When they entered the cave, it was difficult to see. Dr. Kincaid hurried into the darkness as someone who knew his way. There was a single wick lit in the corner, and Dr. Kincaid took it around and lit other wicks. When he was finished, he returned to each one and covered them with a tube of gla.s.s-a substance not known to Atherton, or at least not to Edgar. Light flooded the room with a brightness Edgar hadn't seen before.

"What are those things?"

Dr. Kincaid said something about the reflective properties of gla.s.s, and Edgar realized asking questions about strange objects in the room would send his companion on long explanations that were beyond Edgar's understanding. Like the waterfall near the grove, Dr. Kincaid's voice was a distant, oddly comforting rumble in the background as Edgar looked at the tables in front of him that were covered with all sorts of objects he'd never seen. Edgar couldn't guess what a single one of them did. He also observed with some unease that there were a great many books and journals lying everywhere.

"... You were asking about the Cleaners earlier, weren't you?" asked Dr. Kincaid. The word Cleaners got Edgar's attention. "The trouble is there are too many things to explain. We must focus on the important items, and Cleaners are very important."

Dr. Kincaid motioned Edgar farther into the cave and asked him to sit down on the bed to rest.

"Cleaners do seem awful, don't they?" asked Dr. Kincaid.

"They do," answered Edgar, surprised that anyone could think differently.

"I agree we could have prettied them up a bit and made them less dangerous, but they do such a marvelous job of cleaning everything up. That was why we made them-to keep Atherton clean. Everything runs down, Edgar, and when it does, it ends up in the Flatlands. Those creatures will eat just about anything they find in their path. And they leave almost nothing behind, only an odorless trail of bright green excrement wherever they go. Perfectly harmless. Without Cleaners, I'm afraid Atherton wouldn't be much better than the Dark Planet."

"Then why not let them loose there, instead of making this place? Why not let them clean the Dark Planet?"

"Excellent question! Excellent! Unfortunately, as I've already said, they eat everything. On Atherton this is a tolerable situation, so long as they remain contained in the Flatlands. But on the Dark Planet I'm afraid a lot of important things would get eaten, like children."

Edgar made a sour face. "Then why haven't you and Vincent been eaten?"

"Because the Cleaners stay near the cliffs, where most of the food comes down, and this cave is well away from there. Our home is high off the ground, which protects it. They don't climb very well with all those bony legs."

"And it's only you and Vincent down here, no one else?"

"That's right, just the two of us. Vincent was sent here to protect me; I was sent here for other reasons."

Edgar was glad to be leaving the topic of Cleaners for the moment.

"I know this is all very hard for you to understand," said Dr. Kincaid. "So I'm going to make it as simple as I can for you. Just listen carefully, all right?"

Edgar nodded, wanting to know as much as he could but realizing there would probably be much that he couldn't fully grasp.

"When Atherton was in its early stage of development-when it had grown to about the size of a house-we could begin to see that levels were forming, and we asked Dr. Harding about this strange occurrence. He said the center would hold water and that the levels would grow apart from one another. The bottom had to be very heavy to get it away from the Dark Planet, in order for it to sit in s.p.a.ce the way it would need to once it was launched. It grew its own air supply and began orbiting around the Dark Planet. I have a drawing here that will help you understand," said Dr. Kincaid. He crossed the room, and he returned with a notebook. Fanning through it, he came to a page and turned it toward Edgar.

"But if it's so close, why have I never seen the Dark Planet?" asked Edgar, seeing how big it was in the drawing and wondering how it would be possible for it to hide from view.

"Because you are always facing away from it, of course. Gravity from the Dark Planet stops Atherton from flying out into s.p.a.ce, but it also holds Atherton in one position. In other words, the bottom of Atherton is always facing the Dark Planet. If you leaned over the edge of Atherton here in the Flatlands, you would see the Dark Planet for yourself."

Edgar wanted to go there right away. "Will you take me? So I can see the place that I've come from?"

Dr. Kincaid hesitated, thinking now that he'd revealed too much too fast and the boy might wander off on his own and fall off the edge of the world.

"Let's wait until Vincent returns and ask if he'll accompany us. It would be safer."

This satisfied Edgar for the moment, and he asked something else that had been on his mind.

"Dr. Kincaid, where did all the people come from? Why don't they ever talk about the Dark Planet?"

"Another excellent question!" said Dr. Kincaid. "You can't imagine the clamor of people who wanted to go to Atherton. Everyone wanted to go. It was new, light, and clean. There would be trees and gra.s.s. You have to remember, the Dark Planet is just that. Dark. It's dirty. It's hard to breathe if you're not inside, where the machines make the air clean.

"But there was one thing that made it a little undesirable to come to Atherton. To be perfectly honest, it was actually a rather big problem for a lot of people."

"What was it?"

"Well, the thing of it was, if you wanted to come here, you had to go through a period of... shall we say, readiness training."

"What's readiness training? What does it do?"

"It makes you someone who's from Atherton, not from the Dark Planet. You remember certain things-some new, some old-but you feel as though Atherton were the only place you've ever known. You're still you, mostly. It's just that a lot of people felt that if you couldn't remember experiences and people from your previous life-such as your loved ones, your happiest days or your most painful learning experiences-you wouldn't really be you anymore. It was for this reason that we chose mostly people who had something of a loose connection with the Dark Planet to begin with. People with no children, very little ties to the community, people who wanted to forget their past, that sort of thing-and so it's very possible we may have let a few individuals with some character defects slip through our screening. After all, Dr. Harding developed and demanded readiness training, and it was he who decided who would inhabit Atherton. Who can say what a madman's motives are from one day to the next?"

Dr. Kincaid added that he himself had not been through readiness training and hoped he never would. He was on Atherton because he helped create it and had been sent to watch over it.

"While Dr. Harding shared much of what he was doing with everyone-all of the good things-he did not share the wrong things that he was also doing."

"What sorts of 'wrong things' do you mean?" Edgar asked, though he didn't know for sure if he wanted to know the whole truth.

"Atherton is moving, Edgar, because it's not finished yet. Dr. Harding made us believe it was ready, but it was not. He used us as an experiment. On the Dark Planet we might have said he used us as 'guinea pigs.' This is a dangerous place, Edgar, not suitable for people. At least not yet."

Dr. Kincaid sat down on the stool in front of the bed, wondering again if he were telling the boy too much.

"Dr. Kincaid, how old is Atherton?"

"Thirty-two years last month, but there have only been people here for about twelve of those. It wasn't inhabitable for the first twenty years, and then there were other complications. I visited here many times-there was a way you could get here that, trust me, you wouldn't understand-and then I came here with you seven years ago, and I have never gone back."

It was impossible to believe. The world that Edgar had a.s.sumed was ancient-the only world that existed anywhere-was not much older than he was. By now the questions were multiplying faster than Edgar could keep track of.

"Why have you never gone back, like you'd done before?"

For once, Dr. Harding seemed not to know how to answer. There was so much the boy couldn't comprehend, and he'd only scratched the surface of all that was involved. He chose to answer the question honestly, though he knew it would only bring more questions he wasn't sure he could answer.

"I can't go back," said Dr. Kincaid, his voice full with a sense of loss only he could understand. "The connection between Atherton and the Dark Planet has been broken, and to my knowledge there is no way to bring the two back together again."

Without warning there came a thunderous sound like a great wave on an ocean, a sound Dr. Kincaid knew and could remember from his days on the Dark Planet. Edgar, of course, could not place it in his memory of an oceanless Atherton. It grew in volume, and the gla.s.s covers on the lights began to shake until one of them toppled to the floor and shattered.

"Come! The Highlands must have finished their descent into Tabletop. Now you shall see what the last page of the book I left for you said!"

The two of them ran for the entrance to the cave, and the light of day burned Edgar's eyes. It took him a moment to see clearly.

"You see there! The last page of the book that I left for you foretold of this!" screamed Dr. Kincaid, falling to his knees, for the roar of grinding stone was much louder outside the cave than it had been inside. Edgar fixed his eyes to where Dr. Kincaid was pointing.

Tabletop was crashing down into the Flatlands.

They watched and listened as the fall continued for half a minute. Then the sound vanished in the air and everything was still again.

But the quiet could not calm Edgar, who was overcome with a surge of worry for Isabel and Samuel. He could not have imagined the battles that had broken out far above, the role Isabel had played, or the unexpected victory for those in the villages. The only thing Edgar knew for sure was that the world had changed.

And it was changing again.

Two Cleaners were clicking their legs quietly at the base of the cliffs. They had managed to avoid Vincent as they moved all the way across the Flatlands, at last arriving at the cliff leading up to Tabletop. The creatures grated their teeth against the rock, looking for something to eat, when they suddenly reared back on their legs in confusion. They approached the cliff once more and sniffed at the dirt with hideous, wet noses. Then they watched as the rock began to move slowly.

The movement had startled the beasts at first, but now the Cleaners were curious and clapped their teeth together with a powerful clanging noise. The Cleaners were amused. They seemed to understand the cliffs were descending, and the creatures were excited to think that fresh food might be on its way down.

I see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted. That cannot be.

DR. FRANKENSTEIN.

FRANKENSTEIN, 1818.

MARY Sh.e.l.lEY.

PART.

THREE.

"You do realize we'll never get it back."

A maddening silence fell over the room in which only breathing was heard.

"Dr. Kincaid is a good man," came a new voice. "But he's not a magician. He can't wave his wand and make it come back."

"And what of Dr. Harding?"

There was a sterile clang of a gla.s.s being set on a metal table.

"He's gone, and with him all our hopes of a new world."

The sound of a man coughing filled the room, followed by a pause in which the two men looked at one another for long moment. It was the older of the two who broke the silence between them.

"Do you think G.o.d has forgotten us?"

It was a dreadful thought filled with hopelessness.

"Is there nothing else we could try? The fate of the Dark Planet hangs in the balance. One would think we could do better."

The two men were startled by the distant sound of breaking bones. They turned to a wall of thick gla.s.s facing the bleakness of their home on the Dark Planet. On the other side of the gla.s.s were a dozen Cleaners, trying with all their might to break into the room.

CHAPTER.

26.

A STRANGER IN THE GROVE.

While Isabel watched Lord Phineus and his men race back into the Highlands, her eye caught a tiny movement away from the village. Someone was heading for the grove, fast and low to the ground. Isabel stayed along the line of trees and made her way toward the moving person until he was within striking distance. She loaded her sling and waited, wondering if it were a spy or the beginning of a second a.s.sault.

And then she realized it wasn't a man but a boy, dashing through the open s.p.a.ce, trying to reach the grove without anyone seeing him. When he came near enough, Isabel called out a warning.

"Go back where you came from! We don't want you here!"

It was Samuel she had spotted. Startled by the voice, he tripped and fell forward in the dirt, a plume of dust rising around him. He struggled up onto his elbows and peered into the grove but saw no one. Whoever it was who'd detected him, he knew from the voice that it was not an adult-and it was a girl.

"I'm not going to hurt you!" yelled Samuel, a.s.suming his appearance might have scared a small child younger than he. "Just let me into the grove, please!"

Isabel didn't know what to make of this boy trying to escape the Highlands. He could be an intruder sent to let loose more poison that she and Edgar may not have found. Maybe adults in the Highlands had sent this boy on a wicked errand. Isabel's own people had been willing to use her in their efforts to thwart an oncoming enemy. Why wouldn't grown-ups from the Highlands do the same?

"Don't come any closer or I'll have your head!" said Isabel, coming into the open area and swinging the sling over her head. Samuel saw that it was indeed a small child with dark black brows set coldly against him as he slowly rose to his feet. The moment he did, Isabel released a flying black fig, and it struck Samuel in the shin. A stabbing pain shot all the way down to his foot, and Samuel collapsed to the ground again. When he looked up, Isabel had reloaded her sling and was swinging it above her once more.

"That was a warning," she said. "Get up again and I'll aim a poisoned one for your head."

This was not the timid little girl he'd expected, but Samuel felt he'd be more likely get help from her than any adult he might encounter. He began pleading with her to help him.

"Do you know a boy named Edgar?" yelled Samuel. He saw a glimmer of acknowledgment on Isabel's face. "I know him! He came to see me in the Highlands. I'm only trying to find him!"

"What do you mean you know him? How could you possibly know Edgar?"

"I tell you, he came to see me-twice, actually-and I only want to talk to him."

Isabel slowed the sling and let it come to a stop at her side. Could this be the boy Edgar had told her about, the one who read the book to him? She couldn't believe he would make the dangerous journey to the grove in search of Edgar, and she still felt unsure about Samuel as she stared him down.

"Tell me what he looks like," demanded Isabel. "If you get it wrong I'll put this black fig through your eye."