space that to visit with one another they must travel long
distance by speedster; their children learn to fly at an early
age. On most Tatooine farms it would t ake you a day to walk from
one end to the other, and you'd likely die of thirst first.
I hate Tatooine. I'm still not sure why I stayed here. It was a
temporary thing, I recall that. I was following Maxa Jandovar, the
great-well, for a human, great- vandfillist. I kept missing her.
She was one of the half-dozen surviving artists I hadn't seen live
who was worth seeing. I spent half a decade following her around
through the outback, hitting planet after planet weeks or days or,
in one instance that gave me ample opportunity to demonstrate
Grace, a mere half day after she'd left. She didn't leave an
agenda; she couldn't, very well. The Empire wouldn't go to the
trouble of hunting her, but if she'd announced where she was going
next, she'd certainly have found a squad of stormtroopers waiting
for her at the spaceport when she arrived.
The Empire doesn't trust artists. Particularly the great ones.
Politics does not interest them, and they persist in speaking the
truth when it is inconvenient.
They arrested Maxa Jandovar on Morvogodine. She died in
custody. I was on Tatooine when I got the news, getting ready to
head to Morvogodine.
Somehow I ended up staying.
Nightlily, the H'nemthe sitting down at the end of the bar,
looked bored and horny. I felt sorry for someone.
"Hey, Wuher!"
Wuher looked at me from down the length of the bar. "Yeah?"
"Universal Truth Number One You should never say 'Well, why
don't you bite my head off?' to a female H'nemthe who is bigger
than you are."
He didn't smile. Jerk.
In the booth next to mine, two humans were trying to talk a
Moorin merc into helping them rob a bar over on the other side of
Mos Eisley; I made a note to myself to call the bar's owner and
sell him a warning about the men. Not that it looked as if the
Moorin were going to help them; only one of the humans spoke the
mere's language, his accent was horrific, and his syntax was
occasionally hysterical. I could see the merc struggling to take
them seriously. At one point the mere, Obron Mettlo, growled at
them that he was a soldier, a fighter; he mentioned some of the
battles he'd fought in. I'd actually heard of most of them-if he
wasn't lying, he was a serious professional.
"Hey, Wuher!"
Wuher looked at me from down the length of the bar. "Yeah?"
"What do you call someone who speaks three languages?"
"Trilingual."
"Someone who speaks two languages?"
"Bilingual."
"Someone who speaks one language?"
He puzzled at it a second. "Monolingual?"
"Human."
He almost smiled before he caught himself.
The day passed slowly. They tend to. I drank enough to keep the
world slightly out of focus, and waited for the suns to set. I
moved around a bit, sat at the bar a few times, looking for
conversation; I even bought two drinks for an off-duty
stormtrooper, slumming. Wasted; he was more interested in women
than in conversation, and I doubted he knew anything anyway. That
is the nature of investments, though; someday he might know
something, if such a thing were possible for a stormtrooper. And
then he might think of his old friend and drinking buddy, Labria.
Brokering information is a chancy occupation, at best.
Can't say I'm any good at it.
Long Snoot showed up toward late afternoon. It had been a good
day until then; Wuher didn't have musicians that day, and I hadn't
had to wear my ear plugs even once.
Long Snoot wanted to sell me information.
I smiled at him, in my corner booth as far away from the stage
as I could get The sharp smile. "That's a new one. Pass."
Long Snoot's "name" is Garindan. I had a protocol droid do a
search on the word once. In five different languages it meant
"Blessed One," "burnt wood," "dust from a windstorm," "ugly," and
"toast." None of the five languages were spoken by a species that
looked anything like Long Snoot's.
Long Snoot's the most successful spy in Mos Eisley. In a town
with as many spies as this city has, that says something. He pays
adequately for information; sometimes I give him information of
value. Sometimes I even do it on purpose. "But Labria," he
wheedled, voice low, "this is a subject of particular interest to
you."
"Give me a hint."
He shook his head, trunk waving gently in front of my face. I
suppressed an uncivilized urge to swat it with a sharpened nail.
(I often have the opportunity to exhibit Grace in dealing with
Long Snoot.) "Fifty credits, Labria. You won't regret it."
I thought about it. I took a sip of the acid gold and swished
it around my back teeth for a bit. I could feel it helping keep
them sharp. "Fifty credits is a lot. Resell-able?"
He scratched under his snout, thinking. "I can't think to
whom."
Something of interest to me, but not resellable . . .
I could feel my ears straighten. "Who is it?"
"Fift-"
"I'll pay. Who's onplanet?"
"Figri-"
I came up out of my seat. "Fiery Figrin Da'n is on Tatooine?"
He made an urk noise. "People . . . are . . . looking."
I looked around. Some of them were, in fact. Odd, having all
those eyes on me. I let go of Long Snoot, and they turned away.
"Sorry. Bit excitable."
He rubbed his throat. "Your nails need trimming."
"I expect they do." He sat back down again, but I was too
excited. "The band is with him?"
"Fifty credits."
A snarl rose in the back of my throat. I pulled out a fifty-
credit note and dropped it into his outstretched hand, and tried
to keep the growl out of my voice when I spoke. "Who?"
"They're playing for Jabba."
"All of them?"
"The Modal Nodes."
"That's them," I said, unable to keep the excitement out of my
voice. "Doikk Na'ts on the Fizzz, Tedn Dahai and Ikabel G'ont on
the Fanfar, Nalan Cheel on Bandfill, Tech Mo'r on the Ommni - "
"Yeah. Those are the names."
Oh, my.
The greatest jizz band in the galaxy was in town.
I left earlier than usual, as soon as it was dark outside.
Wuher nodded at me on my way out. "Tomorrow, Labria."
I nodded at him and went outside into the hot night.
"Labria" is an extremely dirty word in my native tongue. It
translates, roughly, as "cold food," though the basic phrase loses
the flavor of it.
By my horns, I don't understand humans. I've lived around them
close to two decades now. The things they swear by! Sex,
excrement, and religion.
I'll never understand them.
There are four hundred billion stars in the galaxy. Most of
them have planets; about half have planets capable of supporting
life. About a tenth of those worlds have evolved life of their<
br />
own, and about one in a thousand of those worlds have evolved
intelligent life forms.
These are rough numbers. There are well over twenty million
intelligent races in the galaxy, though. No one can keep track of
them all, not even the Empire.
I have no idea how many bounty hunters there are in Mos Eisley.
Hundreds of professionals, I'm sure. Tens of thousands who would
turn bounty hunter without a moment's pause if the bounty were
high enough, and if anyone knew of it.
The Butcher of Montellian Serat has five million credits on his
horns. But Devaron is halfway across the galaxy, and there may
only be a dozen sentients on all of Tatooine who even know for
sure what species I belong to. (There are two other Devaronians
onplanet, Oxbel and Jubal. I rather like Oxbel; we pretended to be
brothers once, during a rather involved scam that didn't work out
the way we'd hoped. We don't look anything alike-his ancestors
evolved at the equator, mine toward the north pole-but the humans
we were trying to cheat couldn't tell the difference. I rather
like Oxbel, but I don't come close to trusting him. He's been away
from Devaron even longer than I have, and it's entirely possible
that even he hasn't heard of the Butcher of Montellian Serat-but
it's best to be safe.
(There are downsides to being safe, though. The closest Devish
woman is on the other side of the Core. Just the thought makes my
horns ache.)
Most bounty hunters are lazy. If they weren't, they'd be in
another line of work.
And research is not their strong point.
I took the short way home.
A Reason for Living
I keep a small underground apartment about twelve minutes'
brisk walk from the cantina. It's been broken into twice since
I've lived there. The first time I came back and found the deed
done; the second time I surprised the burglar in the act. A young
human. Turns out humans don't taste very good.
The lights come on automatically as I unlock and let myself in.
The door leads down a flight of stairs to a cold, sweaty basement
that costs an indecent amount to cool. The heat-exchange coils
turn on automatically when I enter; I know from long experience I
won't be able to sleep until they have been on for quite a while
-and at that it will not be properly cold until I am done
sleeping, and it's time to turn them off.
There's only one thing of value in the apartment; neither of my
two thieves found it, fortunately. From the outer room you go into
the sleeping cubicle, and from there into the bathroom. The
sanitary facilities are human designed, but they suit me well
enough. In the shower, you push back on the tiled wall, and it
slides back enough to step through, sideways.
I step through and into a small eight-sided room. The walls are
not perfect; they tend to reflect the higher frequencies and
absorb the lower ones, so virtually everything ends up sounding
brighter than it should. Some of that can be adjusted for; some of
it I simply have to live with.
The wall behind me sighs shut. The room is already cool; it's
the first part of the apartment to be cooled.
Along the walls are the chips.
Some of them are unique, I'm sure. Priceless. Copies of
recordings that are preserved by no one else in the galaxy. Some
of them are merely rare and very expensive.
I have everyone. Or, to be precise, I have something by
everyone. I have music the Imperium banned a generation ago... by
musicians executed for singing the wrong lyric, in the wrong way,
to the wrong person, by musicians who simply vanished, by
musicians who had the good fortune to die before the Empire came
to power.
Maxa Jandovar is here, and Orin Mersai, and Te-lindel and
Saerlock, Lord Kavad and the Skaalite Orchestra,
M'lar'Nkai'kambric, Janet Lalasha, and Miracle Meriko, who died in
Imperial custody four days after I saw him play Stardance for the
last time. The ancient masters, Kang and Lubrichs, Ovido Aishara,
and the amazing Brullian Dyll.
I have two recordings by Fiery Figrin Da'n and the Modal Nodes.
Da'n may be the greatest Klooist the galaxy has ever seen. As for
Doikk Na'ts . . . there's something about his playing that's
always struck me as cautious, careful . . . but sometimes,
sometimes the fire comes, and. he plays the Fizzz as well as Janet
Lalasha ever did.
Most of their backup players could play lead, in a lesser band.
I settle down in the seat, set just off center for the room,
where the sound comes together most cleanly, open a bottle of
twelve-year-old Dorian Quill, and wait for the music to start.
My people believe that to kill something, you must cherish it
and love it as it dies. There is no barrier between you and the
thing you are killing, and you die as you kill.
Music is the only thing I know that feels the same way.
The music surrounds me until I cease to exist.
I die as I kill.
It's what I live for.
I'm glad my fathers are dead.
In the morning I went to see Jabba.
He had me stand on the trapdoor, and his tail twitched as we
spoke. That always bothers me. Part of me was frightened by it;
even carnivores get eaten by bigger carnivores. Another part of me
wanted to pounce on it.
He regarded me with those slitted ugly eyes, and laughed a
rumbling, unpleasant laugh. "So . . . what information does my
least favorite spy have to sell me?"
I made it good. I spoke to him in Hutt, which I normally try to
avoid; it hurts my throat, and I have to use both sets of teeth to
make some of the sounds. After a long conversation, the front row
aches from being pulled up and then dropped down again quickly.
"There's a mercenary in town." I'd learned what I could about him
before heading over. It hadn't been much, but I'd been rushed. I
wanted to move on this quickly-if Jabba didn't like Da'n and the
Nodes, I might never get to see them play. Nor would anyone else.
"Obron Mettlo. A real professional, fought in dozens of battles,
often on the winning side, looking for employment. Moorin, has an
attitude-"
He made a low, grumbling sound that might have been interpreted
as interest. Jabba had plenty of muscle, but not always smart
muscle; and Moorin tend to be bright as well as vicious.
I forged ahead. "If you like, I could get in touch with him.
Bring him by to meet you . . . for dinner, perhaps. Possibly some
entertainment, some music-music is good with Moorin. Keeps 'em
peaceable."
His eyelids drooped slightly; either he was bored or he was
thinking. Finally he gave me a slight chuckle, and said, "Send him
over."
I bowed and backed away as quickly as was polite, getting off
that trapdoor. "As you wish, sir. We'll be by -would first dark be
appropriate?"
He smiled at me and it made the fur on the small of my back
stand straight up
. "Send him by," he clarified. "You are not
invited."
I stood frozen at the edge of the trapdoor, mind refusing to
function. Surely there had to be some way to wangle-
Jabba made a sound. A familiar sound; I've heard Devish make
it, too-except that it takes a pack of Devish. It straightened my
ears and made my front teeth jump out of the way. "You can leave
now."
I bowed and got out.
I spent the evening at the cantina, drinking myself into a
stupor.
I just knew Jabba would feed the Modal Nodes to the rancor.
He'd never had a decent band before, never, not once. The closest
he'd ever come was Max Rebo's bunch, who could carry a melody if
you gave them a basket to keep it in.
But the next morning, I learned that Rebo was out looking for
work.
Jabba had a new favorite. It came this close to killing me.
For four days I couldn't sleep for thinking about it. There
they were, not a half part's speedster trip from Mos Eisley.
Playing for him. It ate me alive thinking about it. I lost so much
Grace in those days that if I had any shame left to me, I'd have
to use some of it on that period.
Sometime on the fifth day I drank too much. I awoke lying
facedown in the alleyway upstairs and behind the cantina, in
darkness, with someone nudging my shoulder with his toe. I decided
to take a chunk out of his calf-
Wuher knelt next to me. "Can you stand up?"
The cold gravel pressed against my cheek. I had bruises,
cuts-the memories came back slowly. Several someones had beaten
me-heavy wood or metal staffs, I vaguely recalled. Just a random
robbery. My right arm wouldn't move at all. "I don't think so."
"Come on." My body is denser than humans'; he staggered,
helping me to my feet The strain sent a jolt of astonishing pain
through my shoulder. ' 'Where do you live?"
He half carried me to my apartment, and stood at the opening
while I fumbled with the interlock. "Do you need medical help?"
I don't remember if I answered him or not. It was a stupid
question. No doctor on Tatooine knew anything about Devish
physiology-or if they did, I didn't want to know them.
I made it to the shower before I collapsed. I got the cold
water turned on and sat in it until morning, trying to decide how
badly I wanted to live.
Star Wars - Tales From The Mos Eisley Cantina Page 23