Free Devon Blake and the Starship Crash by Douglas Warren Page B

seen Sammy move like this before, and it shocked him. With a final
     
flourish, Sammy’s beam severed the creature’s neck. Its sightless head fell to the ground with a
     
thump. This sent the body of the creature into a spasm of panic. Its thick coils thrashed wildly,
     
knocking large pieces of hillside into the ravine.
     
With the grace of a deer, Sammy leaped over the madly convulsing coils and skittered
     
toward Devon. Without stopping, another arm extended for its side and grasped Devon by the
     
collar. Spindly legs digging into the loose dirt of the hillside, Sammy dragged his master up the
     
hill and away from the edge.
     
Jacinda, Flim, and Merrell followed quickly, convinced by the increased amount of dirt
     
tumbling down toward the ship that the hilltop was no longer a safe place to be. They got away
     
from the edge mere moments before a huge slab of the hillside separated and tumbled down onto
     
the thrashing creature.
     
The creature stopped moving, buried in a grave of its own making. Devon and the others
     
sat silently, afraid to move too soon, just in case the monster was able to dig itself out. After a
     
few moments Devon felt another vibration…and it felt like it was right next to him. He rolled
     
away from the others and leapt to his feet, scanning the ground in a near panic. With a start he
     
realized he was the source of the vibration. With a relieved sigh Devon realized that the
vibration was coming from his WristVid. He flipped open the lid and pressed the button to
     
activate the speaker.
     
“…there, Devon? Are you okay?” Devon recognized Deke’s raspy voice.
     
“I’m here, Mr. Jacobs.”
     
“Were you hurt? That slither came out of nowhere.”
     
Devon chuckled, “A slither? Is that what tried to eat me?”
     
“There were unsubstantiated reports of such creatures, but nothing confirmed.” Deke
     
sounded embarrassed. “The survey team figured that they were just figments of a few
     
prospectors’ imaginations. I guess you proved them wrong.”
     
“Lucky me.” He laughed out loud, brushing dirt from his coveralls.
     
Jacinda stared at Devon, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you think this is funny! You
     
were almost killed.”
     
“But I wasn’t…and if I don’t laugh, I’d probably cry.”
     
Deke’s voice came over the speaker again. “Never mind that. What happened to the
     
creature? We couldn’t quite see from here. The view from the passenger windows isn’t very
     
good.”
     
“I thought I was a goner until Sammy distracted the thing.”
     
“Sammy? Who is he?” Deke sounded confused.
     
“Sammy isn’t a he ; Sammy is a ‘what’.”
     
“Excuse me?” Deke sounded even more confused.
     
“Sammy is what I call my automatic luggage.”
     
“And how, exactly, did your suitcase distract the slither?”
“Well, I’m not really sure. But he did, and then he saved me. I always knew that Sammy
     
was specially made, but I never saw him do anything like he did back there.”
     
Devon glanced over at the trunk, now seemingly dormant.
     
“I could swear I caught a glimpse of a plasma beam down there.”
     
Devon cleared his throat, sounding embarrassed. “I think you did. That was Sammy too.
     
He dragged me up the hill too. I’ve never seen him move that fast before. His legs never got
     
that long before.”
     
“I saw it do that. Where did you get that thing?” Concern was creeping into Deke’s
     
voice.
     
“My parents had it made for me. I guess they added a few things that they didn’t tell me
     
about.”
     
“Sammy sounds more like a Class One SecBot than automatic luggage. Well, that
     
doesn’t matter right now. You people need to get back in here right now. There may be more of
     
those things out there.”
     
Flim was peering over the edge of the ridge, down into the ravine.
     
“I think we have a problem, folks.”
     
All eyes turned to Flim. His normal smirk was