by David Bischoff
On his way to work, Wuher, after-double-noon shift bartender at the Mos Eisley Spaceport Cantina, was accosted. To make matters worse, the accoster was his least favorite of the many things that congregated in this most egregious of congregations of intergalactic scum.
An extensor whipped from the pale shadows of the alley, wrapping around his ankle lightly, yet with enough strength to detain him. Automatically, Wuher reached to the back of his belt for his street-club. A weapon of some kind was always a necessity for those who strode the byways of a haven for cutpurses and cutthroats like Mos Eisley. However, the pathetic voice from the juncture of walls and garbage cans gave him stay.
“Please, sir. I mean you no harm. I humbly request asylum.”
Wuher blinked. He rubbed his grimy sleeve over his puffy eyes. He’d drunk too much of his own barbrew last night and overslept. He had a faint growl of hangover nagging him; he was in no mood to deal with riffraff begging for shelter or alms.
“Get off me,” he snarled. “Who the hell are you?” Wuher was a surly sort who preferred to keep his thoughts to himself. He also had a rather aggressive curiosity sometimes, though. This was a trait that his employer, Chalmun the Wookiee, found to be a resource in the chemical experimentation aspects of Wuher’s work, but claimed would ultimately cause him grief.
“I am Ceetoo-Arfour,” squeaked the voice, accompanied by a curious blend of whistles and clicks. “I have escaped from the Jawas, who intend to utilize me for spare parts, despite extreme functional utility if I am left in one piece—to say nothing of the value of my consciousness. Through sheer good luck, the Jawas used a corroded restraining bolt, which fell off, allowing me to escape.”
Wuher moved farther into the shadows, his eyes adjusting farther away from the ambient, anguished brightness that was one of the planet Tatooine’s charming qualities. There, amongst the stacked refuse and plastic and metal containers, squatted one of the oddest things that Wuher had ever laid eyes upon. And Wuher had laid eyes upon far too many of these scuttling tech-rats for his taste.
“You—you’re a blasted droid!” he spat.
The metallic creature released what little tension was left in the extensor and cringed back with the vehemence of Wuher’s accusation.
“Why, yes sir, I am indeed. But I assure you, I am no ordinary droid. My presence on Tatooine is a mistake on a veritable cosmic level.”
The droid’s body was low and rounded, similar to the streamlined contours of R2 units. However, this was where the similarity ended. Bulbs and boxy appendages hung like balconies on the robot’s sides, amidst an array of two whiplike metal extensors and two armatures invested with digits. In the very middle of its sensor-node “face” was an opening with a grill, set with what appeared to be jagged, sharp teeth. The whole affair looked cobbled together, as though the droid had indeed begun its life as an R2 unit, but had been sent onto other paths with the help of a demented mechanical mind owning a half-baked electronic and welding talent.
“Wait a minute. You look like a souped-up Artoo unit, but you sound like one of those pansy protocolers!”
“My components include aspects of both units, as well as several more. However, my specialties include meal preparation, catalytic fuel conversion, enzymatic composition breakdown, chemical diagnostic programming, and bacterial composting acceleration. I am also an excellent blender, toaster oven, and bang-corn air-popper, and can whip up an extraordinary meal from everyday garbage.”
Wuher goggled at the plasteel contraption in disbelief.
“But you’re a droid. I hate droids.”
“I would be of extraordinary use!”
Wuher wondered why he was even giving the droid the time of day. Damned curiosity, that must be it. He needed a blasted brain scrub, that’s what he needed. “Look, machine excrement. I despise your kind, as does my boss, for good reason. Even the lowliest Jawa knows what tribe he’s from, even if he’s stabbing that tribe in the back. You droids—who knows who you are or where you’re from. You look like bombs, and nine times out of ten you blow up in the face of your owners, doubtless just to spite them.” Wuher lifted a foot, planted it squarely on the thing’s head. “Now get out of my way. I have work to do!” He gave the thing a shove. It rolled back, beeping, into the recesses of its corner as Wuher proceeded on his way.
“Sir! Kind sir! Forgive my offense! Reconsider! I shall be here all day, recharging my batteries. I dare not emerge in sunlight, for the Jawas will find me. Grant me asylum, and you will not be sorry, I swear.”
“Pah! The word of a droid. Useless!” the man snarled in contempt.
With grand, elevated disgust, Wuher hurried away. Just one more proof that he should not be so free about strolling through alleys to save a scant few seconds. He avoided the darker, cooler ones, since they tended to attract crowds. This one, though, was lighter and Wuher had thought it would be a safe shortcut.
The normal byways of Mos Eisley were a dusty cloud through which double suns beat beat beat hot radiation upon ugly buildings and hangars. Occasionally a roaring beast of a spaceship would propel itself into the brightness of the sky, or descend shakily to hunker down in hiding. The place smelled even more strongly of its usual blend of noxious space fuels and heated alien body effluvia, touched with the occasional whiff of exotic spice, or rather more mundane rot or urine. Wuher noticed amidst the urban burblings a larger number of speeders than usual, as well as a discomfiting percentage of stormtroopers.
Something odd was afoot, that was certain.
Oh, well. It just meant that maybe he’d be busier at the cantina today. Another shuck, another buck, as Chalmun so eloquently stated.
Still, as the human bartender bustled through the busy streets, sun hood up, squinting, he was bothered by that droid who had accosted him. Wuher was well aware that droids were essentially harmless. To hate them was like hating your latrine or stove or moisture vaporator if they’d somehow been overlaid with innocuous consciousness. True, droids tended to be essentially faithless, with no ethical or racial structure. So were a lot of biological aliens that Wuher had met. The truth, the bartender knew, was that droids were an easy target.
Wuher had been abandoned on Mos Eisley in early youth, a human amidst peoples who disliked humans. He’d been kicked about and spat upon all his squalid, hard life. His boss hated droids essentially because they didn’t drink and thus took up necessary room in the cantina that might be occupied by paying customers. Wuher hated everyone, but droids were the only creatures he could actually kick with impunity.
He was a bulky, middle-aged man, Wuher, with a constant late-afternoon-shadow beard, dark bags under his eyes, and a surly attitude from the top of his greasy head to the depths of his low stony voice. His eyes were hard and dark, and it was impossible to see anything but quotidian amoral stoicism in them. However, a small fire flickered in his heart, a dream that he kept alive with hard work through years of drudgery. At night, shuffling back to his grimy hovel, often as not a little tipsy from his own spirits, Wuher would gaze up at the night stars in the blessed cool and it would seem possible to actually reach up and touch them, possible to live out his fantasy.
Perhaps then, when that dream was achieved, he would no longer have to kick helpless, imploring droids to bolster his own pathetic self-esteem. Perhaps then he could give something to lesser creatures than he.
The lumpy mushroom shape of the cantina billowed before him. Wuher stumped around to the rear entrance. He took out his ID card, unlocked a door, and walked carefully down dark steps. He turned on lights. It was not dank down here in the cellar. There were no dank basements on a world like Tatooine. However, a dry, earthy smell was the foundation for all the other scents that fought for attention here, smells that hung upon the rows of laboratory equipment, barrels and tanks and vats that rose from tables and the floor like ridges of metal, plastic, and glass mold.
Chalmun imported a minimum of drinking materials, the cheap bastard. The rest of what the Mos Eisley Cantina served was either made in the city, or down here.
Wuher had little time. His shift topside started soon. Nonetheless an urgent sense drove him to a small alcove in the rear section, a portion of the large basement where the other employees seldom ventured. He turned on a small light there, revealing a machine consisting of coils, tubings, dials, and glass beakers. In the largest of these beakers, a small amount of dark green fluid had collected. Wuher examined the dials detailing gravity and chemical composition. A kind of acrid effluvia hung over the enclosure, like moldy socks. Sweet music to Wuher’s nostrils! And the dials and digital readouts—why, they displayed almost exactly the ratios of contents that Wuher had calculated was necessary. A shiver of excitement passed over him. This could be the stuff. His elixir! His perfect liqueur, suited expressly to the biochemical taste buds of no less a personage than Jabba the Hutt, for all intents and purposes lord and slave master of the criminal element of Tatooine.
Wuher contained his trembles, took a deep breath, and found a sterile dropper tube. He lifted the stopper of the beaker, inserted the tube, and sucked up a minuscule amount. Carefully, he withdrew the jade treasure.
Ah! If this distillation was the right stuff, the drink that Jabba the Hutt deemed to be the perfect liqueur, then what else could Jabba do but name him his own personal bartender, distiller, brewer, winemaster? Thus elevated in position, the lowly Wuher might gain reputation and monies that would allow him to ship off this anal juncture of a desert snotworld to some bright, pristine bar on a paradisal planet.
Wuher brought the tube toward his mouth. A dangle of fluid sparkled diamonds in the amber light. He let a touch drop to his tongue. A flash and sizzle. A sliver of gas slithered off. The pain was immediate, but he bore it. He allowed the flavoids to creep upon his palate like death marchers with cleated boots. He winced and cringed and endured. Rotwort. Skusk. Mummergy. Bitter and fiercely aromatic with a kicker alcohol afterburst.
Damn it, though. Not quite right. His bioalchemist instincts, having studied carefully Jabba’s other favorite drinks, had synthesized a theoretical perfect amalgam, a liqueur that would delight the huge wormthing.
This was not quite it. A certain element was lacking. A certain gagging whisper of illusive yet ineffably attractive decadence.
Damn.
The bartender went to get his apron, and to trudge wearily up the stairs to where his smoky den of work awaited.
“Water!” demanded the green alien in its annoying language. “Bottled distilled water, bartender, and make no mistake! I’ve got the credits for the real stuff. This nose can tell if it’s anything more or less!” The alien touched its absurd proboscis with one of its green digital members.
Wuher’s nose twitched. Was it him, or was the stench in this pangalactic hole worse than ever? “Well, buddy. It’s your call, but you look as if you could use something a little stronger.”
The alien’s jewellike eyes glittered with fury and its ears seemed to flap indignantly. “How dare you call me by a familiar name, you piece of human trash. Believe me, I am a valiant drinker of all manner of manly, powerful drinks. However, I make it a rule to accept such only from real bartenders.”
A mangled face pushed itself across the underlit bar and into the conversation. “Actually, this guy makes some damn fine drinks for a lousy dung-eating native. Take it from me—Dr. Evazan. I’ve had many drinks in all twelve systems in which I’ve obtained a death sentence and these drinks here pass muster!”
Wuher nodded surly thanks. However, the arrogant alien would have none of it. This guy was a Rodian, Wuher knew—and a bounty hunter from the boastful affront of him. A particularly egregious combination.
“Nonsense,” said the Rodian, tiny satellite addenda atop his head turning back and forth as though searching for some television channel. Disdain dripped from his tone. “Humans don’t have what it takes to be a proper bartender. The two terms are mutually exclusive!”
This was the song that Wuher heard all too often. From the very first day that he’d graduated from his chemistry kit to a taste for interesting drinks and had parlayed that knack into a successful application to a sleazy but effective bartender correspondence school, he’d been dumped upon for wanting to take on the duties of serving drinks to an array of peoples from different planets, biomes, ecologies, what have you. Bartenders in these sorts of places, frequented by different and unique biochemistries, were more xenoalchemists than simple pourers of drinks. You had to pay attention to what you were doing. Wouldn’t do at all to serve up a nice glass of the variation on sulfuric acid that Devaronians enjoyed to, say, a Gotal. Likewise, a simple beer could make a Jawa shrivel up like a slug. It really wasn’t that humans couldn’t handle the challenge, it was generally that most of them didn’t care to bother. Indeed, there were a few in old xenophobic Republic days who used the opportunities to slowly poison enemies.
“Hey, greenie,” snarled Wuher defensively. “You go to Chalmun’s office. My certification is right on his wall.”
“I shall! And I shall make every effort to have you fired from this post. Your kind doesn’t belong here.” The Rodian leaned over the bar with its wide orby eyes and stared directly into Wuher’s: his species very confrontational mode for expressing supreme contempt. Wuher’s nostrils were immediately assaulted by a stronger dose of the odor he’d noticed before. He cringed backward.
“Pah. Coward!” The Rodian spat on him. “And be it known to you, ‘bartender,’ that I, Greedo, am highly valued in my employ by none other than Jabba the Hutt. I shall also make my complaint to him, after I take care of the business I have come to this lice-ridden cantina to deal with. Now. My bottle of pure water, please. And snap to it before I have to come and get it myself.”
The odor was so strong that Wuher was momentarily stunned. Even as he reached down, pulled up a bottle of water, clicked off the top, he was in a fog.
That smell … Something about that smell …
Pheromones, surely. But unique pheromones, unlike any other that Wuher had sniffed. The bartender had a big nose, with highly trained and sensitive olfactory capabilities. This was one of the reasons he was such a good bioalchemist. Something about this Greedo—
The Rodian snatched the bottle away, contemptuously dumped a handful of credit chips on the counter, and marched away into a dark corner booth. Even though he’d had this kind of treatment before, it still stung Wuher. He felt like a pile of womp rat guano, and the fact that he could do absolutely nothing to avenge his slighted feelings made it all the worse. This, mixed with that smell. He could smell that smell to the corns on the soles of his feet. It touched him to the very core of his being, and he was not entirely sure why.
For the next moments, he was in a kind of reverie as he went about his work, serving. He worked up some nice drinks for the band, whose music had actually helped make working in this dump bearable. He served an Aqualish and the Tonnika sisters. He whipped up a gaseous delight for the blues-loving Devaronian. All the while in a sensory smog of anger and confusion.
He barely noticed the new arrivals until his assistant tugged on his tunic.
“Wuher. We’ve got a positive on the droid detector.”
Alarm swept away the mental images as Wuher turned away and looked down at the little Nartian creature, two of his four arms still busy washing glasses.
“Thank you, Nackhar.”
Wuher turned his attention to the entranceway, to where an old man and a young towheaded fellow were making their way into the light-speckled smoky darkness of the tavern, followed by a sparkling, mincing protocol droid and a rolling R2 model.
“Hey!” called Wuher in his best gruff voice. “We don’t serve their kind in here.”
He had to make his position clear. “Your droids. We don’t want them here.”
The droids left.
He got particular satisfaction from booting the droids out. It was one of the only exercises of power that Wuher truly felt comfortable with—it was a clear and free area in which he was sure he would offend no one else. Nonetheless, even as he watched the droids leave, something bothered him. The memory of that lone droid, stranded in that alley, pleading for assistance. Somehow, the pang of that memory merged with the strong scent of Greedo’s pheromones to create a jarring unease and yet odd excitement in the bartender.
A young man in desert duds shook him and asked for some water. It took a couple of shakes to get a reaction out of Wuher, but finally the drink was served and Wuher went about his business, serving yet another squeaky ranat.
He was so immersed in his own particular funk that it took him a while to realize that an altercation was building. Wuher looked over to see that Dr. Evazan seemed to be having a confrontation with the young man. The older man stepped in and spoke. The next thing Wuher knew, there was a blinding flash.
Alarmed, he cried out. “No blasters! No blasters!”
A light sword swashed through the air. A chop, a flop—and the gun arm of Evazan’s Aqualish companion separated from his body.
The old man and young man stepped away and after a moment of silence, the band struck up again.
“Nackhar,” said Wuher to his assistant. “Please clean that up. I have work to do.”
Even though the doctor had stood up for him, Wuher felt no kinship. The man was an ugly, bent, and demented creature. Nonetheless, there was no reason to litter the floor with blood and groans of the doctor’s associate for an overlong time.
The Nartian scurried away.
A day’s shuck, a day’s buck.
Business as usual at the Mos Eisley Cantina.
Too bad Chalmun wasn’t around. His imposing figure usually discouraged these kinds of shenanigans. That Wookiee that had been talking to the old man looked a bit like his employer, only taller and younger. He’d been hanging around before, with that larcenous smuggler Han Solo. The spacer had burbled something yesterday about the Wookiee being his first mate. Dangerous profession, that. Perhaps there were worse things in the universe than being dumped on by Rodians in the Mos Eisley Spaceport Cantina.
Still, it rankled, and Wuher could feel his anger and hatred roiling and coiling like a stepped-on sandsnake.
The next thing he knew, a pair of stormtroopers had come through the doors and immediately stepped to the bar.
“We understand there’s been a ruckus here,” said one in a muffled electronic voice through his white skull-like helmet.
“You bet,” said Wuher. He looked around, saw the backs of the perpetrators at a table at the far end of the establishment. Curiously enough, sitting across from them were none other than Han Solo and his Wookiee first mate. “The old guy and the young guy over there.”
He pointed. The sooner these troopers got out of here, the better. They made him nervous. The place had plenty of trouble enough as it was. Besides, stormtroopers were terrible tippers.
Wuher’s mind dipped back into his musing as he went on automatic pilot, making up barium frizzes and frosty sulphates and even serving the odd shot and a draft. He even poured himself some of his own homebrew ale, to take some of the edge off the mild headache that sulked at the back of his skull. However, during all this he was still haunted by two things that smell that still clung to his nostrils, and that squeaking droid. What was going to happen to it? Why should he care? And what did it say its specialty was?
His musings were suddenly interrupted by a loud blast.
All heads swung toward its origin, the table where Han Solo sat. The jaunty smuggler was rising up and walking toward the bar, sticking his gun back into its holster.
Wuher could not believe what he was leaving behind.
“Sorry about the mess,” Solo said, flipping a two-credit chip toward Wuher. Normally, Wuher would have immediately slapped a palm down onto the coin to prevent its appropriation. However, he was far too stunned by what he saw to think about money.
There, flopped over at the table, was none other than Greedo the Rodian bounty hunter, a shred of smoke rising up from a blasted abdomen.
Greedo, dead as a starship rivet.
A kind of chill satisfaction moved through Wuher, a transection of reality and dream that did not occur often enough. True, creatures got killed in here all the time, and it would have given Wuher far more satisfaction to have actually been behind the trigger of that blaster, seen its power rip through that obnoxious, smelly—
A kind of transcendental realization flashed through the bartender. Thought processes meshed thunderously in his head, and it was as though the heavens had opened and the light of Cosmic Wisdom poured down upon him.
That droid … that odd, frightened droid …
He had to get it out of harm’s way. He had to save it!
“Nackhar!” he called.
The little creature scuttled up. “Did you see that, sir? I say that Chalmun should take all guns at the door. I say—”
“Are you going to be the one to do the body searches, Nackhar?”
The assistant bartender was stunned speechless at the notion.
“Take over for me. There’s an urgent task I must attend to. I shall be back soon. In the meantime, do not allow the body of the Rodian to be moved a centimeter. Don’t let those Jawas trying to bag it take it out of here. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Of course—but if the police—”
“They can examine it all they want to, and there’s no question about who did it. However, claim it in the name of Chalmun. It’s officially our property now.”
“But why can’t you—where are you going?”
“I am embarking on a mission of mercy!”
Thus saying, Wuher left.
The droid was not amongst the refuse cans.
Alarm filled Wuher. The thing had said that it would be here until nightfall. Its absence could only spell foul play.
Wuher bent and examined the sandy floor. Sure enough, tracks. Fresh tracks, leading down the alley in the other direction. Without a further thought, either for caution or self-protection, the bartender hurled himself after them.
The droid must be saved.
He puffed through the twisting alleys, following the tracks. The ground told the story clearly enough. Droid tracks. A pair of small shoe tracks. A Jawa had scoped the metal being out, as it had feared. As he moved along, Wuher removed the club from the back of his belt. Within moments, he heard the telltale beeping and chitter: the sounds of the droid and its new master.
Wuher slapped himself against a wall, peered around the corner. Sure enough, there they were, waddling along. The Jawa had clamped a restraining bolt on the odd-looking droid. They were within yards of a main thoroughfare.
He must move quickly.
Without hesitation, Wuher the bartender leaped out from his concealment, ran up behind the Jawa, and fiercely and conclusively brought down his club upon the back of its hood. Thunk. The Jawa went down like a bag of smunk roots. Speedily, the bartender dragged the hooded creature back to a darker part of the alley, trailing a slight seepage of blood.
He went to the droid, examined its body, and found the restraining bolt. He pulled it off and tossed it after the downed Jawa.
The droid came alive.
“Sir! You have saved me. You have delivered me from my enemies!”
“That’s right, Ceetoo-Arfour.”
“You have undergone a change of heart. I knew it, I knew it, I could tell that deep within you there beat a heart of gold. That is why I risked my encounter with you. Why, this is marvelous. This is what they write stories about! A hard soul, changed for the better. Thank you, kind human. Oh, thank you!”
“You’re welcome, Ceetoo-Arfour. Yes, I realized that you were a wronged droid. The squalor and sadness of my life made me realize that I should do something good and worthwhile for once.” Wuher smiled. “However, we shouldn’t just stand here and banter. There are doubtless more Jawas about. We should get you back to where it’s safe.”
“Oh, my lucky stars shine this day. Sir, you have redeemed my faith in the true pure spirituality of the human soul. For you see, we droids, though of metal, possess consciousness and thus spirituality as well.”
“Oh, good. I’m sure we’ve got a lot of philosophy that we can discuss. First, though, we should hurry on,” said Wuher solicitously. “Is there anything that I can do to ease your path?”
“You already have, kind sir. And here I was thinking myself the poorest, most bereft soul in Mos Eisley. There is indeed room for growth in the purity of the human soul.”
“Yes, I have had a complete turnabout in my attitude toward droids,” said Wuher. “I am bringing you back to the cantina. I will hide you in the basement, where there are no droid detectors.”
“Oh, oh!” said the droid, clearly enraptured by this stunning turnabout. “Finally, I experience the milk of human kindness.”
“Oh,” said Wuher, with a wry grin. “I don’t think I’m particularly interested in milk today.”
The drop depended, a jewel of promise.
Dropped.
The usual pain, of course. Too bad, but that was the price you paid for system incompatibilities. Still, Wuher bore it stoically, even gladly, awaiting the news his taste buds would bring. Already, his quivering nostrils were behaving in a positive fashion as the familiar wisp of steam rose to tickle them.
Around Wuher, as though hovering expectantly, were all the trappings of his experimental alcove, along with its two new additions …
Yes, yes, this was new!
He detected a hint of bergamot!
Better, something more.… and it struck him with such tremendous power, it was as though someone had kicked him in the head.
The taste of two bloody aliens arut in a tangle of erupting spice pods and mud mushers.
He fell off his stool, a spasm racking him.
“Master! Master!” cried Ceetoo-Arfour. “Are you all right?”
Wuher shivered.
He shuddered.
He arose, a silly smile on his face.
“Wow!”
He looked over at his still, at the larger beaker, already almost half full of this deadly elixir, and with so much more still bubblingly in the works in the coils and guts of his makeshift lab.
“It’s even better than I’d hoped,” he said. “This is exactly the liqueur that will appeal to Jabba the Hutt.”
“Jabba the Hutt, Master?” said the droid. “Is he not the criminal gang lord of this territory?”
“Nonsense,” said Wuher. “He is wronged by his enemies. He will not only be my benefactor, but ultimately yours as well.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes. Of course. We’re going into business together, Ceetoo-Arfour. First we shall work for Jabba the Hutt. Then we shall shake the miserable dust of this detestable planet from our heels. Greatness, Ceetoo. We are destined for greatness!”
The rough bartender beamed at his new collaborator.
Ceetoo-Arfour stood in the very center of the alcove. Below a new item that extruded from his barrel side—a spigot—was a small bottle full of an emerald-gray liquid. Just a few small drops of this stuff had been sufficient to give Jabba’s liqueur its new and wonderful kick into the territory of greatness. Wuher, bioalchemist extraordinaire, was going to be able to keep Jabba the Hutt happy a very long time.
From the droid grill-jaw extruded a naked green alien foot, pausing for a moment before it too was processed to remove every last bit of precious juice in Ceetoo-Arfour’s excellent chemical extractors.
Hanging on a spike by the bubbling still was the other new occupant of Wuher’s bioalchemical alcove: the head of Greedo the Rodian. Nackhar had had to fight hard with those Jawas to procure the body. It had cost him several rounds of free drinks, but it had been worth it.
“Here’s to your pheromones, Greedo,” said Wuher the bartender, hoisting his dropper in toast. “Han Solo did both Rodian females and yours truly a vast favor.”
The head glared back blankly.
“I must say, the creature was a gnarly, gristly thing,” the droid said. “I’m afraid that my grinders shall be needing a sharpening after this arduous effort.”
Wuher grinned and winked. “Nothing’s too good for you, Ceetoo. Believe me, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
For, indeed, now Wuher the bartender had an entirely new attitude toward droids.