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“The knowledge of maps,” I said, “and how the Empire uses them to decide questions about land. We can use them in the same way.”

I set the holo-display unit on the level sand outside the fortress, sand beat down and compacted by the comings and goings of Jawa crawlers, and I asked the unit to display my map close above the sand. The Jawas shrieked and rushed back, but not Wimateeka. He would not leave the water pouch: He kept his hands on it.

“What is this that you have brought, Ariq?” he asked.

A map, I explained. I told them what maps are and the purpose of them, how all the mountains and valleys and sand plains around us were represented here with small replicas, and they began to recognize and point out familiar features, marvel that at this scale their fortress was as small as the red dot.

I explained boundaries to them and what they could mean to us: How if they agreed to respect the boundary of the land grant the government had given me, I would not go to the government to claim land farther up the canyon toward their fortress—I would, in fact, help them fill out the forms to claim the land themselves. I suggested that they buy and put out vaporators of their own, all down the valley, to the border of my farm. Even if they didn’t do this, the imaginary line between their land and mine would give them some protection, and I told them how I hoped the Empire would come to accept the lines we agreed on and keep other humans from making farms in their valley.

When I finished, the Jawas hurried inside the fortress to discuss my information and proposal. They took the water. I asked Wimateeka to stay outside with me for a short time. We sat in the shade of my landspeeder to watch the sunsets while we talked.

“Can you teach me a Sand People greeting?” I asked him.

He looked up at me, surprised. After a moment, he said: “Koroghh gahgt takt. ‘Blessed be your going out from us.’ ”

“No, a greeting,” I said. “Not a farewell.” I thought I had mispronounced the Jawa word for “greeting” the first time I asked.

“That is a greeting,” he said. “The most polite. They greet each other like this because they are always traveling. They will seldom stay long in one place.”

Not even long enough to develop greetings, I thought, only hasty blessings because they left each other so soon.

“Say it again,” I asked, and Wimateeka did, and I repeated it till I could say it.

“Why do you want to learn this greeting?” Wimateeka asked me.

I explained to him about the Sand People and the water and my questions about the land—their land.

Wimateeka was quiet for a time, looking at me. “The young Sand People are dangerous in the days that come and for a time,” he said. He explained that this was the time when the adolescents had to perform some great deed to earn adulthood, deeds that often included acts of mayhem against non-Sand People races.

“All our crawlers are coming home to wait here through this time,” he said. “You should take your fellow humans to Mos Eisley and do the same.”

He told me how a vast army of young Sand People had once attacked a Jawa fortress south of us and slaughtered the inhabitants. That fortress was still an empty, burned ruin that Wimateeka had once visited. I was lucky the Sand People around my vaporator had not been adolescents out to earn adulthood.

Wimateeka asked me how to operate the holo unit, and I told it to obey Wimateeka’s voice when he asked it to display the map, nothing more. He displayed the map three times, then asked if he could take it to the discussions in the fortress.

“This is not a trade,” I said. “I want this holo unit back, unharmed.”

“I will bring it to you personally,” he said. He abruptly snatched up the holo unit and hurried into the fortress.

I ate the supper I’d brought with me. After the last sunset, I laid blankets out on the sand. I expected to sleep there, blaster in hand—especially after Wimateeka’s story about the young Sand People’s rite of passage—in the relative safety outside the Jawa gates. But in the night, the Jawas came