The Dark Planet

"You don't know that!" cried Isabel. "Don't let it go! Push it

  back!"

  But it was too late. What little strength Samuel had gave out.

  The door crashed down toward him as he ducked out of the

  way and held on with both hands.

  There was a crushing echo down the long hole as the two

  listened carefully for sounds from below. What if they'd

  disturbed the Nubian, or something worse?

  "I don't suppose we could make our arrival any more obvious,"

  said Isabel.

  "It's heavier than it looks!"

  "Can you see the dials?"

  "I can. I'll unlock it so we know we can get out."

  Isabel listened carefully, because she thought she'd heard

  something familiar. It was very faint at first, but as she listened

  to the clicking of the dials she heard something else growing

  louder. Samuel heard it, too.

  "I know that sound," said Samuel, stopping on the Y of T-H-E-YA-R-D-S and looking down toward Isabel. They both heard a

  distant shriek booming through the inside of Atherton.

  "The Nubian," said Isabel. "They know we're here."

  Samuel turned quickly to the dials and went on through A and

  the R and then D. He knew the flying beasts with black talons

  and razor-sharp beaks couldn't reach him all the way up where

  he stood on the ladder, but just knowing they were inside

  terrified him.

  "Last letter," said Samuel, clicking in the S and pushing on the

  door. There was no hissing sound of opening and no clicking of

  some locking mechanism letting go. Samuel pushed with all his

  might.

  "Get on with it, Samuel," said Isabel. "My arms are getting tired."

  The sound of the Nubian grew nearer as Samuel uttered the

  exact words Isabel did not want to hear.

  "The yellow door won't open."

  It didn't take Samuel and Isabel long to figure out that staying

  where they were would do them no good. They would only

  grow more tired with the weight of the packs. And the longer

  they waited the greater the chances of falling as their arms grew

  tired. There had been arguments about whose idea it had been

  in the first place and why they hadn't told Dr. Kincaid and

  Vincent, but in the end Samuel and Isabel resigned themselves

  to the truth: They were stuck inside Atherton and needed to find

  another way out, if such a way even existed.

  They climbed down the hundred and twenty-seven rungs on the

  ladder and found themselves standing on firm ground. A wide

  tunnel ran off in two directions.

  "Let's look at the tablet," said Isabel, listening for the Nubian. As

  Samuel removed the tablet, Isabel pointed to the wider of the

  two ends of the tunnel, where she was certain the horrible

  sound of flying beasts was coming from.

  "We're not going that way, I don't care what that map says."

  The light at the bottom of the ladder was very much like the light

  Edgar had encountered as he'd made his way toward the

  Raven. It was a soft light, orange and yellow, and somehow

  every where and nowhere all at once. They saw it radiating

  through cracks and chasms in the ceiling, the walls, and the

  floor, but they couldn't see its source.

  "It's that way," said Samuel. He glanced down the corridor,

  away from the threatening sounds. This would have pleased

  them both if not for the fact that the way Samuel had pointed to

  was also the darker of the two. The sound of the Nubian began

  to trail off, like they'd turned a wide circle and were flying away.

  "They're probably farther away than they seem," said Isabel.

  "Sound really carries in here."

  She glanced down the darker corridor and wondered what to

  do. "Let's walk a little way and see where it leads." Isabel could

  be quite brave in circumstances like these, where their choices

  were few and the stakes were high.

  Samuel followed behind her and they passed through a series

  of wide chambers lit from deep gaps in the ceiling and walls.

  After a hundred or more steps, Samuel began to wonder if they

  should turn back.

  "Isabel," he began, "I don't know where this leads, other than

  the words at the end-- the chill of winter--and that doesn't sound

  like a way out." Samuel felt awful. He'd been so excited for the

  adventure, and already it had turned deadly and frightening.

  "I know," Isabel said, unsure of how to proceed.

  "Maybe it's time we broke this thing open, as you suggested.

  What if there's something inside that could help get us out of

  here?"

  Isabel took the tablet from Samuel and held it near weak light

  emitting from a crack in one wall. She thought she could see the

  ladder they had come down as she looked at the map. What

  she saw stunned her.

  "If that's the ladder, then this is a lot farther than I thought."

  Isabel pointed to the obvious destination, where those words

  sat cold and alone inside an etched circle-- the chill of winter.

  "That's days away from here," said Isabel, looking at Samuel

  with pleading eyes.

  "Then it's a good thing we brought some Black and Green and

  water," said Samuel, trying to be enthusiastic. "We're going to

  need it."

  "And you're right about something else. This map doesn't look

  like a way out. All I can see for sure is that it leads far away from

  where we came in."

  "The yellow door," said Samuel. He thought about it a moment,

  feeling a glimmer of hope as he imagined Vincent opening the

  door and coming in after them. But the moment passed as he

  remembered what he'd written on a note he'd left for Dr.

  Kincaid.

  "Why did I say we were going to the other side of the lake to

  search for Edgar? Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"

  "Quiet, Samuel!" Isabel whispered. "Who knows what you'll

  wake down here?"

  "But they'll be searching for us along the edge-- up there--and

  no one is going to imagine what we've done."

  Isabel spied a long edge of sharp rock with light creeping out

  from somewhere below. She walked over, half angry and half

  curious, and bashed the edge of the tablet against the rocks.

  The tablet slid open.

  "I hope we didn't break something," Samuel said as he came

  over to her.

  Isabel slid the two sides apart and drew in a breath. The

  moment she set eyes on the firebugs trapped within their case

  of clear glass she threw the tablets down and backed away.

  "Get away from them!" yelled Isabel. Samuel was carefully

  picking up the tablets, and something more.

  "They'll kill you, Samuel! Don't touch them!"

  But as far as Isabel could tell it was already too late. It appeared

  as if Samuel had picked up the firebugs and had trained a

  cluster of them to dance in his hand.

  "They're trapped," said Samuel. "See?" He held the etching

  instrument out toward Isabel and she jumped back.

  Samuel couldn't help laughing just a little at the strange object

  he held in his hand. "It's warm, but it appears to be harmless.

  And there's something else here you're going to want to see."

 
Samuel picked up one half of the tablet and held the glass end

  of the pen filled with firebugs.

  "Look here," he said, and she came a little closer. "This thing is

  used for writing." He touched the sharp black end of the pen

  toward the inside of the tablet, and made a letter I, then an S,

  and so on, until he'd spelled Isabel's name in thin lines of

  burned wood.

  "The tip looks like something I've seen before," said Isabel,

  curious. "It looks like the beak of a diving Nubian, don't you

  think?"

  Samuel nodded in agreement. It did look startlingly similar to

  the flying creature they'd encountered on their last journey

  through the inside of Atherton with its razor-sharp black beak.

  "This is what I wanted you to see," said Samuel, holding the

  glowing tail end of the pen lower on the tablet. There Isabel saw

  a series of words, which Samuel read out loud.

  "'Gon to find SILO. Do not wory. I am ok. I wil be bak soon.'"

  "Edgar!" said Isabel. "He wrote that--I can tell he wrote it!"

  "I really need to work with him on the spelling, but the message

  is clear. He's fine, Isabel. He always comes back if he says he's

  going to."

  "And he'll be back soon," said Isabel, repeating the words on

  the tablet. "Do you realize what that means? We're saved!"

  "We are?" said Samuel. "When he comes back he'll see we're

  not there and he'll know--he'll know we came down here."

  "You're right! And he'll tell Dr. Kincaid. All we have to do is wait

  here. We have food and water. We could last for a week if it

  came to that."

  Without thinking, they hugged each other. The embrace was

  awkward but comforting, and when they released each other an

  unexpected warmth remained.

  "Did you hear that?" said Isabel. Her expression had gone

  suddenly cold. She could barely hear it at first, but there was

  definitely a sound from the direction of the ladder leading up to

  the yellow door.

  "We should never have left the base of the ladder," said Isabel.

  A whipping and snapping sound was coming toward them.

  Whatever it was that crept up the corridor, it had smelled

  something new inside Atherton and become curious.

  "Run!" said Samuel. He already had the pen, the map portion of

  the tablet, and his pack--and Isabel had hers--and so they were

  off at a tear, away from the advancing creature.

  The other half of the tablet was left behind in the rocks, which

  was a shame, because there was information there that might

  have helped the two understand that what they were doing was

  more important than they knew.

  CHAPTER 15POWDER BLOCKING

  "And you say he's at least 4000?" asked Commander Judix. It

  was the first potentially good news she'd had in quite some

  time.

  "It's hard to say. We couldn't get a clean reading," said Shelton.

  He had returned from the forsaken wood and gone straight to

  the same giant window he'd stood at the night before. "I think

  the reader was acting up, but he's at least 4000."

  "That's odd," said Commander Judix, puzzled by a reader that

  wouldn't work. It worried her that yet another piece of

  technology was failing with no way of replacing it. "Tell Red

  Eye to try his. We need a clean reading or Grammel will

  complain. I can't give him a reason to short us this time."

  She looked pensively into the forsaken wood. She could

  already imagine the meeting with Grammel.

  "Was this new boy hostile or troubled like the others? Grammel

  won't like it if he's too old."

  "Ma'am, I assure you, this boy is at least 4000 and healthy as a

  horse on Atherton."

  He regretted speaking of Atherton the moment he'd done it.

  There had been a time when all good things were called

  Atherton things--the air on Atherton, the water, the trees, the

  animals, the people--every thing was so much better on

  Atherton. But the mere mention of the place had long been

  taboo.

  "Why must you always be such a fool?" said Commander Judix.

  "Get me a reading as quickly as you can. Grammel is going to

  be early."

  "What do you mean, early?"

  "I received word this morning. He's going to be ninety-seven

  days instead of a hundred. Apparently, a rancid wind has been

  at his back and he's short of help. He'll be very pleased we

  have two."

  Shelton so hated Grammel that the idea of him showing up in-could it be, only one more day!--well, it fully ruined his morning

  on the spot. It drove him near mad that such a buffoon could

  have so much power over Station Seven.

  "Get on with it!" said Commander Judix, seeing that Shelton

  was daydreaming. He'd been doing more of that lately and it

  bothered her. "The reading's not going to take itself."

  "Yes, ma'am, right away." Shelton began to leave, but turned

  back at the last second. "Oh, one more thing."

  Shelton paused, rubbing his chin as he tried to think of how to

  put it. "He looks... well, he looks different."

  Commander Judix thought this sounded like trouble. "How do

  you mean?"

  "It's hard to describe. I guess he's not as sickly as one might

  expect."

  Commander Judix sent Shelton away with a wave of her hand.

  Not as sickly as one might expect? This was sounding better all

  the time. It wasn't that far across the plain to the forsaken wood.

  This boy must have come from a long stay at one of the

  outposts and kept a mask and goggles on. Maybe he'd come

  from a rich family that could afford an underground hideout.

  Who knew? Who cared! The fact was she had a very valuable

  thing in her possession, a rare asset ideal for bargaining.

  Commander Judix thought of what a wonderful stroke of luck

  this was. She would get another hundred days of fuel, maybe

  more since Grammel would be early and she had such a good

  crop of new help. She'd already been working out a plan to get

  more children during that time. Whether they liked it or not,

  Shelton and the transport team would go out past the forsaken

  wood into places they'd always stayed away from. Plenty of

  children crawling around out there that would love a chance to

  live in the Silo.

  Yes, things were definitely looking up.

  "What's your name?" asked Aggie.

  Red Eye and Socket had gone up on the platform to check on

  the vines. The tube that held the platform was still like the trunk

  of a lonely tree. If it began sliding down into the ground they

  would know the two goggle-headed monsters that ran the Silo

  would be on their way back down.

  "Don't you have a name?" Aggie persisted. Edgar glanced

  around the hot room, trying to get his bearings. The Silo was

  starting to worry him. Would he ever be able to escape and get

  back to Atherton?

  The light in the drying room was rather dim, and it struck Edgar

  that this was true of every room he'd entered so far. There were

  no windows at all. He'd noticed some of the children wearing

  dark goggles as he passed through each of the
levels, but no

  one on the green team was wearing them except the oldest boy,

  Vasher. Everyone else had their goggles either propped on

  their foreheads or hanging around their necks.

  "I'm Edgar. It's my first time in the Silo."

  Edgar had never seen children like these. They were even

  skinnier than he was and their eyes were tired. But the most

  striking thing was their close-cropped hair, especially on Aggie

  and Teagan. He asked Aggie about this and she seemed

  embarrassed by the question.

  "I'm afraid you'll get yours cut soon enough," she said, looking

  at the mop of black hair on Edgar's head and wishing for all the

  world she still had hers. "Red Eye makes us keep it this way.

  He says it's easier to keep clean, less likely to get in the way. I

  think it's just another way to control us."

  Aggie was equal parts spel bound and bothered by Edgar's

  presence. What right did he have to look so fresh and new?

  She should look healthy like that. But it was also this

  unexpected vitality that drew her interest.

  "What are those things over his eyes?" asked Edgar, motioning

  toward Vasher, who was busy working and staying quiet.

  "We all have them, but most of us don't need them unless

  there's more light. There's not really any rhyme or reason to it.

  Being outside affects some people's eyes more than others,"

  said Teagan. Edgar could tell she liked explaining things.

  "Anyway, they're called goggles, and they protect our eyes from

  light. Vasher's only wearing his because sometimes he gets

  head aches lately. He seems to feel better with them on, but I

  think it's all in his head. I mean, look at this place! There's

  hardly any light at all. Very depressing! Red Eye and Socket

  are the worst. They're really sensitive to the light, so they leave

  all the old lights off unless they absolutely need them on. You

  should have seen what Aggie did to the two of them last night!"

  Edgar looked at Aggie curiously, but she quickly changed the

  subject.

  "Where have you been living? You look better than anyone I've

  ever seen come in here."

  Edgar didn't know how to answer Aggie so he shrugged and

  pretended not to know where he'd been. "I don't remember a lot.

  I've been wandering awhile."

  "Have not!" cried Vasher. No one even knew Vasher was

  listening from where he worked. He stared at Edgar, a rage

  building. "No one wanders outside for long and comes out