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But making his way to the outgate, Luke turned a corner and was taken aback by the brilliantly lit exterior of a club bar called Jabba’s Throne Room. Performing Nightly—The Original Max Rebo Band, said the scroll. Visit Jabba’s Guest Quarters with a Pleasure Slave. Face the Mighty Rancor in the Pit of Death—

Driven by an outraged curiosity, Luke joined the line and paid the membership charge without haggling. Inside, he descended a curving flight of stairs into a remarkably faithful copy of the throne room in Jabba’s desert palace on Tatooine. Some of the dimensions had been stretched to accommodate more tables in front of the bandstand and around the rancor pit, but the architecture and atmosphere were authentic.

“Why, it’s just like the Palace Museum,” Li Stonn said to the tall and elegantly dressed Twi’lek barring the way at the bottom of the stairs.

“I’m afraid my master Jabba is away on business,” said the Bib Fortuna look-alike, nodding toward the empty dais. “But I’m having a little party in his absence, and I hope you’ll enjoy yourself.” His head-tails stirred in signal, and one of the scantily clad dancing girls hurried to him.

“Yes, Lord Fortuna,” the server said.

“Oola, this is a friend of mine,” said the major-domo. “Treat him well. Find him a seat at my best table.”

The same fiction was carried through everywhere else—an Ortolan keyboardist leading a jizz-wailer trio on the bandstand, the roaring of the rancor underfoot, an annoying Kowakian monkey-lizard skittering around the room stealing food and cackling rudely, even a carbon-frozen Han Solo hanging in the display alcove. But a busy kitchen was concealed down the corridor to the servant’s quarters, and the price card “Oola” left for him included various services available upstairs in the guest quarters and downstairs in Jabba’s dungeon.

It was tasteless and exploitative, but the music was surprisingly agreeable, the roast nerf was tantalizing, and the clientele was markedly more subdued than their counterparts out on the walks. Li Stonn ordered a drink and the executioner’s cut of nerf, refused all other offers with a polite smile, and settled in to discover the truth quotient of The Secrets of the Jedi.

Shortly after his meal arrived, Luke’s consciousness was pricked by hearing a familiar name spoken at a nearby table: Leia’s. He looked up, fearing that the evening’s entertainment at Jabba’s Throne Room would be a dance by a slave-girl-Leia look-alike. But the band was on a break and the transparisteel dance platform over the rancor pit deserted.

Luke extended his awareness, seeking the voice and the conversation that had intruded.

“This’ll lead to war,” the woman was saying. “And bravo for that. The Republic has every right to slap the Yevetha down for what they’ve done.”

“That’s nonsense,” her companion—a slender Lafran—retorted. “It’s like going into someone else’s home to break up an argument. Completely inappropriate.”

“We’re not talking about an argument. We’re talking about murder.”

“It’s still their business, not ours.”

“You can’t just let them get away with murder.”

“What does it matter to us what anyone does outside our borders? If we try to police the whole galaxy, we’ll always be at war. Organa Solo should just grow up and accept that the universe is an imperfect place.”

“That’s awfully cold,” the woman said. “It sounds like if you heard me screaming next door, you’d just complain about having your sleep disturbed.”

“We’re all responsible for protecting ourselves—and no one else,” the Lafran said, shrugging. “We have no business going into Farlax to pick a fight over someone else’s business. If a single Fleet pilot dies there, the Princess should be put on trial—for murder and treason.”

That brought a chilly end to the conversation. The woman left the club alone; shortly after, the Lafran disappeared up the stairs leading to the guest quarters. Luke returned his attention to his meal.

But when “Oola” came by with an unordered second drink,