Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [128]
Still, Roa showed no sign of hailing the Espos. Fiolla cleared her throat, and Han made introductions. Roa waved at Han’s lack of gunbelt. “So you’re out of the game, too, eh? Well, I don’t blame you, Han. Bowed out myself, just after we parted company. Lwyll and I had one close call too many. And, after all, doing business isn’t too unlike our old line of work. A background in felony can be a real plus. What’s your new line of endeavor?”
“A collections agency. Han Solo Associates, Limited.”
“Ah? Sounds like your ideal; you always fought for what you had coming. How’s your old sidekick, the Wook? Do you ever see any of the others? Tregga maybe, or even Vonzel?”
“Tregga’s doing life at hard labor on Akrit’tar; they caught him before he could dump a load of chak-root Sonniod’s running a delivery service, living hand to mouth. The Briil twins are dead; they shot it out with a patrol cruiser out in the Tion Hegemony. And Vonzel messed up an emergency landing; most of what’s left of him will be in a life-support clinic for good. He started a regular one-man run on the organ banks.”
Roa shook his head sadly. “Yes, I’d forgotten how the deck is stacked. Few make it, Han.”
He came back to the present. Squaring his shoulders, he dipped two fingers into his gaudy sash and drew out a business card. “Fifth largest import-export firm in this part of space,” he boasted. “We’ve got some of the best tax-and-tariff men in the business. Drop around one of these days, and we’ll talk over old times.”
Han tucked away the card. Roa had turned to his wife. “I’ll see that our baggage is transferred. You make sure our shuttle reservation’s confirmed, my dear.” He looked wistful for a moment. “We’re lucky to be out of it, aren’t we, Han?”
“Yeah, Roa, we sure are.” The older man clapped him on the shoulder, made a polite leave-taking to Fiolla, and marched away.
Lwyll, waiting until her husband was gone, gave Han a knowing, amused look. “You’re not out of it at all, are you, Han? No, I can tell; not Han Solo. Thanks for not telling him.” Lwyll touched his cheek once and left.
“You’ve got interesting friends” was Fiolla’s only comment, but her perspective on him had changed. Youthful looks belied the fact that he was a survivor in a calling with a very high rate of attrition.
Watching Roa’s retreating back, Han thought about tax-and-tariff men and fingered the business card. “Solo, hey, wake up!” Fiolla assailed him. “It’s our necks we’re supposed to be preoccupied with here.”
He sauntered off toward the interstellar reservations desks. Things could be worse, Han reflected.
“Bugging your eyes out at them won’t help,” said Fiolla, referring to the gambling tables and other games of chance in the swank wagering compartment just off the passenger liner’s main salon.
She was wearing a sheer, clinging gown and soft evening slippers of polychromatic shimmersilk. She had brought the outfit with her, packed away in her upper-right thigh pouch and lower-left calf stuffpocket, on the assumption that her coveralls would do for all but the most formal places. She wore it now for a change of pace and a morale booster. Han still wore his ship clothes, but had closed his collar.
“We could go over what we know so far,” she proposed.
“That’s all we’ve been doing since we came onboard,” he grimaced.
That wasn’t entirely true. They had spoken of any number of things during the trip; he found her a spirited and amusing companion, much more so than any of the other passengers, aside from a frustrating tendency to keep her stateroom door locked during the liner’s “night.” But they had exchanged stories.
For instance, Fiolla had explained to him how she and her assistant, Magg, had been doing an audit on Bonadan when her portable command-retrieval computer terminal malfunctioned. She had turned to Magg’s, which, having a more comprehensive cybernetic background, was a more complicated