injuries. The leg pinned by the boulder was smashed, the bones broken in several places. Anakin could see the damage through the torn cloth. But he wasn't familiar with Tusken physiology, and he didn't know exactly what to do to repair the damage. So he applied a quick seal splint from the medical kit in the speeder to freeze the leg in place and left it alone.
He sat down then and thought about what he should do next. The light was beginning to fail. He had spent too much time freeing the Tusken to reach Mos Espa before nightfall. He could make the edge of the Dune Sea by dark, but only by leaving the Tusken behind, untended and alone. Anakin frowned. Given the things that roamed the desert when it got dark, he might as well bury the man and have done with it.
So he had the droids pull a small glow unit out of the landspeeder. When twilight descended, he powered up the glow unit and attached an extender fuel pack to assure it would burn all night. He broke out an old dried food pack and munched absently as he stared at the sleeping Tusken. His mother would be worried. Watto would be mad. But they knew him to be capable and reliable, and they would wait until daybreak to do anything about his absence. By then, he hoped, he would be well on his way home.
'Do you think he'll be all right?' he asked C-3PO.
He had placed the speeder and the other droids under the lee of a cliff face behind the glow unit, safely tucked from view, but had kept C-3PO with him for company. Boy and droid sat huddled close together on one side of the glow unit while the Tusken Raider continued to sleep on the other.
'I am afraid I lack the necessary medical training and information to make that determination, Master Anakin,' C-3PO advised, cocking his head. 'I certainly think you have done everything you possibly could.'
The boy nodded thoughtfully.
'Master Anakin, we really shouldn't be out here at night,' the droid observed after a moment. 'This country is quite dangerous. '
'But we couldn't leave him, could we?'
'Oh, well, that's a very difficult determination to make.' C-3PO pondered the matter.
'We couldn't take him with us either.'
'Certainly not!'
The boy sat in silence for a time, watching the Tusken sleep. He watched him for so long, in fact, that it came as something of a surprise when the Tusken finally stirred awake. It happened all at once, and it caught the boy off guard. The Tusken Raider shifted his weight with a lurching movement, exhaled sharply, propped himself up on one arm, looked at himself, then looked at the boy. The boy made no move or sound. The Tusken regarded him intently for a long minute, then slowly eased into a sitting position, his wounded leg stretched out in front of him.
'Uh, hello,' Anakin said, trying out a smile.
The Tusken Raider made no response.
'Are you thirsty?' the boy asked.
No response.
'I don't think he likes us very much,' C-3PO observed.
Anakin tried a dozen different approaches at conversation, but the Tusken Raider ignored them all. His gaze shifted only once, to where his blaster rifle lay propped against the rocks behind the boy.
'Say something to him in Tusken,' he ordered C-3PO finally.
The droid did. He spoke at length to the Tusken in his own language, but the man refused to respond. He just kept staring at the boy. Finally, after C- 3PO had gone on for some time, the Tusken glanced at him and barked a single word in response.
'Gracious!' the droid exclaimed.
'What did he say?' the boy asked, excited.
'Why he-he told me to shut up!'
That was pretty much the end of any attempt at conversation. The boy and the Tusken sat facing each other in silence, their faces caught by the glow of the fire, the desert's darkness all around. Anakin found himself wondering what he would do if the Tusken tried to attack him. It was unlikely, but the man was large and fierce and strong, and if he reached the boy, he could easily overpower him. He could take back his blaster rifle and do with the boy as he chose.
But somehow Anakin didn't sense that to be the Tusken's intent. The Tusken made no effort to move and gave no indication he had any intention of trying to do so. He just sat there, wrapped in his desert garb, faceless beneath his coverings, locked away with his own thoughts.
Finally he spoke again. The boy looked quickly at C-3PO. 'He wants to know what you are going to do with him, Master Anakin,' the droid translated.
Anakin looked back at the Tusken, confused. 'Tell him I'm not going to do anything with him,' he said. 'I'm just trying to help him get well.'
C-3PO spoke the words in Tusken. The man listened. He made no response. He did not say anything more.
Anakin realized suddenly that the Tusken was afraid. He could sense it in the way the other spoke, in the way he sat waiting. He was crippled and weaponless. He was at Anakin's mercy. The boy understood the Tusken's fear, but it surprised him anyway. It seemed out of character. The Sand People were supposed to be fearless. Besides, he wasn't afraid of the Tusken. Maybe he should have been, but he wasn't.
Anakin Skywalker wasn't afraid of anything.
Was he?
Staring into the opaque lenses of the goggles that hid the Tusken Raider's eyes, he contemplated the
