madonna with the yarnwinder painting

Nor would he if he didn't continue on. So he took a step forward and heardsomething grind dully within a leg joint. Sitting down in an electronic funk, hebegan picking sand from his encrusted joints. He could continue on his present course, he told himself. Or he could confessto an error in judgment and try to catch up again with Artoo Detoo. Neither prospectheld much appeal for him. But there was a third choice. He could sit here, shining in the sunlight, until hisjoints locked, his internals overheated, and the ultraviolet burned out hisphotoreceptors. He would become another monument to the destructive power ofthe binary, like the colossal organism whose picked corpse he had just encountered. Already his receptors were beginning to go, he reflected. It seemed he sawsomething moving in the distance. Heat distortion, probably. No—no—it wasdefinitely light on metal, and it was moving toward him. His hopes soared.Ignoring the warnings from his damaged leg, he rose and began waving frantically. It was, he saw now, definitely a vehicle, though of a type unfamiliar to him.But a vehicle it was, and that implied intelligence and technology.