CHAPTER 16.
Galt and the cook grabbed Zak by the shoulders and dragged him from the cage. The meat flower, disturbed by the jerky movement, lashed out again, and Zak winced, doubling over in pain.
The Children, thinking he was trying to resist, hauled him to his feet again.
"Remove his head," Galt said. "Then we can drain the blood before cutting the slices."
The cook let go of Zak to reach for the sharp piece of ship"s hull they used as a knife. As she did, Zak pulled his hand free and jammed it into his pocket. The meat flower bit into his hand, but Zak was counting on that. He ripped his hand back out of his pocket with the meat flower still attached, and flung it toward Galt.
As he snapped his hand, the meat flower came loose and slapped into Galt"s face-flower, roots, and mudpack all at once. The meat-eating plant sank its teeth into the man"s cheek.
Zak moved without thinking. He turned to the cook and shoved her.
The cook stumbled backward and crashed into the bubbling pot of stew.
Zak dove for the corner where Boba Fett"s armor was stacked. He scrambled to his feet holding the bounty hunter"s blaster just as Galt tore the meat flower off his face and the cook regained her feet, the knife still clutched in her hand.
Zak frantically searched the weapon. He found the power setting and adjusted it for stun just as the cook charged. The stun bolt caught her squarely in the chest and she crumpled. The second blast dropped Galt in his tracks.
In the momentary silence that followed, Zak heard Fett"s cold voice. "You wasted time setting for stun. You should have killed them."
Zak looked down at the two skeletal figures. He thought he ought to hate them. They had killed at least two people and had tried to kill him.
They were cannibals.
But all Zak felt was pity.
The Children had survived for years in the dangerous, desolate swamp. They had eaten fungus to survive. Their last memory of their parents was a nightmarish meal.
But it was all that they knew.
"They deserve to die," the bounty hunter said from the shadows.
"No," Zak said, speaking the words Yoda had spoken. "They thought we were food. I taught them otherwise."
"Give me my armor."
Zak hesitated. Considering how Boba Fett had tried to kill them, returning the bounty hunter"s armor and weapons might be the most dangerous thing Zak could do. But he needed help and right now Boba Fett was his only choice.
Zak gathered up Boba Fett"s gear and carried it over to the cage.
Fett stretched one arm out from the shadows and grabbed his weapons belt.
A moment later, a small fusion cutter glowed brightly and cut cleanly through the wooden bars.
"Helmet."
Zak pushed the helmet and armor through the hole in the cage, and the bounty hunter pulled them into the shadows.
A moment later, Boba Fett stepped into the half-light cast by the fire. Without asking, he pulled the blaster rifle from Zak"s hands.
The other Children had heard the struggle. Zak could hear footsteps and shouting from outside the hut. "Now what?" he asked Fett.
"Tactical retreat." The bounty hunter raised his arm and pointed his wrist rockets at the back wall of the hut. There was a crackling sound and a spark shot out, signaling a short circuit. "Moisture damage,"
Fett muttered. He made a quick adjustment and fired again.
This time the wrist rocket blasted through the back of the hut. Not waiting for the smoke to clear, Fett grabbed Zak around the waist and plunged through the opening into the swamp.
"Weapons malfunctioning," the bounty hunter said. He dropped Zak, who ran at his side through ankle-deep pools of water. "Need a place to hole up until I can run a check."
"Your ship?" Zak asked.
"Too far. These Children know the swamp too well."
Fett was right. Already the Children were in pursuit. Some of them were closing in from behind. Zak had the sense that others were trying to sprint ahead on either side.
"I know somewhere we can go," Zak said.
"Lead," Fett ordered.
Zak swerved to his left. Twice before, he"d met Yoda while traveling in that direction. With any luck, the third time would be the charm.
Zak was no more certain of his path this time than the last-until he found himself running through the remains of the spider battle.
"It"s around here somewhere," he said, although he didn"t know exactly what he was looking for.
"There," Fett said. The bounty hunter pushed his way through a curtain of hanging vines.
On the far side, Zak saw a tiny round hut. Not far from the hut, he could see Tash and Yoda. They were sitting at the base of a huge, dark gnarltree. Among the thick roots of the tree, Zak saw a large hole.
Yoda looked up as if he"d been expecting them all along. "Welcome."
Zak ran forward. Fett strode up behind, his helmeted head scanning the area. He peered down into the hole to make sure nothing was hiding there, then turned toward the others as Zak was telling Tash about the Children. "They"re cannibals, Tash! They"re eating people!"
"What?" Tash said in amazement. "Where"s Uncle Hoole?"
"Yes, where is Hoole?" Boba Fett demanded. "When I find him, all three of you are coming with me."
Faster than a laser beam, the bounty hunter grabbed Zak by the hair, pinning him in place. Then he leveled his blaster at Yoda and fired.
CHAPTER 17.
"No!" Zak cried.
But the blaster fizzled and didn"t fire.
"Moisture damage," Fett grunted again.
"Away with your weapon!" Yoda said, cringing. His calm Jedi demeanor was gone. Curled up on the ground, hugging his little walking stick, he looked foolish and frightened. "I mean you no harm!"
"I hate loose ends." Fett pulled a small holdout blaster from his boot, but found it covered with swamp slime.
Fett tossed the blaster aside and aimed his capture cable at the little creature. As he fired, Yoda squawked and threw his arms up in sheer panic. The capture cable accidentally snagged the walking stick, wrapping itself around the cane and jerking it from Yoda"s hands.
Boba Fett stumbled backward as the cable went slack and the stick came flying back into his face. He slipped and vanished.
He had fallen down the hole at the base of the tree. The moment the bounty hunter disappeared, Yoda composed himself with a gentle sigh.
"You were only pretending to be afraid," Tash said.
"Gave him what he expected to find, I did," replied Yoda.
"Sometimes that is the best way to fool people."
"That cave," Zak said. "There"s some sort of wind coming from it.
What is that?"
"Strong is that place, with the dark side," Yoda whispered. "It is not a place for the weak."
"What"s down there?" Zak asked.
Yoda blinked. "Only what you take with you."
"We can"t leave him down there, can we?" Zak asked.
The Jedi Master studied Zak thoughtfully. "Find his own way, he must. Unless you wish to go down and find him."
Zak"s answer was interrupted by bloodcurdling screams. A horde of Children swarmed over tree roots and through puddles, charging toward them out of the misty swamp.
There was no time to react. Zak saw Galt"s face, wide-eyed and screaming, just before the man slammed into him. He was knocked down and stumbled into the entrance to the cave.
Zak fell backward into the dark.
CHAPTER 18.
Zak didn"t remember hitting bottom. He barely remembered staggering to his feet. His first real moment of awareness was standing in near darkness and shivering with cold.
Galt was standing next to him. Nearby, several other of the Children who had also fallen into the cave were climbing to their feet.
But the Children seemed to have forgotten Zak. They were staring into the darkness, looking at something that Zak could not see.
And then he could.
Small lights like fireflies swirled in the darkness and mist.
Slowly, they grew into images spinning around in the misty cave. Zak rubbed his eyes, wondering if the fall had rattled his brain, but the images remained. It was like looking at holograms, only these visions weren"t coming from any machine.
"That"s us," Galt whispered, staring at the largest of the images.
"That"s me."
Frightened and amazed, Zak watched as the visions played themselves out like a holovideo.
Zak saw the village, but it was smaller and cruder, as it must have looked when the survivors first started to carve a life out of the swamp.
He saw the survivors trying to grow food out of the driest ground they could find, only to have their gardens flooded by the treacherous swamp.
He saw the humans hunt swamp creatures, only to be eaten by swamp slugs and dragonsnakes. Defeated, the survivors continued to scavenge food from the wreckage of a ship.
The vision shifted, and Zak sensed that time had pa.s.sed. The survivors looked thin and worn, but they had built huts. Some of them sat in the village cuddling tiny babies to their bodies to keep them warm.
Zak recognized the woman he"d seen in the earlier hologram. Some of the survivors tinkered with a storage machine that preserved the last of their food.
The vision shifted again, and Zak saw the familiar-looking woman pull the last container of food out of the storage unit. The children now outnumbered the parents, and they were all screaming from hunger. In the vision, Zak watched the desperate parents weep as, day by day, their children grew hungry and thin, begging for food. Starving, they ate moss and fungus, but it wasn"t enough.
The last vision was terrible. Zak saw the survivors, starved into madness, turning on a corpse. He and Galt and the other Children could clearly see how horrified the parents were by their own acts. What they had done was a last, desperate attempt to save their children. It was the act of beings so hungry they had lost their minds. As the parents fed their starving children, they cried.
The vision faded.
The crying continued. Galt was sobbing. One of the other Children hugged herself and shuddered.
The Children had relished the thought of eating human flesh because they remembered it from their childhood. But this vision had shown them how desperate their parents had been, and how horrible their final act really was. With a final shudder, Galt and the other Children skulked away into the darkness.
Once again Zak recalled Yoda"s words: They thought we were food. I have taught them otherwise.
The vision in the cave had taught them. Yoda had taught them.
"Yoda?" Zak called out. "Tash?"
No answer.