A few weeks later, the head cook stormed into the servant's kitchen, highly agitated. It was evening, only a short time before the slaves would be dismissed for the night, and Shmi was busy grinding spices for the next day's meal. She shrank back, hoping to avoid the head cook's gaze, but it was useless.
"You, you and… you!" His finger pointed straight at Shmi. Sighing, she set down her mortar and pestle. "Jabba's entertaining important guests tonight, and we're short-handed. Follow me."
Shmi and the other two chosen slaves trailed behind him. Shmi groaned inwardly at the prospect of working many hours past her usual allotted time, but at the same time curiosity prickled. She had never actually seen the notorious Hutt who owned her before.
The head cook led them past a guard station and into an unfamiliar part of the compound. The wave of delicious smells that greeted them as they entered the frantic bustle of Jabba's kitchen set Shmi's mouth watering. Everywhere slaves and servants were hard at work on dozens of fabulous dishes destined for the Hutt and his guests.
One of the cooks claimed Shmi, and she was set to work piping whipped mousse into hundreds of tiny pastry shells. When those were finished she was assigned the task of polishing all the shiny metal platters on which the food would be served. Then she spent an hour lining bowls with imported Tiranian rose petals and scooping perfectly spherical balls of fruit ice into them. By the time she was called on to carry out a giant basket of soft, fluffy rolls to the main table, her feet and back ached with weariness.
Still, her eyes widened as she entered the hall where Jabba entertained his guests. The plundered treasures of a hundred alien cultures gaudily decorated every surface. Musicians at the far end of the hall played a sultry melody for the dancers who gyrated seductively. Shmi recognized Marishelle and several other slaves. She stood, transfixed, watching them, as the music and the dance drew to a passionate climax, and those watching burst into applause. Humans and aliens of every description ringed the long table that stretched down the middle of the hall. At its head an enormous couch supported a huge, slug-like creature, who Shmi realized with revulsion must be Jabba himself.
A poke from the server behind her sent her hurrying to distribute the bread to each place around the table. She quailed as she approached the Hutt, but he ignored her as completely as the sand flies buzzing around his head as she placed the roll on his plate. Her basket empty, she retreated to the kitchen and was burdened with a heavy platter bearing the next course.
A seemingly endless parade of delicacies passed from the kitchen out to the table to be devoured. Loud, crude conversation and raucous laughter punctuated the blaring music, until Shmi's head ached and she longed to be done.
Eventually, the meal seemed to be drawing to a close. The guests leaned back in their chairs, patting sated bellies and belching. Shmi was set to gathering the seemingly endless piles of dirty dishes and returning them to the kitchen to be washed.
Jabba called on a servant to bring forth a series of elaborately decorated containers, and began producing various items for his guests' pleasure. A haze of exotically scented smokes soon clouded the air, and assorted gem-colored liquids stained eager lips. But Shmi paid little attention, absorbed in her own task, until a familiar sour, salty odor struck her.
Jabba was waving one disproportionately tiny hand toward where his servant had just removed the lid of a beautiful carved crystal jar. Shmi strove to understand his guttural rumble. She had heard that, though he understood Basic perfectly well, Jabba refused to speak anything but his native Huttese. The language was common on Tatooine, and Shmi spoke it, but not nearly as well as the Basic that was used by the slaves.
"Praanto eggs." The Hutt's wide mouth stretched into a grin, his enormous tongue coming out to lick his lips. "Straight from Mordant. Nowhere else in the Galaxy will you be served this delicacy."
A short, green skinned humanoid seated near where Shmi was stacking a pile of dirty plates snorted in disgust. "Smells more like praanto droppings, if you ask me." Those around him erupted in laughter. "Come, Jabba, you don't expect us to eat that poodoo, do you?"
The laughter rapidly stilled as Jabba drew himself up on his couch, bulbous eyes fixed on the speaker. "You are a guest at my table, Trontig." A flick of his tail tip sent two armed guards to stand behind the petulant guest. "You will partake in what I offer." He snapped. The servant beside him, with shaking hands, dipped out a generous portion of the praanto eggs into a shallow bowl. Eyes fixed on Trontig, Jabba gestured, and the servant piled still more into the bowl, until it almost overflowed. A short barked order, and the servant carried the bowl carefully and set it in front of Trontig, then melted rapidly back into the shadows.
Shmi stared, fascinated, at the mound of quivering eggs. This close, the smell was overpowering. Soft blue translucent spheres dripped with purple syrup. Within each, Shmi could just glimpse the shadowy shape of a half-formed embryo.
Trontig glowered at Jabba, but the guards crowded close on either side of him. His green face screwed into an expression of disgust, he sullenly picked up a spoon and sought to capture one of the slippery eggs. After a moment he succeeded, and raised it reluctantly to his lips.
The room had grown so still Shmi could hear the pop as he bit down on the egg and it burst in his mouth. His eyes bulged, and his face faded to a sickly yellow. The he could contain himself no more.
"Pah!" he roared, spitting the offending substance into the startled face of his neighbor. "Jabba, you're trying to poison me!" With one hand he drew his blaster, while with the other he swept the bowl off the table, sending it crashing to the floor, spilling its contents in a bright flood across the carpet.
Blaster fire erupted. Shmi dropped to the floor, cowering away from the wildly ricocheting bolts of energy. She crawled toward the refuge of the space under the table, but it was already crowded with many of Jabba's guests. She huddled beneath an overturned chair, looking longingly toward the kitchen door.
Between her and the door, the spilled praanto eggs spread in a turquoise and violet puddle. She gaped at them for a moment, and then glanced around. In the chaos – Trontig was scrambling toward Jabba, who was roaring in fury, while half a dozen other guests had drawn blasters and were exchanging fire – no one was paying the least attention to her.
She scuttled across the floor and began scooping the eggs into her apron pockets. She worked feverishly, sure at any moment a blaster bolt would burn into her unprotected back. When the last of the precious globes had been safely stowed away, she made a break for the kitchen door. She heard a twanging scream and felt a rush of heat across her shoulder blades as a blaster bolt just missed her, burning into the wall next to the doorframe as she burst through the archway and slammed the heavy door behind her.
In the relative safety of the kitchen she stopped, heart pounding, gasping for breath. She glanced guiltily down at her apron, where a spreading purple stain marked the path of the leaking syrup, and nervously wiped her sticky fingers on her tunic, leaving further purple streaks. She looked around, sure she would be discovered, but the kitchen was deserted, everyone else having fled when the blasting started.
Behind her the racket gave no sign of abating. If she worked quickly, she might yet get away with her theft.
She rummaged in the cabinets until she found an empty jar and lid. She transferred the praanto eggs carefully into this container and closed it tight. At the sink where the dishes were washed she painstakingly rinsed every trace of purple from her apron and hands. She wrung out the apron as best she could, knowing the rest of the water would quickly evaporate in Tatooine's dry atmosphere. She wrapped the clean apron around herself again, where it flopped damply, concealing the purple stains left on her tunic. Those she could wash off later, before she turned the tunic over to the laundry.
Just as the noise from the hall started to die down, she finished. She dared open the door a crack and peek through. Trontig's body, along with that of one of the guards, was being borne away. She couldn't help a pang of regret that Jabba seemed to be uninjured.
She slipped unnoticed through the corridors, ignored by guards racing toward the scene of the conflict, and fellow slaves and servants scrambling away. Though it was past the hour when he usually began his night watch, Irneeto was absent from the entrance to the slave quarters. She fled to her alcove, pulled the curtain closed, and collapsed on her bed, the jar of praanto eggs clutched close to her heart.
For a while, as her gasping breaths quieted and her racing heart gradually slowed, all she could think about was the danger she had faced and the narrowness of her escape. But eventually she calmed, and sat up, cradling the jar in her lap.
She stared at it for a long moment, and then started to laugh. She had risked her life for these stinking balls of goo, and for what? Once they might have represented the price of her freedom, for she was sure Irneeto would gladly help her escape in return for these. But without Kern and his speeder key, and some path past the Gamorrean guards, she would be just as trapped outside the slave quarters as within them. So all her danger and reckless daring had been for nothing. Her bitter laughter turned to sobs, releasing all the tensions and frustrations of the day.
Eventually she stilled, and listened to the noises coming from outside her alcove. Agitated voices chattered and quick footsteps echoed. She heard Irneeto's voice bellowing, harrying excited slaves back to their beds. Finally, much later than usual, the harsh klaxon sounded and all the lights were extinguished.
Shmi lay, feeling the cool curve of the glass in her hands. There was nowhere safe she could hide it. Anywhere in her alcove would be vulnerable to the periodic random searches. No matter that if she hadn't salvaged the eggs they would surely have been swept into the trash. If they were discovered in her possession, she would be considered guilty of the most heinous of larceny, and she would be lucky if a quick execution was the worst of her fate.
As the stars slowly tracked across her tiny window, she considered what she should do, and by midnight she had decided. She rose and slipped out into the corridor, and made her way to Irneeto's guard post.
He was pacing again. He turned to her as she approached, nostrils widening.
"You smell like praanto." His voice was wistful, even a bit accusatory.
"I was in Jabba's hall when everything happened. You heard, I guess, that it was praanto eggs that started it all." She thrust the jar toward him. "Here. For you. These spilled, and I knew you would want them, so I picked them up."
For a moment Irneeto just stared at the jar she held out. Then slowly all three arms reached for it, the center hand cradling it and the two outer hands encircling it protectively. He brought it to his face, and his hand trembled as he unscrewed the lid. His eyes grew huge and round, yellow discs reflecting the faint light, and then closed as he breathed in deep draughts of the briny scent.
After a long while, his eyes opened again, and he lowered the jar. His voice shook, thick with wonder and incredulous joy. "Furling… I don't know what to say… how to thank you…"
"You're welcome." Unexpectedly, Shmi felt a grin split her own face. "Just enjoy them. That will be thanks enough."
Two hands continued to clutch his treasure, but one reached out and gripped Shmi's shoulder, gentle but firm. "Anything I can do for you, furling, anything within my power, just ask and it's yours. I'd let you walk out of here right now, but I wouldn't be able to get you past the other guards. I'd buy you myself and free you, but I don't have a tenth of what it would cost…"
"Hush." Shmi swallowed the lump of bittersweet irony in her throat. "I may take you up on that offer someday. Until then, don't worry about it."
"All right. But I mean it. Remember." He withdrew his arm, and from the jar extracted one quivering globe. He bowed his head over it, murmuring in a guttural alien language what Shmi could only suppose was a prayer. He lifted it reverently to his lips, which parted to receive it, and across his face spread an expression of bliss such as Shmi had never seen on any living being.
At length a long sigh escaped him. Opening his eyes, he smiled at Shmi and held the jar out to her. "Would you like to try one?"
"On no." Shmi stepped back from the powerful stench suddenly wafting her way. She felt quite sure, were she to taste one of the eggs, her face would more closely mirror Trontig's revulsion than Irneeto's rapture. "I'm sure I wouldn't appreciate them nearly as much as you will. Enjoy your evening, and I'll see you in the morning."
"I will." Irneeto's voice was soft and dreamy. "See you…" He backed up to the wall and slid down it to a seated position on the floor.
Shmi returned to her bed, suffused with gladness. Even though she would probably never have the occasion to take Irneeto up on his offer, still the effort and risk had most certainly been worthwhile.