The female Neelah didn’t seem concerned by the dismal long-term prospects that Boba Fett had described. “So what do you propose doing in the meantime? And why did you bring us here?”
“My plans are my own,” said Boba Fett. “But some of them concern you, and it’s now become convenient for you to have some of your many questions answered. You wanted the past-your past-then so it shall be.” He gestured with one hand toward the viewport behind him. “I hereby give it to you.”
Dengar could see Neelah scowling disgustedly at the viewport. Outside the ship, pallid strands of neural tissue and their tethered, spiderlike corpses continued to drag their shapes past the transparisteel.
“Is this some kind of a joke?” Neelah’s glare was even angrier as she turned it toward Fett. “I don’t see anything, that-“
Leaning forward in the pilot’s chair, Boba Fett interrupted her. “You don’t see, because you don’t understand. Not yet, at any rate. But if you listen to me, you will.”
With a scowl still upon her face, Neelah folded her arms across her breast. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”
From the corner of his eye, Dengar glanced over at the young woman. It wasn’t the first time that he had heard that tone of command in her voice. She’s used to giving orders, thought Dengar, and having creatures obey them. It was the same haughty tone of voice that Neelah had used on him, ordering him to continue telling the story of Boba Fett and the breakup of the old Bounty Hunters Guild, and it had been more effective than any blaster pistol she could have pulled on him. But to hear her talk that way to Boba Fett, as though barely able to control her impatience with a slow-moving servant, was still startling. Who is she? wondered Dengar. And how did she wind up as a memory-wiped dancing girl in Jabba the Hutt’s palace? His own curiosity about Neelah’s past almost matched hers.
“This part of the story,” said Boba Fett, “didn’t begin here. And it happened a little while before the arachnoid assembler Kud’ar Mub’at met his demise. I had business in one of the nearby systems that had been successfully concluded-you don’t need to know about that-and I was returning toward the center of the galaxy, where several potentially lucrative opportunities were awaiting me. Of course, I was aboard my own Slave I at the time, and not an under-equipped mediocrity like this ship. One of the functions I had programmed into Slave I’s computers was a complete database of the ships of all other bounty hunters, both those affiliated with the Bounty Hunters Guild and the few, such as myself, operating as independent agents. It rarely happens, but on occasion some other bounty hunter, or the Guild while it still existed, has managed to obtain information before I have, about some particular hard merchandise to be rounded up for a good price.” Fett’s shoulders lifted in a dismissive shrug. “Some clients prefer to employ less-qualified bounty hunters, hoping they’ll be able to get what they want at a lower price. That’s their choice, but it rarely works out that way.”
True enough, thought Dengar. He had heard those other stories, all of which went to prove that it was almost as dangerous trying to avoid doing business with Boba Fett as actually going ahead and getting involved with him. In a lot of ways, he was virtually inescapable.
“So I sometimes find it worthwhile,” continued Boba Fett, “to keep an eye on what other bounty hunters are up to. And if Slave I’s ID scanners home in on a bounty hunter’s ship in a navigational sector that should otherwise be empty of such activity, then I find that very interesting indeed. It’s even more interesting when the onboard computers read out the ID code of a ship belonging to a bounty hunter known for his unsavory business practices.”
That description puzzled Dengar. It was hard to imagine any bounty hunter being more ruthless than Boba Fett himself. “So who was it that you came across?”
“The ID code identified the ship as one known most often as the Venesectrix. Rarely spotted anywhere close to the central sectors of the galaxy; its owner preferred operations farther out into the
border territories. And of course, there was a reason for that: the owner of the Venesectrix was a certain Ree Duptom.” Pausing a moment, Boba Fett looked over at Dengar. “Perhaps you’re familiar with the name.”
“Wait a minute …” It took a moment, but the name finally hooked up with a memory synapse inside Den-gar’s head. “Ree Duptom-he’s the only one who ever got booted out of the Bounty Hunters Guild!” That took some doing, Dengar knew; there had been plenty of creatures in the Guild whose ethical standards had been way below his own. He wasn’t familiar with the exact details-Duptom had been booted out of the Bounty Hunters Guild before Dengar had joined it-but there had been an unspoken legend attached to him, as being the one creature that all other bounty hunters considered scum. “I didn’t think he was still active, even out in the border.”