“It’ll catch up with us,” Alex said. “At some stage we’ll be left with thick forest and cities. Then what?”
“I’m just providing a short-term solution. Last week I mapped the individual harvester statistics to the old charts. If we want to meet Augustus’s short-term targets, this is how we do it. When we get the damaged one from today repaired, we send it to start on the forest. Okay?”
Short-term, long term, it didn’t matter to Gregor. As long as he could keep the plates spinning. He downed his whisky and slammed the glass on the table. “Makes sense. Can you work on this together, and send the new coordinates to the harvester drivers?”
“Leave it with us,” Alex said. “I’ll have the instructions sent out tonight.”
The thought of Alex and Layla working together pleased Gregor. Both seemed to have a mutual dislike for each other since meeting ten years ago. The time hadn’t managed to bring about a thaw, unlike the croatoans weather control.
Alex was long serving and loyal. Friends from the pre-alien days were at a premium. Layla had provided him with yet another solution to keep the wolf from the door. Without her, he could have been hanging on a butchers hook.
His thoughts turned to Marek. With Augustus out of the way, and the new directive in place, it was all hands on deck. A safe and justifiable time to release his old friend.
“Alex. You’re in charge of the ground team again. Marek’s back as my number two,” Gregor said. He brushed the blind to one side, and unlocked the door. “I’ll leave you two to it. Let me know if you have any problems. I don’t like looking clueless in front of that masked bastard.”
“Gregor, wait, they’re up to something,” Layla said.
“Who? The croatoans? They’re always up to something.”
“Not just the quotas. Have you noticed there’s more of them in the warehouses? Numbers have doubled in the chocolate factory. The equipment they’re bringing down too. I’m telling you, this is more than usual operations.”
“They come and go. So what if they have a new floating platform or funny device?”
Alex stepped toward him and said with a genuine look of sincerity, “She’s got a point. It’s not just because of today; it’s been going on the past two weeks. They’re not communicating with us either.”
Gregor paused for a moment. He couldn’t deny that things were changing, but for the sake of survival, they had to concentrate on what would work for them. Worrying over alien experiments or motives wouldn’t help. Meeting the targets and keeping the livestock healthy and fit for consumption would.
“Do some digging. See what you can find out,” he said.
As he left the office, Gregor gazed at sky. It started to turn a gentle orange during the hours of dusk and dawn over a year ago, perhaps two. It became more accentuated as they covered larger swathes of the continent with the initial planting of croatoan crops.
Gregor heaved up the metal garage door, wincing as it screeched on its rusty mechanism, like giant nails running along a chalkboard.
Marek peered through the dim light, twisting his shoulders against the bound rope around his upper torso. “Gregor, you’ve come to see me.”
“It’s over my friend. You’re back as my number two.”
“Why did you do it? You know you can trust me.”
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 hour 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 16
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, 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, 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 that 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 out-stretching 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.