"Tales From The Mos Eisley Cantina (Kevin Anderson)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Kevin J)

STAR WARS
TALES FROM THE MOS EISLEY CANTINA
Edited by Kevin J. Anderson

Scan/OCR/Spellcheck - Demilich ([email protected])


We Don't Do Weddings: The Band's Tale
By Kathy Tyers

Jabba the Hutt's cavernous, smoky Presence Room stank of
spilled intoxicants and sweaty body armor. Guards and henchmen,
dancers and bounty hunters, humans and Jawas and Weequays and
Arcona lay where they'd toppled, crumpled under arches or piled in
semiprivate cubicles or sprawled in the open. The inner portcullis
yawned open. Just another all-nighter at Jabba's palace.
That portcullis bothers me-what if we want to leave in a
hurry?-but it keeps out the worst of the riffraff.
Let me rephrase that. The worst of the riffraff, Jabba himself,
paid us well. Crime lord, connoisseur, critic; his hairless,
blotchy tail twitched in rhythm when we played. Not our rhythm.
His.
We are Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes, members in good
standing of the Intergalactic Federation of Musicians, and we
are-or were-Jabba's full-time resident entertainers. I've never
spotted his ears, but Jabba appreciates a good swing band. He also
likes controlling credit and inflicting pain, and he finds either
more therapeutic than our music.
Huddled on the back of the stage, we put away our horns while
Jabba's guests snored. My Fizzz-you symphonic ridgebrows would
call it a Dorenian Beshniquel, but this is jizz-slips into a thin
case in less time than it takes to roll an Imperial inspector and
check his pockets for credit vouchers.
We are Bith. Our high hairless craniums manifest a superior
evolutionary level, and our mouth folds pucker into a splendid
embouchure for wind instruments. We perceive sounds as precisely
as other species perceive color.
Our band leader, Figrin Da'n, was wearily swabbing his Kloo
Horn (there's a joke there, but you'd have to speak Bithian to get
it). It's a longer double-reed than my Fizzz, richer in pastel
harmonics but not so sweet. Tedn and Ickabel were arguing over
their Fanfar cases. Nalan had started disconnecting the horn bells
from his Bandfill, and Tech-we look alike to non-Bith, but you
might've picked out Tech by the glazed gleam in his eyes-sat
slumped over his Ommni Box. Plaster chips from a midnight blaster
skirmish littered the Ommni's reception dish. (The Ommni clips our
peaks, attenuates the lows, reverbs and amps the total sound.
Playing it takes even a Bith's full genius. Tech hates Figrin.
Figrin won the Ommni last season in a sabacc game.)
"Hey, Doikk." Figrin's head glistened. It was going to be a