Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [102]
Had he been a waitress or a bell-bot, no one would have needed to tell him. The wealthy are notoriously lousy tippers.
What was worse, given the local standard of living, the fact that there were so many wealthy inhabitants and that the commercial overhead was so high, he was once again watching his money—his winnings—being eaten up. Everything was expensive, from a simple meal in the humblest eatery to the equipment and supplies his ship required for the journey ahead.
As usual, Lando’s luck, both good and bad, was operating at full blast.
The day after his revealing conference in the Administrator Senior’s office, he and Vuffi Raa were bolting down the weirdly shaped seating rack that had been sent over for Waywa Fybot.
“One more turn ought to do it!” Lando grunted. “I wish there was room for an autowrench in this corner—unh!”
The head of the bolt had twisted and torn off. This meant they had to undo all the other bolts and move the rack while Vuffi Raa drilled out the broken hardware and removed it for a second try.
“Master, why is the installation necessary? We could override the gravfield in this part of the ship and let Officer Fybot spend the trip in free-fall. It would be much more comfortable.” Having drilled a hole through the soft metal of the bolt, he inserted a broken-screw remover, the twist of its threads being opposite those of the bolt, and tightened it, turning the offending artifact neatly out of the deck.
“What, and have his birdseed floating everywhere? Not a chance. Besides, his physiology is supposed to be delicate or something, like a canary’s. Don’t ask me why they made somebody like that a cop—that would require an assumption that logic functions at some level of government.”
Together, they moved the distorted chair back into place over the boltholes drilled for it in the decking. Somehow, thought Lando, the parties responsible for this—the final straw of messing up his nice, neat spaceship—would be brought to a reckoning.
The first three bolts went in perfectly. Again. Lando and Vuffi Raa looked at each other with resigned expressions (Lando reading the little droid’s body posture since it had no face), placed the fourth bolt in its hole, and locked the wrench around its hexagonal head.
“If it doesn’t work this time, old power-tool, we’re going to send for a big wire cage!”
Deep within the honeycombed recesses of Oseon 6845, down where enormous pipes the diameter of a man’s height conveyed air and water and other vital substances from fission-powered machinery to hotels and offices and stores and other places habituated by human beings, down where no one but an occasional robot made its perfunctory rounds, a meeting was being held.
“So you came,” a gray-clad figure whispered. The clothing had the look of a uniform, although it was barren of the insignia of rank or unit markings. The face above the stiff collar, below the cap, was young. It was the first officer of the Wennis, lurking in the shadows of a ship-sized power transformer, his voice drowned within a meter or two by its titanic humming.
The other figure was even less conspicuous, hidden more deeply in shadows, cloaked for anonymity in many yards of billowy fabric. It was taller than the Wennis second-in-command, and stood there silently, acknowledging the greeting with a nod.
“Good,” the officer hissed. “And do you understand what you are supposed to do when you get to 5792? There must be no mistake, no hesitation. The Administrator Senior has found a legal means of circumventing our intentions in this matter, and it must not work! The orders come from very nearly as high as they can.”
Once again, the tall disguised figure nodded.
“All right, then. In return, you will be richly rewarded. Our, er … principal understands the pragmatic value of gratitude. Be sure you understand the consequences