CHAPTER 12

Vroon put his body between the others and the container of beetles in his workshop. "Don't you understand?" he cried. "The drog beetles are the ancestors of the S'krrr. We evolved from them. We can't kill them.

They're... they're beautiful!"

"Oh, no," Zak groaned. "Somehow I think they put the wrong person in charge of the garden."

"Vroon," Sh'shak said, "while it's true that-"

"I have no time for this," Thrawn interrupted harshly. "All life evolved from earlier life. That is basic scientific knowledge. But you don't see other species worshipping insects."

"We are different," Vroon insisted. His wings fluttered gently and he pointed to Sh'shak. "We can communicate with our ancestors through wingsong. I've done it, Sh'shak. I've learned to speak with them. There is so much they can teach us!"

Sh'shak nodded. "It is an interesting thought. Perhaps we can take your idea to our leaders. But that is no reason to let the beetles overrun the planet. Some of them must be destroyed. And you must help us do it."

"No!" Vroon cried.

"Then you are under arrest," Thrawn declared, drawing his blaster,

"for the murder of two Imperial officers."

"No!" Vroon repeated. He dove for one of the open windows. Thrawn fired, but the S'krrr was too fast. He was out the window and scurrying out of sight.

"We must follow," Sh'shak said, dashing for the door.

The others followed as quickly as possible, but none of them could move as fast as Sh'shak. Zak could see why the S'krrr had become warriors as well as poets. Sh'shak had gone in a moment from complete stillness to blinding speed.

"We can't lose sight of him!" Thrawn growled. He was starting to outpace the others, and it was obvious that the Imperial captain had kept himself in top physical condition. "He knows the garden too well. We'll never find him!"

"We have to," Sh'shak called back without slowing. "He's the only one who knows how badly the garden's been damaged. He's the only one who will know how to save it!"

Zak, Tash, Hoole, and Thrawn soon lost sight of Vroon, but they could still see Sh'shak in pursuit, and they followed his lead.

Thrawn had been right. Vroon knew every centimeter of the Sikadian Garden, and he did everything he could to lose them. He ran through thick brambles, he plunged into thick clumps of trees and bushes, and he scrambled up and down the sides of steep ravines. But Sh'shak was able to keep up with him, and as long as they kept him in sight, they thought they still had a chance.

Finally, they ran into a small forest of tall, pale-barked trees and found Sh'shak standing in the middle of the path. A slight breeze blew through the forest, making the tree leaves stir and rustle. Though he had run farther and faster than any of them, the S'krrr was hardly breathing hard.

"D-Did you lose him?" Zak panted.

"I am afraid so," Sh'shak replied. "But that is not why I stopped.

I am afraid we have a much more immediate problem. I suggest we abandon our attempt to find Vroon, and try to save ourselves."

"What do you mean?" Thrawn demanded.

Sh'shak pointed to first one tree, then another, and then another.

Zak looked around. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light beneath the tree branches, he realized that the stirring and rustling he'd heard were not caused by any breeze. Every leaf on every branch of every tree was covered with beetles.

Thousands of them. Millions of them.

"This is not right," Sh'shak insisted. "This cannot be due to the loss of one shreev. At their fastest rate, the beetles could not reproduce this much in three days, even if a thousand shreevs had been killed."

"Make no sudden moves," Hoole said quietly. "We know the beetles become more aggressive in large numbers. A small swarm of them attacked and killed a full-grown human. Who knows what this many might try?"

Tash sniffed. "What's that smell? It's disgusting."

The stench drifted through a break in the trees to their right.

Moving slowly and trying not to breathe through their noses, they stepped through the opening and found themselves in a small clearing. In the center of the clearing was a deep pit.

The pit was filled with the bodies of shreevs. Armies of beetles covered the pit, eating the creatures that usually ate them.

"There must be hundreds of shreevs in there," Tash whispered.

"Thousands," Sh'shak said, bowing his head. "Vroon has been at his work for some time, it seems."

Tash frowned. "Does this mean we won't be able to save the garden?"

"It's no longer the garden I'm worried about," Sh'shak said. "We must hurry."

Turning, they made their way out of the beetle-infested forest. If Zak hadn't been so frightened of the creeping insects that scurried underfoot and flew overhead, he would have been relieved. As they walked out of the forest, with the bright sun of S'krrr shining down on the garden, Zak told himself that the shreev he had killed hadn't been the start of this whole mess. At least that was something.

But Sh'shak's next statement wiped out his relief. "If Vroon has been tampering with the natural balance in the garden for even one year, that would be enough time for every female drog beetle to lay hundreds of eggs. And each of those young beetles would in turn hatch hundreds. That means this is not a small overpopulation problem. It means the garden could be infested with millions upon millions of beetles."

As if to emphasize the gloom in Sh'shak's words, a cloud passed over the sun.

"I have had enough of this garden," Thrawn said. "I'll summon a few gunboats to come down and scan the entire area." The Imperial reached for his comlink, but it was gone. "Blast," he muttered. "It must have fallen during the chase."

The sky grew suddenly darker. Zak looked up to see if storm clouds were moving in.

But the sky was not filled with storm clouds.

It was filled with beetles!