Before he knew it, Zak was deep into a lesson in sabacc gambling. He learned how to bluff an opponent into thinking he had a good hand, and to guess when his opponent was bluffing, too.
“A good rule to follow,” Lando explained, “is that if the other guy is acting normal under unusual circumstances, you can bet he’s bluffing.”
Lando showed Zak how to operate the small electronic shuffler by inserting the seventy-two cards and squeezing the grip. Lando made it look easy, but when Zak tried it, he found out that the electronic shuffler was more complicated than it seemed.
“Watch out!” Lando yelled. He ducked just in time as all seventy-two cards came flying out of the shuffler’s chute in a rain of plastic.
“Sorry,” Zak said.
“The shuffler is touch-sensitive,” Lando explained. “It takes practice. Keep that one until you get it down.”
“Thanks!” Zak replied. “And thanks for showing me how to play sabacc.”
“My pleasure,” the gambler replied. “Just remember that tomorrow you’ll return the favor when we tour Hologram Fun World together.”
The next day, Tash, Zak, and Deevee met Lando in front of the Gravity Well, and together they plunged into the holographic craziness of Fun World.
There were crowds of people everywhere. Zak spotted members of a hundred familiar species in the first hour, and a hundred other species he’d never seen before. They strolled past magic shows that made entire audiences vanish for a full minute, and holodrama theaters where the characters in the stories were projected ten meters high.
But the greatest attractions were the rides. Zak and Tash hoverskied down the side of an exploding volcano. They entered the Star Chamber, an enormous room that contained a hologram of the entire galaxy. In the chamber, the two Arrandas walked across the cosmos, striding past planets shrunk to the size of blumfruit and stars no larger than melons. Outside, they hopped onto the back of a passing Star Dragon and rode it around the top of Fun World’s giant protective dome. The Star Dragon dropped them off at the shores of an inlet that led out to an impossibly large ocean. The digital sign at the entrance to the beach read: WELCOME TO SWEETSAND LAGOON.
“Isn’t this amazing?” Tash yelled.
“I could stay here forever!” her brother replied. “I’m beginning to think this might be a good investment,” Lando murmured.
“It’s really all an illusion,” Deevee hastened to point out. “In reality, most of what you are seeing is not actually there.”
“Don’t ruin it,” Zak interrupted. “We know they’re holograms, too, but it’s still fun. Can’t you just pretend?”
“I am a scientific research droid,” Deevee sniffed. “Once I acquire information, I cannot simply forget it.”
“Your loss.” Zak shrugged and turned to his sister. “Let’s go for a swim. “
Jumping off the dragon’s back, they swam out to a waiting Whaladon-an enormous fish the size of a starship. As the Whaladon floated patiently on the water’s surface, Zak and Tash crawled up along its scaly, barnacle-covered side to its back, then hung on for dear life. With a swipe of its ten-meter tail, the Whaladon sped off on a cruise along the holographic shore.
Finally the Whaladon deposited them back at the Sweetsand Lagoon. Lando was just asking them which rides they liked best when he was interrupted by an ear-shattering roar.
The rancor had returned.
Instinctively they all turned as the carnivore charged at them. But no one ran. They watched calmly as the rancor pounced on them, raking its huge claws toward their bodies.
The claws passed through them as harmlessly as a breeze.
“It must roam around the park, scaring the heck out of the new visitors,” Zak guessed.
Together they left the lagoon and wandered back in among the attractions. Down one of Fun World’s side streets, they saw a small building with a sign, THE ANY
WHERE ROOM.
“What’s this?” Zak asked the attendant droid who stood at the door.
“The Anywhere Room,” replied the droid in a pleasant voice. “This room will take you to your heart’s desire. See the flaming falls on the fire rivers of Sittana. Sit on the Emperor’s throne. Visit your homeworld. Whatever you desire, The Anywhere Room will take you there.”
“Even-” Tash said hesitantly, “even if your homeworld was destroyed?”
“If it ever existed, it’s stored in here,” the droid said with a mechanical jerk toward the door. “We have holograms of every known planet in the galaxy.”
“Tash,” Zak said, guessing his sister’s thoughts. “We could go back to Alderaan. We could see our house again!”