party, he stepped around a corner and waited in the shadows.
A moment later, a silhouette thrown against the far wall sauntered near.
The lanky figure stood tall, lean, and broad-nosed; he wore a jacket
with a high'necked collar. Even Gartogg held his breath, trying not to
snuffle unnecessarily.
Dannik Jerriko, an assassin, was the only one in the palace he feared
except forJabba himself. Gartogg had never seen this killer in action,
but he had heard all the rumors about how Jerriko conducted his
business: he was a snot vampire, When the assassin had passed, Gartogg
covered his upturned snout protectively with one hand and hurried in the
other direction.
As Gartogg plodded along the corridors on his usual patrol, he worked
his way through the back hallways and neared the main entry. He heard
shouts from the direction of the kitchen and hesitated, wondering if he
should go and look. Then he remembered that he liked going to the
kitchen. He could always find a snack.
At first, Gartogg saw no one in the kitchen. He walked inside, pausing
to pick up a handful of plastifoam to munch on. Then he saw someone in
the receiving room.
Still crunching plastifoam, he moved forward. He stopped when he saw
Ree-Yees, the three-eyed, goat-faced crook, kneeling by a shattered box.
Porcellus stood to one side, over Phlegmin, the kitchen boy.
Unlike Ak-Buz, Phlegmin lay in a tangle of arms and legs with his eyes
closed.
"He sleeping?" Gartogg asked from the doorway.
"I didn't do it!" Porcellus screamed.
Ree-Yees started in surprise, almost knocking himself over. His three
eyes froze on Gartogg. Silvery-green goatgrass, smelling sweet, had
been scattered on the floor from the broken box.
"Kitchen boy sleeping, huh?" Gartogg asked again.
"Uh . . ."
Gartogg blinked, waiting, and grunted encouragingly.
Suddenly Ree-Yees scrambled to his feet, knocking Porcellus aside, and
spoke breathlessly. "You're just in time! I found himMjust like
this--down the hall--near the tunnel to Ephant Mon's quarters!" His
three eyes narrowed. "I brought him here try--to--to perform
resus-suspiration!"
"Huh?"
"You know--emergency culinary resuspiration! The smell of food
so--so---so ripe it can bring the dead back to life! An ancient art,
one I learned from my great-uncle, Swee-beeps. We call
it--er---garbage-sniff-ing of the last resort. But alas, I was too
late." His eyestalks drooped and he sighed.
Gartogg shuffled forward, bent his knees, and leaned forward slightly.
He wondered if the emergency culinary resuspiration would work
belatedly, and still wake up the kitchen boy. When he sniffed, though;
he didn't smell any garbage. Maybe it was too late.
"So you see?" Ree-Yees said anxiously. "Someone must take over now.
Someone with authority. To investigate, put together clues, solve this
crime. Jabba will be impressed--and grateful."
"Kitchen boy murdered!" Suddenly understanding the problem, Gartogg
bent down to grab one of Phlegmin's ankles. He straightened and dangled
the body up where he could see it clearly. Blood covered Phlegmin's
face.
Ree-Yees stared at Gartogg, not speaking.
Gartogg nodded and flung the body over his left shoulder.
Turning, he snorted thoughtfully and plodded back out through the
kitchen, grabbing another handful of plastifoam with his other hand.
"Don't forget!" Ree-Yees called out. "I found him near Ephant Mon's
quarters!"
Gartogg walked down the corridor away from the kitchen with unaccustomed
cheer. If he could find out who killed this kitchen boy, Ortugg would
at last be impressed. Gartogg might be assigned to the sail barge's
next outing after all.
As Gartogg plodded endlessly through the dank, shadowed halls of the
palace, wondering how he could solve the mystery, the weight of the
kitchen boy began to tire even him. He shifted the body to his other
shoulder, which helped for a while. On this third pass by the guest
quarters, he finally remembered an important clue: Ree-Yees had found
the corpse near Ephant Mon's quarters. Thinking that perhaps he could
ask Ephant Mon about the crime, he knocked on the door. When no one
answered, Gartogg sighed and trudged on down the corridor.
Wearily, Gartogg snuffled in resignation. It probably wouldn't matter.
Ephant Mon didn't like him either.
For days it seemed (and maybe-it was), Gartogg had patrolled most of the
palace several times over without finding anyone to question. A few
people had seen him from a distance, but they all covered their noses,
if they had one, and ran off. Gartogg felt that behavior was
inconsiderate.
On his fourth pass through the rancor tunnels, he heard the rancor
shifting and rustling in the sand behind its grate.
"Come on," Gartogg said to the lifeless face of the kitchen boy dangling
over his shoulder. "Visit rancor."
In response, the kitchen boy dripped some sort of cloudy fluid on the
floor of the tunnel.
When Gartogg reached the area by the rancor grate, he found Malakili,
the pudgy rancor keeper, struggling to carry a limp human to the grate.
"What this?" Gartogg asked.
"Huh?" Malakili jumped in surprise, dropping his burden with a thump.
"Uh, I'm feeding the rancor, what does it look like I'm doing?"
"Oh." Gartogg snorted in disappointment. "Need help?"
"No, no, I'm doing just fine."
Gartogg kept the kitchen boy balanced on his shoulder as Malakili opened
the grate for the waiting rancor and heaved the other body inside.
"You want to unload him too?" Malakili nodded toward the kitchen boy,
grimacing.
"No! Evidence of crime."
"Well, he's decomposing pretty fast. You sure?"
"No!" Gartogg turned and hurried away.
Gartogg trudged to the kitchen, still carrying the corpse of Phlegmin
over one shoulder, the head and arms dangling forward. The dead kitchen
boy had a much stronger odor than before,and tended to drip fluids on
the floor occasionally. Gartogg snuffled politely.
Porcellus looked up from his daily work.
"A plot," Gartogg rumbled. "Clues. All tied together."
He reached out with his free hand to grab some pieces of plastifoam.
Munching on them casually, he added, "Girl. She, um. .
."
"What girl?" Porcellus demanded. "And get that disgusting thing out of
here!"
"Mercenary girl. Brought in Wookiee. Last night."
Gartogg licked a bit of loose plastifoam from around his mouth and
snuffled contentedly. "Lady friend of Solo. The smuggler. Boss caught
them."
Gartogg saw that one of the corpse's eyeballs had started to ooze out of
his head. That was bad; he might need this evidence of the crime.
Snorting in annoyance, Gartogg poked the eye back in with a thick,
stubby forefinger.
"Get that thing out of here!" Porcellus shouted. "I cook in here; this
place has to stay clean--clean and healthful!"
Hurt, Gartogg turned
to go, keeping the corpse balanced over his
shoulder. After all, the chef was boss here. As he plodded out, he
snatched up some more plastifoam and stuffed it into his mouth, though
some of it spilled behind him on the floor.
Gartogg wandered the corridors of the palace all day, ignoring sleep,
but he discovered nothing. On the night shift again, he waddled through
the shadowed halls all night with the kitchen boy still on his shoulder.
By, the end of his shift, he was exhausted, but had found nothing.
Finally, as dawn approached, he trudged back to the guards' quarters in
weary disappointment.
"Gartogg!" Ortugg jumped forward to block the entrance. "What are you
doing with that . . . thing?"
"Evidence," Gartogg snorted defensively.
"It's rotting," Rogua shouted, appearing behind Ortugg. "You can't
bring that in here!"
"Can't?"
"What did you do with it last night?" Rogua demanded.
"Night duty," said Gartogg. "Kept it."
Some of the other Gamorrean guards in the quarters snorted and snuffled
derisively.
"Get rid of it," Ortugg ordered. "Feed it to the rancor or something."
"Evidence," said Gartogg, eyeing the oozing, discolored face of the
kitchen boy. "Murder."
"Forget about coming in here," said Ortugg.
"We're ready to go on the sail barge. Rogua, select the guards who will
go."
"Yes, sir."
"Sail barge?" Gartogg's eyes widened as he snuffled excitedly.
"Now?"
"No--for the next time Jabba goes out to the Great Pit of Carkoon to
feed some prisoners to the Sarlacc."
"Take me!" Gartogg bounced up and down excitedly, jiggling the body of
the kitchen boy. One of his fingers fell off and hit the floor. Several
bugs crawled out of his mouth; many more buzzed away from the corpse,
disturbed by the motion.
Ortugg snorted in disgust. "You're looking for the boy's killer?"
"Yes!"
Ortugg snuffled, chuckling, and caught Rogua's eye. "You figure it out
by the next time we leave, you can come. Now get out! And don't bring
that thing back here!"
"And try speaking in complete sentences!" Rogua yelled.
Snuffled and snorted laughter followed Gartogg as he turned and trudged
away from the quarters.
Now, however, Gartogg no longer felt as tired as before. He was too
excited. This could be his chance.
"Maybe sail barge," he said optimistically to the kitchen boy.
Some sort of maggot crawled into the kitchen boy's ear. A blackened
tongue hung from the slack mouth.
Other bugs wandered all over the corpse's face.
"Go see sail barge, said Gartogg. "Want to?"
The corpse still dripped fluids of various colors and viscosities and
the bugs ate more and more of the remaining tissue. Still, the body had
become only a little lighter than before. Gartogg plodded toward the
docking area behind Jabba's throne room where the sail barge waited,
just to gaze at it for a moment.
On the way, Gartogg saw a B'omarr monk wearing an earring moving along a
darkened hall up ahead.
"Monk," Gartogg snuffled softly to the kitchen boy.
"Ask monk for clues. Okay?"
The monk slipped away around a corner. Gartogg hurried after him, but
did not call out. He was afraid of waking people up.
For a moment, Gartogg lost track of the monk.
Then he heard a couple of voices around another corner and hurried
toward them. Before he saw anyone, a thump reached him.
When he came around the corner, he found J'Quille, a Whiphid, kneeling
over the monk, who lay on his back covered by the bloody folds of his
robe.
The Whiphid wore a vibroblade in his scabbard and clutched something in
his hand. Startled, Gartogg wheezed and snorted in surprise, then
grunted uncomfortably.
J'Quille said nothing.
Gartogg adjusted the kitchen boy over his shoulder and moved forward
cautiously.
The monk didn't move.
"Is he sleeping?" Gartogg asked. That was a complete .sentence.
He wished Rogua had heard him.
J'Quille stood up. "He's not dead; he's, uh, meditating.
Gone into a deep trance. Pondering the imponderables."
Gartogg wrinkled his snout and snorted thoughtfully, studying the monk.
"The blood? He wanted to see if he'd reached the final stage of
enlightenment. He decided to do a little testing on his own to see if
he was ready before he asked his friends to surgically remove his
brain."
Gartogg grimaced. Grunting in puzzlement, he pointed at the monk's head
and then to the blood on his chest. "Uh--" The Whiphid shrugged.
"That's where their brains are. In their chests. It makes it easier to
remove them."
Snuffling nervously, Gartogg frowned. If the monk's brain was in his
chest, what did he need a head for? In any case, the monk shouldn't
meditate in the hall any more than that Weequay should sleep in one;
someone might trip over him.
J'Quille watched Gartogg carefully, silent now.
"Can't meditate here." He bent down and worked the body of the monk
over his free shoulder. Then he straightened. Maybe this mysterious
monk, meditating with the brain in his bloody chest, was part of a
conspiracy regarding the kitchen boy.
The Whiphid stepped aside and waited without speaking.
Gartogg, hoping he was about to find the answer to these murders,
plodded away under the weight of the two bodies, one meditating and one
rotting . . .
As Gartogg continued his endless trudging up the hall, he watched the
floor carefully for more meditating monks. If he tripped over one, he
would drop the two guys he was carrying and might fall on the new one.
However, he found no one all day.
"We better stop," said a woman's voice from around another corner.
"I heard something--heavy footsteps coming this way."
"Maybe we should see what it is," said a man.
"Forget it," said the woman. "Not in this place. Just leave it alone."
"All right, come on."
Gartogg heard their footsteps going away from him and he hurried, even
under the weight of the two bodies he carried. The fresh one, the monk,
weighed more than the older one. He thumped heavily down the hall.
When he turned the next corner, he saw Quella and Ah Kwan walking
quickly away from him.
"Good evening," he snuffled cautiously.
Both humans whirled to face him; Ah Kwan grabbed the handle of his knife
again.
"Yeah?" Ah Kwan's eyes shifted from Gartogg to each of his burdens and
back. "What do you want?"
Gartogg spoke as slowly and carefully as he could, with a minimum of
snuffling. "See anybody?"
"Anybody like who?" Ah Kwan demanded.
"Is that the same guard?" Quella asked. "The one who chased us?
Is that him?"
"You got me," said Ah Kwan. "All the Gamorreans look alike to me."
"Killer," Gartogg said clearly. "Looking for killer."
"He wants to know if we saw a killer," said Quella.
"How recently?" Ah Kwan grimaced at the kitchen b
oy. "He's been dead
for some time."
"This not dead," said Gartogg, jiggling the limp monk slightly.
"Just meditating."
"You think the same person killed them both?"
Quella asked.
"Meditating," said Gartogg, still struggling to speak plainly.
"This one." He wiggled the monk again.
"You think he's right?" Ah Kwan asked quietly.
"Aw, who knows around this place?" Quella clutched Ah Kwan's arm.
"People get killed here all the time. Let's go, all right?"
"Yeah."
"See killer?" Gartogg snuffled uncertainly.
"No, we didn't see anybody." Ah Kwan shrugged.
"It's been a long night. We were down in the audience chamber.
Tales From Jabba's Palace Page 17
