[Black Fleet Crisis] - 02(63)
The nightglow came from the lights of a sprawling and boisterous entertainment district, The Revels. He could hear that it was well named long before he reached the district boundary and paid the general admission.
The walks were jostling-full with visitors bent on pleasure, and the air was full of loud voices, laughter, and the music escaping from dozens of rec centers, casinos, and club bars.
Li Stonn wandered The Revels looking for a place to sit undisturbed and read about The Secrets of Jedi Power. Luke Skywalker wandered The Revels listening, watching, and trying to understand what drew so many and stirred in them such a desperately fevered energy.
With the effects of his exercises lingering, the pleasures offered on the banner displays of the clubs and rec centers seemed shallow and uninviting.
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Near-Death Experiences! Walk Right to the Edge with our Master Torturers and Million-Credit Insurance!
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The Daughters of the Erapath Princess Know Exactly What You Need-Arena Shock-Ball Now with Ultracharge!
Li Stonn was no more interested than Luke. But there were no places to sit outdoors—not even a half-wall or a ledge—and no peace from the crowd or the hookmen. The managers of The Revels had cannily decided that if a visitor needed to rest, it should be somewhere indoors, where the average seat turned a hundred credits an hour in drinks, food, and services.
Facing that prospect, Luke decided to leave The Revels and return to the docking bay. It was possible that Akanah had already returned—and if she had not, he would at least have quiet for his reading.
But making his way to the outgate, Luke turned a corner and was taken aback by the brilliantly lit exterior of a club bar called Jabba’s Throne Room. Performing Nightly—The Original Max Rebo Band, said the scroll. Visit Jabba’s Guest Quarters with a Pleasure Slave. Face the Mighty Rancor in the Pit of Death-Driven by an outraged curiosity, Luke joined the line and paid the membership charge without haggling.
Inside, he descended a curving flight of stairs into a remarkably faithful copy of the throne room in Jabba’s desert palace on Tatooine.
Some of the dimensions had been stretched to accommodate more tables in front of the bandstand and around the rancor pit, but the architecture and atmosphere were authentic.
“Why, it’s just like the Palace Museum,” Li Stonn said to the tall and elegantly dressed Twi’lek barring the way at the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m afraid my master Jabba is away on business,” said the Bib Fortuna look-alike, nodding toward the empty dais. “But I’m having a little party in his absence, and I hope you’ll enjoy yourself.” His head-tails stirred in signal, and one of the scantily clad dancing girls hurried to him.
“Yes, Lord Fortuna,” the server said.
“Oola, this is a friend of mine,” said the major-domo.
“Treat him well. Find him a seat at my best table.”
The same fiction was carried through everywhere else—an
Ortolan keyboardist leading a jizz-wailer trio on the bandstand, the roaring of the rancor underfoot, an annoying Kowakian monkey-lizard skittering around the room stealing food and cackling rudely, even a carbon-frozen Han Solo hanging in the display alcove. But a busy kitchen was concealed down the corridor to the servant’s quarters, and the price card “Oola” left for him included various services available upstairs in the guest quarters and downstairs in Jabba’s dungeon.
It was tasteless and exploitative, but the music was surprisingly agreeable, the roast nerf was tantalizing, and the clientele was markedly more subdued than their counterparts out on the walks. Li Stonn ordered a drink and the executioner’s cut of nerf, refused all other offers with a polite smile, and settled in to discover the truth quotient of The Secrets of the Jedi.
Shortly after his meal arrived, Luke’s consciousness was pricked by hearing a familiar name spoken at a nearby table: Leia’s. He looked up, fearing that the evening’s entertainment at Jabba’s Throne Room would be a dance by a slave-girl-Leia look-alike. But the band was on a break and the transparisteel dance platform over the rancor pit deserted.
Luke extended his awareness, seeking the voice and the conversation that had intruded.
“This’ll lead to war,” the woman was saying. “And bravo for that. The Republic has every right to slap the Yevetha down for what they’ve done.”
“That’s nonsense,” her companion—a slender Lafran—retorted. “It’s like going into someone else’s home to break up an argument.