Edging into a doorway, he peeked around the side of the building. Maybe they would leave. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe they were just standing around shooting the breeze and not actually looking for him.
Those wishes were smashed when a second officer joined the first. Luke recognized the lieutenant from the recruiting office. "Krit," he muttered in disgust. His immediate reaction was to panic and run, but there was nowhere to go. He needed a better disguise and a hideout. Maybe Ka could provide him with both.
There were troopers at the far end of Paradise Road, but none on Curved Street, so he hurried into Kaslah's Parlor, then strolled nonchalantly to the back room, hiding his face in the folds of the hooded cloak. Ka saw him, but said nothing as she continued to work on a human woman who was getting an ankle tattoo. Left alone, he raided her stash and crammed a handful of glitt sticks in the backpack he had slung under his arm. They'd be good for trading or selling, and he'd need something more substantial than a few credits and a smile to get him to safety.
He grabbed a waterstick from the counter and drank thirstily, then added a few more to his pack. By the time she entered, he was standing with his arms folded, looking completely innocent.
"You bad boy in trouble," she hissed at him as she wiped her hands on a stained towel.
"I need a place to stay until things cool down," he said in a low voice. "Just for a day or so."
"Not be here, no trouble here." She flapped the towel at him. "Go now!"
"I can't go," he whined. "There are troopers after me. I didn't do anything! They'll kill me!"
"Whiteheads!" Hands on her ample hips, the old woman glared at him. "You stealin'?"
"Of course not!" Palms raised in the air in a gesture of virtuousness. "They have me confused with someone else."
She snorted. "'Kay den. You stay, but you be quiet!"
He flashed her his widest smile. "Thanks, Ka, you're the best!"
She snorted again before moving slowly back to her customers.
The room was stuffy and warm, and he yawned. He was still keyed up, but it was safe to relax now, so he took a cold ale from the cooler, then prowled the cupboards looking for something decent to eat. She had a lot of food -- business must be more profitable than it appeared -- but none of it appealed to him. Something simple, like a banthaburger, would be great. Maybe she could get some decent food for him. He sidled to the door and looked for her. The shop was empty, so he walked cautiously through it. Then he caught a glimpse of her skirt outside the door and dodged to one side, edging closer to listen.
" -- tell dem whiteheads," she was telling someone, "dat Luke here an' I wan' reward."
Momentarily frozen with shock at her treachery, he watched a small child run past the doorway on the errand, and then he backed up until he was plastered against a freestanding display of tattoo art. Ka entered and headed toward the back. He glared at her, unseen, before slipping out the door.
Uncle Owen was right about some things, he thought bitterly. You can't trust anyone.
After that lesson in duplicity, there was no way he was going to seek refuge with anyone he knew. They'd all sell him out for money. He wondered how much the Imps were offering for him. He doubled back to Paradise Road and searched through garbage bins in the tiny, crisscrossing alleyways. There wasn't much that could be considered useful, but eventually he found a partially used can of colorspray for his hair, some skinpaint, and a shard from a broken mirror. Carrying his discoveries, he settled on the ground between two bins, propped up the mirror fragment, and went to work.
Twenty minutes later, he had bright blue hair and dark red face and hands. He wasn't exactly sure what branch of the human species had that coloration, but there was bound to be one somewhere. He wouldn't be conspicuous among the motley visitors to Mos Eisley.
Better yet, he could hide out with the streetkids. He'd seen a pink-haired girl earlier. He'd just have to track down their lair. In the meanwhile, he had a call to make. At a public callbox, he dropped in credits and entered Fixer's code, all the while watching for stormtroopers.
"Yeah?" The voice was slurred.
"It's me."
"Nah, I'm me."
"Knock it off," he snapped. "I'm in trouble. I need you to come and get me. In Eisley."
"What're you -- "
"Don't ask questions. Just meet me as soon as you can at... that place we got thrown out of last time, remember?"
There was a yawn at the other end of the connection. "Luke, I can't do it tonight, I got stuff I gotta -- "
"Then tomorrow! Just -- look, bring whatever money you can scrape together. And some food."
"You really are in trouble." Fixer sobered abruptly. "Okay, tomorrow. As early as I can get there."
"Thanks." From somewhere he could hear the distinct sound of marching boots, so he hung up abruptly and ran back into the alley.
He'd be fine today, as long as he could keep away from the Imps. But the desert grew cold at night, and he would need to find shelter. With a sigh, Luke trudged off, wondering how his life could have changed so fast and so dramatically without him even lifting a finger.
It wasn't hard to find the streetkids. After a few inquiries, he was pointed in the direction of their leader, a girl his age with purple hair and a stern expression.
"You have to pay," she said flatly, in response to his request for food and shelter.
Fumbling in his pack, he found two glitt sticks and held them out. She didn't respond. With a dramatic sigh, he grudgingly offered a third, and this time she accepted. He slipped the food into his pack, knowing it would have to last him until Fixer arrived.
In the subterranean depths, it was impossible to differentiate between night and day. Every few hours, Luke made forays to the mouth of the passage, checking the location of the suns. When darkness fell, he relaxed. Fixer wouldn't come until mid-morning at the earliest. In the meanwhile, he was safer here in this cavern with other refugee kids than he would be with any of his so-called friends in the world above. With a yawn born of alcohol, stress and hot temperatures, he secured his pack under his head and used it as a pillow. Closing his eyes, he was asleep in minutes.
The next day dragged endlessly. Fixer didn't come. Luke kept racing anxiously between the hideout and the little cantina on Paradise Road that they'd been banned from for their behavior, rowdy even by Eisley standards. He didn't want to chance another call to his friend; it was risky enough dodging troopers and people who might recognize him. Surely the Imps would give up soon, believing that he'd gone off-planet or headed home.
He used the last of his pilfered glitt sticks to buy more food, then surrendered half his credits to the streetkids for watersticks after he drank the ones he'd taken from Ka. He didn't have enough money left to buy passage to anywhere, so hopefully Fixer had managed to liberate some from his parents' stash.
His stomach was twisted with anxiety by the time night came and Fixer still hadn't shown. Staying with the kids for many more days would be dangerous. Besides, the code of the street said that when he couldn't pay, he'd have to leave. At the rate he was spending his assets, he'd be tossed out by morning.
That night he lay awake watching the shadows that flickering torches splashed across the rough ceiling. He stared at them, mesmerized, as he listened to the sounds of sniffling and snoring and nightmares, to the sounds of the little ones who buried their faces in makeshift pillows and cried themselves to sleep. Enough credits flowed through Mos Eisley's gambling dens every hour to support a home for these lost children; hell, Jabba could house and feed them indefinitely without missing the money. One day, when he was rich and a famous Jedi, Luke Skywalker would come back here and build a home for all the homeless kids.
But he couldn't do anything now. He didn't know how to do any Jedi magic that would conjure food or a nice place to live. He could barely keep himself out of an Imperial prison cell. Eventually, exhausted, he fell into a fitful sleep.