A Shaggy Dog Story

When your entire body is covered in fur, sandstorms are really unpleasant. I realised this the next morning as I trudged through the wind in the direction of Dr McGee's office in the college. I counted my blessings – though I wasn't expecting the storm I was dressed for it. Under my wide-rimmed hat and long, tan leather jacket I was mostly protected, and I looked relatively human, which felt good.

I spent a happy half-hour walking in circles around what I thought was a vaporator station but turned out to be the Mos Eisley Institute of Higher Learning itself. The Institute had a single lecture theatre, one class room, four staff offices and a large amount of stripped machinery, which, as good doctor would later explain to me, were remnants from the days when the building was a vaporater station. A quick glance at the prospectus revealed their course list consisted of 'moisture vaporation', 'advanced techniques in vaporation', 'theoretical implications of womp rat herding' and 'conversational jawa dialect.' It would be an understatement to say I was not expecting much from the teaching staff.

Inside, I quickly found my man. Doctor Four-Eyes was imaginatively nicknamed because he was a doctor and had four eyes. He was also extremely tall and wide, barely fitting into the office allocated him, and covered in white fur. He spoke through a thin, straw-like mouth in a series of high-pitched gurgles, which I understood perfectly. As luck would have it, an old buddy of mine back home spoke the same language, with galactic basic as his secondary. He was a nice guy, and used to work at a drive-through burger bar.

'Ah, you must be mister Bastra, who I spoke to on the phone,' he said, although frankly, I'm guessing at the 'ah' part. That could have been anything.

'What gave me away?' I quipped as I offered my hand. We shook and he offered me a seat.

For a long moment Doctor Four Eyes inspected me as me as you'd expect him to inspect a Petri dish. I didn't like it, so I shuffled and cocked an eyebrow. It seemed to do the trick – doesn't take much to bother an academic.

'You know, I assume, that I am an expert in lycanthropy?' he asked. I nodded, although this was news to me. 'Your condition is extremely rare, and little is known about the cause. I have my own theories, and would be very grateful to hear how you became infected.'

I cleared my throat. I was used to telling this one, and now I had it honed into a nice little presentation. McGee was in for a treat. 'Well,' I began, 'it all started a few months back on Corellia. I met this guy in a…'

'Did the cause of your infection involve exposure to womp rats in any way?' the professor interrupted, excitedly. I had to disappoint him, and saw all four of those black eyes drop down and lose their sheen, like someone had knocked them out of his head.

'Like I was saying, I met this guy. And here's the thing. I think he was the Devil.' I waited for a response from the doc, but he was still sullen, probably wondering if all those years studying the womp rats had been worth it. Frankly, I didn't care if he was listening. All I wanted from the guy was any information he had on Zeebub.

I still think it's pretty unlikely that his name was really B. L. Zeebub. Something about that name, I couldn't place it at the time, sounded fake to me. He had this look about him that always made him seem like he was tricking you. I just can't imagine him not grinning, on account of that's all I ever saw him do. His skin was as sandy and leathery as my trusty old jacket. He had pointy ears and a big set of teeth that seemed to have rusted from so much exposure to fresh air.

It had been warm out the day I met him, and it got warmer as he came closer. The guy had a funny way of walking, like he was floating even though you could see those feet moving. He wore a high collar and fancy cloak – kinda reminded me of the old-time politicians on Coruscant, and when he talked he sounded like the worst of them. His voice was crisp, deep and like a carefully dropped whisper all at the same time. Left you without a clue what to think of him.

'Good evening, James,' he said, extending a hand as if to shake and then withdrawing it. 'I've been looking for you all day.'

Now I don't want to come off as prejudiced, because I'm not. But where I'm from, near enough everyone was human, and the only difference you saw between people was skin colour. The occasional twi'leks were the outsiders. This guy had horns, and I couldn't help but stare.

'You're wondering about my species,' he told me. I already knew that and clearly so did he, so I stayed quiet. 'I'm a devaronian,' he told me. Somehow I didn't believe the name, and he sensed that too. 'I'm from a planet called Mustafar,' he went on in order to convince me. 'My name is Zeebub, but those who deal with me just call me B.L.'

'Evening, Zeebub,' I said, and he seemed a little put out by my implication against dealing with him. I suppressed a smile and beckoned him to sit down on the park bench next to me. 'Just having something to eat here. What can I do for you? Looking for information on someone? Worried your girl's cheating?' These kinds of jobs make up about ninety percent of my business.

'Actually, James, my offer concerns your girl.' I started listening. It seemed unlikely Jahna had gotten herself into trouble, but I figured myself a pretty devoted partner and I ought to give him my full attention. It wasn't like me to lose my head over a girl, but this girl was special. Trouble is, there was nothing special about me, and we both knew it. We'd been together a while and I was stupidly happy. There have been plenty of women in my life, but I don't think I could tell you any of their birthdays, favourite colours or even what their hair looked like. With Jahna I knew all those things an hour after meeting her.

I'll bet she didn't know those things about me though. My hair was easy enough – black, curly and tight with a little beard to match – she liked it a lot. But I'm sure she didn't know those other two things. It's mustard yellow, by the way. It was obvious things weren't working out between the two of us, but I just couldn't accept it. I'd always known I didn't deserve a girl like that, but she'd changed me into a sap. A happy one, one with a good job at last, one who'd hung up his dumb musical career and was secretly making marriage plans, but a sap anyway. I knew one day I was gonna watch her walk out on me, and all that soft, soft sap would come dribbling out of my nose, but until then I was content to ignore the facts.

Zeebub sat and stared at me as I ran through all of this in my head for the hundredth time, kinda like he was listening to my thoughts. I met his gaze and his grin widened. I felt real angry that just by his mentioning Jahna I had wound up worrying about how much time I had left with her.

'Zeebub, is this some kind of a threat, and if so, is it a good one? Cause I'd really like to enjoy my lunch here.'

'No threat. I can make your girl love you.' Still grinning.

'Well then you must be pretty special, friend. You think flowers and candy? I could stretch to jewellery if you think it'll work.'

Presumably my dinner guest didn't like to be made fun of, because all of a sudden the park bench lifted a foot into the air, spun around in a circle with me on it, and relaxed back. I glanced around, trying to inspect it and look for witnesses to back me up while simultaneously looking cool, like I saw this stuff every day. Zeebub sat beside me then, moving in a fluid motion.

After a while I dropped the act. 'Okay, so what, you're some kind of Jedi knight? Dark Force or whatever it was called?'

Zeebub closed his lips for a moment here and chuckled to himself. I guessed there was a joke here but I wasn't supposed to know it. He told me no, but something 'along those lines', whatever the hell that means. I stared hard.

'You are exactly right, James. Jahna has indeed made you a sap, as you say. I have seen what will happen to you once you are alone again, but I have the ability to change that.'

'You're gonna hypnotise her and tell her how pretty I am? Or are you and me gonna lift stuff into the air to impress her?'

'I'm going to make your soul mate fall madly, helplessly in love with you. It's that simple.'

This man with the horns was weird, but I was still too smart to believe him based on a magic show. He could ignore gravity and tell me what I was thinking, but so can a spacer with a dream-recorder. I've met some really dumb spacers with some really high-tech dream recorders. I asked him, out of curiosity, what he got in return. Cash, I supposed. If so, my moral dilemma was over, right there. I had credits for a transport home and a loan to pay my bills. Maybe even enough for some dessert, but nothing else.

My opinion of him changed the moment he produced a heavy red case out of thin air. I kidded myself he'd had the thing behind him al along, but like I say, I was always kinda smart. He opened it up and a big, fleshy tentacle very calmly, very politely extended from inside it. Now, the tentacle was thick, real ugly and with what could loosely be described as a face, and from the way it moved it was smart enough to be a person in my book.

'This is my side of the bargain,' said Zeebub very simply. 'My associate, Dice, will bite you, but in doing so will pass an unusual disorder of the body onto you. My reasons are my own.'

'Gee, that sounds like a sweet deal, Zeebs!' I was being sarcastic of course, but I wondered if he could really do what he promised. After distracting him with some banter to figure out whether he was crazy or genuine, I began asking questions. Would this disorder going to hurt a whole lot? Was I going to wind up looking like his friend in the briefcase? Would Jahna start to like my taste in holovids? All his answers were sincere and encouraging.

I could write volumes trying to justify why I eventually told this stranger that yes, his friend was welcome to sink its thorn-like teeth into my arm, but I don't think I'd convince you. Let me just say that at heart I'm a romantic, and this girl was something else.

Those teeth, which were on the outside of its mouth by the way, hurt a lot. The thing reared up for a moment beforehand, like a snake, then seemed to really enjoy itself.

'Dice has passed her gifts onto you, James. I shall be waiting to see how you use them.' For some reason all I could think was Oh, it's a she.

Zeebub was really quick to desert me after it was all over. He just stood, told me he'd never visit me again and left with that odd walk of his. I felt like a chump, and I just hoped that the guy had been crazy all along and that nothing would change. But I can't deny that I went right to Jahna's building instead of back to the office.

Of course, Jahna's opinion of me didn't change in any little way. And of course, I slowly started turning into a wolf-like creature with a strong desire to rampage through the streets at night. I learned to control that stuff after a while, but back then each day I'd become more of an animal. It proved too much of a strain on our relationship. One day when I strolled naked into her apartment, presented her with a dead animal from the zoo and nudged it toward her with my nose, things reached what you might call 'breaking point'.

One sober day, after the months of painful growths, howling and depression, my meeting with B. L. started to make sense. The fake name he gave me, the horns, the suspicious deal and the strange powers, all of it. This gentleman was the Devil, like they used to tell us about in mythology class at school. A lot of guys wouldn't have figured him so soon, what with his clever aliases and all, but I'm an intuitive kind of guy. I was sure of it now, and I found a whole lot of determination when I decided to track him down.

So I started to look for the fallen angel himself. I got nowhere, so I tried looking for people who knew him. Then I tried looking for passing mentions of the whereabouts of people who knew people who knew him, and eventually, when I was beginning to lose hope, I found out he lived on some Hutt-controlled backwater called Tatooine. I was surprised to find I liked the place, and stayed, but clues about my quarry dried up quickly under those two suns.

Doctor Four-Eyes listened to the end of my tale and did a very good job of making four black eyes and a mouth-tube convey incredulity. I think maybe he didn't believe me, and he certainly wasn't interested in me as a case study any more. Over a little more time, I squeezed out some information from him. He told me there was no cure forthcoming for my illness, and that he sincerely doubted it was caused by snake bites.

'It wasn't exactly a snake, doc, more like a tentacle. But with teeth and…'

'I have never heard of any such theory. Now I'm afraid I must get on with my work. I'll give you temporary access to my personal files on this subject if you wish.'

There was something about his tone that made me curious about him, but not enough to ask any more questions. I thanked him for the files, and looked forward to poring over endless pages of information that would fly way over my hairy head. Still, I knew it had to be done so I steeled myself and shook Dr McGee's hand, filling its clean, white bristles with sand in the process.

So far my day had been a disappointing one. I entered the storm again with a heavy heart and an uncharacteristic snarl. I knew that when I got home I'd need to take a bath.

I hated baths.