Star Wars_ Episode VI_ Return of the Jedi - James Kahn [44]
Han held his arm, and held his peace, as the Ewoks swarmed around, confiscating all their weapons. Luke even relinquished his lightsaber. Chewie growled suspiciously.
Artoo and Threepio were just extracting themselves from the collapsed net, as the Ewoks chattered excitedly to each other.
Luke turned to the golden droid. “Threepio, can you understand what they’re saying?”
Threepio rose from the mesh trap, feeling himself for dents or rattles. “Oh, my head,” he complained.
At the sight of his fully upright body, the Ewoks began squeaking among themselves, pointing and gesticulating.
Threepio spoke to the one who appeared to be the leader. “Chree breeb a shurr du.”
“Bloh wreee dbleeop weeschhreee!” answered the fuzzy beast.
“Du wee sheess?”
“Reeop glwah wrrripsh.”
“Shreee?”
Suddenly one of the Ewoks dropped his spear with a little gasp and prostrated himself before the shiny droid. In another moment, all the Ewoks followed suit. Threepio looked at his friends with a slightly embarrassed shrug.
Chewie let out a puzzled bark. Artoo whirred speculatively. Luke and Han regarded the battalion of kowtowing Ewoks in wonder.
Then, at some invisible signal from one of their group, the small creatures began to chant in unison: “Eekee whoh, eekee whoh, Rheakee rheekee whoh …”
Han looked at Threepio with total disbelief. “What’d you say to them?”
“ ‘Hello,’ I think,” Threepio replied almost apologetically. He hastened to add, “I could be mistaken, they’re using a very primitive dialect … I believe they think I’m some sort of god.”
Chewbacca and Artoo thought that was very funny. They spent several seconds hysterically barking and whistling before they finally managed to quiet down. Chewbacca had to wipe a tear from his eye.
Han just shook his head with a galaxy-weary look of patience. “Well how about using your divine influence to get us out of this?” he suggested solicitously.
Threepio pulled himself up to his full height, and spoke with unrelenting decorum. “I beg your pardon, Captain Solo, but that wouldn’t be proper.”
“Proper!?” Solo roared. He always knew this pompous droid was going to go too far with him one day—and this might well be the day.
“It’s against my programming to impersonate a deity,” he replied to Solo, as if nothing so obvious needed explanation.
Han moved threateningly toward the protocol droid, his fingers itching to pull a plug. “Listen, you pile of bolts, if you don’t—” He got no farther, as fifteen Ewok spears were thrust menacingly in his face. “Just kidding,” he smiled affably.
The procession of Ewoks wound its way slowly into the ever-darkening forest—tiny, somber creatures, inching through a giant’s maze. The sun had nearly set, now, and the long criss-crossing shadows made the cavernous domain even more imposing than before. Yet the Ewoks seemed well at home, turning down each dense corridor of vines with precision.
On their shoulders they carried their four prisoners—Han, Chewbacca, Luke, Artoo—tied to long poles, wrapped around and around with vines, immobilizing them as if they were wriggling larvae in coarse, leafy cocoons.
Behind the captives, Threepio, borne on a litter—rough-hewn of branches in the shape of a chair—was carried high upon the shoulders of the lowly Ewoks. Like a royal potentate, he perused the mighty forest through which they carried him—the magnificent lavender sunset glowing between the vinery, the exotic flowers starting to close, the ageless trees, the glistening ferns—and knew that no one before him had ever appreciated these things in just precisely the manner he was now. No one else had his sensors, his circuits, his programs, his memory banks—and so in some real way, he was the creator of this little universe, its images, and colors.
And it was good.
6
THE starry sky seemed very near the treetops to Luke as he and his friends were carried into the Ewok village. He wasn’t even aware it was a village at first—the tiny orange sparks of light