Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissia (30 page)

It was also an undercover narcotics agent.

Lando hadn’t learned any of this yet as a pair of robots, spray-painted the same color as Bassi Vobah’s uniform, dragged him from his comfortable cell to confront the Administrator Senior.

“The charge is carrying a deadly weapon, Captain Calrissian, and the customary sentence, upon conviction, is death by exposure.”

Lob Doluff paced back and forth before the floor-to-ceiling window in his office. Outside, the Flamewind filled the sky with racing garishness, but most of it was obscured by the dozens of hanging plants that turned the window into a vertical carpet of shaggy greenery. Other plants were scattered about in pots, in long narrow planters, in aquaria, even drifted in the air on lacy pale wings. A gentle frond brushed Lando’s cheek as a flying plant passed over his head.

Lob Doluff didn’t have a desk. He didn’t need one. Tucked away in an alcove was a datalink with its screen and keyboard; a pair of secretaries awaited his summons in an anteroom. What he had were several comfortable chairs, none of which had been offered to Lando, and the enormous bird-thing that none of the mobile plant life would even approach.

And Bassi Vobah herself, looking prim and starched and heavily armed.

Lando reached downward to thrust his hands in his pants pockets, discovered once again he hadn’t any, and folded his arms across his chest. He looked from Bassi to the Administrator Senior, spent a moment on the weird creature in the corner, then back to the humans.

“I take it, then, that you’re not charging me with murder.”

Bassi Vobah nodded. “That would be irrelevant. In the first place, there’s ample evidence that you killed him in self-defense. In the second place, we have no record of him having entered the Oseon by legal channels and therefore, at least in legal terms, he doesn’t—never did—exist.”

Lando shook his head. “Nice government you have here. Why is carrying a weapon a capital offense, and what have I got to do to get out of it? I take it that I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t going to offer me some nasty alternative to being shoved out an airlock.”

The gambler had been in this position before, on more than
one occasion. Odd, how government people needed extragovernmental people to manage their dirty work on occasion. The things that he’d been asked to do, however, could scarcely be classified under civil service job descriptions.

Bassi Vobah had stiffened at Lando’s reply, and only steely nerves and training had kept her hand away from the gigantic military blaster hanging at her hip.

Lob Doluff, however, seemed relieved. He nodded toward the nonhuman observer, introduced the creature to Lando. Waywa Fybot flapped his short arms as if in greeting, ruffled his feathers, and settled back into silence.

“In one sense, Captain, you are mistaken. You have been arrested and are soon to be tried and duly convicted of the offense.” The Administrator Senior made a gesture. The robots on each side of Lando stepped back, Lando was signaled to a chair facing those in which Lob Doluff was seated and Bassi Vobah stood behind at a sort of parade rest.

“As I said, the punishment as prescribed by law is exposure to the heat, cold, and vacuum of interplanetary space. There is, however, no provision for the precise method to be employed, and I am moved, my boy, to suggest a means by which the law may be obeyed and yet spare you from the unpleasantness such an experience ordinarily brings.”

“I get it. You’re going to shoot me before you stuff me out the airlock. By the way, Administrator Senior, have you ever
seen
somebody after they were spaced?” (Lando hadn’t either, but he had a good imagination and hoped that Doluff did as well.) “Pretty messy.”

He made a face, eyes bulging out, tongue lolling at the corner of his mouth.

Lob Doluff grimaced painfully, gulped, and placed a protective hand on his large stomach. “That’s exactly what we’re trying to prevent, my boy. To my knowledge, there has never been a formal execution in the Oseon, and I have no desire to be the first—”

“Nor I,” Lando agreed, “I suppose this is where our avian friend comes in, isn’t it?” He indicated Waywa Fybot, taking up a great deal of room in the corner.

Fybot stepped forward. “Tell me, Captain,”—the creature squeaked ridiculously, especially considering its size—“have you ever heard the name Bohhuah Mutdah?”

“Sounds like somebody bawling for his mommy.” Lando was sick of being the eternal patsy. He knew by then that they
needed him, and had become determined to make things as difficult as he could for them.

The humor of the response—what little there was of it—was lost on everybody present. Lando even detected a little shudder from Lob Doluff. The Administrator Senior shut his eyes, wiped sweaty palms on the creases of his trousers.

The big bird took another step forward, towering over Lando.

“Bohhuah Mutdah is a retired industrialist, a trillionaire. His holdings in the Oseon are the largest in the system by a single individual, and it is possible that he is the wealthiest person in the civilized galaxy.

“He is also thoroughly addicted to
lesai
.”

Lesai
. Lando shut the bird-being out of his mind for a moment, summoning up what he knew of the rare and extremely illegal drug.

The product of a mold that grew only on the backs of a single species of lizard in the Zebitrope System,
lesai
had many desirable qualities. In the first place, it eliminated the necessity for sleep, thus effectively lengthening the human life span by a third. Unlike other stimulants which consumed something vital in the human brain,
lesai
provided that something vital itself, meaning it could be taken indefinitely.

Yet, it was not without its cost. It turned the user into an emotionless, amoral calculating machine. In the end, family and friends, the lives of thousands or millions of other individuals—at least so the authorities claimed—counted as nothing, compared to whatever goals the addicted mind had set itself. One had to be careful; those in power often lied about things like the effect of drugs, and even Lando, who was strongly predisposed against any mind-altering substances, took what the government said with a very large grain of salt.

Nonetheless, some of this made sense. He could understand how
lesai
and the richest individual in the known universe might be associated. There wasn’t any particular trick to becoming rich—as long as one devoted his whole life to it to the exclusion of everything else. Lando wasn’t capable of it; to him, money was a means to an end. It became meaningless when it was an end in itself.

But not everybody felt that way. Perhaps Bohhuah Mutdah was a person like that.

“Okay,” he interrupted the avian creature, “so we have a
fabulously wealthy
lesai
addict, and you’re a drug cop. What’s the matter, didn’t he pay his protection money on time?”

Waywa Fybot stood up even straighter than before, his feathers fluffed straight outward as if in shock. “Captain Calrissian, you forget yourself! I, after all, am a—”

“—An agent of a government fully as corrupt as any government that ever existed. Don’t kid me, worm-breath. Vice laws are always written to be selectively enforced, to serve other purposes. What have you people got against this Mutdah character—or is it simply that you don’t like the size of his bank account?”

The bird-creature blinked, began to tremble with rage. It opened its beak to reply, shut it again, opened it again, and subsided into the corner, speechless. Lando grinned at the Administrator Senior and his Peacekeeper, spread a hand that was half a shrug.

Bassi Vobah was nearly as scandalized as her professional colleague.

Lob Doluff, however, chuckled and appeared to relax for the first time since the interview had started. His smile became a grin to match the gambler’s, then became outright laughter. He glanced, guiltily at first, at the feathered VIP, then shook his head and laughed again, this time without qualms.

“By the Core, Captain Calrissian—Lando, if I may—I
do
admire you! You’re a gambler through and through, not just at the table. Please allow me to make this unpleasantness more comfortable. Have you had anything to eat?”

Lando nodded. “Best food I’ve ever had in jail. I could use some coffeine, though, and maybe a cigar.”

“And by Core, Edge, and Disc, so shall you have them! Bassi, see to it immediately!”

The police officer stared at her boss indignantly, decided he was serious, and stalked out of the room to attend to the chore. Doluff snapped a finger at one of the guard-robots who had retired to the corners of the room behind Lando.

“Bring this gentleman his clothing, this very minute! By the Eternal, if I have to go through with this charade, I’ll bloody well go through with it in my own way!”

Lando had sat quietly through it all. Now he sat up a little straighter as the Administrator Senior settled back, fully relaxed. coffeine and tobacco arrived in due course, delivered by a seething Bassi Vobah. A police-robot brought Lando’s personai
property, which the gambler ignored for the time being as more interesting matters occupied his attention.

“Now,” Lob Doluff said, when everyone was settled in again. At his insistence, a strange-looking rack the size and shape of a pair of sawhorses had been brought in by a robot, and Waywa Fybot encouraged—at the Administrator Senior’s insistence—to perch on it. The bird got a dreamy look on its face, its feathers smoothed once again, and it was quiet.

“Now, sir, I will tell you the plain truth—as much as I have been told, in any case—and we will
all
understand. You’re quite right, of course. Bohhuah Mutdah’s corporate enemies and business rivals are preparing to overthrow his commercial empire. But they fear him greatly, sir, as I would in their place, and, accordingly, are seeking to put him personally and physically out of the way.

“I rather guess they hope he will resist arrest, providing them with an excuse to make things permanent. But that is only a surmise. The point is, Lando, I must ask you to help make all of this possible, and there is no way I can refuse to do so. I have what amounts to direct orders—by Gadfrey, it feels good to tell the truth!

“Were it simply my position, I would tell them—well, I hold this office quite voluntarily—quite unnecessarily if the truth were told. I like it, but not so much that I’d betray a fellow
sabacc
enthusiast and gentleman adventurer I admire.”

Bassi Vobah squirmed uncomfortably in the chair she’d been ordered to take.

“Why do I have the feeling you’re going to find another reason to betray me, then, old bureaucrat?” Lando asked. “That’s what you’re leading up to, isn’t it?”

The Administrator Senior sighed. “I’m afraid so, my dear fellow. I offer no excuse. Means have been found to exert leverage upon me which my scruples cannot withstand. I do not ask you even to understand my position. I am attempting to arrange things so as to minimize the damage the situation inflicts on us both. I’ll thank you to believe that much, at least.”

Lando shrugged again, noncommittally. “How much does a hangman’s apology count for, Administrator Senior?”

Doluff grimaced uncomfortably, then nodded. “You’re quite right, sir. But look here, this is how I am prepared to hold up my end of a bad bargain.” He turned to Waywa Fybot.

“Listen to me, you ridiculous creature, and listen well—”

“Adminis—” interrupted a shocked and outraged Bassi Vobah.

“Hush, child, I’ll get to you in a moment. Are you listening to me, you absurd collection of flightless feathers?”

The Imperial narcotics agent blinked stupidly. Apparently the position it had been forced to assume triggered some reflexive sleep reaction. It shook its head, peered at the Administrator Senior, but said nothing.

“Very well, then, and you can inform your mercantile-class sponsors that I gave you this direct order: you may arrest Bohhuah Mutdah, I haven’t the power to stop you. But you will return him to
me
, alive and in condition to stand trial in the Oseon, or I’ll have you plucked, dressed, and roasted for Founder’s Day. Am I making myself clear?”

The bird-creature nodded, a look of hatred latent in its large blue eyes.

Doluff turned to Bassi Vobah. “And as for you, my dear, remember who it is you work for. Your orders are to see that my orders are carried out. And you are to use that oversized chicken-roaster of yours”—he indicated her energy pistol—“if the occasion calls for it, on whomsoever merits it.”

He nodded significantly toward Waywa Fybot.

“Now, Captain Calrissian—Lando—this is what you are to do. As you probably are aware, it is perilous in the extreme, and also illegal, for ships to travel from asteroid to asteroid in the Oseon during Flamewind.”

As if to underline the Administrator Senior’s words, lightning flared briefly outside the window, washing the colors from every object in the room. The flash subsided.

“Nonetheless, I am required to instruct you to take this pair of law-enforcement officers to Oseon 5792, the home and estate of Bohhuah Mutdah, so that they may make their arrest.”

Lando shook his head. “I don’t get it. Why not just—”

“Because, my dear Captain, it seems he must be caught in the act. His enemies lack sufficient evidence at the moment, and even they dare not move without it. You are the goat because of your avocation as captain of a tramp freighter. It must appear that you are taking him his regular shipment of the drug; apparently he supplies himself every year under the cover of the Flamewind, and—”

Lando stood up suddenly. “Now wait just a minute, Admin—”

The bureaucrat slammed his large hands down on the arms
of his chair. “
You
wait a minute, Captain! I have no latitude in this; my instructions are clear, detailed, and unavoidable. We will provide you with a large amount of
lesai
, which has been seized from Mutdah’s regular connection. You will make transit to the next Belt inward, to the particular rock owned by Bohhuah Mutdah, and sell him the drug. You will be observed doing so by Officer Waywa Fybot and Oseon Peacekeeper Bassi Vobah, who will then seize both drug shipment and payment and take Mutdah into custody. That is how it has been ordained; that is how it shall be done.” Doluff subsided once again and took two or three deep breaths.