[Galaxy Of Fear] - 04(22)

Zak gaped at the semicircle of harmless scrap 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.”

“You’re the technobrain,” his sister replied wearily. “Where would that be?”

Zak considered. “The airlock. We didn’t see any holograms until we left the airlock. Let’s go.”

They hurried in the direction of the space dock and its airlock. Now and then they heard the rancor roar down some distant street. Each time, they froze in their tracks and waited until its ground-shaking footsteps faded away.

Tash had been silent. Zak looked over at her. She was muttering something under her breath.

“… one of us must die… one of us must die…” she breathed.

“Tash!” Zak yelled. He shook her shoulders. “Quit it! What does that mean?”

Tash blinked and her eyes focused on him. “Wh-What?”

“You said it again. ‘One of us must die.’ What does that mean?”

His sister shook her head. “I’m sorry, Zak. I don’t know. I don’t even know I’m doing it. It must be important, but I just don’t know.”

“All right, just forget it. Look, here’s the airlock.”

They had arrived at a heavy steel portal set in the massive dome. Beyond the door was a room that led to another door. And that door led to the space dock.

“We’ll just wait in the airlock for now, until we can figure out what to do. The holograms won’t work there,” said Zak.

“Okay,” Tash said, reaching to press the switch that activated the automatic door.

Zak was distracted by a movement in the other direction. Four spidery limbs crawled into his line of sight. This time he whipped his head around and caught full sight of the brain creature. Its long arms and legs clung to the side of the space dome as its enormous head bobbed back and forth, red eyes burning bright. Two flailing tentacles flapped out of its open mouth. It looked bigger.

“Tash, wait!” Zak warned.

Too late. The door opened. For a fraction of a second, Zak and Tash were able to look out the door-a door that opened into the icy-cold vacuum of space. Then Tash was sucked out into the void.





CHAPTER 14


Zak just barely managed to grab Tash’s arm before she was pulled into deep space. Air from inside the dome began rushing out into empty space, dragging Tash and Zak along with it. Zak held Tash with one hand and clung to the edge of the doorway with the other. He had seen deep space and stars before, of course, but always from the safety of a starship viewport. Now he was looking at the eternal night with his naked eye. He didn’t like it.

“Pull me back!” Tash gasped over the rushing wind.

“I can’t!” he said, gritting his teeth. “Pull yourself!” Tash tried to use Zak’s arm as a rope to pull herself back into Fun World. But the escaping air dragged at her face and clothes.

“I can’t!” she yelled.

“You have to!” Zak demanded. He had already lost his parents and friends. His uncle was away, and now even Deevee was gone. He could not lose his only sister, the only family he had left. “Try!”

Tash gritted her teeth. Hand over hand, she pulled herself to safety. Centimeter by centimeter, she fought the wind that sucked her into space, until she was back inside the dome. Zak slapped the Close switch. The minute the heavy door slid back into place, the powerful suction force stopped, and Tash collapsed to the ground.

For a moment the two Arrandas lay next to each other, gasping for breath.

“Wh-What is this place?” Tash nearly sobbed. “It’s like a giant death trap.”

“I don’t know,” Zak panted. “Everything’s wrong here. I don’t know why this is happening.”

“I do.”

Standing before them was Uncle Hoole! Both Arrandas got to their feet and threw their arms around him with relief. Hoole returned their hugs awkwardly. The stern expression never left his face.

“Uncle Hoole, we’ve got to get out of here,” Zak explained in one hurried breath. “The holograms are alive and they’re killing people. They killed Lando, a gambler we met, and Deevee’s missing. And The Nightmare Machine creature is lurking about, I don’t know what it is, but we’ve got to-“