[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 03(88)
“Questions, questions, questions.” Balancesheet shook its head in mock despair. “They wouldn’t be necessary if you trusted me more.”
“I haven’t stayed alive as long as I have in this business by trusting other creatures. So just answer them.”
“Very well; I know it was Kuat of Kuat who ordered the bombing raid on the Dune Sea, because his representative told me so, on his instructions. Kuat wanted me to be assured of his desire to have you dead, so that I would be confident of getting paid in case I came across any news of your whereabouts. And as to why he’d want you dead, and why he’d be interested in this fabricated evidence against the late Prince Xizor-” Balancesheet spread his raised claw tips apart. “Of that, I have not the slightest notion. But it does confirm in my mind that if we had what he was looking for, and given the vast wealth of Kuat Drive Yards at his disposal, we’d be able to force him to pay a substantial sum for it. And let’s face it: you and I have considerable experience at bargaining for that kind of thing.”
“Then the only problem,” said Dengar, “is getting our hands on what he wants.”
And what I want, thought Neelah to herself.
“How fortunate then that the fabricated evidence isn’t with the Rebel Alliance, but someplace where it can be gotten at instead.” Balancesheet’s jagged smile almost seemed to split its triangular face in half. “And also, that your new business associate-myself-knows where it is.” The assembler looked back over toward Boba Fett. “We are in business together, aren’t we?”
“All right,” answered Boba Fett. “We’ll work out the split later. After we get hold of the fabricated evidence and figure out the best way to cash in on it.”
Balancesheet laughed, a sound like tiny, mistuned bells.
“What’s so amusing?”
“It’s so paradoxical.” One of the claw tips wiped at the largest of the multiple eyes, in another parody of humanoid emotional gestures. “You’ve come all this way, looking for the answers you want, and the only means of getting those answers now is to find this phony evidence against the dead Xizor-and it’s back on Tatooine!”
Neelah and both bounty hunters were stunned into silence for a moment. She found her voice first. “Tatooine? How … how did it get there?”
“Simple.” Balancesheet wrapped its forelimbs around itself, the better to contain its growing mirth. “It’s been there for quite a while now. You see, when our associate Boba Fett here”-the assembler gestured toward the helmeted bounty hunter-“managed, through his impressive personal skills, to chase Bossk off Slave I, the fabricated evidence went with him, inside the emergency escape pod he used to get away.”
“And how do you know this?” Boba Fett regarded the assembler with skepticism.
“My friend, you’ve been out of the loop, this whole time that you’ve been making the journey to this remote sector. If you were in contact with your own information sources, the way I am with mine, you might have heard an interesting piece of news that’s been circulating through some of the seedier watering holes and meeting places of the galaxy. It seems that your fellow bounty hunter is holed up in the Mos Eisley spaceport back on Tatooine, and he has a certain … item to sell. And he’s looking for the right buyer for it. The item is rather unique, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate; it’s the fabricated evidence against the late Prince Xizor that supposedly linked him to the Imperial stormtrooper raid on a certain moisture farm on that planet. Of course, Bossk’s attempts to unload these goods are complicated by the fact that he doesn’t know the phony evidence’s significance, its real value, or that Kuat of Kuat is in fact trying to locate it. If Bossk knew that, he could sell it in a heartbeat, for a very good price. But alas … he doesn’t know.” The assembler’s voice filled with a mocking sympathy for the absent bounty hunter. “That’s what happens when you try to do things yourself, for which you should have contacted an expert like me.”
“Advertise on your own time,” said Boba Fett irritably. “So Bossk has got it…” He nodded slowly, mulling over the information. “He must have found the cargo droid when he was aboard Slave I, before I called it down to the Dune Sea to pick us up. And he discovered the fabricated evidence about Xizor inside the droid and removed it, without knowing its significance but hoping that he’d be able to find some way of cashing in on it. I didn’t have time to check the storage areas inside Slave I before abandoning it. So it seems I finally underestimated Bossk; I wouldn’t have thought he had the native intelligence to have discerned any value in that cargo droid’s contents.”