Tales From Jabba's Palace

by Kevin J. Anderson

  "Ladyfriend of Solo. The smuggler. Boss caught them." He carefully

  poked back into its socket the corpse's left eye, which was starting to

  droop free, and looked inquiringly in the direction of the

  white-chocolate bread pudding that Porcellus was preparing for tonight's

  dessert.

  "Get that thing out of here!" commanded Porcel-his.

  "I cook in here, this place has to stay clean---clean and healthful." He

  was not anxious to have the Gamor-rean start thinking about plots.

  But Gartogg was right about the girl. When he was summoned to Jabba's

  audience chamber at the beginning of the evening's festivities,

  Porcellus noted the absence of the tarnished brown-black slab of

  carbonite which for months had decorated the alcove, and the presence of

  a new "pet" on Jabba's dais.

  His heart went out to her in pity. She was very small, slender and

  fragile-looking in the iw scant scraps of gold and silk the crimelord

  allowed, her heavy, dark-red hair piled thick on her aristocratic head.

  "I--I'm sorry," he stammered quietly, kneeling on the dais at her side.

  "If there's anything I can get for you from the kitchen . . ."

  It was a hopelessly ineffective offer of aid, and he knew it; but she

  smiled, and took his hand. "Thank you." She had a voice like smoke and

  honey; he could see, not fear, but terrible worry in her brown eyes.

  Solo, thought Porcellus despairingly. She's in love with that smuggler

  Solo. She was in this position--a prisoner like himself in Jabba's

  palace--because of that love.

  And so, though his own heart hurt with love for her, he made it his

  business to see that Solo got food from the palace kitchen, not

  something that was guaranteed in Jabba's dungeons. Many of the

  prisoners didn't get food at all, for long periods .of time. But

  Porcellus, though his heart was in his throat with terror every time he

  did it, bribed the guards with beignets and chocolate ladybabies to take

  meat to the Wookiee, and because he knew hibernation sickness left the

  body weak and shaky from carbohydrate starvation, smuggled things like

  stuffed pasties and breaded eggs to the man his beloved loved.

  He felt like a fool--the man was going to be executed anyway and he was

  playing around with a rancor-pit offense himself. But it was all he

  could do for her, and when, the following night, she took his hand and

  whispered, "Thank you. Porcellus, thank you," and looked up into his

  eyes, it was, for one second, worth it all.

  Jabba's rumbling, horrible laugh sounded from above them. "You watch

  out, pretty Leia," the crime-lord said in his slow, almost

  incomprehensible Hutt-ese.

  The noise in the hall around them was tremendous, as Jabba's court

  degenerated into the usual orgy of card games, alcoholism, and

  testosterone-imbued lying that characterized evenings at the palace: Max

  Rebo and his band were playing, and Jabba's nasty little pet Salacious

  Crumb wasengaged in a vamped duet with the singer Sy Snootles.

  Jabba hefted the golden dish of fricasseed sandmag-got kidneys which was

  the first of Porcellus's culinary offerings for the evening.

  After the adventure of the vegetable crepes, Porcellus had gone back to

  the Bloated One's favorite standbys, but for days now he had produced

  every one with his heart in his mouth.

  "I think there's fierfek in his cooking. What you think, Chef?"

  "No," whispered Porcellus desperately, and checked to see if he was

  standing on the rancor's trap-door.

  He was. "No, it isn't true . . ."

  "Here." Leia cast a quick look at the cook's ashen face and stood up,

  reaching to take the dish from Jabba's hands. "There's no fierfek in

  this, is there, Porcellus?"

  "Uh . . ."

  "Your Highness," warned the golden protocol droid C-3PO hastily, "I

  really wouldn't advise . . ."

  Jabba generally dispensed With the formality of utensils, but an

  ornamental border of cracknels surrounded the fetid yellowish glop

  heaped artistically in the center. Using one of them for a spoon, Leia

  helped herself to two large mouthfuls.

  She turned green and sat down rather quickly.

  Jabba roared with obscene laughter. Salacious Crumb, skipping through

  the crowd around the bandstand, sprang up over the back of the Gamorrean

  stationed nearest Jabba's dais, an ugly boot named Jubnuk, and, when

  Jubnuk swatted irritably at him, ran shrieking to his master's side and

  hurled the rest of the dish of sandmaggot kidneys at the guard. This

  created enough of a diversion for Porcellus to slip hastily out of the

  main hall. But throughout the remainder of the night's partying, he

  returned again and again to the hall to check on Leia, who was looking

  extremely wan as the night progressed.

  Sandmaggot kidneys did not agree with everyone.

  And all it would need, thought Porcellus despairingly, would be for her

  to drop dead.

  Jubnuk, who had licked all the spattered sandmaggot kidneys off his

  armor and the surrounding walls, showed no ill effects. Porcellus took

  what comfort he could from that.

  Luke Skywalker, last of the Jedi Knights, entered the palace with the

  first light of dawn.

  The first Porcellus knew of it was when he picked his way on tiptoe

  among the sleeping bodies in the audience hall with a cup of vine-coffee

  and a freshly made jelly doughnut for Leia--also sleeping on the dais at

  the Hutt's side--and saw Bib Fortuna enter, followed by a medium-sized,

  slender, and self-effacing young man in black.

  "I told you not to admit him," rumbled Jabba, when his majordomo had

  wakened him to see the young man before him.

  Porcellus stepped hastily back, concealing himself behind the bemused

  and hungover crowd of Jabba's retainers, one of whom--a dark-skinned

  newcomer in a helmet of gondar tusks--relieved him of the vine-coffee

  and the doughnut.

  "I must be allowed to speak to your master," said Skywalker in his soft

  voice.

  Bib Fortuna turned immediately to the crimelord.

  "He must be allowed to speak to--"

  "You weak-minded fool." Jabba pushed Fortuna aside. "That oldJedi mind

  trick will not work on me."

  Skywalker inclined his head in a respectful bow.

  "You will bring Captain Solo and the Wookiee to me," he said, and

  Porcellus felt an immediate urge to run to the dungeon, get the key from

  Captain Ortogg, and do just that.

  "Look out!" piped up C-3PO, who--if Porcellus remembered correctly--had

  been Skywalker's gift to Jabba. "You're standing on--"

  "Your mind powers will not work on me," said Jabba, perhaps deliberately

  drowning out the droid's warning that Skywalker was, in fact, standing

  precisely on the rancor's trapdoor.

  "Nevertheless," said Skywalker gently, "I am taking Captain Solo.

  You can either profit by this, or be destroyed."

  Jabba smiled evilly and his eyes seemed to grow redder as the pupils

  narrowed. "I shall enjoy watching you die."

  Porcellus had already seen how Skywalker's eyes had met those of the

  woman Leia when first he had entered.

&
nbsp; Now she cried "Luke!" as the guards closed in.

  Skywalker flung out his hand, and somehow the blaster that had been in

  the holster of a guard four meters away was in it. He had time to fire

  one shot as they closed around him, Jubnuk the guard reaching to grab.

  Then the trapdoor beneath his feet fell open, and both Skywalker and

  Jubnuk plunged into the pit below.

  "Luke!" screamed Leia again, dragging fruitlessly against the chains,

  and the whole court rushed for-ward--pushing Porcellus along with

  them--to watch the show in the pit.

  It was quick, horrible, the nightmare form of the rancor bursting forth

  from its den as the bars were raised. Brownish, slimy, hideous beyond

  belief, it lunged first at the Jedi, who managed to wedge himself in a

  crack of the rock, then turned and caught Jubnuk as the Gamorrean tried

  to force apart the barred judas window in the side of the pit. Porcellus

  was standing among the other Gamorreans as the rancor seized Jubnuk

  neatly around the waist--Captain Ortogg and his cohorts bellowed with

  laughter as the monster gulped Jubnuk down in three bites, the noise of

  their mirth almost drowning his agonized screams.

  The chef felt faint, feeling those teeth around his own waist, seeing

  his own arm disappearing like a final fillip of noodle into that round,

  fanged nouth . . . Not me, he thought desperately, not me . .

  . Skywalker saw his chance, and took it. He fled under the rancor's

  feet, into the smaller den where the beast slept, and from there, as the

  thing pursued him, hurled a skull at the mechanism which controlled the

  den's sharpened portcullis of bars. Whether he used some Jedi power to

  slam the missile home, or whether he simply had the unerring eye of a

  trained warrior, Porcellus couldn't be sure. But the bars dropped like

  a guillotine, their pointed ends driving like spears through the

  rancor's skull.

  The beast made a dreadful sound, and fell limp.

  In the startled silence of the criminals around him, Porcellus could

  hear, from the deeps of the pit, Malakili's frantic wail, "NOOOOO . . .

  !!!" Porcellus was safe.

  He straightened up, feeling oddly light-headed. For five years Jabba

  had threatened to throw him to the rancor . . . and now the rancor was

  dead. He felt bad for Malakili, hurting with the echoes of that

  terrible cry, but in the first dizzying flush of relief it was hard to

  sympathize with his bereft friend. The rancor was dead . . .

  Guards were dragging the smuggler Solo, the giant Wookiee behind him,

  into the audience hall. Solo was still blind from hibernation sickness,

  but noticeably stronger--Porcellus hoped desperately nobody would ask

  who'd been feeding him. They were thrust before the dais of the Bloated

  One.

  "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 enoug
h 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