The Han Solo Adventures (7 page)

“What’d you say, Bollux? Quit whispering!”

Han, seated across the gameboard from Chewbacca, glared at a crate on the other side of the
Millennium Falcon
’s forward compartment, where the old ’droid sat. The compartment’s other clutter included shipping containers, pressure kegs, insulated canisters, and spare parts.

The Wookiee, seated on the acceleration couch, chin resting on one enormous paw, studied the holographic game pieces. His eyes were narrowed in concentration and his black snout twitched from time to time. He’d spotted Han two pieces, and was now on the verge of wiping out that advantage. The pilot had been playing poorly, his concentration wandering, fretting and preoccupied with the complications of the voyage. The new sensor package and dish were working perfectly, and the starship’s systems had been fine-tuned by the outlaw-techs. Nevertheless, Han’s mind couldn’t rest easy as long as his cherished
Falcon
was hooked up to the huge barge like a bug on a bladderbird. Furthermore, the trip was taking far longer than the
Falcon
alone would have required; the barge wasn’t built for speed.

Han could hear the barge’s engines now, their muffled blast vibrating through the freighter’s deck and his boots, into the soles of his feet. He hated that barge, wished he could just dump it and zoom off; but a bargain was, after all, a bargain. And, as Jessa had explained, the Waiver for the
Falcon
was being arranged by the people he was to pick up on Orron III, so it behooved him to hold up his end of the agreement.

“I didn’t say anything, sir,” Bollux replied politely. “That was Max.”

“Then what did
he
say?” Han snapped. The two-in-one machines sometimes communicated between themselves by high-speed informational pulses, but seemed to prefer vocal-mode conversations. It always made Han nervous when Bollux’s chest was closed up, with the diminutive computer’s voice rising spectrally from an unseen source.

“He informed me, Captain,” Bollux replied in his slow fashion, “that he would like me to open my plastron. May I?”

Han, who’d turned back to the gameboard, saw that Chewbacca had sprung a clever trap. While his finger hovered indecisively over the programming keys controlling his pieces, Han muttered, “Sure, sure, go on, you can fan the air for all I care, Bollux.” He scowled at the Wookiee, seeing there was no way out of the trap. Chewbacca threw his head back with a toss of red-brown hair and woofed with laughter, showing jutting fangs.

With a soft hiss of escaping air—his plastron was airtight, insulated, and shockproof—Bollux’s chest swung open as the labor ’droid moved his long arms back out of the way. Blue Max’s monocular came alive and tracked over to the gameboard just as Han punched up his next move. His gamepiece, a miniature, three-dimensional monster, jumped into battle with one of Chewie’s. But Han had misjudged the two pieces’ subtle win-lose parameters. The Wookiee’s simulacrum-beastie won the brief fight. Han’s gamepiece evaporated back into the nothingness of computer modeling from which it had come.

“You should have used the Second Ilthmar Defense,” Blue Max volunteered brightly. Han swung around with murder in his eye; even the precocious Max recognized the look, hastily adding, “Only trying to be of assistance, sir.”

“Blue Max is quite new, quite young, Captain,” Bollux supplied, by way of mollifying Han. “I’ve taught him a bit about the board game, but he doesn’t know much yet about human sensitivities.”

“Is that so?” Han asked, as if fascinated. “So who’s teaching him, Mr. Pick and Shovel, you?”

“Sure,” Max bubbled. “Bollux’s been
everywhere
. We sit and talk all the time, and he tells me about the places he’s seen.”

Han swiped at the gameboard’s master key, clearing it of his defeated holo-beasties and Chewbacca’s victorious ones. “Do tell? Well, now, that must be some kind of education:
Slit Trenches I Have Dug—a Trans-Galactic Diary
.”

“The great starship yards of Fondor was where I was activated,” Bollux responded, in his slow way. “Then, for a time, I worked for a planetary survey Alpha-Team, and after that, for a construction gang on weather-control systems. I had a job as general roustabout for Gan Jan Rue’s Traveling Menagerie, and as maintenance helper in the Trigdale Foun-daries. And more. But one by one, the jobs have been taken over by newer models. I volunteered for all the modifications and reprogramming I could, but eventually I simply couldn’t compete with the newer, more capable ’droids.”

Interested now despite himself, Han asked, “How’d Jessa pick you for this ride?”

“She didn’t sir; I requested it. There was word that a ’droid would be selected from the general labor pool for some unstated modification. I was there, having been purchased at open auction. I went to her and asked if I might be of use.”

Han chortled. “And for that they yanked out part of you, rearranged the rest, and stuck that coin bank inside you. You call that a deal?”

“It has its disadvantages, sir. But it’s kept me functioning at a relatively high level of activity. There would probably have been some lesser vacancy for me elsewhere, Captain, even if it were only shoveling biological byproducts on a nontechnological world, but at least I have avoided obsolescence for the time being.”

Han gaped at the ’droid, wondering if he were circuitcrazy. “So what, Bollux? What’s the point? You’re not your own master. You don’t even have a say in your own name; you have to reprogram to whatever your new owner decides to call you, and ‘Bollux’ is a joke. Eventually you’ll be of no further use, and then it’s Scrap City.”

Chewbacca was listening intently now. He was far older than any human, and his perspectives were different from a man’s… or a ’droid’s. Bollux’s leisurely speech made him sound serene as he replied, “Obsolescence for a ’droid, sirs, is much like death for a human, or a Wookiee. It is the end of function, which means the end of significance. So it is to be avoided at all costs, in my opinion, Captain. After all, what value is there to existence without purpose?”

Han jumped to his feet, mad without knowing exactly why, except that he felt dumb for arguing with a junk-heap ’droid. He decided to tell Bollux just what a deluded, misfit chump the old labor ’droid really was.

“Bollux, do you know what you are?”

“Yessir, a smuggler, sir,” Bollux responded promptly.

Han, confused, looked at the ’droid for a moment, his mouth hanging open, taken off balance by the reply. Even a labor ’droid ought to recognize a rhetorical question, he thought. “
What
did you say?”

“I said, ‘Yessir, a smuggler, sir,’” Bollux drawled, “like yourself. One who engages in the illegal import or export of “—his metal forefinger pointed down at Blue Max, nestled in his thorax—“concealed goods.”

Chewbacca, paws clasped to his stomach, was rolling around on the acceleration couch, laughing in hysterical grunts, kicking his feet in the air.

Han’s temper blew. “Shut up!” he shouted at the ’droid. Bollux, again with that strange literalness, obediently swung his chest panels closed. Chewbacca’s laughter had him close to suffocation, as tears appeared around his tight-shut eyes. Han began looking around for a wrench or a hammer, or another instrument of technological mayhem, not intending to have any ’droid one-up him and survive to tell the tale. But at that moment the navicomputer bleeped an alert. Han and Chewbacca instantly charged for the cockpit, the Wookiee still clasping his midsection, to prepare for reversion to normal space.

The tedious trip to Orron III had gnawed at their nerves; both pilot and copilot were grateful for the reappearance of stars that marked emergence from hyperspace, though it was accompanied by a wallowing of the gigantic barge shell. The barge’s ovoid hull bulged beneath them, a metal can of a ship with a minimum of engine power. Jessa’s techs had executed their hull mock-up so that the
Falcon
’s cockpit retained most of its field of vision.

Han and Chewbacca kept their hands off the ship’s controls, letting the computer do the work, maintaining the role of an automated barge. The automatics accepted their landing instructions, and the composite ship began its ungainly descent through the atmosphere.

Orron III was a planet generous to man, its axial tilt negligible, its seasons stable and, throughout most of its latitudes, conducive to good crop production, and its soil rich and fertile. The Authority had recognized the planet’s potential as a bread basket and wasted no time in taking advantage of its year-round growing season. Since the planet had more than adequate resources, room, and a strategic location, they had opted to build a data center there as well, thus simplifying logistics and security for both operations.

Orron III was undeniably beautiful, wreathed with strings and strands of white cloud systems, and showing the soft greens and blues of abundant plant life and broad oceans. As they made their approach, Han and Chewbacca ran sensor readings, taking the layout of the Authority installations.

“What was that?” Han asked, leaning forward for a closer look at his instruments. The Wookiee wooffed uncertainly. “I thought I caught something for a second, big blip in a slow transpolar orbit, but either it went around the planet’s horizon or we’ve dropped too low to pick it up. Or both.” He worried about it for a moment, then firmly instructed himself not to borrow trouble; whether or not there was a picket ship should make no difference.

Ground features began to resolve into gently rolling country divided precisely into the huge parcels of individual fields. The various shades of those fields reflected a wide range of crops at various states of maturity. Planting, growing, and harvesting must be done on a rolling basis on a large agri-world, for optimal utilization of equipment and manpower.

Eventually they could discern the spaceport, a kilometers-wide stretch of landing area built to the immense proportions of the great robo-barges. The main part of the port, which supported the Authority fleet ships, occupied only a small corner of the installation, even taking into consideration its communications and housing complexes. The majority of the place was simply mooring space for the barges, abysslike berths where maintenance gantries could reach them for repair work and the lumbering mobile silos, aided by gravity, could load them. A constant flow of bulk transports, ground-effect surface freighters, came by special access routes to the port, unloaded their cargoes of foodstuff into the silos, and turned back again, bound for whatever harvest was presently going on.

The bogus barge carrying the
Falcon
settled to its appointed berth among hundreds of others on the field. They touched down, and the computers stopped their chatter. Han Solo and Chewbacca locked down the console and left the cockpit. As they entered the forward compartment, Bollux looked up. “Do we disembark now, sirs?”

“Nope,” Han answered. “Jessa said these people we’re going to pick up will find us.”

The Wookiee went to the main lock and activated it. The hatch rolled up, and the ramp eased down, but didn’t admit light or air from Orron Ill’s atmosphere; the camouflaging hull design covered most of the
Falcon
’s superstructure, and a makeshift outer hatch had been installed just beyond the ramp’s end.

The ramp had barely lowered when there was a clanging on the outer skin there. The Wookiee snorted warily, and Han’s hand dipped and came up with his blaster. Chewbacca, seeing his partner was ready, hit the switch to open the outer hatch.

Standing just beyond was a man of incongruities. He wore the drab green coveralls of a port worker and had a tool belt slung at his waist. Yet he radiated a different aura, nothing like that of a contract tech. He was native to a sun-plentiful world, that much was apparent, for his skin was so dark that its black approached indigo. He was half a head taller than Han, with broad shoulders that strained the seams of his issue coveralls, and a body that spoke of waiting, abundant power. His tightly curled black hair and sweeping beard were shot through with streaks of gray and white. For all the size and weight of dignity of him, he had a lively glint of humor in his black eyes.

“I’m Rekkon,” he declared at once. He had a direct gaze, and although his tone was moderate, it resonated in the air, its quality deep and full. He replaced at his belt the heavy spanner he’d used to rap on the hatch. “Is Captain Solo here?”

Chewbacca gestured to his partner, who had just come further down the ramp. The Wookiee hooted in his own language. Rekkon laughed and—to their astonishment—roared back a polite response in Wookiee. Few enough humans even understood the giant humanoids’ tongue; fewer still had the range and force of voice of speak it. Chewbacca boomed his delight in an earsplitting yowl and patted Rekkon’s shoulder, beaming down at him.

“Now that you’re all through with the community sing,” Han interrupted, stripping off his flying gloves, “I’m Han Solo. When’s liftoff?”

Rekkon appraised him frankly, but there was still that jovial light to his face. “I’d like it to be as soon as possible, as I’m sure you would, Captain Solo. But we must make one brief trip to the Center, to cull the data I need and pick up the other members of my group.”

Han looked back to the head of the ramp, where Bollux waited, and gestured to him. “Let’s go, Rusty. You’re back in business.”

Bollux, his chest plates closed once again, clanked down the ramp, his stride as stiff as ever. He’d explained during the trip that his odd manner of walking came from the fact that he’d been fitted with a heavy-duty suspension system at one point in his long career.

Rekkon was holding out two cards for Han and Chewbacca, bright red squares with white identification codes stamped on them. “Temporary IDs,” he explained. “If anyone asks, you’re on short-term labor contracts as tech assistants fifth class.”

“
Us
?” Han sputtered. “We’re not going anywhere, pal. You take the ’droid, get your gang and whatever else, and you come back. We’ll keep the home fires burning.”

Rekkon’s grin was dazzling. “But what will you two do when the decontamination crew arrives? They’ll be irradiating the entire barge, and your ship with it, to make sure no parasites feed on the shipment. Of course, you could switch on your deflector shields, but that would surely be noticed by port sensors.” The two partners glanced at each other dubiously. It was true that a decontam-treatment would be normal procedure, and that a man and a Wookiee hanging around the landing area while the team did its work would make somebody curious.