Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) (24 page)

Max did so and looked plaintively at her. “What should we do?” he asked.

“Where’s Orbus?” she demanded.

“Dead,” Max said. “They shot him. We ran.”

“Good. That’s the first smart thing anyone’s done since getting here.” She folded her hands across her rounded middle and paced slowly, long nose swaying this way and that. Max looked like he was in shock, she thought. Snit looked as lost as he always did. “With Orbus gone,” she said slowly, “his contracts with us are void. That’s clear enough, even by Intergalactic Federation of Musicians rules.”

“Uh-huh,” Max said.

“That means we’re free, boys. Snit, you can do whatever you want now.

Orbus no longer owns you.

Max, you can buy your own meals now. And I can sing wherever I want.”

Snit sat and leaned back against a wall. “Don’t call me Snit,” he said.

“What?” Sy cried. This was the first time she’d ever heard him speak a whole sentence. Usually he just stood there blowing wind through flutes with those immense lungs of his.

“Don’t call me Snit,” he said again.

“What do you want to be called?” she asked.

He responded with a long series of whistly tones.

“I can’t say that,” she told him. “How about I pick a really great show name for you? Something special, something really fabulous, something you’ll be proud of?”

“Okay,” he said.

Sy stopped and thought for a moment. “Droopy,” she said. “DrOopy McCool.”

“Okay,” Snit said.

“Anybody have any money?” Sy asked, and before anyone could answer she went on, “Of course not, Orbus had it all. So we’re going to need money, and the way to do that is to work. To work we need equipment, and our equipment is back in that airbus. So, gentles, let’s go.”

“Go?” Max said.

“Back to the airbus, of course. You don’t think we’re going to leave our gear there, do you?”

“They’ll shoot us!” Max wailed.

“We don’t have a gig,” she pointed out, “and we won’t have a gig if we don’t get our instruments.

Which way is it?”

Max pointed.

She nodded. “Let’s go!”

“Jawas!” Max said.

They were swarming over the airbus as if they owned it. Several turned as they approached, their little yellow eyes glowing faintly beneath their brown hoods.

“Ours!” one of the Jawas called. He pulled a small blaster and gestured grandly with it. “Stay back!”

“Ours!” Sy Snootles told him. To Max’s amazement she strolled around him as if he weren’t there and pointed to a crate. “See? It has our name on it.”

The Jawa lowered his blaster. “You Evar Orbus?”

“He is.” She pointed to Max, who swallowed and tried to look authoritative. “We want our crates. You can have the airbus.”

“Buy crates?”

“Buy our own equipment? I don’t think so.”

“Is salvage!”

“How much?” she asked.

The Jawa hesitated. “Fifty credits!”

“Five!” she said. “Plus you’ll have to deliver it to our hotel.”

The Jawa raised his arms in dismay and suggested a slightly higher fee, and Sy countered with a slightly lower one. Max watched in growing amazement as they spent the next few minutes haggling, finally settling on twenty credits. Sy paid from a pouch she kept tucked in her skirt.

“Tips,” she told Max when she noticed him staring.

Max shook his head. It figured she’d been holding out on them.

They were supposed to split tips evenly among all the band members.

By then the Jawas had the crates loaded aboard a cargo sled.

“Come on!” Sy told him, hopping aboard. “Let’s get out of here!

Those Biths are going to be back any minute now!”

2.

How the Band Came to Jabba’s Palace They ended up staying at the Mos Eisley Towers, which Sy found rather ridiculous since the entire complex-except for the restaurant and the lobby—lay completely under the desert sands. Still, the rooms were clean and cheap, and the manager put their crates of instruments into secure storage (she’d made sure of it) before they settled in.

As she sat on her bed looking at Max and Snit (no, he was now Droopy McCool, she told herself), she wondered what exactly she was going to do.

Mos Eisley was clearly a cesspool, one of the worst backwater towns on one of the least hospitable planets she’d ever seen. The desert air had chapped her lips and dried out the delicate membranes of her nose and throat; it would take weeks if not months for her to adapt. No, she thought, she had to get out of here as quickly as possible. And to do that, she’d need money. That’s where Droopy and Max came in.

“We need a gig,” she told them.

“We need dinner!” Max said. “I think I’ll have room service.”

“Not a chance!” Sy said. “They charge extra for that. We’ll go out for dinner. There’s bound to be a cheap take-out place near here.”

“But I’m hungry now!” Max said.

Sy sighed and rose. “Then we’d better go,” she said. If she waited much longer, she knew Max would order room service whether she forbade him to or not. And they didn’t have the cash to spare for frills like room service. She glanced at Droopy. At least he wouldn’t eat. One of the crates contained a supply of giant white slugs in stasis fields–several years’ worth, at the rate he seemed to consume them.

Max walked to the door, which opened, and Sy followed him. Droopy brought up the rear. Perhaps it would be good to get out, Sy thought.

She could start making some subtle inquiries about work. A place this big had to have at least one opening for a singer of her talent.

It was such a rough place, though, that she’d need protection.

Slowly a plan came to her, and it was so clever it made her laugh out loud. Max glanced back at her impatiently; Droopy didn’t even look up.

Yes, she thought. She’d let Max be the leader of the band. If anything happened, it would happen to him - - just as with Evar Orbus.

She’d manage the money. It wouldn’t be hard to talk Max into an arrangement like that. With him fronting for her, what could possibly go wrong?

She’d get them off Tatooine as quickly as possible, hire a few more musicians, and before she knew it, she’d have a band to be reckoned with. Jizz-wailers were in big demand around the galaxy. And with her voice, they couldn’t possibly fail.

Max munched on a bantha kabob and nodded every once in a while to the tall, dark-skinned human with long hair and moustaches seated across from him.

What had Sy called him? Naroon Cuthas… the talent scout for some big guy out in the desert. Max was barely paying attention; after all, Sy was the one who’d brought the guy over, and he was busy eating.

She could entertain him till Max finished.

“Jizz-wailers…” Naroon Cuthas said, stroking his long moustaches.

“Yes, I think I could use you, at least short-term.”

“Who do you work for?” Sy asked.

“Jabba the Hutt. Ever hear of him?”

“No,” Max said. If this was what the local cuisine tasted like, he was never leaving, he thought. He finished his meal, searched the tabletop for crumbs, didn’t find any, and gestured for the waiter to bring him two more kabobs.

“He has a palace,” Cuthas continued. “I’m in town picking up some supplies, so I’d be glad to give you a ride. I can have you audition for him tonight, and if he likes you, you can send for your belongings and stay in the palace.”

The bantha meat, Max thought, was cooked to perfection: moist, succulent, and exactly the right shades of pink, gray, and yellow.

Even the grease had a delightfully sharp aftertaste, he thought, licking it off his fingers one by one. Delicious. He’d never had the like before.

Cuthas seemed to be waiting for him to speak. Had he missed something?

Sy poked him in the ribs.

“It’s a good job,” she whispered in his ear. “We should take it.”

“Okay,” he said.

“How soon can you start?” Cuthas asked.

“After dinner?” Max said. He took another bite, then another, then a third. “Wonderful food!” he said.

“I’ll meet you at your hotel,” he said.

“Sounds great,” Max said. The waiter set another platter before him.

“Pass the dioche sauce?”

“This way,” Naroon Cuthas said, indicating a broad corridor leading down from the hovercar landing bay.

They had parked between a huge sail barge and several dozen landspeeders of various sizes.

As Sy Snootles moved forward, she gazed around in wonder. The ride out to the enormous citadel on the edge of the Dune Sea had been long and desolate, and she’d expected Jabba’s palace to be a small, dusty tent city. Instead, it was a huge complex that bustled like an Imperial trading depot. She spotted Gamorreans, Jawas, Twi’leks, humans, countless droids, and even a Whiphid. She could tell someone rich and incredibly powerful lived here. All these people meant there had to be a lot going on.

She looked back once to make sure Max and Droopy were following—they were-before hurrying after Cuthas.

Doors to either side opened onto storerooms, off ices, and all manner of workrooms. She wrinkled her nose. It smelled bad up ahead—mostly of spilled intoxicants and sweaty body armor, but of other, less pleasant things as well.

They rounded several corners–the stink growing steadily worse—and abruptly came to a huge room with a low dais. The immense, hairless, sluglike creature sitting there had to be Jabba the Hutt, she thought.

Around Jabba were crowds of guards and henchmen, dancers and bounty hunters, humans and Jawas and Weequays and Arcona.

“This is Jabba’s presence chamber,” Cuthas said with a grand gesture. He led them around the crowds to a little bandstand set into the wall opposite Jabba’s dais. “Your equipment will be here momentarily.

When Jabba wants music, he will gesture to you. Play like your lives depend on it—they probably do.”

Sy swallowed. This wasn’t what she had expected.

She turned to tell Max they were leaving, but he was already scooping up hors d’oeuvres from a little R4 droid carrying a tray.

“Be careful what you say to Jabba,” Cuthas told them all in a low voice.

“If he likes you, you’re all set.

If he doesn’t, you may come to regret it. I strongly suggest you make him like you.”

“Right,” Max said. “Is there anything else to eat?”

“Help yourself from any of the server droids. Ah!

Here comes your equipment now.”

More droids were carrying in crated instruments.

One by one they set them down. Sy went over to supervise.

No telling what droids would do with a box full of slugs in a stasis field… and no telling if Jabba considered slugs his distant cousins. It was best not to take chances.

Max stuffed himself while the droids set up the instruments.

Every passing droid carried a platter different and more delicious than the last. By the time the instruments were powered up, he had a full belly, a goblet of warm, spiced ale, and enough snacks hidden away behind his organ to last the night. Sipping his ale, he checked the amps and preamps, double-checked the tone resonators, and ran through a soft low-power scale, from short wavelength sounds to the highest supersonics imaginable.

The immense Hutt shifted on his throne. Huge reddish-brown eyes peered at Max suspiciously for a second, then Jabba barked a low sound.

“My master bids you to play,” a silver translator droid said.

“This is it,” Max said to Sy and Droopy. He felt really, really good.

So good he didn’t even mind when Sy called out the first song—”Lapti Nek”—instead of him.

He ran through the intro in double time, hit the first notes, Sy came in on cue, followed by Droopy, and they were blasting away as if they had nothing in the world but their music. The woodwinds arced and fluttered, the organ ground smoothly,, and Sy hit the high warbles as if she were playing for the Emperor himself. He felt the thrumming “ibration on high notes through his ears and the subtle, almost dainty counterpoint melody in the tympanic organs in his snout. It was beautiful, Max thought, the best they’d ever played. It was almost as good as dinner had been earlier that evening, and it went on and on as they chased riffs and melodies through a dozen variations on the opening chorus.

When they finally came up for air, there was perfect silence for a long moment. Max looked around.

Hadn’t their performance been good? Why wasn’t anyone clapping?

Everyone seemed to be looking at Jabba. Max too gazed at the huge, sluglike Hutt. Slowly Sy bowed, then Droopy, and then Max remembered to do the same.

Suddenly Jabba’s immense sluglike body shook with laughter. The Hutt’s huge, tapered tail rose and fell, rose and fell with a thudding noise.

“My master is pleased,” said the translator droid.

Max beamed. “Then we have a contract?”

Jabba growled an answer.

“His Immense Eminence is pleased to grant you a lifetime contract,” the droid translated. “As you are an Ortolan, and know the value of food, he wishes to pay you in that medium—all you and your band can eat in exchange for a lifetime contract.”

“Done!” Max cried. He’d never heard of so fine, so magnanimous a deal in his life. He glanced at Sy and was dismayed to find her glaring at him.

Jabba spoke again, and the droid said, “Keep playing.”

When Jabba turned away, the crowd around him moved forward, clamoring for attention. Max keyed in the intro to an old starfarers’ song Evar Orbus had redone for jizz-wailer orchestration. Jabba’s huge tail, Max noticed, twitched now and then almost in time to the music, but other than that the Hutt seemed oblivious to their playing.

Never mind, though. Max swelled out his chest.

He’d struck a deal any Ortolan would be proud of. All the food he could eat for life—incredible! They’d never believe his good fortune back home.

After their fourth set, Sy Snootles managed to pull Naroon Cuthas away from Jabba’s side. She couldn’t believe what Max had agreed to.

Playing for food—what kind of deal was that? How could they possibly earn enough to get off this horrible planet?

“About the deal,” she began.

“Indeed, it went better than I had dared hope,” Cuthas said, smiling.