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for their missing companions. Artoo was whistling mournfully.
"Luke," Halla called again, worried. Together, the three began searching the surrounding brush. When
several minutes of this failed to turn up any sign of the Princess or Luke, Halla gathered up the two
Yuzzem and glanced back the way they'd come.
"I don't think it got them... not yet, anyhow. They were right behind us." She turned, and they started to
retrace their steps in the hope that Luke and Leia had somehow managed to elude the beast.
"They may be hiding under a tree somewhere," ventured Threepio hopefully.
Neither assumption was correct. Luke and the Princess hadn't been devoured, but neither had they lost
their lumpish pursuer. As they had deserted the crawler, the wandrella noted the movement
unemotionally. Once the mangled swamp vehicle proved itself unappetizing, the leviathan had turned after
smaller, and, it was hoped, more nutritious prey.
But mysteriously, its food had split into two parts. In primitive wandrella reasoning, the nearer was the
tastier. Ignoring Halla and the others, it swerved to follow Luke and Leia.
"It's still behind us," Luke told her, breathing with difficulty. A massive circle lined with black dots was
humping through bog and brush after them. Leia stumbled over a gnarled root and Luke fought to help
her up.
"I... don't know how much longer I can... keep this up, Luke."
"Neither do I," he confessed tiredly, his frantic gaze hunting for someplace, anyplace, to conceal
themselves.
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"What about a tree?"
"Already thought of that," he informed her, as they stumbled on. "That thing could pull us out of the
biggest tree here, or push it down."
"It's getting closer," she exclaimed, with a backward glance. Her voice was starting to crack.
Luke squinted, saw what appeared to be a regular line of rocks. "Over there," he urged.
They staggered up to what turned out to be, not a natural formation, but an artificial construct. Each
stone was shaped in a hexagonal pattern and fitted to its neighbors without any visible cement or putty. A
peculiar tripod of wood and plaited vines decorated with paint or dyes was arranged above the circular
wall.
"Looks like some kind of ceremonial cistern," the Princess decided as they stumbled the last few meters
toward it. "Maybe it holds water for a dry season." She looked back. The merciless pale horror
continued remorselessly toward them.
Luke started to put a foot over the wall, got a glimpse beyond it at the same time and recoiled in terror.
The stone wall surrounded a pit a good nine or ten meters in circumference. Though the sunlight here was
far from bright, filtered as it was through mist and rain, it was sufficient to indicate that the empty gulf
yawning beneath him was of frightening depth.
The Princess got a look at it too, sucked in her breath. "Luke, we can't..." But he was running around the
edge of the abyss, calling to her.
"Over here, Leia!" She hurried around the side, came up to him.
"Luke, we can't stay..." He shook his head, pointed to something inside the wall. Leaning over, she saw
the cause of his excitement.
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They were standing at a place where the wall had been cut away. A gateway covered with
indecipherable alien scrawl framed the stoneless section. Attached to small stone pillars were two vines.
They descended into the darkness, intertwining to form a strange spiral ladder.
"Luke, I don't know..." she began.
He dropped to the ground, grabbed one of the vines and tugged on it with all his strength. The vine didn't
give. Behind them, the wandrella had approached to within fifteen meters. It opened its toothy maw. A
low, lymph-curdling ululation issued from within.
That made up Luke's mind. "We haven't got a choice," he insisted.
"Down there, Luke?" The Princess shook her head. "We can't. We don't know what..."
"I'd rather die in a dark hole," he said tightly, staring hard at her, "than be some monster's breakfast."
Then he started down the vine ladder. "Come on," he urged her, yelling upward. "It'll hold both of us!"
He continued his descent.
A last look at the quivering mouth hunching toward her and the Princess swung both legs over the side of
the pit and started down into nothingness. It was not quite black as night, but dark enough so that Luke
had to feel for each succeeding rung. Once he moved too quickly and almost fell. With his right leg he felt
around for the next rung.
There was no next rung.
He'd reached the bottom of the ladder.
"Hold it!" he shouted softly up to Leia. The slight echo of the pit gave his voice a sepulchral quality.
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