Star Wars_ The Approaching Storm - Alan Dean Foster [10]
What a strange Padawan, she mused, and what an even stranger young man. They were more or less the same age, yet in some ways he struck her as childlike, while in others he seemed much older than her. She wondered if she would have time enough to get to know him better. She wondered if anyone would have time enough to get to know him. She certainly hadn’t, during their brief encounters at the Jedi Temple. Just then thunder boomed overhead, and for some reason she could not quite put a finger on she was afraid it signified the approach of more than just rain.
Ogomoor was not happy. Walking as slowly as was acceptable down the high hallway of the bossban’s quarters, he tried his best to ignore the sideways glances of busy servants, clerks, and workers scurrying to and fro. Though as the bossban’s majordomo he outranked them all, the lowliest among them exhibited more confidence and contentment than he. Even the blue-green Smotl known as Ib-Dunn, arms overflowing with hard communications larger than himself, bestowed a pitying look on the majordomo as Ogomoor stepped over him without, characteristically, disturbing so much as a single piece of the far smaller worker’s burden.
They had reason to pity him today, he knew, and he had reason to be pitied. Be they good or bad, it was his job to report in person all major developments to Bossban Soergg the Hutt. Present news to be delivered being exceedingly unpleasant, Ogomoor had spent much of the morning devoutly praying for the intercession of some fever-inducing, preferably highly contagious disease. Regrettably, both he and the bossban remained in perfect health.
Whether that would allow him to weather the forthcoming meeting with Soergg remained open to much speculation—and some spirited informal wagering—among his coworkers. Not one among them failed to favor him with less than a genuinely sorrowful look. Amazing how quickly word of bad news spread among the lower ranks, he mused in one of the few moments when he was not drowning in self-pity.
Turning a corner, he found himself standing before the entrance to the bossban’s office and inner sanctum. A pair of heavily armed Yuzzem flanked the doorway. They regarded him disdainfully, as though he were already flayed and dead. With a shrug, he announced himself via the comm unit. Might as well get it over with, he decided.
Bossban Soergg the Hutt was a grayish, heaving, flaccid lump of flesh and muscle only another Hutt could possibly find attractive. He had his back to the door and his hands folded in front of him, staring out the wide polarized window that gave a sweeping view of Lower Cuipernam. Off to one side, three of his concubines were playing bako. They were presently unchained. One was human, one Brogune, the other representative of a species Ogomoor to this day did not recognize. What Soergg did with them the majordomo could barely imagine. When the Brogune looked up and eyed him sadly, with all four eyes, no less, Ogomoor knew he was in deep mopak.
Soergg heaved himself around, turning away from the window. The tiny automated custodial droid scurried to keep up with the movement, efficient if not enthusiastic at its assigned task of doing nothing but cleaning up after the Hutt’s trail of slime and tailings. Hands clasped over his prodigious gut, the Hutt glowered down at Ogomoor out of bulging, slitted eyes.
“So. You failed.”
“Not I, Omnipotent One.” Ogomoor bowed as low as was feasible, given the proximity of Hutt slime. “I hired only the best, those who were recommended to me. The failure was theirs, and that of those who recommended them. These unworthies I have already reprimanded. As for myself I was, as always, nothing more than your humble facilitator.”
“Hurrp!” Caught directly in the line of fire, with no tactful means of dodging, Ogomoor was compelled to suffer the full force of the bossban