jesus christ on the cross

here. He could be anywhere out here. And Uncle Owen must bewondering why I haven't called in from the south ridge by now." Threepio considered a moment, then ventured, "Would it help, sir, if you toldhim that it was my fault?" Luke appeared to brighten at the suggestion. "Sure…he needs you twice asmuch now. Probably he'll only deactivate you for a day or so, or give you a partialmemory flush." Deactivate? Memory flush? Threepio added hastily, "On second thought, sir,Artoo would still be around if you hadn't removed his restraining module." But something more important than fixing responsibility for the little robot'sdisappearance was on Luke's mind at the moment. "Wait a minute," he advisedThreepio as he stared fixedly at the instrument panel. "There's something deadahead on the metal scanner. Can't distinguish outlines at this distance, but judgingby size alone, it could be our wandering 'droid. Hit it." The landspeeder jumped forward as Threepio engaged the accelerator, but itsoccupants were totally unaware that other eyes were watching as the craft increasedits speed. Those eyes were not organic, but then, they weren't wholly mechanical, either.No one could say for certain, because no one had ever made that intimate a study ofthe Tusken Raiders—known less formally to the margin farmers of Tatooine simply asthe sandpeople. The Tusken didn't permit close study of themselves, discouraging potentialobservers by methods as effective as they were uncivilized. A few xenologiststhought they must be related to the jawas. Even fewer hypothesized that the jawaswere actually the mature form of the sandpeople, but this theory was discounted bythe majority of serious scientists.