But as customers reentered, one by one, Ben grew anxious for the tour to end. “This should be sufficient,” he said.
“Are you sure? I’m not trying to up-sell you.”
“I’m just afraid I’ll need a second eopie before we’re through.”
Annileen chuckled. “We sell those, too.” She placed the armload of goods she was carrying on the counter, while Ben set the metal tub on the synstone floor. “All right. One cashier, no waiting.”
He shuffled on his feet and reached in his pocket. “Are, uh, Republic credits still good here?”
“As good as they ever were,” she said, stepping behind the counter. “We don’t pay politics much mind. Let me deal with the loose things first, and then we’ll get to what’s in the tub.” She began adding the items to his already lengthy sales tab—and as she did, she could see him counting along, keeping a running tally to himself. It wasn’t the nervous watchfulness of her more strapped customers, but he was still keeping track. So he can afford all this, she thought. But money still matters.
“Look there,” a gruff voice said. “Someone’s done some shopping!”
Annileen looked toward the exit to see Mullen standing in the doorway with his sister, Veeka. Behind them loomed Zedd, one of their Jawa-tossing accomplices. Zedd was human, but only just: muscle-bound and, currently, black-eyed. She had heard that a social misstep involving a Wookiee in Anchorhead had caused the latter condition, as well as the departure of several of Zedd’s teeth. It was Zedd’s incapacitation that had given Jabe his chance to fill in on the lead Gault service crew; Annileen was happy to see Zedd return to work.
But she wasn’t happy to see him here, now. Mullen’s bad attitude only grew more toxic when he had his pet mountain shadowing him. The doors slammed shut behind the trio, who started walking purposefully toward the counter.
“Surprised you’re buying here, ’stead of from your little friends,” Mullen said, approaching Ben from behind. “Decent people don’t take rides from Jawas.”
“It won’t replace shuttle service, that’s true,” Ben said. He didn’t look up from folding and sorting his cloth goods on the counter.
Annileen paused her own counting. “Be nice, Mullen.”
“That’s right. Remember—he’s the big hero!” Veeka strutted up to the counter beside Ben. She hoisted herself onto it, nearly knocking his neat stack of cloth goods onto the floor.
“Get off there,” Annileen said, shoving at the young woman. Veeka didn’t budge.
Ben slipped his folded purchases inside his new pillowcase. “It’s all right,” he said, quietly. “It’s just high spirits.”
“Spirits is right,” Annileen said, sniffing at Veeka. “And not even an hour past lunchtime. Well done.” She wished again that Dannar had never decided to keep the bar open all day long. A look at Mullen and Zedd said they were similarly lubricated. “Don’t you people have vaporators to get back to?”
Mullen belched. “Our machines. Our schedule.”
“I don’t think your father would agree with you,” Annileen said.
Mullen knelt by the washbasin at Ben’s feet. “That’s a lot of junk he’s buying. Is his money good?” Mullen grabbed the handle of the tub with one hand and slid it closer. If Ben took offense—or even noticed—as the dark-haired man pawed through his purchases, Annileen didn’t see. “I wouldn’t trust him,” Mullen finally pronounced.
Annileen slammed her datapad on the counter. “That’s enough, all of you! Last I checked, Mullen Gault, your name wasn’t on the deed—or anything else, except maybe that arrest warrant in Mos Entha. Why don’t you go back there?” she said.
Veeka sidled closer to Ben, reached out, and put her thumb underneath his chin. “He’s a nice one,” she said, tilting his face upward like livestock under study. “Looks hungry, though.”
“Another grubber starving on the range.” Mullen looked up from where he crouched, to Ben’s left. “He wasn’t saving Kallie—he probably wanted the dewback for a meal!” Behind, Zedd guffawed.
Veeka gripped Ben’s hairy chin between her thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know. I’d be fine with him saving me.” She lifted his face toward hers and leered at him. “How about it, Bennie? You want to save a grown-up for a change?”
“Fine,” Ben said, politely. “Do tell me when one comes in.”
Annileen laughed loudly.
At the sound of laughter at Veeka’s expense, Zedd surged forward. Like half the Gault farmhands, the bruiser thought the boss’s daughter lit the stars in the sky. With Mullen still at Ben’s feet with the tub, Zedd grabbed at the shopper’s shoulder in righteous indignation.
That was when it began.
Kallie entered through from the livery yard, to the right of the group. She carried the bantha prod from the Jabe incident, the latest in a series of items she was returning to the tack room in her ongoing effort to see Ben. She saw her dashing hero, all right—standing uneasily, with Veeka perched lasciviously on the counter with a leg on either side of him.
Stunned, infuriated, and long possessed of the view that the wrong Gault twin had died years earlier, Kallie raised the bantha prod. Seeing the hate in Kallie’s eyes, Annileen hurriedly grabbed Veeka’s collar. As her mother attempted to pull the young woman back from danger, Kallie snapped the prod in the direction of Veeka’s dangling right foot.
The next second passed quickly. Annileen saw Ben turn to avoid the prod, raising his right hand ever so slightly. It was that moment that the prod, which had a patented never-slip grip, flew from Kallie’s hand. Its electrified tip glanced harmlessly against the counter, missing Veeka’s boot—and somehow, also, Ben’s torso. He turned ninety degrees as the implement fell past his knees to where it finally came to rest: planted, vertically, into the metal tub that held the rest of Ben’s shopping.
A metal tub still being held by the hand of Mullen Gault.
Skraakkkt! With a crackling discharge, the device expended its entire energy supply in one tumultuous flash. Mullen screeched louder than the Settlers’ Call siren had ever sounded. Startled, Veeka fell backward into Annileen. The sudden weight of Veeka knocked her feet out from under her, and the two landed in a tangle on the floor behind the counter.
Annileen scrambled to extricate herself and rise. The first thing she saw across the counter was Zedd looking stupidly down at Mullen, writhing in agony on the floor. Snarling, Zedd charged Ben. The older, smaller man stepped lithely out of the way, sending the lumbering Zedd into a display of cans of whitewash. The collision wasn’t as loud as Mullen’s scream, but it was quite a bit messier.
Without a word, Ben turned, bowed slightly to Annileen and Kallie—the only others still standing—and slapped a pile of credits on the counter. He grabbed the loaded pillowcase and fled through the door to the livery yard.
Bewildered, Annileen hopped onto the counter and jumped to the other side, her boots just missing the writhing, weeping Mullen. Ben’s tub of purchases was still there, abandoned. She ran to the doorway, where Kallie was calling out after him.
But more chaos waited outside. Mullen’s electric screech seconds earlier had evidently placed the Jawas under the impression that a logra—a burrowing predator with a taste for the short merchants—had surfaced inside the store. Now they were ending all transactions and moving their goods back into the sandcrawler, to the frantic yells of dissatisfied customers. Two unrelated brawls had broken out.
And beyond, past the revving sandcrawler, Ben and Rooh rode off toward the desert. Flummoxed, Annileen started to follow, to alert him to his forgotten goods.
But Erbaly Nap’tee confronted her in the doorway first. “The little glow-eyed man told me to come talk to you,” the Nikto woman said. “Do you work here?”
CHAPTER TEN
ORRIN SPUTTERED AT THE comlink. “I told you not to cal
l me with this garbage!”
He tilted his head back toward his landspeeder, trying to make the glance casual. The old man hadn’t overheard him. Wyle Ulbreck was still inside the USV-5, enjoying the blast of the air-conditioning.
Orrin doubted that the old skinflint enjoyed anything except counting his money, but that wasn’t important. He hadn’t come to the farmer’s rescue out of friendship, or even benevolence. This was a sales call. And Veeka had just interrupted it with a strange, disconnected story of chaos in the Claim, damage to the store and his son, and some nonsense about Kallie’s hero.
“I don’t care who did what,” he said into the device, aggravated. The last thing he needed was trouble at home. Once, Annileen had barred the entire Gault employee base from dining at the Claim. After a week of lunch box living, Orrin had a mutiny on his hands. There was only one response. “You’ll clean up the store, apologize to Annie, and then get out here and finish your shift!” He deactivated the comlink.
Standing in the suns, Orrin looked back at the old man in the landspeeder and smiled weakly. Ulbreck still wasn’t paying him any mind. The old man had more hair on his face than his head—and, yes, Ulbreck was using Orrin’s comb to straighten his beard. Lovely, Orrin thought, closing the bonnet on Ulbreck’s stalled repulsortruck. The battered ST-101 would be able to make it to the Claim using the coolant Orrin had brought. Now he had to make the favor pay off.
“You’re ready, Master Ulbreck,” Orrin said, opening the passenger-side door to his landspeeder. “Sorry about the delay—I had to take a call.” The old man grunted. Orrin gave a rumpled smile. “It was just trouble at home. Do you—uh, plan on having children, Wyle?”
“I’m seventy-five.”
“Take my advice,” Orrin said, grimacing. “Don’t. It’s safer that way.” He offered his hand to help Ulbreck stand up, but the old man ignored it.
Ulbreck was still in good shape for his age. He had recently sworn off liquor, after some event Orrin knew little about. But Orrin attributed Ulbreck’s condition more to his having delegated most of the work on his sprawling ranch to an army of farmhands in recent years, instead of toiling in the hot suns himself. Spreading to the south and east of Orrin’s holdings, Ulbreck’s property was more than twice the size—and Orrin doubted the man had visited a single one of his vaporators in a decade. It hadn’t hurt their production at all. Ulbreck was rolling in wealth he never spent.
All the more reason to protect it. “Speaking of safety,” Orrin said, conscious of the awkward transition, “I was wondering if you’d thought about joining the Settlers’ Call Fund.”
“Here we go again,” Ulbreck said, derision evident in his gravelly voice. “Knew that coolant wasn’t free.” He threw Orrin’s comb back inside the landspeeder.
“I’m not trying to sell you anything. The Fund helps the community protect people. Farmers, just like you—”
“I got my own security.” Ulbreck tromped across the sand toward his vehicle. “I don’t need to be paying for your people to sit around getting soused.”
“They’re not mine,” Orrin said. “The Fund belongs to the whole oasis community—I just administer it.” He closed the passenger door to his landspeeder and followed Ulbreck. “Look, you run a business—and you expect results. So do I. I respect that. If you want results, just look at the other day, and what happened at the Bezzard place—”
“I saw you didn’t save half of ’em!”
Orrin stepped back. “That’s not fair, Wyle. Those people died before the Call was activated. But the farmer and his wife and child, though—we saved those people.” He tried a different tack. “Look, yours is the largest spread around here not part of the Fund. If you came in, we’d be able to upgrade our equipment. Maybe even put out some patrols to cover your place, as well as some others. Proactive, like.”
The old farmer stopped at the open door to his repulsortruck and turned his head. Orrin stepped forward, expectantly—only to see the old man spit on the sand.
“Not interested in anywhere else,” Ulbreck said. “My people watch my place. If Plug-eye comes around, you’ll see a Tusken dance.” Ulbreck climbed up into the cab of the tall vehicle. As he started the engines, he looked down at Orrin, almost as an afterthought. “Eh—thanks for the coolant.”
Orrin shook his head. Some people you just couldn’t help.
The repulsortruck gone, Orrin kicked the empty coolant container across the sand. He’d made most reluctant farmers come around, one way or another. Not Ulbreck. The old man knew the Fund based its fee on the amount of land to be protected. Ulbreck balked at paying more than anyone else on pure principle.
Well, he’ll figure it out … one day, Orrin thought. There were more potential members to sign up; he’d need to check his map. He opened the door to his landspeeder, its engine still running as it pumped out frigid air. He slipped into the driver’s seat, only to find the oily comb underneath his backside. Blanching, Orrin chucked it out the window—
—and saw the pair of figures topping a dune to the northeast, approaching him. Finding his electrobinoculars, Orrin studied the sight.
“Well, what do you know,” he said aloud. “One chance lost, another found.” He put the hovercraft into motion.
The USV-5 coasted to a stop just short of the new arrivals. As caravans went, Orrin thought it pretty meager: a hooded man, walking alongside a heavily laden eopie. Neither reacted as Orrin triggered the landspeeder’s open-topped mode.
Orrin smiled. “Hello, there!”
“Greetings.”
“That’s a big load you’ve got.”
The sandy-haired nomad eyed him warily. “It’s mine, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’ve come from the store.”
Orrin chuckled. “Oh, I know. You don’t have the wardrobe for a Tusken.” The farmer deactivated the engine and climbed out. “I’m Orrin Gault. This is my land here—”
“My apologies,” the traveler said, looking back at the horizon. “Is it possible to get to the Calwell store without crossing the Gault land?”
“Not really, no.” Orrin grinned. He offered his hand. “I think I know who you are. You’re that Ben I’ve heard so much about.”
Ben took Orrin’s hand and shook it, tentatively. “Heard … about me?”
“From Kallie Calwell. The Calwells and the Gaults—we’re close. And I owe you a debt of thanks. It sounds like you saved her from herself.”
Ben lowered his eyes. “I think Kallie embellished some. I was passing through and lent a hand. Anyone else would do the same.”
Orrin liked the sound of that. “Quite right. But still, let me get you a drink.” He turned back to the landspeeder.
“We’re a ways from a cantina,” Ben said, puzzled.
“But not from the canteen.” Orrin produced a gleaming silver flask and offered it to Ben. “Enjoy.”
Ben nodded and opened the vial. He drank—and did an immediate double take. Gasping, he mouthed, “Wow.”
“And that’s lukewarm,” Orrin said, smiling broadly. He slapped the windshield of the landspeeder. “I know you’re on your way somewhere, Ben, but the least I can do is show you around. For a new neighbor.”
Ben looked up, cautious. “How … do you know I’m a neighbor?”
Orrin laughed. Something about wearing hoods made half the newcomers on Tatooine think they were on a secret mission. “I doubt you’re making supply runs for the Jawas. They went the other direction, anyway.” He gestured toward the landspeeder. “Come on—just for a few minutes. You trespass, you get the guided tour. You might say it’s the penalty.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE USV-5 ROCKETED ACROSS the dunes. Hill after hill bristled with shining new vaporators, metal stalagmites stabbing into the sky. Ben sat quietly in the passenger seat, taking it in. He’d resisted the tour, at
first. But Orrin had brought out an emergency canvas shelter from the landspeeder, and within moments the eopie was inside, munching on the feed it had been carrying.
Orrin watched Ben out of the corner of his eye as he drove. The man seemed quiet—and, thankfully, unmarked by whatever had happened at the Claim. Orrin felt bad about that. The oasis regulars, his kids included, could be rough on newcomers.
“I’ll tell you,” Orrin said again, “I’m sorry about whatever happened back in the Claim. When my kid called—I knew in a second who was to blame. You got any little ones, Ben?”
“Just the eopie,” Ben said.
The farmer laughed. “I’ll tell you, if kids were as teachable as eopies, this hair would still be black. Annileen’s are something, too—but you already saw that with Kallie.”
“Energetic,” Ben allowed.
“And all trouble.”
Ben looked at him. “But worth it?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Orrin said, feigning seriousness—before breaking out into laughter again. “No, most days I work out here with Mullen and Veeka—and sometimes Jabe, Annileen’s boy. You met him?”
“At the sandcrawler,” Ben said simply.
“Lot to keep track of, I know. Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell where Annie’s family stops and mine begins.” He elaborated briefly on his friendship with Dannar, and how Annileen had been running the shop since Dannar’s death. “That Annileen—she’s a tower of power.”
Ben nodded, and returned to idly staring out the window.
Orrin smirked. If Ben were interested in Annileen, that should have registered a response. But he seemed detached, or at least respectful of Orrin’s territory. Which was silly, of course. Orrin and Annileen had never been like that—or, at least, she’d never been like that with him. Orrin was married when Dannar hired Annileen; by the time Orrin’s union started going wrong, the Calwells were married themselves, with Kallie on the way. Orrin wondered sometimes what would have happened if Liselle had taken off earlier—but no. The Pika Oasis wouldn’t be what it was today if he and Dannar had been romantic rivals.
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