Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) (18 page)

Gartogg walked down the corridor away from the kitchen with unaccustomed cheer. If he could find out who killed this kitchen boy, Ortugg would at last be impressed. Gartogg might be assigned to the sail barge’s next outing after all.

As Gartogg plodded endlessly through the dank, shadowed halls of the palace, wondering how he could solve the mystery, the weight of the kitchen boy began to tire even him. He shifted the body to his other shoulder, which helped for a while. On this third pass by the guest quarters, he finally remembered an important clue: Ree-Yees had found the corpse near Ephant Mon’s quarters. Thinking that perhaps he could ask Ephant Mon about the crime, he knocked on the door. When no one answered, Gartogg sighed and trudged on down the corridor.

Wearily, Gartogg snuffled in resignation. It probably wouldn’t matter.

Ephant Mon didn’t like him either.

For days it seemed (and maybe-it was), Gartogg had patrolled most of the palace several times over without finding anyone to question. A few people had seen him from a distance, but they all covered their noses, if they had one, and ran off. Gartogg felt that behavior was inconsiderate.

On his fourth pass through the rancor tunnels, he heard the rancor shifting and rustling in the sand behind its grate.

“Come on,” Gartogg said to the lifeless face of the kitchen boy dangling over his shoulder. “Visit rancor.”

In response, the kitchen boy dripped some sort of cloudy fluid on the floor of the tunnel.

When Gartogg reached the area by the rancor grate, he found Malakili, the pudgy rancor keeper, struggling to carry a limp human to the grate.

“What this?” Gartogg asked.

“Huh?” Malakili jumped in surprise, dropping his burden with a thump.

“Uh, I’m feeding the rancor, what does it look like I’m doing?”

“Oh.” Gartogg snorted in disappointment. “Need help?”

“No, no, I’m doing just fine.”

Gartogg kept the kitchen boy balanced on his shoulder as Malakili opened the grate for the waiting rancor and heaved the other body inside.

“You want to unload him too?” Malakili nodded toward the kitchen boy, grimacing.

“No! Evidence of crime.”

“Well, he’s decomposing pretty fast. You sure?”

“No!” Gartogg turned and hurried away.

Gartogg trudged to the kitchen, still carrying the corpse of Phlegmin over one shoulder, the head and arms dangling forward. The dead kitchen boy had a much stronger odor than before,and tended to drip fluids on the floor occasionally. Gartogg snuffled politely.

Porcellus looked up from his daily work.

“A plot,” Gartogg rumbled. “Clues. All tied together.”

He reached out with his free hand to grab some pieces of plastifoam.

Munching on them casually, he added, “Girl. She, um…”

“What girl?” Porcellus demanded. “And get that disgusting thing out of here!”

“Mercenary girl. Brought in Wookiee. Last night.”

Gartogg licked a bit of loose plastifoam from around his mouth and snuffled contentedly. “Lady friend of Solo. The smuggler. Boss caught them.”

Gartogg saw that one of the corpse’s eyeballs had started to ooze out of his head. That was bad; he might need this evidence of the crime.

Snorting in annoyance, Gartogg poked the eye back in with a thick, stubby forefinger.

“Get that thing out of here!” Porcellus shouted. “I cook in here; this place has to stay clean—clean and healthful!”

Hurt, Gartogg turned to go, keeping the corpse balanced over his shoulder. After all, the chef was boss here. As he plodded out, he snatched up some more plastifoam and stuffed it into his mouth, though some of it spilled behind him on the floor.

Gartogg wandered the corridors of the palace all day, ignoring sleep, but he discovered nothing. On the night shift again, he waddled through the shadowed halls all night with the kitchen boy still on his shoulder.

By, the end of his shift, he was exhausted, but had found nothing.

Finally, as dawn approached, he trudged back to the guards’ quarters in weary disappointment.

“Gartogg!” Ortugg jumped forward to block the entrance. “What are you doing with that… thing?”

“Evidence,” Gartogg snorted defensively.

“It’s rotting,” Rogua shouted, appearing behind Ortugg. “You can’t bring that in here!”

“Can’t?”

“What did you do with it last night?” Rogua demanded.

“Night duty,” said Gartogg. “Kept it.”

Some of the other Gamorrean guards in the quarters snorted and snuffled derisively.

“Get rid of it,” Ortugg ordered. “Feed it to the rancor or something.”

“Evidence,” said Gartogg, eyeing the oozing, discolored face of the kitchen boy. “Murder.”

“Forget about coming in here,” said Ortugg.

“We’re ready to go on the sail barge. Rogua, select the guards who will go.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sail barge?” Gartogg’s eyes widened as he snuffled excitedly.

“Now?”

“No—for the next time Jabba goes out to the Great Pit of Carkoon to feed some prisoners to the Sarlacc.”

“Take me!” Gartogg bounced up and down excitedly, jiggling the body of the kitchen boy. One of his fingers fell off and hit the floor. Several bugs crawled out of his mouth; many more buzzed away from the corpse, disturbed by the motion.

Ortugg snorted in disgust. “You’re looking for the boy’s killer?”

“Yes!”

Ortugg snuffled, chuckling, and caught Rogua’s eye. “You figure it out by the next time we leave, you can come. Now get out! And don’t bring that thing back here!”

“And try speaking in complete sentences!” Rogua yelled.

Snuffled and snorted laughter followed Gartogg as he turned and trudged away from the quarters.

Now, however, Gartogg no longer felt as tired as before. He was too excited. This could be his chance.

“Maybe sail barge,” he said optimistically to the kitchen boy.

Some sort of maggot crawled into the kitchen boy’s ear. A blackened tongue hung from the slack mouth.

Other bugs wandered all over the corpse’s face.

“Go see sail barge, said Gartogg. “Want to?”

The corpse still dripped fluids of various colors and viscosities and the bugs ate more and more of the remaining tissue. Still, the body had become only a little lighter than before. Gartogg plodded toward the docking area behind Jabba’s throne room where the sail barge waited, just to gaze at it for a moment.

On the way, Gartogg saw a B’omarr monk wearing an earring moving along a darkened hall up ahead.

“Monk,” Gartogg snuffled softly to the kitchen boy.

“Ask monk for clues. Okay?”

The monk slipped away around a corner. Gartogg hurried after him, but did not call out. He was afraid of waking people up.

For a moment, Gartogg lost track of the monk.

Then he heard a couple of voices around another corner and hurried toward them. Before he saw anyone, a thump reached him.

When he came around the corner, he found J’Quille, a Whiphid, kneeling over the monk, who lay on his back covered by the bloody folds of his robe.

The Whiphid wore a vibroblade in his scabbard and clutched something in his hand. Startled, Gartogg wheezed and snorted in surprise, then grunted uncomfortably.

J’Quille said nothing.

Gartogg adjusted the kitchen boy over his shoulder and moved forward cautiously.

The monk didn’t move.

“Is he sleeping?” Gartogg asked. That was a complete.sentence.

He wished Rogua had heard him.

J’Quille stood up. “He’s not dead; he’s, uh, meditating.

Gone into a deep trance. Pondering the imponderables.”

Gartogg wrinkled his snout and snorted thoughtfully, studying the monk.

“The blood? He wanted to see if he’d reached the final stage of enlightenment. He decided to do a little testing on his own to see if he was ready before he asked his friends to surgically remove his brain.”

Gartogg grimaced. Grunting in puzzlement, he pointed at the monk’s head and then to the blood on his chest. “Uh—” The Whiphid shrugged.

“That’s where their brains are. In their chests. It makes it easier to remove them.”

Snuffling nervously, Gartogg frowned. If the monk’s brain was in his chest, what did he need a head for? In any case, the monk shouldn’t meditate in the hall any more than that Weequay should sleep in one; someone might trip over him.

J’Quille watched Gartogg carefully, silent now.

“Can’t meditate here.” He bent down and worked the body of the monk over his free shoulder. Then he straightened. Maybe this mysterious monk, meditating with the brain in his bloody chest, was part of a conspiracy regarding the kitchen boy.

The Whiphid stepped aside and waited without speaking.

Gartogg, hoping he was about to find the answer to these murders, plodded away under the weight of the two bodies, one meditating and one rotting…

As Gartogg continued his endless trudging up the hall, he watched the floor carefully for more meditating monks. If he tripped over one, he would drop the two guys he was carrying and might fall on the new one.

However, he found no one all day.

“We better stop,” said a woman’s voice from around another corner.

“I heard something—heavy footsteps coming this way.”

“Maybe we should see what it is,” said a man.

“Forget it,” said the woman. “Not in this place. Just leave it alone.”

“All right, come on.”

Gartogg heard their footsteps going away from him and he hurried, even under the weight of the two bodies he carried. The fresh one, the monk, weighed more than the older one. He thumped heavily down the hall.

When he turned the next corner, he saw Quella and Ah Kwan walking quickly away from him.

“Good evening,” he snuffled cautiously.

Both humans whirled to face him; Ah Kwan grabbed the handle of his knife again.

“Yeah?” Ah Kwan’s eyes shifted from Gartogg to each of his burdens and back. “What do you want?”

Gartogg spoke as slowly and carefully as he could, with a minimum of snuffling. “See anybody?”

“Anybody like who?” Ah Kwan demanded.

“Is that the same guard?” Quella asked. “The one who chased us?

Is that him?”

“You got me,” said Ah Kwan. “All the Gamorreans look alike to me.”

“Killer,” Gartogg said clearly. “Looking for killer.”

“He wants to know if we saw a killer,” said Quella.

“How recently?” Ah Kwan grimaced at the kitchen boy. “He’s been dead for some time.”

“This not dead,” said Gartogg, jiggling the limp monk slightly.

“Just meditating.”

“You think the same person killed them both?”

Quella asked.

“Meditating,” said Gartogg, still struggling to speak plainly.

“This one.” He wiggled the monk again.

“You think he’s right?” Ah Kwan asked quietly.

“Aw, who knows around this place?” Quella clutched Ah Kwan’s arm.

“People get killed here all the time. Let’s go, all right?”

“Yeah.”

“See killer?” Gartogg snuffled uncertainly.

“No, we didn’t see anybody.” Ah Kwan shrugged.

“It’s been a long night. We were down in the audience chamber.

That Jedi Knight got thrown to the rancor, but he survived.”

“Jedi came here?” Gartogg had missed something else good.

“Yeah, and he killed the rancor.”

Gartogg.grunted in shock. “Killed rancor?”

“It was a great fight,” said Quella.

“Not so loud,” Ah Kwan whispered. “Someone might think we like that Jedi. “

“Jedi killed rancor?” Gartogg repeated.

“Yeah, but Jabba’s taking him with the smuggler and the Wookiee to the Great Pit of Carkoon.”

Gartogg snuffled thoughtfully.

The two humans nodded politely and walked away arm in arm.

Gartogg studied the rotting kitchen boy, then turned to the monk’s immobile face. “That it? Eh?

Mm!”

Grunting and snuffling sternly, he shifted his burdens slightly and headed for the sail-barge docking area. It would be a good place to sit down with his two companions. The’ mystery would require more thought and he didn’t have much time.

Thumping footsteps woke Gartogg in the docking area. He had dozed off for a few minutes, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall between the other two; they too sat propped on each side of him.

As Ortugg stopped in front of him, Gartogg struggled to his feet.

“Gartogg!” Ortugg glowered at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Solved mystery!” Gartogg gurgled sleepily.

“Yeah? Well, make it quick. I sent Rogua and the other guards down to the dungeon to drag the prisoners up here.” Ortugg pointed to the motionless monk.

“You got another one? So who killed them?”

“Not killed—meditating.”

“Speak in complete sentences, you idiot!”

“Conspiracy!” Gartogg drew himself up proudly.

“Eh?” Ortugg cocked his porcine head, eyeing Gartogg with more regard than usual. “You uncovered a conspiracy?”

“Aha!” Gartogg shouted. “You wanted to kill Ak-Buz the Weequay sail-barge captain, because he might have invited me on board himself!”

“What?” Ortugg blinked blankly.

“But you didn’t kill him. Instead, Porcellus the cook put him to sleep with special sleeping recipes in the plastifoam appetizer!”

“Plastifoam? That’s packing material, not an appetizer.

Why—”

“Not finished!” Gartogg declared, holding his head high.

He nodded toward Phlegmin. “Kitchen boy was friend of Ephant Mon!”

“Yeah, so?”

“I know because he was found near Ephant Mon’s quarters!”

“But what about it?”

“Ree-Yees said so!”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Ortugg demanded.

“Conspiracy!”

“Go on, get to the point!” Ortugg glared angrily.

“So, Malakili the rancor keeper needs no extra rancor food!”

“Gartogg, you bag of rancor droppings! What is your point?”

“Point?”

“Who killed these people you’re carrying?”

“This one meditating, not dead.” Gartogg jiggled the monk again.

“Testing himself, before friends remove his brain from his chest.”

“What?” Ortugg screamed in frustration.