member. “That’s an enticing sum.” He wasn’t surprised, either, that Bossk had shaved a quarter million credits off the price. Like most bounty hunters, Bossk had a flexible notion of what constituted a fair division of profits. “Very enticing, indeed.”
“Yeah, ain’t it?” The contemplation of that kind of credits flow seemed to inspire a new level of glittering-eyed avarice in Bossk. “I knew you’d go for it.”
“And what is the exact nature of this merchandise?” Boba Fett already knew, but he had to ask in order to keep up the masquerade; Bossk had to believe that he was revealing the details rather than just confirming them. “Somebody must want it pretty badly to put that kind of price on it.”
“You can say that again.” Bossk held up one claw. “Here’s the scoop. Seems a certain Lyunesi comm handler named Oph Nar Dinnid managed to work himself up a real case of hypereros.” The toothy smile shifted into a leer. “You know how it goes-the same old story.”
Fett knew what the Trandoshan was talking about. The Lyunesi were one of six sentient species on Ryoone, a planet down-spiral from one of the remoter sectors of the Outer Rim Territories. Unusually dismal conditions had been brought about millennia ago by a seemingly permanent suspension of volcanic ash in the upper atmosphere, resulting in a ruthless competition for survival. The other inhabitants of Ryoone would have wiped out the Lyunesi long ago if the fragile creatures hadn’t mastered the arts of interspecies communication. Their skills went far
beyond mere translation of words and meaning; surrounded by enemies, with the continuation of their own breed dependent upon every nuance of language
and gesture, the Lyunesi bought their lives with interpretive skills far beyond even the most highly developed protocol droid. On Ryoone, that meant they made possible all the fluid and rapidly shifting diplomacy between the planet’s other
species, the madly dissolving and re-forming alliances, the declarations of war and swiftly terminated peace treaties between sentient creatures who didn’t even share the same metabolic basis, let alone language. In the galaxy beyond Ryoone, the Lyunesi were found at every communication nexus, sorting out and fine-tuning the messages and negotiations between one wildly dissimilar sector of the Empire and another.
All that expertise at reading other species’ inten tions and secrets had its downside, though. From time to time various Lyunesi fell prey to their own sensitivity. An all-consuming passion seized them; worse, it was nearly always reciprocated by the object of their desire. Unlike members of the reptilian Falleen species, whose conquests were achieved with a notable coldness and lack of feeling, Lyunesi and their hypererotic targets rapidly found themselves in situations where neither partner was left with a shred of self-preserving intelligence. Given the high-level diplomatic stations where Lyunesi were so often found, the results were usually catastrophic.
And fatal.
“I know the story,” said Boba Fett. Both in general and in the specific case of Oph Nar Dinnid, which his own sources had told him about. “Better that a high-ranking female should get involved with someone like Prince Xizor. The experience is reputedly more intense and pleasurable, and after it’s over, the female might still be alive. If she keeps her wits about her.” Fett supposed that with someone like his sometime employer Xizor, that was what passed as chivalry. “The problem with Lyunesi is that they’re not smart enough to be heartless.”
“Yeah, well, this Dinnid person managed to
get himself into a large-capacity vat of nerf waste.” Bossk sneered;
he had been born without those wasteful, sentimental emotions. “He was working for one of the major liege-holder clans out in the Narrant system; I won’t say which one-“
“You don’t have to. They’re all alike.” Boba Fett was well acquainted with those clans; they were really more loose confederations of genetically linked species, with deep layers of ritual obeisance and internal blood oaths patching over their differences. It didn’t work; they needed the ultradiplomatic Lyunesi around just to keep from killing each other off. A good gig for the natives of a backwater world like Ryoone-as long as they didn’t screw up.
But they always did.
“Let me guess,” said Boba Fett. “Dinnid’s employers found him in a, let’s say, compromising position with a wife or daughter from one of the top clan houses.”
“Got that one right.” Bossk’s eyes glittered as sharp as
his fangs. A Trandoshan’s enjoyment of another creature’s troubles went far beyond the mere anticipation of profit to be gained thereby. “All the way to the top. Right up to the supreme liege-lord himself. And just like these Lyunesi-they’ve got no sense at all-the revelation of the affair was in public. At one of the formal clan-oath ceremonies, couple thousand sublieges and their retinues