Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) (8 page)

“His High Exaltedness has decreed you are to be terminated,” said the translator droid C-3PO, rather shakily. He looked a little the worse for his few days in Jabba’s palace, stained with the Bloated One’s slimy green exudations and fragments of sandmaggot kidney.

“You are to be taken to the Dune Sea, and cast into the Pit of Carkoon, the abode of the Sarlacc. In his belly you will find new definitions of pain and suffering as you are digested over the course of a thousand years.”

“You should have bargained, Jabba,” said Skywalker quietly. The guards shoved him, Solo, and the Wookiee toward the door; Leia, on the dais, half started up with anguish in her face, but the Hutt dragged her back by her chain. “That’s the last mistake you’ll ever make…”

Porcellus leaned against the archway in which he stood, knees trembling with reaction and relief. Whatever else happened, the rancor was dead.

The threat which had hovered over him for all those years…

“And you!” Jabba turned suddenly on his dais, his copper-red eyes seeming to skewer Porcellus where he stood. Drool dripped from his enormous mouth and he pointed one finger. “You also are to die…”

“What?” screamed Porcellus.

“You cannot now deny putting fierfek into my food.

Take him away!” Jabba beckoned to the few guards remaining in the room.

“Take him to the deepest dungeon. When my sail barge returns from carrying me to watch the deaths of Skywalker and Solo, then I shall have the leisure to deal with you!”

“But nobody who ate your food died of poison!” wailed Porcellus, as the guards closed in around him.

“Jubnuk… and Oola… You can’t—”

“Oh, fierfek doesn’t mean ‘poison.’” C-3PO bustled officiously down from the dais. “It’s extremely difficult to poison a Hutt, of course. But all Huttese words derive from food imagery, you see. Fierfek simply means a hex, a death curse… and you can’t deny that Jubnuk, and the unfortunate Oola, both succumbed quite soon aier sampling your meals. It’s a natural misunderstanding.”

And so it was, but Porcellus derived little comfort from the fact as he was dragged away screaming to a cell to await his doom. That’s Entertainment:

The Tale of Salacious Crumb

by Esther M. Friesner

Melvosh Bloor had no spectacles to adjust, so he contented himself with polishing the screen of his datapad whenever he felt flustered.

Like all good academics, one of his primary reactions to prolonged contact with the real world was to fidget. However, as with all things in his life (so he told himself), it must be fidgeting with a purpose.

Melvosh Bloor did nothing without a purpose.

On the face of things, one would imagine that his purpose in infiltrating the lair of the notorious crimelordJabba the Hutt was a simple one: he wanted to die but lacked the strength of will to kill himself.

This, of course, would be dead wrong. Then again, dead wrong might be a pretty good prediction for the fate of Melvosh Bloor.

Oh dear, oh dear, the Kalkal thought as he blundered through the honeycombed underbelly of Jabba’s lair.

Where is that fellow? You would think that at the price I paid him—in advance, sight unseen, solely on the recommendation of my colleagues—he would at least manage to be at the rendezvous point on time.

His cumbersome boots stepped into something thick and sticky on the corridor floor. There was very little light in this part of Jabba’s palace but Melvosh Bloor had the excellent vision common to all Kalkals, day or night. Therefore he could not avoid noticing that part of the large and gooey mass he had just stepped in had eyes.

“Mercy,” said Melvosh Bloor, placing a trembling hand to his lips as the acidic tide of queasiness surged up his wattled throat. His most recent meal had not been of the finest, to say the least—in fact, it made the refectory fare at dear old Beshka University seem attractive by comparison—so he had no desire to experience it a second time.

(Although Kalkals were famous for their ability to eat anything, even university food, there were no guarantees that what they once downed would not make a reappearance if something upset them enough.

The goop with eyes was enough to physic Jabba himself.) “Mercy?

Mercy?” The dripping darkness exploded with a shrill, harsh voice that mocked Melvosh Bloor’s own erudite pronunciation to a tee. Cackling laughter bounced from the maze of pipes overhead and echoed back from the ends of gloomy passageways that led off into the who-knows-where.

Melvosh Bloor gasped, huge yellow eyes rotating wildly in his head as he flattened himself against the nearest wall. “Who’s there?” he whispered, tiny flakes of scale falling from his wide, thin lips as he spoke.

Silence answered.

Shaking badly, the academic fumbled for the sidearm hisJawa guide had pressed upon him before they parted ways outside the palace. Far outside the palace.

Much as he hated the thought of violence and as repulsed as he felt by any of its symbols, Melvosh Bloor thought himself capable of shooting another living being if need be (strictly in the interest of preserving academic freedoms, such as his life). He felt a fleeting spark of gratitude for the Jawa’s stubbornness in insisting he take the weapon.

Perhaps the fact that he would be unable to pay the Jawa the remainder of his fee until they were both safely back in Mos Eisley had more than a little to do with the guide’s devotion to Melvosh Bloor’s personal safety. But that was a low, common thought, unworthy of Beshka University’s premier up-and-coming (albeit untenured) professor of Investigative Politico-Sociology.

Melvosh Bloor pushed it far from his mind as he continued to scan the shadows.

“Er… hello?” he ventured. A glimmer of hope as to the unseen speaker’s identity struck him.

“Darian Gli, is that you? You’re—you’re late, you know.” He tried not to make it sound like an accusation.

Wishful thinking made him certain that the voice he’d just heard coming out of the shadows belonged to his precontracted, pig-in-a-poke guide to Jabba’s palace and he didn’t want to alienate him. “And—and you were supposed to meet me farther back down this tunnel. Unless I was mistaken in our agreement.

Which I probably was. All my fault. No hard feelings. I apologize.”

Somewhere water was dripping, an eerie sound made even eerier by the fact that Jabba’s palace lay in the midst of the Dune Sea, a fierce, unforgiving wasteland where it was cheaper to let blood drip away than water. A faint breeze passed over Melvosh Bloor’s face as lightly as a dancing girl’s veil. His breath sighed from his wide, flat nostrils as he waited for some response to his words.

A thunderous sound that was half bellow and half shriek shook the wall he clung to. Melvosh Bloor leaped forward, a pathetic cry of startlement involuntarily escaping his lips. Unfortunately for the academic, he landed squarely on the puddle of goo and his booted feet shot straight out from under him. He landed with a nauseating squosh.

The orphaned eyeballs seemed to regard him with the dumb resentment of an overworked beast of burden.

The same maniacal laughter heard earlier resounded over Melvosh Bloor’s head once more. This time, however, a small, rubbery shape detached itself from its hiding place and dropped right into the dazed academic’s lap. A wizened face twisted into a mindlessly malevolent grin shoved itself nose to nose with the professor.

Melvosh Bloor was badly shaken by this ugly little apparition, but he had been trapped (and forced to make small talk) with uglier things at faculty teas. “Uh salutations.” He raised his right hand in greeting, having forgotten it still clutched the Jawa’s parting gift.

The creature in his lap gave a yodel of distress and scampered a short distance away. It stood there dancing from foot to taloned foot, chattering angrily.

“I—I’m sorry,” Melvosh Bloor stammered, fumbling the weapon away.

“I assure you, I have no intentions of shooting you. That would be a fine greeting, heh, heh.” He forced a sheepish smile in hopes that the creature had a sense of humor. “Heh?”

“A fine greeting!” There was not a trace of humor in the creature’s reply, merely resentment. He folded his flabby arms across his chest and glowered at the unhappy academic.

“Oh dear, I do apologize most sincerely. You must think I’m an awfully big muckhead.” Melvosh Bloor got to his feet unsteadily, then took a dainty step away from the remains of who-or-whatever’s final rest he had so messily disturbed.

“An awful… biiiiiig… muckhead,” the creature echoed, each word ripe with disdain. His grasp on Melvosh Bloor’s highly refined accent seemed to grow firmer with each word. In fact, his posture now appeared to mimic Melvosh Bloor’s own slightly stooped and timorous stance. If the academic did not know better, he would almost think this creature was making fun of him. That had not been in the contract.

Melvosh Bloor holstered his sidearm and, in the name of accomplishing his mission, decided to overlook the insult. “There,” he said. “That’s better. Now we may proceed.”

“Proceed?” The creature shook his head rapidly in the negative, making his tasseled ears bob and shake wildly.

“Eh?” Melvosh Bloor’s momentary brush with relief at having encountered his promised in-palace guide winked away like a candleflame in a sandstorm.

“Do you mean it’s too dangerous to go on? Or—or has there been a change in the situation since last we communicated?” He lowered his voice and in a hoarse, terrified whisper begged, “Don’t tell me that Professor P’tan has actually turned up alive?”

“P’tan! P’tan! Hahahahaha!” The little creature convulsed with insane merriment, rolling around on the floor as Melvosh Bloor watched, aghast.

“Oh my,” he murmured. “Professor P’tan is alive after all. Oh dear, dear me, this ruins everything.”

The creature stopped its mad tumblings and pricked up one ear.

“Everything?” it inquired.

Melvosh Bloor heaved a tremendous sigh. “Is there somewhere we can talk? Somewhere safe? Somewhere”—another sigh—”I can sit down?”

For an instant, the unthinkable happened: the creature’s face-splitting grin got even wider than ear to ear, physical possibility or not. Then it leaped forward and seized Melvosh Bloor by the hand, yanking and tugging violently (and painfully) as it urged him to follow it down one of the narrower passageways. Stumbling from weariness and bewilderment, the Kalkal allowed himself to be led away into the maze of corridors.

At length they stopped before a dully gleaming metal door. “In there?” the academic asked doubtfully.

“Is it—? Are you sure we shall be secure in there?”

“In there.” His guide spoke decisively and gave him a hard shove.

“In there!”

Still possessed by an uncertain, creepy feeling (hadn’t that charming-for-a-Whiphid Lady Valarian assured him that his in-palace contact, Darian Gli, was a Markul? This creature did not look anything like a Markul. But Melvosh Bloor was an Investigative Politico-Sociologist, not an Eidetic Xenologist, so he figured he could be wrong), the academic did as he was told. He laid hands on the massive door and was mildly surprised when it swung back easily on its hinges.

“How… primitive,” he remarked as he peered into the darkened chamber beyond. The spill from the dim illuminations in the corridor was enough for him to see by. He hesitated on the threshold until his guide gave him another of those forceful shoves, making the Kalkal trip over his own boots and fall on his face. Chittering and squealing with glee, the little creature scampered over Melvosh Bloor’s prone body.

There was a scrabbling sound and a faint amber light flared on at the far end of the room.

Melvosh Bloor picked himself up cautiously. “Shall I- - Shall I close the door?”

“Close the door! Close the door!” his guide commanded imperiously. He was seated on a block of rough-hewn sandstone about the height of a table.

The amber light came from a small, crystal-shielded niche in the wall nearby. The only other object to break the cubic monotony of the room was a second slab of rock approximately the dimensions of Melvosh Bloor’s bed back in the university cloister.

Melvosh Bloor hurried to comply, then took a seat on the sandstone slab.

He covered his face with his hands and let the full weight of misery bow his shoulders even more. “I suppose I’m to blame for not having done sufficient research before undertaking this mission,” he said. “As, no doubt, Professor P’tan will be the first to tell me once we return to the university.

Insufferable old gorm-worm. Oh, I can just hear him now, spouting off the same way he always does when he speaks to the junior faculty.”

Melvosh Bloor struck a stiff pose and, in a voice blubbery with pomposity, intoned, “Melvosh Bloor, do you call that teaching? You merely drum facts into your poor pupils’ rocky heads and give them passing grades if they spew the same swill right back in your lap!

Small wonder, when it’s the same swill you swallowed whole from your professors.”

“The Kalkal snorted. “Then he has to go brag about how he doesn’t rely on secondhand knowledge when he teaches; he goes out and does research in the field; If I hear him say ‘Publish or perish’ one more time, I shall—”

“Research in the field?” the creature broke in, cocking its head. Then it made a rude noise with one or more parts of its rubbery body.

“My sentiments exactly,” Melvosh Bloor agreed.

“Oh, I do wish we had more honest folk like you at the university.

Have you ever had any academic experience, Darian Gli?”

The creature repeated the rude noise, louder this time, and with a few extra flourishes.

“Ah,” said Melvosh Bloor dryly. “I see you have.”

“Professor P’tan?” the creature prompted.

Melvosh Bloor was not used to enjoying the company of such a good listener. “You wish me to… go on?” he inquired timidly.

“Go on, go on!” the creature responded with an expansive gesture.

Melvosh Bloor found himself liking this quaint being more by the minute.

“My good fellow, your, ah, rather substantive evaluation of Professor P’tan’s character leads me to believe you have encountered him, even though he swore he’d have nothing to do with you.