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He turned a stern look on his court jester. “Well, Salacious Crumb,” Jabba remarked, “that was louder, but I don’t think it was funnier.”

“Eh! Academics.” The Kowakian shrugged. “Publish or perish, publish or perish,” he parroted. He stressed each word with a whack of Melvosh Bloor’s datapad against the floor.

“Publish or …?” A slow, skin-prickling sound began to work its way out of the Hutt’s bulk until it broke from the Bloated One’s maw in a geyser of approving laughter. “Now that’s funnier!” Jabba decreed.

Salacious Crumb screwed up his face into a look of all-encompassing contempt for his master’s idea of a punch line. He tossed the datapad into the rancor pit. The rancor, who had no need to fidget and absolutely no sense of humor, tossed it back.

But of course the rancor already had tenure.

A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance: Oola’s Tale

by Kathy Tyers

Oola’s back throbbed from the roots of her lekku to the sandaled soles of her feet. She perched on the edge of Jabba’s dais, just as far from the Bloated One as her chain would allow. Foul smoke curled from his hookah. It hung acridly in the air, stinging her throat.

She shook her head, and the chain rattled. She’d tested every link of it, hoping it had a weak spot. It didn’t. For two days, two endless rounds of Tatooine’s twin burning suns, she hadn’t seen daylight. And she guessed she had only thwarted the hideous Hutt’s slobbering advances because he enjoyed punishing her as much as he anticipated her eventual submission.

They’d been careful, the Gamorreans who beat her this morning. She’d refused to dance closer to Jabba. Oola hunched down and tried to forget. Jabba’s flag-eared lizard-monkey had perched on her heel and cackled as the Gamorreans stretched her out and scientifically pummeled her. She’d hoped for bruises. They might make her repulsive to Jabba.

Her sponsor and fellow Twi’lek, Bib Fortuna, had crouched close and wrinkled his knobby brow. He communicated with twitches and whisks of his thick, masculine lekku. “Learn quickly! You cost me a fortune. Two fortunes. You will please him—even if his only enjoyment is watching you die.”

Oola had only two hopes left: to escape from this palace of death or, barring that, to die cleanly and well, and escape that way. Fortuna was the only person inside who spoke her language. The thought made her unbearably lonely. Master Fortuna sat at an alcove table, draping his lekku over the shoulders of Melina Carniss—a human dancer, dark-haired and almost pretty.

Jabba’s tail twitched. Oola wrapped her arms around her ankles. She’d learned only a few words of Huttese (“no,” “please no,” and “emphatically no”), but she was getting very good at reading the Hutt’s body language. Some thought had just pleased him.

An ancient free-verse song sprang to her mind: “Only a criminal prefers survival to honor. Love life too much, and you’ll lose the best reason for living.” She’d learned that song as a child. Life was dangerous. Oola desired life like water and she meant to drink death like wine, deeply and quickly.

But not too soon.

Then she heard what had already excited Jabba: struggling and shouting noises drifted down the entry stair. She could barely hear them through her headpiece. She’d seen Master Fortuna display the studded leather band to Jabba, speaking Huttese and stroking one knobby protrusion with a sharpened claw. Then he buckled it under her chin, the finishing touch on her costume.

Metal knobs on the headpiece protruded through leather into her delicate ears, blocking all but the loudest noises—such as Max Rebo’s contemptible singer Sy Snootles, and Jabba’s abhorrent invitations.

She raised her head to stare toward the entry. All around the throne, in dark recesses and corners of Jabba’s sand-strewn floor, courtiers roused from their daily business. Bib Fortuna turned toward mid-floor, then rose and glided forward.

Once she’d admired him. Now she despised his obsequious shuffling and the touch