• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“You’re a pretty good mimic,” Han commented, remembering her imitation of the four-armed manager in the terminal lounge.

“I told you, I’m from Lorrd,” she reminded him, and he understood. The Lorrdians had, for many generations, been a subject race during the Kanz Disorders. Their masters had forbidden them to speak, sing, or otherwise communicate as they worked at their slave labors. The Lorrdians had evolved a complicated language of extremely subtle hand and facial movements and body signals and become masters of kinesic communication. Although it had been generations since their servitude had been ended by the Jedi Knights and the forces of the Old Republic, the Lorrdians remained among the galaxy’s very best mimes and mimics.

“So that’s how you knew Chewie and I were watching table 131 today?”

“I read you like a pair of message tapes; you tipped it every time someone went near the table.”

And, thought Han, Fiolla’s Lorrdian background gave her an added interest in ending the slavery ring. Still, it was unusual to find a Lorrdian working this far from home, and especially for the Corporate Sector Authority.

About to down the last of his Flameout, Han pointed to the open voucher pad. “There are plenty of times when you can get more with a blaster than with one of those, but if I had one I’d buy myself a nice little planet and retire.”

“Which is why you’ll never have one,” she assured him, rising and following him from the table. “This slavery business is going to be my big break; nothing’s keeping me out of a Board chair.”

The Sljee waiter returned, its olfactory stalks tilting and waving when it took cognizance of the empty table. Then it noticed Han and Fiolla and approached them tentatively, the check extended before it on a metal salver.

“Ah, I believe this is your check, humans,” ventured the Sljee.

“Us?” Han, who was broke, cried indignantly. “We just arrived, and for your information we’ve been waiting to be seated for quite a while now. And you’re trying to stick us with somebody else’s check when we haven’t even had a drink yet? Where’s the manager?”

The Sljee was spinning around and back, tangling its tentacles in total consternation. Its sensory equipment was really quite excellent at fine distinctions and subtle perceptions concerning other Sljee, but it found humanoid species dreadfully anonymous.

“Are you certain?” the Sljee moaned abjectly. “I’m sorry; I, I suppose I had you confused with two others.” It studied the vacant table, wringing its tentacles in distress. “You didn’t happen to see them leave, did you? If I’m stiffed again it will cost me my job.”

Unable to endure any more, Fiolla drew a generous handful of cash from her thigh pouch and tossed it on the salver. “Solo, you’re impossible.”

The Sljee withdrew, showering her with its gratitude. Fiolla headed for the door.

“It’s every life form for himself,” opined Han Solo.

VI

FIOLLA’S hotel was, predictably, the finest lodging place at the spaceport, the Imperial. Han tried his best not to look uncouth and out of place as he followed her through a lobby of soaring gem-set columns, vaulted ceilings, resilient plush carpeting, delicate glow-orb lighting, expensive furnishings, and lush shrubbery.

Fiolla, on the other hand, was a picture of cool, nonchalant poise, aristocratic even in coveralls. She led the way to the lift shaft and punched for the seventieth level.

Her suite was luxurious without being overdone. Han suspected that, though Fiolla could have afforded something far showier, she would have deemed it vulgar.

But the second she palmed her door open, he knew something was wrong. Things were in disorder. Conform-lounge furniture had been pushed and shoved out of place, suspension cushions and floater pads ripped or overturned. Storage panels were hanging open and the data plaques and tapes with which Fiolla worked were strewn all over the floor.

As Han pulled Fiolla out of the doorway, he suddenly remembered that he was unarmed. “Do you have another gun?” he whispered