Star Wars_ Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina - Kevin J. Anderson [86]
Brokering information is a chancy occupation, at best.
Can’t say I’m any good at it.
Long Snoot showed up toward late afternoon. It had been a good day until then; Wuher didn’t have musicians that day, and I hadn’t had to wear my ear plugs even once.
Long Snoot wanted to sell me information.
I smiled at him, in my corner booth as far away from the stage as I could get. The sharp smile. “That’s a new one. Pass.”
Long Snoot’s “name” is Garindan. I had a protocol droid do a search on the word once. In five different languages it meant “Blessed One,” “burnt wood,” “dust from a windstorm,” “ugly,” and “toast.” None of the five languages were spoken by a species that looked anything like Long Snoot’s.
Long Snoot’s the most successful spy in Mos Eisley. In a town with as many spies as this city has, that says something. He pays adequately for information; sometimes I give him information of value. Sometimes I even do it on purpose. “But Labria,” he wheedled, voice low, “this is a subject of particular interest to you.”
“Give me a hint.”
He shook his head, trunk waving gently in front of my face. I suppressed an uncivilized urge to swat it with a sharpened nail. (I often have the opportunity to exhibit Grace in dealing with Long Snoot.) “Fifty credits, Labria. You won’t regret it.”
I thought about it. I took a sip of the acid gold and swished it around my back teeth for a bit. I could feel it helping keep them sharp. “Fifty credits is a lot. Resellable?”
He scratched under his snout, thinking. “I can’t think to whom.”
Something of interest to me, but not resellable …
I could feel my ears straighten. “Who is it?”
“Fift—”
“I’ll pay. Who’s onplanet?”
“Figri—”
I came up out of my seat. “Fiery Figrin Da’n is on Tatooine?”
He made an urk noise. “People … are … looking.”
I looked around. Some of them were, in fact. Odd, having all those eyes on me. I let go of Long Snoot, and they turned away. “Sorry. Bit excitable.”
He rubbed his throat. “Your nails need trimming.”
“I expect they do.” He sat back down again, but I was too excited. “The band is with him?”
“Fifty credits.”
A snarl rose in the back of my throat. I pulled out a fifty-credit note and dropped it into his outstretched hand, and tried to keep the growl out of my voice when I spoke. “Who?”
“They’re playing for Jabba.”
“All of them?”
“The Modal Nodes.”
“That’s them,” I said, unable to keep the excitement out of my voice. “Doikk Na’ts on the Fizzz, Tedn Dahai and Ikabel G’ont on the Fanfar, Nalan Cheel on Bandfill, Tech Mo’r on the Ommni—”
“Yeah. Those are the names.”
Oh, my.
The greatest jizz band in the galaxy was in town.
I left earlier than usual, as soon as it was dark outside. Wuher nodded at me on my way out. “Tomorrow, Labria.”
I nodded at him and went outside into the hot night.
“Labria” is an extremely dirty word in my native tongue. It translates, roughly, as “cold food,” though the basic phrase loses the flavor of it.
By my horns, I don’t understand humans. I’ve lived around them close to two decades now. The things they swear by! Sex, excrement, and religion.
I’ll never understand them.
There are four hundred billion stars in the galaxy. Most of them have planets; about half have planets capable of supporting life. About a tenth of those worlds have evolved life of their own, and about one in a thousand of those worlds have evolved intelligent life forms.
These are rough numbers. There are well over twenty million intelligent races in the galaxy, though. No one can keep track of them all, not even the Empire.
I have no idea how many bounty hunters there are in Mos Eisley. Hundreds of professionals, I’m sure. Tens of thousands who would turn bounty hunter without a moment’s pause if the bounty were high enough, and if anyone knew of it.
The