Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) (10 page)

“At least you were worth it.”

All that Melvosh Bloor could say was, “Sa-Sa-Sa-Sala-cious Crumb?” as he goggled in shock at his erstwhile trusted and beloved guide.

“But I thought-I was sure—you said you were Darian Gli!”

“You said,” the lizard-monkey gloated.

“Darian Gli?” Jabba was momentarily at a loss. “Ah yes, the Markul who brought in those two pests who upset my cook.” He smacked his lips nostalgically.

“Delicious.”

“You said, you said, not me!” Salacious Crumb taunted him. The Kowakian lizard-monkey was in his glory. “Hoooo! Stupid?” He waved at the shivering academic so that none of Jabba’s courtiers could mistake the insult’s target.

None did. In fact, someone from the back of the crowd shouted out, “How stupid is he?”

“How stupid? How stupid?” Malice beamed from the Kowakian’s beady eyes. “He say Jabba lies like a Gran! ” Jabba’s roar of outrage swallowed the Kalkal’s weakly uttered protests of innocence even ifJabba did not swallow the Kalkal… yet. While Melvosh Bloor sputtered “But I—but he—but we—” the Hutt bellowed for his Gamorrean guards.

Somewhere in Jabba’s outpouring of indignation, Melvosh Bloor distinctly heard the word “Sarlacc.”

Desperation can work astounding transformations.

Stung to the quick at being played for a fool by someone without a doctorate, insulted past bearing, trapped, bereft of hope, the normally placid academic exploded. Salacious Crumb uttered a squawk as one of Melvosh Bloor’s hands shot out to seize his neck while the other drew the borrowed sidearm and jammed the barrel halfway up the Kowakian’s nose.

“He came into my presence armed?” Jabba boomed as his bodyguards hastened to throw themselves into a living wall between their master and danger.

“Soddy, Baster,” Salacious Crumb replied as best he could. “I thod you eed hib zoon as he—”

“Blast you, Salacious Crumb, that’s a Klatooine handblaster he’s got there! You know they give me gas!”

“I mean you no harm,” Melvosh Bloor gritted at the Hutt. “I just want to blow the head off this loathsome little cretin, then you can eat me.

At least I’ll die happy.” To his captive he snarled, “Cheat me out of tenure, will you?”

“Hey hey hey! You wad denure? Baster, Baster, gib hib wad he want, adzer questions, led hib ged denure, led Zalacious Crub keeb head—”

“He said I like a Gran,” Jabba replied.

“Uh… thad wuz be,” Salacious Crumb confessed.

“You”

“Wuz goblibent, goblibent! Gan’t dake a choke?”

Jabba settled deeper into his own fat to consider this. “A compliment?” he mused. “From a Kowakian… mmmperhaps.” He reared back on his throne and gave a string of commands.

Melvosh Bloor could hardly believe the complete about-face in his fortunes. Whereas moments earlier he had been on the brink of extinction, ready to take the duplicitous Salacious Crumb with him into oblivion, he now found himself comfortably seated before Jabba’s throne, on a heap of cushions which Salacious Crumb himself took special pains to arrange just so.

The Hutt proved to be a surprisingly forthcoming interviewee.

Before long, Melvosh Bloor’s datapad memory was stretched to the limit, which was just as well: he had run out of questions.

“I can’t thank you enough, sir,” he said, hugging the precious datapad to his bosom as he stood up in the midst of the cushions. “I must say, your reputation does not do you justice. Your kindness, your tolerance, your indulgence—” He gave Jabba his most ingratiating smile—one which, in the past, had almost fooled the late Professor P’tan, and that was saying something.

“If there is ever anything I can do for you—”

“There is,” Jabba replied. His eyes closed to slits.

“Make me laugh.”

Taken aback, the academic could only reply, “Uhhhh… what?”

“You heard me. I weary of Salacious Crumb’s antics.

This is the second time he has attempted to use academics to amuse me. I don’t like to hear the same joke twice. Make me laugh—”

“So he said. Um, well, sir, you see, humor does not generally fall within my area of study—”

“–or I will devour you where you stand.”

“however, I did take a course on the analysis of comedy and I would be happy to send you my notes on the subject.”

“Make… me… laugh.”

Melvosh Bloor sucked in his lower lip—no mean feat—and tried to maintain his composure. Make the Hutt laugh? He cast his eyes about the throne room, desperately seeking some clue, some inspiration that would save his skin. His roving glance lit upon the.

?????? repugnant figure of Salacious Crumb. The Kowakian lizard-monkey grinned and made obnoxious faces at’ him. How dare he”, Melvosh Bloor thought, the color rising to his cheeks. I should have blown his head off when I had the chance. If that obscene little pimple can make the Hutt laugh, then surely I, with my university education, my knowledge, my vastly superior breeding ought to be able to do the same.

And then it came to him, a joke he had heard from Professor P’tan himself at a faculty meeting. Melvosh Bloor recalled that all the junior faculty had laughed loud and long, so it must be a good one.

The academic cleared his throat, smiled amiably, and began: “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

How many Sarlaccs does it take to do in a Jedi?”

Jabba stared at him. Too late, Melvosh Bloor remembered that junior faculty will laugh at any joke a senior professor tells.

“I’ve heard it,” saidJabba. He twitched his tail over a control device he alone commanded and the floor beneath Melvosh Bloor’s feet vanished.

The academic plunged into the pit beneath, cushions and all.

The datapad went flying from his upflung hands to land with a clatter at Salacious Crumb’s feet. There was a horrendous, bone-chilling cacophony as Jabba’s favorite pet, the rancor, made the acquaintance of its newest playmate. “And I’ve heard that one before too,” the Hutt concluded.

He turned a stern look on his court jester. “Well, Salacious Crumb,” Jabba remarked, “that was louder, but I don’t think it was funnier.”

“Eh! Academics.” The Kowakian shrugged. “Publish or perish, publish or perish,” he parroted. He stressed each word with a whack of Melvosh Bloor’s datapad against the floor.

“Publish or…?” A slow, skin-prickling sound began to work its way out of the Hutt’s bulk until it broke from the Bloated One’s maw in a geyser of approving laughter. “Now that’s funnier!” Jabba decreed.

Salacious Crumb screwed up his face into a look of all-encompassing contempt for his master’s idea of a punch line. He tossed the datapad into the rancor pit.

The rancor, who had no need to fidget and absolutely no sense of humor, tossed it back.

But of course the rancor already had tenure.

A Time to Mourn. a Time to Dance: Oola’s Tale

by Kathy Tyers

Oola’s back throbbed from the roots of her lekku to the sandaled soles of her feet. She perched on the edge of Jabba’s dais,.just as far from the Bloated One as her chain would allow. Foul smoke curled from his hookah. It hung acridly in the air, stinging her throat.

She shook her head, and the chain rattled. She’d tested every link of it, hoping it had a weak spot. It didn’t. For two days, two endless rounds of Tatooine’s twin burning suns, she hadn’t seen daylight. And she guessed she had only thwarted the hideous Hutt’s slobbering advances because he enjoyed punishing her as much as he anticipated her eventual submission.

They’d been careful, the Gamorreans who beat her this morning.

She’d refused to dance closer to Jabba.

Oola hunched down and tried to forget. Jabba’s flag-eared lizard-monkey had perched on her heel and cackled as the Gamorreans stretched her out and scientifically pummeled her. She’d hoped for bruises.

They might make her repulsive to Jabba.

Her sponsor and fellow Twi’lek, Bib Fortuna, had crouched close and wrinkled his knobby brow. He communicated with twitches and whisks of his thick, masculine lekku. “Learn quickly! You cost me a fortune.

Two fortunes. You will please him—even if his only enjoyment is watching you die.”

Oola had only two hopes left: to escape from this palace of death or, barring that, to die cleanly and well, and escape that way.

Fortuna was the only person inside who spoke her language. The thought made her unbearably lonely. Master Fortuna sat at an alcove table, draping his lekku over the shoulders of Melina Carniss–a human dancer, dark-haired and almost pretty.

Jabba’s tail twitched. Oola wrapped her arms around her ankles.

She’d learned only a few words of Huttese (“no,”

“please no,” and “emphatically no”), but she was getting very good at reading the Hutt’s body language. Some thought had just pleased him.

An ancient free-verse song sprang to her mind: “Only a criminal prefers survival to honor. Love life too much, and you’ll lose the best reason for living.”

She’d learned that song as a child. Life was dangerous. Oola desired life like water and she meant to drink death like wine, deeply and quickly.

But not too soon.

Then she heard what had already excited Jabba: struggling and shouting noises drifted down the entry stair. She could barely hear them through her headpiece.

She’d seen Master Fortuna display the studded leather band to Jabba, speaking Huttese and stroking one knobby protrusion with a sharpened claw. Then he buckled it under her chin, the finishing touch on her costume.

Metal knobs on the headpiece protruded through leather into her delicate ears, blocking all but the loudest noises—such as Max Rebo’s contemptible singer Sy Snootles, and Jabba’s abhorrent invitations.

She raised her head to stare toward the entry. All around the throne, in dark recesses and corners of Jabba’s sand-strewn floor, courtiers roused from their daily business. Bib Fortuna turned toward mid-floor, then rose and glided forward.

Once she’d admired him. Now she despised his obsequious shuffling and the touch of his claw-fingered hands.

Two tusked Gamorrean guards dragged in a struggling creature.

Although half the size of either guard, the prisoner jumped left and right, desperately kicking the thick hide of their knees. Whenever a kick landed, the Gamorrean whuffled. She guessed that was their laughter.

Jabba yanked Oola’s chain. Choked, she fell back against gooey flesh. A warty, vestigial hand grasped her sensitive left lek from behind and stroked it.

Jabba rumbled at his luckless new captive. One Gamorrean seized its roughly woven brown robe by the collar and yanked it off, revealing a scrawny creature with a shrunken face and glowing yellow eyes. He babbled atJabba in a quick, high voice. Jabba belched something that sounded like a command. From behind the hideous guards scuttled a squatty crustacean with four green-shelled legs. Several courtiers recoiled from it; others edged forward. Even Master Fortuna kept a respectful distance.

The crustacean brandished a forefoot. Two pairs of pincers snapped open. A straight, slim talon protruded between each pair of claws. One talon glistened wetly. The prisoner shrank down and screamed.

Jabba’s rumbling laugh vibrated his belly. Oola trembled. She hadn’t slept in two nights; if this went on much longer, she’d be too tired to escape if she got the chance. Jabba’s exclusively chained dancing girls must live short, miserable lives. The ancient song haunted her: “lose your best reason for living…”

As the captive cowered, the crustacean’s twin claw seized his upper arm.

Pincers clamped. The captive shrieked again, a long, thin screech that arched Oola’s neck. She spun around, pushed her face into fetid hide, and then scrambled up Jabba’s hideous midsection.

Momentarily she forgot the rotten flesh under her bare arms and legs.

Jabba chuckled but loosened her chain, possibly the better to concentrate on his victim’s last agony.

Oola slithered down Jabba’s other side, cautiously testing the slack he was giving her. She managed to slide off the back of his dais before snapping her neck tether tight. Jabba didn’t seem to mind having its links dragged over him. He’d find her when he wanted lighter entertainment.

She slid her hated headpiece’s strap up her chin and flung it off.

Then she tugged her skimpy net costume, straightening flimsy fabric to cover her body as well as it could. Narrow leather strips belted it at her waist, hips, knees, and ankles.

She’d hoped for dancing veils.

Her eyes adjusted slowly. To her surprise, two other creatures.

?????? shared her refuge. Her fellow dancer—Yarna, a heavy-bodied Askajian with room at her breasts for a large litter of children—had spoken “comforting” words after this morning’s long beating: “Do what you have to. Anything that works. As long as you’re alive, there’s hope.”

Oola frowned. Death was the ultimate enemy, but beyond it lay bright, clean eternity and the Great Dance.

The humanoid-looking droid cowered back here too. Almost as tall as Fortuna, he gleamed gold where Jabba’s slime hadn’t fouled him.

She’d seen him earlier when he arrived with his squat, silvery partner, and she hadn’t forgotten the towering human image they projected into foul, murky air…

Yarna lounged, stretched out as if for a peaceful nap after breakfast.

The droid pressed metal-jointed hands over his invisible ears. Oola hunkered closer to him. She racked her memory for words that might comfort him, but she didn’t know enough Huttese to make a start. She might try Basic, although she didn’t speak it well.

His metal head turned. He straightened—avoiding her, she thought at first—and then made a stiff but courtly bow. “Miss Oola,” he said.

He spoke Twi’leki. The shock of familiarity hit her again, as when his parmer had projected that image.

“I am See-Threepio, human-cyborg relations,” he announced, managing Twi’leki as well as she’d ever heard a creature without lekku speak it.

“I am fluent in over six million forms of communication. I apologize for my disreputable condition,” he added, and swiped one metal hand at the green ooze on his body.

“If I truly am doomed, I would prefer to face the scrap pile in a more pristine condition.”