Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [143]
Pothman nodded. He was rather like a shining robot himself in the white armor of a stormtrooper, a blaster slung at his side, except for the thin dark face with its lines of age, its gentle eyes and fluff of graying hair. “I’ll make sure the coast stays clear,” he said, and gave a shy half smile. “You boys be careful in there.”
Threepio halted in turning away, running a swift scan of possible intentions to see if the slight sensation of offense he experienced was appropriate, but Nichos, in a sudden rare flash of humanity, grinned.
In the mess hall, the celebration was going full swing. Imperial battle stations and cruisers were equipped with automatic limiters on the total amount of alcohol they could produce at any one time but the Eye’s designers had reckoned without the brewing skills of Gamorrean females. Dish after brimming dish of heady potwa beer were dippered out of the giant plastic oil drum that stood in the middle of the room; the tables were strewn with stews, steaks, and fragments of sodden bread; a bowl of beer clattered off the wall beside Threepio the moment he put his head around the door, and he drew back hastily.
There were shouts in the room, “I got him!” “No, you didn’t!” “Well, I’ll get him this time!”
“Come on, Threepio,” said Nichos resignedly. “We’ve got sealed circuits. We might as well get this over with.”
“Really, the things I’ve had to put up with …”
Threepio braced himself visibly and stepped back through the door. Bowls of beer and plates shied discus-wise clacked and bounced off the wall beside him as he made his way toward the food slots, Nichos in his wake. The Gamorreans weren’t any better with tableware than they were with blaster carbines or handguns; one bowl caught the golden droid glancingly on the back and doused him with beer, but that was the extent of it. An argument immediately developed among the Gamorreans as to whether the hit counted. It turned violent, Gakfedds hammering one another with plates, axes, and chairs, screaming and squealing, while Bullyak sat back and smiled benevolently upon the scene in utter content.
Part of the programming of a protocol droid was to understand not only the language, but the customs and biologies of the various sentient races of the galaxy. Though he understood that intense sexual competitiveness for the attention of the Alpha female underlay all the outrageous violence of Gamorrean society—though he realized that, biologically and socially, the Gamorreans had no choice but to behave, think, and feel as they did—the droid felt a momentary flash of sympathy for Dr. Mingla’s irrational prejudices against individuals who behaved exactly as they were programmed to behave.
Threepio bypassed the limiters on the food slots with a few simple commands—the language was absurdly easy—and asked for twenty gallons of Scale-5 syrup. When the half-gallon containers started appearing behind the plexi shields, he drew them out and handed them to Nichos, who carried them back to the hall where Pothman waited with the sled. A large number of morrts, shaken off their hosts during the fight and evidently drawn to the sugary smell of the syrup, scurried over to investigate.
“Get away from here!” Threepio waved angrily. “Filthy things … shoo! Shoo!”
They sat up and regarded him with beady black eyes, tongues flicking in and out of the toothed lances of their probosci, but took no further notice of his gestures. The Gamorreans, now happily smashing one another over the head with tables, took no notice of him at all.
When Threepio had borne the last of the containers out into the darkened hallway, he found Pothman and Nichos flattened, with the sled, against the wall to let an armed column of Affytechans pass—188 of them, Threepio counted, and “armed” with brooms, fragments of dissected SPs, pieces of pipe, and blaster carbines gutted of their power cells, all held weaponlike over their shoulders.
“Riiight—turn! Paraaade—march!” Their commander’s voice snapped briskly as they vanished into the utter darkness of the hall.
“Really,” said the