Star Wars_ Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina - Kevin J. Anderson [37]
“What’ll you have?” a surly voice asked.
Shada focused on the bartender standing there in front of them. The expression on his face matched his voice; but there seemed to be some recognition behind the indifference in his eyes.
Enough to risk an experiment. “We’ll have the usual,” she told him.
He grunted and busied himself at the bar. Shada glanced at Karoly’s suddenly aghast expression, winked reassuringly, and turned back as the bartender put two slender glasses in front of them. He grunted again and walked away.
Shada picked up her glass, willing the tension to flow out of her. “Cheers,” she said, lifting the glass to Karoly.
“Are you crazy?” Karoly hissed back.
“Would you rather I had ordered something way out of character for us?” Shada asked, taking a careful sip. Some kind of Sullustan wine, she decided. “Let’s get started.”
Still glowering, Karoly pulled the slender cylinder of their spies’ scanner/datapad from her jumpsuit and flicked it on. “All right,” she muttered, glancing back and forth between it and the cantina’s patrons. “The fellow with the loop pipe … never mind, he’s an assassin. Those two Duros over there … no listing here for them.”
“Their flight suits look too neat for smugglers, anyway,” Shada said. Across the bar, an old man with white hair and beard and dressed in a brown robe stepped up to the Wookiee and his tall companion. There was a short conversation between the two humans, and then the tall human gestured to the Wookiee and wandered away. “What about that Aqualish over there?”
“I was just checking him,” Karoly said, peering down at the end of the scanner. “Name’s Ponda Baba, and he’s definitely a smuggler. That scarface beside him—”
“Hey!” the bartender barked.
Shada stiffened, her hand reaching reflexively for her hidden knife.
But the bartender wasn’t looking at her. “We don’t serve their kind here,” he snapped, gesturing sharply.
“What?” came a voice from behind her.
Shada turned around. At the top of the steps stood a boy about her own age, dressed in loose white clothing and frowning in puzzlement at the bartender. Beside him were two droids, a protocol droid and an astromech unit similar to Cai’s Deefour model. “Your droids,” the bartender growled. “They’ll have to wait outside—we don’t want them here.”
The kid spoke briefly to the droids, who turned and scurried back out. Continuing down the steps alone, he moved over to the bar and gingerly wedged himself in between the Aqualish and the old man in the brown robe.
“The scarface is named Dr. Evazan,” Karoly said. “I’ve got ten death sentences listed here for him.”
“For smuggling?” Shada asked, frowning at the brown-robed old man. There was something about him; some sense of quiet alertness and self-control and power that set the hairs tingling on the back of her neck.
“No,” Karoly said slowly. “Botched surgical experiments. Yecch.”
“We’ll keep him in mind as a last resort,” Shada said, her eyes and thoughts still on the brown-robed man. Whoever he was, he definitely didn’t fit in with the rest of the clientele. An Imperial spy, perhaps? “That old man over there—do a check on him,” she told Karoly. The kid was still standing on his other side, gawking around like a tourist. Were they together? Grandfather and grandson, maybe, in from the countryside to see the big city?
And then, abruptly, the Aqualish gave the kid a shove and snarled something at him. The kid looked at him blankly, then turned back to the bar. Stepping away from the bar, smiling rather like a predator preparing himself for lunch, Dr. Evazan tapped the kid on the shoulder. “He doesn’t like you,” he said.
“Sorry,” the kid breathed, starting to turn away again.