商业托福星球大战第二章(4)
Several hours later a straining Threepio, his internal thermostat overloaded and edging dangerously toward overheat shutdown, struggled up the top of what he hoped was the last towering the dune. Nearby, a pillars and buttresses of bleached calcium, the bones of some enormous beast, formed an unpromising landmark. Reaching the crest of the dune, Threepio peered anxiously ahead. Instead of the hopedfor greenery of human civilization he saw only several dozen more dunes, identical in form and promise to the one he now stood upon. The farthest rose even higher than the one he presently surmounted.Threepio turned and looked back toward the now far-off rocky plateau, which was beginning to grow indistinct with distance and heat distortion. "You malfunctioning little twerp," he muttered, unable even now to admit to himself that perhaps, just possibly, the Artoo unit might have been right. "This is all your fault.
You tricked me into going this way, but you’ll do no better." Nor would he if he didn’t continue on. So he took a step forward and heard something grind dully within a leg joint. Sitting down in an electronic funk, he began picking sand from his encrusted joints.
He could continue on his present course, he told himself. Or he could confess to an error in judgment and try to catch up again with Artoo Detoo. Neither prospect held much appeal for him.
But there was a third choice. He could sit here, shining in the sunlight, until his joints locked, his internals overheated, and the ultraviolet burned out his photoreceptors. He would become another monument to the destructive power of the binary, like the colossal organism whose picked corpse he had just encountered.
Already his receptors were beginning to go, he reflected. It seemed he saw something moving in the distance. Heat distortion, probably. No—no—it was definitely 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.
He neglected in his excitement to consider the possibility that it might not be of human origin.
"So I cut off my power, shut down the afterburners, and dropped in low on Deak’s tail," Luke finished, waving his arms wildly. He and Biggs were walking in the shade outside the power station. Sounds of metal being worked came from somewhere within, where Fixer had finally joined his robot assistant in performing repairs.
"I was so close to him," Luke continued excitedly, "I thought I was going to fry my instrumentation. As it was. I busted up the skyhopper pretty bad." That recollection inspired a frown.
"Uncle Owen was pretty upset. He grounded me for the rest of the season." Luke’s depression was brief. Memory of his feat overrode its immorality.
"You should have been there, Biggs!" "You ought to take it a little easier," his friend cautioned. "You may be the hottest bush pilot this side of Mos Eisley, Luke, but those little skyhoppers can be dangerous. They move awfully fast for tropospheric craft—faster than they need to.
Keep playing engine jockey with one and someday, whammo!" He slammed one fist violently into his open palm. "You’re going to be nothing more than a dark spot on the damp side of a canyon wall." "Look who’s talking," Luke retorted. "Now that you’ve been on a few big automatic starships you’re beginning to sound like my uncle. You’ve gotten soft in the cities." He swung spiritedly at Biggs, who blocked the movement easily, making a halfhearted gesture of counterattack.
Biggs’s easygoing smugness dissolved into something warmer. "I’ve missed you, kid." Luke looked away, embarrassed. "Things haven’t exactly been the same since you left, either, Biggs. It’s been so—" Luke hunted for the right word and finally finished helplessly, "so quiet." His gaze traveled across the sandy, deserted streets of Anchorhead. "Its always been quiet, really." Biggs grew silent, thinking. He glanced around. They were along out there.
Everyone else was back inside the comparative coolness of the power station. As he leaned close Luke sense an unaccustomed solemness in his friend’s tone.
"Luke, I don’t come back just to say good-bye, or to crow over everyone because I got through the Academy." Again he hesitate, unsure of himself. Then he blurted out rapidly, not giving himself a chance to back down, "But I want somebody to know.
I can’t tell my parents." Gaping at Biggs, Luke could only gulp, "Know what? What are you talking about?" "I’m talking about the talking that’s been going on at the Academy—and other places, Luke. Strong talking. I made some new friends, outsystem friends. We agreed about the way certain things are developing, and—" his voice dropped conspiratorially—"When we reach one of the peripheral systems, we’re going to jump ship and join the Alliance." Luke stared back at his friend, tried to picture Biggs—fun-loving, happy-go- lucky, live-for-today Biggs—as patriot afire with rebellious fervor.
商业托福星球大战第二章(4)
"You’re going to join the rebellion?" he started. "You’ve got to be kidding.How? "Damp down, will you?" the bigger man cautioned. "You’ve got a mouth like a crater." "I’m sorry," Luke whispered rapidly. "I’m quiet—listen how quiet I am. You can barely hear me—" Biggs cut him off and continued. "A friend of mine from the Academy has a friend on Bestine who might enable us to make contact with an armed rebel unit." "A friend of a—You’re crazy," Luke announced with conviction, certain his friend had gone mad. "You could wander around forever trying to find a real rebel outpost.
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