Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [60]
Atuarre was bedecked at wrists, forearms, throat, forehead, and knees with bunches of multicolored streamers, Trianii attire for festivals and joyful occasions. She’d applied the exotic perfumes and formal scents of her species, using up the tiny supply she had in her belt pouch.
“I am no actress, either,” she reminded him as they met the others at the ramp hatch.
“Did you ever see a celebrity?”
“Authority execs and their wives, when they came to our world as tourists.”
Han snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Smug, dumb, and happy.”
Pakka was costumed as his mother was, wearing the scents appropriate to a pre-adolescent male. He handed his mother and Han long, billowing metallic capes, hers coppery and his an electric blue. Han’s small wardrobe had been ransacked for material for the costumes, and the capes had come from the thin insulating layers of a tent from the ship’s survival gear.
The fitting, seaming, and alterations had been a problem. Han was all thumbs when it came to tailoring, and the Trianii, of course, were a species who had never developed the art because they never wore anything but protective clothing. The solution had come in the form of Bollux, who had been programmed for the necessary skills, among others, while serving a regimental commander during the Clone Wars.
The ramp was already down; all that remained was to open the hatch. “Luck to us all,” Atuarre bade them softly. They piled hands, including Bollux’s cold metal ones, then Han reached for the switch.
As the hatch rolled up, Atuarre was still objecting. “Solo-Captain, I still think you ought to be the one to—” At the foot of the ramp, the tunnel-tube was crammed with body-armored Espos brandishing heavy blasters, riot guns, gas projectors, fusion-cutters, and sapper charges. Whirling, Atuarre gushed, “Oh, my! How thoughtful! My dears, they’ve sent us a guard of honor!”
She touched up her glossy, fine-brushed mane with one hand, smiling down at the Security Policemen charmingly. Han wondered why he’d ever worried. The Espos, keyed up for a shootout, stared popeyed as she swept down the ramp, the profusion of streamers rippling and snapping behind her, her cape shimmering. Her steps sounded with the anklet-chimes that Han had run off for her from shipboard materials, using his small but complete tool locker.
At the front of the Espo ranks was a battalion commander, a major, his black swagger stick held behind his back, spine stiff, face rigid with officiousness. Atuarre descended the ramp as if she were receiving the keys to the planet, waving as if to acknowledge a standing ovation.
“My dear, dear General,” she halfsang, intentionally giving the man a promotion, “I’m simply beyond words! Viceprex Hirken is too kind, I’m sure. And to you and your gallant men, thanks from Madam Atuarre and her Roving Performers!” She swooped right up to him, ignoring the guns and bombs and other items of destruction, one hand playing with the major’s ribbons and medals, the other waving her gratitude to the massed, dumbfounded Espos. A dark, high-blood-pressure blush rose out of the major’s collar and climbed swiftly for his hairline.
“What is the meaning of this?” he sputtered. “Are you saying you’re the entertainers Viceprex Hirken is expecting?”
Her face showed cute confusion. “To be sure. You mean word of our arrival wasn’t forwarded here to Stars’ End? The Imperial Entertainers’ Guild assured me it would communicate with you; I always demand adequate advanced billing.”
She swept a grand gesture back up the ramp. “Gentlemen! Madam Atuarre presents her Roving Performers! First, Master Marksman, wizard of weaponry, whose target-shooting tricks and glittering gunplay have astounded audiences everywhere!”
Han walked down the ramp, trying to look the part, sweating under the tunnel-tube’s worklights. Atuarre and the others could