Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina by Kevin J. Anderson

Author:Kevin J. Anderson [Anderson, Kevin J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, SciFi, Star Wars, Imperial Era
ISBN: 0553564684
Publisher: Del-Rey

What with the commotion of Imperial troops coming into Mos Eisley to search for a pair of droids, the sudden rumors of a Sand People massacre on an outlying farm, and the firefight at Docking Bay 94 ending with a smuggling craft’s illegal liftoff, nobody found Feltipern Trevagg’s body until the following afternoon.

“Didn’t anybody tell him?” demanded Wuher the bartender, brought over to the Mos Eisley Inn by Balu’s deputy to view the body and give the security officer his deposition.

“Tell him what?” Balu looked up from jotting on his logpad. He’d never much liked the Gotal, but that kind of death—evisceration with what looked to have been a long, thin knife, skillfully wielded—was something he wouldn’t have wished on anyone.

“About H’nemthe.” When Balu continued to look blank, the bartender added, “The girl he was with. The H’nemthe female.”

“Nightlily?” Balu was startled. The girl had looked too frightened by her surroundings—and too dazzled by Trevagg’s charms—to have harmed a hair of the Gotal’s head.

“Was that her name?” Wuher rolled his eyes. “It figures.”

A small crowd had gathered. Of course, none of the Imperial stormtroopers and none of the Prefect’s guard, either. A murder this small wasn’t worth their time. Balu couldn’t help observing Nackhar in the background slipping the coroner’s deputy a few credits. For what, he decided not to ask.

“The m’iiyoom—the nightlily—is a carnivorous flower that feeds on small rodents and insects that try to drink its nectar,” said the barkeep, hands on hips and looking down at the dark-stained sheet the coroner had laid over what was left of Trevagg. “After mating, H’nemthe females gut the males with those tongues of theirs—they’re as sharp as sword blades, and a lot stronger than they look. Some kind of biological reaction to there being twenty H’nemthe males for every female. The males seem to think it’s worth it, to achieve the act of love. I saw them together in the cantina, but I didn’t think Trevagg was crazy enough to try to bed the girl.”

“He was always bragging about being such a great hunter,” said Balu wonderingly, stepping aside for the coroner’s deputies to carry the body out of the dingy and bloodstained room. “You’d have thought he’d sense it coming.”

“How could he?” The barkeep tucked big hands into his belt, followed the officer back out to the street. “For her it was the act of love, too.”

He shrugged, and quoted an old Ithorian proverb current in some sections of the spaceways: “N’ygyng mth’une vned ‘isobec’ k’chuv ‘ysobek.’”

Which, loosely translated, means: “The word for ‘love’ in one language is the word for ‘dinner’ in others.”

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