One Moment in Time

One Moment in Time
precious time
Red Hat Girl
Red Nude painting
The Treadwell started toward him, hesitated, and then commenced spinning in atight circle, smoke belching from every joint. Luke shouted further instruction, thenfinally gave up in disgust when he realized that it would take more than words tomotivate the Treadwell again. For a moment Luke hesitated at leaving the machine behind—but, he argued tohimself, its vital components were obviously shot. So he jumped into thelandspeeder, causing the recently repaired repulsion floater to list alarmingly to oneside until he was able to equalize weight distribution by sliding behind the controls.Maintaining its altitude slightly above the sandy ground, the light-duty transportvehicle steadied itself like a boat in a heavy sea. Luke gunned the engine, whichwhined in protest, and sand erupted behind the floater as he aimed the craft toward thedistant town of Anchorhead. Behind him, a pitiful beacon of black smoke from the burning robot continued torise into the clear desert air. It wouldn't be there when Luke returned. There werescavengers of metal as well as flesh in the wide wastes of Tatooine. Metal and stone structures bleached white by the glaze of twin Tatoo I and IIhuddled together tightly, for company as much as for protection. They formed thenexus of the widespread farming community of Anchorhead.