Tales From Jabba's Palace

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Tales From Jabba's Palace Page 29

by Kevin J. Anderson


  "Ask the god," the other agreed. Neither was happy about the decision.

  The Weequays worshiped a variety of gods, most of whom represented

  natural forces and creatures on their homeworld. One of their chief

  gods was Quay--Weequay means "follower of Quay"--the god of the moon.

  Many Weequays kept in close personal contact with this god through a

  device which they also called a quay. This was a white sphere made of

  high-impact plastic about twenty centimeters in diameter. The quay

  could recognize speech and reply to simple questions.

  To the Weequays, the object looked like the moon of their home planet,

  and they believed a bit of their lunar god inhabited each quay.

  They never quite understood that the quays were manufactured cheaply by

  more imaginative species and there was nothing at all supernatural about

  them.

  The Weequay president reverently removed the glistening quay from its

  leather sack, "Hear us, O Great God Quay," he said. "We come to you for

  guidance.

  Will you grant us, your true believers, a hearing?"

  A few seconds passed. Then a tiny mechanical voice said, "It is

  decidedly so."

  The Weequays nodded to each other. Sometimes the Great God Quay was not

  in the mood to be interrogated, and he could stay recalcitrant for

  hours, even days at a time. With several of the Hutt's servants dead

  --now including the barge captain, Ak-Buz--the Wee-quays knew they

  needed immediate help.

  "We, your true believers, praise you, O Great God Quay, and thank you.

  Will you reveal to us the identity of the foul murderer of Barge Captain

  Ak-Buz?"

  The Weequays held their breaths. They heard the whirring of the

  ventilation system in the barracks, but nothing else. Then the

  mechanical voice piped, "As I see it, yes."

  The god was in a cooperative mood today!

  "Is the killer in this room?" asked President Wee-quay.

  The secretary snarled fiercely at him. "It is the necessary first

  question," explained the president.

  "Concentrate and ask again," said the white quay.

  The president closed his eyes tightly and said, "Is .the killer in this

  room?"

  "Better not tell you now," said the god-ball.

  "You see!" cried the president. "It is you!" The Weequay reached

  across the table and clutched his fellow's tunic.

  "No! I swear!" said the secretary, terror-stricken.

  "The Great God Quay did not identify me! Ask him a third time!"

  The president released the Weequay reluctantly, then looked down between

  them at the sphere of prophecy. "We beseech you, O Great God Quay! Is

  the killer in this room?"

  The answer came quickly. "Very doubtful."

  Both Weequays relaxed. "I am relieved," said the president. "I did not

  wish to abandon you to the vengeance of Jabba."

  know who the murderer is," said the secretary. "We must learn if there

  will be more victims."

  The president nodded slowly. He had begun to realize that their future

  well-being depended on investigating these crimes and presenting their

  suspicious employer with a neatly tied-up solution. The Hutt had no

  patience at all with incompetence, and guards who couldn't guard would

  soon find themselves on absolutely the wrong end of something's food

  chain.

  "Will more of Jabba's entourage be killed?" asked the president.

  A low-pitched grinding noise came from the quay on the table. The two

  Weequays looked at each other, then back down at the white sphere.

  "It is certain," said the tinny voice.

  The secretary bent low over the device. "Will I die?" he asked

  quietly.

  "Without a doubt," the quay responded instantly.

  "Weequay," said the president, "you waste time. Of course you will die.

  All who live will die someday. Be silent, and I will gather the

  information. O Great God Quay, what weapon are we looking for? Is it a

  blaster?"

  "Don't count on it," said the white ball.

  "A rifle of some sort, then?"

  "My reply is no."

  The Weequay president tossed his braided topknot over his left shoulder.

  "Is it any sort of projectile weapon?"

  "My reply is no."

  "A knife, then? Is the murderer's weapon a knife?"

  The secretary pounded the table with a fist. "There were no knife

  wounds on Ak-Buz," he said.

  "A rope or silken cord?" asked the president.

  The secretary looked even more impatient. "No signs of strangulation.

  We would have seen them."

  The mystery was too complex for the limited Weequay minds. "All these

  deaths," said the president.

  The secretary's eyes opened wider. "Different methods. Why?"

  "And who?" said the president. He rubbed his chin for a few seconds,

  then put his hands flat on the table, on either side of the sacred quay.

  "O Great God Quay, you have told us there will be at least another

  death.

  Will it too happen by a different method?"

  "Outlook good" was all the device had to say.

  "Not blaster," said the secretary thoughtfully. "Not rifle. Not knife.

  Not rope. Is it a poison gas?"

  "My reply is no," said the Great God Quay.

  "Is it an injection of deadly drugs?"

  The quay made a sound like the grinding of teeth.

  "Very doubtful."

  "Is it tiny little off-world creatures that infest the body and kill the

  host horribly at a later date, giving the killer time to establish an

  alibi elsewhere?"

  There was a long pause from the quay, as if it were digesting this

  strange possibility. "My sources say no."

  Outside, the hot sun of Tatooine climbed higher in the sky. It was

  approaching noon. Barada was at work in his shop, overseeing the

  construction and installation of six new rocker-panel cotter pins for

  the AE-35

  unit. Word had come down from the Hutt himself that the sail barge

  would be setting forth later that day.

  With Ak-Buz now greeting his ancestors in his race's version of heaven,

  Barada assumed he himself would have to captain the huge craft.

  He'd done it before, when Ak-Buz had shown up for duty less than sober.

  Meanwhile, the Weequays labored mightily to get some useful information

  from the quay. It was simply a matter of asking the right questions. If

  the Weequays stumbled on the correct weapon and then the true identity

  of the murderer, the Great God Quay would let them know they'd succeeded

  at last. However, time slipped by as they guessed one thing after

  another, from every kind of blunt object to a pile of straw near the

  scrap heap. "Ak-Buz could have been smothered in the straw," the

  president insisted. "It's possible."

  "And you accuse me of wasting time," said the secretary scornfully. "O

  Great God Quay, was the barge captain drowned in a bucket of water?"

  "Don't count on it." If nothing else, Quay had more patience than the

  average primitive deity.

  "Does the weapon begin with the letter A?" asked the president.

  The other Weequay glared furiously. "Now we'll be

  here all afternoon. What a foolish way to---"

  "My reply is
no," said the god-ball.

  "The letter B?" asked the president.

  "You're never going to learn anything that way," said the secretary. "I

  call for new elections"

  "It is decidedly so." Both Weequays stared at the white plastic sphere.

  "The letter B?" said the secretary.

  "B for . . . what?" said the president. "Blaster?

  No, we asked that. Bantha? Will the murderer kill the next victim with

  a bantha?"

  There was tense silence in the barracks. Then the quay replied, "Cannot

  predict now."

  The president took a deep breath and let it out again. "Will the

  murderer kill the next victim with a bantha?"

  This time the quay didn't hesitate. "My reply is no."

  The Weequays went on through the alphabet, trying every object and

  technique they could think of. At last, as three more armed Weequays

  entered the barracks, the secretary asked, "Bomb? Is it a bomb? On the

  sail barge?"

  "Signs point to yes," said the mechanical voice.

  All five Weequays gasped. "O Great God Quay," said the president

  hoarsely, "we, your true believers, thank you! We will use the gift of

  your prophecy to protect your servants, and we praise your wisdom and

  power."

  One of the newly arrived Weequays came to the table. "What does this

  mean?" he demanded.

  "Ak-Buz dead," said the secretary.

  "Bomb aboard the sail barge," said the president.

  "We must find it," said the third Weequay.

  "We must disarm it," said a fourth.

  "We must punish . . . who?" asked the fifth.

  The secretary looked at the president. "Does the murderer's name begin

  with the letter A?" he said to the quay. The secretary didn't say

  anything; he just squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his aching forehead.

  It was going to be a very long day.

  Barada wouldn't let his workmen quit for the midday meal until the AE-35

  unit had been repaired and replaced in the sail barge. It wasn't a

  difficult job, but Barada was an extremely exacting supervisor. He had

  to be. If there were the slightest malfunction, if any mechanical

  breakdown interrupted the Hutt's pleasure cruise, Barada himself would

  be the next corpse to be found on the scrap heap. He didn't intend for

  that to happen.

  He checked the fittings and connections carefully, then slid the AE-35

  hatch cover into place and slapped it closed. "Good," he said.

  He wiped his perspiring brow with one hand. "Anything else?"

  Mal Hyb, Barada's capable human assistant, glanced

  at a datapad in her hand. "All the diagnostic tests turned up green,"

  she said.

  The mechanic nodded. "Nothing more we can do now, I guess. All right,

  let's take an hour for lunch.

  We'll check out the barge again later, before the Hutt gets here."

  Mal Hyb frowned. She was recognized in the workshop for her skill with

  a welding torch. Although she was two feet Shorter than Barada, and

  compactly built, she was also a good ally in a brawl. Her fighting

  ability always surprised her opponents--once. "More tests?"

  she asked.

  Barada grunted. "You haven't worked for the Hutt as long as I have. If

  I could make this crew do it, I'd be running diagnostics all day and all

  night. I've seen the Hutt execute a crewman because a shutter

  squeaked."

  Mal Hyb shook her head and walked away. Barada heard a sound, turned,

  and saw a party of five Wee-quays enter the barge's hangar. He wasn't

  pleased.

  The Weequays approached him. One of them gestured toward the sail

  barge.

  "You want to go aboard?" said Barada. "Why? You still trying to

  figure out who killed Ak-Buz?"

  The Weequay spokesman nodded.

  "Not a chance," said Barada. "We've got the barge all tuned up and I

  don't want you leather-faced bullies wrecking it."

  A second Weequay held out a paper sack. Barada took it, opened it, and

  looked inside. "Beignets," he said, surprised. "Porcellus's beignets?"

  Another Weequay nod.

  "All right, I guess," said the mechanic. "You've got to do your job,

  too. Just don't touch anything."

  The five Weequays formed up in single file and boarded the sail barge.

  Barada sat down stiffly on the concrete and took the first beignet from

  the bag.

  The Weequays poked around the sail barge, not entirely sure what they

  were looking for. A bomb, of course, but what kind of bomb was it? How

  big? And where? There were a million places to hide one.

  The Weequay president carried the quay with him, and murmured, "Does the

  murderer's name begin with the letter V? Vader? Valarian?

  Venti Paz?"

  The quay began to slammer. "Win"

  "Yes?" the Weequay prompted.

  "O Great God Quay, what are you trying to tell us?"

  The Weequay president rapped the oracle ball with an astonishing lack of

  piety. "'W.' Wookiee? Is that it?

  The Wookiee is the assassin?"

  "I don't think that's possible," said the secretary.

  "W--" said the quay.

  "Weequay?" asked the president. "It cannot be! A Weequay, guilty of

  murder?"

  A third Weequay listened to the exchange. "What is wrong here?"

  he asked.

  "I don't know," said the president. "The Great God Quay is having some

  trouble communicating."

  "Whiphid?" asked the secretary.

  "Without a doubt," said the plastic ball at last.

  "Ah," said the president. "The mystery is solved.

  The Whiphid planted the bomb on board."

  The five Weequays nodded, satisfied at last to know the truth.

  They stood in Jabba's privacy lounge, shifting their force pikes from

  one hand to the other. The president held the now-silent quay.

  "Of course," said the secretary slowly, "there is a bomb. And we will

  also be on board when it detonates. W e still must search for it."

  "Search for it!" cried one of the others.

  "Yes," said the president. "You four search the barge. I will consult

  the Great God Quay."

  Four of the Weequays began a frantic hunt for the hidden explosive. They

  threw open cabinets, upset furniture, damaged the bulkheads looking for

  secret panels and compartments. Meanwhile, the president sat at a table

  with the prophecy sphere and said, "Is the bomb under the purple

  cushion?"

  "Very doubtful."

  "Is the bomb under the gold cushion?"

  "Don't count on it."

  "Is the bomb hidden in the pile of silks?" The president realized that

  he wasn't making very good progress, but he didn't know what else to do.

  He was a good, honest, forthright Weequay, but he had Weequay

  limitations, after all.

  An hour later, the Hutt's guests and servants began to arrive, to

  prepare the sail barge for the day's excursion.

  Some of them gave the Weequays suspicious glances, but as the Weequays

  served as security guards on the barge, they were allowed to continue

  their search unhindered.

  "Try to blend in," the president whispered to his fellows. They were

  still tearing the barge apart from stern to bow, but now they tried to

  seem casual and unw
orried. The truth was that as the minutes passed, it

  became ever more likely that the bomb would go off and blow them all

  into constituent atoms. Even the Weequays understood that.

  The order was given to cast off, and there had not yet been any evidence

  of the hidden threat. The party guests were enjoying themselves, eating

  the Hutt's food and drinking the Hutt's liquor, and generally making the

  search even more difficult. The Weequay president found himself staring

  into the malevolent three eyes of Ree-Yees, the Gran. The president

  turned back to the quay and asked, "Is the bomb in the control cockpit?"

  Maddeningly, the white ball said, "Reply hazy. Try again."

  The Weequay wanted to throw the device against the wall in frustration,

 

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