Gartogg the Gamorrean guard was waddling through the dimly lit corridor of Jabba the Hutt’s palace toward the servants’ quarters on his assigned patrol when he heard a disturbance behind him. The main entry slammed shut and chains rattled; he paused, snorting thoughtfully. At the sound of a Wookiee roaring in protest, Gartogg hurried back toward the main entry, anxious to prove his worth to Ortugg, leader of the nine porcine Gamorreans working here for Jabba.
“Ortugg,” he gurgled. “Wait.”
The Wookiee roared again as a bounty hunter pulled his prisoner by his chains down the steps to the main audience chamber. Gartogg lumbered after them, hoping to get in a good shove or two, but he was too late—as usual. Ortugg and Rogua, the other Gamorrean posted at the main entry with the chief, followed the bounty hunter and the Wookiee.
“Prisoner?” Gartogg came up behind Ortugg.
“Shut up,” said Ortugg.
“Yeah, shut up.” Rogua shouldered Gartogg back out of the way.
Gartogg said nothing as he stumbled backward. Ortugg always treated him this way, but Gartogg knew he deserved it. He had never really earned his chief’s respect. Members of other species here always joked and complained about how stupid the Gamorreans were, but Gartogg didn’t believe that; to him, Ortugg, Rogua, and their other fellow guards seemed as intelligent as the rest of Jabba’s followers.
Jabba dickered with the bounty hunter as the crowd watched carefully.
“Boba Fett?” Gartogg asked, trying to shove between Ortugg and Rogua again.
“Of course not,” Ortugg muttered impatiently. “Boba Fett’s over there.” He pointed through the crowd with a thick green arm. “This bounty hunter’s called Boushh.”
“And the others call us stupid.” Rogua shook his head.
Jabba spoke to the visiting bounty hunter.
“He agrees!” one of the new droids interpreting for Jabba announced from Jabba’s dais.
Jabba signaled for the Gamorrean guards to haul the Wookiee down to the dungeon.
Ortugg and Rogua stepped forward to take the Wookiee’s chains.
“Me, too.” Gartogg lumbered after them.
Ortugg put a big green hand on his chest. “No. Go back to your patrol.”
“Sail barge,” Gartogg grunted frantically.
“What?”
“Sail barge?”
“Speak plainly, you idiot. What about it?”
“Want to go. Next time.”
“The rest of us Gamorreans speak in complete sentences!” Rogua whacked Gartogg on the side of his head with his open hand. “Why can’t you?”
Gartogg blinked dizzily from the blow, snuffling. “Huh?”
“You want to be assigned to the sail barge next time Jabba takes it out?” Ortugg demanded.
Gartogg snorted in the affirmative.
Rogua snorted contemptuously.
“You must earn that kind of assignment,” said Ortugg. “You never have.”
“Audience chamber?” Gartogg asked hopefully.
“No! Return to your patrol!”
Stung, Gartogg watched in disappointment as Ortugg and Rogua grabbed the Wookiee’s chains and dragged him away to the dungeon. As the band struck up their music, and the crowd in the audience chamber resumed their party, Gartogg plodded away. He never had any fun.
As he wandered the dark, empty corridors alone as usual, he snuffled and muttered to himself. Ortugg always ordered him to sentry duty at places where nothing ever happened. When off duty, Gartogg wandered Jabba’s palace in the hope of finding something important to do. Even his fellow Gamorrean guards didn’t want his company. Every time they had a special assignment, like protecting Jabba the Hutt on an excursion in his sail barge, they left Gartogg behind.
Footsteps up ahead told him someone was coming this way. Eagerly hoping for company, he looked up and saw two familiar humans, a pale, slender, brown-haired woman and a stocky man with black hair and slanted eyes. Gartogg had heard they were a couple of thieves hiding out with Jabba.
“Good evening,” he snorted enthusiastically.
Both humans flinched in surprise and stared at him.
“What did he say?” Quivering, the woman whispered without taking her eyes off Gartogg. “Ah Kwan, did you understand him?”
“Sorry, Quella,” said Ah Kwan. “I can’t tell what language that was.”
“Good evening,” Gartogg snorted, more loudly.
Both humans drew back.
“What do you want?” Ah Kwan rested one hand on the handle of a long knife at his belt. “What did you say?”
“Good evening!” Gartogg roared in frustration, raising his clawed fists.
The man and woman whirled and ran up the hall; in a moment, they vanished around a corner.
Gartogg sighed. No one liked him. Alone, he trudged up the corridor. It was always the same.
Earlier that day, as Gartogg had plodded alone through the shadowed, empty corridors of the palace, he kept the peace by his very presence. After all, nearly everyone he met, even the other Gamorrean guards, hurried away when they saw him coming.
Gartogg heard a couple of loud footsteps, as though someone had tripped, echoing in the corridor leading down to the servants’ quarters. He hurried to investigate, still longing for some special accomplishment he could show his fellows, a contribution that Ortugg would respect. Maybe then Ortugg would let him go the next time Jabba journeyed out on the sail barge.
As fast as his thick, muscular legs could move, Gartogg thumped down the corridor and turned a corner, hefting his ax optimistically. He saw Porcellus, the human chef, kneeling over someone on the floor. The chef was a very thin, jittery man with receding, dark blond hair; as usual, he wore his white chef’s uniform, perpetually smeared with all sorts of ingredients with interesting aromas.
Gartogg liked Porcellus. The chef always had plenty of food lying around the kitchen. All the Gamorrean guards went snorting and snuffling around there for snacks. Last week, Gartogg had found four of his fellow Gamorreans fighting in the kitchen over who could lick out the bowl from a dessert. Delighted to join in the fun, Gartogg had almost chopped off Porcellus’s head with his ax by accident, but the chef didn’t seem to hold it against him. He was a good fellow.
Now Porcellus knelt over Ak-Buz, the commander of Jabba’s sail barge. Ak-Buz, a Weequay, lay motionless, sprawled on his back with his arms outstretched and his eyes staring vacantly.
This was Gartogg’s chance to think out the situation on his own. He studied the scene. In his opinion, Ak-Buz did not look well.
“Hey!” Gartogg snorted. “What’s happened here?”
Porcellus leaped to his feet, quivering. “What?”
Gartogg walked up to Ak-Buz and frowned down at him. “He’s dead?”
“He isn’t dead,” Porcellus said quickly, his face shiny with sweat. “He’s asleep. He’s resting. He said he was tired and he was going back to take a nap. He must have … he must have fallen asleep right here in the hall.”
Gartogg studied Ak-Buz’s unmoving face. Those staring eyes did not move. Gartogg snuffled thoughtfully. “Looks dead.”
“Have you ever seen a Weequay sleep?”
“Uh … no.”
“Well, there you are.” Porcellus crouched and lifted Ak-Buz, tugging one of the commander’s arms around his shoulders. “Now I’m going to get him to his quarters—er—before he wakes up.”
Gartogg nodded. That would be good; Weequays shouldn’t sleep in the hallway. Someone could trip over him. “Want help?”
“Thank you,” the chef said, smiling. “I’m fine.”
Gartogg sighed. For a moment, he thought he had found something important, like a corpse, but he was mistaken. Now he had been left alone again, with nothing much to do.
Snorting in disappointment, he had plodded back upstairs.
Late that evening, Gartogg was wearily climbing the stairs up to the guest quarters when he heard a single set of footsteps behind him. Hoping something horrible might happen so he could catch the guilty party, he stepped around a corner and waited in the shadows. A moment later, a silhouette thrown against the far wall sauntered near.
The lanky figure stood tall, lean, and broad-nosed; he wore a jacket with a high-necked collar. Even Gartogg held his breath, trying not to snuffle unnecessarily. Dannik Jerriko, an assassin, was the only one in the palace he feared except for Jabba himself. Gartogg had never seen this killer in action, but he had heard all the rumors about how Jerriko conducted his business: he was a snot vampire.
When the assassin had passed, Gartogg covered his upturned snout protectively with one hand and hurried in the other direction.
As Gartogg plodded along the corridors on his usual patrol, he worked his way through the back hallways and neared the main entry. He heard shouts from the direction of the kitchen and hesitated, wondering if he should go and look. Then he remembered that he liked going to the kitchen. He could always find a snack.
At first, Gartogg saw no one in the kitchen. He walked inside, pausing to pick up a handful of plastifoam to munch on. Then he saw someone in the receiving room.
Still crunching plastifoam, he moved forward. He stopped when he saw Ree-Yees, the three-eyed, goat-faced crook, kneeling by a shattered box. Porcellus stood to one side, over Phlegmin, the kitchen boy. Unlike Ak-Buz, Phlegmin lay in a tangle of arms and legs with his eyes closed.
“He sleeping?” Gartogg asked from the doorway.
“I didn’t do it!” Porcellus screamed.
Ree-Yees started in surprise, almost knocking himself over. His three eyes froze on Gartogg. Silvery-green goatgrass, smelling sweet, had been scattered on the floor from the broken box.
“Kitchen boy sleeping, huh?” Gartogg asked again.
“Uh …”
Gartogg blinked, waiting, and grunted encouragingly.
Suddenly Ree-Yees scrambled to his feet, knocking Porcellus aside, and spoke breathlessly. “You’re just in time! I found him—just like this—down the hall—near the tunnel to Ephant Mon’s quarters!” His three eyes narrowed. “I brought him here to—to—to perform resus—suspiration!”
“You know—emergency culinary resuspiration! The smell of food so—so—so ripe it can bring the dead back to life! An ancient art, one I learned from my great-uncle, Swee-beeps. We call it—er—garbage-sniffing of the last resort. But alas, I was too late.” His eyestalks drooped and he sighed.
Gartogg shuffled forward, bent his knees, and leaned forward slightly. He wondered if the emergency culinary resuspiration would work belatedly, and still wake up the kitchen boy. When he sniffed, though, he didn’t smell any garbage. Maybe it was too late.
“So you see?” Ree-Yees said anxiously. “Someone must take over now. Someone with authority. To investigate, put together clues, solve this crime. Jabba will be impressed—and grateful.”
“Kitchen boy murdered!” Suddenly understanding the problem, Gartogg bent down to grab one of Phlegmin’s ankles. He straightened and dangled the body up where he could see it clearly. Blood covered Phlegmin’s face.
Ree-Yees stared at Gartogg, not speaking.
Gartogg nodded and flung the body over his left shoulder. Turning, he snorted thoughtfully and plodded back out through the kitchen, grabbing another handful of plastifoam with his other hand.
“Don’t forget!” Ree-Yees called out. “I found him near Ephant Mon’s quarters!”
Gartogg walked down the corridor away from the kitchen with unaccustomed cheer. If he could find out who killed this kitchen boy, Ortugg would at last be impressed. Gartogg might be assigned to the sail barge’s next outing after all.
• • •
As Gartogg plodded endlessly through the dank, shadowed halls of the palace, wondering how he could solve the mystery, the weight of the kitchen boy began to tire even him. He shifted the body to his other shoulder, which helped for a while. On this third pass by the guest quarters, he finally remembered an important clue: Ree-Yees had found the corpse near Ephant Mon’s quarters. Thinking that perhaps he could ask Ephant Mon about the crime, he knocked on the door. When no one answered, Gartogg sighed and trudged on down the corridor.
Wearily, Gartogg snuffled in resignation. It probably wouldn’t matter. Ephant Mon didn’t like him either.
For days it seemed (and maybe it was), Gartogg had patrolled most of the palace several times over without finding anyone to question. A few people had seen him from a distance, but they all covered their noses, if they had one, and ran off. Gartogg felt that behavior was inconsiderate.
On his fourth pass through the rancor tunnels, he heard the rancor shifting and rustling in the sand behind its grate.
“Come on,” Gartogg said to the lifeless face of the kitchen boy dangling over his shoulder. “Visit rancor.”
In response, the kitchen boy dripped some sort of cloudy fluid on the floor of the tunnel.
When Gartogg reached the area by the rancor grate, he found Malakili, the pudgy rancor keeper, struggling to carry a limp human to the grate.
“What this?” Gartogg asked.
“Huh?” Malakili jumped in surprise, dropping his burden with a thump. “Uh, I’m feeding the rancor, what does it look like I’m doing?”
“Oh.” Gartogg snorted in disappointment. “Need help?”
“No, no, I’m doing just fine.”
Gartogg kept the kitchen boy balanced on his shoulder as Malakili opened the grate for the waiting rancor and heaved the other body inside.
“You want to unload him too?” Malakili nodded toward the kitchen boy, grimacing.
“No! Evidence of crime.”
“Well, he’s decomposing pretty fast. You sure?”
“No!” Gartogg turned and hurried away.
Gartogg trudged to the kitchen, still carrying the corpse of Phlegmin over one shoulder, the head and arms dangling forward. The dead kitchen boy had a much stronger odor than before, and tended to drip fluids on the floor occasionally. Gartogg snuffled politely.
Porcellus looked up from his daily work.
“A plot,” Gartogg rumbled. “Clues. All tied together.” He reached out with his free hand to grab some pieces of plastifoam. Munching on them casually, he added, “Girl. She, um …”
“What girl?” Porcellus demanded. “And get that disgusting thing out of here!”
“Mercenary girl. Brought in Wookiee. Last night.” Gartogg licked a bit of loose plastifoam from around his mouth and snuffled contentedly. “Lady friend of Solo. The smuggler. Boss caught them.”
Gartogg saw that one of the corpse’s eyeballs had started to ooze out of his head. That was bad; he might need this evidence of the crime. Snorting in annoyance, Gartogg poked the eye back in with a thick, stubby forefinger.
“Get that thing out of here!” Porcellus shouted. “I cook in here; this place has to stay clean—clean and healthful!”
Hurt, Gartogg turned to go, keeping the corpse balanced over his shoulder. After all, the chef was boss here. As he plodded out, he snatched up some more plastifoam and stuffed it into his mouth, though some of it spilled behind him on the floor.
Gartogg wandered the corridors of the palace all day, ignoring sleep, but he discovered nothing. On the night shift again, he waddled through the shadowed halls all night with the kitchen boy still on his shoulder. By the end of his shift, he was exhausted, but had found nothing.
Finally, as dawn approached, he trudged back to the guards’ quarters in weary disappointment.
“Gartogg!” Ortugg jumped forward to block the entrance. “What are you doing with that … thing?”
“Evidence,” Gartogg snorted defensively.
“It’s rotting,” Rogua shouted, appearing behind Ortugg. “You can’t bring that in here!”
“Can’t?”
“What did you do with it last night?” Rogua demanded.
“Night duty,” said Gartogg. “Kept it.”
Some of the other Gamorrean guards in the quarters snorted and snuffled derisively.
“Get rid of it,” Ortugg ordered. “Feed it to the rancor or something.”
“Evidence,” said Gartogg, eyeing the oozing, discolored face of the kitchen boy. “Murder.”
“Forget about coming in here,” said Ortugg. “We’re ready to go on the sail barge. Rogua, select the guards who will go.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sail barge?” Gartogg’s eyes widened as he snuffled excitedly. “Now?”
“No—for the next time Jabba goes out to the Great Pit of Carkoon to feed some prisoners to the Sarlacc.”
“Take me!” Gartogg bounced up and down excitedly, jiggling the body of the kitchen boy. One of his fingers fell off and hit the floor. Several bugs crawled out of his mouth; many more buzzed away from the corpse, disturbed by the motion.
Ortugg snorted in disgust. “You’re looking for the boy’s killer?”
“Yes!”
Ortugg snuffled, chuckling, and caught Rogua’s eye. “You figure it out by the next time we leave, you can come. Now get out! And don’t bring that thing back here!”
“And try speaking in complete sentences!” Rogua yelled.
Snuffled and snorted laughter followed Gartogg as he turned and trudged away from the quarters.
Now, however, Gartogg no longer felt as tired as before. He was too excited. This could be his chance.
“Maybe sail barge,” he said optimistically to the kitchen boy.
Some sort of maggot crawled into the kitchen boy’s ear. A blackened tongue hung from the slack mouth. Other bugs wandered all over the corpse’s face.
“Go see sail barge,” said Gartogg. “Want to?”
The corpse still dripped fluids of various colors and viscosities and the bugs ate more and more of the remaining tissue. Still, the body had become only a little lighter than before. Gartogg plodded toward the docking area behind Jabba’s throne room where the sail barge waited, just to gaze at it for a moment.
On the way, Gartogg saw a B’omarr monk wearing an earring moving along a darkened hall up ahead.
“Monk,” Gartogg snuffled softly to the kitchen boy. “Ask monk for clues. Okay?”
The monk slipped away around a corner. Gartogg hurried after him, but did not call out. He was afraid of waking people up.
For a moment, Gartogg lost track of the monk. Then he heard a couple of voices around another corner and hurried toward them. Before he saw anyone, a thump reached him.
When he came around the corner, he found J’Quille, a Whiphid, kneeling over the monk, who lay on his back covered by the bloody folds of his robe. The Whiphid wore a vibroblade in his scabbard and clutched something in his hand. Startled, Gartogg wheezed and snorted in surprise, then grunted uncomfortably.
J’Quille said nothing.
Gartogg adjusted the kitchen boy over his shoulder and moved forward cautiously.
The monk didn’t move.
“Is he sleeping?” Gartogg asked. That was a complete sentence. He wished Rogua had heard him.
J’Quille stood up. “He’s not dead; he’s, uh, meditating. Gone into a deep trance. Pondering the imponderables.”
Gartogg wrinkled his snout and snorted thoughtfully, studying the monk.
“The blood? He wanted to see if he’d reached the final stage of enlightenment. He decided to do a little testing on his own to see if he was ready before he asked his friends to surgically remove his brain.”
Gartogg grimaced. Grunting in puzzlement, he pointed at the monk’s head and then to the blood on his chest. “Uh—”
The Whiphid shrugged. “That’s where their brains are. In their chests. It makes it easier to remove them.”
Snuffling nervously, Gartogg frowned. If the monk’s brain was in his chest, what did he need a head for? In any case, the monk shouldn’t meditate in the hall any more than that Weequay should sleep in one; someone might trip over him.
J’Quille watched Gartogg carefully, silent now.
“Can’t meditate here.” He bent down and worked the body of the monk over his free shoulder. Then he straightened. Maybe this mysterious monk, meditating with the brain in his bloody chest, was part of a conspiracy regarding the kitchen boy.
The Whiphid stepped aside and waited without speaking.
Gartogg, hoping he was about to find the answer to these murders, plodded away under the weight of the two bodies, one meditating and one rotting …
As Gartogg continued his endless trudging up the hall, he watched the floor carefully for more meditating monks. If he tripped over one, he would drop the two guys he was carrying and might fall on the new one. However, he found no one all day.
“We better stop,” said a woman’s voice from around another corner. “I heard something—heavy footsteps coming this way.”
“Maybe we should see what it is,” said a man.
“Forget it,” said the woman. “Not in this place. Just leave it alone.”
“All right, come on.”
Gartogg heard their footsteps going away from him and he hurried, even under the weight of the two bodies he carried. The fresh one, the monk, weighed more than the older one. He thumped heavily down the hall.
When he turned the next corner, he saw Quella and Ah Kwan walking quickly away from him.
“Good evening,” he snuffled cautiously.
Both humans whirled to face him; Ah Kwan grabbed the handle of his knife again.
“Yeah?” Ah Kwan’s eyes shifted from Gartogg to each of his burdens and back. “What do you want?”
Gartogg spoke as slowly and carefully as he could, with a minimum of snuffling. “See anybody?”
“Anybody like who?” Ah Kwan demanded.
“Is that the same guard?” Quella asked. “The one who chased us? Is that him?”
“You got me,” said Ah Kwan. “All the Gamorreans look alike to me.”
“Killer,” Gartogg said clearly. “Looking for killer.”
“He wants to know if we saw a killer,” said Quella.
“How recently?” Ah Kwan grimaced at the kitchen boy. “He’s been dead for some time.”
“This not dead,” said Gartogg, jiggling the limp monk slightly. “Just meditating.”
“You think the same person killed them both?” Quella asked.
“Meditating,” said Gartogg, still struggling to speak plainly. “This one.” He wiggled the monk again.
“You think he’s right?” Ah Kwan asked quietly.
“Aw, who knows around this place?” Quella clutched Ah Kwan’s arm. “People get killed here all the time. Let’s go, all right?”
“Yeah.”
“See killer?” Gartogg snuffled uncertainly.
“No, we didn’t see anybody.” Ah Kwan shrugged. “It’s been a long night. We were down in the audience chamber. That Jedi Knight got thrown to the rancor, but he survived.”
“Jedi came here?” Gartogg had missed something else good.
“Yeah, and he killed the rancor.”
Gartogg grunted in shock. “Killed rancor?”
“It was a great fight,” said Quella.
“Not so loud,” Ah Kwan whispered. “Someone might think we like that Jedi.”
“Jedi killed rancor?” Gartogg repeated.
“Yeah, but Jabba’s taking him with the smuggler and the Wookiee to the Great Pit of Carkoon.”
Gartogg snuffled thoughtfully.
The two humans nodded politely and walked away arm in arm.
Gartogg studied the rotting kitchen boy, then turned to the monk’s immobile face. “That it? Eh? Mm!”
Grunting and snuffling sternly, he shifted his burdens slightly and headed for the sail-barge docking area. It would be a good place to sit down with his two companions. The mystery would require more thought and he didn’t have much time.
Thumping footsteps woke Gartogg in the docking area. He had dozed off for a few minutes, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall between the other two; they too sat propped on each side of him. As Ortugg stopped in front of him, Gartogg struggled to his feet.
“Gartogg!” Ortugg glowered at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Solved mystery!” Gartogg gurgled sleepily.
“Yeah? Well, make it quick. I sent Rogua and the other guards down to the dungeon to drag the prisoners up here.” Ortugg pointed to the motionless monk. “You got another one? So who killed them?”
“Not killed—meditating.”
“Speak in complete sentences, you idiot!”
“Conspiracy!” Gartogg drew himself up proudly.
“Eh?” Ortugg cocked his porcine head, eyeing Gartogg with more regard than usual. “You uncovered a conspiracy?”
“Aha!” Gartogg shouted. “You wanted to kill Ak-Buz the Weequay sail-barge captain, because he might have invited me on board himself!”
“What?” Ortugg blinked blankly.
“But you didn’t kill him. Instead, Porcellus the cook put him to sleep with special sleeping recipes in the plastifoam appetizer!”
“Plastifoam? That’s packing material, not an appetizer. Why—”
“Not finished!” Gartogg declared, holding his head high. He nodded toward Phlegmin. “Kitchen boy was friend of Ephant Mon!”
“Yeah, so?”
“I know because he was found near Ephant Mon’s quarters!”
“But what about it?”
“Ree-Yees said so!”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Ortugg demanded.
“Conspiracy!”
“Go on, get to the point!” Ortugg glared angrily.
“So, Malakili the rancor keeper needs no extra rancor food!”
“Gartogg, you bag of rancor droppings! What is your point?”
“Point?”
“Who killed these people you’re carrying?”
“This one meditating, not dead.” Gartogg jiggled the monk again. “Testing himself, before friends remove his brain from his chest.”
“What?” Ortugg screamed in frustration.
“What, what? What’s wrong?” Gartogg searched Ortugg’s face in puzzlement.
“Who’s behind this conspiracy?”
“Oh—process of elimination. All dead killed by snot vampire!” Gartogg smiled triumphantly.
“Who?”
“Snot vampire!” Gartogg shouted.
Ortugg’s voice dropped to a cautious whisper. “Dannik Jerriko?”
“Aha!” Gartogg yelled again. “Um, go sail barge now?”
Ortugg glared in mystified silence at Gartogg. “Go sail barge?”
Gartogg repeated hopefully.
“And why do you think Dannik Jerriko killed this kitchen boy?”
“No evidence!”
“There is no evidence?”
“And snot vampire never leaves evidence—so he must be guilty!”
Ortugg’s shoulders sagged. “Gartogg, get out of here before I cut your head off for the sand inside it!”
“Snot vampire not guilty?” Gartogg whimpered.
“No! And when I come back—you’ll be ground up and sent to Porcellus to cook for Jabba’s dinner!” Ortugg shoved him out of the way and stomped angrily to the sail barge, leaving Gartogg alone with his companions.
“No sail barge?” Gartogg snuffled sadly. “Ground pork?”
From the dungeon, the roar of the Wookiee and the rattling of chains reached him distantly. The other guards would drag the prisoners onto the sail barge and go out for a trip. As usual, Gartogg would be left behind.
On the other hand, he was no longer alone. Now he had friends, even if they weren’t exactly talkative. He squatted down facing the two seated figures.
Gartogg looked from the kitchen boy to the monk and back, making sure he spoke in a complete sentence. “What do you guys want to do now?”