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Gregor picked up a knife from the table on the right-hand side of the garage and jabbed it toward Marek. “It was an act to keep you alive. Do you think Augustus liked the fact that you’d been captured and interrogated by the little wasp?”

  “You could have told me,” Marek said.

  “And let Augustus’s aliens beat that information out of you? We’d both be dead. I’m sorry, you have to understand.”

  “We need to put a stop to Jackson once and for all. He’s going to get us killed.”

  “They’re sending down a resource called a hunter to end him.”

  “A hunter?”

  “Probably one of those croatoans they used in battle.”

  Gregor slipped the blade underneath the rope and used the serrated edge to saw through it, making quick work of the frayed braid. He passed Marek the knife to release his ankles from the legs of the chair.

  “I heard Igor talking to Augustus outside the garage a few hours ago. Couldn’t quite tell what they were saying,” Marek said.

  “Igor’s slyer than a fox,” Gregor said. He resisted the urge to kick the table and pulled Marek to his feet. “If he’s colluding with Augustus, I need to know what they’re discussing. We’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning. Tonight, you get a whiskey and a comfortable bed.”

  Marek unsteadily shuffled toward the door. He flung his arm around Gregor to stop himself falling. Gregor wrapped his arm around Marek’s back and started leading him to his office.

  A faint roar echoed overhead. Gregor glanced up into the darkening sky. A bright light shot across it like a shooting star although the trajectory was more deliberate. It was arcing down from the mother ship toward Earth. He tried to recall the last time he saw a croatoan fighter.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The screeching sound of a bird startled Ben.

  A cold sweat had soaked his clothes, making him shiver in the dark. Sleep had evaded him, coming in shallow, brief moments, lulling his subconscious into a semi-awake state. Daydreams lingered like memories lost to time, their residue remaining, pointing to something substantial but ultimately out of reach.

  Ben turned over and reached out his hand to switch off the phantom alarm clock. His arm moved on instinct, a behavior burrowed into his muscles from years on the ship. And there, the phantasm of truth glared bright in his mind.

  He wasn’t on the ship.

  The place was dark and cold, and the sounds of others snoring reminded him that he lay ten feet under the ground in a tomb dug out by Charlie and Denver. The dampness of the blanket beneath him transferred the coolness of the soil.

  Worms, insects, beetles, and things far worse than his imagination could conjure no doubt crawled beneath him, waiting to devour him, bring his energy to the soil.

  Sitting up with a startled breath, he clawed his way forward in the dark, desperate to escape. The cold, pressing confines of the shelter making him gasp for air. Fresh air.

  Ethan and Maria were pressed tightly together to his right, their bodies warm to his touch as their chests moved rhythmically with their quiet breath.

  Charlie lay to his left. He snored loud and long, the slumber of someone who had grown up with this, someone who had chosen this over acquiescence with the croatoans. The sleep of the confident.

  Ben wondered if he would ever have that inner peace again in a world where it was he that felt alien.

  Dirt compacted beneath his fingers. He continued to crawl forward until eventually, with outstretching hands, he found the wooden ladder.

  Above him would be his escape, his freedom.

  It was only as he climbed the ladder leading to steps cut in the earth and pushed the cover of leaves away that he realized Denver was missing from the shelter. Pip too.

  Cool air wicked away the sweat on his brow, and his lungs felt the chill of pre-dawn air. The scene before him was a de-saturated landscape; the monochromatic touch of the moon delineated the outline of the leaves and trunks.

  An excited yip from beyond the tree line of the copse caught his attention. Through the foliage, he could see the slick, oily surface of a river, the silver light creating specular reflections as the breeze manipulated the water.

  But the breeze was not the only instigator.

  Moving closer, treading carefully across the loamy, damp ground, Ben pushed through between two wide trees until he stood on the threshold. A dark shape sat at the river’s edge.

  Ben watched as the figure lifted what looked like a medieval crossbow, pointed it into the darkness beyond the river, and fired a near-silent bolt. Only the twang of the wire and the thunk of the bolt hitting its target made any noise.

  A rustling came then. Pip’s tail wagged within the tall grass, the white tip catching the half-light. The dog disappeared for a moment and returned with a small creature in its mouth. She crossed a tree trunk that had fallen across the river and dropped the prize at the shape’s feet.

  Ben stepped forward.

  “Can’t sleep?” the voice from the dark shape said, confirming to Ben that it was Denver. The young man didn’t turn around as he pulled a small hunting knife from his jacket and made a series of straight cuts across his catch. “Don’t just hang around there behind me. You make a man suspicious.”

  “Sorry.” Wrapping his arms around his body to retain the heat, Ben stepped forward until he saw what Denver was working on: field dressing a rabbit. In front of him, a rack made from twigs held half a dozen fish and three skinned and gutted rabbits.

  “Breakfast,” Denver said, his voice like a cold growl. “I don’t sleep much either. Sit down; you’re making me nervous, hanging over me like that.”

  “Sorry.”

  “And stop apologizing. You don’t have anything to apologize for. I get it,” Denver said as he placed the skinned rabbit on the rack. “This is quite the change of lifestyle for you and the others. I’d be freaked out too.”

  “I don’t want to be here,” Ben said. “I just want to go back, work on the ship. I was safe there.”

  Denver turned to face him. His pale skin seemed entirely without color beneath the pre-dawn starlight. “Really? What do you think happened to those that came before you? You think they’re enjoying retirement? That’s what you were told, wasn’t it? All those tuition videos you had to watch, telling you how you were heading for a new planet, how you’d do your job and you’d get to retire in a life of comfort.”

  Unable to stand his glare any longer, Ben turned his head, trying not to think of Jimmy and Erika. Deep down, he knew that’s what retirement meant.

  “They recycle you. Did you know that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They use us as food source, a labor force, lab rats. They see us as nothing more than animals designed to further their cause. We are rabbits.”

  “Food source?” Ben said, “What do you mean exactly?”

  “They farm us. We’re just protein and nutrients after all. Stick us in a meat-processor, and we’re no different than beef or chicken. On the harvesters, when your shift is done and they retire you, you go to the unit. Those silver trays of food they give to you …”

  “No,” Ben said, standing up, shaking his head. “They wouldn’t do that … That’s … I can’t believe it.”

  “That’s your problem,” Denver said. “Believe or don’t believe, it doesn’t change the situation, does it? They’re still here. They’re still changing the planet, it’s just a matter of time now.”

  “Changing how?” Ben asked.

  “You’ve seen the air, the water, the land. That orange root compound is getting into everything. It’s what’s in the aliens’ backpack and respiratory system: a gas made from the compound. They can’t breathe our air unaided. Well, for now anyway. The atmosphere will soon be right for them.”

  “And then what?”

  Denver didn’t say anything as he stood up and stretched his arms.

  “Denver, what’s going to happen?”

  “What do you care, Ben? You’re
not really with us, are you? I can tell you don’t want to be out here, surviving. You want to go back, don’t you?”

  A flush of shame and truth warmed Ben’s cheeks even as he turned away. “I don’t know what I want. It’s all just so much to take in.”

  Denver put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “I know it’s difficult. What if I could give you a third option? You can’t go back to the harvesters, and you’re clearly not cut out to stay here. I won’t lie; it’s a tough life in the wild. I’ve seen dozens of people just give up, give in, unable to adapt. But there’s one other course for someone like you.”

  “What do you have in mind?” A mix of fear and hope swirled in Ben’s guts, but there was something in Denver’s eyes that told him it wasn’t going to be an easy option, but then he believed nothing was going to be easy again.

  “Work for us. On the inside. Help us get these fuckers off our planet for good.”

  “It sounds dangerous,” Ben said, slumping his shoulders as the hope died before it even had time to blossom. “What do you mean work for you?”

  “Sit down. Have a drink. I’ll explain everything.”

  Denver indicated a log. He had a tin can of water that was steaming from an earlier boiling. The glowing remnants of a fire sparkled within a mound of leaves and twigs.

  Ben sat down and received the warm cup from Denver. “Thanks.” He took a sip and screwed up his face at the bitter taste, but he still drank, quenching the thirst of spending the night in the underground shelter. “What is it?”

  “Root compound. We learned how to extract the active ingredient. It’ll make you feel better,” Denver said.

  “Is this why your father is still in such good shape? How old is he anyway?”

  Pip came over to Ben and lay down on the warm ground in front of the log, resting her head on Ben’s foot. Denver patted the dog and looked up at Ben.

  “Dad’s fifty-eight this year and is probably fitter than I am. He had to be. He’s one of the very few to have survived the ice age and the thaw. He saw it all. Even fought in the people’s militia during the initial struggles when the croatoans came up from the earth. Later, they came from space, overwhelmed the population, and Dad had to go in hiding with the other survivors.”

  “How long was the ice age for? What brought it on?”

  “Twenty years. We believe it was the first part of the croatoans’ terraforming process. They had this huge mother ship that altered the atmosphere, changed the world’s temperature. Dad reckons it was preparing the lands to grow the root they so desperately need. When the thaw came, the trees and vegetation grew rapidly as did the root, which is why they’re now harvesting it.”

  “So about this other option,” Ben said. “What is it you want me to do?”

  Denver pointed to the west back toward the forest. “There’s a farm back there, a few miles from your harvester. You can go there. They’ll take you in.”

  “Is it run by the aliens?”

  Denver shook his head. “No, someone far worse. A betrayer of humankind. A jumped-up gangster from pre-ice age days. He got in with the croatoans early, selling out his own kind. Gregor runs the farm on their behalf and manages the harvesters.”

  “That’s why you attacked it? Revenge?”

  “Vengeance? No, that doesn’t even scratch the surface. Gregor and Dad go way back. They’ve been fighting since the start. The more pressure we can put on Gregor with his harvesting quotas, the more pressure the croatoans will put on him to meet his targets. If he can’t, then … Well, he’ll become livestock for all those poor bastards in the farm.”

  Ben was starting to get the picture. The thought of a human farming others of his kind as livestock turned his stomach. How could he work for something like that? How was that any better than being out in the wild?

  Ben’s hope was well and truly gone now.

  “I don’t see how this is a good option,” Ben said. “How do you even know they’ll just take me in and not throw me in with the livestock?”

  “That’s a good question,” Denver said as he took a piece of root from his camo jacket’s pocket and chewed on the end. “At least you’re thinking now. You’ll have one thing that Gregor wants almost as badly as his career trajectory.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ll go to him with information on my dad. That’ll buy you almost anything you want. You can have a comfortable life there. There’s others with Gregor. You’ll likely make friends, find a purpose, and do some good along the way.”

  “Farming our species is not my idea of good.”

  “But you see,” Denver said, leaning in, his face shining in the moonlight, smiling conspiratorially beneath his straggly beard. “Once you’re in, you can feed information both ways. You could bargain for things in return for what you’ve learned about us: where our shelters are, how many people we have on our side, what our plans are. And in return, you’ll gain their trust and feed us information. If we can take out Gregor and free the people he’s using as livestock, we can start to take down other farms, freeing those people, until we … You get the picture.”

  “So you want me to be a double agent of sorts?” Ben said, remembering a James Bond film he’d watched.

  “Something like that.”

  Ben looked down at Pip. The dog was snoozing now, her breath making a quiet rumbling on his foot. It was the first time he’d ever really understood man’s fascination with animals.

  During his orientation training, they were shown a number of films produced to show them what they would be doing when they got to Kepler B, their so-called colony planet. They were told that along with humans in stasis, there was a Noah’s ark of animals too. Dogs were among the most prized for their loyalty and their uses in colonization.

  “Man’s best friend,” Ben said, reciting one of the lines from the film’s narrator.

  “Pardon?”

  “Oh, nothing, just something I heard once about dogs.”

  “Pip’s the best friend I’ll ever have aside from my old man,” Denver said.

  “I can see why.”

  Ben sighed and leaned forward onto his knees, clutching his head in his palms. He felt stuck, unable to truly make a decision between a life on the run, living in the dirt, or going back to some kind of civilization although brutal and unfamiliar.

  There was a risk too that this Gregor might not even accept him into the fold. What if his information wasn’t good enough? Ben turned to Denver, who just stared out across the river, a stern expression on his face. It wasn’t right that a man so young should be so jaded. Ethan would likely be the same too.

  Of course, that was another consideration. Could he really leave Maria and Ethan behind? Would they go with him? If they did, he’d be responsible for them like he was supposed to be responsible for them on the harvester. And that didn’t end well for anyone.

  If only I didn’t go to the stasis, he thought. If only we’d just stayed where we were and waited it out. We’d have been fine. They would have fixed the harvester, and they would have never been exposed to the truth.

  “If I did go,” Ben said, “what information exactly can you give me that will guarantee my life? It seems to me I’m the one taking all the risk here.”

  “We’ll give you a map to one of our main shelters. We’ve got dozens between here and New York, but one in particular not ten miles from here will be of interest to Gregor. We’ve got weapons and supplies stashed there. If he were to find that and take it, he’d think he would be impacting our ability to survive a great deal. And there’s one other thing that’ll seal it completely.”

  “What’s that?”

  A hand grabbed Ben’s shoulder, making him yelp with surprise. Pip woofed as she moved away from his sudden movement to lie at Denver’s feet.

  “This,” Charlie said, looking down at Ben from behind him.

  Ben held out his hand as Charlie dropped his blue-bead necklace into his palm.

  “Consider it a trophy. Gre
gor knows what it is, what it means, what it represents. Behind Den, it’s my most precious thing.”

  It was warm in Ben’s palm where it had been around Charlie’s neck just moments ago. The bead was just like the one that Charlie had cut out of Ben’s collar. Only this was wrapped in a cocoon of semi-transparent material.

  “It’s what started all this in motion,” Charlie said. “The very first find, and the item that was the catalyst for the invasion. It was also the item that I kept to remind me of my beloved Pippa.”

  “I can’t,” Ben said. “It means so much to you.”

  “Which is why it’s perfect. Gregor knows this. If you turn up with it, he’ll know you stole it as he’d never believe I’d give it away. It’s your way in and your ticket to safety. I’ll be honest with you, Ben. You seem like a good kid, but you’re not cut out for this life out here. What you’ve experienced so far is easy street. It only gets harder from here on out. You won’t survive. I know that; you know that.”

  Ben closed his hand around the bead and looked up at Charlie and Denver. They were right. He wasn’t cut out for their life. He needed security, a job, someone to guide him. And if going to the farm meant he could help these people, then at least he’d be doing something good.

  “Okay, you’re right. I’ll go. But how will I get information out to you?”

  “By radio of sorts. Here.” Charlie handed him a metallic object resembling a coin. The surface was dark grey and rough to the touch. “I took this from a croatoan helmet. It’s what they use to communicate. They’ve been paired, so they share a frequency. Don’t worry, they’re secure. Den and I have been using them for a while. As long as we keep things short, you’ll be okay. To work them, you just activate the transceiver by pressing those two notches on the side there.”

  Ben did as he instructed and spoke into the transceiver. He heard his voice come out via the other one. “Okay, I got it.”

  “Keep it to a minimum though, and make sure you don’t let it out of your sight,” Denver said. “If it’s found, just plead ignorance. It’s unlikely they’d suspect you of being able to take it from a croatoan.”