It was an old settler's saying that you could burn your eyes out faster by staring
straight and hard at the sun-scorched flatlands of Tatooine than by looking directly at
its two huge suns themselves, so powerful was the penetrating glare reflected from
those endless wastes.  Despite the flare, life could and did exist in the flatlands
formed by long-evaporated seabeds.  One thing made it possible: the reintroduction
of water.
    For human purposes, however, the water of Tatooine was only marginally
accessible.  The atmosphere yielded its moisture with reluctance.  It had to be
coaxed down out of the hard blue sky—coaxed, forced, yanked down to the parched
surface.  Two figures whose concern was obtaining that moisture were standing on a
slight rise of one of those inhospitable flats.  One of the pair was stiff and metallic—
a sand-pitted vaporator sunk securely through sand and into deeper rock.  The figure
next to it was a food deal more animated, though no less sun-weathered.
    Luke Skywalker was twice the age of the ten-year-old vaporator, but much less
secure.  At the moment he was swearing softly at a recalcitrant valve adjuster on the
temperamental device.  From time to time he resorted to some unsubtle pounding in
place of using the appropriate tool.  Neither method worked very well.  Luke was
sure that the lubricants used on the vaporator went out of their way to attract sand,
beckoning seductively to small abrasive particles with an oily gleam.  He wiped
sweat from his forehead and leaned back for a moment.  The most prepossessing
thing about the young man was his name.  A light breeze tugged at his shaggy hair
and baggy work tunic as he regarded the device.  No point in staying angry at it, he
counseled himself.  It's only an unintelligent machine.
    As Luke considered his predicament, a third figure appeared, scooting out from
behind the vaporator to fumble awkwardly at the damaged section.  Only three of the
Treadwell model robot's six arms were functioning, and these had seen more wear
than the boots on Luke's feet.  The machine moved with unsteady stop-and-start
motions.
    Luke gazed at it sadly, then inclined his head to study the sky.  Still no sign of a
cloud, and he knew there never would be unless he got that vaporator working.  He
was about to try once again when a small, intense gleam of light caught his eye.
Quickly he slipped the carefully cleaned set of macrobinoculars from his utility belt
and focused the lenses skyward.
    For long moments he stared, wishing all the while that he had a real telescope
instead of the binocs.  As he stared, vaporators, the heat, and the day's remaining
chores were forgotten.  Clipping the binoculars back onto his belt, Luke turned and
dashed for the landspeeder.  Halfway to the vehicle he thought to call behind him.
    "Hurry up," he shouted impatiently.  "What are you waiting for?  Get it in
gear."
    The Treadwell started toward him, hesitated, and then commenced spinning in a
tight circle, smoke belching from every joint.  Luke shouted further instruction, then
finally gave up in disgust when he realized that it would take more than words to
motivate the Treadwell again.
    For a moment Luke hesitated at leaving the machine behind—but, he argued to
himself, its vital components were obviously shot.  So he jumped into the
landspeeder, causing the recently repaired repulsion floater to list alarmingly to one
side until he was able to equalize weight distribution by sliding behind the controls.
Maintaining its altitude slightly above the sandy ground, the light-duty transport
vehicle steadied itself like a boat in a heavy sea.  Luke gunned the engine, which
whined in protest, and sand erupted behind the floater as he aimed the craft toward the
distant town of Anchorhead.
    Behind him, a pitiful beacon of black smoke from the burning robot continued to
rise into the clear desert air.  It wouldn't be there when Luke returned.  There were
scavengers of metal as well as flesh in the wide wastes of Tatooine.

    Metal and stone structures bleached white by the glaze of twin Tatoo I and II
huddled together tightly, for company as much as for protection.  They formed the
nexus of the widespread farming community of Anchorhead.
    Presently the dusty, unpaved streets were quiet, deserted.  Sandflies buzzed
lazily in the cracked eaves of pourstone building.  A dog barked in the distance, the
sole sign of habitation until a lone old woman appeared and started across the street.
Her metallic sun shawl was pulled tight around her.
    Something made her look up, tired eyes squinting into the distance.  The sound
suddenly leaped in volume as a shining rectangular shape came roaring around a far
corner.  Her eyes popped as the vehicle bore down on her, showing no sign of
altering its path.  She had to scramble to get out of its way.
    Panting and waving an angry fist after the landspeeder, she raised her voice over
the sound of its passage.  "Won't you kids ever learn to slow down!"
    Luke might have seen her, but he certainly didn't hear her.  In both cases his
attention was focused elsewhere as he pulled up behind a low, long concrete station.
Various coils and rods jutted from its top and sides.  Tatooine's relentless sand waves
broke in frozen yellow spume against the station's walls.  No one had bothered to
clear them away.  There was no point.  They would only return again the following
day.
    Luke slammed the front door aside and shouted, "Hey!"
    A rugged young man in mechanic's dress sat sprawled in a chair behind the
station's unkempt control desk.  Sunscreen oil had kept his skin from burning.  The
skin of the girl on his lap had been equally protected, and there was a great deal more
of the protected area in view.  Somehow even dried sweat looked good on her.
    "Hey, everybody!"  Luke yelled again, having elicited something less than an
overwhelming response with his first cry.  He ran toward the instrument room at the
rear of the station while the mechanic, half asleep, ran a hand across his face and
mumbled, "Did I hear a young noise blast through here?"
    The girl on his lap stretched sensuously, her well-worn clothing tugging in
various intriguing directions.  Her voice was casually throaty.  "Oh," she yawned,
"that was just Wormie on one of his rampages."
    Deak and Windy looked up from the computer-assisted pool game as Luke burst
into the room.  They were dressed much like Luke, although their clothing was of
better fit and somewhat less exercised.
    All three youths contrasted strikingly with the burly handsome player at the far
side of the table.  From neatly clipped hair to his precision-cut uniform he stood out
in the room like an Oriental poppy in a sea of oats.  Behind the three humans a soft
hum came from where a repair robot was working patiently on a broken piece of
station equipment.
    "Shape it up, you guys," Luke yelled excitedly.  Then he noticed the older man
in the uniform.  The subject of his suddenly startled gaze recognized him
simultaneously.
    "Biggs!"
    The man's face twisted in a half grin.  "Hello, Luke."  Then they were
embracing each other warmly.
    Luke finally stood away, openly admiring the other's uniform.  "I didn't know
you were back.  When did you get in?"
    The confidence in the other's voice bordered the realm of smugness without
quite entering it.  "Just a little while ago.  I wanted to surprise you, hotshot."  He
indicated the room.  "I thought you'd be here with these other two nightcrawlers."
Deak and Windy both smiled.  "I certainly didn't expect you to be out working."
He laughed easily, a laugh few people found resistible.
    "The academy didn't change you much," Luke commented.  "But you're back
so soon."  His expression grew concerned.  "Hey, what happened—didn't you get
your commission?"
    There was something evasive about Biggs as he replied, looking slightly away,
"Of course I got it.  Signed to serve aboard the freighter Rand Ecliptic just last week.
First Mate Biggs Darklighter, at your service."  He performed a twisting salute, half
serious and half humorous, then grinned that over bearing yet ingratiating grin again.
    "I just came back to say good-bye to all you unfortunate landlocked simpletons."
They all laughed, until Luke suddenly remembered what had brought him here in such
hurry.
    "I almost forgot," he told them, his initial excitement returning, "there's a battle
going on right here in our system.  Come and look."
    Deak looked disappointed.  "Not another one of your epic battles, Luke.
Haven't you dreamed up enough of them?  Forget it."
    "Forget it, hell—I'm serious.  It's a battle, all right."
    With words and shoves he managed to cajole the occupants of the station out into
the strong sunlight.  Camie in particular looked disgusted.
    "This had better be worth it, Luke," she warned him, shading her eyes against the
glare.
    Luke already had his macrobinoculars out and was searching the heavens.  It
took only a moment for him to fix on a particular spot.  "I told you," he insisted.
"There they are."
    Biggs moved alongside him and reached for the binoculars as the other strained
unaided eyes.  A slight readjustment provided just enough magnification for Biggs to
out two silvery specks against the dark blue.
    "That's no battle, hotshot," he decided, lowering the binocs and regarding his
friend gently.  "They're just sitting there.  Two ships, all right—probably a barge
loading a freighter, since Tatooine hasn't got an orbital station."
    "There was a lot of firing—earlier," Luke added.  His initial enthusiasm was
beginning to falter under the withering assurance of his older friend.
    Camie grabbed the binoculars away from Biggs, banging them slightly against a
support pillar in the process.  Luke took them away from her quickly, inspecting the
casing for damage.  "Take it easy with those."
    "Don't worry so much, Wormie." She sneered.  Luke took a step toward her,
then halted as the huskier mechanic easily interposed himself between them and
favored Luke with a warning smile.  Luke considered, shrugged the incident away.
    "I keep telling you, Luke," the mechanic said, with the air of a man tired of
repeating the same story to no avail, "the rebellion is a long way from here.  I doubt
if the Empire would fight to keep this system.  Believe me, Tatooine is a big hunk of
nothing."
    His audience began to fade back into the station before Luke could mutter a reply.
Fixer had his arm around Camie, and the two of them were chuckling over Luke's
ineptitude.  Even Deak and Windy were murmuring among themselves—about him,
Luke was certain.
    He followed them, but not without a last glance back and up to the distant specks.
One thing he was sure of were the flashes of light he had seen between the two ships.
They hadn't been caused by the suns of Tatooine reflecting off metal.

    The binding that locked the girl's hands behind her back was primitive and
effective.  The constant attention the squad of heavily armed troopers favored her
with might have been out of place for one small female, except for the fact that their
lives depended on her being delivered safely.
    When she deliberately slowed her pace, however, it became apparent that her
captors did not mind mistreating her a little.  One of the armored figures shoved her
brutally in the small of the back, and she nearly fell.  Turning, she gave the offending
soldier a vicious look.  But she could not tell if it had any effect, since the man's face
was completely hidden by his armored helmet.
    The hallway they eventually emerged into was still smoking around the edges of
the smoldering cavity blasted through the hull of the fighter.  A portable accessway
had been sealed to it and a circlet of light showed at the far end of the tunnel, bridging
space between the rebel craft and the cruiser.  A shadow moved over her as she
turned from inspecting the accessway, startling her despite her usually unshakable
self-control.
    Above her toward the threatening bulk of Darth Vader, red eyes glaring behind
the hideous breath mask.  A muscle twitched in one smooth cheek, but other than
that the girl didn't react.  Nor was there the slightest shake in her voice.
    "Darth Vader…I should have known.  Only you would be so bold—and so
stupid.  Well, the Imperial Senate will not sit still for this.  When they hear that you
have attacked a diplomatic miss—"
    "Senator Leia Organa," Vader rumbled softly, though strongly enough to
override her protests.  His pleasure at finding her was evident in the way he savored
every syllable.
    "Don't play games with me, Your Highness," he continued ominously.  "You
aren't on any mercy mission this time.  You passed directly through a restricted
system, ignoring numerous warnings and completely disregarding orders to turn
about—until it no longer mattered."
    The huge metal skull dipped close.  "I know that several transmissions were
beamed to this vessel by spies within that system.  When we traced those
transmissions back to the individuals with whom they originated; they had the poor
grace to kill themselves before they could be questioned.  I want to know what
happened to the data they sent you."
    Neither Vader's words nor his inimical presence appeared to have any effect on
the girl.  "I don't know what you're blathering about," she snapped, looking away
from him.  "I'm a member of the Senate on a diplomatic mission to—"
    "To your part of the rebel alliance," Vader declared, cutting her off accusingly.
"You're also a traitor."  His gaze went to a nearby officer.  "Take her away."
    She succeeded in reaching him with her spit, which hissed against still-hot battle
armor.  He wiped the offensive matter away silently, watching her with interest as
she was marched through the accessway into the cruiser.
    A tall, slim soldier wearing the sign of an Imperial Commander attracted Vader's
attention as he came up next to him.  "Holding her is dangerous," he ventured,
likewise looking after her as she was escorted toward the cruiser.  "If word of this
does get out, there will be much unrest in the Senate.  It will generate sympathy for
the rebels."  The Commander looked up at the unreadable metal face, then added in
an off-handed manner, "She should be destroyed immediately."
    "No.  My first duty is to locate that hidden fortress of theirs," Vader replied
easily.  "All the rebel spies have been eliminated—by our hand or by their own.
Therefore she is now my only key to discovering its location.  I intend to make full
use of her.  If necessary, I will use her up—but I will learn the location of the rebel
base."
    The Commander pursed his lips, shook his head slightly, perhaps a bit
sympathetically, as he considered the woman.  "She'll die before she gives you any
information."  Vader's reply was chilling in its indifference.  "Leave that to me."
He considered a moment, then went on.  "Send out a wide-band distress signal.
Indicate that the Senator's ship encountered an unexpected meteorite cluster it could
not avoid.  Readings indicate that the shift shields were overridden and the ship was
hulled to the point of vacating ninety-five percent of its atmosphere.  Inform her
father and the Senate that all aboard were killed."
    A cluster of tired-looking troops marched purposefully up to their Commander
and the Dark Lord.  Vader eyed them expectantly.
    "The data tapes in question are not aboard the ship.  There is no valuable
information in the ship's storage banks and no evidence of bank erasure," the officer
in charge recited mechanically.  "Nor were any transmissions directed outward from
the ship from the time we made contact.  A malfunctioning lifeboat pod was ejected
during the fighting, but it was confirmed at the time that no life forms were on board."
    Vader appeared thoughtful.  "It could have been a malfunctioning pod," he
mused, "That might also have contained the tapes.  Tapes are not life forms.  In all
probability any native finding them would be ignorant of their importance and would
likely clear them for his own use.  Still…"
    "Send down a detachment to retrieve them, or to make certain they are not in the
pod," he finally ordered the Commander and attentive officer.  "Be as subtle as
possible; there is no need to attract attention, even on this miserable outpost world."
    As the officer and troops departed, Vader turned his gaze back to the Commander.
"Vaporize this fighter—we don't want to leave anything.  As for the pod, I cannot
take the chance it was a simple malfunction.  The data it might contain could prove
too damaging.  See to this personally, Commander.  If those data tapes exist, they
must be retrieved or destroyed at all costs."  Then he added with satisfaction, "With
that accomplished and the Senator in our hands, we will see the end of this absurd
rebellion."
    "It shall be as you direct, Lord Vader," the Commander acknowledged.  Both
men entered the accessway to the cruiser.

    "What a forsaken place this is!"
    Threepio turned cautiously to look back at where the pod lay half buried in sand.
His internal gyros were still unsteady from the rough landing.  Landing!  Mere
application of the term unduly flattered his dull associate.
    On the other hand, he supposed he ought to be grateful they had come down in
one piece.  Although, he mused as he studied the barren landscape, he still wasn't
sure they were better off here than they would have been had they remained on the
captured cruiser.  High sandstone mesas dominated the skyline to one side.  Every
other direction showed only endless series of marching dunes like long yellow teeth
stretching for kilometer on kilometer into the distance.  Sand ocean blended into sky-
glare until it was impossible to distinguish where one ended and the other began.
    A faint cloud of minute dust particles rose in their wake as the two robots
marched away from the pod.  That vehicle, its intended function fully discharged,
was now quite useless.  Neither robot had been designed for pedal locomotion on
this kind of terrain, so they had to fight their way across the unstable surface.
    "We seem to have been made to suffer," Threepio moaned in self-pity.  "It's a
rotten existence."  Something squeaked in his right leg and he winced.  "I've got to
rest before I fall apart.  My internals still haven't recovered from that headlong crash
you called a landing."
    He paused, but Artoo Detoo did not.  The little automation had performed a
sharp turn and was now ambling slowly but steadily in the direction of the nearest
outjut of mesa.
    "Hey," Threepio yelled.  Artoo ignored the call and continued striding.
"Where do you think you are going?"
    Now Artoo paused, emitting a stream of electronic explanation as Threepio
exhaustedly walked over to join him.
    "Well, I'm not going that way," Threepio declared when Artoo had concluded his
explanation.  "It's too rocky."  He gestured in the direction they had been walking,
at an angle away from the cliffs.  "This way is much easier."  A metal hand waved
disparagingly at the high mesas.  "What makes you think there are settlements that
way, anyhow?"
    A long whistle issued from the depths of Artoo.
    "Don't get technical with me," Threepio warned.  "I've had just about enough
of your decisions."
    Artoo beeped once.
    "All right, go your way," Threepio announced grandly.  "You'll be sandlogged
within a day, you nearsighted scrap pile."  He gave the Artoo unit a contemptuous
shove, sending the smaller robot tumbling down a slight dune.  As it struggled at the
bottom to regain its feet, Threepio started off toward the blurred, glaring horizon,
glancing back over his shoulder.  "Don't let me catch you following me, begging for
help," he warned, "because you won't get it."
    Below the crest of the dune, the Artoo unit righted itself.  It paused briefly to
clean its single electronic eye with an auxiliary arm.  Then it produced an electronic
squeal, which was almost, though not quite, a human expression of rage.  Humming
quietly to itself then, it turned and trudged off toward the sandstone ridges as if
nothing had happened.
    Several hours later a straining Threepio, his internal thermostat overloaded and
edging dangerously toward overheat shutdown, struggled up the top of what he hoped
was the last towering the dune.  Nearby, a pillars and buttresses of bleached calcium,
the bones of some enormous beast, formed an unpromising landmark.  Reaching the
crest of the dune, Threepio peered anxiously ahead.  Instead of the hoped-for
greenery of human civilization he saw only several dozen more dunes, identical in
form and promise to the one he now stood upon.  The farthest rose even higher than
the one he presently surmounted.
    Threepio turned and looked back toward the now far-off rocky plateau, which
was beginning to grow indistinct with distance and heat distortion.  "You
malfunctioning little twerp," he muttered, unable even now to admit to himself that
perhaps, just possibly, the Artoo unit might have been right.  "This is all your fault.
You tricked me into going this way, but you'll do no better."
    Nor would he if he didn't continue on.  So he took a step forward and heard
something grind dully within a leg joint.  Sitting down in an electronic funk, he
began picking sand from his encrusted joints.
    He could continue on his present course, he told himself.  Or he could confess
to an error in judgment and try to catch up again with Artoo Detoo.  Neither prospect
held much appeal for him.
    But there was a third choice.  He could sit here, shining in the sunlight, until his
joints locked, his internals overheated, and the ultraviolet burned out his
photoreceptors.  He would become another monument to the destructive power of
the binary, like the colossal organism whose picked corpse he had just encountered.
    Already his receptors were beginning to go, he reflected.  It seemed he saw
something moving in the distance.  Heat distortion, probably.  No—no—it was
definitely light on metal, and it was moving toward him.  His hopes soared.
Ignoring the warnings from his damaged leg, he rose and began waving frantically.
    It was, he saw now, definitely a vehicle, though of a type unfamiliar to him.
But a vehicle it was, and that implied intelligence and technology.
    He neglected in his excitement to consider the possibility that it might not be  of
human origin.

    "So I cut off my power, shut down the afterburners, and dropped in low on
Deak's tail," Luke finished, waving his arms wildly.  He and Biggs were walking in
the shade outside the power station.  Sounds of metal being worked came from
somewhere within, where Fixer had finally joined his robot assistant in performing
repairs.
"I was so close to him," Luke continued excitedly, "I thought I was going to fry my
instrumentation.  As it was.  I busted up the skyhopper pretty bad."  That
recollection inspired a frown.
    "Uncle Owen was pretty upset.  He grounded me for the rest of the season."
Luke's depression was brief.  Memory of his feat overrode its immorality.
    "You should have been there, Biggs!"
    "You ought to take it a little easier," his friend cautioned.  "You may be the
hottest bush pilot this side of Mos Eisley, Luke, but those little skyhoppers can be
dangerous.  They move awfully fast for tropospheric craft—faster than they need to.
Keep playing engine jockey with one and someday, whammo!" He slammed one fist
violently into his open palm.  "You're going to be nothing more than a dark spot on
the damp side of a canyon wall."
    "Look who's talking," Luke retorted.  "Now that you've been on a few big
automatic starships you're beginning to sound like my uncle.  You've gotten soft in
the cities."  He swung spiritedly at Biggs, who blocked the movement easily, making
a halfhearted gesture of counterattack.
    Biggs's easygoing smugness dissolved into something warmer.  "I've missed
you, kid."
    Luke looked away, embarrassed.  "Things haven't exactly been the same since
you left, either, Biggs.  It's been so—" Luke hunted for the right word and finally
finished helplessly, "so quiet."  His gaze traveled across the sandy, deserted streets of
Anchorhead.  "Its always been quiet, really."
    Biggs grew silent, thinking.  He glanced around.  They were along out there.
Everyone else was back inside the comparative coolness of the power station.  As he
leaned close Luke sense an unaccustomed solemness in his friend's tone.
    "Luke, I don't come back just to say good-bye, or to crow over everyone because
I got through the Academy."  Again he hesitate, unsure of himself.  Then he blurted
out rapidly, not giving himself a chance to back down, "But I want somebody to know.
I can't tell my parents."
    Gaping at Biggs, Luke could only gulp, "Know what?  What are you talking
about?"
    "I'm talking about the talking that's been going on at the Academy—and other
places, Luke.  Strong talking.  I made some new friends, outsystem friends.  We
agreed about the way certain things are developing, and—" his voice dropped
conspiratorially—"When we reach one of the peripheral systems, we're going to jump
ship and join the Alliance."
    Luke stared back at his friend, tried to picture Biggs—fun-loving, happy-go-
lucky, live-for-today Biggs—as patriot afire with rebellious fervor.
    "You're going to join the rebellion?" he started.  "You've got to be kidding.
How?"
    "Damp down, will you?" the bigger man cautioned.  "You've got a mouth like a
crater."
    "I'm sorry," Luke whispered rapidly.  "I'm quiet—listen how quiet I am.  You
can barely hear me—"
    Biggs cut him off and continued.  "A friend of mine from the Academy has a
friend on Bestine who might enable us to make contact with an armed rebel unit."
"A friend of a—You're crazy," Luke announced with conviction, certain his friend
had gone mad.  "You could wander around forever trying to find a real rebel outpost.
Most of them are only myths.  This twice removed friend could be an imperial agent.
You'd end up on Kessel, or worse.  If rebel outposts were so easy to find, the Empire
would have wiped them out years ago."
    "I know it's a long shot," Biggs admitted reluctantly.  "If I don't contact them,
then"—a peculiar light came into Biggs's eyes, a conglomeration of newfound
maturity and…something else—"I'll do what I can, on my own."
    He stared intensely at his friend.  "Luke, I'm not going to wait for the Empire to
conscript me into its service.  In spite of what you hear over the official information
channels, the rebellion is growing, spreading.  And I want to be on the right side—
the side I believe in."  His voice altered unpleasantly, and Luke wondered what he
saw in his mind's eye.
    "You should have heard some of the stories I've heard, Luke, learned of some of
the outrages I've learned about.  The Empire may have been great and beautiful once,
but the people in charge now—" He shook his head sharply.  "It's rotten, Luke,
rotten."
    "And I can't do a damn thing," Luke muttered morosely.  "I'm stuck here."
He kicked futilely at the ever-present sand of Anchorhead.
    "I though you were going to enter the Academy soon," Biggs observed.  "If
that's so, then you'll have your chance to get off this sandpile."
    Luke snorted derisively.  "Not likely.  I had to withdraw my application."  He
looked away, unable to meet his friend's disbelieving stare.  "I had to.  There's been
a lot of unrest among the sandpeople since you left, Biggs.  They've even raided the
outskirts of Anchorhead."
    Biggs shook his head, disregarding the excuse.  "Your uncle could hold off a
whole colony of raiders with one blaster."
    "From the house, sure," Luke agreed, "but Uncle Owen's finally got enough
vaporators installed and running to make the farm pay off big.  But he can't guard all
that land by himself, and he says he needs me for one more season.  I can't run out
on him now."
    Biggs sighed sadly.  "I feel for you, Luke.  Someday you're going to have to
learn to separate what seems to be important from what really is important."  He
gestured around them.
    "What good is all your uncle's work if it's taken over by the Empire?  I've
heard that they're starting to imperialize commerce in all the outlying systems.  It
won't be long before your uncle and everyone else on Tatooine are just tenants
slaving for the greater glory of the Empire."
    "That couldn't happen here," Luke objected with a confidence he didn't quite
feel.  "You've said it yourself—the Empire won't bother with this rock."
    "Things change, Luke.  Only the threat is completely removed—well, there are
two things men have never been able to satisfy; their curiosity and their greed.
There isn't much the high Imperial bureaucrats are curious about."
    Both men stood silent.  A sandwhirl traversed the street in silent majesty,
collapsing against a wall to send newborn baby zephyrs in all directions.
    "I wish I was going with you," Luke finally murmured.  He glanced up.  "Will
you be around long?"
    "No.  As a matter of fact, I'm leaving in the morning to rendezvous with the
Ecliptic."
    "Then I guess...I won't seeing you again."
    "Maybe someday," Biggs declared.  He brightened, grinning that disarming grin.
"I'll keep a look out for you, brother.  Try not to run into any canyon walls in the
meantime."
    "I'll be at the Academy the season after," Luke insisted, more to encourage
himself than Biggs.  "After that, who knows where I'll end up?"  He sounded
determined.  "I won't be drafted into the starfleet, that's for sure.  Tale care of
yourself.  You'll…always be the best friend I've got."  There was no need for a
handshake.  These two had long since passed beyond that.
    "So long, then, Luke," Biggs said simply.  He turned and reentered the power
station.
    Luke watched him disappear through the door, his own thoughts as chaotic and
frenetic as one of Tatooine's spontaneous dust storms.

    There were any numbers of extraordinary features unique to Tatooine's surface.
Outstanding among them were the mysterious mists, which rose regularly from the
ground at the points where desert sands washed up against unyielding cliffs and mesas.
    Fog in a steaming desert seemed as out of place as cactus on a glacier, but it
existed nonetheless.  Meteorologists and geologists argued its origin among
themselves, muttering hard-to-believe theories about water suspended in sandstone
veins beneath the sand and incomprehensible chemical reactions which made water
rise when the ground cooled, then fall underground again with the double sunrise.  It
was all very backward and very real.
    Neither the mist nor the alien moans of nocturnal desert dwellers troubled Artoo
Detoo, however, as he made his careful way up the rocky arroyo, hunting for the
easiest pathway to the mesa top.  His squarish, broad footpads made clicking sounds
loud in the evening light as sand underfoot gave way gradually to gravel.
    For a moment, he paused.  He seemed to detect a noise—like metal on rock—
ahead of him, instead of rock on rock.  The sound wasn't repeated, though, and he
quickly resumed his ambling ascent.
    Up the arroyo, too far up to be seen from below, a pebble trickled loose from the
stone wall.  The tiny figure, which had accidentally dislodged the pebble, retreated
mouse-like into shadow.  Two glowing points of light showed under overlapping
folds of brown cape a meter from the narrowing canyon wall.
    Only the reaction of the unsuspecting robot indicated the presence of the whining
beam as it struck him.  For a moment Artoo Detoo fluoresced eerily in the dimming
light.  There was a single short electronic squeak.  Then the tripodal support
unbalanced and the tiny automation toppled over onto its back, the lights on its front
blinking on and off erratically from the effects of the paralyzing beam.
    Three travesties of men scurried out from behind concealing boulders.  Their
motions were more indicative of rodent than humankind, and they stood little taller
than the Artoo unit.  When they saw that the single burst of enervation energy had
immobilized the robot, they holstered their peculiar weapons.  Nevertheless, they
approached the listless machine cautiously, with the trepidation of hereditary cowards.
    Their cloaks were thickly coated with dust and sand.  Unhealthy red-yellow
pupils glowed catlike from the depths of their hoods as they studied their captive.
The jawas conversed in low guttural croaks and scrambled analogs of human speech.
If, as anthropologists hypothesized, they had ever been human, they had long since
degenerated past anything resembling the human race.
    Several more jawas appeared.  Together, they succeeded in alternately hoisting
and dragging the robot back down the arroyo.
    At the bottom of canyon—like some monstrous prehistoric beast—was a
sandcrawler as enormous as its owners and operators were tiny.  Several dozen
meters high, the vehicle towered above the ground on multiple treads that were taller
than a tall man.  Its metal epidermis was battered and pitted from with-standing
untold sandstorms.
    On reaching the crawler, the jawas resumed jabbering among themselves.
Artoo Detoo could hear them but failed to comprehend anything.  He need not have
been embarrassed at his failure.  If they so wished, only jawas could understand
other jawas, for they employed a randomly variable language that drove linguists mad.
    One of them removed a small disk from a belt pouch and sealed it to the Artoo
unit's flank.  A large tube protruded from one side of the gargantuan vehicle.  They
rolled him over to it and then moved clear.  There was a brief moan, the whoosh of
powerful vacuum, and the small robot was sucked into the bowels of the sandcrawler
as neatly as a pea up a straw.  This part of the job completed, the jawas engaged in
another bout of jabbering, following which they scurried into the crawler via tubes
and ladders, for all the world like a nest of mice returning to their holes.
    None too gently, the suction tube deposited Artoo in a small cubical.  In
addition to varied piles of broken instruments and outright scrap, a dozen or so robots
of differing shapes and sizes populated the prison.  A few were locked in electronic
conversation.  Others muddled aimlessly about.  But when Artoo tumbled into the
chamber, one voice burst out in surprise.
    "Artoo Detoo—it's you, it's you!" called an excited Threepio from the near
darkness.  He made his way over to the still immobilized repair unit and embraced it
most unmechanically.  Spotting the small disk sealed onto Artoo's side, Threepio
turned his gaze thoughtfully down to his own chest, where a similar device had
likewise been attached.
    Massive gears, poorly lubricated, started to move.  With a groaning and
grinding, the monster sandcrawler turned and lumbered with relentless patience into
the desert night.