Atherton #3: The Dark Planet (No. 3) (14 page)

little over thirty minutes, Samuel set the tablet aside in the

rocks. He moved over next to Isabel and the two gazed out over

open water.

"I don't want you to overreact," said Samuel, "but there are

some things you need to know."

Isabel squeezed the hard, black fig in her hand, trying to stay

calm.

"Promise me we're not going back through the Inferno," she

said. If Samuel could guarantee that this message didn't lead to

a river of fire with firebugs and cave eels, she was willing to at

least listen.

He smiled the smile of someone who knows something special

and is dying to share it. "I promise," he said. He saw Isabel nod

ever so slightly, and taking the cue, he began pointing to

different parts of the tablet.

"There are a lot of numbers, mostly in sets of five, so they must

have unlocked some part of Dr. Harding's brain. You remember

when we were inside his laboratory before, how there were so

many five-digit numbers, and how he used them to lock things

away in his mind? Well, I think the ones on this tablet must be

important. He obviously carried this around with him in the

absence of journals. These numbers are burned in. They're

permanent."

Isabel became more interested in the tablet and pointed to a

group of words trapped inside a circle. "What's that say?"

Samuel recited the words he'd already read and thought about.

"Birth of the Nubian, the making of the Inferno, the fall of

Atherton, the flood, an altered state of Cleaners, the chill of

winter."

"That sounds--I don't know, it sounds like a list of some kind,"

said Isabel.

"Maybe it's a list of things that are going to happen. If that's what

this refers to, then the list appears to be in order, or at least it

could be. Maybe the Nubian came first, at the beginning--you

remember those?"

How could Isabel forget the giant winged creatures inside

Atherton, the way they had tucked their wings and dove, their

glistening black beaks as sharp as arrows aimed at her and her

friends?

"Then came the making of the Inferno," said Isabel. "The fall of

Atherton and the altered state of Cleaners--those have both

happened," he said.

"That only leaves the last one," said Isabel, looking at the words

and trying to remember what Samuel had said. "The... chill of

winter, right?"

"That's the strangest of them all," said Samuel. He looked at

Isabel. "Do you know what winter is?"

She did not, because there had never been anything like winter

on Atherton.

"Some of the books I used to read in the Highlands talked about

winter. It's a time when every thing turns very cold and --"

"And what?" asked Isabel. She pierced right through Samuel

with those brilliant dark eyes of hers. It was impossible for him

to keep secrets from her. He couldn't figure out how Edgar had

done it.

"In the time of winter every thing dies," said Samuel. "When you

say every thing, you mean
every thing
?"

Samuel didn't know how to respond. He hadn't ever had any

real experience with winter, so he didn't really understand it.

"I don't know for sure. But there's something else about winter,

and it might be more important given what these words say.

Winter is really cold."

"And you know what else is really interesting?" said Isabel.

"The chill of winter is the last thing on the list. What do you

suppose that means?"

"It means we're coming to the end of one thing and the

beginning of another. This is really important."

"I wish we could show it to Dr. Kincaid."

Samuel and Isabel trusted Edgar more than anyone else. Until

their friend returned, the tablet was theirs to protect. They

weren't sure exactly why, but they couldn't share it with Dr.

Kincaid or anyone else just yet.

"There are all sorts of things on this tablet. I haven't even begun

to understand it all. The other side is full of things that are

completely beyond me. The Silo, Station Seven, Spikers, the

lost garden--it's all so confusing. And then there's this."

Samuel pointed to the left corner of the tablet, where he saw a

collection of lines and markings and words almost too tiny to

read.

"What is it?" asked Isabel.

"It's the key to Mulciber," said Samuel, reading some of the

words. Seeing Isabel still didn't quite understand, he spoke

more directly, pointing to a long word of eight letters.

"That word right there--THEYARDS--that's the word, Isabel. It

will open the yellow door."

The yellow door. They'd long wanted to open it but had never

known how. The eight-letter combination had been kept from

them by Dr. Kincaid and Vincent.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" asked Isabel.

Samuel just smiled. They had the key to Mulciber! They could

actually get back inside Atherton.

"We could just take a quick look around," said Isabel. "We don't

have to go very far, right?"

"Absolutely!"

Samuel loved the idea of adventure almost as much as Edgar

did, and going back inside Atherton was the most adventurous

thing he could think of.

"You see there? That's the Inferno," said Samuel, pointing

down a path on the map so delicately burned into wood. "But

this map leads in the opposite direction."

Isabel could see that he was right.

"But where does it lead to? And why would we go back in

there?"

She secretly loved the idea of having an adventure of her own

to tell Edgar about when he got back and was beginning to

hope it would work. There was something very appealing about

taking up this challenge while their closest friend was on a

faraway quest of his own.

"It leads here," said Samuel. His finger followed the jagged path

of a burned line. It went every which way, rising and falling,

passing words and markings. Near the end, the markings

increased and took on the form of something Samuel had read

about in books.

"I think those are snowflakes," he said. Isabel crinkled her nose

and leaned in closer. She'd heard of snow but had no memory

of having ever seen it or felt it.

At the very end was a set of four words Isabel had seen only a

moment ago.

"'The chill of winter,'" she whispered.

"There's a secret hidden inside Atherton that no one else knows

about. Not even Edgar. Maybe not even Dr. Kincaid."

"We'll just have a look, that's all," said Isabel. "We can always

turn back and get help if we need it, can't we?"

The two smiled at each other and nodded.

"Of course we can," said Samuel. But he had no intention of

turning back. His mind was aflame with curiosity. He wanted the

chill of winter to be his discovery whether Isabel went along or

not.

Edgar didn't have to walk very far before realizing he'd made a

terrible mistake. The smog of the Dark Planet swirled on a sea

breeze, and the sound of giant, pounding feet came from behind

him. As Edgar turned in a circle, every direction looked exactly

the same. Grey tree trunks, sick with disease, rose all around

him. Here the world was colorless in the extreme, a deep

monotone fog pervading every thing. And he was having

trouble breathing.

Edgar had made the catastrophic error of walking away from the

safety of the Raven without leaving himself a trail to follow back.

He couldn't have imagined how quickly the vessel would

dissolve away in the haze.

I'm lost,
he thought, coughing into his arm as quietly as he

could. Something was tracking him as he moved.

The sound of approaching creatures was coming from more

than one direction now, but in the soupy smog Edgar couldn't

say for sure where the first attack would come from.

Time to climb,
he thought. The idea of climbing calmed him

down at first, but when he dug his fingers into the tree trunk in

front of him, he had an unpleasant surprise: Things he'd never

seen before began crawling out of the rotting wood. They were

the color of dirt and decay, a shade above monochrome. It took

all of Edgar's will to hold back a scream as he released the

trunk and shook his hands.

The sound of pounding was coming from three directions now-or was it four?--and Edgar spun around. When he faced the tree

trunk again he knew he had run completely out of options.

Whatever was after him had arrived.

Don't think, just move! Move!
thought Edgar. He took hold of the

tree trunk and climbed fast and furious into the smog above.

The bugs were long and many legged with slippery shells that

twisted and turned like a snake. As they emerged from the

rotting tree trunk with startling speed, one of them crawled over

Edgar's hand. He froze, holding his breath and expecting to be

pierced or pinched with unseen claws. But it only left a slimy

path on the back of his hand as it passed over.

While Edgar looked at the bug crawling away he felt another

moving up his arm and heading for his armpit. Edgar held on

with his other arm and shook it free, watching it twist and spin

toward the ground in the open air.

This must be what the Cleaners are eating out here,
thought

Edgar.

He'd only climbed six or seven feet up the side of a dead tree

but already the ground was invisible below. Looking up, Edgar

saw that things were a little bit brighter, and so he quickly

scaled another ten feet, flicking creepy crawlies as he went.

Now he could see the tops of the stand of trees in every

direction, a sea of weather-beaten spikes emerging from a

boiling cauldron.

He was startled by the sensation of a slimy creature that had

made its way under his shirt and around to his back. "Get off

me!" he cried.

He realized right away that he'd spoken too loudly, because the

sound of giant steps from below came quickly to a stop. All was

quiet in the forsaken wood and Edgar knew something had

heard him. He thought he heard sniffing from twenty feet below,

but he couldn't be sure.

Without warning, there was a loud chopping sound from below

and the tree in which Edgar was perched was cut free at the

bottom with one swipe. As it toppled, Edgar had no choice but

to jump. He slammed flat into another trunk, smashing his face

hard and nearly bouncing free into the air. Another loud
thwack!

and a second tree toppled over to his left.

He climbed higher still where the air became brighter, and then

Edgar began leaping from trunk to trunk, making his way across

the forsaken wood as trees fell behind him. Looking back, he

saw the shadows of something from below that looked like a

giant hammer rising and crashing into the earth.

Edgar jumped three more trees away and then stopped,

clearing all the crawling bugs from his arms. A second bug had

traveled all the way to Edgar's head and made a nest of his

floppy hair. He was trying to disentangle its squirming four-inch

body with shaking fingers when he heard a sound he knew all

too well.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sound of breaking

bones.

"Cleaners," whispered Edgar.

The clanging of thousands of bony legs rushed beneath him.

He could see the shadows of Cleaners shooting past in a herd

toward the falling trees.

I've never seen ones that big,
Edgar thought in awe. He could

only make out their shadows, but it appeared these Cleaners

were two or three times bigger than any that had lived on

Atherton.

They must be thirty feet long or more!
he thought. Two bites and

Cleaners this big could remove every trace of Edgar from the

Dark Planet.

Edgar had to leap with all his strength in order to get across the

gap between dead trees--maybe ten or eleven feet--each time

grabbing a lower hold on the next trunk, forcing him to climb

back up again. At each landing the bugs would churn out as if

trying to escape an approaching menace. But Edgar scrambled

on, just ahead of the falling trees behind him.

All at once, there was a commotion like nothing Edgar had ever

heard before. It reminded him of the sound of crashing cliffs on

Atherton. The earth shook and trees snapped. A fight between

monsters was on.

Edgar heard the screaming and ripping and biting. He could

see the shadows moving like awful puppets in a violent show of

power on the ground behind him.

High in the trees, swaying through the smog, came something

that must have been fifty feet tall. The creature must have been

the queen of the pack. She was laser focused on the ensuing

battle and didn't notice the tiny presence of Edgar as she

passed by, but Edgar got a good look as she rumbled past. He

couldn't see any legs, only the long, loose neck lolling back and

forth. At the end of the neck was a beak that looked for all the

world like a ten-foot spike. A wide helmet of rocky bumps that