Atherton #3: The Dark Planet (No. 3) (11 page)

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

as if rising from the deepest part of a lake. The word evaporated

and the face of Dr. Harding reappeared. And then, to Edgar's

amazement, the glowing blue face of Dr. Harding began to

speak.

"I had a feeling you might find the docking station. I can't say

that I'm happy you take such risks. What father could be happy

about a thing like that?"

"Can you hear me?" asked Edgar. "Where are you?"

Edgar was struck by an impossible thought: What if Dr. Harding

were alive inside this strange vessel? Maybe he'd only hidden

here, waiting for Edgar to return! He eagerly touched the warm

glass where the face appeared. "Come out of there!"

"I made this recording for you, Edgar," said Dr. Harding. "I'm not

here, in case that's what you're thinking. A trick of technology,

I'm afraid. Chances are I made this recording many years ago

and things have unraveled as I'd suspected they would."

Edgar couldn't understand and demanded an explanation.

"How can you be here and
not
be --"

"Listen to me, Edgar," the image interrupted. "If you're here then

a lot has already happened. Atherton has collapsed, which you

have managed to survive. I am, no doubt, dead."

"No! You're not dead! You're right here," said Edgar. He knew

the face wasn't really Dr. Harding, but he was so lonely and

frustrated he couldn't quite let go of the idea. "You're alive!"

But the blue head wouldn't respond to Edgar.

"I can't tell you how important it is that you listen to me now,"

said Dr. Harding. "You
must
do as I say. Everything depends on

it. First and foremost, you cannot trust anyone on Atherton. No

one, including Dr. Kincaid and Vincent, has any idea what

Atherton is really for. This was entirely necessary given the

circumstances. No one would have believed, no one would

have trusted, no one would have had the patience required..."

Without warning, the firebugs began drifting off, and Dr.

Harding's face started to melt into a watery mix of black and

blue.

"Come back!" said Edgar.

Dr. Harding's voice became garbled and slowed down, but then

the firebugs reconstructed his face and he was speaking as

before. Edgar had missed something.

"... and so you see, I can't trust anyone else with this task. If my

experiment has gotten this far along, well, it's you and you

alone who must finish it. Things will have gotten very

complicated down there. Dr. Kincaid and Vincent are not bad

men, but they will only get in the way of what you have to do.

They answer to people on the Dark Planet."

The face of Dr. Harding looked straight at Edgar and it nearly

broke Edgar's heart. There was his father, right in front of him,

smiling at Edgar with approval.

"This thing you're sitting in is called the Raven, or at least that's

what I've always called it. I made it like I made you and

Atherton. It's alive, just like you and Atherton are alive. It's very

easy to operate if you follow its lead and trust its actions. It will

take you to the Dark Planet. You need you to go there alone

and finish what I began."

"What!" shouted Edgar. The firebugs moved off again and Dr.

Harding's face dissolved. Apparently, the bugs didn't like it

when Edgar interrupted. He stayed very quiet and the face

returned one last time.

"How can I say this? You and Atherton and the Raven, the three

of you are connected, if you will, by the same raw material. How

else could you do all the things you do? I know, I know--this

sounds terrible--but it's the truth."

There was a pause in which Dr. Harding seemed to wonder

what he should say next.

"You're going to need a little help," he continued with greater

concern in his voice. "You were always a solitary little boy on

the Dark Planet, but hopefully you've made at least one friend

on Atherton. Give the tablet I've left behind to someone you

trust, someone who can read. Something important needs to

happen here on Atherton while you're away. But keep Dr.

Kincaid and Vincent out of it. Now that you have the keys to the

Raven, they'll think they can help on the Dark Planet. But trust

me, Edgar, their good intentions would lead straight to Judix,

and that's exactly what can't happen."

"Who's Judix?" asked Edgar. "What are you talking about?"

The face on the screen turned away from Edgar, as if it had

heard someone or something coming near when it was

recorded. The face turned back and began to drift into

blackness.

"Go to the Silo first, where I lived as a boy, where everything

began. Be careful who you trust."

The firebugs danced and moved and Dr. Harding disappeared.

"Come back! Don't leave me here alone!" said Edgar. But the

face of Dr. Harding was gone. There appeared an outline of the

Silo so that Edgar would know what it looked like. Then it

vanished, replaced by the image of Atherton and the Dark

Planet in their places, surrounded by a night sky of blue dots.

Edgar was now unable to imagine an outcome in which his feet

weren't firmly planted on the Dark Planet. If Dr. Harding had

lived in the Silo as a child, he had probably first imagined

Atherton there. Edgar was sure the Silo was where he would

find the answers to his most troubling questions. Where did he

come from? What had gone wrong with the man who had made

him? What was the purpose behind Edgar's existence?

He touched the oval disk that had started every thing in motion.

It was warm and slippery, like a small pool of shallow water,

and yet it was also solid. Edgar slid the disk off the surface and

let it drop into his other hand. The firebugs receded until only

darkness remained on the table and Edgar heard the sound of

the doorway opening.

He could escape this place and take his chances on the outside

with all the dangers that awaited him.

Looking back at the table, Edgar had a sudden sense of clarity

about the place he found himself in. He set the disk back on the

black surface, heard the door shut, and watched the firebugs

return and form the map of Atherton and the Dark Planet.

"I can command this thing to move," said Edgar, smiling in

wonder at the thought of it. "I know I can."

He felt it in his bones, as though he and Atherton and the

Raven really were connected by some unknown essential

material.

Reaching out over the black surface Edgar touched the big

cluster of blue that made up the Dark Planet. Words appeared.

Silo / Station Seven

Edgar couldn't read the second word and he didn't care about

the third. All he saw was the word "Silo." Dr. Harding's last

words rang in Edgar's ears.

Where I lived as a boy, where every thing began.

On a whim, Edgar touched the much smaller cluster of blue

representing Atherton. The flat surface exploded with blue dots

that formed into three concentric circles, one on top of the other,

each one a little bit bigger than the last.

"This is an old map of Atherton," Edgar noted. "Things have

changed."

Leaning over the surface, Edgar saw that it was indeed the

surface of Atherton. So detailed was the map he could see the

House of Power in the Highlands, the grove and the other

villages in Tabletop, and Dr. Kincaid's boulder-strewn home in

the Flatlands.

Much of what Edgar was looking at was no more. Everything

inside the smaller two circles was belowground and under

water, but the outer circle--the Flatlands--remained. It made

Edgar wonder about the Dark Planet. Had it also changed?

Maybe it was already dead. Maybe the Silo wasn't even there

any longer.

"I have to find Samuel and Isabel before I go," said Edgar. Was

he really saying that? Leaving for the Dark Planet? It was such

a gigantic idea. If only he could give the wooden tablet to his

friends. Samuel could read and decipher it.

Edgar reached out and almost touched the very place where Dr.

Kincaid and Vincent lived. At the last second he realized that if

this were to set something in motion as he suspected it might,

he would not want to find himself at Dr. Kincaid's doorstep.

Edgar moved his finger closer to where the grove would be and

touched the place on the map where he wanted to go.

The vessel moved ever so slightly and Edgar scrambled into

one of the six seats around the table. He picked up the two

tablets and slid them back together again with a snap. There

was a grinding noise from outside, but Edgar heard only a faint

whisper of sound. All through the walls, ceiling, and floor of the

vessel, creatures were moving and firebugs were glowing

brighter.

Edgar had awoken the Raven and it had begun to move.

"You're not a machine," said Edgar, petting the armrest

instinctively. "I know that word. Dr. Kincaid told me about

machines. They're cold and dead, that's what he said about

machines. He said the Dark Planet was full of them. But you're

not like that, are you? Neither one of us is like that."

Edgar felt confident the Raven was moving faster now, though

he had no way of knowing for sure. He watched the eels

swimming all around him in the murky black. Their mouths

opened and firebugs tried to escape their predators. They left

blue trails of quickly dying light.

Without warning, Edgar felt a pull on his legs and back from the

seat he sat in. He felt glued to the chair by an unseen force.

The Raven had begun to roll and gain speed, but it remained

fairly calm inside. Already the Raven had moved past the giant

stone-covered monster and watched it cower in fear of a million

spikes. The Raven was virtual y indestructible, and she was

more useful than Edgar knew.

She came to the point in the tunnel where it dropped off

violently, and this time Edgar felt the surge of speed. He

couldn't move his limbs as the Raven went faster still. The

seven rock-encrusted cave eels that had waited for Edgar's

return heard the spiked beast coming and cowered deep in their

holes, snapping their jaws in nervous fear.

The Raven shot through the hole and into the open air around

Atherton. Silent and stealthily it flew, rising as if invisible in the

dark night until it landed ever so quietly on the surface of the

Flatlands.

It was night on Atherton as Edgar moved quietly over a rocky

surface peppered with clumps of green grass. The Raven had

landed to the right of the grove, which meant Edgar would have

to pass through a wide pasture.

Edgar had begun his adventure climbing down the side of

Atherton in the late morning of the same day and found it hard

to believe so much time had passed. He was hungry, thirsty,

and tired. Though he pressed on soundlessly as he neared his

destination, the sheep in the pasture saw his approach,