Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [250]
“And mytag crystals were used in old subspace commo and detection gear; you needed lots and lots of them for any spacefleet or planetary defenses. And so forth; all this was critical war materiél. With the stuff in these vaults, Xim could have assembled a war machine that would have conquered this whole part of space. But he lost big at the Third Battle of Vontor, first.”
“That’s it?” Han bellowed. “We went through all this for a treasure that’s obsolete?”
“Not quite,” Skynx commented mildly, still bent over the screen. “One whole section is filled with information tapes, art works, and artifacts. There is a hundred times more information contained here than everything we know about the period altogether.”
“I’ll bet the Survivors have long since forgotten just what it was they were guarding,” Hasti put in. “They believed the legends, just like everyone else. I wonder what did happen to the Queen of Ranroon?”
Badure shrugged. “Perhaps they plunged her into the system’s primary after she offloaded the treasure, or sent her off with a skeleton crew to arrange misleading sightings of her and create a false trail. Who knows?”
Skynx had left the viewscreen and started a delirious dance, first on his hind limbs, then on the front ones, hopping and capering much as Han and Chewbacca had a moment before. “Marvelous! Miraculous! What a find! I’m sure to get my own chair funded—no, my own department!”
Han, leaning against a wall, slowly sank to a squatting position. “Artworks, hmm? Chewie and I can just stroll into the Imperial Museum with a bunch under our arms and start haggling, right?” He rested his forehead on his good arm. Chewbacca patted his shoulder solicitously, making mournful sounds.
Skynx gradually stopped cavorting, realizing what a disappointment all this was to the two. “There are some things of intrinsic value, Captain. If you choose carefully, you could fill your ship with items you could dispose of relatively simply. There would be some profit.” He was fighting the urge to hoard the entire find, knowing that the Millennium Falcon could bear away no more than an insignificant part of it. “Enough, I suppose, to get your ship repaired properly and have your wounds looked after in a first-class medicenter.”
“What about us?” Hasti interposed. “Badure and I haven’t even got a starship.”
Skynx pondered for a moment, then brightened. “I can write my own ticket with the university, an unlimited budget. How would you two like to work with me? Academic pursuits will be dull after this, I suppose, to a pair of humans. But there’d be generous pay and retirement benefits and quick promotions. We’ll be years and years working on this find. I’ll need someone to look after all the workers, scholars, and automata.” Badure smiled and put an arm around Hasti’s shoulders. She nodded.
That made Skynx think of something else. “Bollux, would you and Blue Max care for positions? You’d be of great help, I’m sure. After all, you two are the only ones who interacted with the war-robots at any length. There’s certain to be an effort to study their remains; we have a great deal yet to learn about their thought processes.”
Blue Max answered for them both. “Skynx, we’d like that a lot.”
“If the locals don’t march in here and take it all away from you,” Han reminded them, as Chewbacca helped him to his feet. Seeing their concern, he added, “I guess we’ll leave you a portable defensive generator and some heavy weapons and supplies out of the Falcon. That’ll give us more cargo space.”
Badure sounded uncharacteristically angry. “Han, how gullible do you think the rest of the universe is? You always want to do the right things for the wrong reasons. Well, what will you do the day you run out of excuses, son?”
Han pretended not to hear. “We’ll punch through a distress call just before we make our jump out of this system. There’ll be a