KEDPIN SHOKLOP STOOD IN THE Standard Class stands of the Canto Bight racetrack, taking in the scents and sounds of a lifelong dream fulfilled. He was about to watch a live fathier race on Canto Bight! Unlike the spacious, well-appointed Prestige Class viewing boxes that Anglang Lehet had pointed out resentfully, the Standard Class stands were crowded and less than pristine. Beings pressed in on every side, shouting out numbers and fathier names. But as they’d moved through the city together, Kedpin had noticed that other beings tended to make way for Anglang Lehet. The racetrack had been no exception. They had a splendid view of the track.
Kedpin had seen fathiers on the holovids, of course, but being this close to them was something different entirely. The power and grace with which they moved, the noise they made, the stinky-spicy smell of them as they sauntered past and lined up for the start of the race—the holovids couldn’t capture any of this, Kedpin realized. He could almost reach out and touch one of the beasts. Perhaps he’d get a chance to. This was no holovid; he was here. After years and years of dreaming, after the strangest and hardest and maybe best day of his long life, Kedpin Shoklop was here, about to watch a real live fathier race in Canto Bight.
At Anglang’s advice, Kedpin’s money was on a veteran fathier a little past his prime. The beast’s name was Kessel Runner.
The starting signal fired, and the fathiers launched into beautiful motion. Kedpin felt his pulses pounding uncontrollably as he watched the fathiers run. Though Anglang Lehet hadn’t bet on the race himself, he was cheering loudly—shouting in that booming baritone—for Kessel Runner, Kedpin’s fathier. Kedpin thought himself as happy in this moment as he’d ever been in his life.
The announcer’s voice rang out over the speaker system, almost too fast for Kedpin to follow.
“AND THEY’RE INTO THE HOMESTRETCH! KESSEL RUNNER IN THIRD, MYNOCK MINUTE JUST AHEAD IN SECOND, AND LEADING THE PACK IS SHIFTING SANDS!”
“Come on! Come onnnnnn you stinker! Put on the juice!” Kedpin heard himself shouting. Anglang Lehet turned briefly from the race to look at Kedpin, and Kedpin saw that the big man was smiling.
“SHIFTING SANDS LEADS, BUT KESSEL RUNNER HAS JUST PASSED MYNOCK MINUTE AND IS COMING UP FAST! BY THE STARS, FOLKS, KESSEL RUNNER AND SHIFTING SANDS ARE NOW NECK-AND-NECK! THIS IS GOING TO BE A CLOSE ONE…”
Kedpin Shoklop held his breath until it felt as if he’d forgotten how to breathe.
“AND IIIIIIIIIT’S…KESSEL RUNNER BY A NOSE, FOLKS! WHAT A RACE!”
Kedpin Shoklop slowly released the breath he’d been holding. His three hearts hammered in his chest. He felt dazed and thought he might fall over, until Anglang Lehet bent down, grabbed him by his shoulders, and bellowed in his face.
“You won, little man! You won!”
“W-won?” Kedpin repeated stupidly. Then it washed over him. It was the mini jackpot! A year of earnings! “I won! I won! I won!” Kedpin was not much of a dancer, but he began to do a little dance.
“Well blast me, you little son of a Jawa, you sure did. Talk about beginner’s luck!” Anglang clapped him on the back, then laughed, a sound like low thunder.
“Don’t worry, no implants this time!”
Kedpin laughed. This must be what it’s like to have a friend. The thought came unbidden, out of nowhere, and it nearly stopped Kedpin’s hearts. Could a being Kedpin had only known for hours, a being who had planned to kill him, be a friend? Kedpin realized he didn’t know much about friends. Work had always mattered more.
“Oh! I have to celebrate! That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Anglang, will you join me? Please?”
Anglang Lehet looked at him for a long moment. Kedpin recognized the look. It was the same one many of his clients wore when deciding on whether to buy a vaporator. “Why not?” Anglang Lehet said finally. “A block away from here, there’s a bar where the rich idiots go to celebrate. Not my usual type of place, but then this hasn’t been a usual type of night.”
Anglang Lehet led Kedpin down the avenue toward a tall building with pristine and exotic vegetation imported from all over the galaxy. Normally, this façade of Ubialla Gheal’s nightclub was lit with tall beacons that extended high into the night sky. Instead, the club was dark, quiet, and the swinging doors stood closed and unattended. “Odd,” Anglang remarked.
“Something wrong?” asked Kedpin. The little man craned his neck trying to see the top of the darkened nightclub.
“Ubialla must be hosting a private affair.”
Anglang considered knocking, then paused. Turning, he gestured for Kedpin to follow him. “The nice thing about Canto Bight,” Anglang said with a smile, “there’s always another place to get a drink.”
The façade of the Blue Wall was not brick or metal or plasteel but simply a screenfield of pale-blue energy. Kedpin realized it kept insects out and cool air in. As Kedpin stepped through, he felt…cleaner. A dermal exfoliation field! The sensation was one of the most pleasant things Kedpin had ever experienced.
“Wow, is this place ever fancy!” he said to Anglang after taking a deep breath. “Is it very expensive?”
“It is obscenely expensive. And you’re buying,” Anglang Lehet said in that impossibly deep voice. Kedpin supposed he didn’t mind buying a drink for a…friend? A friend.
Kedpin looked around at the other patrons. They looked like the sorts who’d been lounging in the Most Eminent Class stands at the racetrack. Ever since he’d arrived in Canto Bight, Kedpin had felt as if he were being stared at and disapproved of, but as he and Anglang entered the Blue Wall, he felt more truly out of place than he had since landing. “I thought you said you hated these overpriced bars,” Kedpin said.
The towering alien shrugged. “They have a drink here made from Cantonican cactus that you can’t get anywhere else in the galaxy,” Anglang said. “This might be my last chance to taste it.” Kedpin didn’t know what Anglang meant by that, but it sounded sad and he felt bad for his new friend.
Still, as a human woman in a rippling iridescent gown led Kedpin and Anglang Lehet to a comfortable little table and filled two glittering glasses with Cantonican cactus liqueur, it was hard to feel too bad. Kedpin removed the tiny black velvet bag he’d been given at the racetrack from around his neck. He opened it gingerly and carefully poured out the dozen or so shards of precious metal that were his winnings onto the table. A year’s worth of his salary. A year’s worth of his salary sparkling there beside a little bowl of fried seeds. Kedpin had sold vaporators that cost many times that amount, of course, but that was credit wands and computer accounts. This much money-metal in one place just looked so different.
“Put that away, you idiot!” Anglang Lehet said, but Kedpin knew he just was being protective.
“I’ll put it away,” Kedpin said. “As soon as you take your half.”
Kedpin had the great satisfaction of finally seeing Anglang Lehet look shocked. “My…what? This is your money, little man.”
Kedpin shrugged. “I figure we earned it together. So you take half. I won’t take no for an answer.”
Anglang Lehet didn’t protest further. He counted out half the winnings and scooped the sparkling slivers of metal into a some sort of hidden pocket. “You know what? You’re all right, lit—Ked. You’re all right, Ked.”
Kedpin felt his hearts swell with happiness and he knew he’d made the right decision about the money. Despite his bruises, despite everything, he thought that this might just have been the best day of his life.
“I still can’t believe my fathier won!” he said. “I’ve never won anything in my life!”
“What about Vaporator Salesbeing of the Year?” Anglang asked.
Kedpin’s guts began to clench painfully. He had buried the truth about the contest so deep it never surfaced anymore except in dreams. But…it was time to come clean, Kedpin decided. Anglang Lehet was a criminal, a professional liar, yet he was more honest than Kedpin, Kedpin realized with a shudder of shame. Kedpin didn’t know much about friends, but he knew they were supposed to be honest with each other.
“Ummm…Yes, that,” Kedpin began. “Well, I did win Vaporator Salesbeing of the Year, but…well, maybe not exactly by the rules.”
“Oh, really?” Anglang Lehet said, sipping his drink. Kedpin thought the tall alien might be holding back a smile. “Do tell.”
“The contest was rigged, Anglang. It took me decades to realize it, but the facilitators of VaporTech’s contest for Vaporator Salesbeing of the Year rigged things so that the computer that spits out the name of the winner always spat out Laz Lazzaz or some other managerial overseer who hates me. When I realized that, it was like getting punched in the face. One hundred and one years, Anglang. One hundred and one times I filled out my data card to apply for VaporTech’s Vaporator Salesbeing of the Year. I sold the most units. I signed up the most clients. I worked the most days. One hundred and one years and I never had a chance. So…I made a chance.”
“Made a chance, huh?” Anglang took another sip. He was looking at Kedpin differently now.
Kedpin sipped his own drink. It made his eye water pleasantly, and he had to blink a few times before going on. “The computer was old and clunky, and the program they used to cheat was pretty easy to reroute with my name attached. The way I won in front of everyone on the company network, they would have had to reveal their own cheating to expose mine.”
“Your bosses didn’t come stomp you down?”
Kedpin took another sip. The flavor was strange and strong. “You know what’s funny, Anglang? They never mentioned it. But when I was sent off by my Level Three managerial overseer—Laz is his name—he kind of smiled like he knew. Like he was proud of me for cheating. Or relieved. Like it proved something to him, Anglang. Oh…I didn’t like that smile he gave me at all.” Shoklop looked down with shame at his repulsive feet, too large for his little body. “And I don’t like being a cheater. But it wasn’t fair.”
“Beings talk about rules. Beings talk about fair. None of it ever seems to work out, little man,” Anglang observed. “But you’re here, tonight. Here in Canto Bight. Sipping…or in your case slurping Cantonican cactus liqueur. So what will you do now?”
Kedpin had to think about that for a moment. He closed his eye and took a deep breath. “Now?” he said at last, “Now I’m going to enjoy my vacation, darn it.”
Anglang Lehet watched as Kedpin Shoklop noisily finished his drink and spilled a thin trickle of it down his rubbery pink body. Shoklop slid determinedly off his barstool and toddled toward the exit of the Blue Wall. Anglang had serious doubts that the squishy little man knew how to get back to the hotel himself, but Shoklop apparently wasn’t going to let that stop him. As he pardon-me’d and oh-excuse-me’d his way out through the crowd, Shoklop teetered, clearly unused to strong drink. But the salesbeing also had now, beneath the oafishness, a boldness in his step. He should have looked comical. And yet, to Anglang at least, he didn’t.
Shoklop had nearly made it to the door when he collided with a Palandag whose exolung made what was supposed to be an exquisite natural music. Anglang had never heard it. There was a weird, beautiful noise now, though, when Shoklop, uttering apologies all the while, somehow managed to press harder against the alien in an awkward effort to squeeze past it. It was like watching a musician apologetically wrestling his instrument.
Well, perhaps he looked a bit comical, Anglang admitted.
Shoklop turned and waved at Anglang one last time before stepping through the Blue Wall’s blue energy field and out onto the street. Anglang waved back at the tougher-than-he-looked little fool, and he couldn’t help but smile. It had been years since Anglang had been reminded how much people could change, and how quickly.
It had happened tonight, and for that he was thankful.
Anglang took a long last sip of Cantonican cactus liqueur. It really was one of the most satisfying things he’d ever tasted. His people’s homeworld was light-years away but this stuff tasted like home.
He wouldn’t be retiring after this job after all. It would take every bit of the winnings Shoklop had shared with him to appease the Old City Boys. Even then, even if he lived, Anglang would be working this botched job off for years. He’d made a stupid, soft-headed mistake, and now he was stuck in Canto Bight. Stuck in the game. But for now, Anglang Lehet would remember this one night when he’d managed to change the rules.