by Jude Watson
“But we’ll lose so much time!” Stuart protested. “If we don’t find the Rebels, they’ll leave without us! Then we’ll be stranded here. And I’ll lose my chance to rescue Father,” he finished brokenly.
“I’m sorry, Stuart. You’ll lose strength if we don’t take frequent breaks,” Forbee-X reminded him softly. “You’re not used to a desert climate. We’ll go as fast as we can, but the sand will slow us down.”
“The sand!” Threepio moaned. “Oh, my poor joints!”
Stuart set his jaw. “There must be a faster way to get out of here.”
They heard a hiss, and then a bright flame of light shot up from the bottom of the boat.
“Artoo made a stove out of scrap metal and the rest of the fuel!” Threepio told Stuart excitedly. “Here, Master Stuart. Move closer.”
Stuart held his hands out to the heat source. “That feels good. Thanks, Artoo.”
“I suggest we turn in,” Forbee-X said gently. “It’s been a very long day.”
They settled down for the night. The light of the stove and Forbee-X’s radiant red screen made a comforting glow against the darkness. Stuart slept, and the droids took turns shutting down their circuits so that someone would always be on the watch.
The next morning, the sun was low in the sky, and the temperature was a bit warmer. The boat had created a deep hollow in the plant when it landed, and the surrounding flesh was still cool to the touch.
“In a few hours, that sun will be almost directly overhead,” Forbee-X said, scanning the sky. “The air temperature will rise quickly. Watch.”
Stuart wasn’t really paying attention, though. He had noticed a low buzzing noise, and climbed out of the grounded boat to investigate.
The wide crack in the large succulent plant seemed to have come alive. It wriggled and writhed like a wide, black snake, but it wasn’t getting anywhere. Stuart swallowed hard and took a few more steps. As he moved closer, one end of the snake seemed to rear up and somehow scatter into the air. Stuart felt something land on his arm. He looked down and saw a black winged insect the size of his palm. It lit for a moment, then flew back toward the plant.
“It’s an attack!” Stuart shouted, running toward the plant. He swatted at the huge insects. One by one they hovered overhead for a moment, then dove at the plant again.
Forbee-X and the other droids were there in a nanosecond.
“Where’s the attack?” asked Threepio, looking nervously around.
“These insects!” Stuart shouted between swats. “They’re going to kill this plant. Don’t just stand there, help!”
Forbee-X’s screen flashed an unhappy color. “Stuart, I’m afraid it’s too late,” she said. “This plant’s skin is tough, but our crash landing ripped it badly. The thick skin helped the plant keep water in and hungry insects out. Now that the skin is so seriously damaged, it can’t do either. The plant will no doubt die.”
Stuart gloomily regarded the long tear. The insects were already flying away. Stuart swatted at one last insect, then gave up. “Now it’s nothing but insect food. What a waste.”
Artoo whistled softly.
“Exactly right, Artoo,” Forbee-X said, laying a gentle arm on Stuart’s shoulder. “It’s not a waste to those insects who feed on it. Or the larger animals who will feed on the insects. This plant is part of a food web. If animal life on this planet is typical, the food web may look something like this.”
“The death of this one plant will nourish many other animals,” Forbee-X concluded.
“Hey, the lizard woke up!” Stuart reached into his jacket and carefully slipped the lizard out. It flicked a long, lazy tongue. “Hey there, buddy,” Stuart crooned. “Hungry?”
Stuart broke off a tiny piece of fruit and held it out. The lizard bit the fruit, chewed, then spit out the remainder.
“He’s extracting water from it,” Forbee-X said approvingly.
“So if we stepped inside, the skin of the plant could insulate us right now?” Stuart asked.
“Exactly right, Stuart,” Forbee-X declared. “Isn’t it fascinating how nature can protect us? Evaporation would also help us. Water from the plant tissue is turning from a liquid into a gas. For water to evaporate, it needs extra heat energy. In this case, the evaporating water is taking heat energy from the air. And less heat energy means ...” Forbee-X waited expectantly for Stuart to finish her sentence, her screen sparkling an encouraging blue.
“... that we would stay cooler!” Stuart finished triumphantly. Then he had another question.
“But there’s so much hot air out there,” Stuart continued. “Why wouldn’t it sink down into the tear in the plant’s skin and push the cold air away?”
“Hot air is less dense than cold air,” Forbee-X answered. “In general, cold air tends to sink, while hot air rises.” Her screen shot a golden light. “Isn’t nature marvelous?”
Suddenly, Stuart’s mouth dropped open. He looked up at the sky. Then he looked at the parachute. He looked back up at the sky.
“Hot air rises!” he exclaimed. “Of course! I know how to get us out of here!”
Stuart scrambled back to the boat. He brought back the stove Artoo had fashioned. He pointed from the parachute to the stove to the sky above.
“Is this some kind of game?” Threepio asked. “Because I’m stumped.”
“A hot air balloon!” Stuart cried. “We have everything we need. We can make the parachute into a balloon. And we have the stove, and fuel. The boat can carry us.”
Forbee-X’s screen flashed a rainbow of colors as a stream of data ran across it. Then it cleared and shone bright blue. “I think it might be possible!” she said excitedly.
Artoo beeped a question.
“Artoo just pointed out that we’ll have to use all our remaining fuel,” Forbee-X translated.
“And he asked if we’re willing to take that chance,” Threepio rushed in to complete.
“We’ve got to,” Stuart declared. “We don’t have much time left.”
“Twenty-five hours,” Forbee-X confirmed.
“Let’s take a vote,” Stuart suggested. His hand shot up in the air. “I vote yes.”
Forbee-X raised a long metal arm. “I think we ought to take the chance as well.”
Artoo beeped in agreement. Everyone looked at Threepio. It wasn’t as though he wanted to put his faith in a piece of fabric and a makeshift stove, but he didn’t want to stay in a desert, either. He could feel sand gathering in his joint connectors. Besides, if they didn’t reach the Rebels in time, he could be stranded on this dreadful planet forever!
He raised his hand. “Let’s proceed.”
The circuits of Forbee-X and Artoo began to click in happy unison as they made a series of calculations. The two of them sometimes spoke a language Threepio didn’t understand, full of numbers and formulas. He was glad to have two smart friends, but sometimes it made him feel lonely.
“What are you talking about, guys?” Stuart asked impatiently.
“We’re just planning how to do this,” Forbee-X told him. “Luckily, it’s not complicated. A hot air balloon needs three basic things.”
“The burner heats the air inside the envelope,” Forbee-X continued. “Heated air is less dense than the cooler air around it. So it rises — or floats upward.”
“Where are the steering controls?” Stuart asked.
“There are no controls,” Forbee-X answered. “Other than the burner itself. It allows the pilot to take the balloon up and down. As I mentioned, to send the balloon up, you heat the air inside the envelope. To take the balloon back down, you open a vent at the top of the balloon. The vent allows some hot air to escape, and some cooler air to seep in from below. That makes the balloon denser, so it starts to sink back down toward the ground.”
“Up and down?” Stuart frowned. “We have to do more than go up. That will just give us a bird’s-eye view of the desert.”
“I think I’ve had enough of a bird’s-eye view, thank you,�
�� Threepio put in.
Forbee-X’s screen flashed a sunny yellow for an instant, which meant she was amused. “True, Threepio,” she said. “But there is something we need up there. Wind. Actually, we need layers of wind currents — streams of air flowing in different directions. We must find one that will push us south, toward the settlement.”
“So how do we find it?” Stuart asked.
“We go up and down until we find the right current,” Forbee-X explained. “For instance, the air currents above us could run something like this.”
In a few hours, they had fashioned the hot air balloon. Artoo drilled more holes in the scrap metal that had gone through so many transformations. Now it would serve as the balloon’s “gondola.” Threepio made sure there were no holes in the fabric of the parachute, and then, together with Forbee-X, he fastened it to the gondola. Meanwhile, Stuart tied ropes at all four sides of the gondola and staked them into the sand.
Artoo propped the stove above the center of the gondola, and they loaded the supplies. Then, Artoo started up the stove and they carefully filled the balloon with hot air.
“It’s going to work!” Stuart crowed.
“It looks a little makeshift,” Threepio said critically.
“As long as it flies,” Forbee-X said. “That’s the important thing. Let’s board!”
Forbee-X, Artoo, and Threepio stepped into the gondola. One by one, Stuart cut the lines. Then he quickly jumped in as the gondola began to rise.
“Artoo, are you sure this is going to work?” Threepio whispered.
Artoo beeped cheerfully.
“You think so?” Threepio asked in a panic. He squeezed his photoreceptors shut.
“What a view!” Forbee-X exclaimed a moment later.
“Totally galactic!” Stuart cried.
Cautiously, Threepio reactivated his photoreceptors. It was good to see the burning desert below, and not be in the middle of it.
“We’re going a little too fast, I think,” Forbee-X said to Artoo, who was controlling their ascent. “Stuart might run into problems.”
“What problems?” Stuart asked gleefully. “This is the way to travel!”
Stuart sounded breathless. Threepio guessed he was excited. But then Stuart began to take in breath with great gasps. His eyes widened in panic as he fought to breathe.
“The atmosphere is too thin, Artoo!” Forbee-X rapped out. “Bring us down!”
As Artoo guided them down, Forbee-X turned to Stuart.
“Don’t worry, Stuart. You’ll feel better in a minute. The atmosphere is thinner the higher we go. That means that the air molecules are farther apart. Each breath has fewer molecules in it.”
“So I had to breathe harder to get more molecules,” Stuart guessed. “I sure didn’t like the feeling.”
“No, it must be unpleasant,” Forbee-X said. “We have to be careful not to get so high again.”
Artoo gave a happy beep.
“Artoo says we’ve found a good wind current. It’s bringing us southward,” Threepio explained.
Stuart turned to face forward. The wind blew his dark hair away from his face as he stared at the horizon. “I’m coming, Father” he whispered.
They traveled over desert and forest and plain as the day went on. The sun set, and the sky twinkled with stars. While Stuart slept close to the stove for warmth, his hand resting on the lizard underneath his jacket, Artoo, Threepio, and Forbee-X kept the balloon on course.
Stuart awakened with the sunrise. He munched on a protein cube and a piece of fruit as the sky turned blood-red. The color streaked through a bank of dark clouds.
“What beautiful colors!” Threepio exclaimed. “I’m sure it’s a good omen.”
Forbee-X’s screen went gray. “I’m afraid it isn’t, Threepio,” she said in a worried tone. “I don’t like the shape of those clouds.”
“I think they’re rather pretty,” Threepio said, admiring them.
“Look how some of them spread out on top,” Stuart agreed as he fed a piece of fruit to the lizard. “Like a Wookiee on a bad hair day.”
“That one looks more like a Fuzzum to me,” Threepio said, pointing.
As Stuart laughed, Forbee-X’s screen flashed a warning red. “What I see are cumulonimbus clouds with anvil-shaped tops.”
“Okay, so it’s not a mussed-up Wookiee,” Stuart said, still grinning. “But what’s the problem?”
“Clouds are made mostly of water droplets and water vapor — water that has evaporated into gas,” Forbee-X explained. “Because those clouds reach so high in the air, they’re super cold inside. In those chilly temperatures, some of the water vapor in the clouds has turned into ice crystals. Some of the water drops have frozen into tiny ice pellets called graupel. Fierce winds blowing up and down inside the cloud toss the crystals and graupel around. When the two kinds of ice collide, they sometimes become charged with static electricity. The crystals become positively charged and the graupel becomes negatively charged.”
“I know what static electricity is,” Stuart said. “Back home, when I walk across my bedroom carpet, I get charged with it. Then, if I touch metal, I feel a little shock. It’s no big deal. Why should it be a problem inside the cloud?”
“If the ice crystals and graupel stayed mixed together, it wouldn’t be,” Forbee-X answered. “But the cloud has strong upward and downward winds called updrafts and downdrafts. Because the ice crystals are lighter, many of them are blown to the top of the cloud. That gives the upper part of the cloud a positive charge. Meanwhile, the heavier graupel sinks toward the bottom of the cloud. So the lower part of the cloud becomes negatively charged, like this.”
Stuart pointed at the screen. “All this built up positive and negative charge must make for a huge discharge. That sounds almost like —”
Suddenly, a huge flash lit the sky.
“Lightning,” Stuart finished. He tucked the lizard back into the sling.
Forbee confirmed Stuart’s conclusion with a new diagram.
“Artoo, I suggest we land immediately,” Forbee-X said urgently. “The land looks green below. We should be able to find shelter.”
Artoo began a slow descent. But they were caught by a fierce wind current, which blew them directly into the course of the storm. Lightning flashed and the skies opened. Rain drenched them within seconds. The gondola swung crazily with the force of the winds. Artoo battled to keep them on course, but he had enough trouble keeping them from overturning.
“We’ve got to land!” Forbee-X shouted.
Artoo whistled at Threepio.
“All right, Artoo,” Threepio yelled over a thunderclap. “We’ll guide you down!”
The three of them peered over the side while Artoo handled the descent. The rain created a gray curtain that made it impossible to see clearly. Stuart wiped his eyes constantly, trying to peer downward. Threepio thought he spied a green field below.
“There!” he cried, pointing.
“That looks perfect!” Forbee-X agreed. “Just about a hundred feet to the left, Artoo!”
The wind gust blew them over the field.
“Down!” Threepio shouted.
Artoo piloted the balloon down to the planet’s surface. The gondola bumped gently on the ground.
“Good work! ” Threepio congratulated him. “We’re safe!”
Just as he said this, a fierce gust of wind knocked over the gondola. They spilled out. But instead of landing on the ground, they crashed right through it!
To Threepio’s surprise, the green “field” turned out to be a thick blanket of treetops. He hit a branch and bounced, then fell a few feet to bounce on another.
“Ow!” He heard Stuart below him, also bouncing from branch to branch. Artoo clunked his way downward, beeping wildly. Forbee-X’s circuits clicked and her screen flashed red with each jarring collision.
The final drop was onto a carpet of thick moss. Threepio landed with a bump.
He sorrowfully regarded a dent in his r
ight flank. “My poor metal! Stuart, are you all right? Artoo? Forbee?”
Artoo beeped a weak reply, and Forbee-X’s screen flashed slowly from color to color as she checked her circuits. “I’m fine,” she said.
Stuart flexed his arms and legs. “Nothing’s broken. But I lost the lizard!”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Threepio said politely.
“Don’t worry, Stuart. The lizard has wings, remember?” Forbee-X said. “It probably flew away in the confusion. It’s very warm here. I’d say we’re in its native habitat.”
“It is warm,” Stuart noted. “But it’s morning. Shouldn’t it be winter?”
“I believe that we’re close to the planet’s equator — the imaginary line that divides the planet’s northern hemisphere from its southern hemisphere,” Forbee-X said. “Let me show you.”
“The bad news is, we were blown too far south by the storm,” Forbee-X continued. “We’ve overshot the city.”
“Oh, I knew there would be bad news,” Threepio moaned. “So what do we do now?”
Artoo beeped a suggestion.
“Climb back up?” Threepio asked in disbelief. “I barely made it down alive!”
Forbee-X listened to Artoo’s chirps and whirrs. “He’s right,” she told the others. “We need the supplies. And we might be able to salvage the parachute. We only have twelve hours left to find the city.”
“I’ll go and check it out,” Stuart offered.
“Excellent suggestion!” Threepio agreed. He settled himself against the trunk.
“I think we should all go,” Forbee-X said. “If we can’t salvage the parachute, we’ll have to get the supplies down anyway. We all have to pitch in.”
The branches were wide and spaced close together. Stuart nimbly hoisted himself from branch to branch, but Artoo often needed help. At last they reached the large branch where the gondola had landed. It was wedged in the V where the branch met the tree.