business, and Gheeta was now obviously well past it.
The others were getting there as well; a sense of panic tinged the air inside the great reception hall as the Shell Hutts' floating cylinders collided with each other, reversing away from the central dais, then turning and perceiving the armed and ready mercenaries stationed around the perimeter. Some of the Hutts were obviously fuddled enough by the heavy opiatelike scent of the scattered florals to have lost all reasoning ability.
That was the main reason that Boba Fett had programmed the air filters in his helmet to catch and expunge those intoxicating molecules; more than that, he had paid hefty amounts to the galaxy's finest black-market microsurgeons to have the corresponding receptor sites stripped away from the branching ends of his own nervous system.
Whatever stimulation to the pleasure centers of his brain that might have been lost thereby was more than compensated for by the control he retained in situations like this; in his business, he couldn't afford the simpleminded hysteria to which the Shell Hutts were already succumbing. From the corners of his vision, as he continued focusing on Gheeta at the top of the dais, he could discern the repulsor-borne cylinders slamming harder into each ot her, the riveted durasteel plates clanging like an atonal percussion section; the crablike mechanical hands tangled with each other and clawed at the wide-eyed, panting faces of the Shell Hutts as they twisted and spun about, rebounding in fear from the exits, blocked by the blaster-toting mercenaries.
Gheeta was caught up in a spiraling feedback loop, his own overexcited state mounting as it absorbed the frightened, lunatic pulse from the other Shell Hutts.
"And you were laughing, too! I know you were!" One of the mechanical hands slung beneath his floating cylinder suddenly jabbed toward Boba Fett, the metal shimmering with the fury of his accusation. "All the way back to whatever hole that scummy architect paid you to hide him in-" Gheeta's lipless mouth had stretched into a frenzied grimace, far enough that a trickle of blood seeped into the milky salivation leaking from its corners. "That was a good joke, Fett! But the best jokes always come with a price attached to them, don't they?"
"Ancient history," said Boba Fett. He could almost feel sorry for the Shell Hutt, locked inside an account that he could never settle to his profit. Almost, but not quite; sympathy was something else that he'd stripped from his nervous system, using the scalpel of his own transforming will. "We came here to talk about other merchandise. We're here for Oph Nar Dinnid."
"Ah, yes!" Gheeta's eyes grew wider and more maniacal as the IV tube pulsed like an artificial vein at the wattles of his neck. "And the merchandise should always be on the table, shouldn't it, before we can start dealing-that's how you want things, isn't it? Then by all means-"
The dangling mechanical hands suddenly shot forward from beneath Gheeta's encasing shell and seized hold of the edge of the dais's central platform. The remaining florals, oozing sap from their broken petals, slid from the top surface and landed wetly across the steps as the thin metal arms tensed, lifting one side of the rectangular shape. From the floating cylinder came a high- pitched whine as the repulsor-beam engines strained against the additional load. That was followed by the grinding, tearing noise of decorative masonry being ripped apart as the rectangular platform came loose from the dais and tilted toward one side. Gheeta gave a final, convulsive push, and the platform tore free and toppled down the dais's encircling steps.
For a moment the panicked motion in the great reception hall ebbed; the crash of the platform at the feet of Boba Fett and the other bounty hunters had been loud enough to distract the fleeing Shell Hutts from their attempts at escape. At the exits, still blocked by the insignialess mercenaries, the floating cylinders turned, their wide-faced occupants looking back toward the figures at the center of the vaulted space.