I reached the district where my future client lived, and the difference in the size of the houses struck me immediately.
Each estate was probably equal in size to a dozen of our little huts.
Thanks to an acquaintance who worked on his moisture farms, I knew that he would definitely be in his residence that morning.
If the information was correct, today was his day for reviewing company documents.
That meant that, aside from security, I would be the only person outside his closest circle on the entire estate.
The differences between people still struck me.
Some could celebrate the fact that they had managed to eat until they were full that day, while others were literally drowning in credits, not even knowing what else they could spend them on.
Tatooine was exceptionally brutal in that regard.
A few streets away, someone could be dying of dehydration, while someone else complained about the low delivery of expensive wine that month.
Once, such inequality would have filled me with anger.
Or, more accurately, it had filled Anakin with anger.
I could still see his memories, filled with hatred.
Now I looked at it more pragmatically.
I had to learn how to use the rules of this world instead of merely getting angry at them.
Like a child throwing a tantrum.
Unfortunately, the previous Anakin had been limited by the reality in which he grew up.
Vardis Dask’s estate stood out even among other wealthy residences of Mos Espa.
Instead of sharp edges and tall towers, it was dominated by the rounded shapes characteristic of Tatooine.
The building had been constructed from light, sand-colored duracrete, its surface reflecting part of the merciless heat of the twin suns.
Thick walls protected the interior from daytime heat and the cold of desert nights.
The main part of the villa consisted of several connected domes of different sizes.
The largest one towered over the others, most likely housing reception rooms and the owner’s private office.
Smaller domes spread around it like satellites, creating a vast complex rather than a single building.
Small, deeply set windows protected the residents from ever-present dust.
Fabric awnings stretched above some of them, casting additional shade.
On the rooftops, I could see communication antennas, air-filtration systems, and tanks connected to private moisture vaporators.
A low wall made of the same pale material surrounded the entire estate.
It did not look like a fortification, but rather a clear boundary separating a world of wealth from the rest of Mos Espa.
Two guards dressed in light desert clothing stood by the wide entrance gate, and beside them was parked an elegant speeder with a gleaming frame, worth more than everything Shmi and I owned together.
What stood out most, however, was the greenery.
In several shaded courtyards grew drought-resistant shrubs and small trees brought from other worlds.
For most inhabitants of Tatooine, seeing that many plants was almost a luxury in itself.
For a brief moment, I stood before the gate, looking at the estate.
This villa was not a Hutt palace dripping with excessive luxury.
It was a symbol of something far more unusual on Tatooine.
Beauty.
I slowly approached the estate gate, clearly showing that I had no bad intentions.
I made no sudden movements, and I held the crate with the prototype in front of me with both hands.
“Greetings, gentlemen.
I have a certain matter to discuss with your boss.
I am sure he will be grateful if you inform him,” I said, forcing the friendliest smile I could manage.
Both guards looked at each other.
“Kid,” said the one standing on the left.
“Don’t you have anything better to do than joke around with us?”
“Believe me, if I wanted to joke, I would choose a less armed audience,” I replied calmly.
The man narrowed his eyes.
“Listen, little one.
Mr.
Vardis is a busy man.
He does not receive everyone who knocks on his gate.”
I looked at them with complete seriousness.
“I understand that perfectly.
That is why I am not asking for a meeting.
I am only asking you to pass him one message.”
“What message?”
I took a deeper breath.
“Tell him that a nine-year-old slave wants to show him technology that can increase the efficiency of moisture vaporators by one hundred and fifty percent.”
“And these are plans showing that my words are not fantasies.
You only need to pass them to him.”
I took out one of the instructions describing the general operation of the device without any technical details.
For several seconds, silence fell.
“Sure,” the guard on the left snorted.
“And I am the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic.”
The one on the right did not say a word, but I noticed that his gaze stopped for a moment on the crate I was holding.
“I said what I had to say,” I replied.
“If you decide it is a waste of time, I will leave.
But if I am telling the truth and you ignore such an opportunity, I do not think your boss will be pleased.”
This time, both of them fell silent.
Finally, the guard on the right sighed heavily.
“Wait here.”
His partner gave him an irritated look.
“Seriously?”
“If the kid is lying, we lose a minute.
If he is telling the truth, we may be rejecting the deal of a lifetime, for which we will be fired.”
After those words, he snatched the sheet from my hand, turned around, and disappeared behind the gate, leaving me alone with the other guard, who looked at me as if I had just become the least pleasant part of his day.
As I waited in front of the gate, I briefly wondered whether I should try to start a conversation with the second guard.
Seeing his obvious arrogance and a gaze that said he would gladly throw me over the fence, I decided not to waste my breath.
The minutes dragged on mercilessly.
After about ten minutes, the guard who had gone inside returned with a clearly surprised expression.
For a moment, he looked at me as if he were trying to reconcile the image of a nine-year-old slave with the fact that he had just received permission to let me inside.
Without a word, he stepped closer and began searching me.
Instinctively, I took a step back, ready to push his hand away.
“Do not resist,” he said in a calm but firm tone, as if he had predicted my reaction.
“Mr.
Vardis has agreed to meet you in his office.
I must make sure, however, that you are not carrying any weapons.”
I clenched my fists.
However, reason quickly won.
I was a boy asking for a meeting with one of the wealthier men on Tatooine.
The fact that I had been allowed inside at all bordered on a miracle.
Slowly, I raised my hands.
“I do not have any weapons on me,” I said.
“Only tools needed to present my project.”
The guard nodded and finished the search.
“Everything is fine.”
Then he looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and disbelief that I might really possess something valuable.
I pressed the crate with the vaporator tighter against my chest and walked through the gate onto the estate grounds.
The guard accompanying me led me through an inner garden.
Rare desert plants grew along stone paths, kept alive thanks to private moisture vaporators.
At the end of the path rose massive doors decorated with intricate carvings.
The guard opened them without a word and gestured for me to enter.
I crossed the threshold.
The interior was kept in a similar style to the rest of the villa.
Light colors dominated, along with rounded walls and soft light entering through tall windows.
The floor, however, made the greatest impression.
Thick, plush carpets stretched along most of the corridor, and my boots sank into them almost immediately.
After a good five minutes of making our way through staircases and more corridors, we reached large wooden doors.
At first glance, it was obvious they had not been made on Tatooine.
Wood was almost an exotic commodity here, and those massive dark-brown doors had certainly been brought from one of the wild worlds.
The guard knocked twice.
“Enter.”
After hearing the answer, he opened the door and stepped aside.
I walked inside.
My future client sat behind a large desk covered with datapads and paper documents.
He did not give the impression of a man trying to impress his surroundings with his wealth.
He had short, carefully trimmed hair with the first signs of gray at the temples, and a calm, attentive gaze of a man used to making important decisions.
Despite being middle-aged, it was obvious that he took care of himself.
I saw no signs of obesity or deep wrinkles characteristic of many wealthy men who spent entire days behind a desk.
He wore simple, but undoubtedly very expensive clothing in light colors, perfectly suited to Tatooine’s climate.
For a short moment, we observed each other in silence.
I was evaluating the man to whom I intended to entrust my secret.
He was evaluating a nine-year-old slave who claimed to possess technology capable of revolutionizing the moisture vaporator market.
Finally, he placed the sheet with my description on the desk.
“I must admit,” he said calmly, “this is the strangest request for a meeting I have received in a very long time.”
“And believe me, I have lived long enough to see truly strange things.”
A slight smile appeared on his lips.
I returned it.
“Apparently, you are interested, since you let me into your beautiful villa.”
One of the businessman’s eyebrows rose slightly.
“Or perhaps I was simply curious.”
“Most people in my position would have ordered security to throw you outside the gate,” he continued.
“And yet you are standing here.
Do you know why?”
I shook my head.
“Because if there is even a one percent chance that you are telling the truth, ignoring you would be something I would never forgive myself for.”
I rested the crate on the floor.
“In that case, I am glad you are a man who does not like making costly mistakes.”
His gaze settled on the crate I had brought.
“Good.
You have my attention, young man.”
He leaned back slightly in his chair.
“Then show me something worth wasting part of my morning.”
“So, as I already informed your guard, I improved a moisture vaporator and significantly increased its efficiency.”
“That much I understood from the data you gave me,” he replied, waving the sheet delivered earlier by security.
“Something else interests me more.”
He placed the document on the desk and looked me straight in the eyes.
“Why should you trust that I will not rob you here and now?”
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
Then he gestured with his hand toward the two heavily built guards standing by the door.
“You are alone, and on top of that, a child.
What is more, you are a slave.
If you really possess technology worth as much as you claim, you have practically no way to stop me.”
For a moment, silence filled the office.
It was a question I had expected from the very beginning.
“Because I do not believe that a man who spent years building his enterprise while taking such care of his good name would risk his reputation for a one-time profit.”
One of his eyebrows rose slightly.
“That is a very large amount of trust for someone who is seeing me for the first time in his life.”
“Not exactly.
Before coming here, I spent some time gathering information.
I spoke with people working on your farms.
I listened to opinions about your business.” I pointed toward the window, beyond which part of the estate stretched.
“A fortune like this is not built overnight.
There is a lot of information about your character if one knows where to look.”
This time, his smile grew slightly wider.
“Or perhaps you have just been fooled by my acting,” he replied with a poker face.
“That is also possible,” I admitted without hesitation.
“But you were my only sensible choice.
I considered every possible scenario and concluded that you were the best candidate.”
For a moment, he watched me in silence.
“Is that so?”
“Of course.
Most wealthy people on Tatooine either work for the Hutts or depend on them.
If I went to the wrong person, I would probably lose both the project and the ability to leave the building on my own two feet.”
An amused smile appeared on his face.
“So you decided that I was the least likely thief?”
“In simple terms.”
He let out a quiet laugh.
Of course, I had no intention of mentioning that this was not the only reason for my decision.
From the moment I crossed the estate gate, I had been carefully listening to my instincts.
The Force had warned me of danger many times.
Sometimes it was barely noticeable unease.
Other times the feeling resembled an alarm ringing inside my head.
This time, I felt nothing of the sort.
No sense that the man sitting across from me intended to deceive or harm me.
It did not mean he was perfect.
However, everything indicated that he was not the kind of man who would rob a child without hesitation for a quick profit.
“Well,” Vardis Dask said at last, folding his hands on the desk.
“I must admit, your answer was far better than I expected.”
His gaze once again moved toward the crate standing beside me.
“Now all that remains is to see whether your invention is as impressive as your confidence.”
A few minutes later, we moved to one of the inner courtyards of the estate.
It was an ideal place for a demonstration.
The open space allowed the test to be carried out, while the high walls ensured privacy.
Two guards stood a little farther away, watching everything with clear curiosity.
I carefully placed the crate on the ground and removed the vaporator inside.
Vardis watched the device with clear interest.
“I admit, I expected something more…
unusual.”
“Most changes are inside the casing,” I replied calmly.
And indeed.
From the outside, the device looked almost identical to thousands of other vaporators on Tatooine.
I connected the power and activated the system.
For the next several minutes, I explained the operating principle of the device in detail, showing previously prepared diagrams and comparative test results.
The businessman listened in silence.
The longer the presentation continued, the more his expression changed.
Initial skepticism gave way to focus.
Focus turned into interest.
And interest slowly began giving way to pure disbelief.
When I finished the demonstration, silence lasted for several seconds.
Vardis looked at the device again, checking the diagrams.
Then once again at the device.
“Is that really all?” he finally asked.
“Everything.”
“No new power sources?”
“No.”
“Exotic materials costing a fortune?”
“No.”
“Components imported from the Core Worlds?”
“No.”
The businessman shook his head.
“Incredible…”
He slowly approached the vaporator and touched the casing.
“You introduced only a series of relatively small structural changes that perfectly affected the efficiency of the device by eliminating all losses.”
“And yet you achieved an efficiency increase of about one hundred and fifty percent.”
For a moment, he was silent.
“Do you know what is most impressive?”
“What?”
“That after looking at the project, I understand perfectly why it works.
It is not a miracle of technology or an impossible-to-reproduce invention.”
He looked at me carefully.
“And yet, for decades, no one came up with such a simple solution.”
He sighed and looked at the device again.
“However, I am increasingly wondering how a nine-year-old slave created something that engineers employed by the largest companies producing such devices never came up with.”
His gaze clearly said that this interested him more than my invention itself.
What do you think about this style?
It’s probably better to read, isn’t it?