Star Wars_ Splinter of the Mind's Eye - Alan Dean Foster [51]
Opening wide, the black maw bit and clamped tight around the rear of the crawler. Its grip was devastatingly firm for so rubbery-looking a creature. No one had to give the order to abandon the vehicle. That was understood instantaneously.
Kee was last off, lingering for a final shot down the partly opened throat. He barely leapt clear as the crawler rose into the air. Only his extra-long arms enabled him to retreat safely.
Then they were sprinting for a biding place, but there weren’t any. No mountains to climb, no caves in hillsides here, and they had to be cautious or seemingly solid ground would devour them as efficiently as the worm behind them.
Crumpling noises reached them. Looking back over a shoulder as they ran, Luke saw the wandrella chewing the swamp crawler as if it were some choice morsel plucked from a tree. The analogy was not lost on him. If any of them tried climbing a tree for protection, the same fate would befall them as the unlucky crawler
Their only chance was to find some kind of hiding place, secrete themselves out of sight, and pray that the hulking threat’s sense of smell did not match its size.
Possibly the creature belonged to so primitive a species that it would regard prey as out of sight, out of mind. If it could no longer see them, hopefully the dull-witted monstrosity would interpret that to mean they no longer existed.
“This way!” Luke abruptly decided, turning and running to his left. Leia followed. Slightly ahead and sandwiched between the two Yuzzem, Halla didn’t hear him. She and the two big aliens continued on the way they were headed.
Several minutes passed before a tired Halla slowed and did think to glance behind her. When she did, she saw only the phosphorescent convoy of white worm sliding through the mist well behind them.
She came to a stop, admonishing the two Yuzzem to do likewise. “It’s gone off in a different direction,” she exclaimed. Hin, panting like an engine, nodded affirmation. The trio squinted into the fog around them.
“Luke boy, child,” she called, “you can come out now. It’s given up on us.” Mist-sounds and peeps from the underbrush responded blankly. “Come on, Luke boy,” she added, beginning to feel a little nervous, “don’t be fooling old Halla like this.”
Trying to help, Kee let out a stentorian bellow. Halla had to jump to clap a hand over his mouth, then put her own hand over her own mouth and shook her head, pointing to the last bit of wandrella disappearing into the growth not far enough away. Kee nodded realization, called again more softly through his snoot 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