the polish rider

hung with a few small straps, packs, and unrecognizableinstruments. Artoo searched the human's wake but detected no evidence of apursuing nightmare. Nor did the man appear threatened. Actually, Artoo thought,he looked kind of pleased. It was impossible to tell where the odd arrival's overlapping attire ended and hisskin began. That aged visage blended into the sand-stroked cloth, and his beardappeared but an extension of the loose threads covering his upper chest. Hints of extreme climates other than desert, of ultimate cold and humidity, wereetched into that seamed face. A questing beak of nose, like a high rock, protrudedoutward from a flashflood of wrinkles and scars. The eyes bordering it were a liquidcrystalazure. The man smiled through sand and dust and beard, squinting at the sightof the crumpled form lying quietly alongside of the landspeeder. Convinced that the sandpeople had been the victims of an auditory delusion ofsome kind—conveniently ignoring the fact that he had experienced it also—andlikewise assured that this stranger meant Luke no harm, Artoo shifted his positionslightly, trying to obtain a better view. The sound produced by a tiny pebble hedislodged was barely perceptible to his electronic sensors, but the man whirled as ifshot. He stared straight at Artoo's alcove, still smiling gently.