Star Wars - Kenobi

was fully pejorative, referring to frontier dwellings built on the theory—never proven—that the uplands of the wastes yielded more condensation at night. No one knew for sure, because even the hardiest farmers seldom lasted more than a season. These were places for grubbers on their last chance and would-be wizards who just knew they had magical combinations of vaporator settings no one had ever thought of before. The whole thing was ludicrous to Annileen. Assuming anyone hit it lucky, what investor in his right mind would build an industrial farm out here? Crazy.
    She wasn’t crazy, though, to pick this direction. Annileen had seen Ben head out from the oasis days earlier, and Orrin had reported meeting him out this way. After the past airless week, a hint of a trail still existed. Now she spotted Ben’s eopie quivering out front, less worried about her approach than the noise from out back.
    Thoom! Thoom!
    Annileen parked the speeder and reached into the rumble seat. That had been an invention of Dannar’s: ripping out the back of the middle console to make room for the younglings—or, in this case, Ben’s tub of supplies. Realizing what the sound was, she suppressed a laugh as she walked the goods up the hill.
    “All right,” Ben called out from behind the house. “I take your meaning. You’re upset. You can stop now!”
    Thoom! A mountain of hair, easily his match for height, backed up and charged again, horns-first, into the side of Ben’s hut. THOOM!
    Annileen propped the tub on her hip and watched with a barely concealed smile. “Having a problem with your bantha?”
    “No, no. Why do you ask?” Ben gripped a rope and tried to get the calf’s attention. He’d been at this a while, Annileen saw. His blousy white shirt was dingy, and sweat dripped from dark blond hair exposed to the sky. The animal snorted angrily and returned to its mission.
    She pointed to the rope. “What are you planning to do with that?”
    “I’m considering hanging myself.” He looked up at her, exasperated. “I don’t know what I did to set it off. Normally, I’m good with animals.”
    “Well, as you saw with Kallie the other day, they’re still animals,” she said, setting down the tub. “Forget the rope. Let me have a try.”
    He gestured indifferently. “Be my guest.”
    Annileen removed her gloves and strolled toward the massive creature. “Raising animals isn’t like raising teenagers. Kids don’t know what they want, and they want it now. Animals, on the other hand, usually do know what they want. Like this guy,” she said, edging toward the bantha calf. “He thinks your house is his mother.”
    “His mother ?”
    “Yep.” Feeling the steaming breath of the wild behemoth, Annileen reached out gently and touched the calf’s face. The bantha stamped its feet impatiently. “Mama’s probably wandered farther up into the wastes.”
    “He can’t find her?”
    “If you had this much hair over your face, you might lose your way, too. To a bantha calf, everything that’s bigger than food is probably Mom.”
    “A good rule of thumb.” Ben crossed his arms and watched with concern as Annileen inserted herself fully between the animal and the battered wall. “What do we—I mean, what do I do?”
    “Shhh.” Annileen traced the calf’s eye sockets with her fingers. Leaning forward, she nuzzled its face. The bantha’s hooves stilled. The woman whispered to Ben. “ You are going to watch me point him somewhere else.”
    Ben stood back as Annileen strode forward, pushing the young bantha by the horns. It outweighed her by a metric ton, at least—and yet it was backing down the hill. At the foot of the bluff, she turned it to one side and gave it a swat. Long, shaggy hair swaying, it moseyed off.
    “Won’t he die out there?”
    “Nah.” Annileen pulled a handkerchief from inside her boot and rubbed her hands. “He won’t be alone that long. If he doesn’t find his herd, he’ll find a Tusken to adopt,” she said.
    Ben nodded. “My house thanks you. I did try—well, to calm it.”
    “It’s all right. You were probably its first human.” Annileen caught a trace of a smile before the man turned and started back up the hill to his house.
    Ben’s expressions in the store had been happier, she thought; here, he seemed a little downcast. It must be depressing, living alone so far out here .
    He looked back at her. “Why are you here, Annileen?”
    “Special delivery.” Walking with