Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) (13 page)

More angry than frightened at first, she grasped it with both hands and yanked back. She didn’t care if the Gamorreans beat her againmshe would not dance closer. She only knew a few words of Huttese. She shouted them. “Na chuba negatorie!”

Jabba tugged again, drooling.

Oola braced her feet at the trapdoor’s edge.

Though terror robbed her of poise, she would not yield. “Na! Na! Natoota…”

Let Us Prey: The Whiphid’s Tale

by Marina Fitch and Mark Budz

Feeding time again. The crunch and snap of bones resonated through the walls of the Whiphid J’Quille’s room asJabba’s “pet” rancor snacked on its latest morsel.

J’Quille paced his stark room. Huntlust vibrated through his tall, golden-furred frame, wrinkled his broad snout. His tusks tingled even though it had been several hours since Jabba dropped the Twi’lek dancer into the rancor’s pit. The screams had ceased long ago, butJ’Quille couldn’t stop salivating. The savory aroma of fresh blood warmed the pit of his stomach.

The warmth wouldn’t last long. J’Quille snarled low in his throat. Next time it might be J’Quille the rancor feasted on. Jabba grew bored so easily. What if the novelty of employing a former lover of the Whiphid crimelord Lady Valarian to trret out conspiracies wore thin?

No doubt the kind of reminder Jabba intended when he gave J’Quille quarters this close to the pit. If Jabba suspected J’Quille still worked for her…

Owner of the Lucky Despot, Lady Valarian was Jabba’s most powerful rival. Not only was her nightclub the most successful in Mos Eisley—on the entire planet of Tatooine—she siphoned business from Jabba as easily as she sipped Sullustan gin.

As easily as the rancor would sip the marrow from J’Quille’s bones if he was discovered.

J’Quille snorted. All he had to do was keep his tusks clean for a few more days. Then the rancor and his devoted keeper, Malakili, would be gone, free of Jabba. J’Quille had helped arrange their escape with Lady Valarian. One of the few good things he’d been able to do behind Jabba’s back.

That, and bribing the kitchen boy, Phlegmin, to lace Jabba’s snack tank of freckled toads with slowacting poison. A little too slow by the look of things.

Another bone snapped.

J’Quille’s claws tensed. He smoothed the fur bristling around his neck, raised by the scent of the Twi’lek’s blood and the huntlust surging through him.

But was he hunter or prey? Or both?

He stopped pacing and glanced at the room, barren except for his sleeping pallet. Built by the B’omarr monks, the room’s stark ascetic reminded him of the rock-and-bone shelters of his homeworld, Toola.

Two ceremonial trophies hung on opposite,,vails: a necklace of Mastmot teeth, dipped in poison; and the skull of a young bantha he had brought down one night with his bare claws. He was a hunter, not some weak Ice Puppy that sat back and waited for death to come.

He jerked open the door and slipped into the hallway.

A pain-filled moan issued from one of the rank cells. A Gamorrean guard grunted as he pushed past J’Quille, bleary with sleep or too much Sullustan gin.

J’Quille stroked the spiky hairs along his lower lip.

Lady gin. If only he were back at the Lucky Despot! Two days ago, when it looked like everything was going according to plan, it had seemed a possibility. His “falling out” with Lady Valarian would end and they could finally stop pretending.

That was before the note. Someone knew he was bribing Phlegmin.

He had already paid a hefty ten thousand credits to keep the blackmailer silent. But it was only a matter of time before Jabba found out.

How much time? That was the question.

The crunch and snap of bones stopped. Blast. Sweat beaded J’Quille’s forehead and long, broad snout.

When was the last time he’d been cool? He wiped his face with the back of his paw. Strands of fur clung to the sweat. He grimaced.

Shedding again. Tatooine’s dry, sweltering heat sucked the energy out of him.

What he wouldn’t give for a couple of minutes in one of the Lucky Despot’s ice saunas.

Something scuttled past him–one of those spiderlike droids enlightened B’omarr monks used to ferry around their pickled brains.

The glass jar winked in the dim light, then droid and brain disappeared around the corner.

J’Quille snarled in disgust and hurried on, stopping outside the rancor’s pit. The inner gate stood slightly open, as he’d known it would. Malakili was cleaning the outer cage.

The scent of blood was stronger here. J’Quille closed his eyes and breathed deeply. The intoxicating scent soothed his taut nerves, taking the edge off his repressed frustration. If he could just track down the blackmailer and kill him…

A foot scraped on the stone floor near him. His eyes snapped open. One hand jerked up, claws extended, while the other reached for his vibroblade.

“Hey, it’s just me,” Malakili said softly, Stepping out of the cage’s shadows. Sweat glazed his bare chest and heavy arms. He patted J’Quille’s shoulder with a black-gloved hand. “Easy. You’re stiffer than an Imperial stormtrooper.”

“Been a bad night,” J’Quille said, letting go of his vibroblade.

“Tell me about it,” Malakili said, adjusting his black headband.

His eyes narrowed in his thick, doughy face. “Something’s in the air.

Even my friend here is jumpier than usual.”

“This place is a tomb,” J’Quille said. “Even the living are dead inside these walls. Might as well stuff our brains in jars.”

“Yeah, but the monk’s brains aren’t dead.” Malakili leaned closer to him. “Listen, I heard something I think you should know.”

J’Quille tensed. “What?”

“This afternoon Bib Fortuna tried to get Jabba to throw you into the pit. Thinks it would be an interesting contest.”

J’Quille peered at Malakili. “What did Jabba say?”

“I tried to talk him out of it. You’d inflict too much damage before my friend killed you. ButJabba wasn’t convinced. He said he’d give it some thought.”

“So I have a little time,” J’Quille said.

Malakili nodded little. With luck, we’ll both be out of here soon “Alive, I hope,” J’Quille said, curling the corners of his lips back around his tusks in a smile Malakili smiledI’ll let you know if I hear more.”

“Thanks,” J’Quille said.

Gnashing his tusks, J’Quille hurried back to his room. Things were moving much too fast, forcing his hand. Jabba’s increasing coolness, the blackmailer ˇ.. and now Bib Fortuna’s plotting. Time to get Phlegmin to increase the dosage of slow poison sooner Jabba was reduced to a vat of gibbering slug jelly, the sooner J’Quille could return to Lady Valarian. He’d wanted to increase the dosage earlier, but he’d been afraid someone would notice a sudden change in Jabba.

Now he could no longer afford the luxury of caution.

J’Quille slipped into his room and went to the string of Mastmot teeth hanging on the wall. Lifting the necklace from its pe, he slipped it over his head.

Luckily most people, includingJabba, considered him a mindless brute with a taste for crude jewelry suspected the teeth had been dipped in poison J’Quille started at a low mechanical warble outside his door. His nostrils flared, crinkling at the acrid stench of oil and metal A droid.

The claws of J’Quille’s right hand curled involuntarily around the grip of his vibroblade, then slowly relaxedn droid wouldn’t announce its presence.

The warble repeated. J’Quille yanked open the door.

The maintenance droid, a blue U2C1 housekeeping model, chirped and took a step back. Both of its flex-tube arms quivered. With a whine, it sucked in air through the stiff brush at the end of its left arm and the upholstery attachment on its right.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” it said tinnily.

“I’ve been instructed to clean this room J’Quille stepped aside, allowing the droid to enter Another calculated nuisance on the part of Jabba or one of his servants—most likely Salacious Crumb That drool-lapping Kowakian lizard-monkey probably scavenged the droid’s waste tank for between-meal snackseered. He’d love to program the cleaning droid to suck up that cackling little rubbish heap.

“Please close the door,” the droid said. “This won’t take long J’Quille grumbled.

The droid’s right arm snaked out to sweep the floor. The loud whine grated on J’Quille’s nerves. He reached for the doorknob.

“I have a message,” the droid said.

J’Quille hesitated. “A message?”

“From a friendhe droid paused, but left its vacuum runningho’s blackmailing you. Meet me on the citadel roof at sunrise and I’ll give you his name.”

The rampart on top of the guest quarters. J’Quille had gone up there more than once to escape the press of the walls and drink in the cool night air.

“I have been instructed to wait for your response,” the droid said.

J’Quille’s hackles rose. A clever ruse by Jabba to lure him out?

If the message had been sent by a friend, why the secrecy? Why not just give him the name of the blackmailer?

Obviously the person wanted something more from him… but what?

Money? Or to enlist him in another plot to kill Jabba? There were certainly enough of those. J’Quille had only leaked a fraction of them to Jabba. Only the least promising.

“How will I recognize him?” J’Quille asked.

“You won’t,” the droid said. “You’ll recognize what he’s wearing.”

J’Quille exhaled sharply, tired of playing these games. If it turned out to be a setup, he could always claim that he was just doing his job, following up on a suspect. For Jabba.

J’Quille wet his lips. Yes, that was the way to handle it. A thrill ran. through him, not unlike the one he got while tracking an Ice Puppy or a Sea Hog back on Toola.

“I’ll be there,” J’Quille said.

He ducked into the hall and up the stairs to Jabba’s main audience chamber. Jabba and his minions dozed on the crimelord’s dais. The band played on, melodic jizz and dense smoke cavorting in a sinuous dance of sound and smell. Frozen in carbonite, Han Solo stared at him from the display alcove.

J’Quille eased past the bandstand, skirting the trapdoor to the rancor’s pit. He caught a glimpse of Malakili through the grating, still cleaning the pit while the rancor gnawed contentedly on a wet bone.

The rancor belched. The band missed a beat but picked up quickly, as if trying to drown out the disturbance.

Jabba opened one eye, then closed it again, clearly unconcerned.

His tail twitched, a sure sign that he was wide awake. Even the new gold droid beside him stood alert, ready to translate the orders of its master. Bib Fortuna slept on the floor, next to Salacious Crumb, who was snoring loudly. Not even sleep could silence the little garbage disposal.

J’Quille descended the steps to the kitchen. Someone watched from a darkened recessmone of the B’omarr monks that still lurked in the palace. The monk’s broad, round face was moon-pale, his twisted nose casting a craterish shadow along one cheek.

J’Quille scowled and picked up his pace.

He slowed near the kitchen door. The scent of bruised goatgrass wafted from the darkened room. He crept closer. Dim light spread from one of the inner rooms.

He pricked up his ears.

Two voices rose in argument: Ree-Yees’s perpetual slur and the guttural grunts of a Gamorrean guard.

Hiding behind the door frame, J’Quille peered into the room.

Goatgrass littered the kitchen like feathers from a fresh kill.

Even more unsteady than usual, Ree-Yees teetered over a body sprawled beside a broken crate.

Ree-Yees’s three eye stalks trembled as they tried to focus on the Gamorrean. The guard glowered at Ree-Yees, then waddled forward and bent to look at the corpse.

Ree-Yees shifted slightly, giving J’Quille a clear view.

Phlegmin, the kitchen boy.

J’Quille’s foot claws curled reflexively, digging into the stone floor.

His heart hammered in his ears, blotting out the guard’s piglike grunts and Ree-Yees’s drunken bleats. What had that goat-faced, three-eyed bar rag done? Clenching and unclenching his claws, J’Quille. quelled the urge to stomp forward and rip out the thieving Gran’s throat.

J’Quille growled under his breath and drew back.

Better to wait. He could hunt the murdering drunk later. There wasn’t anything he could do now—not without arousing the guard’s suspicion. He swallowed, backing away from the kitchen.

He retreated the way he came. Hurrying past the darkened recess, he stopped. The B’omarr monk was gone.

J’Quille’s mind raced. Maybe Ree-Yees hadn’t murdered the kitchen boy after all. Maybe it was the monk. Phlegmin might have sent the droid to J’Quille after discovering the monk’s blackmail plot. The monk found out and killed Phlegmin…

But why would a B’omarr monk blackmail J’Quille?

He suspected the monks wanted Jabba out of their citadel as much as anyone, more. But if Jabba found a discontented B’omarr to work as a spy for him…

?????? hardly surprising. In fact, it would be more surprising if he hadn’t.

But why not simply turn J’Quille over to Jabba?

J’Quille let out a breath and hurried up the stairs to the audience chamber. Lady Valarian would know what to do. The last time he’d contacted her, she’d told him not to call until Jabba was a chortling, mindless slug.

But without Phlegmin that might take a while. Be sides, she needed to know what was going on.

The band was packing it in when J’Quille eased past them. The rancor snored in its pit, and even Jabba’s tail had slowed its pensive rhythm.

J’Quille curled his claws to keep from touching the necklace of Mastmot teeth. He averted his eyes from the tank of live toads.

Climbing the stairs to the guest rooms, J’Quille passed the masked bounty hunter who had brought in the Wookiee and threatened to blow up the palace with a thermal detonator earlier that evening. J’Quille smiled. A fine, subtle display of huntlust. Truly admirable.

The bounty hunter nodded once, then continued down the stairs. No doubt on his way down to the dungeon to taunt the Wookiee. J’Quille’s nostrils twitched. Something about the bounty hunter smelled odd, out of place. There was no time to wonder about it now. J’Quille raced up the stairs.