Luke looked away, embarra.s.sed. "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. "It's always been quiet, really."

Biggs grew silent, thinking. He glanced around. They were alone out here. Everyone else was back inside the comparative coolness of the power station. As he leaned close Luke sensed an unaccustomed solemness in his friend's tone.

"Luke, I didn't come back just to say goodbye, or to crow over everyone because I got through the Academy." Again he seemed to 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 a 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, glancing furtively back toward the power station. "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 d.a.m.n thing," Luke muttered morosely. "I'm stuck here." He kicked futilely at the ever-present sand of Anchorhead.

"I thought 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 of rebellion keeps many in power from doing certain unmentionable things. If that 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 be seeing you again."

"Maybe someday," Biggs declared. He brightened, grinning that disarming grin. "I'll keep a look out for you, hotshot. 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. Take 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 pa.s.sed beyond that.

"So long, then, Luke," Biggs said simply. He turned and re-entered 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 number 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 mouselike 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 automaton 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 enervating 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 a.n.a.logs 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 the 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 withstanding 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 embarra.s.sed 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 a 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 sc.r.a.p, 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.

Ma.s.sive gears, poorly lubricated, started to move. With a groaning and grinding, the monster sandcrawler turned and lumbered with relentless patience into the desert night.

= III =.

THE burnished conference table was as soulless and unyielding as the mood of the eight Imperial Senators and officers ranged around it. Imperial troopers stood guard at the entrance to the chamber, which was spa.r.s.e and coldly lit from lights in the table and walls. One of the youngest of the eight was declaiming. He exhibited the att.i.tude of one who had climbed far and fast by methods best not examined too closely. General Tagge did possess a certain twisted genius, but it was only partly that ability which had lifted him to his present exalted position. Other noisome talents had proven equally efficacious.

Though his uniform was as neatly molded and his body as clean as that of anyone else in the room, none of the remaining seven cared to touch him. A certain sliminess clung cloyingly to him, a sensation inferred rather than tactile. Despite this, many respected him. Or feared him.

"I tell you, he's gone too far this time," the General was insisting vehemently. "This Sith Lord inflicted on us at the urging of the Emperor will be our undoing. Until the battle station is fully operational, we remain vulnerable.

"Some of you still don't seem to realize how well equipped and organized the Rebel Alliance is. Their vessels are excellent, their pilots better. And they are propelled by something more powerful than mere engines: this perverse, reactionary fanaticism of theirs. They're more dangerous than most of you realize."

An older officer, with facial scars so deeply engraved that even the best cosmetic surgery could not fully repair them, shifted nervously in his chair. "Dangerous to your starfleet, General Tagge, but not to this battle station." Wizened eyes hopped from man to man, traveling around the table. "I happen to think Lord Vader knows what he's doing. The rebellion will continue only as long as those cowards have a sanctuary, a place where their pilots can relax and their machines can be repaired."

Tagge objected. "I beg to differ with you, Romodi. I think the construction of this station has more to do with Governor Tarkin's bid for personal power and recognition than with any justifiable military strategy. Within the Senate the rebels will continue to increase their support as long-"

The sound of the single doorway sliding aside and the guards snapping to attention cut him of. His head turned as did everyone else's.

Two individuals as different in appearance as they were united in objectives had entered the chamber. The nearest to Tagge was a thin, hatchet-faced man with hair and form borrowed from an old broom and the expression of a quiescent piranha. The Grand Moff Tarkin, Governor of numerous outlying Imperial territories, was dwarfed by the broad, armored bulk of Lord Darth Vader.

Tagge, unintimidated but subdued, slowly resumed his seat as Tarkin a.s.sumed his place at the end of the conference table. Vader stood next to him, a dominating presence behind the Governor's chair. For a minute Tarkin stared directly at Tagge, then glanced away as if he had seen nothing. Tagge fumed but remained silent.

As Tarkin's gaze roved around the table a razor-thin smile of satisfaction remained frozen in his features. "The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us, gentlemen. I have just received word that the Emperor has permanently dissolved that misguided body."

A ripple of astonishment ran through the a.s.sembly. "The last remnants," Tarkin continued, "of the Old Republic have finally been swept away."

"This is impossible," Tagge interjected. "How will the Emperor maintain control of the Imperial bureaucracy?"

"Senatorial representation has not been formally abolished, you must understand," Tarkin explained. "It has merely been superseded for the-" he smiled a bit more-"duration of the emergency. Regional Governors will now have direct control and a free hand in administering their territories. This means that the Imperial presence can at last be brought to bear properly on the vacillating worlds of the Empire. From now on, fear will keep potentially traitorous local governments in line. Fear of the Imperial fleet-and fear of this battle station."

"And what of the existing rebellion?" Tagge wanted to know.

"If the rebels somehow managed to gain access to a complete technical schema of this battle station, it is remotely possible that they might be able to locate a weakness susceptible to minor exploitation." Tarkin's smile shifted to a smirk. "Of course, we all know how well guarded, how carefully protected, such vital data is. It could not possibly fall into rebel hands."

"The technical data to which you are obliquely referring," rumbled Darth Vader angrily, "will soon be back in our hands. If-"

Tarkin shook the Dark Lord off, something no one else at the table would have dared to do. "It is immaterial. Any attack made against this station by the rebels would be a suicidal gesture, suicidal and useless-regardless of any information they managed to obtain. After many long years of secretive construction," he declared with evident pleasure, "this station has become the decisive force in this part of the universe. Events in this region of the galaxy will no longer be determined by fate, by decree, or by any other agency. They will be decided by this station!"

A huge metal-clad hand gestured slightly, and one of the filled cups on the table drifted responsively into it. With a slightly admonishing tone the Dark Lord continued. "Don't become too proud of this technological terror you've sp.a.w.ned, Tarkin. The ability to destroy a city, a world, a whole system is still insignificant when set against the Force."

"The Force," Tagge sneered. "Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient mythology has not helped you to conjure up those stolen tapes, or gifted you with clairvoyance sufficient to locate the rebels' hidden fortress. Why, it's enough to make one laugh fit to-"

Tagge's eyes abruptly bulged and his hands went to his throat as he began to turn a disconcerting shade of blue.

"I find," Vader ventured mildly, "this lack of faith disturbing."

"Enough of this," Tarkin snapped, distressed. "Vader, release him. This bickering among ourselves is pointless."

Vader shrugged as if it were of no consequence. Tagge slumped in his seat, rubbing his throat, his wary gaze never leaving the dark giant.

"Lord Vader will provide us with the location of the rebel fortress by the time this station is certified operational," Tarkin declared. "That known, we will proceed to it and destroy it utterly, crushing this pathetic rebellion in one swift stroke."

"As the Emperor wills it," Vader added, not without sarcasm, "so shall it be."

If any of the powerful men seated around the table found this disrespectful tone objectionable, a glance at Tagge was sufficient to dissuade them from mentioning it.

The dim prison reeked of rancid oil and stale lubricants, a veritable metallic charnel house. Threepio endured the discomfiting atmosphere as best he could. It was a constant battle to avoid being thrown by every unexpected bounce into the walls or into a fellow machine.

To conserve power-and also to avoid the steady stream of complaints from his taller companion-Artoo Detoo had shut down all exterior functions. He lay inert among a pile of secondary parts, sublimely unconcerned at the moment as to their fate.

"Will this never end?" Threepio was moaning as another violent jolt roughly jostled the inhabitants of the prison. He had already formulated and discarded half a hundred horrible ends. He was certain only that their eventual disposition was sure to be worse than anything he could imagine.

Then, quite without warning, something more unsettling than even the most battering b.u.mp took place. The sandcrawler's whine died, and the vehicle came to a halt-almost as if in response to Threepio's query. A nervous buzz rose from those mechanicals who still retained a semblance of sentience as they speculated on their present location and probable fate.

At least Threepio was no longer ignorant of his captors or of their likely motives. Local captives had explained the nature of the quasi-human mechanic migrants, the jawas. Traveling in their enormous mobile fortress-homes, they scoured the most inhospitable regions of Tatooine in search of valuable minerals-and salvageable machinery. They had never been seen outside of their protective cloaks and sandmasks, so no one knew exactly what they looked like. But they were reputed to be extraordinarily ugly. Threepio did not have to be convinced.

Leaning over his still-motionless companion, he began a steady shaking of the barrel-like torso. Epidermal sensors were activated on the Artoo unit, and the lights on the front side of the little robot began a sequential awakening.

"Wake up, wake up," Threepio urged. "We've stopped someplace." Like several of the other, more imaginative robots, his eyes were warily scanning metal walls, expecting a hidden panel to slide aside at any moment and a giant mechanical arm to come probing and fumbling for him.

"No doubt about it, we're doomed," he recited mournfully as Artoo righted himself, returning to full activation. "Do you think they'll melt us down?" He became silent for several minutes, then added, "It's this waiting that gets to me."

Abruptly the far wall of the chamber slid aside and the blinding white glare of a Tatooine morning rushed in on them. Threepio's sensitive photoreceptors were hard pressed to adjust in time to prevent serious damage.

Several of the repulsive-looking jawas scrambled agilely into the chamber, still dressed in the same swathings and filth Threepio had observed on them before. Using hand weapons of an unknown design, they prodded at the machines. Certain of them. Threepio noted with a mental swallow, did not stir.

Ignoring the immobile ones, the jawas herded those still capable of movement outside, Artoo and Threepio among them. Both robots found themselves part of an uneven mechanical line.

Shielding his eyes against the glare, Threepio saw that five of them were arranged alongside the huge sandcrawler. Thoughts of escape did not enter his mind. Such a concept was utterly alien to a mechanical. The more intelligent a robot was, the more abhorrent and unthinkable the concept. Besides, had he tried to escape, built-in sensors would have detected the critical logic malfunction and melted every circuit in his brain.

Instead, he studied the small domes and vaporators that indicated the presence of a larger underground human homestead. Though he was unfamiliar with this type of construction, all signs pointed to a modest, if isolated, habitation. Thoughts of being dismembered for parts or slaving in some high-temperature mine slowly faded. His spirits rose correspondingly.

"Maybe this won't be so bad after all," he murmured hopefully. "If we can convince these bipedal vermin to unload us here, we may enter into sensible human service again instead of being melted into slag."

Artoo's sole reply was a noncommittal chirp. Both machines became silent as the jawas commenced scurrying around them, striving to straighten one poor machine with a badly bent spine, to disguise a dent or sc.r.a.pe with liquid and dust.

As two of them bustled about, working on his sandcoated skin, Threepio fought to stifle an expression of disgust. One of his many human-a.n.a.log functions was the ability to react naturally to offensive odors. Apparently hygiene was unknown among the jawas. But he was certain no good would come of pointing this out to them.

Small insects drifted in clouds about the faces of the jawas, who ignored them. Apparently the tiny individualized plagues were regarded as just a different sort of appendage, like an extra arm or leg.

So intent was Threepio on his observation that he failed to notice the two figures moving toward them from the region of the largest dome. Artoo had to nudge him slightly before he looked up.

The first man wore an air of grim, semiperpetual exhaustion, sandblasted into his face by too many years of arguing with a hostile environment. His graying hair was frozen in tangled twists like gypsum helicites. Dust frosted his face, clothes, hands, and thoughts. But the body, if not the spirit, was still powerful.

Proportionately dwarfed by his uncle's wrestlerlike body, Luke strode slump-shouldered in his shadow, his present att.i.tude one of dejection rather than exhaustion. He had a great deal on his mind, and it had very little to do with farming. Mostly it involved the rest of his life, and the commitment made by his best friend who had recently departed beyond the blue sky above to enter a harsher, yet more rewarding career.

The bigger man stopped before the a.s.sembly and entered into a peculiar squeaky dialogue with the jawa in charge. When they wished it, the jawas could be understood.

Luke stood nearby, listening indifferently. Then he shuffled along behind his uncle as the latter began inspecting the five machines, pausing only to mutter an occasional word or two to his nephew. It was hard to pay attention, even though he knew he ought to be learning.

"Luke-oh, Luke!" a voice called.

Turning away from the conversation, which consisted of the lead jawa extolling the unmatched virtues of all five machines and his uncle countering with derision, Luke walked over to the near edge of the subterranean courtyard and peered down.