Emergency!

Sorry about that. Blogging is fun, but real life gets priority. I had a grateful visitor bearing a pot of pea soup. But back to my story. I had the entire Skywalker/Lars household, all three of them, in my kitchen very late at night (or in the morning), with Owen stomping around nervously, Luke squeaking excitedly, and Beru sitting quietly at my table with her head down, getting pale.

I knew the situation must be very bad if Beru was here. Normally, she never goes anywhere. She doesn't tolerate travel well, because of her motion sickness. At one time, as a student, she had had an opportunity to be a professional athlete, and had to turn it down. She had never been to my house before, and it was strange to see her sitting there at the table now, clutching at her hand and breathing shallowly while Owen and Luke tried to explain what happened.

Apparently, there was a problem with the ventilation equipment, and Beru tried to fix it herself, rather than wait for Owen to wake up just a few hours later. She had thought the intake fan wasn't getting any power, so she reached in (without turning the power off first). Turned out it was getting intermittent power, and it started back up. It cut her hand very deeply, and then the safety kicked in, and she started to pull her hand out, and the fan came back on and cut her some more.

Luke, who was supposed to be in bed at the time but wasn't, heard her yelling and turned the fan off and wrapped up her hand. Owen drove the whole bunch of them out here, not wanting to leave Luke there alone at night. Then two Sandpeople on banthas chased them for a while, although I couldn't see any sign of them now. (A landspeeder can easily outrun a bantha during the day, but you have to proceed more slowly in the dark.)

Luke and Owen bickered about whether it is "cheap" or "thrifty" to keep outdated equipment around. I didn't say anything. I agree with Luke in principle, but I wouldn't have upgraded the ventilation system either. It's fine and dandy to know what's the best thing to do, but you also have to be honest with yourself as to whether you'd actually do it. Normally, having outdated ventilation equipment in a grayhouse doesn't pose a significant safety risk.

I think Luke knew that, too. But he was worried about his aunt.

As they spoke, I scrambled around looking for One-Onegee's medical programming chips and a blanket for Beru, who seemed to be going into shock.

One-Onegee is, as his name implies, a medical droid. He is not, as his name misleadingly implies, related to the extremely popular Two-Onebee, which is produced by another manufacturer, who never produced a One series. In fact, the Two series was the ripoff, but it was so much better than the One series that the Ones are now regarded as the cheap imitations. Keyword being cheap.

The One-Onegee model was a terrible dud, saleswise. Their verbal skills were poor, and they required frequent recharging. Hospitals wouldn't buy them, although there were some low-budget clinics that used them as orderlies or to assist with light surgery. They were most popular at schools that couldn't afford a nurse (or nurse droid). The One-Onegee just barely met the minimum legal requirement for schools. Otherwise, there are better droids available, and that's what most hospitals use. Janitorial droids, surgical droids, nurse droids, regular servant droids, etc.

They are mechanically sturdy, however, and have fine hands, and while they are not especially strong for droids, they are as strong as most adult humans. They can be programmed with additional simple functions (like shoveling sand) and can be loaded with mechanical repair programs.

Best of all, as I mentioned before, they are amazingly affordable for what they can do. They're not a sensible buy for a hospital or anyone who needs or can afford either a very versatile or very specialized droid of any kind, but even new they only cost a little more than a good domestic droid.

I don't need a medical droid at all (most times) but I have to take what I can get. You see all kinds of droids out here doing things they weren't originally intended to do. In fact, Shmi actually had a protocol droid. Yappy, but the price was right (the little podrace-winning stinker built him) and it was helpful around the house. That droid was the reason Cliegg bought Shmi the Bocce appliances, which still stand in morose neglected glory in the Lars kitchen today, waiting for a new interpreter.

Onegee's not yappy. He's an excellent listener, though. (Joke.) I got him from a pack of filthy Jawas. They also had an Asp, which many would consider the most desirable general-purpose droid, but the Asp's hands aren't quite as fine as I needed, because my own hands are perpetually achy and twitchy.

Who knows where they found Onegee - probably on a crashed ship in the Dune Sea. I'm guessing that because his speech functions are even worse than a new One-Onegee's. He can understand basic commands (in Basic only) and he seldom breaks down, though I have to keep him plugged in most of the time to keep him powered. When I take him out to the vaporators, I have to take the EG-6 along, just in case.

Owen calls them Dumb and Dumber. (Mainly a reference to their verbal skills, as Owen is not the type to make fun of puny brains.) He also calls them The Handsome Couple, because he thinks it's a riot to see a tall slender robot standing beside a short, stubby-legged robot. He has a strange sense of humor, but that's better than none at all.

But, this is important: when I got Onegee, I had to first delete some of his other programs, including most of his paltry medical repertoire, in order to upload the programs that make him useful to me.

I'm not an idiot. I backed everything up first. But in order to cope with Beru's injuries, I first had to locate those chips, which was not easy with my groggy head, Owen's growling, Luke's squeaking, and Onegee's periodic announcement: "There is a medical emergency. I am not programmed to treat this condition. Please seek other assistance."

They were in the spice cabinet. Of course. The only reason I even looked in there was because I had an insane idea to create an herbal poultice. It was insane because the only one of us who knows anything about herbal poultices is Beru, and she was barely conscious. But, no harm done - I loaded the chips and Onegee set to work.

If I didn't know better, I would swear that the medical programs transformed the droid's entire demeanor. Suddenly, he seemed dignified and professional, not slumpy and defeated. (I think I anthropomorphize too much.) He crisply went about the task, finding or requesting things he needed. Frequently, it was necessary to improvise, and he acquiesced to our makeshift solutions (many droids would not be so flexible). He wasn't authoritative at all, but given the level of disorganization in the room, his competent manner helped us focus on helping Beru instead of scrambling or arguing.

The surgery was completed much faster than we would have expected, and much faster than it seemed. We thanked One-Onegee, who, not being a social droid, didn't have much to say in return. Luke and the Larses thanked me, but, not being a social person myself, I didn't have much to say either. I pointed out that Luke's quick thinking, keen ears, and cool head had probably saved Beru's hand and possibly her life. Luke blushed and Beru hugged him. Owen scratched his ear, which is his way of signalling embarrassed agreement.

I fed them breakfast and sent them home. Then I swapped out Onegee’s program chips, because it was too weird having a doctor in my house.

Don't take fudge from politicians

I was fast asleep. I sleep at night. It's this crazy thing I like to do. It's cool at night (sometimes downright cold) and it's not particularly safe to go outside, so it's better for sleeping than for working.

That's my opinion. Some people disagree, especially those with indoor hobbies. Not that farming is a hobby; not for Beru. But she likes to tend her plants in the dead of night. Or "early morning," as she likes to call it. She starts her day several hours before sunsup and retires shortly after sunsdown. Owen goes to bed later in the evening and gets up with the suns do, same as me. Luke goes to bed as late as he can stand to and gets up only when his uncle drags him out of bed, same as most kids.

Some of their plants grow underground, and others grow in the greyhouse. (It's like a greenhouse, except shaded slightly, so the suns don't burn the plants.) Despite the shading, the greyhouse gets very hot during the day, and it's coolest in the last hours before dawn.

Which, as I may have mentioned before, is what I consider the best time to sleep. And that's what I was doing, very soundly I might add, dreaming about a terrible thunderstorm that scared the poodoo out of me when I was little, back when I was on Naboo and had a different name and no idea of what was ahead of me. I thought what was ahead of me at that time was that I was going to be dead very soon. A bolt of lightning had just split our cottage open, or so I thought. I opened my eyes a few minutes later and saw everything intact and the rest of my family shaking.

It was a tremendous storm. We get tremendous storms here too, but only rarely. I knew I was dreaming this time because we didn't really have a singing Gungan sprouting out of smoldering flowerpot, and we didn't have a row of line-dancing droids, and my grandfather certainly wouldn't have tried to teach them the Hustle even if we had. Especially since he was already dead at the time of the storm. Nor did the then-Mayor Palpatine ever offer me a piece of fudge which looked suspiciously like a stick of butter covered in brown dust.

The crashing sounds in my dream went on and on, and the clumsy droids' stomping got louder and louder, and soon there was a lot of yelling too, distant yelling, which I assumed were the firefighters trying to get us to open the door to buy cakes from them, until one of them called, "Sandstormer!"

Then I woke up just enough to put some lights on and stumble to the door. I wasn't sure I wasn't still dreaming, but even half-asleep I know better than to open the door in the middle of the night without knowing who's on the other side.

"It's us!" a muffled voice called unhelpfully. That was enough to prove it wasn't a Tusken Raider, so I opened the door, and Luke and the Larses spilled through in an untidy heap, Owen slamming the door behind them and looking for the repulsor field controls.

"Accident... Sandpeople!" Luke squeaked.

The kid's no good in an emergency, but I understood enough to turn the repulsor field to its highest setting. It's not great at the best of times, but it had a full charge and my door is pretty sturdy, even after a beating like the one it had just received.

"Just two," Beru explained, and I still wasn't lucid enough to follow, but when I saw the blood-soaked rag wrapped around her hand, I snapped to full wakefulness and activated One-Onegee.

I hate to cut this short, but I need to stop typing. I'll finish later. The important thing is that Beru is okay now, there's no infection, the Sandpeople apparently decided to bother someone else, and Owen's finally agreed to order some new equipment.