Star Wars_ Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina - Kevin J. Anderson [122]
It is too much to hope the cantina owner might install more lights, or improve his Queblux Power Train, identifiable by its lamentable lack of efficiency and a low, almost inaudible whine. Such repairs would be at odds with Chalmun’s nature, which is dictated by distrust; deals are done at dusk, not under the fixed, unmitigated glare of Tatoo I and Tatoo II, conflagrations of eyes in the countenance of a galaxy that is, much as the Emperor’s face, shrouded within a cowled hood.
Ah, but there is more here, inside, than relief from sand, from heat. There is the scent, the promise of satiation.
—soup—
It is thick, so thick—at first I am overwhelmed; this is better than I remembered: so many layers and tastes, the hues, the tints, the whispers … here I may drink for endless days, replete with satisfaction.
Ahh.
So many entities, so many flavors, so much Luck to eat. Chance is corporeal here, variety infinite. It is a symphony of soup running hot and fast and wet, like blood ever on the boil beneath the fragile tissue of flesh.
I am not droid, the detector says; I am welcome in Chalmun’s cantina. And I laugh in the privacy of my mind, because Chalmun, contented by his bias, doesn’t know there are things in the world more detestable than droids, which are on the whole inoffensive, unassuming, and more than a little convenient. But leave a man his bigotry; if they were all like the Rebel Alliance, so intransigent in honor, the soup would be weak as gruel.
—soup—
In cheek pockets, proboscii quiver. For an instant, only an instant, they extrude a millimeter, overcome by the heady aroma detectable only to Anzati; the others, despite races and genders, are in all ways unaware. But nothing is earned without anticipation; it is a fillip wholly invigorating, and worth the self-denial.
Accordingly proboscii withdraw, if resentfully, coiling back into the pockets beside my nostrils. I brush a film of sand from my sleeves, tug the jacket into place, and walk down the four steps into the belly of the bar.
Soup here is plentiful.
Patience will be rewarded.
He is at first disbelieving. A sour, sullen, mud-faced man, doughy-pale despite double suns, somewhat lumpy and misshapen as if he were unfinished, or perhaps unmade later in the small hostilities of his life. A long blob of a swollen nose downturned above a loose-lipped mouth. His clothing is unkempt, his hair lank and stringy. He does not remember me.
Courtesy is nonexistent; in Mos Eisley, in Chalmun’s cantina from Chalmun’s bartender, none is expected. “You want what?”
“Water,” I repeat.
Dark eyes narrow minutely. “You know where you are?”
“Oh,” I say, smiling, “indeed.”
He jerks a spatulate thumb beyond his shoulder. “I got a computer back there that mixes sixteen hundred varieties of spirits.”
“Oh, indeed, so I would imagine. But I want the one it can’t mix.”
He scowls. “Ain’t cheap, is it? This is Tatooine. Got the credits for it?”
His soup is slow, and weak, its scent barely discernible. He is servant, not the served, not one who acknowledges edges or assumes risks beyond setting a glass before a patron; he would offer little pleasure, and less satisfaction.
But there are those who would. And all of them are here.
I withdraw from a pocket a single flat coin. It glints in wan light: clean, ruddy gold. It is not precisely a credit chip, but it will nonetheless buy my water. On Tatooine, they know it. In Mos Eisley they know to fear it.
The bartender moistens his lips. Eyes slide aside, busying themselves with glaring at a tiny Chadra-Fan coming up to ask for libation. “Jabba’s marker ain’t any good here,” he mutters, and reaches beneath the bar into his hidden reserve to bring forth an ice-rimed crystal container of costly chilled water.
I leave