Read Atherton #3: The Dark Planet (No. 3) Online
Authors: Patrick Carman
Tags: #Science fiction, #General, #Action & Adventure - General, #Children's Books, #Children's & young adult fiction & true stories, #YA), #Action & Adventure, #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Ages 9-12 Fiction, #Children: Grades 4-6, #Young Adult Fiction, #Science fiction (Children's, #Adventure and adventurers, #Orphans, #Life on other planets, #Adventure fiction, #Social classes, #Science Fiction; Fantasy; Magic, #Atherton (Imaginary place), #Space colonies
four glanced at each other in silent agreement that this was
possible. It had been ninety-one days since they'd taken
Ramsey, the former fifth member of the green team. Vasher
would be the next to go, then it would be Aggie's turn. It was
something none of the remaining four liked to talk about. They
didn't know where children went when they left the Silo. Only
that they never came back.
"Let's just keep working. It won't do any good to slow down,"
said Teagan, thinking of Aggie and how she wanted her to rest
as soon as possible. Both boys nodded their agreement. They
talked nervously about the new boy and what he would be like.
Would he be older and meaner?
All four members of the green team had come from a sprawling
compound fifty miles down the beach. Tens of thousands of
people lived there, many of them orphaned children, and the
circumstances were so horrific people often wandered off in
search of something better.
"I was thinking of my dad this morning," said Teagan. She cried
about her parents sometimes. "He was a lot like you, Aggie.
Headstrong and confident."
"Do we have to dig all that up again?" said Vasher. He was the
biggest and oldest of the group. "Let's just get the work done so
we can get out of here."
Vasher didn't like all the carrying on about parents. It was the
same story over and over again, and the older he got the more
annoyed he was by it all. Parents left the compound searching
for someplace better and never came back. And when the day
came that kids couldn't wait anymore, they went looking for their
parents--and ended up in the Silo. It had happened to everyone
on the green team.
Teagan wanted to lash out at Vasher, but Aggie looked tired
and sore and she had to admit talking about their parents made
everyone sad and less productive.
Red Eye and Socket rose on the platform and passed through
the main chambers of the Silo. The platform ran the entire
length of the middle of the Silo, from the drying room at the
bottom to the engine room at the top. Red Eye and Socket
ascended through the drying room and emerged on the other
side into a high-ceilinged chamber with vines dangling every
where.
"Faster, you yellows! Faster!" yelled Red Eye at the five
children who were working there, pulling the bender from his
back and
whap! whap! whapping!
it against the rail of the
platform. "They're catching up down there!"
The sight of the bender sent the working children into a frenzy.
They were all younger than Aggie and Teagan. Picking buds
from the long vines was dangerous, but it was also one of the
easiest jobs in the Silo. When the children got older they were
usually moved to the next level up, which Red Eye and Socket
presently passed into. This was the growing room, where the
white powder found its beginning.
Thirty long rows of red bulbs the size of a man's head lined the
floor of the room. Brown leaves fanned out in perfect form,
which children tended and preened. One boy was carefully
picking seeds from the tips of the leaves. A very tiny girl was
trimming an overgrown plant. Two more were tilling the soil.
The vines grew from the bottom of the bulbs, through the floor,
and into the vine room below.
"You there!" said Red Eye, stopping the platform ten feet over a
boy's head. "Stop what you're doing and go help with the
trimming."
"Yes, sir!" cried the rail-thin boy of 3700 days. He came
alongside the small girl at the trimming station and began
carefully tearing bits of yellow off the edges of the otherwise
orange, floppy leaves. The leaves and the seeds were used to
make bars like the one Commander Judix had eaten a few
hours before.
The platform continued on, rising through the planting room and
into the barracks level, where the boys and girls slept. There
were three barracks in all: one for the boys, one for the girls,
and one where Hope cared for the very young children between
1500 and 2500. Only one level remained--the engine room-which was also where Red Eye and Socket slept. No one but
Red Eye and Socket was allowed in the gloom and noise of the
pounding engines.
"We'll take the new boy down to the drying room and put him
right to work with the greens," Red Eye said as the platform
arrived on the barracks level.
"Oh, no, you won't."
Red Eye and Socket whirled around and saw Hope, who had
been standing next to the platform waiting for the new arrival.
They had long grown weary of this meddling lover of cast-off
children.
"I had a feeling we might find you here," said Red Eye. "We've
already placed the boy with the green team. Aggie's been slow
today and they've fallen behind in the drying room. That girl is
getting lazier by the minute."
He smiled, feeling his cheeks push against the bottom of his
goggles.
"I hear Aggie had a beating last night. That true?"
Even with goggles to hide his eyes Socket's expression always
gave him away. "She had it coming. The little monster tried to
blind us!"
"We agreed you'd tel me before disciplining a girl. Did you
forget about that?"
Red Eye laughed and spit sprayed from his mouth. His voice
became grim and mean.
"We don't take orders from you," he said. "You're here by
invitation only."
"She's already more trouble than she's worth," added Socket.
"If it's trouble you want, it's trouble you'll get," said Hope. She
had a steely resolve that put both of the men back on their
heels. They knew the truth: If push came to shove they'd have a
hard time running the Silo without Hope. She had medical
training no one else had. When kids became sick, which
happened a lot, Hope took care of it. As for the little ones--the
snot-nosed, whining little ones!--Red Eye and Socket couldn't
stand them and refused to take care of them. None of the 1500's
would ever become 4200's without Hope's mothering.
"Just stay out of our way," said Red Eye, regaining his
confidence. "The recruits are mine to deal with."
"We'll see about that," said Hope. She put her hand in her
pocket and Socket flinched, cowering behind his brother. Hope
had another reason to be feared, but she almost never used it.
The mere fact of its existence was enough to keep Red Eye and
Socket from going too far.
The first of a two-layered bay door slid open on the outside wall
of the room. This sent all three of them moving quickly down the
hall that separated the two barracks. Hope, who was in the best
health of all of the adults, had no trouble arriving at the bay door
first.
"Do you
really
need to be here?" asked Hope. "Why not give
me a few minutes to make a proper introduction?"
The two men looked at the door like two hungry lions awaiting
the death of an injured animal. They weren't going anywhere.
The second-layer door slid open and exposed the barracks to
the outside world of the Dark Planet.
"He's late," said Socket, leaning out and staring down toward
the ground. There was a metal grate for a landing. It was rusted
almost clean through and didn't look like it had much chance of
holding Socket's weight.
"I see him!" announced Socket. "He's coming up the ladder."
Moments before, Shelton had opened the door and shoved
Edgar out of the armored transport.
"Up the ladder," he had said, "someone will be waiting for you."
And then, without warning, Shelton had closed the door and
driven away in a plume of flying dirt and rocks.
Edgar had been mesmerized by the sight of the Silo. The beach
on which it sat was not covered in smog like the forsaken wood
had been. Something about the wood had trapped the poison of
the Dark Planet more thickly, but here, closer to the sea, there
was a lonely breeze blowing steady with the burning smell of
oil. He could see the Silo rising tall into the sky, narrow at the
middle, wider at the top and bottom. It was covered in a cake of
rust and decay that flaked off in Edgar's hands and turned
powdery and dry.
"Hurry it up! We can't keep this door open all day," Socket
yelled from above. Edgar had begun climbing the rusty ladder,
taking special care not to grab the rungs that looked like they
might pull free in his hand. He instead chose to hold on to the
rails along the sides to pull himself up.
"He's a strong climber," said Socket, turning back toward Hope
and Red Eye. "
Really
strong."
"He only wants inside," said Red Eye. "He'll slog off as soon as
there's work to be done. You can count on that." But Red Eye
had no idea what he was dealing with until Edgar crawled
inside the Silo to safety.
Edgar stood up, not the least bit breathless from the effort. As
the door
swoosh
ed shut behind him he became aware that he
was trapped inside the Silo, the very place of his maker's
childhood.
The three people who stood in front of him were each, in their
own way, surprising to Edgar. There were Red Eye and Socket,
with their wild hair and goggles and benders at the ready,
waiting to whip a new and unpredictable boy into shape. They
were pale and thin, mean and unhappy.
Hope, on the other hand, put him immediately under her spell.
He'd seen dark-skinned people on Atherton before, so that
didn't surprise him. She was tall and lanky and looked down at
him as if her only duty in the world was to take care of him. With
patchy gray hair and big, dark freckles beneath sorrowful eyes,
she was soulfully beautiful in a way that couldn't escape notice
by a frightened boy of twelve from Atherton.
Socket bobbed up and down to get a better look at Edgar
through his cloudy goggles.
"Something's been beating the life out of 'im."
"He's fine," said Hope. Even with the bruises and scrapes from
hitting the trees, Hope could see that there was someone very
special in front of her. "This boy's never been outside."
"Has, too!" cried Red Eye. He'd been thrown outside to fend for
himself as a child and it made him furious to look at this
seemingly perfect creature before him. "Where have you been
hiding, boy?
Where?
"
Edgar hadn't thought up what to say. In his awestruck encounter
with the Dark Planet it hadn't occurred to him that he might not
look like everyone else.
"You better start talking," said Socket.
Red Eye and Socket had both been thrown out of a compound
at a young age for beating up younger boys, and the thrill of
picking on someone small had never left Socket. "We can get
the information from you whether you want to give it or not."
Socket dragged his bender across the metal wall of the Silo and
it scraped sickly.
"I just... well, I don't really remember where I came from," said
Edgar. "I've been lost for a while."
It was the best lie Edgar could come up with and it didn't even
come close to tricking Hope, but it did seem to work well
enough for Red Eye and Socket.
"Maybe some work will jog your memory," he said. "And there's
plenty of that to be had. Move!"
He stepped aside and guided Edgar to walk in front of him.
"The day is already half over," said Hope. "In a few hours I'll
see you in the barracks. I'll have some food and water waiting
for you, and we'll have a look at those cuts and bruises."
Socket dug down in his greasy pocket and pulled out a bar. "He
can make it a few hours without drinking up all the water and
eating our food," he said, taking a bite.
"Get him Ramsey's old olive greens," Red Eye told his brother.
Socket scurried off and Edgar glanced around the metal
landing, overcome by the idea of Max Harding living in this Silo.
Everything about the Dark Planet was so much worse than he'd
imagined it would be.
Hope knelt next to Edgar again and looked deeply into his
eyes.
"You
are
something different, aren't you?" she said. She was
especially surprised by his skin and his eyes, which were both
full of life and vibrancy. "Wait until the girls get a look at you."
Edgar smiled awkwardly and Socket came banging down the
metal floor, throwing a green shirt at Edgar.
"About time," said Red Eye, who hated to be kept waiting. "Put
that on and move!"
Edgar was shoved forward onto the round platform, followed by
the two men who had taken him captive. Edgar surveyed every
thing very carefully while he changed his shirt. As they
descended from level to level, he noticed one thing above all
that interested him greatly. All through the Silo there were metal
beams and girders. The ceilings, the walls, even some parts of
the floors on the different levels were crisscrossed with an
endless array of hand-and footholds. This place was made for
climbing.
When they arrived in the drying room Red Eye nearly threw
Edgar off the platform. "He's one of you now," said Red Eye to