Part 15 (1/2)

Sonniod nodded thankfully. ”But what about you and the Wookiee, Solo?” The stars.h.i.+p trembled slightly as she hovered on her thrusters and swung away toward Sonniod's parked vessel. ”I wouldn't come back for my profits if I were you.”

”I suppose I'll have to head back for the Corporate Sector,” Han sighed, ”and see what kind of jobs there are floating around. At least the heat should be off; I doubt if anyone's looking for me or this freighter anymore.”

Sonniod shook his head. ”Try to find out what the job is before you get into it,” he encouraged. ”n.o.body seems to know what kind of run it is.”

”I don't care; I'm in no position to be picky. I'll have to take it,” Han said, resigned. They heard Chewbacca's dejected hooting drifting aft from the c.o.c.kpit. ”He's right,” he said. ”We just weren't cut out for the honest life.”

II.

THE Millennium Falcon seemed a ghost s.h.i.+p, a spectral s.p.a.cecraft like the long-lost, sometimes-sighted Permondiri Explorer, or the fabled Queen of Ranroon. Trailing sheets of crackling energy, with dancing lines of brilliant discharge playing back and forth over her, she might have flown directly out of one of those legends.

Around the stars.h.i.+p seethed the turbulent atmosphere of Lur, a planet quite close, as interstellar distances go, to the Corporate Sector. Its ionization layer was interacting with the Falcon's screens to create eerie lightninglike displays. The shrieking of the planet's winds could be heard through the vessel's hull, and the fury of the storm had cut visibility virtually to zero. Han and Chewbacca paid scant attention to the uproar pounding at their canopy with rain, sleet, snow, and gale-force winds.

They lavished closest attention on their instrumentation, courting it for all the information it could provide, as if by concentration alone they could coax a clearer picture of their situation from sensors and other indicators. Chewbacca growled irritably, his clear blue eyes skipping all over his side of the console, leathery snout working and twitching.

Han was feeling just as cross. ”How am I supposed to know how thick the ionization layer is? The instrumentation's jittery from the discharges, it doesn't show anything clearly. What do you want me to do, drop a plumb line?” He went back to closely monitoring his share of the console.

The Wookiee's rejoinder was another growl. Behind him, in the communications officer's seat that was usually left vacant, Bollux spoke up. ”Captain Solo, one of the indicators just lit up. It appears to be a malfunction in some of the new control systems.”

Without turning from his work, Han uncorked some of his choicer curses, then calmed down somewhat. ”It's the miserable fluidics! What timing, what perfect timing! Chewie, I told you there'd be trouble, didn't I? Didn't I?”

The Wookiee flailed a huge, hairy paw in the air by way of dismissal, wis.h.i.+ng to be left to his tasks, rumbling loudly.

”Where's the problem?” Han snapped back over his right shoulder.

Bollux's photoreceptors scanned the indicators that were located next to the commo board. ”s.h.i.+p's emergency systems, sir. The auto-firefighting apparatus, I believe.”

”Go back and see what you can do, will you, Bollux? That's all we need, for the firefighting gear to cut in; we'd be up to our chins in foam and gas before you could ask the way to the exit.” As Bollux staggered off, barely staying upright on the bucking deck, Han resolutely thrust the problem out of his mind.

Chewbacca yowlped. He had gotten a positive reading. Han dragged himself halfway out of his chair for a look as another spitting globe of ball-lightning drifted out and spun off the Falcon's bow mandibles. The ionization levels were dropping. Then he threw himself back into his seat and cut the s.h.i.+p's speed back even further. He had terrible visions of the ionization level extending down, somehow, to the surface of Lur, blinding them right up to the time of collision.

Of course, the party who had hired the Millennium Falcon for this run hadn't mentioned the ionization layer, hadn't mentioned anything very specific for that matter. Han had put the word abroad that he and his s.h.i.+p were available for hire and disinclined to ask questions, and the job had come, as Sonniod had predicted it would, from unseen sources in the form of a faceless audio tape and a small cash advance.

But with creditors hounding them and their other resources exhausted in the wake of the debacle in the Kamar Badlands, Han and his partner had seen no alternative but to ignore Sonniod's advice and accept the run.

Was I born this stupid, Han asked himself in disgust, or am I just blossoming late in life? But at that moment both the storm and the ionization layer parted. The Falcon lowered gently through a clear, calm region of Lur's atmosphere. Far below, features of the planet's surface could be seen, mountain peaks protruding through low-hanging, swirling clouds. Another light flashed on; the freighter's long-range sensors had just picked up a landing beacon.

Han switched on the Terrain Following Sensors and poised over the readouts. ”They picked us a decent spot to land at least,” he admitted. ”A big, flat place slung between those two low peaks over there. Probably a glacial field.” He flipped the microphone on his headset over to intercom mode. ”Bollux, we're going in. Drop what you're doing and hang on.”

Correcting his s.h.i.+p's att.i.tude of descent, he brought her in toward the landing point at very moderate speed. The TFS rig showed no obstacles or other dangers, but Han wished to take no chances with instrumentation on this stupid planet.

They settled into the clouds as precipitation was driven at the canopy, only to slide away when it met the Falcon's defensive screens. Sensors had begun functioning normally, giving precise information on alt.i.tude. Visibility, even in the storm, was sufficient for a cautious landing. Lur materialized below them as a plain where winds hurried along endlessly, aimlessly.

Han eased the vessel down warily; he had no desire to find himself buried in an ice chasm. But the s.h.i.+p's landing gear found solid support, and instrumentation showed that Han's guess had been correct; they had landed on a glacial ice field. Off to starboard some forty meters or so was the landing beacon.

Han removed his headset, stripped off the flying gloves he had been wearing, and unbuckled his seatbelt. He turned to his Wookiee copilot. ”You stay here and keep a sharp watch. I'll go let the ramp down and see what the deal is.” The unoccupied navigator's seat behind him held a bundle that he snagged and carried along as he left the c.o.c.kpit.

On his way aft to the s.h.i.+p's ramp he found Bollux. The 'droid was stooping down by an open inspection plate set in the bulkhead at deck level. Bollux's chest plastron was open, and Blue Max was a.s.sisting him in his examination of the problem at hand.

”What's the routine?” Han inquired. ”Is it fixed?”

Bollux stood up. ”I'm afraid not, Captain Solo. But Max and I caught it just before the last safety went. We shut down the entire system, but repair is beyond the capability of either of us.”

”You don't need a tech for those fluidics, Captain,” Max chirped. ”You need a d.a.m.n plumber.” His voice held a note of moral outrage at the inferior design.

”Tell me about it. And watch your language, Max. Just because I talk that way is no sign you should. All right, boys, just leave things the way they are. This trip should make us enough to have all those waterworks replaced with good old s.h.i.+elded circuitry. Bollux, I want you to close up your fruit stand; we've got cargo to pick up and I don't want you making the clients jumpy. Sorry, Max, but you do that to people sometimes.”

”No problem, Captain,” Blue Max replied as the halves of Bollux's chest swung shut to the hum of servomotors. Han reflected that, while he still didn't care much for automata, Bollux and Max weren't too bad. He decided, though, that he would never understand how the pseudo-personalities of an ancient labor 'droid and a precocious computer module could hit it off so well.

Han opened the bundle he had brought from the c.o.c.kpit-a bulky thermosuit-and began pulling it on over his s.h.i.+p's clothes. Before fitting his hands into the thermosuit's attached gloves, he adjusted his gun-belt, rebuckling it over the suit, then removing the weapon's trigger guard so that he'd be able to fire it with his thermoglove on. He wouldn't have dreamed of going out unarmed; he was always wary when the Millennium Falcon was grounded in unfamiliar surroundings, but especially so when he was doing business on the shady side of the street.

He donned protective headgear, a transparent facebowl with insulated ear cups. Touching a b.u.t.ton on the control unit set in his thermosuit's sleeve, he brought its heating unit to life.

”Stand by,” he ordered Bollux, ”in case I need a hand with the cargo.”

”May I inquire what it is we're to carry, Captain?” Bollux asked as he drew aside the covers of the special compartments hidden under the deckplates.

”You may guess, Bollux; that's about all I can do right now myself.” Han prodded at the hatch control with a gloved finger. ”n.o.body mentioned what it's going to be, and I was in no position to ask. Couldn't be anything too ma.s.sive, I guess.”

The hatch rolled up and a blast of frigid wind invaded the pa.s.sageway. Han shouted over the wail of the storm. ”Doesn't look like it's going to be heat rash salve though, does it?”

He started down the ramp, leaning into the force of the gale. The cold in his lungs was sharp enough to make him think about going back for a respirator, but he judged that he wouldn't be outside long enough to need one. His facebowl polarized somewhat against the ice glare as snow hissed against it. Specific gravity here on Lur was slightly over Standard, but not enough to cause any inconvenience.

At the foot of the ramp he found that the wind was moving a light dusting of snow across the blue-white glacier. Miniature drifts were already acc.u.mulating against the Falcon's landing gear. He spied the beacon, a cl.u.s.ter of blinking caution lights atop a globular transponder package, anch.o.r.ed to glacial ice by a tripod. There was no one to be seen, but visibility was so low that Han couldn't have made out much beyond the landing marker.

He walked over to it, inspecting it and finding it to be nothing more than a standard model, designed for use in places lacking sophisticated navigational and tracking equipment.

Suddenly a m.u.f.fled voice behind him called out. ”Solo?” He spun, right hand dropping automatically to the grip of his blaster. A man stepped out of the swirl of the storm. He, too, wore a thermosuit and a facebowl that had muted his voice, but the thermosuit was white and the facebowl reflective, making him nearly invisible there on the glacier.

He moved forward with hands empty and held high. Han, squinting past him, saw the vague outlines of other figures moving just at the edge of his range of vision.

”I'm him,” Han responded, his own words m.u.f.fled somewhat by his facebowl. ”You're, uh, Zlarb?”

The other nodded. Zlarb was a tall, broadly built man with extremely fair skin, white-blond beard and clear gray eyes with creases at their corners that gave him an intense, threatening look. But he showed his teeth in a wide smile. ”That's right, Captain. And I'm ready to go, too. We can load up right away.”

Han tried to peer through the curtain of snow behind Zlarb. ”Are there enough of you to bring up the cargo? I brought along a repulsorlift handtruck in case you need it to haul your load. Want me to run it out for you?”

Zlarb gave him a look Han couldn't quite read, then smiled again. ”No. I think we can get our s.h.i.+pment onboard without any problems.”

Something about the man's behavior, the hint of a private joke or the sardonic tone to his reply, made Han suspicious. He had long since learned to listen to inner alarms. He looked back at the blurry outline of the Falcon and hoped Chewbacca was alert and that the Wookiee had the stars.h.i.+p's main batteries primed and aimed. The two seldom encountered trouble from their pickup contacts. Usually at the other end, the drop-off and payment end of things, trouble tended to occur. But this just might be the exception.

Han backed away a step, eyes meeting Zlarb's. ”All right then, I'll go get ready to raise s.h.i.+p.” He had more questions to ask this man, but wanted to move the proceedings to a more auspicious spot, say, next to the freighter's belly turret. ”You drag your s.h.i.+pment to the ramp head and we'll take it from there.”

Zlarb's grin was wider now. ”No, Solo. I think we'll both go onboard your s.h.i.+p. Right now.”

Han was about to tell Zlarb that it was against his and Chewbacca's policy to let smuggling contacts...o...b..ard when he noticed that the man had turned his hand over. In it he held a tiny weapon, a short-range palmgun that, like a conjuror, he must have held hidden between gloved fingers. Han thought about going for his blaster but realized that at best he could probably manage no more than a tie, in which case both of them would die.