The Dark Planet

  seemed to get used to it.

  "Wake up, Teagan," she whispered. "I think it's morning."

  Teagan rolled groggily onto her side and reached out her hand.

  This was their habit--to hold hands in the early morning. Then,

  to whisper as they waited. Soon the door would fly open. Red

  Eye and Socket would barge in.

  "Today is going to be a better day," whispered Aggie.

  "I think you're right," said Teagan.

  In truth, they were scared of what the day would bring. But they

  needed the reassurance that the other wouldn't be destroyed by

  the Silo or the people who ran it. The two smiled at each other

  in the dark and put their goggles on, and then they both heard

  the bolt pulled back and felt the rush of air as the big metal door

  burst open. Some of the children woke with eyes closed tight,

  fumbling for goggles.

  "Green team is assigned to the drying room! Red to the vines

  and orange to the planting. On with you now!" cried Red Eye.

  He was in the worst kind of mood imaginable. His head was

  throbbing, which made him angrier than usual at this hour. He

  looked at Aggie, picked up the end of her bed, and flipped it

  over on top of her.

  Socket cackled as Aggie hit the metal floor and scrambled out

  from under the overturned cot.

  "Get up! Out of these beds and moving!" said Red Eye, turning

  his gaze on the rest of the room. He was hunched over more

  than usual from a poor night's sleep. Glancing back at Aggie he

  yelled: "And pick up that filthy cot or you'll be sleeping on the

  floor."

  Aggie and Teagan turned the rusted shell of the cot back over

  and set the rumpled mattress on top. They both groaned quietly.

  The drying room was one of the worst jobs in the Silo.

  Anything but the drying room....

  CHAPTER 8THE DOCKING

  STATION

  As his feet left the ground, Edgar felt so impossibly heavy it was

  hard to imagine not dropping like a stone into the boiling pool

  below. And the heat was virtually unbearable. He was sure the

  steam had burned every hair off his head and the eyebrows

  from his face. His shirt was almost certainly in flames, his shorts

  torn free by fire. It felt as if it was cooking his skin, his brains,

  every thing.

  By some miracle Edgar felt his toes touch the other side. He

  had an immediate and highly distressing sense of falling

  backward that took his breath away and gave him the extra

  burst of adrenaline he needed to lean forward and out of harm's

  way.

  He lay on the ground and rolled away from the heat as his limbs

  came back to a lower temperature. He felt his arms. The skin

  was still there. He slowly reached his hands up and touched his

  head. He laughed out loud at the joy of finding his full head of

  black hair still there. And his clothes, too--they were all intact.

  He stepped farther away from the opening, and then turned to

  see something he would never forget.

  The object was a full thirty feet across at least and rose twenty

  feet into the air. It was, in a word, gargantuan. It was shaped a

  lot like an egg, perfectly round for the length of its middle and

  tapering off at both ends. And it was solid black. The object

  hovered several feet above the floor of the space, suspended

  by two wide black pins that stuck into the sides of the room.

  What in the world is this thing? thought Edgar.

  The object had one other feature that kept Edgar at bay. All

  along the deep black surface were spikes the likes of which

  Edgar had never seen. They appeared to have grown out of the

  object like razor-sharp roots in every direction. A million needle

  points, the tip of each one glistening in the yellow light of the

  room--and ever so slowly, randomly in and out, they moved as if

  trying to feel the air in the room. They seemed... could it be?

  Yes--they were alive.

  Edgar looked down the line of the wall and saw that the deep

  grooves in which the wide pins sat ran down the sides of the

  room. It looked like the stone walls had been gouged by

  something hard and spinning.

  "This moves," whispered Edgar. "It moves down the line and

  past the opening. And then where?"

  Edgar crouched down and peered under the object. The

  moving spikes were there as well, leaving only a few feet to

  crawl under. On the other side was what appeared to be a door,

  but did he dare go under the million black spikes?

  I'm standing in the path of this thing, thought Edgar, wondering

  what it would feel like to be rolled over if it started to move. And

  if the thing fell down while he was under it... well, he couldn't

  imagine. There would be nothing left of him.

  Despite his fear, Edgar resolved to lie on his back and creep

  ever so slowly along the floor. The spikes moved in and out,

  closer to his face as he went, as though they were trying to sniff

  Edgar as he passed below. He felt his breath catching in his

  throat in little bursts.

  "Don't think about it," he said. "Think of something else. The

  grove and the lake. Swinging in the trees..." As he recited his

  memories of the world above, his breathing slowed and he

  continued moving until at last he reached the other side and

  stood up with a great sigh of relief.

  It was darker on this side, but soft orange and yellow light crept

  in through thin veins in the stone walls. He took a few steps

  toward the door at the back of the room.

  "This must be the way in--from the inside of Atherton," said

  Edgar. "The way that's blocked."

  And it was exactly as Dr. Kincaid had said it would be. When

  Edgar opened the door he saw a few feet of tunnel, followed by

  a wall of dirt and stone as if the ceiling had caved in from

  above.

  Edgar turned around and noticed something important about

  the gigantic black object: The back side had an opening that led

  inside. It was pitch-dark beyond the opening.

  Edgar edged forward cautiously, trying to be perfectly quiet.

  What if this thing is alive and doesn't like visitors? What if I

  wake it up? It could shoot a thousand arrows at me.

  His choices were severely limited. He had no desire to crawl

  underneath again; only monsters and firebugs awaited him on

  the other side. And the way inside Atherton was blocked. It

  seemed then to Edgar very much like he had been made to

  come here. His options, like a lit fuse, led only one way and

  seemed to vanish behind him....

  Stepping inside seemed to ignite something within. Fuzzy light

  appeared--and to Edgar's dread, the light was blue.

  "This thing is full of firebugs!" cried Edgar. But as he turned to

  run he had a feeling he was only partly right. Something

  different was going on here, something new.

  He took a few more tentative steps, placing him at the center of

  the object, truly inside, and all at once he saw from where the

  light had come.

  Firebugs indeed surrounded him on every side, but they were

  every where and nowhere
all at once. The ceiling was filled

  with dancing blue dots and so was the floor. Edgar reached out

  his hand and touched--what was it? It felt like the glass Dr.

  Kincaid had shown him that surrounded the lantern in the cave.

  As Edgar moved his hand along the smooth and warm surface,

  the firebugs grew thick and mimicked the shape of his fingers.

  He pulled his hand away and saw that the shape of his hand

  remained in the blue light, then slowly disappeared as the

  firebugs moved off.

  He placed his hand on the glass again and watched the

  firebugs gather from the other side, then pulled his hand away.

  He leaned in close so his nose was almost touching the glass

  and watched with growing interest as the firebugs slowly began

  to drift off.

  Without warning, there was a tremendous BANG! on the

  surface as the glistening head of a cave eel smashed into the

  glass. Firebugs flew like sparks and Edgar jumped back, fal ing

  on the floor with a shout. The body of the cave eel slithered past

  and back into darkness, and Edgar marveled as he realized it

  was swimming.

  "There's water--or something like water--behind the glass."

  For the first time, Edgar really looked around and saw the inside

  of the vessel. The glowing blue of firebugs softly lit his way as

  he walked back and forth. It was a big space--twenty feet in

  length or nearly, and big around on every side. He could see

  the shadows of swimming cave eels as they swept by here and

  there. Soon he had counted seven but was sure there were

  more.

  Edgar had arrived at one end of the vessel and there he found

  rows of black chairs, fifteen chairs in all, plus a separate set of

  six chairs facing one another. Between the six chairs was a

  wide block of black stone or glass. Edgar sat down and saw

  firebugs immediately filling the inside of the chair beneath him.

  "Everything is connected," said Edgar. "It's like a living thing."

  The chair was now aflame from the inside with a million tiny

  dots of hovering blue. The outside of the chair was soft but

  clear, like glass that had lost its ability to stay solid. Edgar

  looked at the seat next to him and saw that something had been

  left there.

  "Who was here last?" Edgar asked himself. He knew the

  answer to the question. It was Dr. Harding. He would have

  come here one last time before closing the way in for good.

  At first glance the thing appeared to be a common piece of

  wood. It was four or five inches long and about the same width,

  and it was maybe an inch deep. When Edgar picked it up he

  found that it was heavier than he'd expected, and older, too. It

  was marred at the corners as if it had been dropped a great

  many times. In his hands it felt like something not of wood or

  stone but on the verge of being one or the other. All along the

  edges were words that had been burned into the surface, a

  large number of which Edgar could not read. And there were

  numbers-- lots of numbers.

  "I should have paid more attention to Samuel's teaching," said

  Edgar. He was newly embarrassed at his inability to read very

  well. He had learned some basics, but it had only been a year

  and he hadn't taken to studying as much as he'd hoped.

  Edgar leaned forward in the chair and held the block in the blue

  light. The words were burned in thin, black lines. Taking up

  most of one side was something that looked like a map. On the

  side he'd been looking at--the one with the map at the center-there were two words at the top. One word he could easily read,

  the other he could not. I-N-S-I-D-E A-T-H-E-R-T-O-N.

  "Atherton!" said Edgar. "But what's this other word?"

  He tried to sound it out but had a most difficult time of it.

  Frustrated, Edgar flipped the wood over and tried to read the

  words on the other side. At the top was a word Edgar could

  spell but not pronounce or understand.

  S-I-L-O.

  Beneath the four letters was a code of sorts, etched just as big

  as the word S-I-L-O.

  L-I-F-T-B-5.

  Under the large word and the code there were many hundreds

  more, but none of them were nearly as prominent. Numbers,

  sentences, whole paragraphs burned in with some kind of thin,

  precise instrument. The instrument of a madman, thought

  Edgar, because he knew this could only have been done by Dr.

  Harding when he was quickly turning into the monster he had

  become--Lord Phineus.

  "I wish you were here with me, Samuel. You could read this to

  me, like you've read to me before." Edgar felt totally alone in the

  quiet of a million firebugs. He examined the edges of the block,

  turning it in his hands, feeling for a notch. Just as he was

  thinking there was nothing there to find, he held the item by its

  corners and--more by accident than on purpose--pushed and

  played at the opposite ends. The two sides slid apart down the

  middle to reveal a hollow inside.

  There were two things hidden in that space. The first was the

  tool that appeared to have been used to write on the outside of

  the wood. The sharp tip of the instrument reminded Edgar of the

  spikes that covered the vessel he was sitting in. Inside the

  instrument glowed dozens of tiny blue dots.

  "Firebugs," remarked Edgar, wondering how they could have

  gotten there.

  Edgar picked up the pen and touched the tip to a clear spot of

  hard wood on the inside. He drew the pen down and it left a thin

  black mark and a tiny waft of smoke. Edgar twisted and turned

  the pen over the surface. It was as if it was melting the wood

  away in the thinnest of perfect lines and swishes. He was

  drawing on the wood with a firebug pen.

  "I like this thing," said Edgar, holding it up and seeing how it

  filled the air with soft blue light.

  He placed the pen back in its resting spot and picked up the

  other item hidden inside the tablet. The item was small and flat

  and smooth, like a perfectly shaped skipping rock. And it was

  solid black like so many other things Edgar had come to find in

  this place. He pressed it, tapped it, and walked around the

  vessel in vain searching for a place to insert it.

  Whatever the small object in his hand was it didn't seem to

  have any purpose, so Edgar set the disk down on the flat black

  table of glass before him and returned to searching the wooden

  tablet for clues. The moment the disk hit the table, Edgar's life

  was altered forever.

  It was the key to every thing, and without realizing it, Edgar had

  just used it to make a long-awaited connection with the Dark

  Planet.

  CHAPTER 9THE RAVEN

  A rush of warm wind filled the vessel when Edgar dropped the

  disk onto the black surface of the table. This sent Edgar into a

  panic, because the moving air was accompanied by a sound

  from the general area of the door he'd entered through. Edgar

  jumped up, started for the opening, and found it closed to the

  outside world.

  I'm trapped in here.
br />   Edgar returned to the table. Millions of tiny blue dots were

  dancing beneath the glassy surface. And what was more, they

  were coming together in ways Edgar had never seen before.

  They flew randomly at first, covering every square inch of the

  surface, but then they began to organize. It looked like someone

  was under the table drawing with a glowing blue pen. Whoever

  it was who made the drawings--if a person it happened to be-was a talented artist. The firebugs danced into position,

  huddling together in different places, and before Edgar's eyes a

  scene began to form.

  What are you trying to show me?

  Soon there was a cluster of firebugs at the very center about the

  size of the tip of Edgar's finger. "I know you," said Edgar.

  "You're Atherton."

  At the bottom corner there grew a much larger circle--bigger

  than Edgar's head, and darker, too. "And you," he said, a little

  wary of naming the place, though he couldn't say why. "You're

  the Dark Planet."

  Firebugs positioned themselves all through the open space

  between the two clusters. They looked like a night sky,

  sparkling as stars are made to do. A series of figures was

  forming along the right edge of the table. It was like magic. First,

  a thick fog of blue dots, then half of them dropping away,

  leaving the faces of those he knew quite well.

  The face of Dr. Harding appeared first, drawn out in blue, at the

  top. Below him the face of Dr. Kincaid, then Vincent, and after

  that the faceless shape of a head. Beside each face was a

  cluster of bugs that made the shape of a thumbprint.

  "What am I supposed to do?" said Edgar. He held his hand over

  the table and decided to touch the faces first, which produced

  no result. His finger then brushed over the faceless head and all

  the faces disappeared at once. In their place were three new

  faces, none of which Edgar recognized. But there was one that

  he liked the best, because it was a boy his own age, not a man.

  The boy looked familiar in a strange sort of way, and Edgar

  wondered if it was himself he was looking at.

  He put his thumb on the cluster next to the face and the firebugs

  burst out in every direction. The blue dots reformed into a word

  and a question mark. Edgar felt a chill despite the warmth in the

  room as he read what was there.

  HELLO, EDGAR.

  It was scary seeing his name appear like that, floating into view