Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [45]
Jandler grinned. “It beats a beam in the eye from a hot laser, Captain Calrissian—”
“Call me Lando, nobody else seems to be able to do it.”
“Lando, then. And when we get there, none of us will be in any particular hurry to report, will we, guys?” This last had a bit of an edge to it. The other four policemen quickly assumed a what? who, me? expression, and Lando trusted Jandler to keep them all in line. Not that it mattered. The plan was perfect.
The officers trooped aboard. Lando waved, then watched Vuffi Raa weld the hatch shut behind them.
“Thirty seconds, Master.”
“Very well, let’s get back out of the way.”
Slowly, gently, with impossible grace, the ungainly tub of a spaceship lifted from the sand, guided by a program Vuffi Raa had punched into its miniscule electronic mind. Lando glimpsed the fused and blackened end of a communications antenna, one of three the little droid had ruined. For the duration of its trip, the barge would be out of contact with the rest of the Rafa System. It would take the vessel a week to reach Rafa XI, last and least planet of the colony, a bleak ball of slush circling in the dark.
A considerable research installation had been built there, and a fairly impressive helium refinery.
“You didn’t forget the torches, did you?”
“Please, Master, it was difficult making myself do it, don’t rub it in.”
“Oh, very well. But sabotaging the ship’s controls was your idea, I’ll remind you. The cops can’t alter the taped course, and they can’t communicate with anyone until they’re close enough to do it with flashlights out the viewports. You did send along that Oseon brandy, I trust?”
“Yes, Master, and those … those …”
“Holocassettes? Absolutely imperative, old gumball machine. The scenery where they’re going is remarkably boring.” He gave a final salute as the barge lifted through a rack of rare, high cirrus clouds and disappeared.
Vuffi Raa said nothing. In truth, he was rather proud of his master for sparing the men’s lives, and especially for parting with them under somewhat cordial circumstances. Perhaps humans—this one in particular, at least—weren’t such a bad lot, after all.
“All right,” Lando said, breaking into the robot’s reverie, “let’s get moving ourselves. We’ve got to find the Toka. I’m going to kill that buzzard-necked Mohs if it’s the last thing I ever do!”
The first thing they had done, after sending off the constabulary contingent, was to attend to Lando’s wounds. Frostbite—of which he had been plentifully supplied by the previous evening’s adventure—is no minor matter, can be as serious as a blastershot under some circumstances, and, even with all the facilities of modern medicine, can lead to gangrene in a matter of hours.
The Millennium Falcon did not provide all the facilities of modern medicine. In a locker, Vuffi Raa discovered a portable gel-bath, miniature version of the large, full-body devices used to heal serious wounds. It would fit Lando’s feet nicely. He unfolded it in the common room and slid it under the gametable where Lando was considering a problem in Moebius chess.
Or appeared to be.
“Dash it all, Vuffi Raa, where would you be, on this planet, if you were an ancient savage with an angry outworlder after you?”
“I couldn’t say, Master, the inscrutabilities of the organic mind—”
“Nonsense, old android. Your mind is every bit as organic as—”
“Please, Master, I have done nothing to deserve insult. If you truly wish, I will consider the problem you have just posed.” Silence, then: “Why do you suppose he had us land the Falcon near that giant pyramid, Master?”
Lando gave up on the game, slapped the OFF switch, and watched the weird serpentine playing board fade and vanish from the tabletop.
“I’ve been wondering about that, myself. It’s much the largest building on the planet—perhaps, in the system, which would make it the largest in the entire galaxy, I’m sure. On the other hand, the Sharu—now there are some inscrutable minds for