Star Wars_ Tales From Jabba's Palace - Kevin J. Anderson [60]
Ortugg snorted in disgust. “You’re looking for the boy’s killer?”
“Yes!”
Ortugg snuffled, chuckling, and caught Rogua’s eye. “You figure it out by the next time we leave, you can come. Now get out! And don’t bring that thing back here!”
“And try speaking in complete sentences!” Rogua yelled.
Snuffled and snorted laughter followed Gartogg as he turned and trudged away from the quarters.
Now, however, Gartogg no longer felt as tired as before. He was too excited. This could be his chance.
“Maybe sail barge,” he said optimistically to the kitchen boy.
Some sort of maggot crawled into the kitchen boy’s ear. A blackened tongue hung from the slack mouth. Other bugs wandered all over the corpse’s face.
“Go see sail barge,” said Gartogg. “Want to?”
The corpse still dripped fluids of various colors and viscosities and the bugs ate more and more of the remaining tissue. Still, the body had become only a little lighter than before. Gartogg plodded toward the docking area behind Jabba’s throne room where the sail barge waited, just to gaze at it for a moment.
On the way, Gartogg saw a B’omarr monk wearing an earring moving along a darkened hall up ahead.
“Monk,” Gartogg snuffled softly to the kitchen boy. “Ask monk for clues. Okay?”
The monk slipped away around a corner. Gartogg hurried after him, but did not call out. He was afraid of waking people up.
For a moment, Gartogg lost track of the monk. Then he heard a couple of voices around another corner and hurried toward them. Before he saw anyone, a thump reached him.
When he came around the corner, he found J’Quille, a Whiphid, kneeling over the monk, who lay on his back covered by the bloody folds of his robe. The Whiphid wore a vibroblade in his scabbard and clutched something in his hand. Startled, Gartogg wheezed and snorted in surprise, then grunted uncomfortably.
J’Quille said nothing.
Gartogg adjusted the kitchen boy over his shoulder and moved forward cautiously.
The monk didn’t move.
“Is he sleeping?” Gartogg asked. That was a complete sentence. He wished Rogua had heard him.
J’Quille stood up. “He’s not dead; he’s, uh, meditating. Gone into a deep trance. Pondering the imponderables.”
Gartogg wrinkled his snout and snorted thoughtfully, studying the monk.
“The blood? He wanted to see if he’d reached the final stage of enlightenment. He decided to do a little testing on his own to see if he was ready before he asked his friends to surgically remove his brain.”
Gartogg grimaced. Grunting in puzzlement, he pointed at the monk’s head and then to the blood on his chest. “Uh—”
The Whiphid shrugged. “That’s where their brains are. In their chests. It makes it easier to remove them.”
Snuffling nervously, Gartogg frowned. If the monk’s brain was in his chest, what did he need a head for? In any case, the monk shouldn’t meditate in the hall any more than that Weequay should sleep in one; someone might trip over him.
J’Quille watched Gartogg carefully, silent now.
“Can’t meditate here.” He bent down and worked the body of the monk over his free shoulder. Then he straightened. Maybe this mysterious monk, meditating with the brain in his bloody chest, was part of a conspiracy regarding the kitchen boy.
The Whiphid stepped aside and waited without speaking.
Gartogg, hoping he was about to find the answer to these murders, plodded away under the weight of the two bodies, one meditating and one rotting …
As Gartogg continued his endless trudging up the hall, he watched the floor carefully for more meditating monks. If he tripped over one, he would drop the two guys he was carrying and might fall on the new one. However, he found no one all day.
“We better stop,” said a woman’s voice from around another corner. “I heard something—heavy footsteps coming this way.”
“Maybe we should see what it is,” said a man.
“Forget it,” said the woman. “Not in this place. Just leave it alone.”
“All right, come on.”
Gartogg heard