Atherton #3: The Dark Planet (No. 3) (18 page)

he held in his hand. "It's warm, but it appears to be harmless.

And there's something else here you're going to want to see."

Samuel picked up one half of the tablet and held the glass end

of the pen filled with firebugs.

"Look here," he said, and she came a little closer. "This thing is

used for writing." He touched the sharp black end of the pen

toward the inside of the tablet, and made a letter
I,
then an
S,

and so on, until he'd spelled Isabel's name in thin lines of

burned wood.

"The tip looks like something I've seen before," said Isabel,

curious. "It looks like the beak of a diving Nubian, don't you

think?"

Samuel nodded in agreement. It did look startlingly similar to

the flying creature they'd encountered on their last journey

through the inside of Atherton with its razor-sharp black beak.

"This is what I wanted you to see," said Samuel, holding the

glowing tail end of the pen lower on the tablet. There Isabel saw

a series of words, which Samuel read out loud.

"'Gon to find SILO. Do not wory. I am ok. I wil be bak soon.'"

"Edgar!" said Isabel. "He wrote that--I can tell he wrote it!"

"I really need to work with him on the spelling, but the message

is clear. He's fine, Isabel. He always comes back if he says he's

going to."

"And he'll be back soon," said Isabel, repeating the words on

the tablet. "Do you realize what that means? We're saved!"

"We are?" said Samuel. "When he comes back he'll see we're

not there and he'll know--he'll know we came down here."

"You're right! And he'll tell Dr. Kincaid. All we have to do is wait

here. We have food and water. We could last for a week if it

came to that."

Without thinking, they hugged each other. The embrace was

awkward but comforting, and when they released each other an

unexpected warmth remained.

"Did you hear that?" said Isabel. Her expression had gone

suddenly cold. She could barely hear it at first, but there was

definitely a sound from the direction of the ladder leading up to

the yellow door.

"We should never have left the base of the ladder," said Isabel.

A whipping and snapping sound was coming toward them.

Whatever it was that crept up the corridor, it had smelled

something new inside Atherton and become curious.

"Run!" said Samuel. He already had the pen, the map portion of

the tablet, and his pack--and Isabel had hers--and so they were

off at a tear, away from the advancing creature.

The other half of the tablet was left behind in the rocks, which

was a shame, because there was information there that might

have helped the two understand that what they were doing was

more important than they knew.

CHAPTER 15POWDER BLOCKING

"And you say he's at least 4000?" asked Commander Judix. It

was the first potentially good news she'd had in quite some

time.

"It's hard to say. We couldn't get a clean reading," said Shelton.

He had returned from the forsaken wood and gone straight to

the same giant window he'd stood at the night before. "I think

the reader was acting up, but he's at least 4000."

"That's odd," said Commander Judix, puzzled by a reader that

wouldn't work. It worried her that yet another piece of

technology was failing with no way of replacing it. "Tell Red

Eye to try his. We need a clean reading or Grammel will

complain. I can't give him a reason to short us this time."

She looked pensively into the forsaken wood. She could

already imagine the meeting with Grammel.

"Was this new boy hostile or troubled like the others? Grammel

won't like it if he's too old."

"Ma'am, I assure you, this boy is at least 4000 and healthy as a

horse on Atherton."

He regretted speaking of Atherton the moment he'd done it.

There had been a time when all good things were called

Atherton things--the air on Atherton, the water, the trees, the

animals, the people--every thing was so much better on

Atherton. But the mere mention of the place had long been

taboo.

"Why must you always be such a fool?" said Commander Judix.

"Get me a reading as quickly as you can. Grammel is going to

be early."

"What do you mean, early?"

"I received word this morning. He's going to be ninety-seven

days instead of a hundred. Apparently, a rancid wind has been

at his back and he's short of help. He'll be very pleased we

have two."

Shelton so hated Grammel that the idea of him showing up in-could it be, only one more day!--well, it fully ruined his morning

on the spot. It drove him near mad that such a buffoon could

have so much power over Station Seven.

"Get on with it!" said Commander Judix, seeing that Shelton

was daydreaming. He'd been doing more of that lately and it

bothered her. "The reading's not going to take itself."

"Yes, ma'am, right away." Shelton began to leave, but turned

back at the last second. "Oh, one more thing."

Shelton paused, rubbing his chin as he tried to think of how to

put it. "He looks... well, he looks different."

Commander Judix thought this sounded like trouble. "How do

you mean?"

"It's hard to describe. I guess he's not as sickly as one might

expect."

Commander Judix sent Shelton away with a wave of her hand.

Not as sickly as one might expect?
This was sounding better all

the time. It wasn't that far across the plain to the forsaken wood.

This boy must have come from a long stay at one of the

outposts and kept a mask and goggles on. Maybe he'd come

from a rich family that could afford an underground hideout.

Who knew? Who cared! The fact was she had a very valuable

thing in her possession, a rare asset ideal for bargaining.

Commander Judix thought of what a wonderful stroke of luck

this was. She would get another hundred days of fuel, maybe

more since Grammel would be early and she had such a good

crop of new help. She'd already been working out a plan to get

more children during that time. Whether they liked it or not,

Shelton and the transport team would go out past the forsaken

wood into places they'd always stayed away from. Plenty of

children crawling around out there that would love a chance to

live in the Silo.

Yes, things were definitely looking up.

"What's your name?" asked Aggie.

Red Eye and Socket had gone up on the platform to check on

the vines. The tube that held the platform was still like the trunk

of a lonely tree. If it began sliding down into the ground they

would know the two goggle-headed monsters that ran the Silo

would be on their way back down.

"Don't you have a name?" Aggie persisted. Edgar glanced

around the hot room, trying to get his bearings. The Silo was

starting to worry him. Would he ever be able to escape and get

back to Atherton?

The light in the drying room was rather dim, and it struck Edgar

that this was true of every room he'd entered so far. There were

no windows at all. He'd noticed some of the children wearing

dark goggles as he passed through each of the levels, but no

one on the green team was wearing them except the oldest boy,

Vasher. Everyone else had their goggles either propped on

their foreheads or hanging around their necks.

"I'm Edgar. It's my first time in the Silo."

Edgar had never seen children like these. They were even

skinnier than he was and their eyes were tired. But the most

striking thing was their close-cropped hair, especially on Aggie

and Teagan. He asked Aggie about this and she seemed

embarrassed by the question.

"I'm afraid you'll get yours cut soon enough," she said, looking

at the mop of black hair on Edgar's head and wishing for all the

world she still had hers. "Red Eye makes us keep it this way.

He says it's easier to keep clean, less likely to get in the way. I

think it's just another way to control us."

Aggie was equal parts spel bound and bothered by Edgar's

presence. What right did he have to look so fresh and new?

She should look healthy like that. But it was also this

unexpected vitality that drew her interest.

"What are those things over his eyes?" asked Edgar, motioning

toward Vasher, who was busy working and staying quiet.

"We all have them, but most of us don't need them unless

there's more light. There's not really any rhyme or reason to it.

Being outside affects some people's eyes more than others,"

said Teagan. Edgar could tell she liked explaining things.

"Anyway, they're called goggles, and they protect our eyes from

light. Vasher's only wearing his because sometimes he gets

head aches lately. He seems to feel better with them on, but I

think it's all in his head. I mean, look at this place! There's

hardly any light at all. Very depressing! Red Eye and Socket

are the worst. They're really sensitive to the light, so they leave

all the old lights off unless they absolutely need them on. You

should have seen what Aggie did to the two of them last night!"

Edgar looked at Aggie curiously, but she quickly changed the

subject.

"Where have you been living? You look better than anyone I've

ever seen come in here."

Edgar didn't know how to answer Aggie so he shrugged and

pretended not to know where he'd been. "I don't remember a lot.

I've been wandering awhile."

"Have not!" cried Vasher. No one even knew Vasher was

listening from where he worked. He stared at Edgar, a rage

building. "No one wanders outside for long and comes out

looking like you."

"It's all right, Vash," said Aggie with a calm and steady voice.

"He's not going to hurt you or try to take anything from you."

Behind the goggles, Vasher had the deepest-set eyes of the

group, and they quickly scanned everyone in the room.

"He's lying!" accused Vasher. "He's from the station. He's come

to spy on us." Vasher had been getting harder to control during

the past few months. Sometimes he was perfectly calm, but

other times, especially when his things or his position were at

risk, he lashed out.

"I'm not lying," insisted Edgar. "I just don't remember."

Vasher looked at Teagan as if he might start to cry,

overwhelmed by some other emotion that had quickly taken

over. This is what always happened. If a person had been

exposed to the outside for too long when they were very young,

a day came when emotions ran amok and attention was hard to

keep. It was why the really young children Grammel brought on

the boat were of such questionable value. He'd find them on the

beach, totally exposed to the outside world, and bring them to

the Silo expecting them to grow up and be useful a few years

later.

"It's okay, Vash--really it is. He's not going to take things away.

He's nice, aren't you, Edgar?"

Edgar nodded and smiled at Vasher.

"And I'm a hard worker," he said. "Just tell me what to do and I'll

do it. You'll see."

This seemed to calm Vasher down and he leveled off, going

back to work with Landon but still casting a wary eye at Edgar

every few seconds.

"Take this," said Aggie, handing Edgar a metal tube with a blunt

end. "And use it like this."

Aggie had her own metal tube and she began tamping the

powder inside the bin. The bin itself was about four feet across

and three feet tall at the sides. It was a little over half filled with

papery-looking buds that appeared to Edgar as if they were

swimming in a vat of white powder.

"Why are we doing this?" he asked.

"It's how we make the white powder," said Landon, surprised

that Edgar didn't recognize one of the most basic elements of

life in the Silo. "You know about powder blocking, don't you?"

Edgar thought Landon looked like the youngest and weakest of

the bunch. His eyes were bloodshot in a way that made Edgar's

own eyes water when he looked at them. But Landon was full of

energy and hopped around from place to place as he worked.

"I'm afraid I don't know about any powder. I've never seen it

before."

Every member of the green team thought this was peculiar.

They were constantly being told they were saving the world

with the work they were doing. The powder blocks were sent all

over--or so they thought--so people could mix the powder with

whatever liquid they could find and drink it.

"They don't start out all chalky like this," said Aggie. She liked

the idea of getting to know this strange new boy a little more.

"The vines--you saw them coming down here, I'm sure--they

make flowers that never bloom."

"The team in the vine room climbs up and gets them," said

Landon, racing around a bin so he was facing Vasher. "The

flowers, I mean--and they get dropped on the floor."

Aggie pointed to the ceiling. "Then the flowers that never bloom

pass through a lot of holes that lead through heated grates. The

grates shake them dry. When they finally fall through the ceiling

--"

As if on cue, a dried-out white bud about the size of Edgar's