Galaxy of Fear_ The Nightmare Machine Part 7

"Now," he gasped, "we've got to get out of here."

"I believe I can help."

As Zak and Tash turned toward Deevee's voice, the droid was suddenly illuminated by the glow of a small laser torch. Its orange light reflected off the water drops dripping down Deevee's wet metallic body.

"Where did you get that?" Zak asked.

"I equipped myself with a laser torch recently to effect personal repairs," the droid replied. "It seems to have been a fortunate addition."

"Why didn't you tell us before?" Tash snapped.

Deevee explained, "It would not have done any good. The Whaladon had submerged. We would have escaped its mouth only to drown in deep water. But my sensors tell me the creature has surfaced again. Brace yourselves."

In the light of the torch, Zak and Tash watched Deevee aim the cutting tool toward the roof of the Whaladon's cavernous mouth and press the trigger. A thin beam of superheated energy shot through the murky air and punctured the top of the creature's mouth.

A deep, roaring sound of distress rolled through the cavern. The tongue slapped upward, nearly tearing Tash and Zak from their perch, then slammed downward onto the base of the giant mouth. Warm, slimy saliva splashed over their bodies.

The Whaladon bellowed.

Deevee fired again, and the creature shook once more. This time, it let out a low-pitched moan and opened its wounded mouth. Sunlight and salt.w.a.ter sprayed into the cavern in a rush of wind. Over the white foam, Zak saw the clear blue waters of the holographic ocean.

"Jump to the side!" Deevee yelled.

Zak and Tash pulled themselves atop the ma.s.sive tooth and jumped into the water to one side of the Whaladon. Deevee jumped to the other side just as the mighty jaws closed again.

The roar of rus.h.i.+ng water filled Zak's ears, and the cold sea covered him. Holding his breath, he tumbled underwater for a few panicked seconds in the Whaladon's wake, not knowing which way was up or down. He tried to calm himself, and relaxed, knowing that gravity would tell him where to go. His lungs started to burn from lack of oxygen. After a moment, he felt himself bob upward, and he kicked in that direction.

Zak's head broke the surface and he gasped, filling his lungs with air. He wiped salt.w.a.ter from his eyes. He floated on the ocean's surface, bobbing wildly in the wake of the sea monster. In moments, the fast-moving Whaladon was little more than a gray lump on the horizon.

"Tas.h.!.+ Deevee!" he called out. No one replied, but Zak saw a patch of blondish hair fly up over the swelling water and he swam for it. He reached his sister, who gasped and coughed out salt.w.a.ter. Her eyes were half-open but dazed.

There was no sign of Deevee.

He can't drown, Zak thought to himself. Maybe he got pulled along by the current.

Tash would soon sink if she didn't snap out of it. Using one hand to keep her afloat, Zak started to swim toward the sh.o.r.e.

Zak had done plenty of swimming on Alderaan. He swam steadily but slowly, to save his strength, and after fifteen minutes they were near enough to see the sh.o.r.eline clearly. There was no sign of the rancor.

Exhausted and soaking wet, Zak crawled onto the wet sand, hauling his sister behind him. "I've never swum so far in my whole life," he panted.

Beside him Tash let out a huge gasp. Still only half-conscious, she muttered, "One of us must die. One of us must die..."

Zak grabbed her shoulders. "Tash? What are you saying?"

Tash let out a sudden, violent cough, clearing more water from her lungs. Her eyes flew open. "Zak!" She looked around. "We're-we're on dry land!"

"Yeah," he sighed wearily. "What were you saying just now? You were muttering again. Are you sick?"

"I don't know." She rubbed her temples. "I don't remember saying anything. But my head is killing me. What did I say?"

Zak decided not to tell her. "Forget it. You were just delirious."

Tash s.h.i.+vered in her wet clothes.

"We've got to find help," Zak said. "We've got to find out what's going on here. How could that rancor have eaten Lando? Wasn't it a hologram?"

Tash didn't answer. She still seemed lost in her own world.

Zak answered his own question. "I don't know. I told you something's wrong here. It's like the Hall of Reflection. I really felt like I had been transformed, not just tricked by an illusion." He pointed to the nearest building, a long, low structure at the edge of the lagoon.

"Whatever that rancor is, I don't want it to find us. Let's stay out of the open. We should head for that building over there."

Slowly Tash and Zak made their way toward a building surrounded by small kiosks. The kiosks contained arts and crafts from across the galaxy-woven baskets spun from the gra.s.s fields of Worru'du, magnificent animated storytelling puppets from the planet Zhann, and delicate figurines made from seash.e.l.ls on the many-tiered world of K'ath.

The objects in the kiosks were beautiful, but all Zak and Tash noticed was that all the people were gone.

"Maybe they were all holograms," Tash offered hopefully. "Maybe they were just accidentally erased, like the other day."

"Or maybe," Zak returned darkly, "they were real. Maybe everything is real now. Otherwise how could that rancor have eaten Lando?" He swallowed. "Everything in Fun World has come to life."

The building beyond the kiosks was topped by a sign that read, THE MAKER'S WORKSHOP.

"Do you think this place is safe?" Tash asked.

"I don't know," her brother answered. "But it can't be worse than anyplace else in Fun World. Besides, maybe we'll find Deevee here. It sounds like the kind of place a droid would like."

Inside The Maker's Workshop, they found a long hall. On each side of the hall was a workbench, and another long table ran down the middle of the room.

"Prime!" Zak exclaimed when he saw the tables.

The tables, shelves, and even parts of the floor were covered with mechanical parts and tools. Servos, circuits, hydrospanners, the arms and legs and heads of disa.s.sembled droids, even engine parts, lay scattered everywhere. It was a tinkerer's paradise.

"Imagine what I could do with all this stuff," he murmured to himself. He walked down one row of parts. "There's enough spare equipment in this room to build a dozen droids, a T-71 skyhopper-maybe even a small stars.h.i.+p!"

"Don't get any ideas, Zak," Tash warned. "This isn't the time to-"

She stopped. In the middle of the central table, resting on a small pedestal of polished stone, was a gleaming cylinder that Tash recognized instantly. It was the weapon of a Jedi Knight.

It was a lightsaber.

Tash had only seen one lightsaber before with her own eyes. It had been worn on the hip of a young man named Luke Skywalker who, along with his friends, had saved them from the flesh-eating planet D'vouran.

Tash exhaled slowly. A lightsaber. Only the Jedi knew how to build them. Only the Jedi knew how to use them properly. Where had it come from? How had it gotten here?

It's probably just a hologram, she thought. But then, the rancor was supposed to be a hologram, wasn't it? Maybe the lightsaber would prove to be just as real.

With a lightsaber, Tash felt she would be one step closer to becoming a Jedi Knight. With one of those powerful laser swords in her hand, there was nothing she couldn't do. She could be a hero.

Nearby, Zak stood before a table full of droid parts, his eyes jumping from one piece to another. In his mind he had already designed his own hyperdrive, built a personal droid with antigravity repulsors and long-range sensors for detecting angry adults, and a streamlined skimboard that could go vertical and climb the sides of even the highest buildings.

But Zak found the biggest prize of all a few meters down the line.

Sitting under a bright light was a droid head, but not just any droid head.

"A BT-2000," Zak whistled under his breath. "That's the most advanced droidwork in the galaxy. The computer brain in that droid could run all the functions on a Star Destroyer. I'd love to see what makes it tick."

Zak reached out his hands and picked up the droid head.

Tash reached out and picked up the lightsaber.

Before Zak, the droid's photoreceptors blazed with light. The head swiveled in his hands, and a booming voice exploded from the mouthspeaker.

"WHO DISTURBS THE MAKER'S SLEEP?".

Zak stumbled hack in shock, dropping the head. Startled by her brother, Tash instinctively pressed the lightsaber's activation switch.

It burst into fire and light.

The droid's burning eyes continued to glare at Zak.

"THE CRAFT OF THE MAKER IS FORBIDDEN TO THE LIVING! INTRUDERS, PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOOM!".

The light in the droid's eyes faded. For a moment, the room was silent except for the hiss of the lightsaber in Tash's hand.

Then every object in the workshop came to life. Gears whirred and gyros spun as dozens of machines turned to face Zak.

Then they attacked.

CHAPTER 13.

The Maker's Workshop had turned into a hurricane of flying metal parts and electronic wires. Cogwheels collided with hydropistons; mechanical arms attached themselves to wheels. Zak saw two droid arms without bodies fuse themselves to a pair of tractor treads and start rolling toward Zak and Tash.

"This is impossible," he said out loud. "Impossible!"

Gadgets could not put themselves together! he wanted to shout.

Machines did not turn themselves on. Technology would not turn on living beings!

He jumped out of the way as the mechanical droid arms clutched at him. But dodging the arms only put him within reach of a hydrospanner that had come to life and was boring its way toward his forehead. He ducked, and the hydrospanner buried itself in the wall.

All around him, ragtag pieces of metal, odds and ends of junk, were combining to form misshapen mechanical monsters with wires for hair, glow rods for eyes, and multiple arms made of whatever material lay at hand.

"This can't be happening!" Zak shouted.

"But it is," said a gravelly voice. Zak saw the droid head still resting on the table. Its eyes were once more lit up and glaring at Zak.

"You are the little tinkerer," the droid spoke. "You like to experiment with technology. You like to take things apart. How do you feel now that technology is going to take you apart? Destroy him!"

Zak was so terrified he couldn't move. This was worse than a nightmare-it was a fear that he did not even know he had, something buried deep in his brain. He was terrified, and he could only think of one thing.

Where was Tash?

Tash was paralyzed, too. She saw the mechanical junk come to life.

She heard the droid head threaten Zak. She felt the lightsaber quivering in her hand, waiting to be used.

But she couldn't move.

Here was her chance to prove her Jedi potential. All she had to do was charge into the crowd of whirling machines and robots, cutting through them with her unstoppable lightsaber. She could save her brother using a Jedi weapon. She could be a Jedi.

But what if I fail?

The thought froze her muscles. What if she found out, after all this time, that she really didn't have the Force? That she couldn't use a lightsaber? That all her hopes and dreams were just a fantasy?

She was terrified.

"Tas.h.!.+ Help!" Zak called. The machines were closing in. Most had attached tools to the ends of their mechanical arms. As they came closer, needles, blades, and saws began to whir.

"Tas.h.!.+" Zak repeated. His back was to the wall. He was trapped.

"Use the lightsaber!"

Tash could not do it. She wanted to be a Jedi Knight more than anything else in the galaxy. But she was afraid to fail.

"I'm-I'm sorry, Zak," she whispered.

She deactivated the lightsaber and dropped it to the floor.

"Tas.h.!.+" Zak groaned.

But to the surprise of both Arrandas, the moment Tash shut down the energy blade, all the machines stopped. They fell apart in cascades of metal sc.r.a.ps. In seconds, the floor was once more littered with lifeless junk.

Zak gaped at the semicircle of harmless sc.r.a.p at his feet. "How did you do that?" he asked.

"I didn't do anything," his sister said, nearly in tears.

Zak didn't waste any time. "Well, whatever. It worked. Let's get out of here."

They hurried out of The Maker's Workshop and into the empty streets of Hologram Fun World. There was still no one in sight.

"Maybe we should get out of here," Zak suggested. "We should find Deevee. Find someplace where the holograms aren't working."