Atherton #3: The Dark Planet (No. 3) (9 page)

all of her formidable powers of persuasion put to the test to

gather anything and every thing he requested. But a year more

had passed in devastating silence. Not a sound or a signal.

Nothing!

Her anger turned a sharp and treacherous eye toward everyone

who had been involved in the making of Atherton. Thousands of

others had once walked the halls of Station Seven. She turned

on them, hating them for their failure to find a solution.

And then, all at once it had seemed, something had died inside

the woman at the window. Her moral will collapsed and she

sank into grief. It happened on the day of the third year passing

without a sign. A new bitterness filled her eyes, and everyone

saw. She drove all but the most hardened away and set her

course in a new and cruel direction. From that point on, Station

Seven was, for all intents and purposes, abandoned and

forgotten like so many other places on the Dark Planet.

It was said that she had lost her soul in the making of Atherton.

The woman at the window could have gone to another station

and continued to lead and to work. She had certainly been

asked. She had been president
and
supreme ruler in better

times; she was brilliant, and she knew how to control people.

But she had long ago made her choice. Her reputation was

sullied by the failure of Atherton. In the failing world of the Dark

Planet, this remarkable woman at the window had been

forgotten along with Station Seven.

Her name was Commander Judix.

Every corner of the Dark Planet is failing,
she thought to herself.

Of those who remained, scattered on the bleak surface of the

Dark Planet, no one went outside. And no one ever visited

Station Seven. Dr. Harding had seen to that by filling the

forsaken wood with Cleaners and Spikers.

Commander Judix was the only person who occasionally

visited Dr. Harding's abandoned laboratory at the end of a

darkened passageway. She would allow no one else to enter.

In the five more years that had passed without the slightest sign

of life from Atherton, Commander Judix had taken to visiting the

lab less frequently, a nearly forgotten disaster from a more

optimistic time. There were more pressing matters at hand.

And so it was that a small and distant signal could have been

detected but was not. Inside the laboratory there was a little

blue light blinking on a slick black surface. Soon the blue light

would move, but would anyone from Station Seven even know

it had appeared?

Commander Judix sighed and touched a pale yellow button on

the arm of her chair.

"Shelton," said Commander Judix. "Come to the window."

Commander Judix heard the faraway echo of approaching

footsteps. It would be a while before the footsteps reached her.

Station Seven was a place made for thousands, but only a few

dozen remained. When someone moved, the place became

haunted by the long echo of metal-soled boots on an endless

metal floor.

She had made a decision about the Silo and needed someone

else to share the bad news. There was guilt over what needed

to be done, though to be fair, this was not what kept her awake

at night. Where the children were concerned there were always

those who would try to oppose her. In the face of a dying world,

Commander Judix shared no such feelings. It was a matter of

hanging on as long as one could by whatever means

necessary. A person's age had nothing to do with it.

Hanging on wasn't easy, either, since the world had become

fragmented beyond all reckoning. There were the seven

stations, separated by great distance and failing lines of

communication. Commander Judix hadn't formally heard from

any of the other stations in over two years. There were human

outposts scattered every where, gigantic metal buildings filled

with people trying to survive in the daily onslaught of so many

threats. One such outpost was but twenty miles inland from the

beach where Station Seven sat alone.

Sometimes there were stragglers--mostly children--who slipped

into the forsaken wood and couldn't find their way out again.

The older a person was, the more devastating it was to be

outside at all. But there was a magic age, or so it seemed, in

which a person could be out quite a lot and still survive.

4200 days old and you could be outside for days at a time and

still live. It wouldn't even bother a twelve-or thirteen-year-old.

Before that, the human body was too fragile and there were

awful side effects to overexposure. And after 5000 days--almost

fourteen years old--things started to swing the other way again.

The eyes would begin to sink deeper and darker. Soon, these

children couldn't go outside at all without goggles and masks,

which weren't always easy to come by.

It was this magic age of 4200 days that had kept Station Seven

afloat as the Dark Planet grew darker and more dangerous.

Commander Judix finally saw Shelton's watery reflection in the

glass.

"Yes, Madam?"

Shelton was a grave, humorless man. He hadn't always been

that way, but the circumstances in which he found himself

seemed to have drained all happiness from him. He had

resigned himself to waiting for the end and knew it would

come--probably sooner than later.

Commander Judix spun around in her chair. She was the only

person at Station Seven who could not be heard moving

around, because she had no legs. She rolled from place to

place in complete silence and was fond of sneaking up on

people because it was something she could do that no one else

could.

"How many 4200s at the Silo?" she asked. Eleven and a half

years old sounded so young. Commander Judix was much

more comfortable calling them by the number of days they'd

been alive. 4200 days sounded like a long time to have lived in

a fallen world.

Shelton was terrified by the sound of her voice. She had ruled

the most powerful hemisphere, then commanded the entire

world as it fell apart before her very eyes. She had been

powerful beyond imagining, controlling armies and weaponry

he couldn't calculate. And in this isolated world of Station

Seven she remained the supreme ruler. It was an inescapable

fact that, like King Henry or Queen Elizabeth, she controlled

every thing within her realm from the wheelchair throne she sat

on.

"At last count--that would have been four days past--there were

only two 4200's, a girl and a boy," answered Shelton in a shaky

voice.

"Are you positive that's all there is?" asked Commander Judix,

alarmed. "No one new in three months' time?"

"I'm afraid not, Madam. The wood has been very quiet as of

late. And we lost two more of Grammel's batch last week. Most

of what he's leaving behind isn't making it to 4000. He finds

them along the way, you know. They're too young to be

standing on the banks waiting for someone to save them. He

only wants them if they're old enough and strong enough to

work outside."

The number of new children had been dwindling fast for

months. Commander Judix knew this. Where once there had

been one or two children every week stumbling into one of the

traps in the forsaken wood, now there were hardly any. And

Captain Grammel was bringing nothing but 2000's who were far

too weak to survive life in the Silo. Only a year ago there had

been nine eleven-year-olds at the Silo, but they were gone now.

The pipeline wasn't filling up as it once had.

"Send the transport farther out, past the wood if you have to."

Shelton could already imagine the conversation he would have

with the dwindling transport team.

"It will be hard to convince them," he said. "They say the

Spikers and Cleaners are fighting over territory more and more.

The forsaken wood is a hazardous place, to say the least."

A mad rage boiled under Commander Judix's skin as she

thought of Dr. Harding and the mess he'd left behind.

"Grammel will be here in four more days. If we can't produce at

least three children, he's not going to leave us a hundred days'

worth of fuel."

Shelton was thinking of the children in the Silo. Only two

elevens, but there was a big group of tens. Six boys and four

girls. And there were nines and eights--at least a dozen of them

in all. That made... what was it? Twenty-four children. And only

two elevens!

"It's a shame Grammel won't take them younger than 4200,"

said Shelton.

Grammel used the same device as Shelton, Red Eye, and

Socket to measure the age of the children. If the tip of the device

was touched to skin it would produce a reading, right down to

the minute, of how old a person was.

"Maybe I could convince him. Captain Grammel's probably

finding it slim all along the coastline," said Commander Judix.

"He may well take whatever we can give him."

"Hope won't like this," said Shelton. "She'll make a terrible

fuss."

"Then do your job," said Commander Judix. She had turned on

him with an accusing tone, as if Shelton were the sole reason

for their troubles.

Had she heard him? It wasn't a few Spikers in the forsaken

wood, it was a pod of them, and that meant a queen. They

couldn't let anything that big near Station Seven, but without

Grammel's fuel the power station would stop running. What

then? The air would run out, and the water, too. But most

appalling of all, the electric shield would come down. They'd be

unprotected. The Cleaners and Spikers could get in.

"I'll make them go farther out," he said. And then, thinking like

the coward that he was, he added, "You know, a ten-year-old

could be almost 4000 days old. We have ten of those in the

Silo. I could check them to be sure."

Commander Judix didn't look at Shelton. She couldn't look at

him without wanting to run him down with her chair. Is this what

she was left with? Cowards and weaklings and fools! Everyone

else had fled long ago. But what choice did she have? Spikers

and Cleaners were rampant in the forsaken wood. She would

have to start conserving fuel, running the power station on

reserve. Soon, so very soon, the shields would fail and leave

Station Seven open to attack.

They took my legs before--and my family. What would they take

this time?

"See how many days old the tens are," she said. "And tell Red

Eye and Socket what's going on. Don't say anything to Hope

until we have to. You still have time to make this right."

The words stung in Shelton's mind as Commander Judix spun

her chair around on its wheels and rol ed away in silence,

leaving him standing alone in a giant, empty room.

Grammel.
Shelton couldn't stand the captain of the supply ship.

Every hundred days, like clockwork, he would come on the

churning waters of the acid-soaked sea. Moored at the hundredyard tip of the stone jetty, he would pull the horn and send

bil owing plumes of black smoke into the air. Shelton could

actually imagine the man's face, completely covered in soot and

smiling from ear to ear, rows of white teeth flashing as he

plugged in the fuel hose. Grammel's ship was huge and ugly,

spewing a filth into the air that was as much liquid as smoke.

The ship left everyone and every thing in its path covered in

rancid soot.

"You'll take the tens," whispered Shelton. "You'll take them or

we'll have your precious ship and every thing in it."

But a ship without a captain wasn't likely to set sail again, and

eventually the fuel would run out for good. Then what would he

do?

A little while later Aggie woke with a start as she always did,

disoriented in the ever-present darkness of the Silo. She never

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