"And Fandomar let it loose?" her brother guessed.

Tash shook her head, almost too tired to speak. "I don't think it was her. I think it was Hodge. It infected him somehow, took him over.

Now he's infecting everyone else."

"Every time those vine-things touch someone, it's like they become part of Spore," Zak said. "It's like they're suddenly all connected."

Tash shuddered. "What do we do?"

"Find Uncle Hoole," her brother suggested.

"Right," she agreed. "Then find a way to warn the Tafanda Bay.

Whatever this thing is, the Ithorians seem to know about it."

"That's what scares me," Zak said with a shake of his head. "Did you see how scared they were?"

"But they trapped it once before," his sister replied. "Maybe they can do it again."

Suddenly, Tash stiffened: "Tash, what's wrong?"

She didn't answer at first. Sitting with her back to a Bafforr tree, she had felt the warning signal even more powerfully than before.

DANGER!.

"They're near," she whispered. "Come on."

Getting to their feet, Zak and Tash slipped behind the tree as quietly as possible, then backed deeper into the grove of Bafforrs. Zak didn't know how Tash knew Spore was close, but he had trusted her feelings in the past. This didn't seem like a good time to start doubting her.

Tash felt her mouth go dry. The feeling of dread continued to pulse through her brain. Danger was in the air around her.

Hoole appeared at the top of the hill down which they'd fallen. He hurried down the slope toward them, his eyes scanning the trees and underbrush.

"Uncle Hoole!" Tash whispered when he had gotten within earshot.

"Over here!"

The Shi'ido's head whipped around the minute he heard her voice. A few quick strides carried him right up to the tree that hid them.

"Zak, Tash, I am glad I found you," Hoole said.

Tash beckoned him into the shadow of the tree. "Uncle Hoole, you've got to hide. Spore is very near. Come on!"

Hoole shook his head. He smiled and held out his hand. "No, no, Tash. Everything is fine. Join me."

Zak stepped out from behind the tree and toward his uncle's waiting hand. Tash started to follow, then froze. Join Me.

The way he'd said those words reminded her of something.

As Zak approached his uncle, the Shi'ido opened his mouth in a wide grin.

The black vines snared Zak before he could even scream.

CHAPTER 15.

Tash stumbled backward. The tendrils melted into Zak's body, leaving only black lines visible beneath the skin around his neck. She thought she might be sick.

Hoole and Zak didn't follow as she took a few steps back. Instead, they held up their hands innocently and said at the same time, "Tash, please don't run."

Danger!

The warning pulsed all around her. Tash could feel her heart slam against her ribs, and hear the blood pound in her ears. She knew she should run. But this was Hoole. That was Zak. How could she run?

She tried to keep her voice from shaking as she asked, "Who are you?"

"I am Spore," said Zak and Hoole together. The sound of their voices had the same stereo effect as an Ithorian voice. "I mean you no harm. I simply need... I mean, I want to know you better. To be a part of you. For you to be a part of me."

The phrase chilled Tash's heart. Spore's words reminded her of the feeling she'd gotten before the Bafforr trees, only turned inside out.

Instead of feeling the soothing presence of the wise trees trying to connect with her, she felt a dark, evil presence that wanted to control her.

She stared closely at the spiderweb of dark lines hiding beneath Zak's skin and choked back a sob.

"First," she managed to say, "let go of my brother. Let go of Uncle Hoole."

"I will, I promise," Spore replied through Hoole and Zak. "But I need them at the moment. They're going to help me. I promise you, none of you will come to any harm."

"You're already harming them," she said.

"Only because I was desperate," Spore said. "I was trapped for four hundred years. I needed to be free. Once I'm sure I'll be free, then I'll release anyone who doesn't want to be a part of me."

Hoole and Zak took a few steps closer. When they spoke, their voices seemed to change, relaxing into their natural speech. But they still spoke together. "Tash, it's not bad. Won't you join us?"

Tash took another uncertain step back and her foot slipped on the root of the Bafforr tree. Instinctively, she grabbed the tree trunk for balance.

Run!

The message thundered through her mind, too powerful to ignore.

Her. feet were moving before her brain could form the thought.

She barely saw the black strings slap harmlessly against the tree behind her.

Tash ran for her life. Branches slapped at her face, scratching tears from her eyes. But she wasn't crying from the pain. She was crying out of fear.

How could Zak and Uncle Hoole have been caught? How could she escape Spore all alone?

Alone. She was tired of being alone. Even when she was with her uncle and her brother, she felt different from them. She thought the Force was supposed to make her feel connected to everything, but at the moment she felt like the loneliest, most frightened being in the galaxy.

She kept moving, but her legs began to feel heavy. Her lungs started to ache.

Why bother running? she told herself. What good will it do you?

You're running.from the only friends you have.

Tash stopped to catch her breath in a clearing. After a moment, she saw that the bushes all around her were alive with movement. Pulling aside the branches, she saw an lthorian, one of the medical staff, scanning the forest. It took a few steps forward, looked around, then advanced again. She could hear Spore's other victims all around her, doing the same.

She was caught in the middle of a circle. There was nowhere to run.

Soon they'd find her. She looked up. There were Bafforr trees all around her, but the lowest branches were far too high for her to reach. And the bark of the trunk was far too slick for her to try to shimmy up the side.

She glanced down-and saw something familiar. Her s.p.a.cesuit.

She was back where she started. Not that it would do her any good.

There were no weapons in her s.p.a.cesuit. Just the air tank, the helmet, and...

... and gravboots.

Tash looked back at the nearest Bafforr tree. There was no way to climb it. But what if she could walk up the side of the tree instead?

The rustling in the bushes was very close.

It might work, but she needed time to get the gravboots on her feet.

Tash looked around desperately, until her eyes were caught by a flash of red.

The speed globe.

She had been holding it when the ship crashed. Scooping it up now, she flipped the activation switch and thanked the Force as the speed globe hummed to life.

She could hear someone approaching from her left. It was the Ithorian medic she'd seen earlier.

Tash flicked another switch and the speed globe jumped out of her hands, bouncing onto the forest floor. "Get going!" she rasped, stomping her foot in the globe's direction. The computerized ball bounced away into the underbrush.

Whoever had been approaching from Tash's left suddenly stopped, listening as the speed globe bounced through the bushes before it, too, stopped.

The Ithorian started forward, but as it approached the speed globe's location, the ball shot away, making more noise in the brush.

The Ithorian followed.

While this had been happening, Tash hadn't wasted a moment. As fast as she could, she slipped on her gravboots. As soon as the buckles were snapped, she hurried toward the nearest tree-and nearly fell on her face.

She'd forgotten how heavy the boots were.

Picking herself up, she dragged her feet to the trunk. She lifted one foot and planted it against the smooth black bark. Then, with a silent hope that the Force was with her, she activated the gravboot.

The mini-tractor beam powered up, and she felt her foot clamp down.

It worked! Quickly, she hopped up and stuck her other foot onto the trunk.

Then, step by step, Tash walked up the side of the Bafforr tree.

It wasn't easy. Even though her feet stuck to the trunk, gravity still pulled her body toward the ground. She had to use all the muscles in her legs to keep herself from bending backward like a branch too heavy with blumfruit.

Tash had just reached the lowest level of branches when she heard several sets of footsteps burst out of the brush beneath her, converging on the spot where she'd been standing. She froze, trying not to make a sound.

Below her, Zak, Hoole, and the Ithorians had gathered around Hodge.

One of the Ithorians held up the speed globe. Hodge took it, then dropped it on the ground in disgust. None of them spoke. Tash suspected that they didn't need to. They were all thinking with one mind-Spore's.

Tash hoped that the branches around her would hide her from sight, but the Spore-victims didn't even look up. The Bafforr tree would have been impossible to climb.

Tash's legs started to tremble. Inside the gray-boots, her ankles ached.

A moment later, the victims of Spore dispersed, hunting the ground for any sign of their next prey.

Tash forced herself to walk a few feet to the nearest thick branch and crawled onto it. As soon as she had caught her breath, she looked around, trying to figure out her next move. She had to warn the Tafanda Bay, or any other herd ship she could find.

First things first, though. She had to get safely away from Spore.

But how?

The answer came to Tash so quickly and easily that she almost laughed. She didn't know if she'd figured it out for herself, or if it was the Force, or if it was yet another message from the Bafforr trees.

All three seemed to be getting mixed together. Whichever it was, the solution popped into her mind as a single word.

Connections.

Just as the Bafforrs seemed to be connected as one mind, their branches had grown close together, sometimes touching, sometimes intertwining so that at the tops, one tree could hardly be distinguished from the next.

Tash crawled along the branch she was sitting on until she reached the branch of the nearest tree. Carefully, she switched trees, and continued on her way. Sometimes she had to climb down to reach a good branch; sometimes she climbed up. It wasn't easy. Within minutes her hands, arms, and legs were scratched, but slowly, she covered distance.

Wherever Spore thought she was, that wasn't where she was going to be soon. Tash allowed herself a momentary smile.

Then the smile vanished. The branch she had just climbed onto suddenly wrapped itself around her body and pulled her down toward the ground. More branches snared her arms and legs.

She had crawled into the vines of a vesuvague tree.