Dr. Kincaid found that with Samuel on one side and Isabel on the other, guiding them through the shadows of the valley, he felt almost as if he were a grandfather to them both.
"I think the future of Atherton is in good hands," he said. "You two will do just fine."
Samuel seized the moment to ask Dr. Kincaid one of the many questions that had been brewing in his mind during the journey.
"Why did you take Edgar away from Dr. Harding?"
Dr. Kincaid looked straight ahead, and without much hesitation, he answered the boy so that everyone could hear. "He was more like Lord Phineus than Dr. Harding toward the end. Does that answer your question?"
Samuel nodded, feeling a little guilty for having asked at all.
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But then Isabel asked just as difficult a question, and it made him feel better.
"Why did you work Dr. Harding so awfully hard? You must have known he was sick."
Dr. Kincaid looked at the children on either side of him with some surprise. "You two don't give an old man much benefit of the doubt, do you?"
Samuel and Isabel weren't even sure exactly what this meant, but they had a pretty good idea that Dr. Kincaid didn't enjoy any questions about his past.
Dr. Kincaid sighed deeply. "Are we close?" he asked Vincent. The sound of the Nubian cut through the air from a long way off, and Vincent looked up into the rocks.
Vincent said, "Not far to go, but plenty enough for you to answer the girl's question."
Dr. Kincaid scowled at Vincent, then looked back at Isabel and saw that he hadn't distracted her one bit. The girl wanted an answer, and he would have to provide one.
"If you must know, it was mostly out of my control. I told them time and time again not to push so hard. There is nothing so fragile as a brilliant young mind. It's a delicate thing, easily traumatized by demands it cannot achieve. But then, I have to admit, even I was too demanding of him. Not at first--at first I was always the one to make them leave him alone--but after a while, well, as a man of science, I couldn't help it. He knew so many things I didn't, and I wanted desperately to understand."
Silence fell over the group and the Nubian screeched again, closer but still far off.
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"He wanted to please everyone," said Dr. Kincaid. "But when it was all over, he pleased no one. There's a lesson in that, don't you think?"
Isabel and Samuel nodded, and then Samuel remarked, "The Dark Planet must be in terrible shape if Atherton was so important to them."
"You have no idea," said Dr. Kincaid. "And yet, they have always found a way to survive. It would not surprise me if they've already cooked up some other way of making do. It's a dirty place and getting dirtier, but who are we to say they can't solve their own problems? We've certainly got enough of our own."
He was about to tell them other ideas that had been in the works to save the planet of his origin, but he was cut off by Vincent. They were now approaching the Inferno.
They had come to a place where tunnels led off in many directions and red stone reached into the sky all around them. They were trapped but for the tunnels as a way out, and all the tunnels were dark.
"You must each listen carefully," started Vincent. "And know before we begin that this is a hard way that cannot be avoided."
As he spoke, a small, fluorescent light that looked like a dancing blue dot in the air crept noiselessly out from between two rocks. It hovered silently behind Vincent in such a way that he could not see it, but the others could, even though it was no bigger than the tip of a spear.
The dot came around to the side of Vincent closest to Isabel,
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and she reached out toward it, drawn by the pulsing blue light. Vincent glanced behind and saw what Isabel was after.
"Don't touch it!" he cried. She was the most curious among them, and he should have known to warn her sooner. But Isabel had already extended her arm and the blue dot moved toward her, as if it wanted to be caught.
The glowing light was a bug that was part of the Inferno, and Isabel could hear its microscopic wings beating ever so softly as she touched it. The result was not what she'd expected. Her hand felt a shock of electricity that then flowed down her arm all the way into her toes. It seemed to paralyze her momentarily, and she could not move her muscles to flick the glowing blue bug away from her skin. She was being electrocuted, though not enough to kill her.
Vincent carefully swished the bug away with his sleeve. It hung in the air once more, turning from blue to green to red. Then Vincent blew softly and the bug bounced on the air back into the dark opening from where it came.
"They turn red when they're angry," said Vincent.
"What was that thing?" howled Isabel. From her shoulder all the way to the tips of her fingers there was a painful tingling that made her itch frantically. She shook her hand but it was no use.
"Hold your hand over your head," said Dr. Kincaid. "It will go away in a few seconds."
Isabel held her arm up and tried not to scratch. She'd never felt anything so powerful. It was like her arm had fallen asleep
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and woken up all at once, little needles poking up and down her skin.
Sir William came over, held her arm up, and looked at Vincent. "Why did you bring us this way?" he asked with dismay. Things were getting more perilous by the moment--first the Nubian, and now this new threat. He truly wondered if he could trust the men in which he'd placed so much hope. How well did he really know them?
"Because it's the only way out," said Vincent. "If there were any other options, believe me, we wouldn't be going in there." He pointed into the Inferno.
"You should have told us it would be like this," said Sir William. "It wasn't fair to drag us down here without telling us how dangerous it would be."
"Would you have come with us if we'd told you?" asked Dr. Kincaid.
Sir William didn't answer and Dr. Kincaid went on.
"The Highlands were already filling with water, crashing into the middle of Atherton. This was the only way. If we'd said you'd have to do battle with flying beasts and tiny winged zappers, would you have come? Of course not!"
Sir William seemed, for the moment, to concede. "I have to get them back home," said Sir William, glancing down at Isabel and Samuel. "Just be honest with us."
Dr. Kincaid faltered a moment. Sensing there was no other option he decided it was, indeed, time for honesty in all matters. "Things are going to get worse before they get better," he said.
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"What do you mean, worse?" asked Samuel. "How could they get any worse?"
"The Inferno is ... w-w-well, it's complicated," stammered Dr. Kincaid. "But I've done it many times before, and I'm old! If I can make it, so can you."
"There are things in the Inferno that you'll want to lay a hand on," Vincent told them, thinking about the task ahead more carefully. The fire bugs were mesmerizing, he knew; they wanted to be touched. It was hard not to obey. "But all of them are dangerous, and most of them can kill you."
Vincent looked at Dr. Kincaid as if to say, This is your department, don't you think?
The sound of the Nubian grew nearer and angrier, and Samuel imagined the one injured by the arrow now looking for revenge.
"How's your arm feeling, Isabel?" asked Dr. Kincaid. Sir William let go of her hand and she shook her arm hard, scratching at her elbow.
"It's better," she said. "It still itches, but the pain is gone."
"Wonderful!" said Dr. Kincaid. "Now listen, all of you. Vincent is absolutely right. There's no point in explaining every little thing to you, but nothing that's in there is meant for humans to go near. Unfortunately, it's also the only way out from beneath Tabletop. Where we're about to go is under the Flat-lands, and once we get past the Inferno, the rest of our way is easy." Dr. Kincaid marveled in his own mind at the outrageous imagination of Dr. Harding. The way down from Tabletop had
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been erased by the changing w
orld, and yet the way across -- the way into the Flatlands--was still there.
"The Nubian are circling," said Vincent. The group looked up and saw familiar, eerie shadows moving high on the red rocks above.
"There's time for just a little instruction," said Dr. Kincaid. "For one thing, we don't have to be quiet. Nothing inside there can hear us so it won't matter if you want to talk as we go. There will be a lot of fire bugs--more than you can imagine--but if you go slowly and blow on them, you'll be able to avoid them. Don't let them touch your skin. Your hair should be all right."
He looked at everyone, and seeing that all but Vincent had a healthy head of thick hair, he nodded.
"Cover up as much as you can, but remain watchful. There is another creature inside that eats the fire bugs."
"What sort of creature? How big is it?" asked Samuel. He had already wanted to turn back at the thought of being electrocuted by thousands of tiny glowing bugs. What could possibly want to eat them?
The shadows of the Nubian came lower on the wall and their screeching filled the air.
"Follow Vincent," said Dr. Kincaid. "He'll try to clear the way. We have to go!"
The Nubian were diving together, one after the other, as Vincent crept into the Inferno. Dr. Kincaid followed, then came the children, and finally Sir William. The moment the five of
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them were inside the dark opening, the Nubian turned back, shrieking with anger.
"We come now to the last of our difficult passage," Dr. Kincaid mumbled. And then, wanting to make sure everyone understood the seriousness of the situation, he said one more thing. "I'm sorry to say we saved the most dangerous part for the end."
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*** CHAPTER 28 FLIGHT FROM THE GROVE
While Edgar sat with Maude and Horace on the steps of Mr. Ratikan's house, the ground rumbled oddly at their feet, accompanied by the eerie sound of water rising in a storm over the Highlands--a new threat they didn't have the first idea how to manage.
Horace, Maude, and Isabel's father, Charles, had welcomed Edgar, but there was precious little time and so the questions had begun almost immediately. As he sat on the steps he had once approached every day for food, Edgar hurriedly explained about Dr. Harding and Dr. Kincaid, about Vincent and Sir William, and of course, Samuel and Isabel.
"They've gone underground, into a secret place that's safe from the rising water," said Edgar. He couldn't imagine how they'd ever escape Dr. Harding's laboratory, but he also wanted
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to provide a little hope. "The two from the Flatlands--Dr. Kincaid and Vincent--they knew where they were going. There must be a passage out."
"At least they're safe from the Cleaners down there," said Maude. Charles nodded earnestly, but in truth, though no one was willing to say it, survival inside the violent heart of Atherton seemed impossible.
As Charles hurried off toward the village to tell Isabel's mother what he'd learned, Horace began questioning Edgar again. "How high will the water come?"
"Dr. Harding said it would rise all the way to the top."
"Will it reach higher than the edge of the Highlands?" asked Maude, grave concern in her voice.
Edgar hesitated. It was a point that Dr. Harding had come to as Edgar lay half asleep, a fact he was embarrassed to reveal.
"He said everyone must leave for the Flatlands," said Edgar, rubbing the pain out of his shoulder. "He wouldn't tell me why. But you should know he was a little crazy. He'd been bitten by this terrible animal, and his mind wasn't quite right to begin with. I'm not sure he could be trusted in the end."
Edgar hated saying these things, but the truth was he really couldn't be sure Dr. Harding had been altogether sane. Edgar remembered that they should go to the Flatlands, but why? There was nothing out there but Cleaners. No food, no water, just barren, open land where an exodus of humanity would make for easy prey.
"I have thought of the Flatlands as well," said Horace. "I
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can't say exactly why, but it has felt to me as if Atherton itself were calling us to go to there."
Horace had a new resolve, his plans bolstered by the news 5 from Edgar. Maude wasn't so sure.
"It's open space out there," she said. "And there's nothing. No water, no food. It's desolate. At least here, in the grove, we have trees to protect us and we can set our backs against the cliffs leading down to the Highlands. The Cleaners can't come up from behind us there. What possible reason could there be to venture out into the wide open nothingness of the Flatlands?"
She had made a great many indisputable points. And yet, Horace was unmoved. "If there is an ounce of truth in what this man has told Edgar, then we have no choice but to go. This man, Dr. Harding, made Atherton."
"And then he lost his mind," said Maude, anger rising in her voice. "Don't forget we knew him as Lord Phineus, who would love nothing more than to send us to our death and laugh all the way to his grave."
"We can't stay here," said Horace. "It was never the plan, you know that."
Maude looked away toward the grove, aware that the situation was hopeless.
"Why can't we stay?" asked Edgar. "Maybe she's right. Maybe we could manage it."
Horace didn't feel he had the time or the patience to explain, but he felt he somehow owed it to Edgar. "The Cleaners
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are coming," he began. "We have scouts on horses, and I tell you it's only a matter of time. They went first to the two villages, but when they've finished destroying those places, it's here they will come. From both sides they'll attack the grove until nothing remains. The grove will draw them in, but we must be gone when they get here."
"Why did you do this?" asked Edgar. "I don't understand your plan and where it leads."
"He had a hunch," said Maude in a critical tone.
"A hunch that Wallace agreed with," said Horace, hesitating before continuing. He wished that Maude would be more agreeable.
But then he heard the sound of hooves tearing through the grove. Gill rode up hard and fast through the trees. The horse nearly collapsed from lack of water and food as Gill dismounted and bolted for the steps to Mr. Ratikan's house.
"They're on the move," said Gill. "All of them, from both sides. All of the Cleaners are coming!"
"How many?" asked Maude, standing as though she were ready to fight.
Gill looked at Edgar and wondered if he should answer with a young boy within earshot.
"I've eaten Cleaners for breakfast," said Edgar, sensing the man's concern. "There's nothing you can say that will surprise me."
Gill looked out into the grove and pointed in the direction of the Village of Rabbits. "Five hundred from there." Then he pointed toward the Village of Sheep. "Five hundred more."
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A thousand Cleaners heading for the grove--one for every man, woman, and child of Atherton. It was an insurmountable number.
Horace looked in a different direction through the clearing, toward the barren path that led to the Flatlands. "Something awaits us there," he said. "I feel it. And Wallace felt it, too."
***
The mood in the grove was one of grumbling and dissent as Horace, Maude, and Edgar approached. There had been precious little food and water to give out and provisions were running lower by the hour. Soon there would be nothing, only the approaching Cleaners and an army too tired and hungry to fight. Many from the village had witnessed the water rising in the Highlands and had returned with something well past fear in their eyes. Everyone who stood before Horace looked dazed, as though finally the world had crushed their spirits entirely.
The time had come for Horace to set what remained of his plan into motion, and he stood before hundreds of people speaking in the loudest and most authoritative voice he could muster.
"We must leave this place," he shouted. "Together, as one people, we have overcome a maddening world that threatens to destroy us."
No one made an attempt to disagree. Horace found the eyes of
his wife and child, huddling close together in the middle of the crowd, and his heart nearly broke. He wished this duty
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could fall to another, that he could go and comfort them. And yet his wife smiled up at him, nodded encouragement and understanding, and he was able to accept his circumstances for what they were. He alone could lead them.
"I have tried to show you the way at a time when no clear path revealed itself," continued Horace, his words a solemn reminder of a lost friend. "The water comes to flood us from behind. The Cleaners come from the sides to devour us. There is but one path that remains, though it may seem the least agreeable of them all."
Horace looked away from the group and toward the Flat-lands, which no one could see. "We must leave for the Flatlands. No other hope remains."
There was a ripple of shocked exclamations from the group as they realized they would have to leave the safety of the grove. The trees had felt so protective, shielding them from having to look outside at the failing world around them. It had almost seemed peaceful, as if it had all been a bad dream.
The voices of dissent began, but they were stopped by the sound of one boy, a boy who had spent most of his life in the grove.
"He's right," Edgar spoke up with confidence. The boy who'd climbed to every part of Atherton had taken on a sort of mythical status among the living. Everyone quieted.
"I've spoken to the one who made this place," said Edgar, his voice booming louder than he thought possible. Everyone gasped at once, trying to grasp what this meant. "And he told me we would find peace in the Flatlands."
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A wave of mumbling came over the crowd and the children began to shout that Edgar was right. Soon the children's voices were louder than the swell of skepticism behind them. They wanted to go, to follow the person who they deemed their commander.