by John Whitman
"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 passed. 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.
Zak looked around for the hole that led out of the cave. He must have
fallen farther than he'd thought, because it was nowhere in sight. He
started to walk blindly through the darkness, holding his hands out to keep
from bumping into things.
"Tash? Yoda!" he called again, but no voice answered. Had they
forgotten about him? Had they been captured by the Children?
Zak shivered. The cave was as cold as ice. And darker than he had ever
imagined any place could be. He was sure he would freeze to death if he
didn't find his way out soon.
But how?
If Tash were here, she would use the Force. But Tash wasn't here. Zak
had only himself to rely on-unless he could use the Force, too.
The thought seemed so ridiculous Zak almost laughed at himself. He had
never even thought about using the Force, let alone tried it. I don't even
know what the Force feels like.
But that wasn't true.
He had felt it twice already. When Tash had used the Force on Nar
Shaddaa, he'd felt a tingling sensation rush through him. Then, in Yoda's
presence, Zak had felt the calm, peaceful feeling of the Force gathering
around the Jedi Master.
That's what the Force feels like, Zak thought.
Remembering, he felt it again. A warm tingle passed over his skin, the
feeling of a gentle touch. But what was touching him, he realized, was
/> everything. That was the Force-the energy that connected all living things.
That must be how Jedi used the Force to move things and to find things. If
the Force touched all objects, it could lead him from one place to another.
Even out of the cave.
Before Zak knew it, his feet were moving. He no longer held his hands
out in front of his face. He knew he wouldn't bump into anything.
In moments, the darkness thinned. Zak saw a shaft of gray light ahead.
He'd found the entrance to the cave.
But before he could reach it, a heavy hand clamped down on his
shoulder.
Boba Fett had found him.
CHAPTER 19
"Don't move. Don't shout," the bounty hunter ordered.
"You're still here?" Zak said. Somehow, he had thought Boba Fett was
gone for good.
"Still here," Fett said. "The job isn't done."
"But . . ." Zak tried to find words. "Did you see anything? Here in the
cave. Did you . . . see anything?"
"Nothing."
"I thought-I thought maybe you had a vision-"
"Nothing," Fett repeated. "Now move."
The bounty hunter shoved Zak forward into the light. Together, they
scrambled up and out of the cave into the gray gloom of the swamp.
The Children were gone, but Yoda and Tash were waiting for them. Fett
indicated that Zak should stand next to Tash and Yoda. He hefted his
blaster, growling, "No more malfunctions. Sit."
They sat. Tash and Zak looked frightened. Yoda smiled as if he didn't
understand what the blaster could do. "Now we wait for Hoole."
"I'm here."
Hoole's voice came from the left. Boba Fett whipped his head around and
saw Hoole standing there, alone. Sensing a trap, the bounty hunter launched
himself backward as blaster fire peppered the ground-from his right.
Fett rolled into a crouch and sent three shots shrieking into the swamp
brush to his right, then dove behind a nearby log.
Platt, Tru'eb, and the remaining smugglers appeared from behind a
gnarlwood tree, blasters blazing. Energy bolts shattered the log,
disintegrating it. But as wood dust floated to the ground, they saw that
Boba Fett had vanished.
"Tactical retreat," Zak guessed.
"Are you all right?" Hoole asked, reaching Zak and Tash in an instant.
He glared at Yoda. "If they are hurt, I will-"
Yoda slipped into his fool act, cackling like an idiot. "Hurt? Hurt? It
is I that is hurt. My home, this is. My home, you trample! Go away!"
"Uncle Hoole, we're fine," Tash said.
Platt scanned the area. "Tru'eb, run a quick perimeter search. Let's
make sure Fett's really on the run."
As the smugglers turned away, Tash whispered, "Uncle Hoole, we have a
lot to tell you."
"Tash," Zak asked. "All that time you spent with Yoda. Did he . . . Did
he teach you to be a Jedi?"
"This creature?" Hoole asked, pointing at Yoda. "A Jedi?"
Tash looked at the Jedi Master. "Can I tell him, Yoda?"
The little creature's eyes grew soft. "Yes."
Zak swallowed, expecting to hear that Tash had learned some great
secret, that she was going to become a Jedi and leap light-years beyond him.
He wondered if they would still be friends after she had mastered the Force
and he was still just Zak.
"He told me," Tash said, "absolutely nothing."
Zak's face fell. "What?"
"Nothing," Tash said again. "We talked about the Force a little, but
mostly he told me about Dagobah, and the plants and animals that are on it.
He told me how the Children had survived, and what they needed to learn. But
he didn't teach me anything about being a Jedi."
"Then why?" Zak asked Yoda. "Why did you ask her to stay with you?"
Yoda put a gentle hand on Zak's arm. "A chance, you needed. To do
something for yourself."
Tash shrugged. "He told me he wanted you to go back to the village
alone, to see this through without me. And without Uncle Hoole."
"A step, you have taken," Yoda said to Zak. "You need not be the best
at everything to succeed at some things. This is as it was meant to be."
"You speak as though all this was planned," Hoole said.
Yoda looked at Hoole as though he, too, were a child. "The Force moves
us all along our paths."
Zak shook his head. "Well, our path has been pretty crazy lately. I
wish we could find someplace to settle down for a while."
"Yoda," Tash asked nervously, "could we . . . could we stay here? I
want to learn to be a Jedi. Can you teach me?"
The Jedi Master looked up and away for a moment, as if seeing through
the trees, out into the sky and the stars beyond. "That is not my destiny.
Another student comes. Await him, I must."
"But will I ever learn?" Tash asked desperately.
"While the Emperor lives, no," Yoda said. "But the future is hard to
see. The time may come. For both of you."
"Both of us?" Tash asked.
"Both?" Zak repeated.
"The Force connects you. Together will you grow. The path chosen for
you has been dark." He looked meaningfully at Zak. "But remember the cave.
Even in the dark, the Force will always be with you."
EPILOGUE
The bounty hunter's ship made another orbit, scanners sweeping over the
swamp one last time. But there were too many life-forms on the planet. Fett
could not isolate the ones he wanted.
He had decided the planet itself was too difficult a hunting ground.
The swamp was too treacherous, the ground too uneven for him to bring down
Hoole and the two children. He would wait until they tried to lift off. Then
he would blow their engines with his turbolasers and use a tractor beam to
haul them to the nearest Imperial outpost.
The comm unit bleeped. The call came on a private frequency, known to
very few. Fett flipped a switch.
The voice of Darth Vader came over the speaker. "Abandon your mission.
I have a new task for you."
"The job isn't done," Fett said.
"It is for the moment," the Dark Lord replied. "I'm sure you'll find
this new task even more intriguing. I want you to track down a ship called
the Millennium Falcon."
Beneath his helmet, Boba Fett smiled a hard, cruel smile. He knew the
ship. He knew its pilot. "On my way."
Fett reached for the switch that would break the connection. He
hesitated, wondering if he should tell Vader about this strange planet he'd
discovered, about the three fugitives he had almost caught. It never
occurred to him to mention the strange little creature.
But if he told Vader, the Dark Lord might send others to track the
three fugitives. Fett would lose the bounty, and the pleasure of bringing
them in.
He shut the comm off and set a course for the Imperial Fleet.
As Boba Fett's ship tore into hyperspace, the smugglers' ship lifted
out of Dagobah's atmosphere and into space.
In the cockpit, Platt was setting a course for the Sluis system. "You
can hitch a ride to just about anywhere in the galaxy from there."
"Thank you," Hoole said.
"But what should I do with the Children?" Platt asked.
After leaving Yoda, Z
ak, Tash, and Hoole had taken time to gather up
all the skeletal survivors. It had taken many gentle words and comfort, but
at last they'd gotten all the Children aboard Platt's ship.
"We'll find a home for them," Hoole said. "Though I'm not sure where."
Platt hesitated, then said, "I may have some contacts that can help
you. People I've worked for in the Rebellion. Rebels have a soft spot for
hard-luck cases like them."
"Maybe they'd have a soft spot for cases like us, too," Tash asked.
"I can put you in touch with the right people, if you want," Platt
offered. "But the Rebellion isn't exactly a holiday star cruise."
Hoole considered. "I am tired of running from the Empire. Perhaps it is
time to stop running."