Free Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) by Unknown

deal with you!”
    “But nobody who ate your food died of poison!” wailed Porcellus, as the guards closed in around him.
    “Jubnuk… and Oola… You can’t—”
    “Oh, fierfek doesn’t mean ‘poison.’” C-3PO bustled officiously down from the dais. “It’s extremely difficult to poison a Hutt, of course. But all Huttese words derive from food imagery, you see. Fierfek simply means a hex, a death curse… and you can’t deny that Jubnuk, and the unfortunate Oola, both succumbed quite soon aier sampling your meals. It’s a natural misunderstanding.”
    And so it was, but Porcellus derived little comfort from the fact as he was dragged away screaming to a cell to await his doom. That’s Entertainment:

The Tale of Salacious Crumb
    by Esther M. Friesner
    Melvosh Bloor had no spectacles to adjust, so he contented himself with polishing the screen of his datapad whenever he felt flustered.
    Like all good academics, one of his primary reactions to prolonged contact with the real world was to fidget. However, as with all things in his life (so he told himself), it must be fidgeting with a purpose.
    Melvosh Bloor did nothing without a purpose.
    On the face of things, one would imagine that his purpose in infiltrating the lair of the notorious crimelordJabba the Hutt was a simple one: he wanted to die but lacked the strength of will to kill himself.
    This, of course, would be dead wrong. Then again, dead wrong might be a pretty good prediction for the fate of Melvosh Bloor.
    Oh dear, oh dear, the Kalkal thought as he blundered through the honeycombed underbelly of Jabba’s lair.
    Where is that fellow? You would think that at the price I paid him—in advance, sight unseen, solely on the recommendation of my colleagues—he would at least manage to be at the rendezvous point on time.
    His cumbersome boots stepped into something thick and sticky on the corridor floor. There was very little light in this part of Jabba’s palace but Melvosh Bloor had the excellent vision common to all Kalkals, day or night. Therefore he could not avoid noticing that part of the large and gooey mass he had just stepped in had eyes.
    “Mercy,” said Melvosh Bloor, placing a trembling hand to his lips as the acidic tide of queasiness surged up his wattled throat. His most recent meal had not been of the finest, to say the least—in fact, it made the refectory fare at dear old Beshka University seem attractive by comparison—so he had no desire to experience it a second time.
    (Although Kalkals were famous for their ability to eat anything, even university food, there were no guarantees that what they once downed would not make a reappearance if something upset them enough.
    The goop with eyes was enough to physic Jabba himself.) “Mercy?
    Mercy?” The dripping darkness exploded with a shrill, harsh voice that mocked Melvosh Bloor’s own erudite pronunciation to a tee. Cackling laughter bounced from the maze of pipes overhead and echoed back from the ends of gloomy passageways that led off into the who-knows-where.
    Melvosh Bloor gasped, huge yellow eyes rotating wildly in his head as he flattened himself against the nearest wall. “Who’s there?” he whispered, tiny flakes of scale falling from his wide, thin lips as he spoke.
    Silence answered.
    Shaking badly, the academic fumbled for the sidearm hisJawa guide had pressed upon him before they parted ways outside the palace. Far outside the palace.
    Much as he hated the thought of violence and as repulsed as he felt by any of its symbols, Melvosh Bloor thought himself capable of shooting another living being if need be (strictly in the interest of preserving academic freedoms, such as his life). He felt a fleeting spark of gratitude for the Jawa’s stubbornness in insisting he take the weapon.
    Perhaps the fact that he would be unable to pay the Jawa the remainder of his fee until they were both safely back in Mos Eisley had more than a little to do with the guide’s devotion to