“Was he scheduled to be released so soon?” she asked.
With undisguised disgust, the technician put down his beaker and called up information on his datapad. “No,” he said tersely, reading Zak’s chart. “He was supposed to receive treatment for another hour.”
“Well, where could he have gone?” she asked irritably. She didn’t like the way this technician was treating her.
The technician turned back to his examination. “I don’t know. I suggest you wait for him in the waiting room near the turbolifts.”
Tash stared at the technician’s back for a moment, but he did not turn around again. She could feel the blood pounding in her head. She felt angry. Too angry, she thought. Suddenly everything was aggravating her.
Tash tried to calm down and think clearly. Deevee had come to see Zak, and now Zak was gone. But Deevee followed Uncle Hoole’s instructions. Had Hoole ordered the droid to do something with Zak? Or-Tash shuddered-do something to him?
Tash looked at the computer terminal she had used before. Everything she needed to know was locked inside it. And Tash had the key: the name Starscream.
But before she could reach the terminal, the medical technician appeared behind her. “I thought I told you to go to the waiting room. This is an Imperial facility. We don’t allow people to simply wander around.”
Tash thought up a quick lie. “Um, I know. But I was supposed to meet with Dr. Kavafi, too. I thought he was at the bacta tanks.” She could only hope that the technician recognized her from before.
The technician said, “There are tanks at the other end of the hall as well. You might try there.”
“Thanks,” Tash said, hurrying on.
She wiped a drop of perspiration from her forehead. Had something happened to the climate controls? The building seemed especially hot. Her eyes clouded over for a moment, and the hallway seemed to tilt dizzily. Tash panicked. Had she caught Zak’s illness?
But the feeling quickly passed, and Tash hurried on.
She would worry about herself as soon as she had found Zak and discovered what her uncle was plotting.
At the other end of the hall Tash found the other set of bacta tanks, and to her relief, an unoccupied computer terminal. Someone had obviously just finished working at this station-it was cluttered with datadisks, an electroscope, and the leftovers of someone’s lunch. Tash pushed them out of the way and was about to start typing.
“Still looking for Dr. Kavafi?” asked an accusing voice.
Tash whirled around. The technician had followed her. She was caught.
CHAPTER 13
At that moment, Zak and Deevee were making their way toward the landing bay.
“I still don’t understand,” Zak said to his droid companion. “I didn’t mind getting out of the bacta tank early. Believe me, it was getting pretty boring in there. But why did we have to leave the Infirmary so soon? Why couldn’t we wait for Tash?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” the droid responded. “I am simply following Master Hoole’s orders, and those orders are to get you back to the Shroud as soon as possible. Tash should be waiting for us there.”
But when they reached the landing bay, they found the ship empty. “I can’t understand it,” Deevee said. “I told her to wait.”
“Yeah,” Zak replied, poking his head into Tash’s room. “It’s not like her to - Yech!”
Zak felt his boot sink into something soft and squishy on the floor. Lifting his foot, he saw long, sticky strings of ooze stretch between the bottom of his boot and a thin streak of slime on the deck of the Shroud. “What is this stuff?”
Deevee recognized it instantly. “It appears to be the same material that those blobs were composed of. Tash and I encountered one when we first arrived.” The droid quickly described for Zak the blob’s attack and explained how he and Tash were rescued by the mysterious man named Wedge.
Zak’s eyes lit up in alarm. “One of those things might have gotten Tash!”
“Zak-” the droid started to say. But Zak had already jumped out the hatchway and was searching the ground for more signs of the blob.
By the time the droid had caught up to him, Zak had reached the edge of the ziggurat that the landing bay was on.
“That thing left a slime trail,” Zak said. “After it left the ship I think it crawled down the side of the ziggurat.” He pointed down the steep slope of the pyramid, which vanished into the jungle steam far below.
“Unfortunately the side of this ziggurat is far too smooth for either of us to negotiate,” Deevee commented. “I suggest we wait for Master Hoole to-“