Star Wars_ Darksaber - Kevin J. Anderson [71]
Leia bowed slightly. “Thank you. But I want to meet with Lord Durga. He invited us here.”
“Ah, I have summoned him, Madam President. He is coming with all due haste.” The scrawny Hutt envoy leaned over the barge railing.
“Good,” Han muttered. “I’m not exactly crazy about the idea of staying for very long.”
“I am Korrda, special envoy and slave to Lord Durga. I am not worthy, but it has fallen upon me to entertain you until he can be here in person.”
“Oh, that’s very nicely said,” Threepio said.
Korrda seemed pleased. “I hope you find my Basic acceptable. Lord Durga insists that all his entourage learn the language so that we might better work with the New Republic. Might I offer you suitable hospitality in the meantime?”
“We can’t be sure quite what a Hutt means by hospitality,” Han said quietly. “As I recall, I’ve experienced a little of it myself.”
Korrda made a hissing, sizzling sound that Leia identified as a strained laugh. “Ah yes, Han Solo—I am aware of your dealings with the defeated Jabba, may his name be spoken with scorn. He is a worthless worm. No Hutt respects the memory of one whose empire has fallen. You will be pleased to note that the Hutts have lifted the bounty on both of you as an initial overture of peace.”
“How very … heartening,” Leia said with an acid-sweet smile. “Now, should we climb aboard that sailbarge, or were you planning to keep us standing here, shouting at each other in the rain all day?”
“Ah, certainly!” Korrda reared back, gesturing with his sinewy hands as a wide ramp extended to the ground.
They climbed up the ramp onto the barge. Their stoic-looking New Republic escorts remained as stony-faced as the sailbarge guards. Korrda did his best to be obsequious, and simpered as the sailbarge raised itself up, drifting away from the spaceport and across the open spaces toward the palace.
Spiders and gnats swarmed around the spiky grasses below. Roughly circular, shallow pools dotted the landscape, covered with a greenish scum. Overhead in the thin rain, flocks of large, clumsy birds squawked as they flew along, chased by rowdy henchmen on swoops who shot them with long-range blaster rifles. Smoking bird carcasses tumbled out of the sky and plopped into the bog.
Durga’s palace rose taller as they approached, a nightmare of towers and crenelations with large jawed gates—plus an underground network of dungeons so vast it had achieved galactic renown.
“Ah, I don’t know how long it will take for Durga to return,” Korrda said as the sailbarge docked in the cavernous hangar bay, “but since I’m responsible for amusing you, would you like a tour of our dungeon levels? You’ll find them most fascinating.”
“No dungeons,” Leia said. “Thanks anyway.”
“Not interested,” Han concurred. “We’ve seen enough dungeons to last us for the next century or so.”
“Oh,” Korrda said, obviously disappointed and at a loss for what to do as a backup plan.
Leia had been unable to sense anything from the opaque mind of Durga the Hutt. Korrda was much weaker, but all she could sense was flustered uncertainty and a nervous frustration, no deception. Korrda honestly didn’t know what was going on, but he was afraid his neck was on the line.
Leia’s Jedi powers also brought her many bad impressions from the palace itself, lingering echoes of pain and imprisonment, thoughts of murder and betrayal that seemed to ooze from the stones. It overwhelmed her, and she quickly shut her senses down again.
“Ah, perhaps we should dine instead,” Korrda suggested. “We always have freshly slaughtered meats and succulent delicacies. There will be other members of Durga’s family in attendance. It might be good to meet them.”
“That would be acceptable,” Leia said, inclining her head in a regal nod.
Han muttered, “I don’t know … having dinner with a bunch of Hutts doesn’t sound much more pleasant than touring torture chambers.”
Inside the dining hall, carrion birds sat perched on stone lintels,