Star Wars_ MedStar 02_ Jedi Healer - Michael Reaves [94]
He was going back to Coruscant, bearing an extremely valuable gift for his chosen flock. There was a sense of accomplishment in that, as well. He had made the best of a bad situation, had managed to salvage something out of what had initially seemed to be complete disaster. Truly, it was as the old saying put it: there was no carrion so bad but that it offered some scavenger sustenance.
With the ship on automatic pilot, Kaird refreshed himself, ate a meal of synthesized bool grubs, and went through a short series of martial exercises. Feeling less stale with his muscles warm and his breath deepened, he went back to the entry lock in which he had left the faux case with its precious cargo. He would rather have it where he could see it, even though he was alone on the ship. The fewer things left to chance, the fewer things that could go wrong.
The case was where he had left it. It was heavy—not so much that he couldn’t lift and haul it, but enough so that the set of wheels on it was useful. Kaird rolled it back toward the control cabin.
The ship boasted a series of pressure doors down the main corridor. In the event of a hull breach, these doors would quickly and automatically seal to maintain integrity in the separate compartments. Each had a slightly raised threshold to better effect an airtight seal. The ridges were only a couple of centimeters high, but he had to remember to step over them to avoid tripping when the A-Grav field was on. Kaird did this almost unconsciously after years of space travel. Luggage makers were well aware of these threshold obstacles, and thus standard luggage wheels were of a flexible compound that would roll over the pressure door lips with ease.
Not so the wheels of the fake case. Kaird didn’t know where his former partners in crime had found these wheels, but they were definitely made of harder stuff, for when he hit the first threshold, the case stopped with a jolt, and one of the wheels broke.
Kaird shook his head. He’d have to carry it after all.
He lifted the case—and both the wheel and its axle fell off, taking with them a fist-sized chunk of carbonite that dropped onto the deck with a clunk!
Something metallic glinted from the edge of the broken case.
Kaird stared at it. A sudden jolt of hormones raced through his system, erecting his featherettes in atavistic fear, fluffing them to make him look larger to any predator that might be considering him prey. The fact that there was nothing even remotely resembling a predator within the several thousand cubic kilometers of empty space surrounding him did nothing to allay his instinctive fear.
There was not supposed to be any metal inside the carbonite.
Bota was fragile. Even when packed into compressed bricks, it would rot eventually, which was of course why the contraband was transported in carbonite—the carbon-freezing process suspended nearly all organic molecular action. Bota did not become really stable until further processing made it into an injectable or tablet form. In the compressed-brick form normally used for shipping, anything packed along with it might cause unwanted chemical reactions. Great pains were taken at this stage to make sure the product was shipped as pure as possible, and he had insisted similar care be taken by the black marketeers.
So why was he staring at something made of metal within the carbonite block?
His featherettes began to smooth as Kaird took several deep, calming breaths, making sure his exhalations were a second or two longer than the inhalations, so as to flush carbon dioxide from his system. It worked; he felt his pulse rate starting to slow as his anxiety level dropped.
He considered the possibilities. First possibility: something was inside the carbonite with the bota.
Second: something was inside the carbonite instead