Planet Hell (2 page)

His dad had told him all about what it was really like on the Surface. There was blazing sun and terrible heat. The air was full of poison. The land was all burned up.

“That's why they called this Planet Hell,” his dad had said.

Sam shoved the bottle into his pocket. He just wanted to go home. He crept along the air shafts until he came to a secret opening at the back of his cave. It was covered with a metal grill. He reached out to pull it open – and froze.

He heard a sound.

Sam peered into his cave. He'd left an electric candle lit, but it was dying now. The room was almost dark. Then Sam saw a shape move in the shadows.

The Gang had got there before him.

Sam tried to stop shaking.

What could he do? The Gang knew every part of the Mine. There was nowhere to hide.

He looked at the bottle with the message inside.

Everyone says that nobody can live on the Surface,
he thought.
But what if everyone is wrong? I could go and find out. After all, what have I got to lose?

There was no way but up.

* * *

Sam started to climb through the air shafts. The air for the Mines came from the Surface. There were filters to take the poison out of it. And there were huge fans with sharp spinning blades to blow the fresh air into the tunnels.

The blades made cutting sounds as they slid past each other.
Shiiiip. Shiiiip.
Then the blades would stop dead for a moment, and then start spinning the other way, to blow the used air out again.

That will be my moment,
thought Sam.
When the blades stop. That's when I'll climb through.

The air shafts ran for miles. It would be easy to get lost. But Sam's dad had taught him how to see the whole Mine in his mind in 3D. Like a map, only better.

Sometimes the air shafts passed by other Miners' caves. Sam could hear people talking and moving about. It made him feel lonely.

It made him want to turn back.

Then he felt the bottle in his pocket.
Come on, Sam,
he told himself.
Keep moving.

Suddenly he heard it. The sound he had been dreading.

The sound of the fan.

The blades of the fan sliced through the air at a terrible speed. Sam listened hard, waiting for the sound to change.

There! The blades were slowing down. The fast slicing sound was becoming a slower
shiiiiip … shiiiiip …

Now! Without stopping to think, Sam scrambled up the air shaft towards the fan.

Shiiiiippppp …

And silence. The fan was still.

With shaking hands, Sam reached up and touched the razor sharp metal. He pushed the blades apart and started to pull himself through the narrow gap. He felt his shirt catch and rip. Then he heard the fan's engine starting up again, getting ready to turn the fan in the other direction.

He climbed as fast as he could and dragged his foot through the gap just as the blades started to spin again.

Sam carried on, his heart beating fast as the deadly blades sliced through the air below him.

One slip
, he thought,
and I'll be cut into bits. No one will ever know what happened to me. No one will know, and no one will care.

Sam gritted his teeth, and went on climbing.

On the Surface of Hell, a girl called Anna woke up crying.

Her robot came into her bedroom, sat on the side of her bed and stroked Anna's long hair.

Everyone on Hell was cared for by robots.

The children had to go to school, but the adults could do anything they wanted. All the hard work was done by the robots. The robots took care of everything.

“Oh dear – what is the matter?” asked the robot.

“Nothing,” said Anna, rubbing the tears from her face. But it was a lie.

Anna had been having bad dreams again. Dreams about trolls living under the ground who were going to drag her away.

Anna was angry with herself.
I'm too old to be having dreams about trolls,
she thought.
Only little kids have dreams like that!

Her robot looked at her. “Are you unhappy? What can I do to help?”

“It's nothing,” lied Anna. “I'm fine.”

But really, she was very unhappy indeed.

Life on the Surface of Planet Hell was good. Robots did everything to keep the humans safe and happy. In school, the robot teachers said, “This planet is a miracle. The Final War on Earth meant that no creatures could live there any more. The humans had to find another home. When they landed here, they called it Hell because it looked like a world of fire and nothing else. But there
was
something else. There was power. Endless, free power.”

When Anna was little, she asked, “Where does the power come from?”

“From under the ground,” said the robot teachers. “When they first came to the planet, the humans took apart the space ship they'd come in and built robots out of its parts. And with the help of the robots, they built the force fields.”

Everybody knew how important the force fields were.

“The force fields keep out the harmful rays of the sun so that we can live on a clean, safe planet,” said the robot teachers. “Without the force fields, the last of the humans would die out. We need the power from under the ground to keep the force fields going.”

The power came up a shaft from deep inside Planet Hell. There were other shafts too, hidden in caves in the hills.

The air coming up from these holes was hot and smelled bad, like rotten eggs. And sometimes, if you listened hard, you could hear things. Clanking and bashing noises, or metal sliding across metal with a slicing sound.

In the playground, the big kids said, “It's the trolls! When a baby troll is born the mummy troll cuts off its leg,
SNIP!
and cuts off its hand,
SNAP!
and then she sews on a metal leg and a scissor hand. That's their metal legs you hear, clanking, and their scissor hands, slicing. The trolls come up out of the ground in the middle of the night when you're asleep. They sneak into your bedroom and
SNIP!
they cut off your leg. Then
SNAP!
they cut off your hand!”