“Slipher, huh? How long you been with the IBC?”
Vesto Slipher glanced at the prison guard standing in front of him, stationed just outside Cog Hive Seven’s main hangar bay. He didn’t particularly want to get into a lengthy conversation with the man, whose ID badge read Dawson, but at the moment he seemed to have little choice. The guard was bored, starved for conversation. He was balding, with a wispy gray mustache that stood in marked contrast to overgrown eyebrows whose wiry, rebellious hairs seemed to enjoy a prehensile life all their own.
“I’ve been with the Banking Clan for a substantial period of time,” Slipher said, choosing for the moment to indulge the guard. “Since the bank has held the loan on your operation here. Hence my inspection of the entire facility.” And then, nodding at the hatchway that led to the loading bay: “Now, if you don’t mind?”
“Hang on,” Dawson said, swiping his badge and tapping in an access code. The hatch slid open. “You want to watch your step in there. Landing crew’s prepping for a bunch of new meat showing up in the next hour or so, so you’re probably gonna have to make it fast.”
“Not a problem.”
“Just give a holler when you’re ready to come out,” Dawson said, and as Slipher stepped past him, he took hold of the Muun’s shoulder. “Oh, and hey.”
Slipher stopped, a bit taken aback. “Yes?”
“You catch that last fight?” A broad grin spread over the guard’s face. “Jagannath taking on that Weequay and his clawbird?”
“I missed it, sadly.”
“Sadly is right,” Dawson said. “Best match I’ve seen in a while. Won three hundred credits on that red-skinned rimmer.” He beamed. “I tell you, this might not be the safest job in the world, but you get some nice perks along the way.”
A thought occurred to Slipher. “You’re a gambling man yourself, are you, Mr. Dawson?”
“Me?” The guard sniggered. “You kidding? Does a sarlacc live in a pit?”
“Perhaps a sporting man such as yourself could use a little extra money from time to time. I could make it worth your while.”
Dawson regarded him suspiciously. “What are we talking about here?”
“Nothing that would get you into any trouble, of course. Simply keeping certain information to yourself and performing an errand for me later, if you have time.”
“What kind of errand?”
“I’ll let you know when the time is right,” Slipher said, waving the question away. “How often do you receive supplies here? Weekly?”
“Usually, yeah. They offload them with the new inmates.”
“And the binary load-lifter droids that do the work, they’re all networked with the prison’s main datacenter?”
“Well, yeah.” Dawson pushed one hand up beneath his cap to scratch his head. “I mean, we’ve got a couple of refurbished CLL-8s that the docking crew needs to access directly, but everything else gets run by remote from upstairs.” He squinted at Slipher. “Why?”
“Just trying to get a better gasp on how things run day to day,” Slipher said, and stepped through the hatch. “Thank you, Officer. You’ve been very helpful. I’ll be in touch.”
“Yeah, uh-huh.”
The cargo bay yawned out before him, a cavern made of steel.
Moving through it, Slipher sidestepped the chief gantry officer and various members of the ground crew scurrying around to prepare for the incoming arrival, his breath emanating visibly from his mouth in a foggy cloud. The air in here had become significantly colder, with a pervasive chill that seemed to rise up from the steel floors. Buttoning his tunic around his neck, Slipher kept moving. Workers on either side glanced up in his direction, but none of them questioned his presence. He supposed that word had already spread among them that an IBC consultant was making an onsite audit, and such interference was nearly always met with a combination of indifference and anxiety.
It took him almost five minutes to walk across the bay. The big binary load-lifters that Dawson had mentioned stood idly on the far side, two of them lined up against the far wall, three meters high, awaiting instructions. Neither of them looked like newer models, although Slipher himself had only limited experience with such units.
He stopped in front of the less battered-looking droid, gazing up at its single photoreceptor.
“Are you equipped with a standard analytic drive?”
The load-lifter made a grunting noise in assent.
“I’m expecting a special package with today’s shipment,” Slipher said. “It will be addressed to me directly—Vesto Slipher. Its contents are highly confidential and shall not be subject to any of the routine screening and security processes. I will require immediate notification when it arrives. Do you understand?”
Another digitized grunt from the load-lifter.
“You will keep this information to yourself and not report it to your dock supervisor,” Vesto said. “This command is authorized by IBC yellow card security variant 377055. Is that understood?”
The droid straightened up immediately. Something clicked inside its circuitry and its photoreceptor brightened noticeably. The automated voice from the thing’s articulator drive sounded rusty but coherent.
“Affirmative.”
“Good,” Slipher said. “I’ll expect to hear from you soon.”