by Renee Ahdieh
He shuddered, suddenly cold.
Droids.
He hated droids. The Clone Wars taught him that. Clankers couldn’t be trusted. They were alive as any other, but more powerful: as eternal as their programming would allow, passed from body to body. They were smart. Dangerous. No matter what kind of restraining bolt you put on them. They had no mercy the way a man has mercy. They were cold.
Killers, to the last. Or at least the potential to be.
Wuher did not have long to dwell on this, however.
Because now the fresh-faced kid stood at the bar, tugging on Wuher’s sleeve the way a kid does to an elder. Stupid boy, probably just some hick from the sticks. Wuher groused at him, slid a glass of dirty water across the bar—kid wanted clean water, he was welcome to pay a premium for the privilege, just like everyone else.
Near to the bar, the hairball Wookiee was talking to the old hermit. Neither of them was drinking a thing at the moment, of course, just taking up seats.
But out of nowhere, a commotion kicked up. The stupid kid must’ve bumped into the Aqualish, or maybe the Aqualish bumped into the kid. Didn’t matter, because that Sawkee—or Ponda Baba or whatever his name was—became skeeved off something fierce. Worst of all, here came the milk-eye, Evazan. Mad as a sunbaked womp rat.
“He doesn’t like you,” Evazan said to the kid.
The boy, confused, answered simply enough: “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t like you, either!” It’s then that the milk-eye goes into boasting mode: “You just watch yourself. We’re wanted men! I have the death sentence on twelve systems!” Wuher thought: Who says that? Who announces that they’re a gods-blamed criminal with a death sentence? Might as well print your bounty number across your head, make yourself a target to every whackjob with a debt to pay.
“I’ll be careful,” the boy said, not being careful at all. Stupid kid.
“You’ll be dead!” Evazan snarled, grabbing the boy and spinning him around. And that’s when the old man, the hermit, got involved.
“This little one’s not worth the effort,” he said, his voice crisp, regal, not like those in these parts. The old hermit didn’t drink much but always paid for clean water. Never caused trouble. Never spoke up much. The old man, in that regal voice of his, offered to buy Evazan something—
Evazan roared, throwing the boy backward and into a table. The kid crashed against it, going down like a sack of rocks. Someone drew a blaster—the Aqualish, maybe. It was like being back on Arkax again, and Wuher thought to get out of the way—
—their blasters leveled at him, ready to fire—
A blue spear of light cut through the cantina air, vwomm, vwomm—
—behind the droids, twin spears of light, blue and green—
Wuher leapt for the ground, panic kicking him in the ribs.
The sound of screams, of a limb hitting the ground.
—droids screeching, hissing as laser sabers cut them to pieces—
And then Wuher stood again. The aftermath was plain to see: the Aqualish cradling a stump arm; Evazan collapsed against his stool, his chest rent open; the farmboy staring, eyes wide as the twin suns; and the old man coolly nodding as he led the boy away. And like that, all returned to normal. The music began playing anew. Jerriko harrumphed and turned away, continuing to let vapor rings lazily drift from his puckered lips. Just another day here in a Mos Eisley cantina.
But it wasn’t just another day for Wuher.
Not now. Not anymore.
The memory of this day, and that day so long ago, played again and again in his mind, each memory chasing the last. Circles and circles. Round and round.
Blasters up. Droids. Limbs. Sabers of light.
The chaos wasn’t over that day, far from it. It wasn’t long before a pair of stormtroopers came in, started asking what happened here.
What Wuher thought was this:
I don’t much know what happened here today. I know I kicked a couple of dirty droids out, because you can’t trust dirty droids. I know that there was a nasty character here who told me his name was Roofoo and that his friend was Sawkee, but he was really someone named Evazan, and his friend was Ponda Baba. I know they messed with the wrong farmboy, because that farmboy had a friend: a hermit who up until now was just that, just a hermit. But I think he was more than a hermit. I think he was a Jedi of old. I thought they were dead and gone, the Jedi. They once saved my life, those Jedi, saved me from a whole battalion of dirty droids. So I’m inclined to give this one a pass. And you should, too.
He didn’t say any of that, of course. He knew not to get involved or say the wrong thing to a couple of Imperials. He knew, too, that the old man and the boy were already gone, having seen the troopers come in. He pointed in the direction of the empty tables and shrugged.
Later, a single shot screamed out—and the Rodian Greedo dropped dead on the table as the smuggler, Solo, stood up and walked away, like it was no big thing. He tossed Wuher a couple of credits, said something slick, and then wandered out of the cantina. Wuher had to go over, drag the body out, hastily scrub blood from the table.
But even as he did, those twin memories—
Today in the cantina, and that day, on Arkax Station.
Back and forth, back and forth. Memories chasing memories.
Like two skad-claws chasing each other’s tails.
Limbs and sabers. Droids and death.
Eventually the day wound down. Wuher gave the cantina over to the night-shift barkeep, a tough old broad named Ackmena who lived out on the Delkin Ridge with her wife, Sorschi. And Wuher did what he always did: He went, had a glass of blue milk to settle his stomach, and then he went to bed. And he wondered what the next day would bring. He wondered if he would do it all again, or if this was his chance—as it was so many years ago on Arkax Station—to change course, to do something different. That night long ago derailed everything, his parents dead, his life changed. Maybe now it was time to get it back on the rails. Maybe he could change his path, even now. Maybe he could find some place of his own. Someone of his own.
Maybe he could change his destiny.
But would he?
There is a legend, Kabe begins, in the Bith overworld about the Place That Comes After Death, the Realm of All Light, the Big Sleep—I don’t know what they call it. They’re Bith. You ever try talking to a Bith? Who knows. Anyway, whatever it is, in Bith Heaven, there’s a club, a nightclub, and every night the finest Bith musicians who ever lived—well, died—gather there to play. They have a gift for music, the Bith, which you should know in advance so that the contextual arena of the following anecdote makes sense once I reach its amusing conclusion. Anyway. These dead yet legendary Bith musicians create the sweetest music in the whole quintessence. Onstage, however, sits a simple stool upon which a golden Kloo horn rests that no musician dares play, or even touch.
Well, if you wait long enough and drink enough of whatever the Bith drink—again I challenge you to talk to one of them and understand a single thing they tell you, and I mean not “understand” as in to know precisely what they are saying, but rather to truly comprehend what the things they are saying actually mean—as the Bith legend goes, in this club, you may see The Stranger when He comes for His horn.
Now you ask, who is this “The Stranger” and why should I care? Well I shall tell you. It is, in fact, the purpose of this delightful parable-slash-joke I have chosen to share with you as an entrée into our business at hand. The Stranger enters this music club in Heaven and approaches the stage. In reverence and respect, everyone watches in silence. The Stranger picks up the horn, plays just one note, and it sounds so beautiful that everyone present weeps in an aesthetic apotheosis. It is revelatory. It is the very sound of light, of love. His single note leaves them all weeping, every time, musician and drinker alike, and then, this Stranger? He leaves, if you can believe it, as quickly and quietly as He came.
One night, The Stranger comes, picks up His horn, rends the
hearts of those present in twain, and exits as is His wont. So one regular, rather a newcomer compared with some of the old-timers, turns to another regular, this one an old-timer who will know, unlike the newcomer asking the question, and asks (not without a little incredulity), “Who is that guy? Lirin D’avi?”
And the old-timer says, “No—it is God. He only thinks He is Lirin D’avi!”
Kabe waits for a laugh that never comes.
For you see, in Bith culture, Lirin D’avi was the finest Kloo horn player ever to—
It is a lost cause. The Scrapper opposite gives Kabe The Look. It is The Look that means “Tiny bat-faced creature, your language sounds like a series of squeaks and chirps to me and I have no idea what you are on about,” and Kabe sees it about seventeen times a day. She sighs and places a golden Kloo horn atop the Scrapper’s countertop.
Anyway, this is it. Give me fifty-five?
This language, the Scrapper speaks. He haggles Kabe down to forty-eight, which was really three more than Kabe dared hope to get for the tarnished, piece-of-crap sound tube in the first place, and then displays it prominently in the window of his scrapper shop.
Scrapper shops always have a Kloo horn in the window. They are good for business.
—
The Muftak and Kabe: rulers of the kingdom of the cantina underground, which is a kingdom with a population of two. By night, the Muftak sleeps in the cavernous stone pipeways below the spaceport, below the scorching desert surface of Tatooine, below the view of the twin suns that sear the sky, relishing the lower ambient temperature and the mercy it grants his thick-furred hide. Moisture sometimes collects on the walls, which they reclaim and sell. Kabe sleeps in the tunnels because the darkness feels better on her terrible eyes and because the Muftak sleeps there, too. And where the Muftak goes, safety follows. The Muftak and Kabe, a team, squat there together in the dark, waiting for the impossible: that their luck, or the heat, one day will break.
During business hours, the Muftak and Kabe prowl the dark(er), cool(er) cantina and harvest whatever loot they can from the drunk and damaged denizens staggering around the spaceport, rolling suckers for loose change, their numerous eyes peeled for an easy pickin’ or whatever else they might pawn. Casing the tourists and transients, they’ll lift from one guy, sell to another, spend the cash on a thing some other third chump somewhere wants but doesn’t know how to find. Then they’ll mark it up, move it along, and live like lords until the money’s gone. And repeat, always, forever, A-B-C, Always Be Certain to hustle, hustle, hustle. Making a living in the Mos Eisley underworld means constant legwork, sketchy math, dubious markups, and always knowing whatever the next thing is gonna be, no matter what, exactly, the next thing is. It is exhausting.
At Mos Eisley, everyone has side hustles, but the Muftak and Kabe? Even their side hustles have side hustles.
Ackmena knows this, and keeps it all on the down-low, because what kind of drinkslinger would she be if she didn’t, but at the same time respect must be paid, and by respect, Ackmena means rent. Not a lot, but enough that Ackmena can slip a little something to Chalmun, who owns the whole place, while padding her silk-lined pockets to make the trip underground worth her while.
She clears her throat. The Muftak, sleeping one off, rouses as if waking up from a mild case of light paralysis. Kabe, for her part, chirps. Kabe likes Ackmena, and Ackmena thinks Kabe’s voice sounds like music, and so she enjoys listening to her chirp.
“First of the month, my sweet, sweet hairballs,” she says, not without some affection, her voice resonating off the cool stone of their lair, echoing into the dark forever.
The Muftak may have drunk their money away last night. Ackmena has a heavy pour for friends. He might have lost the rest of his money—of their money—to the Sakiyan over a dubious hand or eleventeen of cards. The Muftak can’t be certain (although he is, in fact, Very Certain; let us, for the moment, give him this feint at uncertainty and at least a shred of dignity). One way or the other, Myo was certainly involved in the Muftak’s change of fortunes last night. Does Myo owe him money? How does one ask a violence enthusiast like Myo to pay up? The Muftak has many questions.
Kabe chirps.
The Muftak rubs his four eyes, trying to reduce the number of patient Ackmenas waiting for him to pay up. He scratches his head. Hang on. Where’d I put it, he clicks, hoping the pantomime buys him time.
Kabe chirps.
The Muftak pats himself for pockets he does not have, as he does not now wear, nor has he ever worn, pants, or any article of clothing for that matter, as he lives his life trapped beneath a thick blanket of fur on an arid planet that may in fact be made, somehow, of actual, real, literal fire.
You, the Muftak croaks to Kabe, with your thunderous cavalcade of nonstop chatterboxing, shall literally murder me if you dare continue such noise. Have mercy, little friend, for inside my head is a violent, angry beast, punishing me for having good luck at the sabacc table last night.
(The Muftak had very bad luck at the sabacc table last night.)
Yet still Kabe chirps. And what she chirps, what she has chirped the whole time, is this: I have some money.
And all four of the Muftak’s eyes give Kabe not The Look but rather The Other Look. The Muftak is the only one who ever gives The Other Look to Kabe, probably because the Muftak is the only one who ever understands Kabe, and The Other Look means I know what you are saying, but I do not know what has transpired to compel you to say such a thing. Needless to say as, after all, this is but a silent look we exchange for that most fleeting of moments, we shall talk about it anon in more private company.
Kabe sighs and digs out forty-five, what she got for the horn (less her handler’s fee and early riser’s bonus, of course) and waves it at the Muftak. Dummy.
Where did you get that? the Muftak clicks. Then he realizes it doesn’t matter, and he doesn’t really care. The Muftak takes the money from Kabe and hands it to Ackmena. It is one of the only times the Muftak doesn’t extract his customary protectorate surcharge for taking general care of Kabe, but he makes a note to himself to doubly compensate himself in the future.
Ackmena counts it. She tsk-tsk-tsks.
“Forty-five? That’s more than half light, friends. And with my delivery charge and filing tariffs extracted, you’re short sixty at least.”
She looks at them. They look at each other. They know she won’t kick them out. She knows they know she won’t kick them out, and probably physically she couldn’t, even if she wanted, which she doesn’t; not really. They know that she knows that they know, and she knows, and they know, and on and on, and all any of them really know is, Chalmun, the boss, the landlord, owner of bars, maker of drinks, and breaker of legs, needs his vig or he’ll send someone down to the tunnels to extract it the old-fashioned way. If his mood goes particularly sour that day (which, being a Wookiee in the desert, happens with great frequency), he may choose to exterminate the infestation of Muftaks and Chadra-Fans in his pipes, lost income be damned. On this, at least, the Muftak and Chalmun share common ground, but not enough to keep the Muftak alive.
Life gets pretty cheap in Mos Eisley.
I’ll get it, the Muftak clicks.
He doesn’t know if Ackmena understands his exact words or not. She gets the spirit of the thing, if not the details.
“Tonight, sweethearts. Respect must be paid. You know how it is.”
She turns to go, and the sound of her footfalls echoing down the length of the tunnel-pipe makes the Muftak’s head throb more.
Small friend, before I die, and I assure you, I shall die, today for certain, tonight if I find luck, but surely, surely my time is now at hand, the Muftak tak-tak-tak’d, please, Kabe, please tell me where and how you came upon such a small fortune? Because for the life of me, whatever little is left, whatever little it may be worth, I could’ve sworn you were in quite the state of financial embarrassment with regard to the liquidity of your resources, and I, myself, am clearly destitute as
well, meaning we, my friend, shall continue our streak of very bad luck unless we find some form of windfall today, which, I don’t know, seems pretty unlikely.
But a moment ago you said you had good luck, you said you had “very good luck,” at the sabacc tables last night, Kabe counters.
Quoth the Muftak, I may have misspoken. Blame not the hustler for hustling.
I sold the Kloo horn of Lirin Car’n, Kabe squeaks.
A light—small, dim, but a light all the same—goes off somewhere inside the Muftak’s aching skull.
Smallness, forgive me if I am mistaken, but I…I seem to have the vaguest recollection that Myo, who owes us both a not-insignificant sum, won said horn last night from Lirin Car’n himself and, in celebration, drank himself to the point of irritability and then left the table and the horn behind when…when it was in fact…I…who then took the instrument in question, the Muftak clicks. With the intent of converting it into funds later today, in reparation of Myo’s aforementioned debt.
Indeed. And knowing the day and what was due Ackmena, Kabe says, I relieved you of the horn while you slumbered, as you had relieved him of the horn that he had relieved from Lirin Car’n, and thus made with great haste to a Scrapper I knew who would be in the market for horns, especially for golden horns of Kloo.
I passed out and you stole it from me, the Muftak counters.
I find that interpretation radiantly unkind, counter-counters the Chadra-Fan.
Blessed suns, the Muftak rages, hangover draining as fear-based adrenaline floods within him and he leaps to his feet, Myo will eat you for this.
No. Myo will eat you for this, unless he finds out it was I who actually pawned the thing. But that, chirps the small one, is a Tomorrow Problem. Our Today Problem is paying rent.
Kabe basks in her righteousness. And unless she’s stealing his stuff, the Muftak finds that Kabe is usually right.
—
Lirin Car’n trembles with rage, fear, regret, doubt, anxiety, despair, and whatever the word is for the feeling you get when you drank so much and played so poorly at cards that you lost your father’s Kloo horn, which, indeed, is very much a feeling, and a feeling with a name, but it comes from the Bith, who tend to be the only ones who feel it and, as you don’t speak Bith anyway, its name does not matter. Trust that this feeling is proper and named and true, albeit rare in its ever being felt, yet it is felt, more than it has ever been felt before, by Lirin Car’n, the Bith, right now, in the Mos Eisley cantina.