Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [185]
Vuffi Raa did prove to be useful in many ways. He was a superb personal valet, had a capacious memory, an astute intelligence with an easy grasp for every cultural nuance. He was utterly obedient—except that Whett couldn’t get the little droid to call him master.
Actually, that turned out all to the good. Before landing their small, unarmed entry vessel on the front lawn of the Mathildean chief executive’s official residence, among bands and fanfares and uncounted cocked and loaded weapons, Vuffi Raa had been instructed to disguise himself as an organic being with sophisticated plastics simulating skin.
It occurred to Whett that perhaps the droid would then resemble his original manufacturers. It was a galaxy-wide assumption that droids tended to be designed in the image of their makers. However, he shelved the speculation; they had other problems at present.
The robot would pose as the leader of the diplomatic expedition, an envoy from a starry federation Way Out There, ready to welcome the Renatasians into the fold. That was Whett’s habitual deception at work. He assumed the role of humble assistant and secretary. This kept him neatly out of a spotlight he felt it would eventually be safer to avoid, knowing standard policy toward unclaimed but occupied territory.
The Ottdefa Osuno Whett, lying in his tiny cabin aboard the decommissioned cruiser Wennis, en route to the ThonBoka, paused momentarily in his musings and finally pushed the button on the electronic box beside him on the cot. A tide of relaxation funneled into his brain through the bony wave guides of his eye sockets. It was followed by another and another and another, each successively smaller, yet still soothing. To run the device continuously would put him into deep sleep, a condition he must avoid in the event the sorcerer should call on him again. But the waves of rest were almost as good.
He pushed the button again.
More memories came to him, unbidden.
After the initial, inevitable awkwardness of first contact, the Mathildeans, along with everybody in the rest of the system, took Vuffi Raa to their hearts. He addressed international conclaves. He presided over formal banquets. He was photographed with scantily clad media personalities. He was compelled to turn down offers involving the endorsement of consumer products. Even so, small replicas of the five-limbed droid began showing up in stores almost from the beginning, and several sizable fortunes were made for their enterprising creators.
All the while, a short, plump, dark-haired Ottdefa Osuno Whett made observations and unobtrusive recordings. Estimates were made and updated concerning the strength of the Renatasian economy, the effectiveness of the system’s defenses. It was accepted as a given that invasion would unite the deeply divided civilization. Whett would have preferred to play upon those divisions, in effect to let the system conquer itself, but the navy was beneath such subtleties. Some effort was made by the authorities to limit the pair’s access to high-security installations, but they didn’t take account of a spy technology centuries ahead of Renatasia’s.
As he lay in his cot aboard the Wennis, Whett’s mind was upon another day, another place. His hand hovered over the button of the electronic relaxer, just as it had hovered, in the small cabin of their landing vehicle, over a button on the communicator panel. Pushing the button would transmit all the data he had collected and trigger the invasion by the