—and finds herself looking at the calm, even solemn face of one of the Grammus sisters. She still can’t tell them apart, may never be able to tell them apart, and that doesn’t matter, because in this moment she loves them both with a bright, fierce devotion that will never fade away. No one has ever taken the time to save her before, no matter how much she’s needed it.
“This is ours,” says the sister. Her tone is calm, patient, the sort of voice best used for addressing a child. “You should not threaten what is ours, not when you still hope to benefit from us. Is this how business is done on this world? Perhaps this is not a good world for us to visit, if this is the way of things here. We are accustomed to more civilized spaces.”
The crowd grumbles. Ubialla glances around, sees her guard still hemmed in by angry bodies, sees the looks of loathing and disdain on the faces surrounding their little tableau. The top of her head pulses as the magnitude of the situation sinks in. She lowers the blaster, a smile painting her face. The night has taken its toll on her: The strain is visible around the edges of her lips, rendering the smile artificial and cloying. Repairing the damage already done will be the work of weeks—and in Canto Bight that might as well mean “years.” Time works differently here. It moves faster, both in destruction and creation.
“I didn’t threaten her,” says Ubialla. The blaster vanishes into her dress, somehow failing to break the lines of it at all. “I was merely concerned by all the noise, and wanted to be sure she found her way safely back to you. That’s all. Nothing more.”
“Then it is good that we have been found,” says the sister. She removes her hand from Calla’s shoulder, looking sadly at the mess on the floor. “A pity. It was a fine vintage.”
Laughter claws at the inside of Calla’s throat, threatening to break loose and overwhelm her. A “fine vintage” indeed. Squashed flower juice and mouthwash from the bathroom toiletries have been called many things, she’s sure, but this may be the first time anyone has tried to use that particular term.
Ubialla looks at the spill again, this time calculating, and Calla can’t help but wonder how long it will be before the cleaning droids are instructed to suction up every drop, filter out the glass, and serve the stuff as something too rare, too impossible to obtain to be sold for anything less than everything. And these people, these rich, glittering, terrible people, will pay. Oh, they’ll pay, and pay, and pay until there’s nothing left in their pockets, and then they’ll tell anyone who’ll listen about the time they sipped the rarest wine in the galaxy while sitting at Ubialla Gheal’s left hand, elevated by her very presence.
Even those who hold the power in Canto Bight aren’t immune to losing. Maybe it’s time to start trying in earnest to get out after all.
“The night is almost finished,” says the sister calmly. “If you will return with me to the place where this began, my sister and I are prepared to conclude negotiations. Unless you would prefer to remain here, guarding the exit from honest customers who may wish to return home and freshen themselves before a new day begins. It is important that it be said, however, that if you choose that path of the two available to you, the negotiation will be declared in the sommelier’s favor, and you will receive nothing more from us than you already have. Regardless of tonight’s outcome, we will not be returning to this place for a very long time. We do not care for your…hospitality. And if either of us is harmed, you will never see another of our kind.” The threat—not obtain their wine—does not need to be spoken to be heard.
“I will come with you,” says Ubialla.
The sister nods. “We suspected that you might,” she says, and turns, and walks away.
—
Derla looks away from her Wookiee guard—who is charming, in his way, for all that they have no language in common—at the sound of footsteps moving toward her booth. It is somehow unsurprising to see one of the Grammus sisters approaching, with Derla’s own valise in her hands. She thinks it may be the sister from the restroom. She has genuinely no idea how to be sure. That’s an art in and of itself. She has met identical twins before, has even met identical species, worlds where distinction between individuals has never been visual. Usually something will come to the surface following even a brief interaction, some quirk or twitch or otherwise distinctive attribute. Here…
There’s nothing. Either the two are so alike as to forget what it means to be individuals, or they are playing a role designed to obfuscate them for reasons of their own. Derla cannot say which might be true. She isn’t sure it matters. She’s here, and they’re here, and Ubialla, unfortunately enough, is here, and what happens is going to happen regardless of who wears which name.
“Where did you get that?” asks Derla.
“If enough confusion is created, almost any object can be moved,” says the sister, sliding into a seat and holding the valise out toward the Wookiee. “It might be best if you held this, for now. Your employer is likely to be quite angry when she realizes it has been moved.”
The Wookiee looks at Derla, uncertain. She decides to learn Shyriiwook at her first opportunity. It will come in useful when her new employee comes to find her.
“It would be a great favor to me,” she says. “If you feel the risk is worth taking.”
Slowly, he picks up the valise, making an inquiring noise.
The Grammus sister nods. “Precisely,” she says. “You may go, if you like. We are reaching the conclusion of our business. I expect it will be short, sharp, and potentially very violent. You did not enter these negotiations as a participant. We cannot require you to stay.”
The Wookiee looks at Derla again. She finds the strength to smile.
“I am pleased by your company, but I understand you work for Ubialla,” she says. “Don’t endanger yourself on my behalf.”
The Wookiee nods and moves the valise behind his broad back. It’s such a simple ruse that it may well work; after all, the cons here are so much more complicated. Derla turns her attention to the Grammus sister.
“Have you made your decisions, then?” she asks.
“We have,” says the sister.
“Will you share them with me?”
“In good time.” The sister looks thoughtfully at Derla. “We expected more concern from you.”
“Calmness serves me better, in my profession.”
“Indeed.” The sister’s gaze flicks to a point beyond Derla. The final act is beginning.
The second Grammus sister appears with a human woman by her side, Ubialla trailing angrily after them. The Wookiee makes an inquisitive growling sound. Ubialla barely even glances at him.
“Tell them to open the doors and release the trash,” she snaps. “I’m saving my life right now. I don’t have time to deal with you.”
Derla believes she sees sympathy in his eyes as he looks at her. Then he’s gone, and Ubialla is sliding into the booth by her side, as if none of the events of the night have changed anything. As if they, and the sisters, are still conducting a simple business deal.
“Calla, you are excused again,” says Parallela. “We thank you for your service—every part of it.”
“But…” Calla glances over her shoulder toward the door. “What about…”
“Think and you will understand,” says Rhomby.
“You have done well,” says Parallela. “Return to the resort.”
Calla bows quickly before she turns and goes. She does not look back. Her part in this show—and show it has absolutely been; Derla has no doubt of that—is done.
“Where is my wine?” Ubialla’s voice is low, calm, with an underlying layer of dangerous warning. She is a predator backed into a corner and pushed too far past where it is safe. Soon, she will strike.
Please, let them have listened, thinks Derla.
“It is not your wine until the deal is done,” says Rhomby chidingly. She reaches below the table and lifts a valise. Not Derla’s, which is safely away from here, nor the one the first bottle came from, which ha
s been searched thoroughly: a new valise, distinguished by the reversed orientation of the latch. She opens it.
Her sister reaches inside and withdraws a bottle of wine identical to the first. Ubialla gasps, hunger apparent in the sound. The Grammus sisters exchange a glance.
“Where there is one of something, there must be two of the thing, or balance is not upheld,” Parallela says. “The exception lies with things that have been marked disposable. A bottle of wine whose twin has been consumed, for example, might be used as a tester, to allow potential clients to taste what we have to offer and see that it is good.”
Rhomby reaches into the sister’s valise and pulls out a second—no, a third—bottle of wine. It is in all ways identical to the two that have come before it. It is beautiful.
There has been some question in Derla’s mind, before this, as to the nature of the game the Grammus sisters play. This moment confirms her suspicions. They entered the club intending everything that has happened, from Ubialla’s involvement to the theft and the unfolding chaos that followed. This has all been an intricate performance, and she wants to laugh in delight. What a way to build a legend. What a terribly beautiful, terribly dangerous way.
“This is our decision,” says Rhomby. “One of you came in good faith and one of you came in poor faith, and these are such beautiful oppositions that you both should be rewarded. Here.” She extends her bottle toward Derla.
Parallela does the same with her bottle, holding it toward Ubialla. Ubialla snatches it from her hands.
“Fools,” she snarls. “Petty, thieving, conniving fools. I’d be within my rights to have you banished from the planet.” The blaster, once safely tucked away, is in her hand again, aimed squarely at the bottle Rhomby holds toward Derla.
Quick as a wink, Derla jerks her reaching hands away. Rhomby lets the bottle go. Before it can strike the table, where it might not break, Ubialla fires, and glass shatters, and the air is filled with the sweet, unique scent of the wine of dreams.
“One bottle,” says Ubialla. She stands, the blaster vanishing into her dress once more. Somehow, not a drop of wine has touched her. The veins on her cheeks pulse with pleasure as she says, “You brought one bottle. I secured one bottle. My patron will be pleased, and all of you will leave here alive. I trust that will be sufficient payment?”
She doesn’t wait for their reply, only turns and walks away. Derla looks at the shattered remains of the bottle with no small measure of regret.
“It was a pleasure doing business with you,” she says, rising. The sisters do not speak. They simply watch her go.
CALLA PACES IN THE ROOM, glancing every so often at the door. It has been hours. The sisters have yet to return. She is surprised to realize that she’s worried about them. Ubialla is not a forgiving person: She is unlikely to be happy with them, especially given the mess they commanded Calla to make in Ubialla’s club. And for what reason? People will still drink it.
People will be people. Someone will, inevitably, steal a sample of this fine, rare, exclusive thing from Ubialla’s menu. Someone will analyze it. Someone will realize that Ubialla has been selling flower juice and mouthwash, and everything else she has to offer will be called into question. It is a small but terrible sabotage, and one for which the club owner will be paying for quite some time.
It’s difficult not to see it as elegant and terribly well-deserved. Calla smiles to herself as she begins making a bed out of spare sheets beneath the window. Perhaps she’s going to enjoy her time with these new employers more than she expected.
The door slides open. Calla turns, expecting to see Rhomby and Parallela. Instead she finds the owner of the resort, a tall, orange-skinned Twi’lek in a uniform very much like her own, if made of finer fabric and cut to the specifics of his anatomy in a way that her work clothing had never achieved.
“You are the human Calla,” he says. “Temporarily indentured to the Grammus sisters. Is this correct?”
“Yes,” she says, straightening, tensing, waiting to hear him say that Rhomby and Parallela have died deaths as interchangeable as they were, waiting to be evicted.
“They have asked me to inform you that, regretfully, they will not be returning to this room, as their business has taken them away from Canto Bight. They have paid in full for their week’s stay, and have requested that you be allowed to use their room until the payment expires. They have also requested that I extend to you the offer of employment.” The manager looks at her gravely. “It is quite impressive for someone to connect with clients so completely that such a request seems reasonable. I would very much appreciate the opportunity to discuss your terms for employment.”
Slowly, Calla smiles.
—
Derla settles into her ship’s chair like she is coming home—and in a very real way, she is. Canto Bight was only, is only, ever a port in the storm. Preparing to engage the engine, she sets her valise—recovered from the Wookiee after Ubialla had dismissed her—by her feet.
It clanks.
Pausing, she leans down and opens the valise. The density engines have been deactivated: The weight she felt on her trip back to her room, and then to the port, was a reflection of reality. Carefully, she pulls the bottle out into the light, noting the conflict between its label and its contents. According to the label, this is a fine vintage of dry Tatooine white—the same wine she ordered for the celebrants at their table. A wine whose purchase would be in the club’s records, under her name.
But the wine is dark as nebulas and glitters when she moves the bottle. This is the wine of dreams, so sweet, so fine. The cork is back in place; the bottle is more than half full. There is a note. She flicks it open.
D. Pidys:
We apologize for misleading you. We would be delighted to discuss further sales in person. Say, on Naboo, in three cycles’ time? Your proposal was quite engaging.
We believe we can work well together.
It is not signed. It does not need to be.
Laughing, Derla sets the bottle back into its cradle and engages her engine. She will toast her good fortune, and her escape, later, when she is far, far away from the schemes of a woman who got everything she thought she wanted, from the poisonously lovely, legendary streets of Canto Bight.
LEXO SOOGER HAD FORTY-ONE BONES in each of his hands—fourteen more than his human daughter Lula had in each of hers—and every one of them burned like fire. He loved to work with his hands, he truly did. He was the star masseur at Zord’s Spa and Bathhouse, with a loyal clientele and a two-month-long waiting list. He could work out any knot, relax even the most anxious customer. But decades of twelve-hour shifts would age anyone, even a Dor Namethian at the top of his game, and Lexo knew his massaging days were nearing their end.
He didn’t know what would happen to him and his daughter then.
“Papa,” said a small, clear voice. “Let me help you with your hands?”
“Please,” Lexo said. He laid them flat on the rickety wooden table that served as the centerpiece for the tiny apartment they shared. Their room was small, low-ceilinged, and windowless, with adobe walls, two built-in beds, and a single small hearth. The table, along with two chairs and a sagging shelf, made up the only furniture.
Lexo contemplated his human daughter as she gathered the necessary ingredients from the shelf. Lula was slight, even for thirteen years old, with bright brown eyes, dark skin, and hair like a cloud of charcoal.
He used to consider humans revolting, with their smooth epidermis and excessive fingers and necks that stood straight up like furlong markers. But on that day thirteen years ago when he’d found Lula abandoned in an empty cargo box, staring up at him with big, trusting eyes, he’d decided humans weren’t so bad.
Lula dropped a pinch of corwindyl herbs into a mortar, added a little oil, and mashed away with the pestle. The oil released the corwindyl’s odor and color, turning the mixture bright blue, filling their tiny apartment with its tangy-sweet aroma. Lexo felt his shoulders be
gin to relax at the scent, because it signaled that real relief was coming.
Gently, Lula rubbed a bit of the corwindyl paste against his knuckles, along his tendons. Warmth seeped into his muscles, loosening his joints. “Thank you, my azure sea,” he said.
Something snagged against his thumb, startling him.
“Sorry,” Lula said. “Just a callus.”
Lexo grabbed her hand and turned it over, examining the offending bit of excess skin. Not a callus. A scab, barely covering a fresh injury on the fleshy part of her palm. “What happened?” he demanded.
Lula wrenched her hand away. “It’s nothing. My glove split is all.”
“And Bargwill Tomder refused to provide a new one.” Lula worked at the fathier racing stables, and Tomder, the stable keeper, was the cheapest, meanest fellow he’d ever met. It gave Lexo a shiver to send Lula off to work with him every day.
“It’s fine, Papa. I can handle it.” She smiled. “I guess I inherited some toughness from you.”
Lexo regarded her gravely. He reached a pleading hand toward her and announced in a solemn voice, “Lula. I am not your father.”
She feigned shock. “But we look so much alike!”
It was a constant joke between them, almost a family ritual. She bent to kiss the top of his head. “Ready for the injections?”
His Lula missed nothing. “You can tell I need them.”
“I always know,” she said with a shrug.
Lexo glanced down at his hands. Bright-blue corwindyl paste outlined every line and crease, warming his fingers, allowing them to bend. But it wouldn’t be enough. Not today, anyway. His worst client was on the schedule.
“Do it,” he ordered.
“I promise I’ll make it quick,” she said, reaching for the injector probe on the shelf.
“I know.”
Canto Bight [Star Wars] Page 13
