"We've got to do something!" Zak yelled.

"This is my fault." Tash said. Her throat was dry. Her voice was hardly a whisper. "I should have listened to my feelings and made Uncle Hoole leave the planet. Then he'd be alive and we'd be safe!"

"It's not your fault, Tash," Zak said. "I didn't listen to you. No one did."

Tash peered down into the pit. Something at the bottom was writhing. And it was getting higher. As they were lowered into the pit, the writhing, throbbing ma.s.s rose up to meet them.

Tash couldn't watch. She looked up, into the faces of the Enzeen who ringed the pit. The more D'vouran ate, the more they could feed. All of them watched hungrily.

All of them but one.

The Enzeen who had taken the skimboard turned to Chood. Without warning, he raised the skimboard as high as he could, then brought it crashing down on Chood's head!

Chood crumpled to the ground. Instantly the Enzeen pounced on him, tearing something small and shimmering from Chood's hand.

The pendant.

The other Enzeen charged. But the pendant-holder did something completely unexpected.

He changed shape. The parasites found themselves confronted not by one of their own but by a snarling Wookiee.

"Uncle Hoole!" Tash and Zak cried at once.

"Hoole!" boomed Smada. "Get us out of here!"

The Enzeen hesitated for only a moment. Then they swarmed the Wookiee, pounding him from every direction. The Wookiee fought back with powerful blows from one hand while he held the pendant high with the other.

And all the while, the platform continued to descend.

One of the Enzeen was thrown over the side of the pit. Zak and Tash watched as he fell, screaming, into the writhing molten ma.s.s below. In moments, all the Enzeen had been tossed aside.

With a few long strides, the Wookiee reached the crane. But before he could reverse its direction, something hard and heavy struck him from behind, slamming him against the crane. The crane's instruments snapped under the Wookiee's weight, and the platform stopped. The blow also broke Hoole's concentration, and he suddenly reverted back to his own Shi'ido shape as he fell to the ground.

Chood stood over Hoole, holding a thick metal pipe. "Give me that pendant!" He grabbed Hoole, trying to pry the crystal from the Shi'ido's fingers. They struggled right on the edge of the pit. Hoole was too groggy to resist, and in moments the pendant had changed hands again.

But just as he stood up, Chood lost his footing. He slipped and fell into the pit of D'vouran.

Taking the pendant with him.

Chood and the pendant vanished into the rising lava, and a moment later the molten ma.s.s shuddered and heaved.

"Pull us up!" Tash yelled. "Uncle Hoole! Pull us up!"

Hoole staggered toward the crane. But it wouldn't budge. "The crane is damaged! I can't move it!"

Beneath them, Tash could see the lava rising faster and faster.

Great globs of molten planet leaped and sputtered toward them. D'vouran looked angry.

"We'd better think of something," she said, "or we're all going to die!"

CHAPTER 18.

It was Zak who came up with the answer. "My skimboard!" he called up. "Do you still have my skimboard?"

Hoole picked it up. "Here! But it's not working."

"I can fix it! Toss it down!"

Hoole was as steady now as when the Lightrunner was out of control.

He carefully measured the distance, and then tossed the hoverboard out and down into the pit.

Zak, Tash, and Smada all watched it spin through the air toward them. For a moment Tash thought it was going to miss them. But it landed dead in the middle of the platform as all three prisoners grabbed it.

"Got it!" Zak said. "Just give me a minute."

Tash looked down. "We don't have a minute! Hurry!" The molten ground was only few meters below them, and it was rising fast.

"I think I've got it," Zak said, working frantically. "I've got it!"

The skimboard hummed to life. Zak jumped aboard and tested the ride. "It works!"

Zak, on the skimboard, hovered a few meters over the rising lava.

He held his hand out to Tash, who took it and hopped quickly onto the board. She looked at the ma.s.sive Hutt beside her. "But how are you going to fit him on here?"

"That is not a problem," Smada rumbled, "since I intend to leave you behind. Give me that board!"

The Hutt reached out to grabbed at Zak, but Zak slashed away and hovered a few meters off. "Don't be selfish! We can all make it if we work together!"

"No, no!" Smada howled. "I must have that device! It's mine!" with surprising agility, the Hutt lunged through the air. His fat fingertips grasped the edge of the skimboard, which tilted to one side, almost throwing Zak and Tash off.

The enormous Hutt's weight was too much for the hot-wired board. It began to sink quickly, like an overcrowded lifeboat taking on water.

"You're going to kill us all!" Tash yelled.

"Get back on the platform!" Zak pleaded. "We'll get off and we'll find a way to pull you up.

"Do you take me for a fool?" Smada snorted. "Let... me... on!"

But the skimboard had dropped almost to the molten surface. A weird tentacle of liquid mud reached up and wrapped itself around Smada's body, and the crime lord roared in pain and let go of the skimboard. The Hutt was sucked down into the molten mud of D'vouran.

As the Hutt fell, the skimboard, freed of his weight, rose upward.

But not high enough. The top of the pit was still six meters above them.

"Take us higher!" Tash said. "Get us out of here!" "I can't," Zak said. "I'm at full power. The skimboard won't hover any higher than this."

"What do we do now?"

Zak looked at the wall of the pit. "I'll tell you what we're going to do, " he said. "We're going to pull a vertical ride. And we're going to set a record."

Zak pressed the accelerator and guided the skimboard smoothly toward one end of the pit. He honestly didn't know if he could do it. He had blown his run yesterday morning, and that had only been five meters. Now he was going for six. A record.

Plus he was carrying a pa.s.senger. No one had ever pulled a vertical climb carrying pa.s.sengers before. This really would be a record.

If he made it.

Zak took a deep breath. He would only get one chance. If he failed, he and his sister would be pitched backward, right into the Heart of D'vouran.

Zak gritted his teeth. "Hang on tight."

He bent into a crouch and kicked the skimboard into high gear. It slid rapidly toward the wall.

Ten meters. Seven meters. Five. Three. Now!

Anticollision buffers kicked in, bouncing the board's nose up into the air. Zak jammed all power from the bottom vents to the rear drive and leaned straight up, reaching for the ceiling high above. He felt the board shudder beneath his feet.

The engine whined. They weren't going to make it, he thought. It was a good try. It was the best ride of his life, but the pit was just too...

Then he was rocketing out of the pit, straight as a blaster bolt, up into the laboratory with Tash still on board.

"Yeeeahhhhh!"

Zak leaned forward, tipping the nose so that the bottom of the board was pointing down. The skimboard dropped until it reached its hovering alt.i.tude.

"Zak, you did it!" his sister cried.

"This is no time for celebration," Hoole warned.

Inside the pit, the churning grew more violent. Mud that looked like molten lava leaped up from the edges, grasping for prey. Zak and Tash pressed themselves against the walls of the laboratory.

"What's happening?" Zak yelled.

"It's the pendant!" Hoole replied. "It created an energy field D'vouran didn't like. That's why it wouldn't eat whoever was in contact with it. Now it's swallowed the energy field whole!"

Hoole ran to the corner where Deevee had been dumped and quickly reactivated the droid. D-V9 staggered to his feet. "Up the stairs!" Hoole commanded.

They ran for the stairs-Hoole and Tash helping Deevee along-that led up to the next level.

Just in time. The mud spilled over the edge of the pit, coating the floor in violent, shuddering slime. And it continued to rise.

They reached the exit. Only a few hours ago, Bebo had pushed Tash down that same hole.

"Zak," Hoole said. "Is this device powerful enough to carry you three back to the s.p.a.ceport?"

"I think so."

"But we're not leaving you behind, Master Hoole!" Deevee insisted.

"Of course not," the Shi'ido replied.

Then Hoole vanished. For a moment they thought he was truly gone.

Then Tash nearly jumped as a tiny white rodent jumped onto her leg and scampered up to her shoulder.

"Let's go!" she said.

The mud had crept up the stairs behind them. It was rising through the upper room now. It was chasing them.

Zak, Tash, and Deevee all crowded onto the skimboard. They barely fit, but when Zak hit the thrusters, it still lifted off the ground.

As quickly as he could, Zak guided the skimboard up and out of the laboratory. They rose up and out of the hole.

And into a nightmare.

All around them, as far as the eye could see, the ground had begun to boil. Trees sank into a boiling lava swamp. b.a.l.l.s of liquid dirt rose up and burst angrily around them. Snakelike strands of mud reached up to block their escape.

Zak pushed the skimboard along as fast as he dared, afraid that they would lose their balance and fall into D'vouran's waiting ma.s.s.

They pa.s.sed over the town. Only the tops of the houses were visible. The rest had been sucked down into the muck.

"The s.p.a.ceport's still standing!" Deevee said.

They could see the walls of the landing port, half sunk in mud. The top was still clear.

The skimboard flew through the s.p.a.ceport gates and up the stairs.

The minute the launchpad's tarmac was underneath them, Hoole leaped from Tash's shoulder, transforming in midair. He hit the ground running.

"There's no time to lose!" he cried.

"Look!" Tash cried.

Large cracks opened up in the thick blast walls, and bubbling liquid earth began to ooze onto the tarmac. "Get to the ship!" Hoole ordered.

The ooze wrapped itself around the landing gear of the other ships.

As they scrambled into the Lightrunner, the mud was already reaching toward them.