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"What do you think's going to happen?"
The voice startled Zuckuss; he snapped his head around and saw Bossk standing next to him, leaning down to speak close to his ear. Zuckuss had been immersed too deep in his thoughts, reflecting on how the altered D'harhan looked like the last survivor of some otherwise extinct saurian species, dragging its age-heavy bones and rusting metal armor to the burial ground of its kin.
Bossk had stepped beside him while he was still wondering what had been the point of bringing D'harhan along on this job, if Boba Fett had known all along that the laser ca
"Don't ask me." Zuckuss glanced over at Bossk and gave a shrug, lifting his gloved hands to indicate his complete bafflement. "I haven't got a clue about what's going on." Things had seemed a lot simpler back at the Bounty Hunters Guild when he'd agreed to become part of Cradossk's plans-not that those were anything he felt like telling to Bossk. They'd only gotten more complicated since then. And dangerous; the confidence he'd felt at one time, that he'd survive all this just by sticking close to Boba Fett, had been seriously eroded.
Fett packing his personal arsenal of blasters and rocket launchers was one thing; a disarmed Fett leading all of the team right into the center of Fett's grudge-bearing enemies was another. Maybe Bossk is right, mused Zuckuss.
Maybe Fett is going to get us all killed. Another thought struck him Maybe that had been Cradossk's plan all along. The old Trandoshan hadn't been out just to get his own son eliminated, but a couple more of the Guild's young upstarts as well. Zuckuss could see why Cradossk and some of the other Guild elders would want to get rid of the coldly efficient droid IG-88, but he would have been surprised to find that anyone thought that he himself was at that level. And even if that were Cradossk's plan, where would Boba Fett hook up with it?
Was Fett just leading Bossk and the other bounty hunters into a prearranged trap-which would mean that somehow Cradossk had gotten the Shell Hutts in on the scheme; how likely was that?-or had the galaxy's smartest and toughest bounty hunter somehow been fooled as well, and Fett was about to get eliminated along with the rest of the team? Or ...
The brain behind the insectoid eyes started to throb painfully as more and more possibilities swirled within.
If he did get killed here on Circum-tore, Zuckuss hoped it wouldn't be before he had at least figured out part of what was going on. He was begi
"I suppose," growled Bossk, "we'll find out. One way or another."
"Maybe." The others of the team were waiting beside the ground shuttle; Zuckuss nodded toward them. "We better get going." He conquered his reluctance enough to start walking.
Even before the shuttle lifted on its repulsor beams and slid toward the Shell Hutts' spired buildings, Zuckuss had a revelation. He could see his face mask, air tubes dangling, reflected in the dark metal of D'harhan's silent, impotent laser ca
There was one of them who might be ready. Zuckuss looked toward Boba Fett, sitting in the front of the shuttle. If anybody was going to survive, it would be him.
That thought, even with all its embodied certainty, didn't make Zuckuss feel any better.
along. The old Trandoshan hadn't been out just to get his own son eliminated, but a couple more of the Guild's young upstarts as well. Zuckuss could see why Cradossk and some of the other Guild elders would want to get rid of the coldly efficient droid IG-88, but he would have been surprised to find that anyone thought that he himself was at that level. And even if that were Cradossk's plan, where would Boba Fett hook up with it?
Was Fett just leading Bossk and the other bounty hunters into a prearranged trap-which would mean that somehow Cradossk had gotten the Shell Hutts in on the scheme; how likely was that?-or had the galaxy's smartest and toughest bounty hunter somehow been fooled as well, and Fett was about to get eliminated along with the rest of the team? Or ...
The brain behind the insectoid eyes started to throb painfully as more and more possibilities swirled within.
If he did get killed here on Circum-tore, Zuckuss hoped it wouldn't be before he had at least figured out part of what was going on. He was begi
"I suppose," growled Bossk, "we'll find out. One way or another."
"Maybe." The others of the team were waiting beside the ground shuttle; Zuckuss nodded toward them. "We better get going." He conquered his reluctance enough to start walking.
Even before the shuttle lifted on its repulsor beams and slid toward the Shell Hutts' spired buildings, Zuckuss had a revelation. He could see his face mask, air tubes dangling, reflected in the dark metal of D'harhan's silent, impotent laser ca
There was one of them who might be ready. Zuckuss looked toward Boba Fett, sitting in the front of the shuttle. If anybody was going to survive, it would be him.
That thought, even with all its embodied certainty, didn't make Zuckuss feel any better.
is strictly business for us. I would appreciate it if we could get straight to it."
"All in good time, my dear Fett." The tapering end of the cylinder pointed toward the farther reaches of the hall, its high-vaulted roof interlaced with golden traceries and ornamental center bosses. "You are too dismissive of both pleasure and the past-the pleasures of the flesh, that we can enjoy now, and the memories of that past we share."
IG-88 and the shorter figure of Zuckuss came up on either side of Fett, the droid sca
"The past is over," said Boba Fett. The Shell Hutt's wobbling face, protruding from the collar of the repulsorborne cylinder, evoked a cold revulsion inside him. "If not for you, then it is for me."
"I wonder about that." Gheeta raised one of the cylinder's mechanical hands, using the point of its claw to scratch a deep fold in his chin. "How much do creatures ever forget? I hope you'll excuse me for waxing philosophical-I know how impatient you become-but sometimes I feel that nothing is forgotten. Everything remains buried, deeply or just beneath the surface, just waiting for its certain resurrection, to be brought out into the light once more."
Boba Fett could decipher the meaning behind the Shell Hutt's words. What he's saying, thought Fett, is that he hasn't forgotten. The reminder about the past and what it contained, back aboard the Slave I, hadn't been enough to indicate how fiercely that humiliation burned in Gheeta's memory. If one looked past all his cloying and ingratiating ma
And counted on. He's got his plans, thought Boba Fett, and I've got mine.
For a split second, as Fett gazed back into Gheeta's broad, half-lidded eyes, he wondered if there was another meaning to what the Shell Hutt had spoken. Resurrection