Star Wars_ Tales of the Bounty Hunters - Kevin J. Anderson [118]
The dark blue match flag fluttered down from the rafters, and into the ring.
The three bruisers moved in on the young fighter.…
Boba Fett said, “Spice.”
The target, Hallolar Voors, said “Yes, Gentle Fett. Spice. Eighteen canisters. And if you can handle it, we can deliver the same amount again, twice a quarter.”
Fett nodded as though he were paying attention. It was not long after the end of the fights, and he walked with Voors through a huge, dimly lit, apparently deserted warehouse at the edge of Executioner’s Row; Executioner’s Row was a slum that was itself at the edge of Dying Slowly. Fett wasn’t impressed with the imagination they showed on Jubilar, but he had to concede they displayed a certain consistency.
Voors had traded in the two women for a pair of conspicuously armed bodyguards. The bodyguards trailed behind them.
“The spice trade in this sector has been controlled by the Hutts for a long time,” Fett observed. “Where did you find an independent source?”
Voors smiled at Fett; Fett, staring straight ahead, watched the smile in the heads-up tactical display in his helmet. The tac display gave him a 360-degree view of his surroundings; Fett wondered whether Voors knew that, or if he was just smiling for the practice of it. It was a handsome smile, Fett had to admit.
The Mandalorian armor itself bothered people, but Fett had found that it bothered people more when he did not look at them while speaking. And if they thought he could not see what was going on around him, so much the better.
Voors did not seem, to Fett, the sort who would know much about the capabilities of Mandalorian battle armor. In fact the man looked much like what he was: the son of a wealthy local businessman, a dark, charming, handsome young fellow wearing expensive clothes, with a good smile, who was fatally out of his league and did not know it.
“The source is … private,” Voors said. “And desires to stay that way, I’m afraid.”
Fett nodded, once; he hardly cared.
Moments later they came to a wide, relatively empty area, lit well enough that Fett’s macrobinoculars, adjusted to the darkness they had been walking through, lowered the gain automatically; inside the helmet, the scene still appeared bright as day to Fett.
Three rows of plastic canisters, six to a row, sat out in the middle of the empty area. The canisters were fat, and half the height of a man. Fett pointed at random. “Open that one.”
One of the bodyguards standing behind Fett glanced at Voors; Voors nodded quickly. The warehouse lights changed, went dark red; normal white light activated spice. The bodyguard moved forward, knelt, and touched the two clasps that kept the canister sealed; it left Fett with one bodyguard still behind him, slightly to his left.
Fett took a step forward and looked down. It looked like spice; he reached in and pulled out a handful. “Seal it and turn the white lights back on.”
The lights came back up … and it was spice, all right. Fett scattered it across the top of the canister, and it lay there glowing in the light, twinkling and flickering as the spice was activated. Fett’s left hand, hanging by his belt, touched a stud on the belt, releasing the neural toxin, and continued the motion, up to touch his right hand. He worked free the glove, stood there with his naked right hand held up in the air. “Do you mind if I smell it? Real spice has a sharp, pleasant odor—”
Voors glanced at his bodyguards. “If you insist.”
Fett reached up, as though to take off his helmet—saw them watching him with plain anticipation. Another of the armor’s benefits; taking the helmet off became an act of theater. He paused with his hand on the base of his helmet, and relaxed. “I wanted to ask you a question.” The hand dropped slightly. “Does your conscience ever bother you?”
Voors stared at him. “Are you serious? Over spice?”
“Does it ever bother your conscience,” Fett said again, in the voice that