Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [125]
“But tell me more about these raiders,” Mutdah continued. “Who were they? What did they want?”
“Sir, they made no demands, they simply—I have no idea, sir.”
“Captain? Surely you must—”
Lando shrugged. “I’ve been trying to figure it out myself for days. There might be some connection with a pirate ship I fought off between Dilonexa and the Oseon. Then again, it might just be another sore loser.”
Mutdah contemplated Lando’s reply for a rather longer time than Lando could see any reason for, muttered, “Possibly …,” more to himself than anyone else, then “… and possibly not.”
Finally he shook his massive head and turned very slightly to face Lando again. “I might explain that Officer Fybot has never been particularly happy in his line of work. He was, I ascertained when my intelligence sources informed me of this scheme, conscripted to pay tribute owed by treaty by his system to the central galactic government.
“A gentle being, our Waywa; at heart he nurtures no ambition greater than to become a gourmet chef. I suspect that you and I would find his culinary efforts quite resistible. Nonetheless, he possesses no small talent, in the view of his fellow avians, and fondly wishes to resume his education where he was forced to abandon it upon being drafted into service.
“Have I stated your case correctly, Waywa?”
The bird-being reached up, gave his helmet a quarter turn, detached it from its shoulder ring and tucked it under an arm. He wrinkled up the few mobile portions of his face in a grimace Lando had learned to recognize as representing happiness.
“Oh yes, quite correctly, sir!”
The trillionaire addressed Lando again. “In return for his cooperation, I have personally assured Waywa that he will no longer be required to suffer involuntary servitude at the behest of the government. I fully intend to make good upon that promise, keep my part of the bargain.”
Abruptly, Mutdah raised a tiny pistol from where he’d concealed it in the deep folds of his corpulent body, drilled Waywa Fybot cleanly through the abdomen. The beam of energy pierced both suit and bird. A surprised expression froze on Fybot’s face as his inert form wafted away slowly from the center of the room.
That made four corpses in the library. Things are getting pretty messy around here, the gambler thought.
“The anatomy,” Bohhuah Mutdah said incongruously, “is somewhat differently arranged than one might anticipate. That was, believe it or not, a clean shot through the creature’s heart.”
His fat hand, which supposedly hadn’t been used for years, adroitly tucked the pistol into the waistband of its owner’s shorts, then hovered there, ready to draw and use the gun again in a fraction of a second.
Lando had noticed that the fat man’s reflexes were incredible.
Now he noticed something else: a glow of cruel satisfaction that suffused the trillionaire’s decadent face. The man liked killing.
He looked at Lando appraisingly. “The question now, my dear Captain Calrissian, is what I ought to do with you. As you are aware, I have eliminated—have caused to be eliminated—two duly sworn officers of the law. They will doubtless be missed. I have illicitly purchased a substantial amount of a highly illegal substance. I have suborned an agent of the government. In short, nothing I couldn’t easily pay to have taken care of.”
The obese figure pointed toward the table once again. “There is a box of excellent cigars in the top drawer of the end table. Would you kindly remove two of them, light them with the lighter you will also discover there, give one of them to me, and enjoy the other yourself?”
The fat hand stayed near the gun.
Lando followed the instructions—with the exception of lighting the cigars. He handed one to Mutdah, offered to light it for him.
“Oh, come now, Captain. I suppose you are afraid of being poisoned or something silly like that. Here: If you don’t mind, I’ll puff on both cigars while you apply the flame—no, don’t let the flame touch them.