The ramp terminated in a broad, low chamber of smooth stone, clearly cut and shaped, lit very dimly by a pair of lights hanging on a distant wall ahead of Bib. To his left and right, it extended until the light faded and died, and he could not see any longer. The spider-droid scuttled further onward, and Bib carried on after it. Behind him, the automated ramp rumbled into motion once more, closing slowly and depositing a layer of scattered sand on the floor. Bib's stomach squirmed again, but he suppressed the feeling. Of course, he kept his gun-hand near to the grip of the blaster, too.
Approaching nearer to the far wall with its twin lights, Bib discerned a doorway between them, a black and forbidding durasteel perhaps three feet wide and seven high. Stopping once again, the droid sounded another signal of clicks and bursts, and the door slid open. Bib blinked against the sudden flood of light beyond it. When his focus returned, he saw a crowd of perhaps a dozen figures garbed in the robes of B'omarr initiates. Their faces were obscured by hoods, though this was not the ordinary practice of the order. Bib hesitated at the edge of the doorway, brain-tails waving in rapid but near-imperceptible arcs. One of the assembled monks stepped forward.
"Hrm, please, majordomo. We do not intend to harm you." Spreading his arms, he added, "We bear no weapons."
Bib drew the blaster.
"I do," he said. "And I would like to know what is going on."
"Of course," the monk said. "Please, come in here."
"I prefer to stay where I am," Bib said.
The monk shrugged.
"As you like. This is not a trap, Bib Fortuna. It is… an opportunity."
"What do you want?" Bib growled.
"Something we suspect you do, too. We want Jabba the Hutt to die."
One brain-tail jerked spasmodically. This all felt distinctly off. The B'omarr monks were not inclined to interfere with politics. Even criminal politics. When Jabba had claimed their monastery as his own personal fortress—and before him, the thief-prince Alkhara—they had meekly accepted the new way of things and gone about their lives as before, neither resisting nor even complaining, at least that one might hear. No less likely assassins existed in the known universe. Bib stepped backward slowly, blaster still trained on the hooded monk.
"I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about," he said. "And I will be leaving now."
"You can't get out," the monk replied. "Not without this." He produced a tiny, dark sphere, smaller in diameter than the width of Bib's fingertip.
"Please," the monk said, "Take it. It's a coded sound emitter. It will open our doors to you so that you can leave. Or return, if you reconsider." He held it out to Bib on an open palm, though he did not come any closer. Bib squinted, considering. Blaster leveled in his right hand, he extended the left and slowly stepped within arm's reach of the monk's proffered palm. Seizing the tiny thing, he backed away once more.
"Squeeze it to activate the sound," the monk said.
Bib did. The door slid shut again, and he could see the monks no more.