Still, I wish there was someone I could rely on, closer to them. I’ve been hearing some sirens to the north; there was another this morning. I worried it involved the Empire, but I think now it might be a warning system of some kind. Maybe that could be of help, I don’t—
This would be easier if you said something. Never mind. I’ll be briefer.
This house. It’s in worse shape than I thought. I rode into Bestine to make sure it was unoccupied, but I hardly needed confirmation. The Jawas picked the place over long ago. There’s a shell of a vaporator, if I can ever get it working right—it needs parts, still. And the place should have a low profile, if I can remove the trash from the yard. You can imagine what kind of junk even a Jawa would pass up.
I was worried it was going to require more trips to Bestine—that’s forty kilometers or so—but maybe there’s another option. Annileen—
That’s Annileen Calwell, a woman from the Pika Oasis, and her daughter. The oasis is closer, and from what she says it has more of what I need to set up housekeeping here.
Meeting her gave me a chance to finally use the name I chose. You’ll like this: Ben. I had seen it on the map at the property office in Bestine—there’s some mesa by that name. Satine used to call me that—it was a private thing. I like the sound of it.
I’m … afraid I drew some attention to myself when I met Annileen. I won’t get into details, but she was in trouble, and I helped her. It felt good to be doing something, after all this hiding. And good to be talking to someone again, when I’m feeling so alone and—
Ah, well.
I don’t know. I’m closer to the oasis, but it’s closer to me, too. Maybe it’s not a good idea to become too familiar a sight with the locals.
I probably won’t go.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“HOW EEET LOOK, Master Gault?”
“Real pretty, Gloamer.” Orrin ran his hand across the new windshield on the landspeeder. “Like new. I don’t know how you do it.”
Orrin wasn’t surprised. Of all the mechanics in the Calwell garages, Gloamer, a green-skinned Phindian whose dangly arms nearly reached his ankles, was by far the best. Starting from a single rented bay five years earlier, Gloamer now ran a vibrant trade taking up a building and a half. That made him the garages’ third largest occupant, after the Gault vaporator installation fleet and the storage space for the Settlers’ Fund vehicles. Since Gloamer worked on all of those, too, he and his assistants were seen almost everywhere.
“Eees best speeeder in oh-aaay-sees,” the mechanic said, his golden eyes alight in their white cavities. “Eees maaaarvel.”
Orrin grinned. Phindians could never let go of a vowel, it seemed—and few beings he had met had more appreciation for a fine vehicle. On this one, Gloamer was right: the USV-5 looked as if it belonged on a nicer planet. Orrin had dithered over buying it; a farmer shouldn’t put on airs. But selling water was as much a part of the job as finding it, and the high-volume city accounts didn’t want to buy from someone who looked like he worked for a living.
Well, that was fine. He could play that game.
Gloamer’s lead assistant skittered past, carrying part of a metal airfoil. Something called a Vuvrian, the assistant was easily the most macabre thing in the garage, to Orrin’s thinking. Bipedal, but with an insect’s head—and apparently a talent for thruster control systems. Orrin didn’t have a problem with nonhumans; compared with his parochial grandfather, his opinions were cosmopolitan. Any being willing to put its back into hard work was fine with him. Diligence knew no species. And neither did sloth: there were more than enough human bums around the Anchorhead cantina to give his own kind a bad name.
But Pappy Gault had been right on one thing. Business success was about taking the other’s measure. Between any two people, a point existed where what one wanted intersected with what the other had. That point was price, and to get the best possible one, high or low, you had to see things the other person’s way. But who knew what a Vuvrian or a Bith was really thinking?
You can’t look a fellow in the eye when he’s all eye.
Orrin had left Tatooine once, as a teenager. His grandfather had dispatched the hands to Rodia, to fetch a vaporator; even a secondhand device from one of the more technologically advanced planets was far better than anything most Tatooine farmers had in their fields. Left at home, Dannar had joked that Orrin would never be heard from again, once he’d seen the stars.
But if anything, Orrin’s brief sojourn told him Tatooine was the real home of opportunity. The galaxy was full of hustlers, all scratching for a credit—and Rodia, a humid place where people clustered under domes, jammed them together in one spot like the jar he used to trap sandflies in. Keep ’em in there long enough, and they’d eat one another. No, Tatooine was much better. Mos Eisley might seem like a menagerie, but you could at least drive away. Tatooine had land—and Orrin had his share.
Thanking Gloamer, he walked along the bays and looked back at his repulsortrucks in the garage. Too many were in the shop, as usual: three more, this morning. It was due not to any fault in Gloamer’s work, but to the boneheads that operated them. Orrin’s ostensible reason for going into the fields each day was to fine-tune the vaporators for better performance. But in fact, most of that time was spent checking up on his remote teams, who confounded him daily by inventing new ways to damage his machinery, his vehicles, or themselves. They were far behind on getting the fields ready for the harvest, and expenses had soared.
He’d hoped the next generation would take some pressure off him. But Mullen and Veeka had both somehow managed to reach their twenties without really growing up. Mullen’s talent seemed to be ticking people off, not leading them—and Veeka was … well, Veeka. Jabe Calwell, though, had some of his late father’s industry about him. Orrin saw him playing a big role in things, if his mother would let him. But Orrin would have to wear down Annileen first. Can’t have a foreman whose mama won’t let him work.
Things had been quiet on the Tusken front in the days since the Bezzard incident; it would be a while before Plug-eye would get up the nerve, or the warriors, to try another dawn raid. But hostilities were still continuing between mother and son, Orrin heard, as he opened the door onto the sales floor of the Claim.
“It’s not fair, Mom!” The voice was male, young, newly deep, and indignant. “It’s not fair and you know it!”
“Fair?” Annileen replied. “What’s fair got to do with the price of water?”
Jabe was on his knees and surrounded by multi-kilo pouches, a puzzle that in no way seemed likely to fit together on the shelves. He was not happy to be there. “Why don’t you get Kallie to do this?”
Annileen looked sternly down the aisle from her counter. “Kallie has her own job, and you know it.”
“This stuff’s feed. Animals are her department!”
“That’s outside the store. This is inside the store. You want me to play back a recording from the last ten times we’ve had this conversation?” Annileen spotted Orrin’s approach. “You better not be here for a piece of this.”
Orrin plucked his good cape from the rack by the door and smirked. “No, Annie, I know when I’m beat.” He looked down at Jabe. “Sorry, kid. Maybe next career.”
Seeing Jabe’s shoulders droop, Orrin winked to reassure him. The boy had to know he had an advocate in him. It was just a matter of time.
Orrin tied the cape around his neck as he made his way around the castle of feed sacks. “How’s Kallie today?”
Annileen rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to ask her when she lands.” She pointed down the counter to the luncheonette. There Kallie, recovered from her ordeal several days earlier, was in the midst of retelling the story of her rescue—this time, to some teenage friends in from the fields.
“… and he just appeared, like he rode down out of the sky. And there were sarlaccs everywhere, but he plowed straight through to try to catch up with me …”
Orrin had heard this one tw
ice in the past two days. He raised an eyebrow to Annileen. “Sarlaccs everywhere?”
“Today, yes.” Annileen looked up from scrubbing the counter. “Wait a while. She’s added a giant cliff.”
“I’m not hearing her mention your role in things,” Orrin said.
“Oh, I wasn’t there,” Annileen said, a wry twist to her mouth. “I haven’t been in the story for a long time.”
“… of course, I’m a great rider, and I could’ve handled it. But Ben’s the type of guy who can’t look the other way when he sees someone—sees a woman—in trouble. And he knew he had to save me from certain …”
“When do I meet this deity?” Orrin said.
“No idea.” Annileen scraped at a stain with frustration. “You know these drifters out on the wastes. He’s probably gotten lost and eaten his eopie by now.”
Orrin chuckled. This response was pure Annie, but he could tell she was disappointed their rescuer hadn’t paid a call. Orrin was glad she’d found help out there; since she’d left without her communicator, they would have had no way to find her. But the man’s absence was probably just as well. Kindly nomads had a way of moving in once they knew you owed them something.
The talk had spread to another table, he heard, as Leelee and the older locals tried to identify the Ben in question.
“There’s that Ben Gaddink who sells the sand sculptures out of the back of his repulsortruck,” Leelee said.
“You’re thinking Ben Moordriver,” corrected Doc Mell. “Ben Gaddink runs the apothecary in Bestine.”
“Maybe Ben Krissle, the card cheat,” a young farmer said.
“Ben Surrep!” proclaimed an old one. “No, wait, he’s an Ithorian …”
In under two minutes they had expanded the list of local Bens to double digits—and completely exhausted Orrin’s interest. He stepped to the counter and found his lunch box and fresh canteen in their usual place. Annileen noticed his cape. “Going somewhere?”
“Subscription drive again.”
“Again? I thought the Settlers’ Fund met the annual goal weeks ago.”
“Well, safety’s something you can never have enough of,” he said. “And the response to the Bezzard raid shows the Call’s working as it’s supposed to.”
Annileen lowered her voice. “Not counting a couple of dead people.” The Bezzard husband had moved back home, but Tyla and the baby were still in her guest quarters. “I can’t believe there’s anyone left around here to sign up.”
“You know the main holdouts,” he said. “But I think we can start offering protection to farms a little farther away.”
“They’ll be able to disband the militia in Mos Eisley before you know it,” Annileen said, stepping out from behind the counter with an armload of batteries. “Good luck, champ.”
Orrin clicked his tongue happily and turned toward the door to the garage. That meant walking past Jabe and Mount Feed. The boy was as sad as Orrin had ever seen him.
“I’m never going to get back on the range with you guys.” Jabe looked up at Orrin forlornly.
“You might be able to help us out in other ways,” Orrin said. “And give her a week. She’ll have forgotten all about the other day.”
“She should have kept Tar around,” Jabe said.
Annileen’s voice sounded from over the shelves in the next aisle. “Tar wouldn’t have stayed, and you know it! You’re family. This is a family business.”
Orrin smirked. “Better learn now, boy. Woman knows all, hears all.” But he happened to agree. Tar Lup was a hairy-faced Shistavanen that Dannar had brought in to clerk when Annileen’s pregnancy with Jabe turned difficult. Amiable and ambitious, Tar had left for big-city retail, where he was doing well. Orrin had prevailed upon him to return to help out for a few months after Dannar’s death, which he did gladly; you could take someone out of the oasis, Orrin liked to say, but that sense of community was always there. But Tar wasn’t likely to come back as a stocker, and they all knew it. Jabe shook his head sadly and returned to his chore.
Walking back to the garage, Orrin found his children huddled over the back of a repulsortruck, poring over the goods inside. “That the stuff?”
“Yep,” Mullen said, moving aside to let Orrin approach. “It’s the last batch of Tusken junk from the Bezzard raid.”
Orrin looked into the back of the vehicle. A couple of bandoliers, another gaffi stick, some putrid-smelling pouches. The Tuskens never had anything they didn’t steal from someone else, but it was interesting to try to see the world through their eyes.
“No clothes?”
Mullen snorted. “You want to strip those stinking things down?”
“Not hardly.” It was an experience you didn’t repeat. Whatever the Tuskens were born as, a lifetime in the suns, under wraps, turned them into something frightful. They smelled frightful, anyway.
Pulling a spanner from the folds of his cloak, he used it to gently lift a pair of goggles. Tusken eyewear was strange. Some wore normal goggles, sheathed in wrapping; others wore independent eyepieces, tightly rooted in their masks. But all terminated in the same nonsensical turrets. Whatever shielding the dull metal tubes provided to Tusken eyes against the suns couldn’t have been worth the peripheral vision they took away—and if there was a way to use the lens inside to see farther, he hadn’t figured it out.
“Not much here,” Orrin said. “Well, you know what to—”
“Got it,” Mullen said, wrapping the bundle up.
Orrin backed away from the repulsortruck—and right into another of Gloamer’s aides. The female mechanic—this one a proper human, not much older than Jabe—grew red-faced. “I’m so sorry, Master Gault!”
Orrin dusted himself off. “It’s all right,” he said. “Busy trumps standing around in my world.”
“It’s an emergency,” the dark-haired girl said. She reached for a jug of blue liquid on a shelving unit. “It’s Old Ulbreck. His engine overheated again, on the way here from his place.”
Orrin knew Ulbreck well. The cheap character probably bought coolant by the spoonful. “He’s just sitting out there in the dunes?”
“Of course,” the girl said. Looking around, she lowered her voice. “He’s afraid someone will steal his vehicle if he leaves. It’s no problem—happens all the time. Today it’s my turn to go out.”
Orrin calculated for a moment. He reached out and stopped the aide. “Look, I’m heading out, anyway. I’ll take care of him.” He reached for the jug of coolant. “It’s the least I can do for the work you’ve done for me.”
“That’s wonderful, sir! I’ll let Gloamer know.”
The girl dashed off, leaving the Gaults alone. Mullen looked to his father. “You figuring on trying to sell Ulbreck on joining the Call again?”
“I’m the king of lost causes,” Orrin said, snorting. “As well as the Jundland.” He laughed. “Besides, who knows? Maybe saving the old man will put us over the top. Or maybe I’ll give Kallie Calwell’s hero a run for his money.”
“I wish,” Mullen said, glaring in the direction of the door to the store. “I’m sick of hearing that little idiot babble about the heroic drifter.”
Veeka chortled. “Give the girl a break. He’s the first male she’s seen outside of a dewback pen.”
Orrin found his landspeeder and settled into the driver’s seat. “Be nice. Bored people imagine things,” he said. “But if any bronze gods three meters tall come riding up, page me on the comlink. That, I’ll want to see …”
The red comlink by the till went off. It was Annileen’s dedicated connection to Orrin. Communications were always iffy on Tatooine, but Orrin still did his best to stay in touch. She picked it up. “You can’t have run out of customers already!”
“That’s not it,” Orrin’s crackling voice replied. “Saw something on my way out. You’re about to have a visitor.”
Annileen inhaled for a moment.
“No, not that visitor,” Orrin said, somehow reading her silence correctly. �
��Someone else.”
Annileen listened as he explained. “Right,” she said, clicking the comlink off. “Kallie! Jabe! Come on!”
Her daughter looked over to see Annileen picking up the blaster rifle from behind the counter. Jabe, suddenly aware, dropped his broom. “Do you need to activate the Settlers’ Call?”
“No,” she said, passing him another rifle. “This is a Calwell Call. Get your gun, Kallie. We’re about to have company.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE SANDCRAWLER HAD STARTED its journey in the south, far beyond the great pass. There, the Jundland high country separated to allow entry into the Western Dune Sea, for anyone daft enough to go there. The land between the pass and the oasis was almost featureless, making it easy to spot the metal behemoth rumbling toward the store.
Still, Annileen was thankful for Orrin’s early warning. The machines made decent time, for their size, and the alert had given her time to lock away the cash. By the time the rolling rummage sale trundled to a stop in the south yard, Annileen and her children were there waiting for it.
Wearing her gray-brimmed safari hat, Annileen stood in the sandcrawler’s shadows. The suns blazed high over the angled nose of the vehicle; if there was anyone up in the control cabin, she couldn’t see them. It didn’t matter. There was something she had to do now, something she’d done for twenty years of prior impromptu visits by the Jawas. Something she’d seen Dannar do during her first year clerking—a thing that told her then that he wasn’t just another grubber who’d go broke in a year.
“Let’s do this,” Annileen said, snapping the power cartridge into her rifle.
“Aw, Annie,” Leelee said. She and the other customers had emerged when they heard the sandcrawler approach. “You’re not gonna shoot ’em?”
Annileen said nothing, instead leading her children to the side of the vehicle. Foul steam emanated from the behemoth’s overheating engines. “You know the drill,” she said. Jabe and Kallie nodded, even as the mighty ramp began to creak open. The ramp end hit the ground with a muted clang. The Calwells raised their weapons—
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