We were going to liberate a cache of Imperial weapons and sell them to
the highest bidder. It was on a moon of Glakka, nothing but a rough
chunk of ice."
"We were pulling out the weapons when an Imperial goon squad arrived.
We'd been ratted out by one of Jabbas boys.
"The rest of our gang either ran for it or bought it real quick.
But he and I put up a better fight. He was thinner then, quick and
tough and strong. Never seen a better fighter, except maybe me.
"So we made a stand there, fighting back to back against them all.
They came in close enough to smell 'em. I had to blast some right off
his back. In the end only we were left, shot up bad, but alive. It was
the weather that tried to finish us off.
"When night came, it dropped to sub-subfreezing. I was worse off than
him and not so well insulated, so he saved me, wrapping his own body
around me. Not too pleasant a night, but better than turning icicle.
"By dawn, he was nearly frozen himself. We only made it off that cube
'cause some of our bunch who had escaped before came back looking for
us."
"I'll be blasted," Barada said in awe. "I always wondered why you
stayed hanging around here when you could've gone anywhere."
"Now you know. I've been paying back ever since, spying out plots and
scams against the Hutt, covering his tail. I've sent more than a few
poor suckers to the rancor or Sarlacc myself. But not this time."
"I still think you're wrong," Barada said. "Seems to me you've already
paid the boss back, and in spades.
You don't have to owe him anymore."
"There's more to it than just that," I said. "See, I found out I just
can't be a part of all this anymore.
That Jedi's touch did something. It revived something in me I thought
was long dead." I struggled to explain it to him, but this other reason
wasn't so clear to me yet. "My people back on Vinsioth were hunters and
farmers. They were close to the land, to nature.
They believed in the force in living things, and they worshiped it.
But I was too smart for that. I was too good for their simple life. I
wanted something more.
"I thought I'd left all that life behind when I left to go
soldier-of-fortuning around the galaxy. But it's in me, Barada! I
found out it's a part of me I can't ignore.
And this 'Force' of the Jedi, well . . . it must be my force, too. I'm
not gonna destroy it, Barada. I just can't!"
He listened, then he shook his head and sighed.
"Sorry, my friend. I don't get it. That's all mumbo-jumbo to me." He
got to his feet. "You do what you have to. But I think you're crazy."
He moved away.
"Where are you going?" I called after him.
"Back to work, what else? We're heading for the pit in less than an
hour. I just hope you'll be a passenger, not a prisoner."
I thought it all over as Jabba's court roused itself and got to work
loading up the sail barge. When they started to file aboard themselves,
I decided I had to make my move. I hitched up my courage and approached
the Hutt as he glided toward the loading ramp on his repulsor sled,
towing that captured woman who'd become his newest pet by her long
chain.
"My old friend, you seem troubled," he rumbled out.
"I am, Jabba," I told him. "Please don't do this."
"This?" he said in astonishment, stopping the sled short. "Do you mean
my destroying this scum who tried to cheat me?"
"I do. Skywalker is a Jedi."
I noticed the woman's gaze jerking toward me at that. She listened with
interest.
"He is no Jedi," piped up Bib Fortuna who, as usual, hovered close by.
And Salacious Crumb, from a perch onJabba's tail, echoed, "NoJedi!
NoJedi!" in a shrill, cracked voice.
"This is wrong," I said, not backing down. "Jabba, you have to let him
go. Let them all go."
"I think Mon is up to something," Fortuna said, eyeing me suspiciously.
"Jabba, he must be in league with them."
"I am trying to save your life, Jabba!" I argued.
"Look, you know no one's more loyal than I am. You know I've always
warned you about danger. I can tell you all about another plot right
now! But it's not important.
Nothing else is: not Tessek, not Valarian, not even the Empire.
Only this is. It's bigger than us all, Jabba. It's the Force!"
"That foolish religion means nothing to us!" For-tuna cried
indignantly. "The Mighty Jabba can show no fear of anything, including
Jedi Knights!"
"He is right, Ephant," the Hutt agreed. "AndJabba has spoken.
They must die."
"Then . . . I can't go with you," I told him with force. "I can't be
part of this."
"So you defy me?" he bellowed. "I should kill you for that."
"I know." I met his eye without flinching.
"I should," he growled on, "but our old bond stops me. It buys your
life, but that is all it buys. I thought of you as my true friend,
Ephant Mon. That friendship is ended."
"You can't call it over," I shot back. "I can. Barada is right.
I've repaid my debt to you a hundred times over."
"Repaid?" repeated Jabba, and a tone of regret came into the rumbling
voice. I swear it was real, and I swear I'd never heard the like of it
before. "Then it was never more than a debt to you. I am sorry for
that."
He turned away from me and glided on toward the sail .barge. The rest
of his court followed. The captive woman stayed gazing at me in a
bemused way until a jerk of her chain forced her to follow her master.
"It was more than a debt," I said after him, but in a quiet voice that
no one heard. "Goodbye, old friend."
Jabba and the others disappeared into the barge.
After them came a pack of Gamorrean guards prodding along Skywalker, Han
Solo, and the rest.
As the Jedi went up the gangway, a pang of worry for him shot through
me. Did he and his friends really have a chance against the Hutt's
cutthroat crew?
He must have sensed my emotion, because he turned right then and flashed
a calm, confident little grin at me. It told me I did not have to fear
for him.
I watched the last of them enter the barge. I began to think about what
I should do now. There'd still be room in Valarian's operation for me.
But that didn't seem right anymore.
The sail barge rose on its repulsorlifts in a flurry of dust, turned and
sailed away, fading quickly to a dot on the vast horizon of Tatooine's
gray-brown wastes.
Another, greener landscape came into my mind. I knew where I should go
now. It had been made clear to me.
I had to go home. Goatgrass: The Tale of Ree-Yees
by Deborah Wheeler
Slowly the harsh Tatooine day melted into afternoon.
Early dusk softened the contours of Jabba's palace and touched the
drifted sand with a muted orange glow. Feathered lizards darted from
their lairs to hunt insects in the cooling shadows. From a rocky
outcropping, a meewit screeched once, twice, then fell silent.
Ree-Yees struggled up the stairs from the side en
trance, lugging a
bucket. He halted at the top, his three eyes darting furtively over the
eroded hills and the entrance behind him. As he stood there, his bony
chest heaving, something of the twilight stillness seeped into him. It
soothed the sting of that last bout with Ephant Mon, the one which began
with, "You're such an incompetent snot-brain, Ree-Yees, I can't see why
Jabba keeps you around," and ended with Tessek, Jabba's Quarren
lieutenant, pulling the two of them apart.
The sand whispered softly as a hot wind, the last exhalation of the day,
blew across it. If Ree-Yees squinted his two side eyes, he could almost
see the dunes as mounds of gently waving goatgrass. A pang rippled
through his Grannish heart. He was not as drunk as usual, and not
nearly as drunk as he wished he was. The arrival of the two new droids
had made it difficult to slip away and refill his tankard with Jabba's
best Sullustan gin.
Soon, Ree-Yees promised himself. Soon he'd be done with Ephant Mon and
the rest of them. He picked up the bucket and shambled over to Jabba's
frog-dog, which had been put outside for the night. A tongue, long and
sticky, dipped into the malodorous stew, then retracted with a snap,
bearing blobs of moldy bantha fat, gelatinous chuff, and fragments of
Viridian termite jaws on its bulbous tip. As the bubo swallowed,
Ree-Yees reached down and dug his fingers into a purple wart on the side
of the beast's shoulder.
It was a particularly large and fleshy growth. With a plop! the flap
of skin pulled loose to reveal a miniature panel, two light squares and
a reset button. Only Imperial technicians could design and fit such a
device, undetected, right on Jabba's doorstep. A symbol glowed on one
square with today's date, while the other flashed the words, "Shipment
complete."
Ree-Yees secured the skin flap and snuffled in relief.
With this last shipment, the detonator, he would now be able to complete
his end of the bargain. In return, the Empire would wipe that
triple-blasted murder rap off Ree-Yees's record and he could go home to
Kinyen again-No! Too risky to think about that now! Better to keep
playing Jabba's fool, despised and mocked, until the deed was done.
Better to stay safely drunk, cut off from the visions which hovered,
like half-glimpsed memories, at the corners of his eyes . . . fields of
goatgrass glistening in the sun, oh yes . . . and the rut-scent of
females, their velvet flanks, their breasts like tripled jewels-No.
Better to stay drunk. Better to wait.
The frog-dog, having gulped down the last of the slops, turned one eye
speculatively on Ree-Yees, as if wondering how he would taste.
Ree-Yees stepped aside just in time to avoid another flick of the
prehensile tongue.
Ree-Yees slugged the creature on the side of the head. ''Stupid
two-eyed maggot fish! It's a good thing I don't need you anymore!"
The bubo cowered, its expression one of reproachful innocence.
Once he'd turned to head back toward the palace, it hissed something
extremely rude-sounding and almost intelligible at him.
Muttering under his breath, Ree-Yees shuffled down the hall toward
Jabba's audience chamber. The Gamorrean on guard rumbled forward, force
pike raised and red-rimmed eyes glinting. His tusks gleamed wetly in
the dim light. Ree-Yees had fleeced him easily at four-cubes last night
and the Gamorrean hadn't even realized he was being cheated.
"Outta my way, pig-slime!"
The Gamorrean poked Ree-Yees's chest with the tip of his ax.
"Where you go? What you do?"
The slightest touch of the force pike stung, even through Ree-Yees's
leather jerkin "Get that crotting thing away from me!"
"Urghh!"
"So you say, spawn of Nilgarian worm! But there's gonna be some changes
around here real soon. Jabba won't always--"
"Jabba-Jabba urghh-phth!"
Just then, a tall figure separated itself from the shadowy interior and
hurried toward them. It was that interfering Quarren, Tessek.
Tessek's mouth tentacles rithed in agitation.
"What'sss going on?"
"Jabba-no-Jabba urk-urkl" squealed the guard, waving his force pike
wildly.
"A minor misssunderssstanding, sssoon remedied."
With one hand, Tessek herded Ree-Yees down the tunnel, with the other he
gestured to the guard. "Remain here at your possst and sssay nothing of
thisss to anyone!"
Ree-Yees stumbled along, propelled by Tessek's grip. By the time they
were out of earshot of the guard, the Quarren had regained control of
his speaking apparatus.
"what do you think you're doing? Do you want Jabba to suspect-You're
drunk again, aren't you?
Give me that tankard!"
Ree-Yees jerked away. "None of your stinking business--and keep your
hands off what's mine. You aren't the only one--" With an effort, he
managed to shut himself up. Tessek had the right idea, keeping the
Gamorrean from running to Jabba. Tessek, with all his schemes, was too
wily, too close to guessing what Ree-Yees was really up to. With
Doellin's own luck, he wouldn't need Tessek much longer, either.
"Now hurry on back," Tessek said smoothly. "Some new bounty hunter has
come for the reward on the Wookiee and you won't want to miss the fun."
Snuffling, Ree-Yees hurried off to the audience chamber.
That night, Jabba ordered a hidden watch set on the audience hall and an
alarm for his prized wall possession, the carbonite-frozen Corellian
smuggler. What a bother, Ree-Yees thought, but something had aroused
Jabba's suspicions even more than usual. At last Ree-Yees was able to
slip away, refill his gin tankard, and make his way along the darkened
corridor to the kitchen.
Ree-Yees paused beneath the ancient wooden beams of the doorway and
peered in, but saw no sign that anyone was present.
Phlegmin, that odious little wart of a scullion, had been more than
happy to take his winnings in exchange for setting aside the marked
shipments of goatgrass, never dreaming what lay hidden within them. He
probably thought Ree-Yees was indulging in nostalgic gluttony. It was
just the sort of thing Phlegmin himself would do when he wasn't
complaining how badly treated he was or bragging how famous he'd be once
he got off this dustball planet.
Ree-Yees guessed that Phlegmin did more than divert a few crates of
vegetables; once he'd spied the kitchen boy adding something to the tank
of Jabba's favorite live appetizers. Ree-Yees watched him even more
closely when the box of goatgrass containing the bomb casing had gone
missing. Luckily, no alarm followed, only a particularly successful
casserole, which seemed to temporarily allay Jabba's suspicions of the
chef.
"Phlegmin?" Ree-Yees called. "Old mucus-face?"
The faint scuffle of footsteps answered him, then a mu the two-eyes
then, he'd find the shipment on his own. He hurried into the receiving
area. Here the walls were lined with boxes of pickled meats, crates of
dried fruits and beetles, casks of wine, jars of
preserved tortoise
dung, honeyed oil, caviar, and radioactive potassium salts---all the
delicacies the Hutt's appetite required. He began looking around,
lifting the lids of packing crates, peering down aisles of stacked
cartons and around giant barrels.
Ree-Yees called out once more, but once again there was no response.
Suddenly he spotted a box of about the right size, lying on its side
behind a vat of fermented sandmaggot eggs, On second glance, he saw that
it was splintered open, its silvery green contents spilled across the
stone floor. Phlegmin was sprawled on the floor beside the box. In his
years at Jabba's palace, Ree-Yees had seen enough dead bodies to know
one instantly, even if it were human. No mere sleep could produce such
a graceless tangle.
Porcellus the cook was hunched over the body, wringing his hands.
His head jerked up, his eyes bulged, and his hair--what there was of
it--stood out in all directions.
"I had nothing to do with it!" he yelped.
Ignoring the hysterical screams of the cook, Ree-Yees threw himself down
Tales From Jabba's Palace Page 20
