There was another brain spider behind him.
“Oh, no!” Zak gasped. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see the deathblow coming.
But the spiders didn’t attack him. Instead, they pushed forward gently on their durasteel legs, nudging him.
“Hey, watch it,” he said, looking at the brains inside each droid. Each brain looked like a round pile of thick noodles.
The spiders pushed again, and again, until Zak realized that they weren’t trying to hurt him. They were pushing him toward one side of the corridor. They were herding him, just as Tash had said before.
Not wanting to feel those sharp legs on his skin, Zak went in the direction the brain spiders were shoving him. He saw a small hatch set into the wall-the kind of small door that maintenance workers use to get into tight spaces in a building. One of the spiders scurried forward and tapped at the door with a foreleg.
“You want me to open it?” Zak asked.
He deactivated the lock, and the automatic door popped open. A sharp poke in the back from one of the spiders made him jump and sent him stumbling into the maintenance hall.
The floor was covered with sand, like a mini-desert probably the leftovers from years of sweeping out Jabba’s hallways.
The spiders crept forward, forcing Zak to go farther down the sandy hallway.
“Look, I don’t know what you want,” Zak said. He didn’t know if the brains inside the spiders could hear or understand him, but it was worth a try. “I thought you B’omarr monk brains were supposed to contemplate the universe or something-not pick on Jabba’s guests.”
“Hoohoohoohoo!”
Zak blinked. Were the brain spiders laughing? “Hoohoo!”
No, that laughter belonged to Jabba the Hutt! It was coming from overhead. Zak looked up. About two meters up the wall of the maintenance hall was a vent. The Hutt’s deep laughter was trickling through it.
One of the brain spiders moved beneath the vent and lowered itself so that it sat on the floor.
Zak quickly figured out what it wanted. “You’re offering me a boost?”
He stepped onto the spider-droid’s back, careful to avoid the glass jar containing the wrinkled brain. With a whine of servos, the brain spider rose to its normal height, lifting Zak up to the vent.
Zak peeked through the tiny metal grate.
He was looking inside Jabba’s private chambers! What he saw amazed him.
Jabba the Hutt reclined on a wide couch, rolls of fat rising and falling across the length of his body.
Nearby sat Tash. She had her feet up on a table covered with strange and exotic foods. As Zak watched, she reached into a bowl full of live eels. Fishing one out, she opened her mouth wide and dropped the wriggling creature in. The eel’s tail flapped once as it struggled to escape; then Tash swallowed it with a contented sigh.
Jabba growled, “I notice that the credits still have not been sent to my account.”
Tash nodded. “That’s right, Jabba. You’re not getting your money until we fix this problem.”
“I already explained,” the crime lord said as he smacked his lips. “Someone freed the prisoner we had reserved for you. We had no other choice, especially with the Imperials approaching.”
“Yeah, but now I’m stuck with this!” Tash said, pointing at herself
“Look on the bright side,” the Hutt gurgled in amusement, “no Imperials will ever stop you again.”
“Very funny,” Tash snapped back. “But I’m telling you I want this fixed, and fixed now!”
Jabba checked a small datascreen near his couch. “Ah, just the message I was waiting for. Don’t worry, my friend. I have the perfect solution. Right this way.”
The Hutt slithered off his couch and Tash stood up. Together, they moved out of Zak’s view. A moment later he heard a door open and close.
Jumping down from the brain spider’s back, Zak rubbed his forehead. He was getting a headache. “What in all the galaxy is going on here?”
The brain spider that had lifted him now extended one of its legs. The leg made a few slow, small movements in the sand. But the motion was clumsy-the spider’s legs weren’t made for such delicate action.
After several tries, the spider finally succeeded in moving its leg the way it wanted. Finally, when it was satisfied, the brain spider stepped back and let Zak see its work.
Zak’s heart froze and his blood went cold in his veins.
In a jagged, uneven style, the brain spider had written two words.
I’M TASH.
CHAPTER 15
I’M TASH.
The words lay in the sand. The brain spider danced back and forth on its spindly legs.
“I-I don’t understand,” Zak stammered. He had just seen Tash talking with Jabba!