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 scrape with liquid and dust.
As two of them bustled about, working on his sand-coated skin, Threepio fought to stifle an expression of disgust. One of his many human-analog 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, semi-perpetual 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 wrestler-like body, Luke strode slump- shouldered in his shadow, his present attitude one of dejection rather than exhaustion.
责任编辑：mman
