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Wimateeka led them. “You have honored us,” he said. He set the holo unit in front of me. “Extend our boundaries to include the valley west of us to the Dune Sea, and we will accept your proposal.”

I displayed the map and told the holo unit to make the boundary changes. The Jawas chittered softly when their black lines moved to include the valley they asked for. It was a valley their crawlers traveled through to get to the Dune Sea to scavenge. Everyone would agree that they needed that valley.

“It is not safe out here on the sand,” Wimateeka said. “Bring your blankets, your speeder, and your holo unit and come inside to spend the rest of the night with us.”

I hadn’t expected this. I got up at once and folded my blankets and stowed them and the holo unit in my speeder and walked the speeder through their gates.

We did not sleep. The Jawas took me to a great room, and in the heart of their fortress we talked by torchlight about maps and water and the Sand People and how to talk to them about maps.

Day 5: A Greeting

Eyvind and I sat openly in front of our speeders on the dune southwest of the vaporator and my day’s gift of water to the Sand People.

“So they come here for this water?” Eyvind asked.

“Every day.”

“And they don’t break into your other vaporators?”

“No.”

“I still don’t like this. Your farm’s the farthest out, and you’re separated from the rest of us—so maybe you have to deal with the Sand People—but my farm’s the second farthest out and I don’t want to do anything to encourage Sand People to come around it. I won’t give them any water—but how long before they show up on my farm expecting it?”

“There—I can see one of them. Watch the dunes to the northwest. They come most often from that direction. They must camp somewhere to the northwest.”

“And you’re luring them down here.”

I didn’t answer that. We’d argued about this again and again over the last few days. I was not going to argue with Eyvind when Sand People were so close to us. To give Eyvind credit, he stopped arguing, too. The canyon was utterly still, then. No wind blew. I could not hear the Sand People moving. It was the first time I’d brought anyone else to see the Sand People take my gift of water.

I stood and put my hand on Eyvind’s shoulder. I did not believe that the Sand People would harm me. I hoped that if they saw me physically close to Eyvind they would learn not to harm him or ever want to. I’d made decisions, and I meant to stick by them—but I realized my decisions had moved the boundaries of racial interchange for everyone out here, I hoped for the good, that’s what I hoped.

Suddenly one of the Sand People stood in the shadow of the vaporator, near the water pouch. I hadn’t seen him come up. He was just suddenly there. I raised my arm and clenched my fist in greeting, but he would not raise his fist in return.

“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Eyvind whispered. “Should I leave?”

“Not yet,” I said. I kept my arm up and my fist clenched. “Koroghh gahgt takt,” I called out.

The Sand Person stepped back, out of the shadow and into the sunlight, almost as if he were going to run.

“Koroghh gahgt takt!” I called again. I hoped I was pronouncing the words right—that Wimateeka had learned the greeting right to begin with before teaching it to me, that I wasn’t challenging the Sand People to a fight or cursing their mothers.

Slowly, the Sand Person began to raise his arm and clench his fist. “Koroghh gahgt takt!” he shouted back.

So I had it right, I thought. This was working.

I heard the greeting shouted at me from somewhere over the dunes to the east—then from all directions and from the canyon walls, again and again the same greeting: Koroghh gahgt takt.

Eyvind stood up. “They are all around us!” he said.

But we could see only one of them. That one picked up the water pouch and disappeared into the dunes.

Eyvind and I took our speeders and got out of there and saw no more of the Sand People that day. We went to my house and talked late into the night.

I’d sent Wimateeka’s warning about the Sand People