Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) (22 page)

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 through 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 furiously 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!

Chuf—sucking leech!”

The human female raked Ree-Yees with an enigmatic stare. The next moment the R2 unit cut through her chains. She leaped nimbly to the floor and darted away in the direction of the deck-mounted gun.

Ree-Yees drew a deep breath and collected his wits.

As soon as the prisoners were subdued and dumped into the pit, Jabba’s body would be discovered, and Ree-Yees had better not be here.

Whoever took over, Bib Fortuna or Tessek perhaps, might well go through the motions of executing Jabba’s killer in order to consolidate his position. No, the safest thing would be to disappear until he could get to Mos Eisley. He’d find a med-tech there to remove the bomb.

Beneath Ree-Yees’s feet, the sail barge shuddered. His eyestalks swiveled and a terrified bleat escaped his lips as he remembered the monk’s vision of fire. Had the premonition been false? In the back of his mind, he heard a rumble like Jabba’s laughter, low-pitched and evil.

A percussive blast rocked the deck. As Ree-Yees watched, a wall of flame surged toward him. Greasy smoke shot upward from the lower levels. The shock wave catapulted his body into the air. Fragments of unrecognizable metal were hurled in all directions.