The sharp metal object was the comlink microphone in her space helmet. A long, jagged crack ran from the top of the helmet’s faceplate to the bottom.
Tash sat up with a start, then lay back down with a moan. Her head was ringing. She’d gotten up too fast and made herself dizzy. She waited for the forest around her to stop spinning, then sat up slowly.
The mattress she’d been lying on was a thick bed of moss at the foot of an enormous Bafforr tree. As she rose to her knees, Tash felt bruises forming all over her body. The dizziness had stopped, but her head still ached. She must have taken a blow to the head during the crash. Where her visor was not cracked, it was covered in smears of mossy slime. Unclipping the helmet’s seals, she popped it off and tossed the headgear into the brush.
The ship was nowhere in sight, but Tash sniffed the scent of burning ozone and engine exhaust, so she knew it was close by. The speed globe she’d been holding lay a couple of meters away.
“I must have been thrown clear when we hit,” she said, mostly to make sure her sore jaw still worked. “If I hadn’t landed on this moss, I would have broken my neck.”
Sitting back down, Tash kicked off her gray-boots, then unsealed her spacesuit and shook it off. In zero gravity, the suit was weightless, but planetside it was almost too heavy to lift.
Tash tried to stand up, using the Bafforr tree for support.
The minute her hand touched the dark, smooth bark of the tree, an electric tingle shot up her arm and into her brain. A single word echoed loudly in her mind.
Danger!
Instinctively, Tash ducked back down.
At the same moment, she heard a loud rustling in the bushes nearby. Crouched down in the underbrush, she couldn’t see a thing, but she heard heavy footsteps clomp past only a few meters from her hiding spot. The warning message had been so clear that she didn’t dare look up until the sound of movement faded among the trees.
When the forest had been silent a long time, Tash stood up again. Cautiously, she touched the tree. Nothing happened.
Had the warning been a message from the Bafforr tree? Or the Force? Or both?
Another possibility occurred to Tash. She could still hear a soft ringing in her ears, and she had to admit that the danger signal might have been a trick of her rattled brain. She might have just hidden from a chance at being rescued.
Tash thought about shouting for help. She opened her mouth and filled her lungs with air, but something held her back. Instead she let out a long sigh.
Her sigh was answered by a pain-filled moan from beneath the vines of a nearby blue-flowered shrub.
Tash approached the shrub cautiously. The last thing she needed was to be snared by another of Ithor’s hungry plants. But this one seemed harmless enough. She could see a figure lying motionless at its roots. Drawing, nearer, Tash saw that it was Fandomar.
Tash staggered to the Ithorian’s side and carefully turned her over. Fandomar’s spacesuit was torn, probably by a tree branch as she was thrown clear of the wreck. A nasty cut ran the length of her leg. Her helmet had been cracked in two and nearly torn from her neck. Tash popped it off and threw it aside.
“Fandomar?” she whispered gently. “Fandomar, can you hear me?”
The Ithorian’s eyes fluttered open, then closed again. “T-Tash. Is that you? I can’t seem to focus my eyes.” She tried to move. “I can’t feel my legs, either.”
“It’s me,” Tash replied. “Lie still. We were both thrown clear of the wreckage. You’re probably pretty banged up.”
A look of panic suddenly crossed Fandomar’s face, and her hands clutched blindly at Tash. “Tash, your voice. It doesn’t sound like it’s coming through the comlink. You’re not wearing your helmet?”
“No. Neither are you. We’re on Ithor.”
“Oh, no, no, no, no,” Fandomar moaned. “This is terrible.”
Tash blinked. Her head hurt too much to deal with this confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“Spore,” Fandomar hissed. She said the word as if it were the most terrible thing in the galaxy. “Spore! Spore is free!”
“What do you mean?” Tash asked.
Fandomar started to cry. “It means,” she wept, “we’re all doomed!”
CHAPTER 13
“Doomed!” Fandomar whispered again. Her voice was fading.
“What is this Spore?” Tash asked. “Fandomar, you have to tell me!”
But the Ithorian had fainted.
Tash wanted to shake her awake, but she dared not. Fandomar had said she couldn’t feel her legs. Her spine might be broken. If Tash moved her, she could make the damage worse.
I’ll have to leave her here, Tash decided. Maybe I can get help.