Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [177]
“Yes, Master, I’ve been listening. What are we going to do with twenty-three million credits worth of precious stones? I don’t believe we have room in the—”
“We’ll figure that out when there’s a point to it. Right now staying alive gets top priority.” He’d unsealed his helmet and hung it on a rack, and, retaining the rest of his suit, climbed down into the lounge, where for once he left the gravity on, enjoying the feel of some weight under him.
“The second alternative,” he continued, once contact was reestablished, “is to fight. You folks have some impressive talents; your size alone is pretty terrifying, at least for people of my size, but I think—”
“Captainmasterlandocalrissian,” interrupted Sen, “we are not a fighting people, in fact the concept is nearly as new to us as that of gaming—and somewhat related, I would guess. In any event, there is a third way …”
“And what would that be?” the gambler asked as he slowly and deliberately singed the business end of a cigar, keeping the flame well away from the tip.
“Negotiation. You will recall mention of a third Elder, Bhoggihalysahonues? At this moment, she and a delegation of other Oswaft have appeared at the mouth of the StarCave and are signaling for a peace-conference with your fleet. We wish to ask upon what terms—”
“You bet your apostrophe I remember Boggy, and I can predict exactly what’s going to happen, Sen. The Navy wants you dead, old beanbag, and that’s the only terms they’re going to settle for. I’ve seen their work on other occasions, and you can believe me when I—”
“This is much as I had surmised,” the second Elder said, “and I opposed the attempt, yet we are an open and free people and would not prevent our third Elder from trying what she might. Yet you have mentioned other alternatives to dying, fighting, and negotiating.”
“There’s running away.”
“What, and leave the ThonBoka?” So much emotion loaded the response that Lando couldn’t tell which Oswaft it had come from. He poured himself a glass of fruit juice (spacesuits tend to dehydrate one a bit) and sat back down, puffing on his cigar. Vuffi Raa was forward, keeping his big red eye on the controls. It was difficult but important to remember that they were still in deep space. He could see how the Oswaft thought of the place as a safe haven.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I gather from Lehesu’s experiences that you folks aren’t biologically tied to the place. It’s an alternative to dying, isn’t it?”
A long, long silence ensued while the massive brains outside processed his heresy. Finally: I am not sure, Lando, that it is a desirable alternative. We are the ThonBoka; the Thonboka is the Oswaft. Would you willingly be driven out of your home, accept an eternity of wandering—”
He laughed. “Sen, I accepted wandering as a way of life a long time ago. It beats the Core out of working for a living.” The gambler mused. There were a lot of strange life-forms in the galaxy, ranging, in the matter of size alone, from these gigantic creatures, the largest he’d ever heard of, down to the tiny Crokes of … well, something-or-other. He couldn’t remember the system. What made it interesting was that in his travels he’d observed that the biggest critters were almost invariably the most gentle and timid. Well, it made sense: if you were little, you had to learn to be tough. If you were big, it didn’t matter. He guessed he’d always thought of himself as somewhere in the middle.
“Okay, yeah. Well, what if you appeared to do one or another of these things—sort of like the way I taught you to bluff in sabacc? Say you looked like you were going to destroy the fleet. Or, say you looked like you were all dead? I hate to bring up a touchy subject, but Lehesu tells me you folks sort of disintegrate when you die, drift away in a cloud of dust?”
Another long, uncomfortable silence. At long last, the daring Lehesu spoke for his Elders.