The Hunger Read online

  Platt drew her blaster. "If that's true, this will be a lousy secret

  base. Let's have a look."

  Boldly, she jumped out to the first stepping-stone. It sank a little

  under her weight, but held. Tru'eb went next, with Hoole and the Arrandas

  behind. The others brought up the rear.

  The stepping-stones led straight through a dark, fetid swamp. As they

  walked, Tash pointed out various plants and small animals she had read about

  in the records.

  Why does she always seem to know everything? Zak said to himself.

  He thought back to Nar Shaddaa, when Tash had helped Hoole defeat the

  bounty hunter while he had done nothing. And then, later, when he had been

  stunned by Boba Fett, Tash had tried to fight the killer off.

  Now she was flaunting how smart she was.

  It wasn't fair. He didn't have the Force. How could he hope to match

  his sister?

  Now and then a stone was missing and they each had to make a long jump

  to the next step. At one particularly long gap, Platt had to shift herself

  to the back edge of her stepping-stone and use a running start to reach the

  next one. Tru'eb made the jump, and Hoole hopped across easily on his long

  legs. Tash gathered herself and leaped. Her feet just reached the edge of

  the next stepping-stone. She slipped on the mossy surface, but Hoole grabbed

  her and pulled her up.

  "Can you make it, Zak?" the Shi'ido asked.

  If Tash can make it, I can make it, he thought. "Sure!" he said aloud.

  Zak backed up to the edge of his stepping-stone, took two small steps,

  and launched himself into the air.

  The instant his feet left the ground he knew he wasn't going to make

  it.

  He came down a half meter short, falling chest-deep into the cold,

  murky swamp water. He felt his feet stick in the ooze at the bottom. But he

  didn't care about the cold or the slimy water. His cheeks flushed red with

  embarrassment as the others started to laugh.

  But the next moment, all the color drained from Zak's face.

  Two figures were rising up out of the water beside him. Zak saw two

  human heads covered with stringy hair, two sets of pale eyes, two gaping

  mouths missing several teeth, and two sets of bony arms. The skin hanging

  from those arms looked old and dead.

  They were corpses. Human corpses.

  And they were reaching out to grab him.

  CHAPTER 6

  Shouting in fright, Zak tried to scramble up onto the stepping-stone,

  but he slipped on the moss.

  He felt a cold, wet hand close around his arm.

  Before he could cry out again, Platt was kneeling beside him. She

  jabbed her blaster over Zak's shoulder and fired. The corpse screamed and

  let go, falling into the water with a splash.

  As friendly hands pulled Zak up to safety, Platt swiveled her blaster

  to fire at the other corpse. But this one threw its hands up in front of its

  face and wailed, "No, please!"

  Platt's finger eased off the trigger. The corpse continued to back away

  through the waist-deep water. Its pale, frightened eyes looked from the

  newcomers to the body of its companion, now floating on the surface, and

  back again. "Don't hurt me."

  "Why not?" Platt said in a hard voice. "You were going to hurt one of

  us."

  "Wait," Hoole said firmly, putting one hand on top of the smuggler's

  weapon.

  From the safety of the raised stepping-stone, Zak took a second look at

  his attacker. It obviously wasn't a corpse-it was a young human male. But

  his skin was so pale that Zak was sure the man had never spent any time in

  the sun. And he was incredibly thin, like a living skeleton. His sunken

  cheeks and eyes gave his head the look of a skull.

  "Why did you attack us?" Hoole asked.

  The pale man shook his head, his stringy hair flopping around his neck

  and face. "Did not attack. Tried to help. Boy fell into water. Tried to

  help."

  "That's not what it looked like from here," Platt muttered.

  "Tried to help," the skeletal man insisted. He glanced again at his

  dead companion.

  "Who are you?" Tash asked.

  The man's eyes narrowed. "I live here. Who are you? You are not from

  Dagobah."

  "No," Hoole answered before anyone else could. "We're here to explore

  this planet."

  The skeleton's eyes lit up. "Explorers? The parents were explorers!"

  "What in space does that mean?" Zak asked.

  "Platt, let's help him up out of the water." Hoole gestured at the

  corpselike man. "He is undoubtedly freezing."

  Reluctantly, the smuggler reached out a hand and hauled the soaked man

  up to one of the stepping-stones as the others moved farther down the path

  to make room. The pale man was dressed in slime-coated rags, and stood only

  a little taller than Zak and Tash.

  "Now," Hoole asked, his dark eyes staring into the man, "if you were

  not attacking us, why were you hiding under the water?"

  "We were hunting," The pale man said. "We saw you come down the steps.

  Didn't know what you were. Came for a closer look, when that one fell in the

  water. Tried to help."

  The story sounded suspicious to Zak, and he could see doubt in everyone

  else's eyes, too. But this stranger was no danger to them at the moment.

  "We thought Dagobah was uninhabited," the Shi'ido said. "What is your

  name? And who are these parents you speak of?"

  "I am Galt," the skeleton man explained. "The parents were . . . the

  parents were the parents of the Children. Us. They were the explorers. We

  are the Children."

  "You mean the explorers who came to Dagobah forty years ago?" Tash

  asked.

  Galt nodded. "That is when the explorers came here."

  "How many of you are there?" Hoole asked.

  "This many," Galt said. He held his hand up to show five fingers. He

  did that five times.

  "Twenty-five people?" Platt groaned. "So much for our uninhabited

  planet."

  "How can that be?" Tash asked. "According to the records, there weren't

  that many people on the original expedition."

  "The records are incomplete," Hoole pointed out. "Maybe they are

  flawed. At any rate, Galt is proof that someone survived here long enough to

  have children. Galt, where are your friends? Can you take us to them?"

  Galt agreed to lead them to his home, but he insisted on bringing the

  body of his companion with them. Some of Platt's smugglers helped him lift

  the body out of the swamp, and Galt hefted the corpse over one shoulder.

  Despite his frail appearance, Galt seemed quite strong. Even with the

  added weight of the body, he jumped easily from stone to stone, and soon

  they were hurrying along the path.

  "We should go fast," Galt said. "There's a dragonsnake nest around

  here. We don't want to be here when she gets hungry."

  Zak was glad of the path, and not just because it kept his feet out of

  the slimy water. The swamp seemed to go on forever, and it was impossible to

  tell one part from another. The massive trees, the moss-covered mud, and the

  endless pools of water all looked alike. Without the path, they would have

  go
tten lost in minutes. And Zak had a feeling that getting lost in this

  swamp was not a good idea.

  Ggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

  A deep growl, long, low, and menacing, rose from the swamp water.

  Instantly, Galt dropped to his hands and knees, cowering on the

  stepping-stone where he'd stopped. He froze so quickly that Platt stumbled

  over him and almost fell. To keep her balance, she hopped to the next

  steppingstone in the line.

  "What in space are you doing?" she demanded, turning back. "You nearly

  made me fall right into that-"

  Another deep growl cut her off. Suddenly, the stone on which she stood

  started to rise. The water beneath it churned, and Zak realized that

  something was rising up from under the water, lifting the stone as it came.

  Platt shouted in alarm and jumped from the stone, falling into the murky

  swamp.

  The creature that rose out of the water was enormous. Its head towered

  at least five meters above them, and Zak saw that most of its body was still

  hidden beneath the water. Its skin was sickly white and its huge eyes glowed

  yellow. Two thick antennae grew out of its head, quivering as the creature

  swayed back and forth. A gigantic mouth opened and shut slowly, as though

  tasting the air.

  "Swamp slug!" Galt shrieked, not moving.

  "Shoot it!" Platt sputtered from the water. "Shoot it!"

  Her smugglers opened fire. Several shots went wild as the shooters

  panicked. But even the blaster bolts that hit their mark seemed to do

  nothing but vanish in the giant slug's slimy flesh. It gurgled and lurched

  toward its attackers, pushing itself through the water alongside the stone

  path. Terrified, the smugglers dove into the water.

  Zak saw Hoole start to shape-change, but he was too slow. The swamp

  slug lunged at him, its mouth open, and the Shi'ido had to jump aside to

  avoid being swallowed.

  Only Zak and Tash were left teetering on the steppingstones. "Run!"

  Tash yelled.

  "Where?" Zak asked.

  There was nowhere to go.

  Zak saw Tash pick up a tree branch that was floating in the water.

  Following her lead, he grabbed a rock. They raised their little weapons as

  the swamp slug reared to its full height, towering over them.

  Suddenly, a loud shriek filled the air. The swamp slug paused and

  growled, its antennae quivering in the direction of the scream.

  Another huge creature pushed its way out of a wall of bushes and

  slipped into the water. Zak caught a glimpse of a long black tail covered

  with scales, splashing across the surface.

  "We've got more company," he said Tash. "I bet that's the dragonsnake

  Galt was talking about!"

  The swamp slug seemed to forget about Tash and Zak. It turned toward

  the dragonsnake as it surfaced, teeth snapping. The two swamp creatures

  lunged at each other.

  Zak felt a hand on his shoulder. "Hurry," Hoole said.

  He and the smugglers had managed to climb back onto the

  stepping-stones. For a half second, they all watched the two beasts thrash

  about, churning up the dark swamp water. Then they pulled Galt to his feet

  and hurried on. The growls of the swamp slug and the screams of the

  dragonsnake could be heard long after they'd left the battle behind.

  Soaking wet and shivering with cold and fright, they reached their

  destination a half hour later.

  The Shelter, as Galt called it, was a small island of dry ground, large

  enough to hold twenty to thirty small huts. The walls of the huts were made

  of dried mud, and the roofs were gnarlwood branches coated with slime.

  As Zak and the others followed Galt onto the little island, two dozen

  pale-skinned figures came out of the huts, their eyes wide with

  astonishment. Galt trotted ahead and whispered to them. They all seemed most

  interested in the body of Galt's companion. Several of the others took the

  body from Galt and hurried away with it.

  All their whispering seemed to make Platt nervous. "Tru'eb," she said

  to the Twi'lek, "take two of the boys and go back to check on the ship. I

  want to make sure none of these walking skeletons is planning to steal our

  ticket home."

  "Right," Tru'eb said, and turned back down the path just as Galt

  finished his whispering.

  Galt smiled. "The Children agree to let you into the Shelter."

  "Thank you," Hoole said respectfully. "Galt, do you have any records?

  Anything that you saved from the explorers?"

  Galt nodded. "Our parents left us a story."

  In the center of the little village stood a small shelter. It had no

  walls, just four poles that supported a roof of gnarlwood branches. Beneath

  it was a small box. Opening it, Galt removed a mud-crusted datapad and a

  tiny holo-projector. "This is the log. It's broken," he said. "No life left

  in it."

  "Here, let's try this," Platt offered.

  She popped the power pack out of her glowrod. Taking the holoprojector

  from Galt, she connected it to the power supply and hit Play.

  The holoprojector crackled to life. A small, three-dimensional image of

  a woman appeared over the projector. She looked exhausted and thin. Her

  voice sounded weak and defeated as she spoke.

  "The datapad's power supply is almost gone, so I have resisted making

  an entry for almost a year. This may be the last.

  "Our entire trip to Dagobah has proved to be a deadly failure. Even the

  distress signal we sent out has failed. A passing cruise ship picked up our

  signal and tried to rescue us, only to crash-land as well. Now there are

  forty of us stuck here, with little hope of escape. Most of my original team

  has been killed by swamp creatures or by disease.

  "We are trying to make the most of our new home. We've found an island

  and erected a new set of shelters. Some even talk about raising families

  here. But I don't know how long we'll survive.

  "Dagobah has beaten us. It's almost as if the planet resents our

  presence. If anyone finds this recording, get away from here as fast as you

  can. Dagobah is a death trap."

  The hologram faded out for a moment. When it powered up again, they saw

  an image of the same woman. Now she was lying on a bed of damp moss. Her

  eyes were only half open. Her lips barely moved. It was obvious that she was

  on her deathbed.

  She rasped: "It's been a year since my last entry. . . . We've found

  hardly anything to eat and most of the creatures that we might hunt spend

  their time hunting us. We've managed to make a home here. Just a few mud

  huts. Some of the survivors went ahead and started families. They've had

  children. That's the worst. We're all on the edge of starvation . . . and

  now we have children to feed. We've gotten so hungry . . . the children

  crying from hunger . . . that we've-" The woman on the hologram shuddered

  and started to cry. "May the stars forgive us . . . we've fed them meat

  from-" Zzzzkkzkkk!

  The recording fizzled out.

  "She must have lost power at that point," said Platt.

  Hoole nodded. "It is quite surprising that Galt and the others have

  survived for so long. Without food, and in this hostile
environment . . .

  it's amazing, really."

  "I'm starting to think we should get out of here, and set a course for

  safe space lanes," Platt said.

  "I agree," said Hoole. "We should leave immediately."

  "Then I've got bad news for you," Tru'eb said. The Twi'lek had just

  come trotting up, nearly out of breath. "We went back to check on the ship

  like you asked, Platt. No one's touched, it, but it looks like the Last

  Chance was too heavy for the swamp. It's sunk about three meters into the

  mud, and the engines won't kick in."

  Platt gritted her teeth. "Are you telling me what I think you are?"

  "Yep," the other smuggler said grimly. "We're stuck here."

  CHAPTER 7

  A short while later, Zak, Tash, and Hoole sat inside one of the

  primitive shelters. Platt had gone back to the starship with the rest of her

  crew, hoping to find a way to free it from the swamp.

  Hoole and the Arrandas, meanwhile, had offered to talk with the

  survivors-the Children, as they called themselves. Hoole hoped that Galt and