The Wookiee wanted to know what Han was willing to bet. The Corellian thought for a moment. “I’ll fix breakfast and clean up for a month if I can’t figure out how she does ‘em,” he promised. “And if I do manage to do it, you pay me back for your own ticket, how’s that?”
Chewbacca decided that was fair.
The two smugglers got to the performance early enough to get seats close to the stage. They waited restlessly until there came a blare of fanfare, and the holo-curtain vanished, to reveal the stage and its sole occupant.
Xaverri proved to be a voluptuous, attractive woman several years older than Han. She had long, heavy black hair that she wore in an elaborate coiffure. Her eyes flashed silver from the iris-enhancers she wore.
The magician wore a costume of violet silk, slashed in strategic places to permit occasional tantalizing glimpses of the golden skin beneath it.
She was an exciting, exotic-looking woman. Han wondered what planet she came from. He’d never seen anyone who looked like her before.
After she was introduced, she went straight into her act. With a minimum of stage patter, she performed increasingly difficult tricks.
Both Han and Chewbacca were captivated as they watched her illusions.
Several times Han thought he might be able to guess how a trick had been engineered, but he was never able to spot any flaws in her routine. He knew he’d lost his bet with Chewie.
Xaverri performed all the traditional illusions—and then improved on them. She lasered a volunteer from the audience in half, then lasered herself in two. She “teleported” not only herself but a small flock of Rodian batwings from one glassine cage to another one across the stage—all in one burst of smoke and flame. Her illusions were stylish and imaginative—and so well done it appeared she really possessed supernatural powers.
When she seemingly released a flock of Kayven whistlers to attack the audience, even Han flinched, and Chewie had to be restrained from trying to attack the illusionary beasts, so real did they appear.
For the grand finale of her act, Xaverri made the entire wall of the hotel ballroom disappear, replaced with a star-flecked blackness of space. As the audience oohed and ahhhed, suddenly the emptiness of space was filled with a terrifying vision of a rogue dwarf star rushing headlong at them. Even Han couldn’t stop himself from crying out and ducking as the enormous illusion dominated the room; Chewie howled in terror and nearly crawled under his seat. It was all Han could do to drag him back upright when the illusion abruptly vanished, and there, replacing it, was a huge image of Xaverri, bowing and smiling.
Han clapped until his hands were sore, yelling and whistling. What a show!
After all the applause had died away, Han made sure that he found his way backstage. He wanted to meet the lovely illusionist, wanted to tell her that she was extraordinarily talented.
Xaverri was the first woman he’d found himself really attracted to in a very long time. Since Bria had left, matter of fact.
After a long wait amid the stage-door crowd, Han saw Xaverri emerge from her dressing room. The silver iris-enhancers were gone, and her eyes were now their natural dark brown. She wore a stylish street outfit instead of the silk costume. Smiling warmly, she scribed her signature and personalized messages to her fans, then thumbprinted them onto tiny holocubes as a memento. She was gracious and pleasant to her admirers.
Han deliberately hung back until everyone except her assistant, a surly Rodian, was gone.
Finally, he stepped forward, smiling his best, most charming smile.
“Hi,” he said, looking her in the eye. Xaverri was nearly as tall as he was, and her high-heeled, elaborately decorated boots made them the same height.
“Han Solo, Lady Xaverri. And my partner, Chewbacca. I wanted to tell you that I thought that was the most original and exciting magic act I’ve ever seen.”
Xaverri looked him and Chewbacca up and down assessingly, then smiled—a very different sort of smile, cold and cynical. “Greetings, Solo. Let me guess,” she said. “You’re selling something?”
Han shook his head. Very perceptive of her. But it’s been a long time since I’ve been a con man. These days I’m just a pilot … “Not at all, lady.
I’m just a fan who admires stage magic. Also, I wanted to give Chewie a chance to see you and smell you so he’ll know you’re as human as I am. I’m afraid you more than impressed him. When you filled the air with those Kayven whistlers, it was like something out of a Wookiee nightflyer legend. He didn’t know whether to dig a hole in the floor or fight for his life.”
She glanced up at Chewbacca, then, slowly, slowly, her cynical smile faded, to be replaced by the real thing. “Pleased to meet you, Chewbacca.