Threepio signaled that the adjustment was satisfactory. Luke turned back into the cockpit and closed the canopy over them again. Silently he brushed his wind- whipped hair back out of his eyes as his attention returned to the dry desert ahead of them.
"Old Ben Kenobi is supposed to live out in this general direction. Even though nobody knows exactly where, I don’t see how that Artoo unit could have come this far so quickly." His expression was downcast. "We must have missed him back in the dunes somewhere. He could be anywhere out here. And Uncle Owen must be wondering why I haven’t called in from the south ridge by now." Threepio considered a moment, then ventured, "Would it help, sir, if you told him that it was my fault?" Luke appeared to brighten at the suggestion. "Sure…he needs you twice as much now. Probably he’ll only deactivate you for a day or so, or give you a partial memory flush." Deactivate? Memory flush? Threepio added hastily, "On second thought, sir, Artoo would still be around if you hadn’t removed his restraining module." But something more important than fixing responsibility for the little robot’s disappearance was on Luke’s mind at the moment. "Wait a minute," he advised Threepio as he stared fixedly at the instrument panel. "There’s something dead ahead on the metal scanner. Can’t distinguish outlines at this distance, but judging by size alone, it could be our wandering ’droid. Hit it." The landspeeder jumped forward as Threepio engaged the accelerator, but its occupants were totally unaware that other eyes were watching as the craft increased its speed.
Those eyes were not organic, but then, they weren’t wholly mechanical, either.
No one could say for certain, because no one had ever made that intimate a study of the Tusken Raiders—known less formally to the margin farmers of Tatooine simply as the sandpeople.
The Tusken didn’t permit close study of themselves, discouraging potential observers by methods as effective as they were uncivilized. A few xenologists thought they must be related to the jawas. Even fewer hypothesized that the jawas were actually the mature form of the sandpeople, but this theory was discounted by the majority of serious scientists.
Both races affected tight clothing to shield them from Tatooine’s twin dose of solar radiation, but there most comparisons ended. Instead of heavy woven cloaks like the jawas wore, the sandpeople wrapped themselves mummy-like in endless swathing and bandages and loose bits of cloth.
Where the jawas feared everything, a Tusken Raider feared little. The sandpeople were larger, stronger, and far more aggressive. Fortunately for the human colonists of Tatooine, they were not very numerous and elected to pursue their nomadic existence in some of Tatooine’s most desolate regions. Contact between human and Tusken, therefore, was infrequent and uneasy, and they murdered no more than a handful of human per year. Since the human population had claimed its share of Tuskens, not always with reason, a peace of a sort existed between the two—as long as neither side gained an advantage.
One of the pair felt that that unstable condition had temporarily shifted in his favor, and he was about to take full advantage of it as he raised his rifle toward the landspeeder. But his companion grabbed the weapon and shoved down on it before it could be fired. This set off a violent argument between the two. And, as they traded vociferous opinions in a language consisting mostly of consonants, the landspeeder sped on its way.
责任编辑：mman
