How does he know my name?
“Whou … who are you?” Han whispered. “How do you know my name?”
The man grinned, showing many teeth. It was meant to be a friendly expression, Han could tell, but there was something about it that made him shudder. It reminded him of the packs of canoids that hunted prey in the alleys. “I know lots of things, kid,” the man replied. “Call me Captain Shrike. Can you say that?”
“Y-yes. Captain Shrike,” Han parroted uncertainly. He hiccuped as his sobbing died away. “But… but how did you know my name? Please?”
The man put out a hand as if to ruffle his hair, then seemed to take in the dirt and scritchies inhabiting his young scalp and think better of it. “You’d be surprised, Han. I know almost everything that goes on here on Corellia.
I know who’s lost and who’s found, who’s for sale and who’s sold, and where all the bodies are buried. Matter of fact, I’ve had my eye on you.
You seem like a smart lad. Are you smart?”
Han drew himself up, eyed the man levelly. “Yes, Captain,” he said, forcing his voice to be steady. “I’m smart.” He knew he was, too.
Anyone who wasn’t didn’t last for months on the streets, the way he had.
“Good, that’s the lad! Well, I could use a smart lad to work for me.
Why don’t you come with me? I’ll give you a square meal and a warm place to sleep.” He grinned again. “And I just bet you’d like to see my ship.” He pointed up at the darkening sky.
Han nodded eagerly. Food? A bed? And especially … “A spaceship?
Yes, Captain! I want to be a pilot when I grow up!”
The man laughed and held out his hand. “Well come on, then!”
Han let the big hand engulf his, and the two of them walked away together, toward the spaceport…
Han stirred and shook his head. I should never have gone with him that day, he thought. If I hadn’t gone with him, Dewlanna would still be alive …
But if he hadn’t gone with Shrike, he’d probably have awakened some night in the alley to find that vrelts had chewed his ears and nose off, the way they had one of the other “alley urchins” that Garris Shrike had “rescued.”
Han smiled grimly. Captain Shrike didn’t have an altruistic bone in his body. He collected children and used them to turn a profit.
Almost every planet the Luck visited, Shrike loaded up a group of his “rescuees” and took them down to the streets in the shuttle. There he left them under the supervision of a droid he’d programmed himself, F8GN. Eight-Gee-Enn assigned them to their “territories” and kept track of their proceeds as the children roamed the streets, begging and pickpocketing.
They used the littlest ones, the skinniest ones, the deformed ones for begging. The vrelt-gnawed girl, Danalis, had always done well. Shrike kept her working hard for years by promising her that when she’d earned enough for him, he’d get her face fixed for her, so she’d look human again.
But he never had. When she was about fourteen, Danalis evidently realized that Shrike was never going to make good on his promises.
One night” she went into the Luck’s airlock and cycled it—without first putting on a suit.
Han had been on the cleanup crew. He shuddered at the memory. Poor Danalis. He could still picture her in his mind, handing over a day’s begging receipts to Eight-Gee-Enn. The droid was tall and spindly, made from coppery-reddish metal. It had been repaired so many times that it had patches everywhere, as though the droid were wearing a much mended garment. Copper patches, gold-colored patches, steel colored patches—and one round, silvery one on the top of its head.
Han could still hear the droid’s voice in his mind. Eight-Gee-Enn had had something wrong with its speakers, and its “voice” had alternated between sounding deep and unctuous, to shrill, mechanical squeakiness.
But no matter how the droid sounded, they’d all paid attention to what Eight-Gee-Enn said …
“Now, dear children, have you all got your territory assignments?” The copper-colored droid swiveled its head a little rustily on its pipe-stem neck, regarding the eight children from Trader’s Luck as they stood ranged before it.
All of the children, including five-year-old Han, affirmed that they did, indeed, have their territories. “Very well, then, dear children,” the droid continued in its deep, then squeaky tones, “let me now give you your job assignments. Padra” the droid looked down at a small boy only a year or so older than Han—”today we’re going to give you your first chance to show us how helpful you can be to these poor citizens who are burdened with credit vouchers, jewelry, and expensive private comlinks.” The droid’s eyes glittered eerily. They were different colors–one had burned out long ago, and Shrike had replaced it with a lens scavenged from a junked droid, giving F8GN one red “eye” and one green.