"Ann Crispin "Han Solo. The Hutt Gambit"" - читать интересную книгу автора

Han reached the stone bench, then stopped, staring around him. The woman in the black cloak was nowhere in sight. Where'd she go? Bria/ Han thought, staring around him wildly. Froin all sides he could hear the gasps and moans of the crowd filling the air.
He jumped up on the bench, straining his eyes, trying to pick up and, trace of the woman in the black cloak. Han only realized what a terrible mistake he'd made when he found himself staring across the crowd, straight into the eyes of Veratil.
The huge, four-legged creature with the tiny arms and the broad, single-horned head was staring back at him, his small, reddish eyes wide with surprise.
The Corellian had no doubt that Veratil had just recog-nized him as "Vykk Draygo," the man who'd wrecked the glitterstim factory, stolen Teroenza's treasure, and caused the death of the Ylesian Hutt overlord, Zavval.
All around Hah the moans of pleasure suddenly ‘altered into cries of dismay and loss Veratil's attention had been diverted, and the Exultation had come to an abrupt, jarring halt.
Some of the throng wailed ‘aloud, others jerked convul-sively. Still others dragged themselves to their feet with cries of distress and anger. Han ducked his head and bolted forward, determined to lose himself in the crowdъ And then, ‘ahead of him, he caught a glimpse of black. Bria!
Forgetting Veratil, forgetting the danger he was in, Han plunged forward, slamming into would-be pilgrims, trip-ping over feet, elbowing his fellow sentients aside. "Bria!" he yelled. "Stop!"
Putting on a burst of speed, Han reached the edge of the crowd. The woman was running now, but Han was moving at top speed and he caught her in a dozen swift strides.
Reaching out, he managed to grab the black fabric, yank her to a halt, then he grabbed her elbow and spun her around to face him-
only to find that the woman he'd chased was a tot'a] strangerъ
How could he have mistaken her for Bria? This woman wasn't homely, she was even pretty in a rather worn way ъ . . but Bria-Bria had been one of the loveliest women Hah had ever seen. This woman's hair was dark blond, not gold with warm reddish highlights.
Bria had been tall. This woman was short.
She was ‘also angry. "What do you think you're doing?" she demanded in Basic. "Leave me ‘alone or I'll summon security!"
"I . . . I'm sorry . . ." Hah mumbled, stepped back, holding up both hands in as nonthreatening a manner as he could manage. "I thought you were someone else."
"Well, I feel sorry for her," the woman said huffily.
"With an ill-mannered, scruffy tout like ycm in her life!"
"Look . . ." Han continued to back away, hands up. "I said I was sorry, sister. I'm going, okay?"
"I think you'd better," she said pointedly. "That priest has summoned security, I think."
Hah looked over his shoulder, cursed, then took to his heels, heading away from the crowd. He could see Chewbacca waiting for him, and waved to the Wookiee.
He lengthened his stride, and a glance back at his pursu-ers reassured him that he was losing them.
Been drinking too much . . . he decided as he ran. That's gotta be it. I'm gonna be rru~re careful from now on ъ . . a lot more carefid . . .
"Did Han get away?" Bria Tharen asked her friend as Lanah Malo walked into the room, carrying Bria's black cloak under her arm. Bria was seated on the single human-styled chair in the cheap room they'd rented for their short stay on Devaron.
"I think so," Lanah Malo replied, tossing the cloak to her friend, then picking up her travel bag and dumping it on the bed. "The last I saw, he and that big Wookiee he was traveling with jumped into a public skimmer. Security was still on foot. My guess is, he made it."
"He's probably off-world by now," Bria said softly, wist-fully. Rising, she walked over to the window, then stood for a moment gazing up into Devaron's c~)ral-tinted sky. Tears gathered in her blue-green eyes. I never thought I'd ever see him again. I never thought it would hurt so much . . .
The pain she felt completely eclipsed the triumph she should have been experiencing. Today she'd faced the Ex-ultation and successfully resisted it. After years of fighting her addiction to it, now she finally knew for certain that she was a free woman. She'd looked forward to this day for a long time-but any joy she felt was drowned in her grief at seeing Hah again, and knowing she couldn't be with him.
"Couldn't you have talked to him?" the shorter woman asked, ‘almost echoing Bria's own thoughts. Bria turned from the window and watched her friend and comrade-in-arms pulling on her battered, khaki-colored jacket. Quickly Lanah stuffed the last of her personal belongings into the small travel bag. "What harm could it do?" she asked, giv-ing Bria a sharp, quizzical glance.
Bria shivered, then pulled the cloak around her shoul-ders. It was chilly, now that the sun was low on the horizon. "No," she said in a low voice. "I couldn't talk to him."
"Why not?" Lanah asked. "Don't you trust him?" Moving as methodically and carefully as a droid, Bria checked the charge in the blaster she wore strapped to her thigh-low-down the way Han had taught her, five years ago when they'd been partners, companions . . . lovers. "Yes," she said, after a moment. "I trust him. I trust him with anything that's mine. But what we're trying to accom-plish that's not mine. That's all of us. Betrayal at this point could mean the end of the entire movement. I couldn't risk it."
Lanah nodded. "Solo showing up when he did sure messed up our plans," she said. "No telling when we'll get a clear shot at Veratil again. My guess is that he'll hightail it back to Ylesia to tell Teroenza he spotted your ex-boy-friend."
Bria nodded tiredly as she ran her hands through her hair. Hah loved to do that, she thought with a sudden surge of memorY so vivid that it felt like a blow. Oh, Hah . . .
Lanah Malo gave her an assessing glance that was half sympathetic, half cynical. "You can fall apart later, Bria. Right now we've got to catch the transport back to CoreIlia. The Commander's going to expect a full report. Even if we failed to take out Veratil, we still succeeded in making con-tact with the Devaronian group . . . so the trip wasn't a total waste."
"I'm not going to fall apart," Bria said dully, holstering her blaster without looking at it-the way Hah had taught her. "I got over Han long ago."
"Sure you did," ‘Lanah agreed, not unkindly, as the two women picked up their bags and headed for the door. "Sure you did . . ."
Han Solo shuffled into the tiny control room of the Duro-sian ship, cradling a mug of stim-tea. He glanced at the viewscreen, which showed the comforting starline pat-terns of hyperspace, then blinked blearily over at the big Wookiee who lounged in the copilot's seat. "I overslept," he said accusingly. "You didn't call me."
Chewbacea made a short comment: "Well, yeah, I prob-ably did need the rest," Han admitted. "But you're the one who got wounded. How's the arm?"
The Wookiee reassured Han that it was healing just fine. The Corellian glanced at the wound, and nodded, then he sank into the pilot's seat. "Good. Let me tell you, pal, it's fortunate that you showed up when you did, yesterday. That Barabel wasn't messing around. Things could have gotten sticky."
Chewie pointed out, truthfully, that things had gotten sticky. Hah shrugged. "You're right. And that reminds me of something." Getting up from his seat, he went over to the toolbox that was standard issue on every ship, and came back with a tiny lasertorch and a microfile. Ta~ng his blaster out of the holster, he carefully sliced off the sight at the end of the barrel, then began smoothing the spot.
Chewbacca wondered ‘aloud what Han was doing. "Fix-ing my weapon so it won't ever hang up in my holster again," the Corellian explained. "That was a bad couple of seconds in that tavern, there, when I couldn't draw. I'm a good shot losing the sight won't affect my aim."
Chewie watched as Han worked. After a moment the human spoke again. "Bad enough that I couldn't draw. If it had been a blaster shoot-out, instead of a slugfest, I don't think either of us would have made it out of there ‘alive. But I guess it could have been worse. We were actually in more danger at that Ylesian revival. If Veratil's security people had grabbed us . .. believe me, pal, those t'landa Til don't mess around. If they'd caught us, we'd be in deep humbaba manure, my friend."
Chexvie made an interrogatory sound. "Yeah, I guess I do owe you an explanation about that," Han said with a sigh. "Y'see, about five years ago I needed experience pilot-ing big ships, ‘cause I was hoping to get into the Academy. So I took a job piloting for the t'landa Til on Ylesia. Ever hear of it before?"
Chewie whined, low in his throat. "You got it. The pil-grim colony. ‘Cept that it ain't, pal. It's nothin' but a big scam, a major trap. The Hutts control the place. Pilgrims travel there hoping to join with the cosmic All, or some such, but they turn ‘em into slaves and make them work in the spice factories. Most of the poor fools don't last long. They had three colonies on Ylesia when I was there, but I heard they've expanded to five or six, now." Chewbacca shook his head sadly.
Han grimaced as he sighted down the barrel of his blaster. "Somebody ought to go in there and shut those creeps down, Chewie. I've been a thief, a smuggler, a con man, a gambler, and some other things I ain't particularly proud of, pal . . . but slavery-I can't stand it. Or slavers, either. Scum of the universe. For two credits, I'd blast ‘em ъ all into oblivion . . ."
Chewbacca, naturally, voiced vehement support for Han's opinion. The Corellian grinned crookedly as he ran his thumb over the now-smooth barrel tip. Satisfied, he replaced the weapon in his holster. "Yeah, well, I kinda forgot who I was talkin' to. But anyhow, it's a long story. The end result was, I decided I had to get outta there, so I stole a bunch of stuff from the High Priest. He had a great collection of art objects, jeweled weapons, stuff like that. Only trouble was, Teroenza and his Hutt boss, Zavval, showed up at a real inopportune time. The shooting started, and Zavval died."
Chewbacca made an interrogatory sound.
Han sighed. "No, I didn't shoot him. But you could sorta say it was my fault that he bought it."
Chewie commented that from what he knew of Hutts, the fewer the better. "Yeah, I've thought that myself," Han said. "But we may wind up workin' for a Hutt, so you'd better keep your opinion to yourself, pal." He sipped his stim-tea and looked out at the racing star patterns for a long second, lost in memories. "So, anyhow, I got away. But I wish Veratil hadn't gotten a look at me yesterday. I got a bad feelin' about that. The t'landa Til can be pretty nasty . . ."
Chewie asked a question. Han looked down and cleared his throat. "Why'd I go back into the crowd and give Veratil the chance to see me? Well, pal... there was this girl..."
The Wookiee grunted a phrase. Translated, it meant, "Why am I not surprised?"
"Well, this one was ... special," Hah said, feeling rather defensive. "Bria Tharen. Yesterday, in that crowd, I thought . . ." He shrugged, his eyes shadowed. "I thought I saw her. I coulda sworn that was her, standing there in the crowd. Five years ago, we were . . . friends. Close friends."
Chewbacca nodded. After only a month with Han Solo, the Wookiee was perfectly aware that human females ‘al-most invariably found the Corellian attractive.