Atherton #3: The Dark Planet (No. 3) (33 page)

"A few important details for you now. Once Atherton has been a

year in its final resting position, it will have completed the...

what shall I call it? The birthing process, I suppose. Yes, that

will do. You have only to take the Raven back now. But don't

forget to bring a big block of powder! You've followed my clues

well, no doubt, so I'm certain you have it with you."

The whole green team edged in closer to Dr. Harding, glancing

at one another knowingly for having figured things out as he'd

hoped they would.

"Without the powder block I'm afraid things are going to go from

bad to worse, so you really must have it with you. You need

only set the block on the black table inside the Raven.

"I've kept an eye on the forsaken wood and feel just terrible

about all the things I abandoned there. It was easy at first, but it

certainly did get out of hand. A lot of bad inventions roaming

around that need cleaning up. You may trust that I have this

problem well in hand. And I've taken the necessary precaution

to keep you out of the wood unless absolutely necessary. Your

transportation will be arriving in the yards shortly, so you won't

need to go find it."

Everyone smiled at this news, especially Edgar. The Raven

would be waiting right outside! It was beginning to feel like this

was all going to work.

"Don't be alarmed when you arrive back on Atherton in a place

you've never been. It's awkward talking this way--because I

haven't told you every thing yet--but I must assume I've revealed

enough since you stand before my glowing blue head. As long

as you have Gossamer in place, every thing will be fine when

you get back."

"He's talking about the black dragon!" Landon exclaimed,

looking at Edgar. "Hey, wait a minute. You said you'd never

heard of Gossamer."

"I haven't," said Edgar. He was suddenly very worried that he

had failed. If Gossamer was part of the plan it must have been

spelled out somewhere, but he'd missed it.

"Gossamer has been patient a long time and will surely be

excited to get on with things. Do as I have told you and he won't

harm you. He's especially fond of children and will do anything

to protect them. My apologies if this gets you into a pinch, but

Gossamer began, like so many of my creations, as a glimmer in

my childhood mind. I have it all planned out so that you will

have written instructions, which you clearly found. Bravo!"

"We might be okay," said Edgar. "I have two friends on

Atherton. Hopefully, they've met Gossamer even if I haven't."

Edgar couldn't believe he'd sent Isabel and Samuel to deal with

a dragon when he had given them that tablet. It was the only

place he could think of where the message could have been

hidden.

"Gossamer will listen and he is surprisingly intelligent," Dr.

Harding went on. "That's what you get when you start with a

human brain. Oh, my. Did I say that? I think it's best we pretend I

didn't bring it up, don't you?"

Everyone in the room was entranced by Dr. Harding's voice. He

was in so many ways still a child himself. There was a sense of

wonder and good humor in every thing he said. This was the

man Edgar wanted to remember, not the one gone mad in the

Highlands, transformed into a terrible ruler, and finally

redeemed in the end. As he listened to the last of what Dr.

Harding would say, Edgar noticed the man's voice become

happy in a different sort of way, as if he was coming to the end

of something big and tiring and was looking forward to a good

long nap.

"I love you more than anything else, Edgar. There is nothing

else I made that comes close, nothing I loved half as much. You

were fearfully and wonderfully made in a world gone mad.

"I have come to accept the reality of my situation. I am a

scientist and proud of it. Some of what I've done has not turned

out as I expected, but my aim was always true, and I aimed

awfully high, didn't I? It would never have been enough to make

a new world. I aimed for so much more than that. It was a story I

wanted to tell, one that would captivate the minds of children

every where, with monsters and dragons and wars aplenty. If

they wanted a boring time of it, they shouldn't have chosen a

child to get the job done.

"Make sure everyone in the Silo is taken care of as I

mentioned--or will mention, I should say. I really must get my

timing down or risk forgetting to tell you altogether. These are

the faulty ways of my mind lately. No matter. You're here now,

Atherton needs you back, and the time of winter has come. I

suspect your ride has already arrived above you in the yards.

Best you be on your way.

"The story has come to its final chapter. It began in the mind of a

child, and it will end with a Raven, a dragon, and a storm like no

other. How stupendous!

"I am signing off for the last time. Your faithful servant, Max

Harding."

The firebugs fell away slowly and Dr. Harding's face began to

melt. Edgar leaned over and tried to touch the face with his

hands. The floor was warm where it had been. He could feel the

humming bugs under black glass as they moved off and

disappeared beneath the ring of statues.

"I love you, too," said Edgar, for those were the words that truly

rang in his head, the words his heart would always remember.

"You haven't been the father I expected, but I'll never forget you.

And neither will anyone else."

There was a rising resolve in Edgar's voice as he said the

words, and when he stood, everyone in the room could see that

he was different now. There had always been a sadness about

Edgar, a loneliness and a questioning that wouldn't go away.

The feeling was gone, like an outer shell cracked and thrown to

the ground. Edgar felt free as he never had before. His

preoccupation with the past had vanished and all at once he

realized how much energy his long search for answers had

taken.

"The Raven is waiting for us up there," said Edgar. He looked at

all the faces around him and saw the expectancy in their eyes.

"Are you all ready to see Atherton for yourselves?"

CHAPTER 26A SPIKER ON THE

BEACH

Commander Judix was beside herself with dismay as she

watched the cluster of dots on the screen in Dr. Harding's

laboratory.

The Raven was moving.

"But this can't be!" she shouted.

Commander Judix touched the screen and followed along with

her hand, agitated beyond all reason, wishing she could leap

from her chair and run to catch the vessel. How could it be

moving? Edgar must have escaped from the Silo, gone through

the forsaken wood, and snuck past Shelton and Red Eye. But

that was all impossible! There was only one way past the

barrier of electricity, where the transport vehicles passed

through, and even that way only opened if it was prompted by

the transport itself.

"This is madness!" said Commander Judix, her mind racing.

She had let the first line of defense slip. Cleaners and Spikers

were warring at the edge of the last line of electricity, crashing

into it. And all those impacts were draining fuel at an alarming

rate.

Commander Judix had thought she would have several days,

maybe even a week to find the boy, get the key, and make her

escape, but it was looking like it might only be hours before

monsters were crawling all over the beach. And now even that

didn't matter, because the vessel was unexpectedly on the

move--and she wasn't in it.

"I
won't
let it leave without me," she repeated over and over.

The communication box on the wall crackled to life. It was

chaos in the engine room, where fuel was converted to

electricity.

"Commander! Where are you? We're into our final reserve! We

need Grammel with that fuel! Where is he?"

"We've got a breech at nine o'clock!" It was a second voice from

a different part of Station Seven. "It's alive! It's alive! I repeat, we

have a live breech at nine o'clock!"

She couldn't stand the idea of leaving the dot behind, but

tearing herself away, she rolled quickly to the pillar of books

and pushed the communication button that would have her

voice heard in both places at once.

"How long will the fuel last?" she asked. There was a moment

of static-filled silence before her answer came in which she

thought of rolling back to the screen.

"A day, maybe less. It depends on how many touches we get. It

takes a lot of fuel to absorb those hits."

"It's a Spiker that's broken through!" said the second voice. "It's

on the move!"

"Commander Judix, what are your orders?"

The Commander felt physically ill and began to shiver. She

didn't care about anyone else. Not those who had stayed on at

Station Seven, not Hope, not the children. There was only her

and her goal of leaving forever.

"Assume lockdown positions," she said. "And kill that thing

before it attacks the station."

Commander Judix turned off the receiver. Lockdown meant the

windows would be covered in shields of metal. Metal, metal,

metal! She
hated
metal. And she didn't want to hear anything

more about Cleaners or Spikers or lack of fuel. Commander

Judix wanted to be left alone as she watched the glowing blue

dots foretell her doom.

To her great surprise, when she returned to the screen, the

cluster of glowing blue dots had stopped. And what was more,

they appeared to have stopped almost directly on top of the

laboratory where she sat.

"What trickery is this?" she said, confounded by this new turn of

events. And then it crossed her mind that maybe, just maybe,

this thing had come looking for Dr. Harding. Maybe it had come

on its own by some forgotten program in an endless loop. It

could have landed in its usual place, then moved on in search

of its master.

"Where are you hiding?" she said. "You're outside, on the roof,

aren't you?"

She rolled away from the screen and crossed the laboratory,

pressing a button on a panel. A door
swish
ed open and she

entered a small elevator with masks and goggles hanging here

and there.

"The way to Atherton will be there! And the door will be open,

as it was in the forsaken wood."

Commander Judix put on a set of goggles and a mask as the

elevator rose to the roof. When the door swung open again the

elevator room filled quickly with caustic smog. Looking this way

and that, she desperately hoped to see the vessel awaiting her

arrival. But it was nowhere. There were only glass rooms filled

with rows of dead plants and trees.

She rolled down the long rows as she listened to the awful

sound of beasts fighting in the distance. Being outside was

terrifying, all the more so because she hadn't been outside in so

long. She arrived at the roof's edge and couldn't see over the

ledge. It was too high from where she sat, and she cursed her

chair, hitting the wheels and the handles over and over with her

clenched fists. Then she rolled away, toward the distant side of

the roof, just to be sure the vessel wasn't hidden somewhere

else.

Could she have seen over the rail, Commander Judix would

have caught site of Edgar and his friends emerging from the

yards and standing in front of the Raven. If anything, the millionspiked object seemed even more frightening than when Edgar

had left it in the forsaken wood. There was no person or beast

he could imagine getting within ten feet of its pulsating, needlesharp tips. And yet Edgar knew he must find a way to open the

door, get everyone inside, and set the powder block onto the

black table.

"Don't go anywhere near it," whispered Aggie through her

mask, which she had put back on. She'd never seen anything

quite so threatening.

"It's okay," said Edgar. "I think the Raven is like Gossamer. It's

on our side."

"How do you know that?" It was Teagan in doubt this time.

"What if it starts firing arrows at you?"

Edgar had to admit he'd be cut right through if even one of the

long black spikes fired in his direction. He wouldn't stand a

chance. They heard a crashing sound from the yards and

realized something very big and dangerous was practically on

top of them.

"It's a Spiker!" Vasher struggled to hold the powder block as his

face twitched nervously.

"Open!" Edgar yelled at the Raven, but it just sat there, the long

spikes pulsing horrifically. He turned back to his friends with

searching eyes. The masks were beginning to fail and

everyone was starting to cough. Soon they'd be forced back

inside or risk serious harm. The thought of Aggie and the others

becoming any sicker bothered Edgar tremendously.

"Edgar," said Landon. "What?"

"The door," Landon continued as he pointed past Edgar. "It's

opening."

Edgar spun around and couldn't believe his eyes. "This is going