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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.”
    â€œThings change, Luke. Only the threat of rebellion keeps many in power from doing certain unmentionable things. If that threat is completely removed—well, thereare 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.
    â€œI wish I was going with you,” Luke finally murmured. He glanced up. “Will you be around long?”
    â€œNo. As a matter of fact, I’m leaving in the morning to rendezvous with the
Ecliptic
.”
    â€œThen I guess … I won’t be seeing you again.”
    â€œMaybe 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.”
    â€œI’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 passed beyond that.
    â€œSo 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.
    T here were any number of extraordinary features unique to Tatooine’s surface. Outstanding among them were the mysterious mists which rose regularly from the ground atthe 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 frontblinking 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