Strong but gentle hands held her down, and a soothing voice said, “You are safe.”
Tash blinked to clear her eyes. She was lying in a large cave. A small campfire crackled nearby. Over it, someone had placed a simple grill and a stone bowl full of bubbling liquid. The smoke from the fire rose up, mixing with the scent of the liquid to fill the cave with a pleasant odor.
Tash sat up slowly and realized she was sitting next to Fandomar. Relief, warmer than the fire, flooded through her. “I’m glad you’re all right!”
Fandomar nodded. “The feeling in my legs returned soon after you left. I guessed where you were going, and I knew the danger, so I decided not to wait for you.”
“How did you find me?” Tash asked.
Fandomar handed her a cup of the steaming liquid. It tasted like vegetables. “The Bafforr trees told me,” she said simply. “After I found you, I brought you here.”
Fandomar’s hand swept across the cave. The darkness was lit only by fire. In the gloom, Tash saw Ithorians moving about. Most wore simple clothes, or no clothes at all.
“This is the home for some of those who’ve felt the call of the Mother Forest,” Fandomar explained. “As a High Priest, my husband knew they were here, and so did I. This was the only place I could think of.”
“We’re safe then?” Tash asked.
“For the moment,” Fandomar said. “Those who hear the call of the Mother Forest are shy and avoid contact with strangers. They are uncomfortable being near us even now, and permit it only because my husband was a High Priest. They will avoid anyone else they see, and so they are not likely to be captured by Spore.” Fandomar’s eyes darkened. “But Spore must be stopped. Eventually, it will absorb every being on this planet. No place will be safe.”
Tash thought of Hoole and Zak. “What is Spore?”
Fandomar sighed, then began, “The story is sad, both for my people and for me. We Ithorians are more than just gardeners. We have learned to create new forms of plant life by splicing the genes of one plant with those of another. Usually, we do this to make stronger, healthier versions of a plant.”
“Using DNA,” Tash said.
“Exactly.” Fandomar continued, “About four hundred years ago, my people took their experiments too far. Using the genes of the vesuvague tree and the Bafforrs, along with some other things, they created a new form of life. Like the vesuvague, this creation snared its victims in its tentacle like vines. It also had a group mind like the Bafforr trees. However, unlike the wise Bafforrs, its mind was evil.”
“Why?” Tash asked.
Fandomar raised her hands in that shrug like motion. “Who can say? Perhaps it was driven mad by the process that created it. I don’t know. But whatever the reason, a change occurred. The Bafforrs have a peaceful desire to let their collective mind grow. In Spore, this desire became a hunger. Spore exists to snare the minds of everyone it meets and bring them under its control.”
“How many beings,” Tash said, almost afraid to ask, “could Spore control? “
“Thousands,” Fandomar replied in the gloom. “Maybe millions.”
Tash’s heart skipped a beat. She imagined whole worlds under the control of Spore’s dark tentacles. When she spoke, her voice shook. “How did the Ithorians stop it?”
“With luck,” Fandomar replied. “And the help of the Jedi. There were still Jedi Knights four hundred years ago. Even so, it wasn’t easy. It took almost a hundred years to rid Ithor of the Spore creature.”
“Do you know how they did it?”
“No. There were records, but they were erased by the Empire.”
Tash nodded grimly. That made sense. When the Emperor took power, he had hunted down and killed the Jedi Knights. Then he had erased almost every reference to the Jedi Knights from libraries across the galaxy.
By wiping out the record of the Jedi work on Ithor, the Empire might have erased the means of stopping Spore.
“I do know this,” Fandomar said. “Spore was sealed up in the asteroid tomb for a reason. In the vacuum of space, it becomes dormant and powerless.”
“Why didn’t they just kill it?” Tash asked.
Fandomar frowned. “The Law of Life applies to all creatures. We created Spore. Did that give us a right to kill it? Besides, my people thought the solution would work. Spore was helpless in the asteroid tomb. It must have an oxygen atmosphere and a host to occupy.”
“You mean like Hodge,” Tash said. She guessed the rest. “Hodge and his men thought there was treasure down there. They wanted to keep it for themselves. When Jerec arrived, Hodge must have thought his only chance was to stall the Imperials and raid the tomb himself. He must have made up the story about the space slugs’ feeding time, and then he and one of his men opened the tomb.”