No, sir—versatility is my middle name. See Vee Threepio—Vee for versatility—at your service. I’ve been programmed for over thirty secondary functions that require only…" "I need," the farmer broke in, demonstrating imperious disregard for Threepio’s as yet unenumerated secondary functions, "a ’droid that knows something about binary language of independently programmable moisture vaporators." "Vaporators! We are both in luck," Threepio countered. "My first post- primary assignment was in programming binary load lifters. Very similar in construction and memory-function to your vaporators. You could almost say…" Luke tapped his uncle on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear.
His uncle nodded, then looked back at the attentive Threepio again.
"Do you speak Bocce?" "Of course, sir," Threepio replied, confident for a change with a wholly honest answer. "It’s like a second language to me. "I’m as fluent in Bocce as—" the farmer appeared determined never to allow him to conclude a sentence.
"Shut up." Owen Lars looked down at the jawa. "I’ll take this one, too." "Shutting up, sir," responded Threepio quickly, hard put to conceal his glee at being selected.
"Take them down to the garage, Luke," his uncle instructed him. "I want you to have both of them cleaned up by suppertime." Luke looked askance at his uncle. "But I was going into Tosche station to pick up some new power converters and…" "Don’t lie to me, Luke," his uncle warned him sternly. "I don’t mind you wasting time with your idle friends, but only after you’ve finished your chores. Now hop to it—and before supper, mind." Downcast, Luke directed his words irritably to Threepio and the small agricultural robot. He knew better than to argue with his uncle.
"Follow me, you two." They started for the garage as Owen entered into price negotiations with the jawa.
Other jawas were leading the three remaining machines back into the sandcrawler when something let out an almost pathetic beep. Luke turned to see a Artoo unit breaking formation and starting toward him. It was immediately restrained by a jawa wielding a control device that activated the disk sealed on the machine’s front plate.
责任编辑：mman
