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He shuddered.

He arose, a silly smile on his face.

“Wow!”

He looked over at his still, at the larger beaker, already almost half full of this deadly elixir, and with so much more still bubblingly in the works in the coils and guts of his makeshift lab.

“It’s even better than I’d hoped,” he said. “This is exactly the liqueur that will appeal to Jabba the Hutt.”

“Jabba the Hutt, Master?” said the droid. “Is he not the criminal gang lord of this territory?”

“Nonsense,” said Wuher. “He is wronged by his enemies. He will not only be my benefactor, but ultimately yours as well.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes. Of course. We’re going into business together, Ceetoo-Arfour. First we shall work for Jabba the Hutt. Then we shall shake the miserable dust of this detestable planet from our heels. Greatness, Ceetoo. We are destined for greatness!”

The rough bartender beamed at his new collaborator.

Ceetoo-Arfour stood in the very center of the alcove. Below a new item that extruded from his barrel side—a spigot—was a small bottle full of an emerald-gray liquid. Just a few small drops of this stuff had been sufficient to give Jabba’s liqueur its new and wonderful kick into the territory of greatness. Wuher, bioalchemist extraordinaire, was going to be able to keep Jabba the Hutt happy a very long time.

From the droid grill-jaw extruded a naked green alien foot, pausing for a moment before it too was processed to remove every last bit of precious juice in Ceetoo-Arfour’s excellent chemical extractors.

Hanging on a spike by the bubbling still was the other new occupant of Wuher’s bioalchemical alcove: the head of Greedo the Rodian. Nackhar had had to fight hard with those Jawas to procure the body. It had cost him several rounds of free drinks, but it had been worth it.

“Here’s to your pheromones, Greedo,” said Wuher the bartender, hoisting his dropper in toast. “Han Solo did both Rodian females and yours truly a vast favor.”

The head glared back blankly.

“I must say, the creature was a gnarly, gristly thing,” the droid said. “I’m afraid that my grinders shall be needing a sharpening after this arduous effort.”

Wuher grinned and winked. “Nothing’s too good for you, Ceetoo. Believe me, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

For, indeed, now Wuher the bartender had an entirely new attitude toward droids.

Nightlily:

The Lovers’ Tale

by Barbara Hambly

“Madam, I am most sorry.” Feltipern Trevagg switched off the computer screen above his desk with the air of being anything but. “If you don’t pay your water impost there isn’t anything I can do about your water line being shut. I don’t make the taxes.”

As it happened, he had made this one, or at least made the suggestion to the City Prefect of the Port of Mos Eisley that the water impost be raised twenty-five percent. But, Trevagg reasoned, rubbing his head cones as he listened once again to the Modbrek female’s frantic plea for more time, she probably wouldn’t have been able to come up with the original impost, so it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that now, through proper go-betweens of course, he’d be able to offer her a few thousand credits for her dwelling compound—which she’d be glad to accept, after going without water or food for a couple of days—and rent it out by the room. Provided, of course, he could arrange it with his go-betweens before the Prefect heard about it and outbid him.

The Modbrek female’s distress irritated him. Coming from another of his own species—another Gotal—it might have evoked pity, though Trevagg had been less ready than many of his compatriots to yield to emanations of wretchedness and fear. But Modbreks were in Trevagg’s opinion only semisentient, wispy ephemeral beings, hairless as slugs save for the grotesque masses of blue mane that streamed from their undeveloped heads, with huge eyes, and tiny noses and mouths in pointy pale faces. This female and her daughters, sending forth waves of anxiety, reacted on him as a kind of screechy music.

“Madam,” he said at last, sighing, “I’m not your father. And I’m not a charity worker.