Galaxy Of Fear_ Planet Plague Part 3

He bent down and prepared to insert the needle. Tash shuddered as the needle slipped under his skin. As soon as he'd given Zak the injection, Kavafi checked the monitors, nodded to himself, and sighed.

"Is he going to be all right?" Hoole asked. Despite the fact that his own nephew now lay in a hospital bed, Hoole's voice was as steady and businesslike as ever.

"Oh, yes," Kavafi replied confidently. "We will run some tests to be sure, but the early indications are that Zak has a strain of influenza."

"I thought you said he had a virus," Tash replied.

Kavafi smiled patiently. Tash realized that he was trying to make her feel comfortable. She appreciated it, but her brother was ill, and she was standing inside an Imperial facility guarded by Imperial soldiers and run by Imperial doctors. Even if they were Hoole's friends, she was anything but comfortable.

"Influenza is a virus," Kavafi explained. "There are millions of viruses throughout the galaxy. Each one of them causes different problems, sometimes quite serious ones."

Tash swallowed. "Is-Is he going to-"

"No, no!" Kavafi said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "He will be fine. Usually a person's body can fight off the virus after a little while. Would you like to see what is causing your brother to be ill?"

Tash was surprised. "You mean, you can see it?"

"Not with your eye, but with this." Kavafi picked up a visor off the desk. The lenses were deep red, with tiny control switches mounted on the sides. "This is an electroscope. It allows you to see objects a thousand times smaller than the tip of a hydrospanner. Right now it's programmed to find and locate viruses. Here."

He pointed to a small gla.s.s plate sitting on a counter. The plate contained a sample of red fluid. Tash stared at the small drop of fluid as she put on the visor and felt on the side panel for the power switch.

When she flipped it, the medichamber vanished. Tash found herself peering into a world of swirling red currents. In the center of the currents was a large ma.s.s that moved and wriggled as though it was alive. Suddenly six ominous-looking creatures swam into view. They had large, faceless heads covered with thick strands of what looked like hair. Their bodies tapered into long, thin tails that they used to swim about in the red fluid.

Without pause the six creatures swarmed the wriggling ma.s.s. Five of the creatures succeeded in piercing its membrane. They forced themselves inside the ma.s.s, eating away at it.

As Tash watched, the five creatures suddenly trembled, and then they split apart, becoming ten organisms. And then twenty, and then forty! They were replicating faster than Tash could count them.

The sixth wriggling creature, the one that hadn't succeeded in getting inside the floating ma.s.s, turned, and with a sudden surge, lunged right at Tash.

"Ah!" Tash jumped back. Then she remembered she was wearing the electroscope. She was looking at the fluid on a small gla.s.s plate, magnified thousands of times.

"Startling, isn't it?" she heard Kavafi say. "Those tiny organisms are what make living beings sick. They invade the body and begin to reproduce, taking over the body's living cells."

Tash watched as more of the viruses swam into view. They seemed to be searching for something. "Are they fatal?"

"Sometimes," the doctor admitted. "But since the virus feeds off its living host, it doesn't usually want to kill it. Sometimes viruses can live and reproduce inside an animal or person for years, causing all kinds of terrible illnesses."

Tash removed the electroscope. "How do you get them?

I mean, they're too small to travel from one place to another."

The doctor nodded. "Viruses get around in all kinds of ways.

Sometimes touching an infected person can give you the virus, or drinking infected water. Some viruses even float through the air."

A medical droid entered the room carrying a tray that had two needles on it. Kavafi picked up one of the needles. "Hoole, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you and your niece to endure an injection."

"For what purpose?" the Shi'ido asked. "We are not sick."

Kavafi shrugged. "Just a precaution. You and your niece may have caught the virus that Zak has, and I want to stop it before it has time to take hold in your system." He held the needle out toward Hoole.

Hoole stuck one long, thin arm out from beneath his blue robe.

Kavafi quickly and expertly stuck the needle into the Shi'ido's arm and squeezed until all the fluid had been injected.

"Your turn," he said cheerily to Tash.

"I never catch anything," she insisted. "I never get sick."

"Better safe than sorry," he replied.

Reluctantly Tash held out her arm. She felt a quick p.r.i.c.k as the needle poked beneath her skin, then a slight tugging as the fluid was injected into her bloodstream. For a moment the injection felt hot and stinging. Then the pain pa.s.sed.

"There we are," Kavafi said cheerily. "Now all your worries are over. I will be right back."

The minute Kavafi left the room, Tash turned to the Shi'ido and whispered, "Uncle Hoole! I think something's wrong here!"

Hoole raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"Just before we left the Shroud, I got a message from ForceFlow. He warned us not to come to Gobindi!"

Hoole furrowed his eyebrows. "Tash, I appreciate your concern. But why should we change our plans, based on a warning from a person you have never actually met?"

Tash searched for a reply. "He's always helped me before."

Hoole said, "He is meddling in affairs he cannot possibly understand. I cannot permit you to run your life based on mysterious messages sent over the HoloNet."

"But this is an Imperial base!" Tash argued. "There are stormtroopers here!"

Hoole sighed. "I know how you feel about the Empire, and you have a right to be angry. But you have to understand that the government has officers, soldiers, and fleets of ships all across the galaxy. Most of the time they are just beings going about their daily business. If you think that every time you see stormtroopers you have uncovered a wicked Imperial plot, you will go insane with worry.

You must learn to control your suspicion, or it will control you."

"But-"

"Tash, please." Hoole looked at her sternly. "I have known Dr.

Kavafi for years. He is a good scientist, dedicated to improving the lives of species- kind. We are in no danger."

The tone in Hoole's voice told Tash that she should not continue the argument. She crossed her arms as if to hold in her frustration.

As she did, she felt a small pain in her left arm. She touched the tender spot where she had received the injection. "I think your friend bruised me with that needle," she muttered.

Dr. Kavafi returned just as Zak moaned loudly in his sleep. Tash reached down and wiped the sweat off his forehead. "Why is he so hot?"

"That's the human way of fighting off disease. Most viruses cannot take extreme heat, so your body automatically raises its temperature to fight back. "

Tash couldn't help thinking the worst. "But what happens if this virus actually likes the heat?"

Kavafi raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Well, that is a very interesting scenario. It would cause great problems for the victim, I think. Let's just hope you never encounter a virus like that."

Hoole asked, "Kavafi, is there anything else we can do?"

The doctor shook his head. "No. He will sleep for a while now. We will need to run some tests on Zak to make sure there is nothing else wrong. My best advice is for you to go out and refresh yourselves. His sedative should wear off in about an hour."

"I'm not leaving," Tash said. "What if he wakes up early?"

"I will stay with him," Uncle Hoole decided. "Tash, I want you and Deevee to find a cantina and get something to eat."

"I'm not hungry," Tash replied.

"Then at least go for a walk," the Shi'ido insisted. "Zak will be fine."

"I will take you back down," Kavafi offered. "I have business below, myself."

Tash didn't want to leave her brother, but Hoole would hear no argument. Finally she and Deevee followed Kavafi out of the room and back to the lifts. They got in and Kavafi said, "Lobby."

"Does this lift go down into the ziggurat itself?" Deevee asked excitedly.

"No, no," the doctor replied. "As I said before, some of the ziggurats have no rooms or chambers. This is one of them. I'm afraid it's just an enormous mountain of stone."

The turbolift descended with a soft whoosh, and the doors opened onto the Infirmary lobby. Tash and Deevee stepped off, but Kavafi stayed behind.

"Aren't you getting off?" Tash asked. "This is the bottom floor, isn't it?"

Kavafi paused. "Oh, of course. But I forgot my datapad upstairs. I will have to go back and get it." The doors closed.

Tash and Deevee walked out of the lobby to the edge of the ziggurat and looked down. The sides of the tower stuck out below them in jagged steps that were eventually lost in hazy clouds. Nearby, they saw a footbridge connecting this ziggurat to several others. It seemed stable, and soon they were walking along the path, hundreds of meters above the ground.

Deevee had begun a lecture on the number of lost civilizations in the galaxy, including the Ma.s.sa.s.si of Yavin Four and the Ysanna of Ossus, but Tash wasn't listening. Her eye had fallen on a shape on the bridge ahead of them. As they closed the distance, she expected its shape to become clearer... but even as close as ten meters away it looked like a blob. Its center appeared hard and somewhat firm, but around the edges, the greenish shape oozed and pulsed. Although it was lying fairly flat, the blob was slightly larger than a human being, and it had spread across the bridge in a pile of steaming ooze.

"What's that?" she asked. "Is it alive?"

Deevee didn't answer. He didn't have to.

The blob surged toward them.

CHAPTER 6.

Tash and Deevee both scrambled backward as the blob lunged forward and landed heavily on the spot where they had been standing. The impact caused the creature to flatten out briefly, but then it gathered itself up for another spring. Rolls of squishy green gel rippled across its surface.

"Deevee, what is it?" Tash cried.

"I'm familiar with more than fifteen billion forms of life in the galaxy, " the droid replied with a hint of panic in his electronic voice, "but I've never seen anything like it.

The blob made no sound, except for the slimy slap of its wriggling, fatty skin on the surface of the bridge. Then it sprang again. Tash jumped backward, but this time Deevee was too slow. The oozing creature landed heavily against his legs, sending the droid clattering to the floor of the bridge.

"Help! Help!" Deevee tried to pry himself loose as the blob began to creep up his silver legs.

"Get off him!" Tash yelled.

Tash never knew where the man came from. He seemed to appear out of nowhere. His flight suit was clean but worn, and he wore pilot's gloves that were frayed around the edges. His features were sharp and his face looked young but very serious. The man wore a blaster at his hip, but he kept it holstered. Without saying a word he kicked the blob with his booted foot. The blob did not react, but the man's boot sank into the wriggling skin up to the ankle. He grunted and pried himself free.

"Use your blaster!" Tash suggested.

"Don't hit me!" Deevee added.

The man ignored them both. He grabbed the upper edge of the blob in his gloved hands and yanked hard. The ooze peeled away from Deevee's metallic surface. But that only seemed to make the blob angry. It let go of its sticky grip on the droid and turned on their rescuer. Two squishy ropes of ooze- almost like arms-suddenly grabbed hold of the man.

"By the Force!" he yelled in surprise as he lost his balance. He staggered backward toward the edge of the high bridge. "I could use some help, " he grunted as he tried to lift the blob up over the bridge's guardrail.

Tash hurried to his side, but the man said, "Don't touch it! Get the droid. And hurry!" The creature's oozing limbs had almost crept up to his shoulders.

Deevee rose stiffly to his feet and shuffled over as fast as his servos would carry him. "I am not programmed to handle this," he muttered as he grabbed hold of the blob. He tried to lift it. "By the Maker, this creature is heavier than a human!" Deevee's computer brain automatically transferred more power to his upper servos, and he and the newcomer lifted the blob up and over the guardrail.

"Okay, drop it!" the man ordered, bracing himself against the rail.

Deevee let go, and the blob dropped a few feet. Two thick strands of ooze still clung to the man's shoulders, but as the blob's own weight dragged it down, the ooze ropes stretched thinner and thinner.

"Hold on!" Tash shouted.

"Good... advice!" the man grunted, pulling back against the weight of the blob. At last the strands of ooze snapped. The blob dropped. Tash watched as the creature shrank away beneath them, finally disappearing into the jungle steam. She looked at the man, who was still panting from his efforts.

"Thanks!" was all she could manage.

"Yes, indeed!" Deevee added, picking himself up. His legs were covered in a sticky trail of green slime. "That creature would have turned me into sc.r.a.p! How fortunate that you happened to be nearby."

"Yeah," the man replied. "Lucky. Did that thing touch you?" he asked Tash.

"No. Why? Are they poisonous?" Tash asked.

"Not poisonous." The man cast a nervous glance around, and held up his hands. His gloves were covered in ooze. He carefully removed them and dropped them over the side of the bridge. Tash watched them flutter toward the ground, hundreds of meters below.

Tash pointed to the weapon holstered at the man's hip. "Why didn't you just blast it?"

At that moment, a hovercar whizzed by. On its side panel, Tash caught a glimpse of the official seal of the Empire. The car zoomed away from them and toward the medical tower.

The man nodded after it. "That's why. Using a blaster might bring a different kind of bug. The Imperial kind." As he said this the man watched Tash closely. She had the feeling that he was trying to judge her reaction to his comment about the Empire.

"What was that thing?" she asked, looking over the side. The cries of jungle creatures floated up from below.

The man did not take his eyes off her. "As far as I know, they don't have names. Blob is as good a word as any, I guess. They just started creeping out of the jungle a few weeks ago. Before that no one had seen them. But then, these jungles are full of the unexpected."