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.

the polish rider

bank?" An introspective frown did remarkable things to that sandlbasted face. Kenobiappeared to ponder the question, scratching absently at his scruffy beard. "Obi-wanKenobi!," he recited. "Obi-wan…now, that's a name I haven't heard in a long time.A long time. Most curious." "My uncle said he was dead," Luke supplied helpfully. "Oh, he's not dead," Kenobi corrected him easily. "Not yet, not yet." Luke climbed excitedly to his feet, all thoughts of Tusken Raiders forgotten now."You know him, then?" A smile of perverse youthfulness split that collage of wrinkled skin and beard."Of course I know him; he's me. Just as you probably suspected, Luke. I haven'tgone by the name Obi-wan, though, since before you were born." "Then," Luke essayed, gesturing at Artoo Detoo, "this 'droid does belong to you,as he claims." "Now, that's the peculiar part," an openly puzzled Kenobi confessed, regardingthe silent robot. "I can't seem to remember owning a 'droid, least of all a modernArtoo unit. Most interesting, most interesting."

the polish rider

theeasiest pathway to the mesa top. His squarish, broad footpads made clicking soundsloud in the evening light as sand underfoot gave way gradually to gravel. For a moment, he paused. He seemed to detect a noise—like metal on rock—ahead of him, instead of rock on rock. The sound wasn't repeated, though, and hequickly resumed his ambling ascent. Up the arroyo, too far up to be seen from below, a pebble trickled loose from thestone wall. The tiny figure, which had accidentally dislodged the pebble, retreatedmouse-like into shadow. Two glowing points of light showed under overlappingfolds of brown cape a meter from the narrowing canyon wall. Only the reaction of the unsuspecting robot indicated the presence of the whiningbeam as it struck him. For a moment Artoo Detoo fluoresced eerily in the dimminglight. There was a single short electronic squeak. Then the tripodal supportunbalanced and the tiny automation toppled over onto its back, the lights on its frontblinking on and off erratically from the effects of the paralyzing beam.