Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [137]
“Two thirds of the population were exterminated in the bungled pacification operations that followed.
“Stunned and embarrassed, the government left the Renatasia System. The entire matter was covered up and what was termed an ‘incident’ was forgotten as quickly as possible.”
“We didn’t forget!” Klyn Shanga cried from his supine position on the deck of the Millennium Falcon. “We had nothing left but our dreams of retribution! And now we have failed!”
Vuffi Raa propped himself a little higher, began untwisting the wires around Klyn Shanga’s wrists. “You gathered war-craft. I didn’t recognize you for what you were. There were fighters from at least twenty civilizations in your squadron, and that booster engine was from a scrapped dreadnaught.”
“Yes! It took us a decade to put the operation together, cost us everything we had! And in the end, it came to nothing!” He turned his face to the floor; his shoulders shook briefly.
Lando untied the soldier’s ankles, helped him to his feet. “I trust, old man, that you understand: Vuffi Raa is many things, but he is only a droid. He has no choice but to do exactly what he is ordered to do. Did you ever see him personally harm anyone?”
Shanga turned to face the gambler. “No, no I didn’t. What has that got to do with it?”
“A very great deal. You saw how he reacted, simply to passively restraining you?”
The warrior set his mouth grimly. “So what? You can kill a man by ordering it done. You don’t have to bloody your own hands. Yet you’ll be just as guilty!”
Lando took a firmer grip on Shanga’s blaster. “Then I suppose that means you won’t give your word not to—”
“You’re bloody well right it doesn’t!” roared Klyn Shanga.
“Very well.” Lando, holding the weapon on the man, reached up and reprogrammed the airlock hatch. “Come along, Vuffi Raa.”
Stepping through the bulkhead door, the gambler spoke again. “We’ll bring you a cot and some food. I intend to drop you off at the nearest system, and you won’t be harmed. I hope to convince you on the way, sometime in the next few days, that this vendetta is irrational. Vuffi Raa is a thoroughly good being, and would have died rather than destroy your culture, but he is also a robot who, even in the vilest of hands, must obey. I’m trying to do something constructive about that, too.”
“You are?” a dazed Vuffi Raa asked from the corridor outside. “What, Master?”
“Don’t call me Master!”
He shut the door, programmed it to restrain the fighter pilot, and shoved the blaster into a slash pocket on the outside of his suit. “Let’s get forward, old thing, we need to decide where next to head for.”
“That would depend, Master, on whether we are freight haulers or gamblers, wouldn’t it?”
“Indeed it would, except that, at the moment, we are gentlebeings of leisure. We have a hundred seventy-three-odd thousand credits I won on Oseon 6845, after all.”
Halfway to the cockpit, the droid turned and looked at Lando. “I hate to say this, Master, but from past experience that won’t last very long.”
Lando stopped in midstride, a scowl on his face. He wanted desperately to shuck out of his increasingly uncomfortable spacesuit, get a shower, and lie down for a couple of eons. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. But we also have twenty million credits I sort of accidentally brought along with me from Bohhuah Mutdah’s place. He won’t be needing it anymore!”
They continued along to the control deck, where Vuffi Raa began the procedure necessary to setting a course. Lando was glumly rolling another cigarette with crushed cigar tobacco and highly unsuitable paper.
“Twenty million credits, and I don’t have any decent smokes!”
The robot paused. “Master, may I ask you a question?”
“As long as you don’t call me master when you do it.”
“I’ll try. Lando, Klyn Shanga’s people, the Renatasians—I feel responsible for them. Their civilization has been all but obliterated.