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 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 and confirmed 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 to beef or chicken. On the harvesters, when your shift is done and they retire you, you go to the meat processing 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 you’re 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 to 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 drunk, thirsty after 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 laid 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 croatoan’s 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 now. 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?