"Now, that's simple as well." Cradossk rested both his hands on the bony arms of the campaign chair. "You're going to go out with the team that my son Bossk is putting together to snag this particular piece of merchandise named Oph Nar Dinnid. The difference between you and Bossk, however, is that you'll be coming back." It took a few seconds, but illumination finally struck Zuckuss. "Oh…" The nod was even slower this time. "I see …."
"I'm glad you do." Cradossk gestured toward the door.
"We'll talk some more. Later."
When Zuckuss had scurried out of the chamber, Cradossk allowed himself a few moments of self-satisfied musing. There was lots more to do, strings to pull, words to be whispered in the appropriate ears. But for now, he had to admit to himself that he actually did like this Zuckuss creature. To a degree, thought Cradossk. Just smart enough to be useful, but not smart enough to realize how he was being used-at least, until it was too late. He might even feel some regret when it came time to eliminate Zuckuss as well.
But such, Cradossk knew, were the burdens of leadership.
It had taken some doing, plus prying and digging with various tools improvised from stiff, sharp-pointed pieces of wire. But those were the sorts of skills that Twi'lek males were born with. The result, after nearly a year of surreptitious work on the part of the majordomo, was a tiny, undetectable listening hole, up near the ceiling of the anteroom to Cradossk's private chamber. Better than any electronic snooping device; those could always be de tected with a basic security scan-sweep. The majordomo, even as he was listening to the conversation between Cradossk and the young bounty hunter Zuckuss, congratulated himself on his cleverness. One had to be clever to survive working for carnivores like these. Using a combination of toeholds between the wall's massive stones and an ornamental wall hanging depicting the Guild's past glories, Ob Fortuna clambered down from his eavesdropping post. He had heard Cradossk dismissing Zuckuss, their secretive discussion over for the time being. Past experience enabled the majordomo to calculate precisely how long it would take for someone to turn from in front of the bench in which the Guild leader always sat, and walk the few meters to the chamber door. It was just long enough for the majordomo to get back down and brush the dust and cobweb fragments from himself, as though he had been standing there all along, waiting like a good and faithful-and non-conspiratorial-servant.
"I trust your talk was pleasant?" The majordomo escorted Zuckuss to the next door, leading out of the anteroom to the corridors of the Bounty Hunters Guild headquarters. "And that you found inspiration in it?" Zuckuss seeme d distracted; it took a moment for him to respond. "Yes…" He gave a nod as he walked. "Very…inspiring. That's the word, all right." Idiot, thought the majordomo. He had heard every syllable that-had passed between this creature and Cradossk. Whether Cradossk was aware of it or not, there were no secrets around here. Not as far as I'm concerned.
"Excellent." The majordomo smiled, showing all of his own sharp-pointed teeth. He held open the anteroom door, using his other hand to keep his head tail from falling across his shoulder as he gave a precisely calculated bow. "I trust we will have the pleasure of your company again."
"What?" Standing in the corridor, Zuckuss gazed at him as though puzzled by those simple words. "Oh…yes, of course. I imagine you will." He turned and walked away, like one weighted by a new and unforeseen responsibility.
The majordomo watched him go. He was more familiar with the various shades of meaning attached to Cradossk's utterances. Nothing was ever as it seemed on the surface. The poor bounty hunter didn't have a clue as to what kind of lethal mess he was getting into.
But Ob Fortuna did. He glanced behind him, across the length of the anteroom, to make sure that the door to Cradossk's chambers was still closed. Then he hurried down toward the opposite end of the corridor, to where the others who would be interested in this conversation would be waiting. With his hands tucked inside the folds of his long-skirted robes, he was already calculating the profits that would come from another piece of information bro-kering.
15
"What are we waiting for?" Bossk gnashed his fangs in impatient fury. "We should have been on our way by now!"
"Patience," counseled Boba Fett. "In this case, it is not so much a virtue as a necessity. That is, if you want to pull off this job and live to tell about it." He watched the Trandoshan resume cursing and muttering under his breath, pacing back and forth in one of the landing docks farthest from the Bounty Hunters Guild complex. It struck Fett that he wouldn't have to do anything at all in order to ensure Bossk's destruction; eventually, the reptilian would explode from the rage bottled up inside him. Or at the least, he thought, that much anger will cause a fatal mistake somewhere along the line. Boba Fett's own survival was predicated on both violence and the cold, emotionless precision of his strategies and actions. Without the former, all the plan ning and scheming in the galaxy would be impotent; that was something that the Empire, from Darth Va-der's underlings all the way up to Palpatine himself, understood completely. What a creature like Bossk didn't comprehend was that violence, however necessary, was a bomb nestled against one's own heart, in the absence of meticulous calculation. He'll find out, thought Fett. Soon enough.
The smaller bounty hunter, Zuckuss, glanced nervously from Boba Fett over to Bossk, then back again. "Maybe," he said, "an advance party could head out toward the Shell Hutts. Do some reconnaissance so that when the rest of our team shows up there, we'll be ready to go right in."
"Don't be stupid." Boba Fett shook his head. "The only thing that would accomplish would be to warn the Shell Hutts of our intentions. It's going to be hard enough keeping any element of surprise, without sending them a message like that."
"But the ships are ready to go!" Bossk whirled about on the clawed heel of his foot. "If we wait any longer, the other Guild members will put together teams for taking on this Dinnid job. They'll beat us to it!" Boba Fett didn't look up from the data readout in his hands; he continued checking the Slave I's armaments list. "It would be no great tragedy if anyone did that. Since they would have no chance off success, our merchandise would still be safely in the hands of the Shell Hutts, waiting for us. And it might actually facilitate our own plans, once we put them into motion. The Shell Hutts would see the difference between us and some crude pack trying to blast their way into the stronghold."
"You keep telling us about these great plans you've made." Bossk aimed a venomous stare at Fett. "When are you going to let us know exactly what they are?"
"As I said before." Unflinchingly, Boba Fett returned the other's hard gaze. "You need to cultivate patience." Bossk turned away again, his grumbling even louder than before.
The other team member was there with them in the landing dock. IG-88, a droid that had managed to become one of the Bounty Hunters Guild's more respected members-in fact, one of the few that Boba Fett would even consider to be a serious rival-brought his optical scanners around in Fett's direction. "There is patience," said IG-88 in a harshly synthesized voice, "and then there is hesitation. The latter comes from fear and indecision. We decided upon you as the leader of this team's operations because we assumed that such were not your qualities. Our disappointment would be great if we found out otherwise."
"If you think you can pull off this job without me"-Fett lowered the data readout in his hands-"then go ahead."
IG-88 regarded him for a moment longer, then gave a single nod of its head. "You remain our leader. But I warn you Don't exhaust what patience we do have."