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“Come on, you two,” Luke broke in uncomfortably.

“Do you think she’s right, Luke?” the Princess asked quietly.

“Leia, I …”

“Well, boy?” Halla watched him expectantly.

He was saved the necessity of a response as an abrupt lurch threw everyone toward the left side of the crawler. Halla responded swiftly by throwing all six wheels into reverse. Leaning over the side, Luke had a bad moment when he saw the forward balloon wheel sinking into something with the consistency of watered porridge.

But the crawler was well designed. Multiwheel drive and the powerful engine pulled them clear. Halla leaned over the wheel for a minute, then studied the terrain ahead. A paler plot of ground lay between patches of the treacherous sludge. Running forward once more, the crawler pushed on over firmer ground.

“You have to be alert every second on Mimban,” Halla declared. “This is a crazy world, where the ground itself is your most uncertain enemy.” As if in response, the ground trembled beneath them. Luke frowned, peered over the side.

“Just how stable is this region?” the Princess inquired uneasily.

“First you want me to be a philosopher, now a seismologist,” quipped Halla. “Stable? You know as much as I, child. There are no volcanoes hereabouts, but—”

She froze, barely retaining enough sensation to bring the crawler to a halt.

“I knew that quake wasn’t the right word,” Luke stated.

The firm, winding path they were traveling had risen abruptly in front of them, turned back on itself, and was now staring at them quizzically.

“Force preserve us!” Halla yelped, even as she spun the crawler on its central global wheel and sent them racing at high speed back the way they’d come.

The ground continued to turn and come after them.

Pale cream in color, with streaks of brown, the colossus possessed nothing resembling a normal eye. Instead, the blunt end which was curling back toward them boasted a score of haphazardly spaced, dull, black spots like the eyes of a spider.

A ragged tear below the black orbs was the only other recognizable feature. It split now, revealing jet-black teeth set in concentric circles lining an endless gullet.

Both Yuzzem were chattering madly and firing at the great hulk, with as little accuracy as effect. The Yuzzem’s rifles left thin black streaks on the anemic-looking flesh, but didn’t penetrate deeply enough to cause any real destruction. Luke had his own pistol out and working, as did the Princess. Their bolts glanced harmlessly off back or sides, or the bottom body plates. Threepio and Artoo hung on desperately.

“Wandrella!” Halla was yelling. “It’s a wandrella! We’re finished.”

The great blunt head was still winding ponderously back toward them. They were traveling on firm ground now and not on the monster’s back. But the swamp crawler was built for sturdiness and stability, not speed.

Branches and whole trees snapped off as the probing head curled after them, followed by the great white train of the wandrella’s gargantuan body. Thick sucking sounds issued from beneath the huge body plates as the creature humped along after them. It traveled slowly, but each time it moved it covered meters. And it moved in an inexorable straight line, whereas the crawler had to dodge trees and pools of bottomless ooze. It drew so close that Luke and the others gathered desperately in the front of the crawler.

“Aim for the eye-spots!” he ordered.

Everyone took his advice, and this time their shots seemed more effective. Several bolts struck a couple of the black circles, searing them badly. A dull rumble boiled up out of the creature’s depths, a lingering, moaning thunder. It was part confusion, part barely realized pain.

By now it was clear that the wandrella’s nervous system was either too primitive to be instantly neutralized by energy fire, or too evenly distributed throughout its mass and thus devoid of any vital center.

Ten meters of its front end lifted up, dropped like a great white tree falling in slow motion. Halla tried to dodge, and the crawler struck a thick, rotting stump. The first