[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 01(27)

as

well:

Kud’ar Mub’at

could

look

into Balancesheet’s compound eyes and see a

calculating replica of itself. Had the node discovered the joys of greed yet? That was the important question. I must watch for that, decided the assembler. Greed was a higher sense, perhaps the most important of all. When Kud’ar Mub’at perceived that in the little tethered node, it would be time for death and re-ingestion. Kud’ar Mub’at didn’t want to wind up as its own parent had so long ago, a meal for rebellious offspring.



It watched as Balancesheet picked its way into some darker recess of the web. I hope that won’t be for a while yet, thought Kud’ar Mub’at. Its interconnected business

affairs

were at a crucial

point;

much inconvenience would be suffered if it didn’t have a fully functioning accountant on claw.



Kud’ar Mub’at decided to think about that later. It closed its several pairs of eyes and happily contemplated all that would soon be added to the web’s coffers.



After every job came the cleanup. The Slave I was a working vessel, not some pleasure schooner fitted out for languorous cruising between the stars. Even so, Boba Fett preferred keeping the craft as neatly functional as possible. Minor dings and scrapes to the exterior hull were war badges, emblems of encounters that he had survived and someone else hadn’t. But future survival might depend on his being able to lay his armor-gloved hand on one of the Slave I’s weapon-systems remotes in a split second, without the firing buttons or data readout being obscured by dirt or dried blood.



Besides, thought Boba Fett grimly, can’t stand the smell. He squeezed his fist tighter, a soapy antiseptic wash trickling into the bucket set on the floor of the cargo area. There was something nauseating about the humanoid scent of fear that seeped into the very metal of thep>

cages. Of all the sensory data he had

ever experienced, from the acrid steam of the Andoan swamp islands to the blinding creation-swirl of the Vinnax system’s countervacuum, those molecules signaling panic and desperation were what Fett found to be the most alien. Whatever minute subcutaneous organ produced fear sweat, it was missing in him. Not because he had been born without it-no sentient creature was-but because he had forced it into nonexistence, excised it from his mind with the razor-sharp scalpel of his will. The ancient Mandalorian warriors, whose lethal battle-gear he wore, had been just as coldly ruthless, according to the legends that were still told and retold in whispers throughout the galaxy. Long ago, when he had first gazed upon

one of their empty helmets, a relic of

an extinguished terror, he had seen in its narrow, un readable gaze an image of his own future, of the death-bringing entity he would become.



Less than human, mused Boba Fett as he swabbed down the bars that his most recent captive had been held behind.

That

was what fear did,

that

was

the transformation it wrought in those who let it spring up in their spirits. The thing in the cage, which had carried the name of Nil Posondum, had been some kind of talking, fruitlessly bargaining animal by the time Fett had transferred it to Kud’ar Mub’at’s web. Fear of death, and the pain that Hutts enjoyed producing in the targets of their vengeance, had swallowed up all the human parts inside the little accountant.



An odd notion moved in Boba Fett’s thoughts, one that he’d turned over and examined like a precious Gerinian star-stone many times before. Perhaps … I became more human than human. Not by adding anything to himself, but through a process of reduction, of stripping away the flawed and rotten parts of his species. The antiseptic rag in his glove slid over one of the cold-forged bars, leaving

no microbe behind. The ancient Mandalorian warriors had had their secrets, which had died with them. And I have mine.



Fett dipped the rag in the bucket again. He could have left these chores to one of Slave I’s maintenance droids, but he preferred doing it himself. It gave him time to think, of just such matters as this.



The soapy liquid trickled from the battle-gear’s elbow as Fett checked the forearm-mounted data-screen patched into the Slave I’s cockpit. Rendezvous with the Bounty Hunters Guild’s forward base was not far off. He was ready for that-he was never not ready, for anything that

might

happen-but he would still regret

the termination of this little slice of nontime, the lull and peace that came between jobs. Other sentient creatures were allowed to enjoy a longer rest, the ultimate peace that came with death. Sometimes he envied them.



He unlocked the empty cage and stepped inside. The fear scent was already diminished, barely detectable through the mask’s filters. Posondum hadn’t left much of a mess, for which he was grateful; some merchandise let their