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Kud'ar Mub'at sighed wearily, someplace deep inside his near-spherical abdomen. His own ma
Perhaps, mused Kud'ar Mub'at, I should reabsorb that node. And design and develop another one. A quieter one.
But right now the problem wasn't so much that of raw materials- Kud'ar Mub'at could always extrude more subas sembly fiber-as of time. Time lag, to be precise; even a node as relatively uncomplicated as that took hundreds of time units to develop to an operational standard. With as much business as Kud'ar Mub'at was handling right now, it couldn't afford to be without a functioning identifier.
Maybe later, thought the assembler as it hung suspended in a nexus of the web's thicker strands. When this business with Boba Fett is over. Kud'ar Mub'at figured that its credit accounts would be fat enough then, so that it could afford to take a little time off.
It would have to talk to Balancesheet about that.
"Go tell Docker and the Handler twins." Kud'ar Mub'at gave the little chore to Identifier, rather than just plugging back into the web's communication neurons. "Tell them to get ready for company."
The little subassembly jumped and scurried away, down the dark, fibrous corridors to the web's distant landing snare. That'll keep it out of my leg hairs for a while, thought Kud'ar Mub'at. It gently moved Lookout aside and applied one of its own compound eyes to the view hole, sca
viewport, gradually growing closer. It didn't even look like a constructed artifact, as much as it resembled some accidental conglomeration of glue and wire, strung together with a Corellian scavenge rat's idiot thrift. As Fett's ship approached, and Kud'ar Mub'at's web blotted out more of the stars in the viewport, various bits of machinery could be seen, sharper-edged than the clotted fibers in which they were embedded. Boba Fett had been dealing with the arachnoid assembler long enough to know that it couldn't resist a bargain, no matter what kind of worthless junk was involved; portions of the web were a museum of defunct interstellar transports and other dead castoffs. Even Jawas pursued their trade in junk and used droids as a way of turning a profit; Kud'ar Mub'at apparently just liked accumulating stuff, incorporating it into the space-drifting home the assembler had spun out from its own guts.
Though it wasn't all just junk, Boba Fett knew; that was merely what Kud'ar Mub'at let show on the surface of the web, perhaps as a matter of protective camouflage.
Not everyone had done as well in their encounters with the assembler as he had; the few times that Fett had actually gone into the web, he'd spotted some not inconsiderable treasures, bits and pieces that the less fortunate had been obliged to leave behind, to discharge their debts to Kud'ar Mub'at. It would probably be better to leave one's skin behind than try to cheat the spidery entity.
Faint greenish lights showed in a rough circle, indicating the docking section of the web. One of Kud'ar Mub'at's subassemblies-Signaler was what it was called, if Fett remembered correctly-was a phosphorescent herpetoid node, long enough to encircle one end of the web with its glowing, snakelike form. Kud'ar Mub'at had let enough intelligence develop in the node so that it could blink out a simple directional landing pattern for any ship making a rendezvous with the web. Another group of subassemblies, arrayed just inside the pulsing circle, were devoid of even that much brainpower; they could sense the proximity of a spacecraft and, like the ten tacles of a Threndrian snareflower, grab hold and bring it in tight and secure to the web's entry port. Boba Fett loathed the idiot appendages, with their flexing vacuum- resistant scales like rust-pitted armor plate. He'd told Kud'ar Mub'at before, that if he ever found any scraps from the tentacles still clinging to the Slave I after he'd left the web, he'd turn around and pluck the nodes one by one from the web with a short-range tractor beam.
That'd be a painful process for Kud'ar Mub'at; every piece of the living web was co
He cut the Slave I's approach engines, leaving the craft with enough momentum to keep it on a slow and steady course toward the web's dock. Inside the ring of light, the tips of the grappling nodes had already begun to ease into position as the subassemblies woke from their dreaming half sleep.
"Ah, my dear Fett." A high-pitched voice greeted him as he clambered down from the docking port into the narrow confines of the web's interior. "How truly a delight it is to see you once more. After how horribly such a long time it has been-"
"Stow it." Boba Fett looked up and saw by the top of his helmet one of Kud'ar Mub'at's mobile vocal appendages, a subassembly that was little more than a rudimentary mouth tethered by a glistening cord. This one must have been just recently extruded by the assembler, the neural silk was still white and unmarked by the web's centuries of accumulated filth. "I'm here for business, not conversation."
The little voice box scurried along the tu
Fett made no reply as he clambered through the tu
"There you are in your entirety!" The same voice, like sheet metal being torn in half, sounded from in front of Boba Fett as he ducked beneath a ridge of hardened silk. "I knew you'd return, crowned with the eminence of success." The words were louder, coming from Kud'ar Mub'at's own mouth rather than the little voice- box node. "And of undeniable punctuality you are as well, indeed."
Boba Fett stepped into the web's central chamber, a space large enough for him to stand upright in. It was more than a matter of simile that it seemed to Fett as though he had walked into the center of the assembler's brain. That was the reality of Kud'ar Mub'at's nest and body, an interco
"I returned here when I said I would." Fett turned his masked gaze upon the assembler. "It was a simple enough job."
"Ah, for one of your exceedingly multifarious talents, yes, I imagine it was." Kud'ar Mub'at's compound eyes focused on his visitor. One of its jointed, spike- haired forelegs inscribed a graceful acknowledging gesture in the chamber's thick air. "No complications, I take it?"
"The usual." He folded his arms across the front of his battle-gear. "There were a couple of other bounty hunters who were hoping to nab him before I did."
"Ooh." The eyes, like dark black cabochons, glittered with anticipation. "And you took care of them?"
"I didn't have to." Fett knew how much the assembler enjoyed war stories, the more violence-filled the better.
He didn't feel like indulging the arachnoid creature's taste. "They were just the usual feckless types that the Bounty Hunters Guild sends out. It's easier to walk around a pile of nerf dung than step right into it."