[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 03(4)
Luck was a preoccupation with Drawmas Sma’Da. As it was with Zuckuss and every other sentient creature in the galaxy: If I had his luck, thought the bounty hunter, I’d be retired by now. Sma’Da had been fortunate not only in the placing of his bets, but clever as well, in that he had virtually created an entirely new field of wagering. The flamboyant gambler had been the first to cover wagers on the various ups and downs of the struggle between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. No military conflict was too small-scale, no political infighting too inconsequential, for Sma’Da to make odds, accept bets-often on either side of the outcome, then pay off and collect when the particular event was over. By now, his “Invisible & Ineluctable Casino,” as he called it, stretched from one end of the galaxy to the other, a shadow of the actual war going on between Emperor Palpatine and the Rebels. No matter who won, either on the battlefield or the database of wagers, Drawmas Sma’Da came out ahead: he raked off the house percentage on every bet placed, win or lose. All those profitable little bites mounted up to an impressive pile of credits, one reflected in Sma’Da’s own ever-increasing girth.
Two humanoid females, with the kind of large-eyed, mysteriously smiling beauty that made the males of nearly every species weep with frustration, draped themselves on either side of Sma’Da’s capacious shoulders, as though they were the ultimate ornaments of his success and wealth. They moved in synch with him, or almost seemed to float without walking, so ineffable was their grace; the tripartite organism of Sma’Da and his consorts moved into the center of the establishment, like a new sun rearranging the orbits of all the lesser planets it found itself among.
The proprietor Salla C’airam, all bowing obsequiousness and fluttering tentaclelike appendages, hurried toward Sma’Da. “How good to see you again, Drawmas! It’s always too long between visits!”
Sma’Da had been in the bar just the previous night, Zuckuss knew. The proprietor was carrying on as though he and the gambler had been cruelly separated for years.
A crowd of sycophants, flatterers, favor-seekers, gold diggers, and those who derived some deep spiritual benefit from basking in the radiance of accumulated credits, had already formed around Sma’Da. Signaling to the bar’s waiters and serving staff, Salla C’airam led the way to the highly visible table that had been kept in readiness for just such distinguished personages. Sma’Da’s jowly face, split by a gold-toothed smile, beamed above the crowd as it shifted, like the swell of an ocean tide, toward the other side of the bar. A banquet equal to both Sma’Da’s appetite and credit accounts had already been laid out by the swiftly darting waiters; crystalline decanters, filled with exotic offworld liqueurs and roiling with low-level combustibles, towered above platters of meats spiced
with cellular-suspension enhancements.
“There’s enough in front of him to feed an Imperial division.” Zuckuss kept the gambler and his entourage in sight from the corner of his eye. If the expensive viands
had been converted back into credits, the sum would have gone to feed several divisions. He could see Sma’Da’s oddly delicate hands, pudgy folds welling around the wide bands of his rings, picking at the delicacies, playfully stuffing the choicer morsels into the smiling mouths of the consorts at either side of him. “Eventually,” mused Zuckuss, “he’ll implode, from sheer mass and density, like a black hole.”
“Unlikely,” said 4-LOM. “If creatures could suffer such a fate, that’s what would have happened to Jabba the Hutt. His appetite was many times greater than this person’s. You saw that for yourself.”
“I know.” Zuckuss slowly nodded. “I was just trying to forget about anything I might have seen at Jabba’s palace.” As with every other mercenary type in the galaxy, he had spent some time in the employ of the late Huttese crimelord. Jabba had been involved in so many shady dealings throughout the galaxy that it would have been hard for a bounty collector not to hook up with him at some point. Rarely, though, had any of them profited by it; a successful association with a creature like Jabba the Hutt was one that you survived intact.
“Anyway,” continued 4-LOM, keeping his emotionless voice low, “don’t waste time worrying about our target’s state of health. He just has to live long enough for us to collect the bounty that’s been posted on him.”
A burst of laughter and bright, chattering voices came from the crowd at Drawmas Sma’Da’s table. All eyes and attention in the bar had been drawn to the gambler from the moment he had entered. Zuckuss felt a bit more secure because of the noise and the general diversion, as though it had made him and 4-LOM briefly invisible. With someone like Sma’Da in the room, no one would be watching them.