Tales From Jabba's Palace

by Kevin J. Anderson

  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 O
ola," 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."

  "Don't be cowardly," she whispered, but she couldn't put any strength

  into her voice.

  "He threatened to flush my memory. That would be even worse," the droid

  whined.

  "Nothing is final," Oola murmured, trying to echo things she'd thought

  she believed in, before fear nibbled holes in her faith. "Not even

  death. It only frees your spirit from the confines of gravity, to

  dance--"

  "You don't understand." Threepio lowered himself with a metallic squeak

  onto the chamber's sandy floor.

  "Even a partial memory wipe would be disastrous for a droid of my

  programming. I might have to start from basic imitative body movements.

  I'm not even certain I. would retain my primary communications

  function."

  Whatever that means, she signed with her lekku. No non-Twi'lek could

  read lek gestures.

  Surprising her again, he spread his metal hands. "It would mean doom,"

  he explained. Then he spoke again, almost shyly. "Might I offer

  condolences for your unhappy position, Miss Oola?"

  Those were the first genteel words she'd heard in two days.

  Regretting her bravado back at the town, when she could have escaped

  Master Fortuna, and then her obvious lack of courage in this place, she

  curled up into a tight little ball and cradled both lekku between her

  knees, "Thank you, See Pio," she murmured. "Do you have any idea what's

  happening?"

  She indicated the other side of Jabba's throne with a quick jerk of her

  head.

  "Threepio," he corrected, but he tried to be gallant.

  "As I understand, His High Exaltedness is punishing a Jawa.

  Someone he caught plotting against him, I suppose. Everyone here hopes

  to kill everyone else, so far as I can ascertain. I--oh!"

  Another shriek cut him off. His head turned.

  Oola nudged his hard, cool side with a bare elbow.

  "Tell me about that . . . picture that the other droid projected this

  morning," she said urgently. She needed to know now. She'd learned not

  to hope for second chances.

  "What?" Threepio swiveled his head toward her.

  "The . . . human." Humans looked almost Twi'leki, but pitiably

  maimed... just as Jabba looked horribly mutated, one lek bloated to

  obscene proportions. "Who was it?"

  Threepio's tone brightened. "Oh! That is my--" He halted before saying

  "owner," or "master"--he belonged to Jabba now--but his speech had

  clearly started to imply ownership.

  She touched her collar in unexpected empathy. Ignoring his faltering,

  she said, "I've seen him."

  He drew up with a grandiose sweep of both arms. "I am afraid that's

  impossible."

  "Is his name Luke?" Oola asked.

  Threepio's eyes glimmered in the dark, smoky air.

  "My goodness. Yes. Yes, it is. Where was he?"

  Mournfully, Oola explained.

  Oola relaxed on her deceleration chair, relieved that her first

  spaceflight had ended smoothly. Jerris Rudd, Bib Fortuna's employee and

  their pilot-escort on the short trip from Ryloth to Tatooine, had warned

  her that unexpected sandstorms or hostiles might agitate their landing.

  Oola flexed her legs, eager to spring from this cramped cabin. At her

  twilit home on Ryloth, deep in underground warrens where eight hundred

  people acknowledged her father as clan chief, she'd been known as an

  exquisite dancer. The height of her kicks and the sensuous swing of her

  lekku had won dozens of admirers.

  Four months ago, Bib Fortuna had coaxed her aboveground. He'd abducted

  her, instead of paying her father as custom dictated. He'd enslaved

  her--and another Twi'lek girl, even younger and more petite--at a

  complex on Ryloth where he'd once conducted a lucrative smuggling

  business. He'd bought them the most expensive training on six worlds:

  four months with Ryloth's most elegant, experienced court dancers.

  The older dancers disdained her clan's quaint, primitive ways. To

  Oola's way of thinking, her clan preserved faith and dignity that the

  rest of the world had lost in its rush to accommodate slavers and

  smugglers.

  Expediency was a deadly god to serve.

  Still, Oola rose to her training. She couldn't escape, and she did love

  to dance. The twin temptations of power and fame set hooks in her soul.

  Fortuna's performers selected the girls' dancing personae: Sienn would

  appear slightly younger, naive, and guileless; Oola would seem knowing,

  worldly-wise, and callous.

  Sienn sat stoically as Fortuna's grim groomers tattooed delicate floral

  chains up and down her nerve-laden lekku. Oola held Sienn's hand and

  wiped her silent tears of pain.

  Sienn was too young and vulnerable for work that made her beauty a

  commodity. Twi'leks called her kind a "morsel"--one gulp and a client

  could eat her.

  Their aging head trainer, who still boasted some beauty, tried hardening

  Sienn. "Don't play with that kind of appetite," she'd warned. "Make

  them drool, butdon't let them bite."

  Oola sleeked her lekku and shimmied her shoulders infinitesimally.

  She and Sienn had been trained by the best. Groomed for the best.

  Sienn sat in another deceleration chair, wearing a simple hooded

  coverallmlike Oola's, but pale yellow instead of dark blue--and stroked

  her freshly tattooed lekku. "Do they still hurt?" Oola murmured.

  "They're fine," insisted Sienn. "They--" The cabin door slid aside.

  Jerris Rudd stepped through, one point seven meters of scum.

  Rudd was the first human she'd met. Perhaps all humans dressed in

  baggy, torn clothing. Perhaps they all smelled this foul, with matted

  fur covering their heads (the worst of Rudd's stench came from that

  fur). If so, humans were scum. In keeping with her worldly-wise role,

  Rudd had given her a tiny dagger. "Help Sienn," he'd taunted, "if you

  can." She'd bristled, but she'd made sure the dagger was sharp, then

  tucked it into her belt.

  "Nice fly, girls?" Rudd rubbed his stained hands.

  "Pretty good landing, I think. No boom." He clapped his hands at

  Sienn's face.

  Sienn shrank into her chair. Evidently Rudd had tried to evaluate

  Sienn's training during their hyperspace hop.

  Oola could speak only a few hundred words of Basic, but her ear knew the

  way pidgin limped. It offended her. She could guess-translate most

  words in context. "It was a good landing," she said firmly.

  "Time to unbuckle"--he pantomimed releasing their harnesses--"and hit

  dirt. You'll love Tatooine."

  Sienn touched a control on her seat. Her flight harness withdrew into
>
  its side. "What's it like?" she asked.

  "A little like Ryloth. You'll see. Come on."

  They'd barely climbed down into the docking bay's heat--and the sandy

  back lot was like Ryloth's hot, perpetually uninhabitable bright

  side--when a metallic voice announced, "Hold it right there. Nobody

  moves."

  That voice had no music left in it. It grated in her ears like metal on

  slate. Oola did as it ordered.

  The voice came from a human wearing white metal.

  Oola stared. She'd seen tri-D images of Imperial stormtroopers.

  Three of them stood between the battered fore pod of Rudd's small

  transport and the only gate in the docking bay's sandstone walls. One

  whiteskin marched up to Rudd. "Let's see some identification."

  Oola had no trouble translating that word. Moving slowly and keeping

  his eye on the stormtroopers' blast rifles, Rudd dug into his

  sweat-stained shoulder pouch: A stormtrooper grabbed it. Sienn stood

  still, trembling.

  Eventually the whiteskin returned Rudd's pouch.

  His partners lowered their weapons. "This is a very common class of

  ship," he explained. "Just what we'd expect someone to use if they were