“Great,” Zak muttered. “We’re still being chased, but now we can’t even run.”
“We may not have to worry about the rancor,” Tash said gloomily. “We’re being carried out to sea.”
She was right. The rancor was so big that every step it took caused a huge wave. Each wave pushed the two Arrandas and the droid farther away from shore. After a few moments, Zak felt the silty floor drop away beneath his feet and he began to tread water.
Zak accidentally swallowed a mouthful of saltwater. He gagged and shouted, “How long can you stay afloat?”
“Awhile,” Tash said shakily. “But my head is killing me. I don’t feel well.”
“I am equipped with internal air pockets,” Deevee informed Zak. “I can remain buoyant for extended periods. But my circuits will short out rather quickly in this water, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t think we’ll be around that long,” Zak groaned, pointing toward shore.
The rancor came nearer. The water had risen above its snarling jaws now, making Zak realize just how far from shore they were. All they could see were two beady black eyes and a bony ridge atop its head as it waded toward its prey.
Then it sank below the surface.
“Where is it?” Zak called out, thrashing around in the water.
“Astounding,” Deevee said, weirdly calm. “It’s going to strike from below.”
Zak thought he felt a cold current of water rush beneath his feet, as though something large had passed through the water beneath him. He looked around frantically.
Farther out on the ocean, bubbles rose to the surface. Something was out there.
“Could it have passed us?” Tash wondered aloud.
No one had time to answer. More air bubbles burst through the surface, and then a huge gray shape rose into the air, shedding an enormous tent of water. The gray shape was at least twenty meters off, but still it loomed over the two Arrandas and their droid. Zak saw one enormous blue eye focus on him.
“The Whaladon!”
“It will give us a ride,” Deevee stated.
“No kidding!” shouted Zak.
Zak began to swim, then stopped. Something else had appeared near the Whaladon. He thought he saw two flashing red eyes just beneath the water’s surface. Then the salt spray made him blink, and the image was gone.
The Whaladon, meanwhile, loomed closer.
The Arrandas had ridden the Whaladon two days ago by swimming out into the lagoon, where the sea creature patiently waited as they scrambled onto its back.
This time the Whaladon did not seem to be waiting. With a swipe of its massive tail, the giant fish shot forward-straight toward them.
Tash stopped swimming. “What’s it doing?”
A line formed along the Whaladon’s jaw. The line turned into an opening, and the opening grew into a gargantuan gaping mouth. The lower part of the jaw was filled with churning ocean water. The top of the jaw-ten meters above the water’s surface-reached toward the sky.
“Look out!” Zak cried. But it was too late.
They were swept into the giant mouth just as the jaws snapped shut.
The Whaladon had swallowed them whole.
CHAPTER 12
Zak felt only water and darkness and heat and noise. For a moment he thought he had died. But when the rumbling did not stop, and the heat continued to press down on him like an enormous wet cloak, he knew that he was still alive.
Inside the Whaladon.
Zak was lying on something moist but solid, squishy but immensely strong. The spongy surface twitched, and Zak bounced into the hot, dark air, then landed with a wet splat.
I’m lying on the Whaladon’s tongue, he thought. A chill of disgust ran through him.
A tiny noise reached his ears over the sounds of the Whaladon’s body. He heard it again-“Zak!”-and squirmed toward the sound.
“Here!” he called into the pitch darkness.
A hand reached out and grabbed the collar of his tunic, pulling him easily along the Whaladon’s slick tongue until he felt himself lying next to his sister. She was clinging to something hard and rough and pointed.
“Are you all right?” Tash shouted.
“I don’t know,” Zak said. “Deevee?”
“Here.” Two dim round lights presented themselves. They were the glow from Deevee’s photoreceptors. “We are inside the Whaladon’s mouth.”
Beneath them, the Whaladon’s tongue surged and curled back away from the teeth. “Hold on!” Deevee said.
Zak felt a powerful force drag him backward, toward the creature’s throat and stomach. He grabbed on to one of the Whaladon’s teeth so hard that he felt his fingernails scrape its sides. Just as Zak felt he could hold on no longer, the tongue rolled back toward them, and Zak collapsed against the sea monster’s gums.