Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [9]
Remembering Chewbacca, he resumed their conversation. “Like I said, we’ll pay Ploovo. This stop-off won’t take a minute. We’ll meet him right after, like we planned, square things, and go our way free and clear.”
The placated Wookiee carped noncommittally but fell in beside his partner again.
Because Etti IV’s monied classes required conspicuous means of demonstrating their wealth, the spaceport harbored several exotic pet stores, featuring rare or unique stock from the immeasurable expanses of the Empire. Subodor’s was, by general consensus, the best of them. It was there that Han went.
The store’s muting system, expensive as it was, couldn’t mask all the scents and sounds of the curious life forms somewhat loosely collected there under the dubious classification: Pets. Among the species on display were such premium specimens as the spidery night-gliders of Altarrn, the iridescent-feathered song serpents from the deserts of Proxima Dibal’s single planet, and the tiny, tubby, clownish marsupials from Kimanan that were commonly called furballs. Cages and cases, tanks and environmental bubbles, teemed with glowing eyes, restless tentacles, clicking chelae, and wobbling pseudopodia.
The proprietor instantly appeared, Sabodor himself, a denizen of Rakrir. His short, segmented, tubular body scuttled along on five pairs of versatile limbs, his two long eyestalks moving and rotating constantly. Seeing the pair, Sabodor rose up on his last two sets of limbs, his uplifted eyestalks reaching nearly to the level of Han’s chest, inspecting him from all angles.
“Ever so sorry,” Sabodor’s voice twittered from the cantilevered vocal organ located at the center of his midsection. “I don’t deal in Wookiees. They’re a sentient species; can’t use them as pets. Illegal. I’ve got no use for a Wookiee.”
Chewbacca cut loose with a furious roar, showing his fearsome teeth, stamping a hairy foot the size of a platter. Display racks shook and cases vibrated. Emitting a squeal, the terrified Sabodor scooted past Han, his foremost limbs clapped over his hearing orifices. The pilot tried to calm his big friend, while dozens of pets began chorusing their answering chitters, hums, screams, and tweets, bouncing around their respective confinements in fear and agitation.
“Chewy, easy! He didn’t mean it,” Han soothed, blocking the Wookiee from a violent laying of hands upon the quivering shopkeeper.
Sabodor’s trembling eyestalks appeared, one to either side of Han’s knees. “Tell the Wookiee no offense. An honest mistake, was it not? No insult intended.”
Chewbacca quieted somewhat. Han, remembering all the Security Police in port, was grateful. “We came in to buy something,” he told Sabodor as the proprietor rippled away from him in reverse gear. “Hear me? Buy.”
“Buy? Buy! Oh, come, sir, and see-see-see! Any pet worth having is to be had at Sabodor’s, best in the Sector. We have—”
Han had waved him to silence. He laid a friendly hand on the spot where the overwrought little shopkeeper’s shoulder would have been, if he’d had one. “Sabodor, I’m going to make this transaction easy. What I want is a Dinko. You have one?”
“Dinko?” Sabodor’s tiny mouth and olfactory cluster somehow cooperated with his recoiling eyestalks to convey disgust. “What for? A Dinko? Revolting, ugh!”
Han’s mouth tugged in a wry smile. He produced a handful of cash, riffling it invitingly. “Got one for me?”
“Can do! Wait right here!” Sabodor, undulating excitedly, flowed away into a back room. Han and Chewbacca barely had time to gaze around before the proprietor was back. In his upper two pairs of appendages he held a clear case. Inside was the Dinko.
Few creatures enjoyed the dubious notoriety accorded to Dinkoes, whose temperament