gates-and eight Jawas rushed out. I tried again to see inside, but
could not in the darkness there. They had never invited me in. I
had no idea what lay inside. This was a new family fortress, maybe
only a hundred years old, with, I guessed, fifteen clans-four
hundred Jawas. They were jealous of any secrets and wary of any
alien, but they would talk to me and barter with me and spend
hours outside on the sand.
The first Jawa to reach me was my old friend Wi-mateeka. He
began chittering at me in Jawa, slowly, so I could understand.
"Do you still come here asking for water now that you farm it
yourself?" he chittered, and they all laughed.
"No," I said. "But I have brought you a gift of water to thank
you for your generosity to me in the past."
I set a pouch of water in Wimateeka's arms, and he could barely
hold it up alone. The others crowded around to help him set it on
the sand and to touch it, to feel the water move inside it.
"What else have you brought us?" Wimateeka asked. "The
knowledge of maps," I said, "and how the Empire uses them to
decide questions about land. We can use them in the same way."
I set the holo-display unit on the level sand outside the
fortress, sand beat down and compacted by the comings and goings
of Jawa crawlers, and I asked the unit to display my map close
above the sand. The Jawas shrieked and rushed back, but not
Wimateeka. He would not leave the water pouch He kept his hands
on it.
"What is this that you have brought, Ariq?" he asked.
A map, I explained. I told them what maps are and the purpose
of them, how all the mountains and valleys and sand plains around
us were represented here with small replicas, and they began to
recognize and point out familiar features, marvel that at this
scale their fortress was as small as the red dot.
I explained boundaries to them and what they could mean to us
How if they agreed to respect the boundary of the land grant the
government had given me, I would not go to the government to claim
land farther up the canyon toward their fortress-I would, in fact,
help them fill out the forms to claim the land themselves. I
suggested that they buy and put out vaporators of their own, all
down the valley, to the border of my farm. Even if they didn't do
this, the imaginary line between their land and mine would give
diem some protection, and I told them how I hoped the Empire would
come to accept the lines we agreed on and keep other humans from
making farms in their valley.
When I finished, the Jawas hurried inside the fortress to
discuss my information and proposal. They took the water. I asked
Wimateeka to stay outside with me for a short time. We sat in the
shade of my landspeeder to watch the sunsets while we talked.
"Can you teach me a Sand People greeting?" I asked him.
He looked up at me, surprised. After a moment, he said
"Koroghh gahgt takt. 'Blessed be your going out from us.' "
"No, a greeting," I said. "Not a farewell." I thought I had
mispronounced the Jawa word for "greeting" the first time I asked.
"That is a greeting," he said. "The most polite. They greet
each other like this because they are always traveling. They will
seldom stay long in one place."
Not even long enough to develop greetings, I thought, only
hasty blessings because they left each other so soon.
"Say it again," I asked, and Wimateeka did, and I repeated it
till I could say it.
"Why do you want to learn this greeting?" Wimateeka asked me.
I explained to him about the Sand People and the water and my
questions about the land - their land.
Wimateeka was quiet for a time, looking at me. "The young Sand
People are dangerous in the days that come and for a time," he
said. He explained that this was the time when the adolescents had
to perform some great deed to earn adulthood, deeds that often
included acts of mayhem against non-Sand People races.
"All our crawlers are coming home to wait here through this
time," he said. "You should take your fellow humans to Mos Eisley
and do the same."
He told me how a vast army of young Sand People had once
attacked a Jawa fortress south of us and slaughtered the
inhabitants. That fortress was still an empty, burned ruin that
Wimateeka had once visited. I was lucky the Sand People around my
vaporator had not been adolescents out to earn adulthood.
Wimateeka asked me how to operate the holo unit, and I told it
to obey Wimateeka's voice when he asked it to display the map,
nothing more. He displayed the map three times, then asked if he
could take it to the discussions in the fortress.
"This is not a trade," I said. "I want this holo unit back,
unharmed."
"I will bring it to you personally," he said. He abruptly
snatched up the holo unit and hurried into the fortress.
I ate the supper I'd brought with me. After the last sunset, I
laid blankets out on the sand. I expected to sleep there, blaster
in hand-especially after Wimateeka's story about the young Sand
People's rite of passage-in the relative safety outside the Jawa
gates. But in the night, the Jawas came out to me, with torches.
Wimateeka led them. "You have honored us," he said. He set the
holo unit in front of me. "Extend our boundaries to include the
valley west of us to the Dune Sea, and we will accept your
proposal."
I displayed the map and told the holo unit to make the boundary
changes. The Jawas chittered softly when their black lines moved
to include the valley they asked for. It was a valley their
crawlers traveled through to get to the Dune Sea to scavenge.
Everyone would agree that they needed that valley.
"It is not safe out here on the sand," Wimateeka said. "Bring
your blankets, your speeder, and your holo unit and come inside to
spend the rest of the night with us."
I hadn't expected this. I got up at once and folded my blankets
and stowed them and the holo unit in my speeder and walked the
speeder through their gates.
We did not sleep. The Jawas took me to a great room, and in the
heart of their fortress we talked by torchlight about maps and
water and the Sand People and how to talk to them about maps.
Day 5 A Greeting
Eyvind and I sat openly in front of our speeders on the dune
southwest of the vaporator and my day's gift of water to the Sand
People.
"So they come here for this water?" Eyvind asked.
"Every day."
"And they don't break into your other vaporators?"
"No."
"I still don't like this. Your farm's the farthest out, and
you're separated from the rest of us-so maybe you have to deal
with the Sand People-but my farm's the second farthest out and I
don't want to do anything to encourage Sand People to come around,
it. I won't give them any water-but how long before they show up
on my farm expecting it?"
"There-I can see one of them. Watch the
dunes to the northwest.
They come most often from that direction. They must camp somewhere
to the northwest"
"And you're luring them down here."
I didn't answer that. We'd argued about this again and again
over the last few days. I was not going to argue with Eyvind when
Sand People were so close to us. To give Eyvind credit, he stopped
arguing, too. The canyon was utterly still, then. No wind blew. I
could not hear the Sand People moving. It was the first time I'd
brought anyone else to see die Sand People take my gift of water.
I stood and put my hand on Eyvind's shoulder. I did not believe
that the Sand People would harm me. I hoped that if they saw me
physically close to Eyvind they would learn not to harm him or
ever want to. I'd made decisions, and I meant to stick by them-but
I realized my decisions had moved the boundaries of racial
interchange for everyone out here, I hoped for the good, that's
what I hoped.
Suddenly one of the Sand People stood in the shadow of the
vaporator, near the water pouch. I hadn't seen him come up. He was
just suddenly there. I raised my arm and clenched my fist in
greeting, but he would not raise his fist in return.
"Maybe this wasn't a good idea," Eyvind whispered. "Should I
leave?"
"Not yet," I said. I kept my arm up and my fist clenched.
"Koroghh gahgt takt," I called out.
The Sand Person stepped back, out of the shadow and into the
sunlight, almost as if he were going to run.
"Koroghh gahgt takt!" I called again. I hoped I was pronouncing
the words right-that Wimateeka had learned the greeting right to
begin with before teaching it to me, that I wasn't challenging the
Sand People to a fight or cursing their mothers.
Slowly, the Sand Person began to raise his arm and clench his
fist "Koroghh gahgt takt!" he shouted back.
So I had it right, I thought. This was working.
I heard the greeting shouted at me from somewhere over the
dunes to the east-then from all directions and from the canyon
walls, again and again the same greeting Koroghh gahgt takt.
Eyvind stood up. "They are all around us!" he said.
But we could see only one of them. That one picked up the water
pouch and disappeared into the dunes.
Eyvind and I took our speeders and got out of there and saw no
more of the Sand People that day. We went to my house and talked
late into the night.
I'd sent Wimateeka's warning about the Sand People's rite of
passage to all the other farmers in this region, and everyone
agreed that we couldn't run to Mos Eisley. If we did, we could
never expect to stay out here at all. But to stay, we had to have
peace, and most farmers felt that could only be guaranteed with
blasters and maybe Imperial protection. A few listened to my ideas
about maps and good neighbors. Not Eyvind.
Never once did Eyvind tell me about his wedding plans.
Day 15 Eyvind and Ariela
I took my speeder to Eyvind's farm to pick up one of his old
broken-down vaporators, and he walked out of his house with a
beautiful girl.
"This is Ariela, my fiancee," he said. "We're getting married
in five weeks."
As simple as that. Eyvind hadn't told anyone about this, not
even me. I hadn't known he'd kept boundaries like this between our
friendship.
"I'm pleased to meet you," I told Ariela. "And congratulations
to both of you."
"You're the farmer with the big plans for us all," she said.
Eyvind looked closely at me. "Can you understand now why I
don't want Sand People coming around my farm?" he said.
The arguing wouldn't stop. I'd barely met Ariela- I'd barely
been told about their wedding-and already the three of us were
arguing. "Look," I said. "I just believe that none of us can
survive out here if we can't make peace with the Sand People and
the Jawas. At any rate, I'm sure the two of you don't want to
argue with me five weeks before your wedding. Sell me that old
vaporator, Eyvind, and I'll go."
"But I think you're doing the right thing, Ariq," Ariela said,
and that stopped me, fast. I didn't know what to say.
"I think we should help you-and I believe I know the way to
start. Would your Jawa friends come to our wedding? Would you
invite them for us? As neighbors, they should be part of the
important things in our lives."
"She's never smelled them," Eyvind said.
"They'll come," I said. "I'll go today to invite them."
And I did. I dropped the old vaporator off at my house, packed
up provisions for a night in Bildor's Canyon, and set off. I
reached the Jawa fortress before the sunsets.
"You have honored us again!" Wimateeka chittered after I
extended the invitation. "But what of presents? We should take
something, but we can spare so little! Our gifts will seem cheap
and tawdry."
"They will honor whatever you give them," I said.
They took me, again, inside their gates to the great council
chamber. We talked late into the night about wedding gifts-of rock
salt, which they thought might make a good gift; of water, which
they couldn't spare; of cloth, which was never in adequate supply;
of reconditioned droids, which would make elegant but prohib
itively expensive gifts.
"Offer to teach them your language," I said. "That would make a
fine gift."
But they liked best the idea of rock salt. We did not resolve
the question that night.
Day 32 Some Neighbors Pay Me a Visit
I finished installing the second old vaporator I'd bought from
Eyvind just after dark, and if the diagnostics I'd run on it were
accurate it would be a decent producer-maybe as much as 1.3 liters
a day. My farm would be producing one to two liters above my old
average, so I knew I was definitely not going to miss the water I
was giving the Sand People.
I packed my tools in the landspeeder and headed slowly back
toward my house and supper. I went slowly because it was dark and
there were things out here to be wary of. At least I didn't have
to worry about the Sand People as I had before. At least there was
that.
I dropped down into the canyon where I'd built my house, and
there were lights around my house-a lot of lights. I sped up then.
"It's him!" I heard people shouting when I stopped.
What had happened?
It was Eyvind and Ariela, the Jensens, who'd home-steaded next
to Eyvind, the Clays, the Bjornsons-and six or eight others.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
Eyvind stepped forward. "We've come to ask you, as your
neighbors, to stop giving water to the Sand People. You don't know
what you're doing."
I'd imagined Imperial trouble of some kind-maybe the razing of
Mos Eisley to stamp out corruption and the need to house
refugees-trouble on that level to bring people out here to my
farm. Not this. "Have the Sand People hurt any of you since I
started giving them water?" I asked.
"You don't know that," Ariela said quiedy.
"I found him dead in the canyon north of us! Who else is out
there chopping people apart with axes? The Imperial investigators
said Sand People killed my son."
No one said anything for a minute. No one wanted to point out
that so many people could have been out there, not just the Sand
People. No one wanted to say that Imperial investigators might
have wanted to fix blame on suspects who could never be brought to
trial.
"They destroyed five of my vaporators," Mr. Jensen said.
"They broke into my storage shed and tore it apart," Mr. Clay
said.
"One of them threw a gaffi stick that lodged in a rear
stabilizer when I was driving into Mos Eisley," Mrs. Sigurd said.
"I barely made it to the city."
Ariela stopped them. "So bad things happened out here, and all
of you jumped to blame the Sand People."
Mr. Olafsen cut her off. "It's outsiders like you, coming here
from where was it-Alderaan?-with your ideas of how we should start
living, it's outsiders like you-and this Ariq, here-who cause the
most trouble."
"I'm not an outsider," I said, but that was not the point. My
ideas were new. There could be trouble before they worked, before
we could all live in peace. It looked as if all the trouble
wouldn't come from the Sand People.
"So you worked on a moisture farm as a kid," Eyvind said to me,
"so you've made this farm of yours turn a profit - does that mean
you can appoint yourself diplomat for the rest of us and negotiate
with the Sand People and Jawas?"
"The Sand People would have ruined my farm, Eyvind, you know
that. I have to find a way to live with them. You know that, too."
"Most people out here are against what you're doing, Ariq."
"Is that so? The McPhersons, the Jonsons, and the Jacques all
support me, and I don't see any of them here. What about Owen and
Beru? Have you talked to them? Or the Darklighters? Where do they
stand?"
"In two days we have a chance to see firsthand how Ariq's plans
are working," Ariela said. "Eyvind and I asked him to invite the
Jawas to our wedding, and they are coming as our guests."
That announcement started more arguing amongst these people
than I had ever heard. Eyvind did not look happy to have had her
Star Wars - Tales From The Mos Eisley Cantina Page 39