Fortuna lifted his head and looked atJabba, so close to his own public
bed. He could smell Jabba's alien, musky sweat in the heat of the
night, and he wrinkled his nose and began a ritual that often calmed him
so he could sleep. Of the day annoyances, these, Fortuna counted
silently. That Jabba still lives. That was the chief and foremost of
every day's list of annoyances.
But Jabba would die soon.
Fortuna's preparations were nearly complete: securing the final sets of
codes to Jabba's scattered bank accounts, testing the loyalty of the
last few he needed to stand by him during the coup. He had little left
to do. But besides his own plot, Fortuna knew of fourteen others
against Jabba's life, plots he would not stop now. It was always wise
to make contingency plans, and he had fourteen sets of plotters doing
just that for him. He would simply watch them, and guide them where
possible. He hoped he would beat the others and actually have the
pleasure of murdering Jabba, but it did not much matter to him, as long
as it got done at roughly the correct time.
However Jabba's death came about, Fortuna would end up in charge.
He would control the bulk of the fortune.
Some plots were quite entertaining: the Anzati assassin, for instance,
in the pay of both Lady Valarian and Eugene Talmont, the Imperial
prefectwan amusing confusion of patrons for that assassin.
There was Tessek, a fussy little Quarren Jabba wanted killed, who
himself plotted to kill Jabba. A simple plot Fortuna favored was that
of a kitchen boy who had planned to poison Jabba because several years
earlier Jabba had fed his brother to the rancor after a sauce failed.
So many here hated Jabba, and Jabba relished their hatred--one of his
many great mistakes, Fortuna thought. Jabba believed his acts of
cruelty made beings everywhere fear him, and he thought fear protected
him. But fear endured for days and months and years turns to hatred.
Hatred spawns plots for revenge.
Fortuna planned to run things differently.
He lay back and smiled to himself. Fourteen assassination plotsand
beyond that, sixty-eight plots to rob the palace. There was no end to
the plotting.
Of the day's other annoyances, these, he continued.
That he had found it necessary to watch Nat's body be destroyed.
That he had had to threaten the monks to get them to remove Nat's brain.
That the delivery of two-headed effrikim worms Jabba favored on hot
mornings--and whose endorphins induced hours of drowsinesswhad not come
in, again, thus making the constant supply of other diversions
necessary: dancers, liquor, spice. Annoyances, all of them--a day of
annoyances.
But of them all, the greatest--the chief annoyance --was that Jabba
still lived.
The rancor roared in the pit and banged against the walls of its cage.
No one stirred.
Those were common sounds.
The surgeons assured Fortuna that "brain swapping" was possible but
rarely tried--and then only when the galaxy needed an embodied spiritual
guide and there hadn't been time for one to be born and raised up. In
those times, the monks would choose a healthy acolyte and one of the
enlightened, and surgeons would swap the brains.
Fortuna felt confident that he could force the monks to perform the
procedure for Nat.
Fortuna talked to Nat's brain every day, sometimes twice a day, and
after two weeks, some lights glowed green and blue. But at least one
always glowed bright red: panic was always there in Nat, and it had
probably been there too long. The brain was unstable. The monks
thought Nat partially insane: he would imagine, for days at a time, that
he was blindfolded, his body tied down, and that Fortuna and the monks
wouldn't let him up--that he was still in his body. For-tuna once asked
him why, if he were just tied down, he couldn't feel his body--and all
the lights suddenly glowed red.
"Fit him in a brain walker," he told the monks.
"Maybe if he can walk around he will become more sane."
It took Nat days to learn to make the walker move, and his walker was
forever stumbling into walls or For-tuna or the monks. Fortuna was
afraid he would break his brain jar open, but the monks assured him the
jar would not break easily. Nat tried to follow Fortuna wherever he
went, and the monks would have to hold Nat back from following Fortuna
up to Jabba.
"Don't let it come looking for me!" he ordered the monks. He did not
want Nat stumbling around, saying things he shouldn't amongst people who
thought the rancor had eaten all of him.
But one day, when the monks were too busy with Spring Equinox ceremonies
to watch Nat as closely as Fortuna ordered, Nat did come up to the
throne room. His brain walker stumbled down the steps and scraped
itself against the stone wall. No one paid it any attention.
But it suddenly lurched out toward the center of the room, perilously
close to the grille in the floor. Fortuna realized that if two or three
of its legs fell through and it couldn't extricate itself, the guards
would have to lift it up. Jabba might decide to send it down to the
rancor instead. He had never sent a brain walker to the rancor, and
Fortuna did not want Jabba to get the idea now.
Jabba had a new protocol droid, a certain C-3PO--a gift from some human
egotist who claimed to be a Jedi night. Fortuna quickly motioned the
golden droid to his side. "Keep that brain walker away from the
grille," he said. "Guide it around the perimeter of the room and back
down to the monks as soon as possible."
"At once, Master Fortuna," C-3PO said.
But C-3PO soon tapped Fortuna on the shoulder.
"The enlightened one wishes to speak with you," he said. "He absolutely
refused to return to the monks until he had. I can't imagine what could
be so important that he--"
"That's enough," Fortuna said. "I will speak with it.
Leave us."
The droid arched its back and walked stiffly away.
"What is it?" Fortuna asked Nat.
"I have found a body--a holding body. You said I could have a body--"
"Yes, yes. Whose is it?"
"I don't remember its name, but it looks like a strong body, and I need
a strong body--"
"Where is it, then? Is it in this room?"
Fortuna did not like carrying on this conversation in Jabba's throne
room. He did not want anyone to overhear. Two or three were already
looking at them.
"Tell me now," Fortuna demanded. "Then you must return to the monks."
"The body in the carbonite--it's doing no one any good. Give me the
body in the carbonite!"
Fortuna had to smile. "Han Solo?" he said. The idea was delicious to
him. Fortuna had many reasons to hate Corellians--Bidlo Kwerve, his
rival for the post of majordomo, had been a Corellian.
Using Han's body in this way would be a fine revenge on Corellians in
general. He looked at the body of Han Solo, frozen in carbonite,
hibernating perfectly. Han's head looked roughly the same size as Nat's
had been.
"Of course," he told Nat. "You shall have that body. Soon." He did
not have to add: when I am in control here. Such an experiment would
probably have amused Jabba, but Fortuna could not have explained
Nat's--or his own--part in it.
Business took Fortuna into Mos Eisley. He was glad to get away from the
palace for the afternoon, but it would be a busy time--arranging for new
purveyors to ship the still awaited effrikim to the palace; checking the
progress of the reconstruction of Jabba's town house after the fire.
Perhaps the most interesting of his duties, however, would be meeting
with the human, Luke Skywalker, who claimed to be a Jedi Knight and who
had sent droids to Jabba as gifts. The human wanted to bargain for Han
Solo, and Fortuna invited him to the town house to hear his offer. This
sudden burst of interest in the frozen Corellian amused For-tuna.
Perhaps there were ways to make Solo turn a profit yet.
"It would be to your master's advantage to simply let Han go," Skywalker
said.
Fortuna laughed. He had expected arrogance from someone claiming to be
a Jedi Knight, and he was not disappointed.
"Han Solo cost Jabba dearly, young Jedi," Fortuna said. "How would
simply letting him go work to my master's advantage? Besides, I'm
certain the Empire would not want Solo wandering about again."
"The government will change," was all Skywalker said in reply.
And suddenly the mists clouding Fortuna's intuition cleared. He
identified an astonishing plot afoot in the palace. The Rebellion
wanted Han Solo. This human sitting in front of him was a
representative of the Rebellion--and others were already in the palace:
a guard, the droids, at least those--all part of a grand plot to free
Han Solo, for reasons he could not imagine.
What would the Rebellion want with a smuggler?
Much of the plot was just probability--key figures were not in place
yet, Fortuna could sense that. But his interest was piqued.
This would be an interesting scenario to watch. Fortuna said nothing of
all this to Skywalker. He brought the conversation back to money.
"Solo costJabba dearly, as I said. He would expect payment for the
shipment of spice Solo dumped if he ever let him go."
"I will pay whatever Han costJabba, plus interest, if that is the only
deal we can make," Skywalker said.
"But you do not want money. You want to help your people, though your
plans will hurt them more than ever. Free Han, and after you overthrow
Jabba--join the Rebellion. The New Republic will put Ryloth under its
protection. Ryloth will not be destroyed, as it will be under the
Empire, and you will accomplish your goals."
Fortuna could not speak for a moment. The intuitive powers of this
young human were strong indeed.
Luke's conviction and honesty touched Fortuna's heart. For a brief
moment, Fortuna saw a bright future in which people would not have to
plot and scheme and connive as he had done all his life. But the moment
passed. Fortuna felt the heavy weight of the Empire and its ways settle
back down around his mind.
The Empire would not be overthrown. He could not entrust the fate of
the Twi'lek people to the idealistic dreams of the pitiable Rebellion.
Fortuna believed his own plans were, after all, the best.
"Your words move me," he told Skywalker, finally, and he could not
resist saying something about his coming overthrow of Jabba. "Some of
what you foretold will take place within days. Your friend is best left
frozen till then. He will be utterly safe in the carbonite during the
troubles that come. But you are wrong about money. I will need great
quantities of it to fulfill my dreams. Jabba will not accept your offer
of payment with interest for Solo, though I will convey it to him. Rest
assured, however, that when the day comes, I will accept."
Skywalker quickly stood and bowed as if the meeting were over, though
Fortuna had not had time to offer him a glass of spiced water or finish
his other duties as host. This brusqueness was unexpected, and Fortuna
wondered if the human was in a hurry to leave because he realized
Fortuna knew the truth about him and his plot. That plot would change
now, Fortuna was certain of it. He did not stand or return Skywalker's
bow.
"I will yet have Solo," Skywalker said, and Fortuna detected no
arrogance in what he said, no boasting.
His words were a simple statement of what he believed fact.
will know when to come," Fortuna said. Skywalker turned and walked
away.
Fortuna did not tell the bright-eyed young human exactly how he meant to
keep his word. He would sell him what Han Solo would have been reduced
to by then: his brain. That was what the guards would deliver to this
"Jedi" after they had his money. Such a deal would gain the attention
of the Empire and improve Fortuna's standing in it.
Jabba rejected the Jedi's offer and ordered Fortuna not to admit
Skywalker--just as Fortuna had predicted.
In the time that followed, Fortuna watched those the Rebellion had
planted in the palace. The droids, the guard served with excellence.
Then even more representatives of the Rebellion were planted, so to
speak taken, even, to Jabba's bosom: a human woman, Leia Organa,
one-time princess and Imperial senator--now a dancing slave, after she
foolishly unmasked herself and saved Fortuna the trouble of bringing Han
Solo out of the carbonite; and the Wookiee, Chewbacca, whom she brought
to complete her failed disguise and who was promptly imprisoned, now
with his old friend Solo. This plot did not look to be going very
well--with key players in it seemingly happy in their employ, others
imprisoned or made slaves. Fortuna believed he was right not to put any
stock in the Rebellion, if this was the best it could do to rescue
someone. He put more stock in the cook's plan to poison Jabba.
But the former princess had managed to do one good thing, as far as
Fortuna was concerned: she had brought a thermal detonator into the
palace, and For-tuna now had it--after stealing it from a Whiphid guard
who had stolen it from the princess during the commotion after her
unmasking. No one ever asked what became of it. It alone made a
marvelous contingency plan.
Then one morning, Fortuna woke suddenly, before all the others.
Something was not right in the palace: someone was in it who should not
be, and he-was walking toward the throne room. Fortuna sat up and
arranged his robes, and his intuition told him who was coming: Luke
Skywalker. Fortuna moved quietly and quickly across the throne room and
met Skywalker at the top of the steps.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. "You know Jabba has not accepted
your offer, and he will not speak to you. You must wait for me."
"You will take me toJabba now," Skywalker said. No explanation.
Typical arrogance.
"I will take you to Jabba now," he answered Skywalker.
For a brief moment, Fortuna paused to consider whether the Jedi's tricks
could have influenced his mind, but he quickly lost that thought. Surely
it could not be so.
Fortuna started back down the stairs and looked at Jabba. Waking him in
the morning was a task not lightly undertaken, but he would do it. The
incompetent guards were at last stirring and looking in his direction.
The human followed Fortuna down the steps and mumbled some nonsense at
his back about serving his master well and being rewarded.
Fortuna could not repress a smile. He spoke in Jabba's ear: "Luke
Skywalker, the Jedi, has come to speak to you."
Jabba was angry at once, and Fortuna braced himself.
"I told you not to admit him," Jabba grumbled.
"I must be allowed to speak," Skywalker said. He tried to use his
anything-but-subtle mind-manipulation trick on everyone in the room.
"He must be allowed to speak," Fortuna said--but Jabba threw Fortuna
against the wall. "You weak-minded fool!" he shouted at him.
Fortuna took his time getting up and straightening his robes. No one
would look at him. Fortuna felt shamed in front of his supporters.
It was a precarious moment. Fortuna had planned to launch his coup
within two days; he knew now that it would have to come within hours.