Gloom permeated the meditations of Kud'ar Mub'at as the assembler reminded himself of just how much still lay beyond the strands of his web. Just as well, it philosophically decided, that all those things are Palpatine's concerns and not mine. True wisdom rested in knowing one's limitations.
"Exactly so," chimed in Balancesheet. It had picked up its parent's thought over the spun-silk neural network that both connected and housed them. "That shows how wise you are. Would Emperor Palpatine ever have thought of such a thing?"
For a moment Kud'ar Mub'at was annoyed that the little subassembler node had listened in to these private musings-it thought that it had inhibited the appropriate neurons to prevent just such two-way data flow. Then its mood softened. "Now you're the one who's wise," said Kud'ar Mub'at affectionately. It reached over another black, spiky leg and let the accountant node scramble onto its end. "I'll very much regret that day when I'll have to-" Kud'ar Mub'at cut off its words just in time.
"Have to what?" At the end of Kud'ar Mub'at's leg, the accountant node peered back at its progenitor.
"Nothing. Don't worry about it." Kud'ar Mub'at was sure that the little node hadn't picked up on that particular thought, the one that had to do with its inevitable-and imminent-death. "Let me do th e deep thinking."
"Of course," said Balancesheet. "I would not have it otherwise. The only reason I asked about Boba Fett ..."
"Yes?"
"I only asked," continued the subassembler node,
"because we would have to anticipate the cost of his services to us rising as one of the results of the Bounty Hunters Guild being catastrophically disbanded. Since there would be a considerable diminishment in the number and quality of the competition for such operations. That should be factored into our calculations, regarding any further negotiations involving this individual. Unless of course"-Balancesheet spoke archly-"we were to make other arrangements about Boba Fett's future. ..."
That was a good point; Kud'ar Mub'at realized he should have thought of it himself. Though it was also one of the advantages of having a well-developed, semi- independent node like Balancesheet around. Whatever slipped by Kud'ar Mub'at's attention would be caught by the subassembler's.
"Thank you," said Kud'ar Mub'at to the little creature still tethered to it. "I'll give it some thought."
"Actually," said Balancesheet, "I have suggestions along those lines."
Deep in the heart of the web Kud'ar Mub'at had spun for itself, floating in the cold vacuum between the stars, the assembler listened. Just as though it were listening to its own wise and precise calculations, whispered into its ear from something outside; something almost separate.
part. He touched a probe to the bare join, read off the voltage, then withdrew it and let the replicating insulation swarm a thin yellow sheath over the wire. Or at least most of it, he corrected himself. The ship repair would be completed soon enough, but he knew there was still more to be taken care of before the job of destroying the Bounty Hunters Guild was finished. One great rift, between the old leadership and the upstarts, wasn't enough. By his calculations, there would be an even split between the two groups once the binding agent of Cradossk had been removed. Some of the elders, who had always chafed under the old Trandoshan's leadership, would throw in their lot with the young, impatient bounty hunters; some of the latter, reluctant to accept Bossk's leading the breakaway faction, would side with whatever was left of the Guild's elder council. But on both sides, Boba Fett would have his ringers and stoolies, feeding him useful information and helping to drive even more wedges of suspicion and greed between one bounty hunter and the next. There were two factions now; soon there would be dozens. And then, thought Fett with a cold lack of emotion, it'll be every bounty hunter for himself.
That was something he was looking forward to.
He closed the access panel on the Slave I's curved, glistening hull and looked up the craft's length. The muzzle of the laser cannon, a newer and sleeker instrument of destruction than D'harhan had ever carried, could just be seen as it pointed toward the wash of stars overhead. D'harhan was dead, another piece of the past erased as though it had never happened at all; eventually all the past would be gone, consumed as if by the annihilating energy at the heart of the darkest stars. .
. .
And that was fine with him as well.
Boba Fett moved over to another panel, close to the ship's anterior maneuvering jets. With the code function embedded in his glove's fingertip, he opened the panel and got to work, tracing and reconfiguring the intricate circuits.
The blaster fire from the compound continued, like the electrical discharge of a distant storm.
Someday, Fett supposed, the destruction of the Bounty Hunters Guild would be nothing but memory. But not his; he had no use for memory.
All remembering was in vain... .
part. He touched a probe to the bare join, read off the voltage, then withdrew it and let the replicating insulation swarm a thin yellow sheath over the wire. Or at least most of it, he corrected himself. The ship repair would be completed soon enough, but he knew there was still more to be taken care of before the job of destroying the Bounty Hunters Guild was finished. One great rift, between the old leadership and the upstarts, wasn't enough. By his calculations, there would be an even split between the two groups once the binding agent of Cradossk had been removed. Some of the elders, who had always chafed under the old Trandoshan's leadership, would throw in their lot with the young, impatient bounty hunters; some of the latter, reluctant to accept Bossk's leading the breakaway faction, would side with whatever was left of the Guild's elder council. But on both sides, Boba Fett would have his ringers and stoolies, feeding him useful information and helping to drive even more wedges of suspicion and greed between one bounty hunter and the next. There were two factions now; soon there would be dozens. And then, thought Fett with a cold lack of emotion, it'll be every bounty hunter for himself.
That was something he was looking forward to.
She watched him at work. Or getting ready for work.
His kind of work, though Neelah. That was what was indicated by the weapons, all the various mechanisms of reducing the galaxy's inhabitants to scattered pieces of bleeding or charred tissue. Boba Fett had returned from the land of the dead, from its gray portal in which he'd slept, and was ready to fill his hands again with death.
"Which one's that?" Neelah pointed to the brutally efficient-looking object, all matte-black metal and embedded electronics, in Boba Fett's grasp. An empty lens at the rear of the weapon's metal glittered in a curve of crosshaired glass. "What does it do?"
"Rocket launcher." Boba Fett didn't look up from his painstaking labors. With a tool as delicate as a humanoid hair, improvised from one of the medical droids' IV
syringes, he scraped a dried mucuslike substance, a remnant of the weapon's time in the Sarlacc's gut, out of its intricate circuits. "And what it does, if you know how to work it, is kill a lot of creatures. At once. At a nice long distance away."
"Thanks." She felt one corner of her mouth twisting in an expression that would have been ugly if there had been an audience for it. "But I could figure that much out. Don't think you have to patronize me. I was just trying to pass a little time with something like conversation. But I guess that's not within your range of skills."