Anakin's Quest Page 7

  He certainly didn't seem to have learned much of a lesson from his close

  encounter with the butcher bug web.

  "A Jedi Master named Yoda lived on this planet for the final years of

  his life. He was Uncle Luke's Jedi Master, and this is where he taught Luke

  all about being a Jedi."

  "So?" Uldir said-rather rudely, in Anakin's opinion.

  Anakin was starting to get annoyed at Uldir's attitude, so he paused

  to let out a long slow breath and tried to keep his patience.

  "Master Yoda sent Uncle Luke into a special cave as a kind of test.

  Uncle Luke says that there's nothing much inside the cave, except for what

  you take in with you."

  The weather grew worse, and a light rain began to fall. Artoo-Detoo

  whooped in alarm as his wheels sank into soft mud. Anakin and Tahiri pulled

  ArtooDetoo free and Artoo adjusted his motivators and the height of his

  treads so that he could move better across the soft ground of the trail.

  Then they all started walking again, their feet making muffled squelching

  noises on the muddy path.

  "The way Uncle Luke explained it," Anakin went on, his eyes rolling up

  and to the side, "the cave works kind of like a mirror, to show you what's

  inside your own mind. He said he learned some really important things about

  himself that day."

  Uldir snorted.

  "You mean you needed to come halfway across the galaxy and go into a

  cave to figure out what's in your head?"

  Tahiri stamped her foot in the middle of the trail and rounded on

  Uldir. Her green eyes were as stormy as the sky above.

  "This is very important to Anakin. It's his quest. I'm here because

  I'm his friend. I'm trying to help him find the answers he's looking for."

  Although Tahiri was quite a bit shorter than the stocky older boy, she

  raised a warning finger at him.

  "And if you're really Anakin's friend too, I suggest you start acting

  like one." As she spoke her final words, distant thunder boomed through the

  air and fat, warm droplets pounded down, completely soaking them all.

  Uldir looked stunned for a moment, as if he believed that Tahiri might

  have called down the thunder and the sudden drenching rain. But then he

  simply shrugged and said,

  "Okay. I'm sorry."

  At that point Ikrit, who had been roused by the rain, said,

  "We must take shelter."

  The Jedi Master waved one furry white paw toward a cavernous opening

  beneath the gnarled roots of a massive tree. Artoo-Detoo bleeped once and

  rolled with Ikrit into the shelter. Anakin, Tahiri, and Uldir ducked in

  after them. Anakin turned to look out at the pouring rain and was struck by

  how much the high knobby roots reminded him of the spindly, jointed legs of

  some enormous spider. Anakin wasn't really cold, but he shivered anyway....

  To his surprise, Ikrit picked up a dry piece of broken root. The Jedi

  Master closed his eyes briefly, and flames sprouted from one end of the

  wood, making a torch. Ikrit handed it to Anakin. Anakin knew he could have

  used a glowrod to light the little "cave," but somehow the torch made him

  feel more cheery.

  Half an hour later the rain began to let up. When Anakin suggested

  that they leave, though, Ikrit's floppy ears stood straight up and he shook

  his head.

  "Not yet-danger lurks somewhere close by."

  "I feel it too," Tahiri said. "But what is it?"

  Four pairs of eyes and one blinking optical sensor peered out into the

  gray afternoon. Before long, a very strange-looking creature plodded slowly

  into view.

  Uldir snickered.

  "That thing? We're in danger from that?"

  The huge slothlike animal had greenish-brown fur and a wide, soft

  mouth. It certainly didn't look dangerous, Anakin agreed silently. In fact,

  he sensed that this was not the source of their danger at all. The beast

  lumbered over to a cluster of brightly colored mushrooms that grew near the

  base of the tree. Each fungus in the clump was at least as high as Anakin's

  waist, and the beast seemed drawn to the mushrooms. It reared up on its

  hind legs to display a hairless, leathery chest.

  "Yes," Ikrit rasped softly. "Very interesting. I read everything I

  could find about this planet before we left Yavin 4. This was in the

  reports."

  Amazed, Anakin clutched his flickering torch and watched as the

  leathery skin on the creature's front pulled back to reveal a patch of

  glowing hide, like a glowpanel in the center of its chest.

  "A spotlight sloth," Ikrit murmured. The spotlight sloth turned the

  light in its chest toward the colorful mushrooms. The glow grew brighter

  and brighter and brighter-until all of a sudden, one after another, the

  mushrooms began to pop. Clouds of sticky white fluff flew out in all

  directions. This must have been what the spotlight sloth was after, for it

  used its tiny paws to grab gooey tufts of spores out of the air or pluck

  them off its fur and stuff them into its soft, toothless mouth.

  "Spotlight sloths prefer succulent flowers, but they eat other plants

  as well," Ikrit explained.

  "That was great!" Anakin said.

  "Yeah," Tahiri said, giggling.

  "Wow," Uldir agreed.

  Suddenly Ikrit jerked in alarm and held up a warning paw to silence

  the children. Immediately Anakin could sense that the true danger was

  approaching. Then he saw it. Slender jointed legs supported a plump, bulb -

  shaped body that was easily as large as the cargo hold in the Lightning

  Rod. Anakin drew in a quick breath. Uldir gulped. With one finger pressed

  to her lips, Tahiri turned to both of them and shook her head. If Anakin

  hadn't been so scared, he might actually have thought it funny.

  Tahiri telling him to be quiet. Anakin watched in horrified

  fascination while one of the largest spiders he had ever seen approached

  the entrance to their root cavern. The spider's body moved up and down as

  it picked its way across the muddy ground on its strong knobby legs.

  Anakin's heart hammered so hard against his rib cage that he almost

  imagined the spider could hear it. He pulled the torch as far back into the

  cave as he could, hoping the creature wouldn't notice them.

  But the spider stopped when it reached the spotlight sloth, who was

  still happily munching tufts of sticky mushroom spores. So quietly that the

  sloth never heard it, the spider extended a stinger from its underbelly and

  pricked the sloth with it. A few seconds later the spotlight sloth slumped

  unconscious to the ground, sticky white fluff still clinging to its mouth.

  Then the spider stood over the sloth and began to lower its bulbous body,

  bending all of its legs at once. Anakin turned his head, unable to watch.

  He looked at Tahiri. His friend must have been afraid she was going to

  scream, for she pressed both hands tightly over her mouth. Her green eyes

  were large and round, but she did not look away as the spider devoured its

  meal. Maybe Tahiri was more used to things like this, he thought; after

  all, she had seen krayt dragons eat on Tatooine.

  But Anakin had been raised on Coruscant, a planet almost entirely

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sp; covered by cities. He was not used to this sort of thing. Uldir had come to

  Yavin 4 from Coruscant, too. Anakin looked back to see how the other boy

  was doing. Uldir had also turned away from the grisly scene, but when he

  saw Anakin watching him, he pretended to be interested in the spider's

  feast. It was a mistake.

  The moment he caught sight of the spotlight sloth-or what was left of

  it-Uldir gagged and retched. Outside, the huge white spider stiffened and

  turned toward them. It bounced up and down on its long legs, as if it were

  testing their strength. It made a trumpeting sound and kicked aside the

  remains of the sloth.

  Then, with two of its powerful legs, it ripped up all of the mushrooms

  that grew at the base of the large tree and tossed them aside. When it

  finished with the mushrooms, it began uprooting smaller shrubs. The spider

  reached up onto the tree trunk and yanked down curtains of tough moss.

  Then, without warning, it began attacking the very roots of the tree under

  which Anakin and the others hid.

  Ikrit pounded a furry fist on Artoo-Detoo's head to get his attention.

  "This way-quickly!" He jumped down from the little droid and led the

  way.

  Anakin held up his torch. Although it was a tight fit, he could see

  that there was just room enough for them to squeeze through the root system

  to emerge on the other side of the tree. Uldir needed no urging and quickly

  wriggled out. Artoo-Detoo scooted toward the opening, but his barrel-shaped

  metal body got stuck partway through. Anakin, Tahiri, and Ikrit got behind

  the little droid and shoved. They had just pushed Artoo out when the tree

  gave an ear-shattering groan. The spider had managed to rip out enough of

  the roots on one side of the tree that the remaining roots tore free of the

  ground and the tree toppled and fell across a pool of swamp water.

  Anakin and Tahiri blinked as clods of dirt rained down on them and the

  roots of the tree, which now lay behind them, sprouted out in all

  directions. Tahiri and Anakin had to push aside the muddy clumps and loose

  dirt that covered, them to their knees before they could scoop the debris

  away from Artoo-Detoo and Ikrit and begin to run again.

  No sooner had they escaped from the tree and its roots than with a

  grinding, crackling sound, the spider pushed the massive trunk out of its

  path and followed them. Artoo-Detoo let out an electronic wail. Anakin

  looked around to see where Uldir had gone but could not find him.

  "Hurry," Ikrit said. "The boy is safe for now."

  Tahiri yanked at Anakin's arm.

  "We've got to run!" They ran.

  They slipped and slid over the muddy ground with the white spider in

  pursuit. Anakin dropped his torch and concentrated on escaping. Ikrit ran

  ahead. Artoo-Detoo, who moved more slowly than the others in the mud, was

  soon overtaken by the spider. When Anakin and Tahiri turned to look for the

  droid, they saw the stinger coming down out of the white spider's

  underbelly. ArtooDetoo didn't wait for it.

  He reached out with one of his grasper arms and clamped down hard on

  the stinger. At the same time, Artoo let out a high - pitched squeal that

  Anakin found almost deafening, even at a distance. Suddenly, the spider

  seemed to think better of its attack on the little droid. It yanked in its

  stinger and backed up a few steps.

  Then, like a child throwing a tantrum, it stalked back to the uprooted

  tree and began ripping up all the plants in the area and flinging them

  aside. When it had finished that, it tore the branches off the tree as

  well. Anakin and Tahiri stood still and watched in horror and fascination.

  "Over here," whispered voices called. Ikrit had found Uldir. The two

  beckoned to them from a thick stand of trees that were much larger than any

  the spider had uprooted so far. Anakin and Tahiri ran to join them,

  followed by Artoo-Detoo, who was no longer shrieking.

  "It will not harm us here," Ikrit said.

  "How can you know that?" Uldir whispered.

  "I have put it in the spider's mind that it is no longer hungry,"

  Ikrit replied.

  They all looked on in silence while the spider finished its "tantrum."

  Then it did an even more amazing thing. Climbing onto the mound of soft

  dirt where the old tree had been rooted, the spider settled itself, pushed

  its stinger down into the ground, and planted its legs. Something clicked

  in Anakin's mind.

  "It's just like the tree! The trees are darker, but they have those

  same knobby roots."

  "Yes," Ikrit said in a soft voice. "You are right... each of these

  trees was once a spider like that one over there."

  Tahiri looked around at the trees.

  "So these are the grown-ups of that?" she said, pointing.

  "Exactly, my child," Ikrit said. "There is a connection there, just as

  all things are connected through the web of energy we call the Force and

  through the web of life. Of course"-Ikrit's voice took on some humor now-

  "some things are more closely related than others."

  Anakin felt something rough and scratchy against his arm. He stepped

  back and saw that he had been leaning against one of the tree roots. He

  shuddered.

  "I don't think I'll ever look at one of these trees in quite the same

  way again."

  Artoo-Detoo beeped twice and then warbled.

  "Our mechanical friend is right," Ikrit said. "I think he is reminding

  us that we should move forward again. I believe we are close to our goal."

  "That's it?" Uldir asked. They were standing outside the cave that

  ArtooDetoo had led them to, and Uldir could hardly believe his eyes. There

  was nothing spectacular about this place. He had expected something a bit

  more special, unusual... bigger, at least. The cave was beneath the spidery

  roots of another gigantic tree. Uldir couldn't see far into the entrance,

  but what he could see was ordinary enough. Moist, packed dirt, decaying

  leaves-nothing that would draw someone halfway across the galaxy. He could

  sense no special magic or power about this place.

  "You're sure?" Uldir asked.

  Artoo-Detoo beeped once to indicate that this was the correct cave.

  Uldir snorted.

  "This cave doesn't look that much different from the hole under the

  tree where we took shelter from the rain. Just a bit deeper, that's all."

  He doubted that this place had any special properties. It might not even be

  the cave where Luke Skywalker had taken his test, he supposed. What would a

  little R2 unit know about such things, after all?

  Uldir shrugged and looked at Anakin.

  "You know, maybe your uncle was just in a thoughtful mood that day. I

  don't think he could have learned anything in this cave that he couldn't

  have learned if he had spent the day flying or swimming or climbing trees."

  Uldir saw Anakin's forehead crinkle into a frown and he remembered

  what Tahiri had said about being a good friend. Maybe Anakin really was

  worried he had come all this way for nothing.

  "Hey, I could be wrong," Uldir said. "Mind if I go in and take a look

  around?"

  Anakin looked surprised and turned to I
krit.

  "Is that okay?" he asked.

  Uldir watched the furry creature nod its head.

  "I think," Tahiri began uncertainly, tugging at a strand of pale

  yellow hair, "I think I'd like to go in, too."

  Ikrit nodded his head again.

  "Each of you may enter," he said. "But just one at a time. Remember,

  the cave holds only what you take in with you."

  Uldir rolled his eyes. The furry little guy was making this sound as

  if it was such a big deal, so meaningful. Teachers always did stuff like

  that, he thought-even Master Luke when he had tested Uldir for Jedi powers.

  Maybe it was just something Jedi teachers did to make themselves feel

  important. Well, he would find out soon enough, Uldir told himself.

  "Okay," Uldir said, "we're agreed then. I guess I'll go first. This

  shouldn't take very long."

  Uldir climbed down into the cave. He stood still for a moment to let

  his eyes adjust, but it was dark inside and Uldir couldn't see how big the

  cavern was. He began to walk forward. Uldir had gotten about a meter into

  the cave when something touched his head and he nearly jumped out of his

  skin. Dirt trickled onto his hair and sifted down around him before he

  figured out that his head had merely brushed a low-hanging portion of the

  cave's roof. He stopped and pulled a glowrod out of the knapsack of