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

play. I want-"
"I know what you want!" Her face was bitter; it took him by surprise. "No one comes to us unless we know what they want from us. But my father's not here. He's disappeared, and nothing I've tried has turned up a hint. Believe me, Solo, I've tried it all."
Han eased down into a seat across the desk from her. Jessa explained, "Doc went off on one of his buy-ing trips-you know, shopping for stuff that would fit the market, or for some customer's special order. He made three stops and never arrived at the fourth. Just like that. He, three crewmen, and a star yacht just dropped out of sight."
Han thought for a moment about the old man with work-hardened hands, a quick, crusty grin, and a halo of frizzy white hair. Han had liked him's but if Doc was gone, that was that. Few people who vanished under circumstances like that ever showed up again. Luck of the draw. Han had always traveled light, with emotional baggage the first thing he jettisoued, and grief was far too heavy to lug around among the stars.
So that only left thinking, Goodbye, Doc, and deal-ing with Jessa, the old man's only surviving kin. But when his brief distraction broke, he saw that she'd studied the entire play of his thoughts on his face. "You got through that eulogy pretty fast, didn't you, Solo?" she asked softly. "Nobody gets too far under that precious skin of yours, isn't that so?"
That pricked him. "If it was me who'd checked out, would Doc have gone on a crying jag, $ess? Would you? I'm sorry, but life goes on, and if you lose sight of that, sweetheart, you're asking to be dealt out."
Her mouth opened to reply, but she thought better of it and changed tack. Her voice became as sharp as a vibroblade. "Very well. Let's do business. I know what you're looking for, the sensor suite, the dish, the Waiver. I can take care of all of it. We got our hands on a sensor suite, powerful, compact, a military pack-age built for long-range scoutships. It found its way to us from a supply depot; got misrouted by a happy co-incidence I arranged. I can handle the Waiver, too. That only leaves"-she gazed at him coldly-"the question of price."
Han wasn't crazy about the way she'd said it. "The
money's got to be right, Jess. I've only got-"
She cut him off again. "Who said money? I know ]ust how much you have, high roller, and where you got it, and how much you gave Ploovo. Don't you think we hear everything sooner or later? Would I assume an imbecile who's been gunrunning would be flush?" She leaned back, interlacing her fingers.
He was confused. He'd planned to arrange long terms with Doc, but doubted if he could with Jessa. If she knew he couldn't meet a decent price, why was she talking to him? "Are you going to explain, Jess, or am I supposed to do my famous mind-reading act?"
"Give your jaws a rest, Solo, and pay attention. I'm offering you a deal, a handwash."
He was suspicious, knowing there'd be no generos-ity from her. But what were his alternatives? He needed his ship repaired, and the rest of it, or he might as well go somewhere out on the galactic rim and bid on a contract to haul garbage. With exagger-ated sweetness, he answered, "I'm hanging on your every word. By what, I won't mention."
"It's a pickup, Solo, an extraction. There are details, but that's basically it; you make contact with some people and take them where they want to go, within reason. They won't be expecting you to drop them anywhere risky. Even your stunted attention span ought to suffice for that." "Where's the pickup?"
"Orron III. That's mostly an agricultural world, ex-cept that the Authority has a data center there. That's where your passengers are."
"An Authority Data Center?" Han exploded. "And how do I get into a place like that? It'll look like the Espos' Annual Picnic and Grand Reunion. Listen, toots, I want that stuff from you, but I want to live to a ripe old age, too; I plan to sit in a rocker at the Old Spacemen's Home, and what you're suggesting will definitely exclude that option."
"It's not so terrible," she replied levelly. "Internal security's not especially bad, because only two types of vessels are cleared to land on Orron III---drone barges for the crops and Authority fleet ships."
"Yeah, but in case you haven't noticed, the Falcon's neither."
"Not yet, Solo, but I'll change that. We have a barge shell, hijacked it in transit. That wasn't much of a trick; they're robot hulks, and they're pretty dumb. I'll fit the Millennium Falcon with external control cou-plings and set her in where the command/control module usually goes, and partition into the hold space. My people can mock up the hull structure so it'll con the Espos, port officials, or anybody else. You land, contact the parties in question, and off you go. Average ground time for a barge is about thirty hours, so you'll have plenty of leeway to get things done. Once you're in transit, you ditch the barge shell and you're home free."
He thought hard about that one. He didn't like any-one messing with his ship. "Why pick me for this thrill-ing honor? And why the Falcon?"
"Because you need something from me, for one thing, so you'll do it. Because, for another, even though you're an amoral mercenary, you're the hottest pilot I know; you've flown everything from a jetpack to a capital ship. As for the Falcon, she's just the right size, and has computer capacity to spare, to run the barge. It's a fair deal."
One thing had him puzzled. "Who's the pickup? It sounds like you're going to an awful lot of trouble for them."
"No one you'd know. They're strictly amateurs, and they pay well. What they're doing's no concern of yours, but if they feel like telling you, that's their de-cision."
He gazed up at the ceiling, which was patterned with glow-pearls. Jessa was offering everything he needed to make the Authority ripe for the plucking. He could give up gunrunning, petty-cash trips to back-water worlds, all that low-ante stuff.
"Well," coaxed Jessa, "do I tell my techs to get busy, or do you and the Woollee plan to teach the galaxy the folly of crime by starving in poverty?"
He brought his chair upright. "You better let me break the news to Chewie first, or your wrench jockies will be nothing but a mound of spare parts for the or-gan banks."
Doc's organization-now Jessa's-wa,s nothing if not thorough. They had the factory specs for the Millen-nium Falcon, plus complete design hotos on every piece of augmentative gear in her. With Chewbacca's help and a small horde of outlaw-techs, Hah had the Falcon's engine shielding removed and her control systems exposed in a matter of hours.
Service 'droids trundled back and forth while en-ergy cutters flared, and techs of many races crawled over, under, and into the freighter. It made Han jit-tery to see so many tools, hands, tentacles, servo-grips, and lift-locks near his beloved ship, but he gritted his teeth and simply did his best to be every-where at once-and came close to succeeding. Chew-bacca covered the things his parmer missed, startling any erring tech or 'droid with a high-decibel snarl. No one doubted for a moment what the Wookiee would do to the being or mechanical who damaged the star-ship.
Han was interrupted by Jessa, who had come up to inspect his progress. With her was an odd-looking 'droid, built along human lines. The machine was rather stocky, shorter than the woman, covered with dents, scrapes, smudges, and spot-welds. Its chest re-gion was unusually broad, and its arms, hanging nearly to its knees, gave it a somewhat simian aspect. Its fin-ish was a flat brown primer job, peeling in places, and it had a stiff, snapping way of moving. The 'droid's red, unblinking photoreceptors trained on Han. "Meet your passenger," Jessa invited. Han's features clouded. "You never said anything about taking a 'droid." He looked at the aged mechan-ical. "What's he run on, peat?"
"No. And I warned you there'd be details. Bollux here is one of them." She turned to the 'droid. "Okay, Bollux, open up the fruit stand."
"Yes, ma'am," Bollux replied in a leisurely drawl. There was a servomotor hum, and the 'droid's chest plastron split down the center, the halves swinging away to either side. Nestled in among the goodies that were the 'droid's innards was a special eraplacement; secured in the eraplacement was another unit, a sep-arate machine entity of some kind that was approxi-mately cubical, with several protrusions and folded appendages. Atop it was a photoreceptor mount, monocular lensed. The unit was painted in deep, pro-tective, multilayered blue. The monocular came on, lighting red.
"Say hello to Captain Solo, Max," Jesse instructed it.
The machine-within-a-machine studied Han up and down, photoreceptor angling and swiveling. "Why?" it demanded. The pitch of its vocal mechanism was like that of a child.
Jessa countered frankly, "Because if you don't, Max, the nice man is liable to chuck your teensy iron behind out into deep space,--that's why."
"HelloF' chirped Max, with what Han suspected to be forced cheer. "A great pleasure to make your ac-quaintance, Captain?
"The parties you're picking up need to collect and withdraw data from the computer system on Orron III," Jessa explained. "Of course, they couldn't just ask the Authority there for probe equipment without raising suspicions, and your walking in with Max un-der your arm might cause a few problems, too. But riobody's going to bother much about an old labor 'droid. We named him Bollux because we had so many headaches restructuring his gut. We never did get his vocal pattern up to speed.
"Anyway, that cutie in Bollux's chest cavity is Blue Max; Max because we crammed as much computer capacity into him as we could, and blue for reasons that even you, Solo, can see, I'm sure. Blue Max was a piece of work, even for us. He's puny, but he cost plenty, even though he's immobile and we had to leave out a lot of the usual accessories. But he's all they'll need to tap that data system."
Han was studying the two machines, hoping Jessa would admit she'd been joking. He'd seen weirder gizmos in his time, but never on a passenger roster. He didn't like 'droids very much, but decided he could live with these.
He bent down for a better squint at Blue Max.
"You stay in there all the time?"
"I can function autonomously or in linkage," Max squeaked.
"Fabulous," Han said dryly. He tapped Bollux's head. "Button up." As the brown segments of plastron swung shut on Max, Han called up to Chewbacca, "Yo, partner, find a place and stow this mollusk, will you? He's with us." He turned back to Jessa. "Any-thing else? A marching band, maybe?"
She never did get to answer. Just then klaxons went off, sirens began to warble at deafening levels, and the public-address horns started paging her to the base's command post. Everywhere in the hangar, outlaw-techs dropped their tools in a ringing barrage and dashed off frantically for emergency stations. Jessa sprinted away instantly. Han took off after her, yelling back for Chewbacca to stay with their ship.
The two crossed the complex. Humans, nonhumans, and machines charged in every direction, necessitat-ing a good deal of dodging and swerving. The com-mand post was a simple bunker, but at the bottom of the steps leading to it, Jessa and Hah entered a well-equipped, fully manned operations room. A giant holo-tank dominated the room with its phantom light, an analogue of the solar system around them. Sun, planets, and other major astronomical bodies were picked out in keyed colors.
"Sensors have painted an unidentified blip, Jessa," said one of the duty officers, pointing out a yellow ing and receiving of frantic messages, she still heard his voice among all the others.
"Jess?" She stared, confused, at his lopsided smirk. "Got a flight helmet for me?" He pretended not to see the sudden softening of her expression. "Something sporty, in my size, Jess, with a hole in it to match the one in my head."

HAN tagged after Jessa in another quick run across the base. They entered one of the lesser hangar domes where the air was filled with the whine of high-performance engines. Six fighters were parked there, their ground crews attending them, checking out power levels, armaments, deflectors, and control systems.
The fighters were primarily for interceptor service--- or rather, Han corrected himself, had been a genera-tion ago. They were early production snubships; Z-95 Headhunters; compact, twin-engined swing-wing craft. Their fuselages, wings and forked tails were daubed with the drab spots, smears, and spray-splotches of general camouflage coats. Their external hardpoints, where rockets and bomb pylons had once been mounted, were now bare.
Indicating the snubs, Han asked Jessa, "What'd you do, knock over a museum?"