Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [124]
Through a cloud of smoke two figures swooped on suit jets, braked to an airborne halt in the center of the chamber, their weapons out and leveled at the trillionaire.
“Bohhuah Mutdah,” Bassi Vobah stated formally, “you are under arrest on the authority of the Administrator Senior of the Oseon System, for trafficking and use of illegal substances!”
Mutdah smiled. The explosion hadn’t startled him. Nothing seemed to take the obese trillionaire by surprise. He looked at Bassi, looked at Lando speculatively, then looked at Waywa Fybot, ridiculous in his outsize bird-shaped spacesuit.
Waywa Fybot looked back.
Mutdah nodded to the avian. Fybot changed the direction of his blaster, pulled the trigger, and neatly blew off Bassi Vobah’s head.
• XV •
BASSI VOBAH’S BODY slowly tilted backward, its legs projecting rigidly. One arm caught briefly at a filament that turned the corpse as it moved. It drifted away to join those of the guards in the book-lined void.
Bohhuah Mutdah turned his mildly amused attention back to the feathered law enforcer. “Your report, Officer Fybot, if you please.”
The creature gave him a salute.
“The order for your arrest, sir, originated in the highest possible echelons. The very highest possible echelons. In addition, shortly before I was dispatched to this system, I was given purely verbal instructions, sir, that you were not intended to survive the process. As insurance, pressure was applied to the local governor through his family, his business interests, and by virtue of his … er … his …”
The trillionaire’s raisin eyes twinkled pleasantly. He lifted a negligent hand, sending waves of obscene motion through his bloated flesh. “Pray go on, my friend, you may speak frankly. The truth does not offend a rational being.”
“Very good, sir: through his habituation to lesai.
“Somehow Lob Doluff knew or guessed about my secret orders and sent her—” Fybot pointed in the approximate direction of the drifting body, now several dozen meters away and dwindling rapidly—“to see that they were not carried out.”
The bird-being had been speaking more and more rapidly, an hysterical edge growing in his already high-pitched voice. Now he paused, caught his breath before continuing.
“Captain Calrissian was induced, under threat of prosecution on a capital charge, to provide us transportation and to assist in your entrapment. No one, however, not the Administrator Senior, not his police chief, not Calrissian, and I most fervently hope not my superiors, seems to have been aware of our … er, arrangement, sir.”
Mutdah smiled. “An excellent report, Officer Fybot. Most succinctly delivered. All in all, I am highly pleased at the outcome.
“But tell me: you are very nearly twenty hours later arriving than either of us anticipated at the outset. I appreciate the difficulties of negotiating the Flamewind, but … twenty hours, Fybot? Really!”
The alien blinked, finally thought to reholster his blaster. He fastened down the flap. “In transit to this place, sir, many queer events transpired. I myself suffered deep hallucinations, although my Imperial conditioning is supposed to have rendered me resistant to most … Well, that’s as may be, sir. In any case, we were attacked, by a collection of odd military spacecraft. We took refuge. Some repairs were required.”
Here, the alien hesitated, visibly nervous about the next part of his report. Lando thought he knew why, and doubled both his fists in anticipation.
“Sir, believing—on account of our pursuers—that Calrissian had become a liability, I took the initiative in attempting to dispose of him by sabotaging his vacuum suit. I also thought perhaps this would disrupt the plans of Bassi Vobah when it came time for your arrest. I was reasonably confident that I could get the Millennium Falcon here myself. Calrissian has a pilot droid that—”
“Yes, yes,” Bohhuah Mutdah answered, for the first time betraying a touch of impatience. Lando relaxed, started