beside the box and raked his fingers through the silky goatgrass. He
picked up the shattered box and shook it upside down, but it was no use.
The vital detonation link, the last component, was not there.
Ree-Yees bleated in terror. Whoever killed that pathetic excuse for a
scullion must have taken the detonation link--knew what it was-But wait!
He couldn't know the target was Jabba's sail barge--or who had the rest
of the bomb All was not lost, if he could act quickly.
Once the body was discovered, Jabba would launch an investigation, no
matter that this Phlegmin had been an insignificant and easily
replaceable midge-brain. No one was allowed to die within the palace
except those the Hutt himself ordered killed. But of late there had
been strange goings-on in the back passageways--"Urghh!" came a bellow
from the doorway, even less articulate than usual for a Gamorrean.
"I didn't do it!" the cook screamed again.
Ree-Yees was so badly startled he would have fallen if he were not
already on his knees. All three of his eyes froze on the stocky figure
in the doorway--Gartogg.
Doellin's triple teats! What a stroke of luck! This particular
Gamorrean was so stupid he couldn't even learn to play Snot, let alone
realize when he was being cheated.
"Urggh-snuffle-snort?"
Ree-Yees scrambled to his feet and shoved the cook aside. "You're just
in time! I found himmlike this--down the hall--near the tunnel to
Ephant Mon's quarters! I brought him here to--to--to perform
resus--suspiration!"
"Hunh?"
"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
inhalation of the last resort. But alas"--Ree-Yees's eye-stalks drooped
mournfully--"I was too late." He sighed loudly.
Gartogg shuffled over to the body, attempted to squat, gave it up,
tilted his body from the hips at an angle Ree-Yees would have sworn was
anatomically impossible, and sniffed.
"So you see," Ree-Yees rushed on, "someone must take over now.
Someone with authority. To investigate, put together clues, solve this
crime. Jabba will be impressed-and grateful."
"Snort-snuffle-snuffle!" The Gamorrean picked up the scullion by one
ankle and dangled the body in front of his snout. Ree-Yees glanced from
Gartogg's tusked face to Phlegmin's, with its beaklike nose congested
with blood. Once he was home on Kinyen, he'd never have to look at
another two-eyes again.
Gartogg slung the body over his massive shoulders and ambled away,
snorting unintelligibly.
"Don't forget!" Ree-Yees yelled after him. "I found him near Ephant
Mon's quarters!"
Once the guard had gone, Ree-Yees gulped down the entire contents of his
tankard, pausing only when forced to breathe. Burning spread from his
first stomach along every fiber of his body. His eyestalks quivered,
his knees threatened to collapse, and then a blessed numbness settled
over him. A strange roaring sound filled his skull. In it, he could
almost make out voices, one particular voice, the grating rumble that
was Jabba's. He had heard it before, a nightmarish memory, on the
ragged edge of sleep.
The cook had disappeared, the first sensible thing he'd done. As
Ree-Yees stumbled from the kitchen, he hardly noticed which way he was
headed through the grime-covered tunnels.
But where was that cursed detonation link? The passageway wound
downward, often turning, until Ree-Yees began to realize it was leading
him not to his own chamber nor back to Jabba's audience hall, but deeper
and deeper into the labyrinth beneath the palace.
Ree-Yees halted at an unfamiliar branching, his breath gurgling in his
throat, his head spinning. His eyestalks swiveled frantically Here, far
from the inhabited upper regions, patches of luminescent slime dripped
from the wet stone walls. The air smelled dank and faintly metallic.
Which way? Cursing in two languages, Ree-Yees shambled off down the
next passageway, which seemed to be headed in the right direction.
Down he went, stumbling through pools of acrid-smelling water, grazing
his elbows on the rough stone walls. Images flashed through his mind
like drunken dreams. In his memory, he felt a pressure deep in his
middle, hard like metal, caught a glimpse of sudden, engulfing flame.
Suddenly a wall of fire exploded in front of him, flames leaped out at
him, seized him . . .
He shook his head. The visions kept coming, stronger and brighter with
every step .
The flames rose up, more vivid and terrifying than before. His skin
crisped in their blazing heat, his eyeballs sizzled on their stalks and
burstin He found himself looking down on a vast, whitened plain, blown
with snow and glittering ice particles, saw crevasses of frozen blue and
great war machines ponderously advancing . .
He blinked, and the picture shifted to the lush chaos of a swamp, a
battered X-wing fighter sinking beneath the ooze, trees and vines a
tangle of green, flowers like bits of brightness, winged lizards
screeching .
The image gave way suddenly to that of a vast chamber lined with shelves
and strange machines, and on those shelves, glass domes where
disembodied brains pulsated in an eerie pink light . .
Then his center eye cleared and Ree-Yees realized he was actually
standing in the chamber of the brains.
B'omarr monks. The room was quiet, dimly lit except for the display
lights and the rosy glow from the containers. His heart, which had
taken a sudden lurch with the vision of the flames, slowed once more. He
ran his narrow tongue over his lips.
The brains were nothing to fear, he told himself, relics of those
degenerate two-eyed monks who'd hollowed out these tunnels centuries
before Jabba discovered them. Their naked brains couldn't do anything
except sit there, each in its own glass prison, motionless except for
their slow pulsation.
A whisper, cloth over stone, made Ree-Yees spin around. A figure in a
voluminous robe glided from the shadows and halted in the center of the
room.
Ree-Yees could make out nothing of its form, not even its species, nor
whether it was male or female, so completely did the hood conceal its
features. As he gaped at it, the figure raised one arm. The sleeve
fell back, revealing a humanoid hand, skeletally thin, the pale skin
stretched over grotesquely deformed knuckles.
A voice issued from the secret darkness beneath the hood. "The fire is
but a warning," it rasped. "Take heed and tell your vile master to
leave this place forever."
Then the figure disappeared.
Ree-Yees's eyestalks quivered. He bleated in surprise, but quickly
recovered himself. A warning, was it?
Or an omen? A promise of things to come?
He didn't understand the other images, but the fire-stormwit had seemed
so real. What did it mean?
Elation surged throug
h Ree-Yees's belly. Doellin's own luck was with
him. He would succeed, it had been foreseen! The loss of the
detonation link would prove but a minor setback. Jabba would perish in
a blast of cleansing fire and his repulsive two-eyed crew with him.
Imperial Prefect Talmont would clear Ree-Yees's way to go home to
Kinyen.
Belching in happiness, Ree-Yees hurried from the chamber of brains and
somehow found his way back, ascending to the familiar levels. He was
enroute to his own quarters to savor his success when another Gamorrean
guard bustled past him, weapons drawn.
"Hoy!" said Ree-Yees. "How about a nice game of Rumble-pins?"
"Someone try steal Jabba pretty-thing? the guard bellowed. He was more
articulate than the hapless Gartogg. "You come!"
Ree-Yees hurried after the Gamorrean. With his mission assured, he
could relax and enjoy himself.
Perhaps Jabba would feed the thief to the rancor--that was always good
for a few bets on the side.
Over the next day a heady certainty stayed with Ree-Yees through the
discovery of the bounty hunter's true identity. The girl who took
Oola's place was as repellent a two-eyes as he'd ever seen, but what did
that matter? He wouldn't have to look at her for too much longer.
Not even Ephant Mon's blustering could rouse Ree-Yees, and Tessek was
looking worried about something.
From his accustomed place in the audience hall, Ree-Yees watched the
antics of the young Jedi. The tussle with the rancor was particularly
amusing, although Ree-Yees had to pay out a pocketful of credits in lost
wagers. No matter, he'd win it back, for Malakili, the rancor keeper,
would be distraught over the loss of his pet for months to come and
would make an easy mark.
"You should have bargained, Jabba," the youngJedi said as he was being
led away. What kind of maggot-brained threat was that? Not even a
curse, "May a thousand Tusken sand-grubs gnaw your entrails from
within!" Or an excuse, "Sorry, I'm allergic to rancor dander." Or
something innovative like, "Congratulations, for that correct answer,
you have won a complete set of Imperial Encyclopedias!" Not that it
would do much good in this case, although Jabba had been known to pardon
those who particularly amused him, as Ree-Yees well knew.
Besides, Jabba was destined to die at Ree-Yees's hand. That was the
promise of the monks' weird visions.
And since the secret bomb was not yet complete, it was perfectly safe to
go out on the sail barge to enjoy the spectacle of the executions.
Ree-Yees particularly liked hearing the screams which issued from the
Great Pit of Carkoon as the Sarlacc's victims felt the first
excruciating effects of its digestive juices.
Sometimes Ree-Yees and Barada wagered on how long it would take for the
screaming to stop--either because the victim's vocal cords were eroded
away or the Sarlacc had stung him insensible, no one could be sure.
The day was oven-hot and dry, like all days on Tatooine. Ree-Yees took
his station beside Jabba, not so near as to arouse Tessek, but near
enough to appear devoted. He let his attention wander, for one
execution was much like another. One side eye rested on the loathsome
yellow sands, the other on the equally loathsome dancing girl, now
crumpled in a heap at the foot of Jabba's sled. When the new R2
droid wheeled about, serving drinks, Ree-Yees accepted a pink and green
Bantha Blaster. It fizzed all the way down. An instant later, his.
teeth rattled and his eyestalks felt as if they were on fire. He
followed it up with a Wookiee-Wango, made with Sullustan gin and
stirred, not shaken.
By Doellin's triple teats, that R2 unit could mix drinks!
Ree-Yees wondered if there were some way to take the droid with him back
to Kinyen.
A ruckus from the prison barge jarred him alert.
Ree-Yees stumbled to the railing and peered out.
Someone was laying about with a lightsaber and everyone was shouting at
once. The two new droids scrambled out of their programmed patterns.
Ree-Yees grabbed a Rummy Tonic from the R2 before it rolled out of
sight.
The deck boiled with frantic action. Blast pistols and lasers went off
in all directions. Gamorrean guards ran about, squealing, while Jabba
bellowed out orders. A Weequay pushed past Ree-Yees, spilling his
drink, and rushed to the side of the barge.
Ree-Yees glanced around, searching for the safest hiding place.
He decided, after a moment's hesitation and the sight of several of
Jabba's defenders tumbling into the Sarlacc's maw, to remain right where
he was, safe behind Jabba's repulsor sled. Tessek, he noticed, had
already disappeared, abandoning Jabba to save his own hide. That
bantha-brain---did he think Jabba wouldn't notice?
Ree-Yees tossed his empty glass aside, then tried to think how a loyal
retainer, defending his master, might act. Here his imagination failed
him.
Without warning, the two-eyed female scrambled to her feet and looped
her chains over Jabba's head.
"Arrrgh! Unnngh!" Jabba let out a series of inarticulate howls as the
chains dug into the folds of his neck. His eyes rolled and his massive
body heaved.
The human female braced herself against the Hutt's bulk and hauled on
the chains with surprising energy for one of such spindly limbs. By
Doellin's triple earballs, what did she think she was doing?
Jabba's eyes lit on Ree-Yees and he bellowed again.
One stubby hand lifted in Ree-Yees's direction.
Ree-Yees hesitated. He knew perfectly well that Jabba meant for him to
come to his aid. But what if he pretended not to notice, what if he did
. . . nothing?
What an appealing idea! All he had to do was wait a few moments longer,
while the slave did all the work and left him to take the credit with
the Empire.
But if by some chance Jabba survived--as well he might, for Hutts were
notoriously robust Ree-Yees could claim he'd tried to save him.
Perhaps he'd better move a little closer, to make it look realistic .
. .
Even as Ree-Yees took a step toward the thrashing Hutt, he felt a
metallic pressure deep within his belly.
Jabba's voice, garbled and rasping, echoed through his skull. He
staggered sideways, eyestalks shuddering, hands pawing the sides of his
head. He heard his own voice bleating in terror, saw little explosions
of brightness behind his eyes, like miniature firestorms.
In Ree-Yees's center eye, he saw the female slave pulling and pulling,
her head thrown back with effort, the muscles standing out on her bare
arms. Jabba's tongue protruded, quivering. Ropy saliva trickled down
his bloated belly. His eyes blazed like incandescent copper.
Now Ree-Yees felt the hard metal device in his own body and the
compulsion implanted just as deeply in his mind. He remembered Jabba's
med-techs bending over him, cutting him open, repeating the code phrase
over and over again, ordering him to forget . . .
Now he knew the wordsJabba was struggling so furio
usly to pronounce--the
command to wrap his arms around the target, the thought-trigger which
would detonate the ultrashort-range bomb in his belly.
Ree-Yees's feet moved silently toward the human. In her struggle, she
did not notice him. His arms lifted, reached out-For an instant, the
visions of the brain chamber swept over him. He'd had it all wrong,
curse those B'omarr monks! The fire wasn't Jabba's sail barge blowing
up, it was the bomb in his own belly. Ree-Yees bleated and squirmed,
but his body was no longer his to command as it moved inexorably closer.
He couldn't bargain his way out of this one. He could almost feel the
explosion ripping through him, the fiery blast-The compulsion died, even
as the light faded from the Hutt's bulging eyes. Stinking black fluid
gushed from the corners of his mouth. His tail shuddered once,
reflexively, and then lay still.
Relief swept through Ree-Yees like a summer's breeze through the grassy
fields. He fell back against the nearest wall. His legs felt like
glass. He couldn't believe it was over--Jabba was finished. His name
would be dust, his empire ashes scattered on the hot Tatooine winds. And
he, Ree-Yees, would gloat all the way back to Kinyen.
"Ma-a-a-a-ah!" Ree-Yees lashed out at the Hutt's inert body with one
boot. "Who's laughing now, you perverted two-eyed worm slime!
Tales From Jabba's Palace Page 21
