Spore, page 7
She watched Hoole work until the last second, hoping he would find some
trick that would bring the ship out of its dive. Then her heart sank. Hoole
removed his hands from the controls and covered his head. "Brace yourselves,"
he said. "We're going to crash!"
The cargo ship slammed into the dense forest of Ithor.
CHAPTER 12
Tash felt something soft and warm beneath her. It felt like a mattress.
I'm lying on a bed, she thought. I must be in my cabin. This has all been
a dream.
She rolled over onto her other side and felt her face bump against a
piece of sharp metal. "Ow!" she muttered drowsily. She opened her eyes.
The sharp metal object was the comlink microphone in her space helmet. A
long, jagged crack ran from the top of the helmet's faceplate to the bottom.
Tash sat up with a start, then lay back down with a moan. Her head was
ringing. She'd gotten up too fast and made herself dizzy. She waited for the
forest around her to stop spinning, then sat up slowly.
The mattress she'd been lying on was a thick bed of moss at the foot of
an enormous Bafforr tree. As she rose to her knees, Tash felt bruises forming
all over her body. The dizziness had stopped, but her head still ached. She
must have taken a blow to the head during the crash. Where her visor was not
cracked, it was covered in smears of mossy slime. Unclipping the helmet's
seals, she popped it off and tossed the headgear into the brush.
The ship was nowhere in sight, but Tash sniffed the scent of burning
ozone and engine exhaust, so she knew it was close by. The speed globe she'd
been holding lay a couple of meters away.
"I must have been thrown clear when we hit," she said, mostly to make
sure her sore jaw still worked. "If I hadn't landed on this moss, I would have
broken my neck."
Sitting back down, Tash kicked off her gray-boots, then unsealed her
spacesuit and shook it off. In zero gravity, the suit was weightless, but
planetside it was almost too heavy to lift.
Tash tried to stand up, using the Bafforr tree for support.
The minute her hand touched the dark, smooth bark of the tree, an
electric tingle shot up her arm and into her brain. A single word echoed
loudly in her mind.
Danger!
Instinctively, Tash ducked back down.
At the same moment, she heard a loud rustling in the bushes nearby.
Crouched down in the underbrush, she couldn't see a thing, but she heard heavy
footsteps clomp past only a few meters from her hiding spot. The warning
message had been so clear that she didn't dare look up until the sound of
movement faded among the trees.
When the forest had been silent a long time, Tash stood up again.
Cautiously, she touched the tree. Nothing happened.
Had the warning been a message from the Bafforr tree? Or the Force? Or
both?
Another possibility occurred to Tash. She could still hear a soft ringing
in her ears, and she had to admit that the danger signal might have been a
trick of her rattled brain. She might have just hidden from a chance at being
rescued.
Tash thought about shouting for help. She opened her mouth and filled her
lungs with air, but something held her back. Instead she let out a long sigh.
Her sigh was answered by a pain-filled moan from beneath the vines of a
nearby blue-flowered shrub.
Tash approached the shrub cautiously. The last thing she needed was to be
snared by another of Ithor's hungry plants. But this one seemed harmless
enough. She could see a figure lying motionless at its roots. Drawing, nearer,
Tash saw that it was Fandomar.
Tash staggered to the Ithorian's side and carefully turned her over.
Fandomar's spacesuit was torn, probably by a tree branch as she was thrown
clear of the wreck. A nasty cut ran the length of her leg. Her helmet had been
cracked in two and nearly torn from her neck. Tash popped it off and threw it
aside.
"Fandomar?" she whispered gently. "Fandomar, can you hear me?"
The Ithorian's eyes fluttered open, then closed again. "T-Tash. Is that
you? I can't seem to focus my eyes." She tried to move. "I can't feel my legs,
either."
"It's me," Tash replied. "Lie still. We were both thrown clear of the
wreckage. You're probably pretty banged up."
A look of panic suddenly crossed Fandomar's face, and her hands clutched
blindly at Tash. "Tash, your voice. It doesn't sound like it's coming through
the comlink. You're not wearing your helmet?"
"No. Neither are you. We're on Ithor."
"Oh, no, no, no, no," Fandomar moaned. "This is terrible."
Tash blinked. Her head hurt too much to deal with this confusion. "What
are you talking about?"
"Spore," Fandomar hissed. She said the word as if it were the most
terrible thing in the galaxy. "Spore! Spore is free!"
"What do you mean?" Tash asked.
Fandomar started to cry. "It means," she wept, "we're all doomed!"
CHAPTER 13
"Doomed!" Fandomar whispered again. Her voice was fading.
"What is this Spore?" Tash asked. "Fandomar, you have to tell me!"
But the Ithorian had fainted.
Tash wanted to shake her awake, but she dared not. Fandomar had said she
couldn't feel her legs. Her spine might be broken. If Tash moved her, she
could make the damage worse.
I'll have to leave her here, Tash decided. Maybe I can get help.
Tash used a jagged piece of metal from Fandomar's helmet to tear strips
of cloth from the Ithorian's spacesuit. She used these to bandage Fandomar's
leg wound. Then she used the rest of the suit as a blanket to cover the
Hammerhead's body. That was the best she could do.
She needed to find Hoole and Zak and make sure they were all right. Then
maybe they could find a way to contact the Tafanda Bay.
Tash staggered through the forest of Bafforr trees. She had to stop every
ten meters or so to catch her breath and let the ringing in her ears quiet
down. Every time she rested against a Bafforr's trunk, she waited for that
same tingle of energy. But it never came, even when Tash heard loud rustling
in the bushes nearby.
Tash braced herself and waited. Something big and heavy-footed pushed its
way through the bushes before her.
A tall gray figure stepped into view.
"Uncle Hoole!" Tash shouted in pure joy. She threw herself at the
Shi'ido, who almost lost his footing. Tash saw a deep cut on his forehead.
"Are you injured?" he asked.
She wasn't sure. "I'm one big bruise and my ears are ringing, but I'm
okay. Is your cut bad?"
Hoole touched the gash delicately. "I will live." The stern Shi'ido tried
to look as light hearted as his stony face could manage. "It was not my best
landing, but all things considered, I would say it wasn't my worst."
Tash grimaced. Hoole never joked. The fact that he was trying to probably
meant he felt worse than he looked. "Fandomar is back there in the forest.
She's hurt. Do you think the Ithorians saw the crash on their scanners? Will
they send a rescue party?"
"I think the answer is yes," said Zak as he slipped between the branches
of a sapling tree. Tash couldn't see any cuts or bruises, but her brother's
knees were wobbly. He hugged Tash and Hoole as he said, "I saw a ship fly
overhead. The crash site's just on the other side of these trees. They'll
probably land there."
Zak was right. The three survivors helped each other through the trees
and into a clearing. The twisted wreckage of the cargo ship lay piled at the
end of a long gouged-out trail it had dug into the ground.
Tash looked back, trying to guess how far she'd walked, and silently
thanked the Force. She'd been thrown an incredible distance from the ship.
Flow had she survived? That moss had been soft, but not soft enough to save
her from cracking her skull after being launched a hundred meters.
A look of wonder and suspicion crossed her face. She'd been thrown
through a grove of Bafforr trees. Had the trees somehow-?
Tash shook her head. Force or no Force, she couldn't believe that the
trees had saved her.
Thoughts of a miraculous rescue were driven out as real rescuers
appeared. A small medical shuttle dropped down almost at their feet, and four
Ithorians carrying medipacs jumped out of the hatch. In seconds they were
examining all three survivors, treating Hoole's head wound, and testing Tash
to make sure she didn't have a concussion from her fall.
"You've got to help Fandomar," Tash insisted. "She's back there, through
the trees."
One of the medics nodded. "Let us make sure you are well first, then you
can lead us to her."
"I'm fine!" Tash insisted. But she didn't feel fine. Her ears had stopped
ringing, but that sensation had been replaced by another. It was as if a long-
range sensor had triggered a warning inside her head.
Something was wrong.
"Hey, I could use some help, too!" said a gruff voice.
Hodge stepped out of the shade of a Bafforr tree. He had shed his
spacesuit and helmet and walked forward wearing only a miner's jumpsuit and a
wide grin. There wasn't a scratch on him.
"Fandomar needs help badly," Tash said. "I left her back there. Her back
may be injured, and I think she's delirious. She kept saying something about
everyone being doomed. And she mentioned Spore."
All four Ithorians froze. In a frightened whisper, one of them said,
"What?"
The fear in their eyes made Tash shiver. "I said she talked about Spore.
What does that mean?"
None of the lthorians answered. Hodge laughed coldly. "I'm afraid that
what she means," he said, "is me!"
In the next instant, Hodge turned on the closest person-an Ithorian
doctor who had started to examine him. What happened then was beyond Tash's
imagination.
Hodge's eyes seemed to explode with thin, dark, vinelike tentacles. More
dark vines burst from his open mouth. They lashed out violently, wrapping
themselves around the doctor and sinking right into the Ithorian's skin!
CHAPTER 14
The dark tentacles sank into the Ithorian's skin, burying themselves
inside the victim's body. Tash blinked. The tentacles vanished from sight
except for a dark tracing of lines, like veins, that showed beneath the skin.
But the Ithorian himself had changed. His body stiffened and he seemed to
be waiting for something. "What was that?" Zak asked.
"Spore!" one of the Ithorians gasped in a voice filled with terror.
"I am Spore," said Hodge and the Hammerhead together. Hodge grinned, and
he and the Ithorian spoke again. "For years, for centuries, I have been
trapped on that lifeless rock. In that airless tomb! At last I have lives to
feed on again!"
As one being, Hodge and the Ithorian turned on the other three
Hammerheads and opened their mouths. More black tendrils erupted from their
mouths and eyes, snaring the three Ithorian doctors. In the midst of her
horror, Tash thought the black strings looked like the roots of a fast-growing
weed.
Spore had now captured all the Ithorians.
Spore and his victims turned on Hoole. "You are next to join me," Spore
said.
A whole forest of tentacles leaped out to capture Hoole. But Hoole had
vanished. In the Shi'ido's place appeared a crystal snake. The slithering
creature twisted and squirmed, slipping out of the tangle of black tentacles.
Quick as a light beam, the crystal snake dodged to one side. Its skin crawled
quickly across its body, and Hoole appeared again.
His dodge had carried him to the other side of the clearing. Spore stood
between the Arrandas and the Shi'ido.
"Run!" Hoole ordered; then he plunged into the forest.
With no other choice, Zak and Tash fled in the opposite direction.
They ran blindly, jumping over tree roots, ducking under branches,
scrambling up small hillocks. The horrible vision of those black vines
bursting out of Hodge's mouth made their feet move long after they were
exhausted.
Finally, Tash's tired feet tripped her up and she toppled down a gentle,
grass-covered slope. Zak fell right behind her, and they came to a stop at the
feet of another grove of trees. They rested against the dark trunk of a
Bafforr tree.
"Wh-Wh-What...?" Zak panted. He didn't need to finish his sentence.
"Spore," Tash answered. "That's what was trapped on the asteroid."
"And Fandomar let it loose?" her brother guessed.
Tash shook her head, almost too tired to speak. "I don't think it was
her. I think it was Hodge. It infected him somehow, took him over. Now he's
infecting everyone else."
"Every time those vine-things touch someone, it's like they become part
of Spore," Zak said. "It's like they're suddenly all connected."
Tash shuddered. "What do we do?"
"Find Uncle Hoole," her brother suggested.
"Right," she agreed. "Then find a way to warn the Tafanda Bay. Whatever
this thing is, the Ithorians seem to know about it."
"That's what scares me," Zak said with a shake of his head. "Did you see
how scared they were?"
"But they trapped it once before," his sister replied. "Maybe they can do
it again."
Suddenly, Tash stiffened:
"Tash, what's wrong?"
She didn't answer at first. Sitting with her back to a Bafforr tree, she
had felt the warning signal even more powerfully than before.
DANGER!
"They're near," she whispered. "Come on."
Getting to their feet, Zak and Tash slipped behind the tree as quietly as
possible, then backed deeper into the grove of Bafforrs. Zak didn't know how
Tash knew Spore was close, but he had trusted her feelings in the past. This
didn't seem like a good time to start doubting her.
Tash felt her mouth go dry. The feeling of dread continued to pulse
through her brain. Danger was in the air around her.
Hoole appeared at the top of the hill down which they'd fallen. He
hurried down the slope toward them, his eyes scanning the trees and
underbrush.
"Uncle Hoole!" Tash whispered when he had gotten within earshot. "Over
here!"
The Shi'ido's head whipped around the minute he heard her voice. A few
quick strides carried him right up to the tree that hid them.
"Zak, Tash, I am glad I found you," Hoole said.
Tash beckoned him into the shadow of the tree. "Uncle Hoole, you've got
to hide. Spore is very near. Come on!"
Hoole shook his head. He smiled and held out his hand. "No, no, Tash.
Everything is fine. Join me."
Zak stepped out from behind the tree and toward his uncle's waiting hand.
Tash started to follow, then froze. Join Me.
The way he'd said those words reminded her of something.
As Zak approached his uncle, the Shi'ido opened his mouth in a wide grin.
The black vines snared Zak before he could even scream.
CHAPTER 15
Tash stumbled backward. The tendrils melted into Zak's body, leaving only
black lines visible beneath the skin around his neck. She thought she might be
sick.
Hoole and Zak didn't follow as she took a few steps back. Instead, they
held up their hands innocently and said at the same time, "Tash, please don't
