Star Wars: Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina by Kevin J. Anderson

Author:Kevin J. Anderson
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Star Wars fiction, Space Opera, General, Science fiction, American, English, Fiction, Short stories
ISBN: 9780553564686
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published: 1995-07-01T07:00:00+00:00

I exhale, feel proboscii quiver, turn slowly to take my measure of the cantina. The direction is easily gained, and as I mark it I cannot help but smile; the old man and his pupil have gone into one of the cubicles. It is not them I scent now, but those with whom they speak: a hulking Wookiee, and a humanoid male.

-soup-

It boils up quickly, powerfully, so quickly and so powerfully I cannot help but mark it. It leaves me breathless.

Not the old Jedi, who is disciplined, and shielded. Not the boy, who is young and unripe. Not the Wookiee, who is passive in all but loyalty. The humanoid. The Corellian.

Anzati are long-lived. Memory abides.

A curl of smoke winds its way from my pipe. Through the wreath of it I smile. He is wanted, as is the Wookiee, but all entities in Chalmun's cantina are wanted somewhere. Even I am wanted, or would be; no one knows who or what I am, or what I am wanted for, and in that there is continuance.

I am careful in the hunt, always meticulous in those details others ignore, and too often die of; I require confirmation. I commit nothing until I am certain.

In this instance confirmation and certainty need little time and less patience. The Jedi and his pupil depart, but are immediately replaced by a Rodian. He is nervous. His soup is so insubstantial as to be nonexistent; he is servant, not served.

He is coward. He is fool. He is incompetent. He is slow to commit himself. And thus he is dead in a burst of contraband blaster in the hand of a wholly committed and consummate pirate.

-soup-

I exult even as proboscii twitch expectantly. It is here, here-and now, right now, this moment . . . the hue, the tint, the whisper, the shout, the evanescence of soup incarnate, enfleshed and unshielded, and rich, so rich-I need only to go and to get it, to drink it, to embrace as Anzati embrace, to dance the dance with the Corellian whose soup is thick, and hot, and sweet, sweeter by far than any I have tasted for too long a time-Now.

Now.

But haste dilutes fulfillment. Let there be time, and patience.

-such soup-The band wails on. There is the sharp scent of smoke; the acrid tang of sweat; the smut-dusty stench of dune sand, of city sand; the blatancy of blaster death but newly encountered, redolent of the Rodian's cowardice and stupidity. It was a poor death worth no comment; he will not be mourned even by the entity who hired him.

He is-was-the Hutt's, of course. Need you ask? There is none other who would dare to hire assassins in Mos Eisley, on Tatooine.

None but Lord Vader, and the Emperor.

But they are not here. Only Jabba.

The Hutt is in all things; is of himself all things, and everywhere, on Tatooine, in Mos Eisley, in Chahnun's cantina.

-such soup-A final inhalation of t'bac, sucked deep inside and savored, as is the moment, the knowledge, the need itself savored.

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