THE HUTT GAMBI(12)
Han glanced up. “I did try to find Bria,” he admitted after a long moment.
“At first I was mad at her, for leaving me, but hey … she was going through a lot. A couple of years ago, while I was on leave from the Academy, I looked up her dad, Renn Tharen. He said he hadn’t heard from her in a year. He had no idea where she was.” Han sighed. “I liked her dad. The rest of her family was a pain in the butt, but I liked Renn. He helped me out when I was in a spot. Most of my first six months’ paychecks when I was commissioned went to pay him back some money he’d loaned me. He was—” The ship’s hyperspace alarm sounded.
“Coming out of hyperspace,” Han said, his hands flying over the controls. “Next stop, Nar Hekka. We’ve got to find us a Hutt Lord named Tagta, pal.”
After landing the Duros’s ship at the spaceport the alien had specified, Han and Chewbacca gathered up their scanty belongings and left it behind, under no illusions that it would be there when they got back. Together, they boarded a public tube-speeder that would take them into the city where Tagta the Hutt held court.
Han had been to Nal Hutta, and found it an unpleasant world …
damp, slimy, and smelly—rather like the Hutts themselves. He’d braced himself to endure more of the same on Nar Hekka, but he was pleasantly surprised.
The planet was a cold world that orbited a dim red star on the edge of the Y’Toub system, but Hutt credits and colonies of various galactic species had transformed it into a technological wonder. Beneath enormous hothouse domes, the skies shone blue with a faint tinge of violet. Although the planet had little indigenous plant life, vegetation from many worlds had been transplanted and carefully cultivated. There were numerous parks, botanical gardens, and arboretums. Everywhere Han and Chewie looked, beds of flowering plants boasted large, lovely blooms of differing hues.
Once in the city, Han and the big Wookiee walked along enjoying the sights.
Artificial convection currents wafted soft breezes that caressed their faces. Being “outside” on a balmy day was a wonderful change of pace from being cooped up in a cramped spaceship, Han said, and Chewbacca agreed with a throaty growl.
All too soon, it seemed, they approached an imposing white stone edifice that they’d been told marked the home and business center of
Tagta the Hutt. Even though Tagta worked for Jiliac, he was still a prominent and wealthy Hutt Lord in his own right.
They walked up the ramp (Hutt designs did not utilize stairs, for obvious reasons) and then paused outside the huge doorway, large enough to admit even a corpulent Hutt on an antigrav sled. The majordomo was a diminutive Sullustan female. Her jowls quivered as Han introduced himself and requested an audience with Lord Tagta.
The Sullustan left, ostensibly to check out their bonafides, and returned a few minutes later. “Lord Tagta will see you. He asks me to ask you whether you have eaten? He is partaking of the noonday meal.”
Han was hungry, and he suspected Chewie was, too, but the thought of eating with a Hutt was not appetizing. Hutt body odor was strong enough to turn a sensitive human’s stomach. “We just finished,” Han lied. “But we thank Lord Tagta very much for his graciousness in inquiring.”
After several more minutes, the two smugglers, escorted by three liveried Gamorrean guards, were ushered into the Hutt’s private dining chamber. The room boasted high, vaulted ceilings that reminded Han of cathedrals he’d seen. A large, floor-to-ceiling window allowed reddish sunlight to flood in, making the white walls appear faintly rosy.
Their host was reclining (Hutt anatomy didn’t permit sitting, after all) before a table, sampling various “dishes.”
Han took one glance at the wriggling, squirming fare that comprised the noontime repast, and averted his eyes. He didn’t allow his squeamishness to show, however, as he and Chewbacca approached the Hutt Lord.
Han had learned Huttese while on Ylesia, and understood it well. He couldn’t speak it, though, because the language depended on subharmonics for subtle nuances in meaning, and the human throat was not constructed to produce those sounds. He wondered whether he and the Hutt Lord would need an interpreter droid. He glanced around, but didn’t see one.
Tagta was reclining on a hovering antigrav sled, but Han got the impression that the Hutt could move around if he wished. Some Hutts, he knew, grew so corpulent that they could no longer glide about under their own power, but Tagta didn’t seem either that old or that fat.
Still, watching the Hutt delicately select yet another wriggler from a glass aquarium filled with viscous fluid and stuff it into his mouth, Han figured that Tagta would probably make it to the “fully corpulent” stage of Hutt life. Green drool gathered at the corners of Tagta’s mouth as he rolled the live treat around in his mouth before, finally, swallowing it.