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

I'll get the circuit box out, be with you in a second."
The man left. Hun, loosening his cape and sliding it from his shoulders, turned to Bollux. "Okay, open up just enough for me to get Max."
The plastron opened partway. Hun leaned close, shielded by the plastron halves. As he freed the computer-probe, he warned, "Not a sound, Max. You're supposed to be a combat-control component, so no funny stuff. You're deaf and dumb as of now." As a signal that he understood, Blue Max's photo-receptor went dim. "Good boy, Maxde."
Han straightened, slinging the computer's shoulder strap over his arm. As Bollux closed his chest up, Hun handed his cape and gunbelt over and patted the 'droid's freshly painted head. "Hold these for me and stay loose, Bollux. This shouldn't take long."
As Hun joined the tech supervisor at the elevator, Pakka was just beginning a marvelous exhibition of tumbling and gymnastics. The cub was a competition-class acrobat and covered the amphitheater floor in a series of flips, twists, and cartwheels, somersaulting through a hoop he held and, perching on the balance-ball, moving himself around the arena with both hands and feet. Then Atuarre came in to act as thrower as Pakka became a flyer.
Hirken's wife thought it all charming, oohing at the cub's prowess. Subordinate Authority execs began to show up and take seats, a handful of the privileged who had been invited to see the performance. They muttered approval of Pakka's agility, but stifled it when they saw their boss's deadly look of discontent.
Hitken thumbed his belt unit. A voice answered instantly. "Have the Mark X readied at once." He ignored the crisp acknowledgment from the duty tech, eyed the waiting Bollux, and turned his attention back to the acrobatics. Authority Vieeprex Hitken could be very, very patient when he wished, but wasn't in the mood now.


RIDING down in the elevator, Hun concentrated furiously on his predicament.
He'd led the others into this jam thinking that, if nothing else, he'd at least get an idea of what he was up against. At worst, he'd thought, they'd be told they weren't welcome. But this was an unanticipated twist.
That Bollux was committed to a match against a killer robot of some sort shouldn't bother him, Hun reminded himself. Bollux was, after all, only a 'droid. It wasn't as if a living entity would die. Hall had to keep repeating that because he was having a hard time selling it to himself. Anyway, he had no intention of giving Viceprex Hirken the enjoyment of seeing the superannuated 'droid taken apart.
Times like this, he wished he were the slow, careful type. But his style was the product of Hun himself, defying consequences, jumping in with both feet, heed-less of what he might land in. His plan, as revised in the elevator, was to do all the scouting he could. If nothing more could be accomplished, he and the others would have to wing it, withdraw from the perform-ance and, it was to be hoped, Stars' End, on the plea that Bollux was irreparable.
He watched floor numbers flash and kept himself from asking questions of the tech supervisor beside him. Any outsider, particularly an entertainer, would be scrupulously uncurious about an Authority instal-lation. For Hah to be otherwise would be a matter causing instant suspicion.
A few other passengers entered and left the car. Only one was an exec; all the rest were Espos and techs. Han looked them over for keys, restraint-binders, or anything else that might indicate detention-block guard duties, but saw nothing Again he noticed that the tower seemed ve's' lightly manned, contrary to what he'd expect if there really was a prison here.
He followed the tech supervisor out of the elevator, alighting at the general maintenance section, nearly back at ground level. Only a few techs were there, moving among gleaming machinery and dangling hoist-ing gear. Disassembled 'droids, robo-haulers, and other light equipment, as well as commo and computer ap-paratus, were to be seen ever/where.
He resettied Max's carrying strap at his shoulder.
"Do you guys have a circuit scanner?"
The tech led him to a side room with rows of booths, all of them vacant. Han set Max on a podium in one of them and lowered a scanner hood, hoping the tech would go off and take care of his normal duties. But the man remained there, and so Hah found himself stating into the computer-probe's labyrinthine interior.
The tech, watching over his shoulder, commented, "Hey, that looks like a lot more than just an auxiliary component."
"It's something I worked up, pretty sophisticated," Han said. "By the way, the Viceprex said when I'm done here I could take it up to your central com-puter section to recalibrate it. That's one level down, right?"
The supervisor was frowning now, trying for a bet-ter look at Blue Max's guts. "No, computers are two levels up. But they won't let you in unless Hitken veri-fies it. You're not cleared, and you can't go into a re-stricted area if you're unbadged." He leaned closer to the scanner. "Listen, that really looks like some kind of computer module to me."
Han chuckled casually. "Here, look for yourself." He stepped aside. The tech supervisor moved closer to the scanner, reaching down to work its focus con-trols. Then his own focus went completely dark.
Han, rubbing the edge of his hand, stood over the unconscious tech and looked around for a place to stow him. He had noticed a supply closet at the end of the scanner room. Han fastened the man's hands be-hind him with his own belt, gagged him with a dust cover off a scanner, and lugged the limp form into the closet. He paused to take the man's security badge, then dosed the door.
He went back to the little computer-probe. "All right, Max; perk up."
Blue Max's photoreceptor lit up. Hah removed his own sash and stripped the gaudy homemade medals and braid off his outfit. He yanked the epaulets and piping away, too, and what remained was a black body suit, a fair approximation of a tech's uniform. He placed the supervisor's security badge prominently on his chest, took Max up again, and set out. Of course, if anyone were to stop him or compare the miniature holoshot on his badge to his real face, he'd be tubed. But he was counting on his own luck, a convincing briskness of stride, and an air of purpose.
He went up two levels without mishap. Three Espos lounging in the guard booth near the elevator bank waved him on, seeing he was badged. He fought the impulse to smile. Stars' End was probably an unevent-ful tour of duty; no wonder the guards had gotten lax. After all, what could possibly happen here?
At the amphitheater, Pakka's amazing deftness hadn't even drawn an approving look from Vieeprex Hirken. The cub had been using a hoop while rolling a balance-ball with his feet, doing flips.
"Enough of this," Hirken proclaimed, his well-tended hand flying up. Pakka stopped, glaring at the Viceprex. "Isn't that incompetent Marksman back yet?" The other execs, conferring among themselves, managed to reach a group decision that Han was still gone. Hirken's breath rasped.
He pointed to Atuarre. "Very well, Madam, you may dance. But be brief, and if your sharpshooting gaffer isn't back soon, I may dispense with him alto-gether."
Pakka had removed his props from the arena floor. Now Atuarre handed him the small whistle-flute Hah had machined up for him. While the cub blew a few practice runs on it, Atuarre slipped on the finger-cymbals Hah had fashioned for her and clinked them experimentally. The improvised instruments, even her anklet-chimes, all lacked the musical quality of Trianii authentics, she decided. But they would suffice, and might even convince the onlookers that they were see-ing the real thing.
Pakka began playing a traditional air. Atuarre moved out onto the arena floor, following the music with a sinuous ease no human performer could quite match. Her streamers blew behind her, many-colored fans flickering from arms and legs, forehead and throat, as her finger-cymbals sounded and her anklets rang, precisely as they should.
Some of the preoccupation left Hirken's face and the faces of the other onlookers. Trianni ritual dancing had often been touted as a primitive, uninhibited art, but the truth was that it was high artistry. Its forms were ancient, exacting, demanding all a dancer's con-centration. It required perfectionism, and a deep love of the dance itself. In spite of themselves, Hirken, his subordinates, and his wife were drawn into Atuarre's spinning, stalking, pouncing dance. And as she per-formed, she wondered how long she could hold her audience, and what would happen if she couldn't hold them long enough.
Han, having found a computer terminal in an unoc-cupied room, set Max down next to it. While Max ex-tended his adapter and entered the system, Hah took a cautious look in the hall and closed the door. He drew up a workstool by a readout screen. "You in, kid?"
"Just about, Captain. The techniques Rekkon taught me work here, too. There? The screen lit up, flooded with symbols, diagrams, computer models, and col-umns of data.
"Way to go, Max. Now spot up the holding pens, or cells, or detention levels or whatever."
Blue Max flashed layout after layout on the screen, while his search moved many times faster, skimming huge amounts of data; this was the sort of thing he'd been built for. But at last he admitted, "I can't, Cap-tain."
"What d'you mean, can't? They're here, they've
gotta be. Look again, you little moronl"
"There're no cells," Max answered indignantly. "If there were, I'd have seen them. The only living ar-rangements in the whole base are the employees' hous-ing, the Espo barracks, and the exec suites, all on the other side of the complex-and Hirken's apartments here in the tower."
"All right," Han ordered, "put a floor plan of this joint up, level by level, on the screen, starting with Hirken's amusement park."
A floor plan of the dome, complete with the garden and amphitheater, lit the readout. The next two levels below it proved to be filled with the Vieeprex's osten-tatious personal quarters. The one after that confused Hah. "Max, what're those subdivisions? Offices?"
"It doesn't say here," the computer answered. "The property books list medical equipment, holo-recording gear, surgical servos, operating tables, things like that."
A thought struck Hah. "Max, what's Hirken's title?
His official corporate job-slot, I mean."
"Vice-President in charge of Corporate Security, it says."
Han nodded grimly. "Keep digging; we're in the right place. That's no clinic up there, it's an interroga-tion center, probably Hirken's idea of a rec room. What's on the next floor down?"
"Nothing for humans. The next level is three floors high, Captain. Just heavy machinery; there's an indnstrial-capaeity power hookup there, and an air lock. See, here's the floor plan and a power-routing schematic."
Max showed it. Han leaned closer to the screen, studying the myriad lines. One, marked in a different color and located near the elevators, attracted his at-tention. He asked the computer what it was.
"It's a security viewer, Captain. There's a surveil-lance system in parts of the tower. I'll patch in."