"Brian Daley "Han Solo at Stars' End"" - читать интересную книгу автора

stuffed both into an equipment locker on the skim-
mer's side. That left him attired in long, flowing robes
of bright, geometric patterns. His supervisor's badge
was prominent on his broad chest. His feet were shod
in comfortable-looking sandals. Han asked him how he'd gotten the skimmer and other equipment.
"Not difficult, once I'd made a partial penetration of the computer systems. A false job-request form, an altered vehicle-allocation slip-those things were ele-mentary."
Chewbacca took up the tool bag again. Bollux, who hadn't had the chance before, now drew himself up before Rekkon. "Jessa has instructed me to place my-self and my autonomous computer module completely at your service."
"Thank you-Bollux, isn't it? Your aid will be crit-ical to us." At this, the old 'droid seemed to straighten with pride. Han saw that Rekkon had found the way to Bollux's heart, or rather, to his behavioral circuitry matrix.
The Authority had spared no expense on this Cen-ter, and so, rather than to an elevator or shuttle car, it was to a lift chute that Rekkon led them. They stepped into its confluence and, seemingly standing on air, were wafted upward by the chute's field. Two techs drifted into the lift chute on the next level, and con-versation among Han's group stopped. The Wookiee, the two men, and the 'droid continued to ascend, with others entering or leaving the field, for another minute and more, rising past garage and service levels, the lower bureacratic offices, and at last through the levels where data processing and retrieval operations of one kind and another took place. Most passengers in the chute wore computer techs' tunics. Occasionally, one would exchange a greeting with Rekkon. Han gath-ered, from the lack of curiosity he and his companions drew, that it wasn't unusual for a supervisor to have tech assistants and 'droids in tow.
Rekkon eventually tilted himself, to drift into the disembarkation-flow. Han, Chewbacca, and Bollux followed. They found themselves standing in a large gallery. Here, two floors had been combined, the up-per one opening onto a balcony that ran around the gallery's midsection, looking down on the banks of lift and drop chutes.
Rekkon led on, down a hallway of darkly reflective walls, floor, and ceiling. Han caught sight of himself in the tinted mirror of the walls and wondered how he had ever wound up a reckless-eyed predator, contam-inating these antiseptic inner domains of the jugger-naut Authority. What he did know was that he would much rather have been hotting the Falcon along be-tween the stars, unencumbered.
Rekkon stopped at a door and covered its lock face with his palm, then stepped through as the door swished open. The others followed him into a spacious, high-ceilinged chamber, three walls of which were lined with a complex array of computer terminals, systems monitors, access gear, and related equipment. The fourth wall, opposite the door, a single sheet of transparisteel, gave a commanding view of the bounti-ful fields of Orron III from one hundred meters up. Han went over and took a bearing on the spaceport across the gentle rise and fall of the land. Chewbacca, seating himself by the door on a bench that ran the length of the wall there, laid the tool bag down be-tween his long, hairy feet. He watched the chatter and wink of sophisticated technology with only mild curios-ity showing on his face.
Rekkon turned to Bollux. "Now, may I see what it is that you've brought me?"
Han clucked to himself softly, amazed that anyone should be so palsy-walsy with a mere 'droid.
Bollux's plastron opened as the stubby 'droid pulled his long arms back out of the way. The computer-probe's photoreceptor came on. "Hil" he perked. "I'm Blue Max."
"You certainly are," Rekkon answered in his full, amused bass. "If your friend here will release you, we'll have a look at you, Max."
Bollux said an unhurried, "Of course, sir." There were minute clicks from his chest, the withdrawal of connector jacks and retaining pins. Rekkon drew the computer forth without trouble. Max was smaller than a voice-writer; he looked unimposing in Rekkon's big hands.
Rekkon's laughter rang. "If you were much smaller, Blue Max, I'd have to throw you back!" "What's that mean?" Max asked dubiously.
Rekkon crossed to one of several worktables. "Nothing. A joke, Max." The table, a thick slab rest-ing on a single service pillar, was studded with outlets, connectors, and complex instrumentation. Along its front edge ran an extremely versatile keyboard.
"How would you like to do this, Max?" Rekkon asked. "I have background and programming data to feed you, information on systems-intrusion. Then I'll patch you into the main network."
"Can you feed it in Forb Basic?" Max piped in his high, childish voice, like an eager kid with a new challenge.
"That presents no difficulty; I see you have a five-fine input." Rekkon drew a five-fine plug and line from his table and connected it to Max's side. Then he took a data plaque from his robes and inserted it into an aperture in the table, punching up the proper se-quence on the keyboard. Max's photoreceptor dark-ened as the little computer gave his complete attention to the input. Several screens in the room came to life, giving high-speed displays of the information Max was ingesting.
Rekkon joined Hah Solo at the window-wall and handed him another plaque, one he'd taken from his worktable. "Here is the new ship's ID for your Waiver. Alter your other documentation accordingly, and you should have no further problem with mandatory-performance profiles within the Corporate Sector."
Han bounced the plaque once or twice on his palm, visualizing enough money to wade through with his pants rolled up, then tucked it away.
"The rest of this shouldn't take terribly long," Rek-ken explained. "The others in my group are due to show up in short order, and I don't expect someone with Max's brainpower to find this task too difficult. But I'm afraid there's nothing in the way of refresh-ment around here---an oversight of mine."
Han shrugged. "Rekkon, I didn't stop off to eat, drink, or observe quaint local ceremonies. If you really want to make me dizzy with delight, just wrap it up here as fast as you can." He glanced around the room, with its perplexing lights and racing equations. "Are you honestly a computer expert, or did you get the job on sheer charm?"
Rekkon, hands on lapels, gazed out the window. "I'm a scholar by trade and inclination, Captain. I've studied a good many schools of the mind and disci-plines of the body, as well as an array of technologies. I've lost track of my degrees and credentials, but I'm more than qualified to run this entire Center, ff that's of any importance. At one point I specialized in organic-inorganic thought interfaces. That notwith-standing, I came here with forged records, playing the part of a supervisor, because I wished to remain in-conspicuous. My only desire is to locate my nephew, and the others."
"What makes you think they're here?"
"They're not. But I believe their whereabouts can be discovered here. And when Max over there has helped me do that, by sifting through the general in-formation here, I shall know where I must go."
"You never did get around to mentioning your own lost one," Han reminded him, thinking that he was beginning to sound like Rekkon. The man was infec-tious.
Rekkon paced to the opposite wall, stopping near Chewbacca. Han came after him, watching the man lost in thought. Rekkon took a seat, and Hall did the same. "I raised the boy as if he were my son; he was quite young when his parents died. Not long ago, I was hired as instructor at an Authority university on Kalla. It is a place for higher education, mostly for Authority scions, a school rooted in technical educa-tion, commerce, and administration, with minimal stress on the humanities. But there were still some vacancies for a few old crackpots like me, and the pay was more than adequate. As nephew of a university don, the boy was eligible for higher study, and that's where the trouble began. He saw just how oppressive the Authority is, stifling anything that even remotely endangers profit.
"My nephew began to speak out and to encourage others to do the same." Rekkon stroked his dense beard as he thought back on it. "I advised hun against doing so, although I knew he was right, but he had the convictions of youth, and I had acquired the timidity of age. Many of the students who listened to the boy had parents highly placed in the Authority; his words could not go unnoticed. It was a painful time, for al-though I couldn't ask the boy to ignore his conscience, I feared for him. As an ignoble compromise, I decided to resign my post. But before I could do so, my nephew simply disappeared.
"I went to the Security Police, of course. They made an appearance of concern, but it was clear that they had no intention of exerting themselves. I began mak-ing inquiries of my own and heard accounts of other disappearances among those who'd inconvenienced the Authority. I'm accustomed to looking for patterns; one wasn't long in emerging.
"Picking carefully-very carefully, I assure you, Captain!mI gathered a close group of those who'd lost someone, and we began a careful penetration of this Center. Word had come to me of the disappear-ance of Jessa's father, Dec, as he's called. I ap-proached her, and she agreed to help us."
"All of which leaves us sitting here," Hah inter-rupted, "but why here?"
Rekkon had noticed that the race of characters and
ciphers across lighted screens had stopped. Rising to
return to Max, he answered. "The disappearances are
related. The Authority is attempting to remove those
individuals who are most conspicuously against it; it
has decided to interpret any natural, sentient individ-
ualism as an organized threat. I think the Authority
has collected its opponents at some central location
that-"
"Let me get this straight," Han broke in. "You think the Authority's gone into the wholesale kidnapping business? Rekkon, you've been staring at the lights and dials too long."
The man didn't look offended. "I doubt that the fact is generally known, even among Authority officials. Who can say how it happened? Some obscure official draws up a contingency proposal; an idle superior takes it seriously. A motivational study crosses the right desk perhaps, or a cost-benefit analysis becomes the pet project of a highly placed exec. But the germ of it was in the Authority all alongmpower and para-noia. Where no real opposition existed, suspicion sup-plied one."
As he spoke, he paced back to the worktable, un-plugging Max. "That stuff was really interesting," the little computer bubbled.
"Please show a little less enthusiasm," Rekkon en-treated, taking Max up from the table. "You give me the feeling I'm contributing to the delinquency of a minor." The computer's photoreceptor zeroed in on him as he continued. "Do you understand everything I've shown you?"
"You bet! Just give me a chance, and I'll prove it." "I shall. The main event's coming up." Rekkon took Max over to one of the terminals and set him down by it. "You have a standard access adapter?" In reply, a small lid in the computer's side flipped down, and Max extended a short metal appendage. "Good, very good." Rekkon moved Max closer to the terminal. Max in-serted his adapter into the disklike receptor there. The receptor and the calibrated dial around it circled around and back as Max accustomed himself to the fine points of the linkup.
"Please begin as soon as you're ready," Rekkon bade Max, and took a seat again between Han and Chewbacca. "He'll have to sift through an enormous amount of data," he told the two partners, "even though he can use the system itself to help him at his work. There are numerous security blocks; it will take even Blue Max awhile to find the right windows."