Spore, page 8
run."
Danger!
The warning pulsed all around her. Tash could feel her heart slam against
her ribs, and hear the blood pound in her ears. She knew she should run. But
this was Hoole. That was Zak. How could she run?
She tried to keep her voice from shaking as she asked, "Who are you?"
"I am Spore," said Zak and Hoole together. The sound of their voices had
the same stereo effect as an Ithorian voice. "I mean you no harm. I simply
need... I mean, I want to know you better. To be a part of you. For you to be
a part of me."
The phrase chilled Tash's heart. Spore's words reminded her of the
feeling she'd gotten before the Bafforr trees, only turned inside out. Instead
of feeling the soothing presence of the wise trees trying to connect with her,
she felt a dark, evil presence that wanted to control her.
She stared closely at the spiderweb of dark lines hiding beneath Zak's
skin and choked back a sob.
"First," she managed to say, "let go of my brother. Let go of Uncle
Hoole."
"I will, I promise," Spore replied through Hoole and Zak. "But I need
them at the moment. They're going to help me. I promise you, none of you will
come to any harm."
"You're already harming them," she said.
"Only because I was desperate," Spore said. "I was trapped for four
hundred years. I needed to be free. Once I'm sure I'll be free, then I'll
release anyone who doesn't want to be a part of me."
Hoole and Zak took a few steps closer. When they spoke, their voices
seemed to change, relaxing into their natural speech. But they still spoke
together. "Tash, it's not bad. Won't you join us?"
Tash took another uncertain step back and her foot slipped on the root of
the Bafforr tree. Instinctively, she grabbed the tree trunk for balance.
Run!
The message thundered through her mind, too powerful to ignore. Her. feet
were moving before her brain could form the thought.
She barely saw the black strings slap harmlessly against the tree behind
her.
Tash ran for her life. Branches slapped at her face, scratching tears
from her eyes. But she wasn't crying from the pain. She was crying out of
fear.
How could Zak and Uncle Hoole have been caught? How could she escape
Spore all alone?
Alone. She was tired of being alone. Even when she was with her uncle and
her brother, she felt different from them. She thought the Force was supposed
to make her feel connected to everything, but at the moment she felt like the
loneliest, most frightened being in the galaxy. She kept moving, but her legs
began to feel heavy. Her lungs started to ache.
Why bother running? she told herself. What good will it do you? You're
running.from the only friends you have.
Tash stopped to catch her breath in a clearing. After a moment, she saw
that the bushes all around her were alive with movement. Pulling aside the
branches, she saw an lthorian, one of the medical staff, scanning the forest.
It took a few steps forward, looked around, then advanced again. She could
hear Spore's other victims all around her, doing the same.
She was caught in the middle of a circle. There was nowhere to run. Soon
they'd find her. She looked up. There were Bafforr trees all around her, but
the lowest branches were far too high for her to reach. And the bark of the
trunk was far too slick for her to try to shimmy up the side.
She glanced down-and saw something familiar. Her spacesuit.
She was back where she started. Not that it would do her any good. There
were no weapons in her spacesuit. Just the air tank, the helmet, and...
... and gravboots.
Tash looked back at the nearest Bafforr tree. There was no way to climb
it. But what if she could walk up the side of the tree instead?
The rustling in the bushes was very close.
It might work, but she needed time to get the gravboots on her feet.
Tash looked around desperately, until her eyes were caught by a flash of
red.
The speed globe.
She had been holding it when the ship crashed. Scooping it up now, she
flipped the activation switch and thanked the Force as the speed globe hummed
to life.
She could hear someone approaching from her left. It was the Ithorian
medic she'd seen earlier.
Tash flicked another switch and the speed globe jumped out of her hands,
bouncing onto the forest floor. "Get going!" she rasped, stomping her foot in
the globe's direction. The computerized ball bounced away into the underbrush.
Whoever had been approaching from Tash's left suddenly stopped, listening
as the speed globe bounced through the bushes before it, too, stopped.
The Ithorian started forward, but as it approached the speed globe's
location, the ball shot away, making more noise in the brush.
The Ithorian followed.
While this had been happening, Tash hadn't wasted a moment. As fast as
she could, she slipped on her gravboots. As soon as the buckles were snapped,
she hurried toward the nearest tree-and nearly fell on her face.
She'd forgotten how heavy the boots were.
Picking herself up, she dragged her feet to the trunk. She lifted one
foot and planted it against the smooth black bark. Then, with a silent hope
that the Force was with her, she activated the gravboot.
The mini-tractor beam powered up, and she felt her foot clamp down. It
worked! Quickly, she hopped up and stuck her other foot onto the trunk.
Then, step by step, Tash walked up the side of the Bafforr tree.
It wasn't easy. Even though her feet stuck to the trunk, gravity still
pulled her body toward the ground. She had to use all the muscles in her legs
to keep herself from bending backward like a branch too heavy with blumfruit.
Tash had just reached the lowest level of branches when she heard several
sets of footsteps burst out of the brush beneath her, converging on the spot
where she'd been standing. She froze, trying not to make a sound.
Below her, Zak, Hoole, and the Ithorians had gathered around Hodge. One
of the Ithorians held up the speed globe. Hodge took it, then dropped it on
the ground in disgust. None of them spoke. Tash suspected that they didn't
need to. They were all thinking with one mind-Spore's.
Tash hoped that the branches around her would hide her from sight, but
the Spore-victims didn't even look up. The Bafforr tree would have been
impossible to climb.
Tash's legs started to tremble. Inside the gray-boots, her ankles ached.
A moment later, the victims of Spore dispersed, hunting the ground for
any sign of their next prey.
Tash forced herself to walk a few feet to the nearest thick branch and
crawled onto it. As soon as she had caught her breath, she looked around,
trying to figure out her next move. She had to warn the Tafanda Bay, or any
other herd ship she could find.
First things first, though. She had to get safely away from Spore. But
how?
The answer came to Tash so quickly and easily that she almost laughed.
She didn't know if she'd figured it out for herself, or if it was the Force,
or if it was yet another message from the Bafforr trees. All three seemed to
be getting mixed together. Whichever it was, the solution popped into her mind
as a single word.
Connections.
Just as the Bafforrs seemed to be connected as one mind, their branches
had grown close together, sometimes touching, sometimes intertwining so that
at the tops, one tree could hardly be distinguished from the next.
Tash crawled along the branch she was sitting on until she reached the
branch of the nearest tree. Carefully, she switched trees, and continued on
her way. Sometimes she had to climb down to reach a good branch; sometimes she
climbed up. It wasn't easy. Within minutes her hands, arms, and legs were
scratched, but slowly, she covered distance.
Wherever Spore thought she was, that wasn't where she was going to be
soon. Tash allowed herself a momentary smile.
Then the smile vanished. The branch she had just climbed onto suddenly
wrapped itself around her body and pulled her down toward the ground. More
branches snared her arms and legs.
She had crawled into the vines of a vesuvague tree.
CHAPTER 16
Tash struggled, but she knew it was no use. The tree was too strong. It
had pulled her down from the Bafforr branches and now held her near its own
trunk, a meter or two above the ground. Every time she struggled, the
vesuvague squeezed a little tighter.
Either it would crush her, or it would keep squeezing until she couldn't
move. Then it would wait for her to die of thirst.
She gave one final struggle. The tree fought back, wrapping a thin vine
around her face. Her mouth was covered. It was getting hard to breathe, and
her vision started to blur. Soon another vine would cover her eyes, and she'd
be blind and helpless.
At least, she thought, I won't be caught by Spore. Just before the last
vine fell into place, she saw a figure walk toward her. Through her bleary
eyes, she could just make out the hammerheaded silhouette of an Ithorian. It
reached out to touch her.
Everything went black.
Tash opened her eyes with a start.
Strong but gentle hands held her down, and a soothing voice said, "You
are safe."
Tash blinked to clear her eyes. She was lying in a large cave. A small
campfire crackled nearby. Over it, someone had placed a simple grill and a
stone bowl full of bubbling liquid. The smoke from the fire rose up, mixing
with the scent of the liquid to fill the cave with a pleasant odor.
Tash sat up slowly and realized she was sitting next to Fandomar. Relief,
warmer than the fire, flooded through her. "I'm glad you're all right!"
Fandomar nodded. "The feeling in my legs returned soon after you left. I
guessed where you were going, and I knew the danger, so I decided not to wait
for you."
"How did you find me?" Tash asked.
Fandomar handed her a cup of the steaming liquid. It tasted like
vegetables. "The Bafforr trees told me," she said simply. "After I found you,
I brought you here."
Fandomar's hand swept across the cave. The darkness was lit only by fire.
In the gloom, Tash saw Ithorians moving about. Most wore simple clothes, or no
clothes at all.
"This is the home for some of those who've felt the call of the Mother
Forest," Fandomar explained. "As a High Priest, my husband knew they were
here, and so did I. This was the only place I could think of."
"We're safe then?" Tash asked.
"For the moment," Fandomar said. "Those who hear the call of the Mother
Forest are shy and avoid contact with strangers. They are uncomfortable being
near us even now, and permit it only because my husband was a High Priest.
They will avoid anyone else they see, and so they are not likely to be
captured by Spore." Fandomar's eyes darkened. "But Spore must be stopped.
Eventually, it will absorb every being on this planet. No place will be safe."
Tash thought of Hoole and Zak. "What is Spore?"
Fandomar sighed, then began, "The story is sad, both for my people and
for me. We Ithorians are more than just gardeners. We have learned to create
new forms of plant life by splicing the genes of one plant with those of
another. Usually, we do this to make stronger, healthier versions of a plant."
"Using DNA," Tash said.
"Exactly." Fandomar continued, "About four hundred years ago, my people
took their experiments too far. Using the genes of the vesuvague tree and the
Bafforrs, along with some other things, they created a new form of life. Like
the vesuvague, this creation snared its victims in its tentacle like vines. It
also had a group mind like the Bafforr trees. However, unlike the wise
Bafforrs, its mind was evil."
"Why?" Tash asked.
Fandomar raised her hands in that shrug like motion. "Who can say?
Perhaps it was driven mad by the process that created it. I don't know. But
whatever the reason, a change occurred. The Bafforrs have a peaceful desire to
let their collective mind grow. In Spore, this desire became a hunger. Spore
exists to snare the minds of everyone it meets and bring them under its
control."
"How many beings," Tash said, almost afraid to ask, "could Spore control?
"
"Thousands," Fandomar replied in the gloom. "Maybe millions."
Tash's heart skipped a beat. She imagined whole worlds under the control
of Spore's dark tentacles. When she spoke, her voice shook. "How did the
Ithorians stop it?"
"With luck," Fandomar replied. "And the help of the Jedi. There were
still Jedi Knights four hundred years ago. Even so, it wasn't easy. It took
almost a hundred years to rid Ithor of the Spore creature."
"Do you know how they did it?"
"No. There were records, but they were erased by the Empire."
Tash nodded grimly. That made sense. When the Emperor took power, he had
hunted down and killed the Jedi Knights. Then he had erased almost every
reference to the Jedi Knights from libraries across the galaxy.
By wiping out the record of the Jedi work on Ithor, the Empire might have
erased the means of stopping Spore.
"I do know this," Fandomar said. "Spore was sealed up in the asteroid
tomb for a reason. In the vacuum of space, it becomes dormant and powerless."
"Why didn't they just kill it?" Tash asked.
Fandomar frowned. "The Law of Life applies to all creatures. We created
Spore. Did that give us a right to kill it? Besides, my people thought the
solution would work. Spore was helpless in the asteroid tomb. It must have an
oxygen atmosphere and a host to occupy."
"You mean like Hodge," Tash said. She guessed the rest. "Hodge and his
men thought there was treasure down there. They wanted to keep it for
themselves. When Jerec arrived, Hodge must have thought his only chance was to
stall the Imperials and raid the tomb himself. He must have made up the story
about the space slugs' feeding time, and then he and one of his men opened the
tomb."
Fandomar nodded. "In its dormant form, Spore would have looked like a
small hard shell, maybe even a valuable stone. Somehow, Spore awakened and was
able to infect Hodge before he left the tomb."
"But why did Hodge kill his partner?" Tash asked. "Why not just infect
him?"
"They were still in space," Fandomar explained. "Spore cannot infect
people across the vacuum of space. Hodge undoubtedly put the Spore creature
near his own skin, but once Spore had infected him, it could not get at the
other miner. I think that the other miner saw Hodge being infected. Since
Spore couldn't reach out with its tentacles to control the other miner, it
used Hodge's body and a vibroblade to kill the miner and keep him quiet."
Tash's eyes lit up. "And you were the one who blew up the mining station.
"
Fandomar nodded. "I had to stop Spore, but I didn't know at the time who
was infected. I couldn't allow the creature into an oxygen atmosphere, so I
destroyed the station's controls. Then I lied about the environmental controls
aboard my ship to make sure everyone kept their spacesuits on. It bought me
some time."
The heavy tone in Fandomar's voice caught Tash's attention. "Why have you
