First Reply What Are You In For

[Til Melarr]

The heat on Golrath was strong enough to singe a man's eyebrows, but Til was more bothered by the state of his accommodations. He sat on the steel slab they called a bunk, humming badly while he worked a clump of yellowed stuffing between his hands. He had torn it from the mattress earlier and was now pinching it into something that vaguely resembled a two-headed bantha.

When he was satisfied, he placed it on the windowsill beside the rest of his collection, a crooked speeder, a shapeless dancer, and a surprisingly detailed finger aimed directly at the security camera. "A masterpiece," Til muttered. "Really captures my inner beauty." The guards had taken his new durasteel boots shortly after processing him, leaving him with a pair of thin prison slippers that did nothing against the heat rising through the floor grates.

The whole block smelled of sulfur, sweat, and scorched metal. Every so often, a distant eruption rattled the walls and sent dust drifting from the ceiling. Til leaned back against the wall and looked across the red-lit corridor.

The prisoner in the opposite cell was unlike anything he had seen before. It was a thin, six-limbed insectoid with four large, glassy eyes. For the past three hours, it had sat cross-legged on the floor, carefully braiding its antennae into tight knots.

"Hey, four-eyes," Til called. He leaned close to the energy barrier until the charge made the hair on his arms stand up.

"You keep doing that, you're gonna give yourself a cramp. Or a concussion. Whatever it is bug people get." The creature did not move. One of its eyes slowly turned toward him while the other three remained fixed on its antennae. It answered with a noise that sounded like someone blowing through a wet sponge.

Til nodded thoughtfully. "Deep. A philosopher." He picked up the foam bantha and tossed it from one hand to the other.

"You remind me of an old friend of mine. Meetzos. He was greener, dumber, and got shot in the face a lot more, but there's definitely a resemblance." The insectoid went back to its braiding. Til studied it for another moment, then glanced toward the camera above his cell. The authorities on Onderon might have dragged him out of that pawnshop, and the guards here might have stolen his boots, but none of that meant he planned to stay.
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