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“It's all right, I'm not hurt.” There was some strain to her voice, as if she were making an effort of exertion or concentration. “It's … it's …”

“What?” Han heard a note that was almost a yelp in his voice.

“A datacard.” She swayed backward, almost falling, and the action broke her contact with the bogey. Abruptly, it zoomed away, straight up.

Han put a hand on Leia's shoulder to steady her. He watched the bogey ascend. Several moments later, it hit the ceiling and vanished into the rock there. Han breathed a sigh of relief.

Leia straightened, shaking her head to clear it. “That was … interesting.”

“What did you mean, it was a datacard?”

“That was what it reminded me of. I think that was something like its function. I could sense a reservoir of energy within it, and the ability to communicate, and a big store of data … fresh data. From this device, I think.” She gestured at the building-sized cabinet. “I saw a three-dimensional pattern of, I don't know what to call them, intensities. Thousands. Millions. It had a mission, an intent to go somewhere and deliver the data. There was something else, too. A sense of futility.”

“You got a lot out of that contact.”

“Its whole purpose is communication. Not with me, not with anything like us. It helped a lot that I was trying to do what it was meant to do. I need to find another one. A lot more of them. Learn more from each one.” Energetic again, she set off at a brisk walk along the row of immense cabinets, holding her right arm out as she did as if to wave more bogeys out of the machines she passed.

Han shook his head and followed.

Han saw things on that walk, some of which were fascinating and some of which he'd prefer not to have seen.

There was animal life in the cavern, moving among the fungi. He cataloged at least two different species of centipede-like creatures, one about a meter long and green, the other about two meters long and a dangerous-looking red and yellow. Both species had vicious-looking stingers at their tail ends. He saw the larger centipedes attack, sting, and eat the smaller ones.

He also saw small avian things, like miniature hawk-bats, swoop upon both species of centipedes and snatch things from their backs. Only when he drew out his macrobinoculars and trained them on one of those flying attacks did he realize that the avian was taking young centipedes riding on the backs of the older ones.

The fungi were also prey to animal life. Some looked chewed on around the periphery of their caps. But others had defenses. When a green centipede went crawling across the cap of one of the fungi, the cap collapsed, rolling up on itself and trapping the centipede within. That fungus did not unroll in all the time it took Han to walk out of sight of it, and he did not care to think about the digestive processes now going on within it. He just vowed not to touch any fungus caps as he passed them.

Two kilometers into the hike, he saw the energy spider. He stopped abruptly, the air leaving his lungs. Leia must have sensed his distress; she turned to look at him, then followed his gaze.

Seventy meters away, its body the size of an airspeeder, it rose from within a tall clump of fungi, glassy and transparent, at least fifteen legs on a side, formidable pincers up front.

Its head swiveled as it surveyed its surroundings. Slowly, so as not to attract attention, Han slid the slugthrowing rifle off his shoulder strap, lowering it to the ground, and put his hands on the grenade launcher. He'd start with a decoy grenade; if that didn't work, he'd switch to high explosives, then go to the rifle if the spider got nearer.

The spider took a couple of steps in Han's direction, clambering up on an especially large fungus as if to get some altitude to see better.

Then it settled down on the fungus cap. The skin of the fungus beneath its body began to turn black, withering away.

“It's eating fungus,” Leia said. “That's not very aggressive. You do that.”

“It's different.” Now that his initial burst of panic was subsiding, Han could see that there were differences between