by Lou Anders
“No, I’m not,” she said sharply.
“I did not mean to strike a nerve,” I said.
“I’m not unique,” she said, a hard edge to her voice. “I’m not unique at all.”
Well, it was strange how quickly the atmosphere in the room had become uncomfortable, so I tactfully changed the topic of conversation.
“Tell me again,” I said, “how did you find out about this box full of rubies?”
“Let’s finish the job first,” she replied. “Then you’ll have your answers.”
I might have objected, but then she sent her Savrip against my Monnok, and I had to concentrate on the game.
After a little while, Chewbacca returned to tell us we were arriving. We crowded into the cockpit as the Falcon came out of hyperspace—whoomp!—and the stars slammed into place around us. And there, through the transparisteel viewport of the cockpit, we saw the third moon of Dhandu in front of us. It was a pretty little yellow-orange satellite hanging in space—like a fruit inviting us to take a bite. And I must say, Han Solo and Chewbacca were quite the seamless team as they navigated the Millennium Falcon flawlessly from the cold vacuum of space into the atmosphere of that small and pleasant-looking world. They were like brothers, if one brother were covered in fur and the other were a grouch, and I wondered what had transpired between them, the man and the Wookiee, to make them two halves of a whole. And again I felt that gap in my soul, only I wondered if it was ship-shaped after all.
But then we were below the clouds. We saw great, rolling auburn-colored grasslands that stretched from yellow sea to yellow sea. And as we descended, a huge sprawling city came into view ahead of us. But immediately we noticed there was something different about it.
The city seemed to be undulating just like the grasslands, rocking and swaying and…
“Are my old eyes playing tricks on me?” I said. “Do I need to clean my goggles or is that city moving?”
“Grrrrrrrrgaahga,” said Chewbacca, agreeing with me.
“You took the words out of my mouth,” I replied to the Wookiee.
“What kind of place are you bringing us to, lady?” asked Solo.
“I don’t know,” said Mahjo Reeloo. “I’ve never been here before. I just know the key we need is here now.”
So we all looked, and we saw that the city was indeed moving across the grasslands. And what was more, bits of the city weren’t staying put even within itself. They seemed to be shifting around, churning and reorganizing, as though the different districts were jockeying for position.
“Wait a minute,” said Solo. “This isn’t a city at all. It’s a creature. This place is alive!”
Well, as we made our approach, we saw that Solo was both right and wrong.
You see, as we would soon learn, Dhandu 3 is home to a colossal species. There is a type of reptile, very, very big. The locals call it a turlossus. And the turlossus has a large shell on its back that is flat on top, like a vast plateau. And it walks around all day on its six enormous stumpy feet, sucking up the grass of the grasslands in front with a cluster of great proboscises and, well, you don’t want to know what it does in back but you can guess. Grass goes in, grass goes out. And those giant creatures move about in herds, great numbers of them all walking and eating together and doing their business across the moon forever—never stopping, not even to sleep.
Now, you wouldn’t want to build on that moon, because you might get stepped on. The turlossus are not aggressive, but neither are they particularly careful where they place their feet. So even by accident, it would not matter. There you would be, asleep in your house, or maybe taking a shower, or watching a holovid and—squish-squash!—flat as a bantha-butter pancake you would be. You can see how this would spoil a pirate’s day.
But the inhabitants of that moon of Dhandu, they have to live somewhere. So they have found a clever solution. They have built their cities on the backs of these giant creatures. Whole neighborhoods and districts can fit on one of the larger animals. And as the turlossus walk around together in their herds of twenty or so creatures, so their cities are always strolling around the moon. It is truly wonderful! You can go sightseeing without even leaving home! Can you imagine? Every day a new horizon. Perhaps I will retire there one day—if I can find an old pirates’ home.
Now, it is a fact that these gentle giants are slow enough in their movements that clusters of them can provide the surface for villages and towns, though on occasion someone’s house or establishment might wander off and join another herd. Catwalks and bridges are raised and lowered between locales, but of course, no one place stays in its position relative to any others for long. So finding your neighbor or your favorite eating hole from day to day can be a bit of a challenge. You might leave your house to go to work in the morning, only to find it isn’t where you left it when you come back at night. Such a situation would make life interesting, wouldn’t it?
At any rate, shortly we set down at a spaceport that had been constructed near the tail end of one of the larger creatures. We prepared to disembark. And that was when we got our second surprise.
“Wait, wait!” clucked the flightless, feathered inhabitants of the moon. They were rushing up to us as we stepped onto the boarding ramp, holding out pairs of clunky ankle bracelets that they wanted to put on our feet.
“You need these if you’re going to walk,” said one of the Dhanduese.
“Buddy, I can walk just fine without any strange device on my legs,” said Solo, and he took a step off of the loading ramp.
And then, like magic, he sprang into the air.
“Chewieeeeeee!” he shouted.
And we all watched as Han Solo went sailing away across the docking port, flipping over and over and over, like a bird himself. Like an ungainly, awkward, and very angry bird.
Solo was flying through the sky.
“Look at you!” I cried. “Bounding through the air like a Jedi!”
I was trying to be positive. Unfortunately, he did not land so much like a Jedi. Their landings are somewhat more dignified and probably far less painful. As I winced in sympathy, one of the locals rushed over to assist Solo.
“We tried to warn him,” another said.
“Believe me, you cannot tell that man anything,” I said. “But what exactly has happened to him?”
“This is an extremely low-gravity world,” the local explained. “All visitors to the moon are required to wear special gravity weights strapped to their ankles to keep them grounded.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “Obviously, it would be very bad for the tourists otherwise. If they all went flying off into the sky, how could they spend their credits? Step, step, bye-bye!”
I turned to my remaining companions.
“We must put these on our ankles if we are to walk here.”
Well, Chewbacca, he had a hard time with this. I believe he thought that the bracelets looked too much like manacles. And I wondered what had happened to the big guy to make him so skittish. Clearly, he did not like anything that reminded him of being fettered. But after he tried to pull a foot away and ended up doing an unintentional backflip in the low gravity, well, I said something to him in Shyriiwook comparing his feet to the roots of brave trees, and he let the little feathered people attach the weights to his legs.
Now, the Dhanduese themselves did not wear these ankle bracelets. Their clawlike feet were prehensile, and they used them to grip the ground. It worked for them, but I felt it was slightly sad—these wingless birds holding on tight so they would not fly.
As the bracelets were slipped around my own ankles, I noticed that the locals had little blinky-blinky sticks. The sticks had readout displays and buttons to adjust our ankle bracelets, making them heavier or lighter as needed. I tucked that information away, in case it was useful later. You never know what you might need, but as my sweet mother taught me, a smart pirate is always prepared for any eventuality.
And so we were off again, Mahjo Reeloo lead
ing us across catwalks and bridges as we made our way from neighborhood to neighborhood, from one turlossus to the next. While Solo was grumpy after his impromptu flight, I was enjoying myself thoroughly. Sometimes it is important to stop and smell the blueblossoms, they say. And as we went, I tried to learn what I could about my companions.
“You seem to have a lot of information,” I said to Mahjo. “What is in the safety-deposit box. Who has the key. Where they will be. Where to find Han Solo and Chewbacca.”
“I’ve just been plotting this job for a while. And Solo and Chewie aren’t hard to find if you visit the spaceports and ask around.”
“People talk about their exploits?”
“They talk a lot about themselves. And they seem to get in a lot of trouble. But it is—very important—that we succeed.”
“Because you want the Novian rubies? That I understand. They are rare and wondrous. But there are other ways to make money. Is there more to it?”
She gave me a funny look then.
“It’s not just the money.”
“Not just the money. Ha, ha, that is another good one.”
“Don’t you ever want to make a difference in the galaxy?” she asked.
“A difference? Of course I do. I want to make a difference in my credit amount. I want it to go up and up and up.”
“For once I agree with you, pirate,” said Han Solo. I didn’t like the way he put a sour note on the last word though.
“You say ‘pirate’ like it is a bad thing,” I said to him. “A pirate is a noble professional. He meets his enemies face to face. If not always in a fair fight, at least he gives them a chance. Not like a mere smuggler, who hides like a roach-rat, scuttling about in the dark.”
“Watch who you’re calling a roach-rat,” said Solo. “I can change my mind and have Chewie toss you off this turlossus as easily as out an airlock.”
We were at that point crossing a bridge that swayed in the winds. I looked down between the planks under my feet at the grasslands far below.
“Perhaps we are getting off on the wrong foot,” I said.
Solo gave me a funny look. Perhaps he thought I was making a joke about his disastrous first step off of the Falcon.
“Relax, my friend,” I said. “In some ways, you remind me of myself as a young man.”
Solo snorted at that, but Chewbacca gave me a questioning “Arrrgrrr?”
“You?” I said. “You remind me of a carpet I once owned.”
“Grrrrrupmprrr!” Chewie growled.
“Now, now,” I replied hastily, “no need to take offense, my hairy friend. It was a very nice carpet.”
I don’t know that it was the best thing to say, but I meant it sincerely.
Finally, we got where we were going.
“There he is,” said Mahjo.
She pointed to a pavilion over our heads, where many people were gathered enjoying drinks and the view over the grasslands.
I saw a young man, human, tall and skinny with wild, frizzy blue hair sticking out the very top of his head.
“Look at him. He reminds me of an electrostaff I used to wield,” I said. “Who is he?”
“His name is Jayyar Lu-wehs,” explained Mahjo. “He’s no one. Just the spoiled son of a weapons merchant, who comes here to wine and dine his boredom away.”
“I feel better about robbing him already,” I said.
“I didn’t think you felt bad about it before,” said Solo, giving me a funny look.
“I never do. But now I feel even better.”
“So how do we get the key away from him?” Solo asked.
“Have a little faith in old Hondo,” I said.
“I don’t have faith in anything,” he replied. “Except myself, and maybe Chewie. So I need to know before you go running in there with some half-baked plan,” said Solo.
“Well, my friend, it is all a matter of deflection and suggestion.”
I stepped into an empty alleyway, motioning for my companions to follow.
“You see, unless you have the twelve eyes of a Vuvrian, most people can only focus on one thing at a time. So the way to take something off a mark is to tell them you are going to take something else.”
“Ridiculous,” said Solo.
“No?” I replied. “I’m going to take your belt buckle.”
“Over my dead body you will,” said Solo, bristling.
“No, no, nothing so extreme. But I am going to steal the buckle nonetheless. Say, that is a mighty fine jacket you have there.” And at that I stepped in and began to finger the fabric of Han Solo’s jacket. “And where did you get this shirt?”
I moved my right hand across his chest and shoulders, touching and talking, my eyes never leaving his. It irritated him, I could tell, but half his attention was on the hand that was doing the poking and prodding while the other half was protecting the belt buckle, because that was what he thought I was after. He kept slapping my fingers away, and I kept smiling and moving them.
Then with my left hand, I held up something else.
“Look here. Is this your blaster?” I asked.
“Hey!” shouted Solo. “Give that back.”
“Hrrrr hrrrr hrrrr,” laughed Chewie in his Wookiee way.
“But how did you do that?” asked Mahjo. “Weren’t you going after his belt buckle?”
“No, the blaster was my target all along,” I said. “But by giving Solo something else to worry about, and distracting him more with my slightly-too-familiar compliments about his tailoring, and my poking and prodding, he could not notice when I eased his blaster out, and tah-dah—it’s mine.”
“Not anymore,” said Solo, reaching out to take his gun back. “And you won’t be taking that again.”
“Not unless I need to.” I smiled. “But you see? It works. Leave it to Hondo, and we will have our key in no time.”
So we crossed a swaying platform to the next turlossus, and we made our way up a flight of stairs to the pavilion. And there was Jayyar, laughing and joking with his hoity-toity friends. Behind him was a Gigoran, nearly as big as Chewbacca but with cream-colored hair. The Gigoran did not seem to be enjoying himself. He was not drinking or eating but was eyeing the crowd warily with yellow eyes. I thought he might be a servant, perhaps a bodyguard of some kind. That would be a little more complicated. But I was optimistic.
I pointed at a passing service droid with a tray on its head.
“Somebody buy me a drink,” I said.
“Buy your own drink,” said Solo.
“I am short on credits at the moment,” I explained. “And anyway, I need it for a prop.”
Grumbling, Solo took a drink off the droid. Then he took a sip of it first before handing it to me.
“Keep your smuggler germs to yourself,” I said.
“Relax, Hondo, I thought you only needed it for a prop,” he said with a cocky grin.
Well, I grumbled a bit at that but not for long. Hondo is never down for long—not when there is profit in the air.
So I walked into the pavilion, swinging my step like I was just another rich patron enjoying the wonderful day.
“Jayyar Lu-wehs!” I called out. “As I live and breathe. How have you been?”
Jayyar looked up at me then, a puzzled expression on his skinny face.
“I’m sorry—do I know you?”
“Do you know me? Ha, ha, what a kidder. Why, Jayyar, I have known you since you were a youngling only so high.” At that I held my hand out like so, and then I glanced over the pavilion rail down to the ground far, far below. “And now look at you! You are even higher!”
It was a little joke, but Jayyar did not smile.
“Are you sure you belong here?” he asked. He frowned as he took in my clothing, which I admit was a little rough for the establishment. I may have a flair for fashion, but it is a pirate’s fashion, after all.
“Is this person bothering you?” the Gigoran asked. The hostility he felt toward me was evident even through his translat
ing vocoder.
“Bothering? No. It is I, Honda Ohnaka, friend of Jayyar’s father and not a pirate up to no good. But my, what a nice timepiece you are wearing! Would you give it to me?”
“Give it to you?”
“I do not have one, but I think I loaned one to your father just like that. Perhaps it is the same one.”
And then, of course, I directed all Jayyar’s attention to his timepiece. He was still confused by my clever deception and wary I might be trying to steal something from him or otherwise trick him in some way.
But as I ran my free hand through his various pockets, I was not finding any keys to any safety-deposit boxes. That was very confusing to me, because I knew from Mahjo the key must always be somewhere on his person or very nearby or it would cease to function. But it wasn’t on him. Not at all.
“Look, I’m sorry, but I really have no idea who you are,” said Jayyar, stepping back and pushing me away. “I don’t want to be rude, but I’m going to rejoin my companions now. If you like, I can have Sluncan here buy you another drink.”
“Sluncan?” I said. We were both looking at the hairy Gigoran. “You don’t buy your own drinks?”
“No, my bodyguard keeps all my valuables,” said Jayyar. “It’s safer that way, don’t you think?”
“And…you trust him with your things? What if he wanders off?”
“He’s never more than a meter from my side.”
Always within a meter. Well, that was bad. It seemed the key wasn’t on Jayyar Lu-wehs’ person at all. It was on his hairy companion’s. And that was more difficult. Because the Gigoran did not have any pockets. Or if he did, I could not see inside all that hair.
“I see,” I said. “Well, I am sorry you do not remember me, Jayyar. Perhaps another time then.”
I stepped back so I was alongside my companions.
“Han Solo,” I said, “the key is not on Jayyar. It is on his fuzzy bodyguard. We need a new plan.”
“What do you have in mind?” asked Solo.
“I’m going to compare you to something unsavory, say dianoga droppings, and you are going to throw a punch at me.”