The left hand compartment started to fill with dark orange smoke. Its neighbor took on a lighter tone. The middle compartment was slightly more transparent, the one after that was only tinged with orange. The left hand compartment remained clear.
Croatoans moved all around the structure, investigating it, checking the shoeboxes, probably for readings, and pressing their gloved hands against the plastic looking shell.
It looked to Layla that they were creating different types of atmosphere, pressurized in individual compartments.
The aliens stood in a circle for a few moments, before one broke from the group and opened the individual doors to each compartment. Puffs of orange smoke drifted into the cloudy sky after the last three doors were released.
Layla edged behind a tree stump and peered over. She started to feel that this was an experiment she needed to see, and didn’t want chaperoning away by a paranoid alien.
A croatoan guarding the man outside the left hand compartment, opened its door by raising a lever, and cajoled the confused looking man inside at gunpoint. It slammed the door behind him, and secured the lever downwards.
The same thing happened in turn to all four humans outside the other compartments, until all five sections were occupied. It looked like a strange zoo as the croatoans stood around the structure, checking the smaller devices and crowding around the larger console. The humans looked around, pressed against the interior, one sat cross-legged on the floor. A croatoan approached and ushered him up with a gun.
Through a gap between the aliens, Layla could see they were peering down to a light blue square on the larger device. Probably giving them data or readings from individual sections.
Dense orange Smoke billowed into the left hand compartment, quickly filling it from top to bottom. Its black haired inhabitant clutched at her throat, sinking to her knees. Layla momentarily lost sight of the human in the smoke, until the top of her head pressed against the bottom edge.
After observing for a few minutes, looking between the console and the compartment, a croatoan released the door and pulled the lifeless body out by the hair.
Smoke pumped into the next compartment, having the same effect on the human. Because it was less thick, Layla could see a visible outline thrashing around inside. The man dropped to his backside and tried to kicking at the door with his feet, eventually stopping and rolling to one side. He was dragged out shortly afterwards.
Fists thumped against the transparent middle section, the woman inside had seen what was coming. She tried shouting toward the croatoans, the structure must have been sound proof. One walked up and stood directly in front of the struggling woman, as if mocking her, matching her actions as she slowly perished. Aliens clicked loudly from the console.
She was unceremoniously dumped on the increasing pile of bodies after five minutes.
The humans in the final two compartments were facing each other. Hands placed on the internal separating wall, against each other.
Layla cupped her hand over her mouth and breathed, “Oh my God.”
A light orange tinge surrounded the man in the second to last section. He looked around, squinting, and wiped his eyes. He remained standing for two minutes, before doubling over and dry retching several times. He leaned against the side with his eyes tightly shut, nursing his stomach. The woman in the final compartment watched on, her head gently rocked as she clasped her hands on her cheeks.
After a few more minutes, two croatoans opened the final compartment doors. The man staggered out and fell, gasping for clean air. A croatoan pulled him up by his filthy white toga and pushed him back toward the flock. The woman was also encouraged at gunpoint toward the shelter. She didn’t need a second invitation and sprinted, tripping and tumbling, before glancing back and hurrying away.
All doors on the five compartments were left open. Croatoans crowded the console and seemed to be communicating the results of whatever they were testing. Some were more animated than others, raising their arms and pointing at individual sections of the structure.
A croatoan with a red-rimmed visor stood on top of the console and raised its arms. The group fell silent. A minute later, five aliens walked to the front of the structure and stood in the individual sections; one secured each door behind them.
The whirring started and each compartment filled with various shades of smoke, like before, going from thick to thin, from one end to another. The aliens inside pressed their gloves against the walls, moving them round in a circular motion. More visible from right to left.
Layla edged back and observed from the trees. The croatoan with the red-rimmed visor checked the small devices attached to each individual compartment, signaled back to the aliens at the console, and then thumped its glove against the middle section.
The croatoan inside removed its helmet, revealing its ugly tortoise-like head. Aliens surrounded the section, clicking loudly; others from the left and right of the structure were released and joined the mob. All excitedly went back and crowded around the console.
Their objectives started to make a little sense, although Layla didn’t know the true motivation behind it. Were they testing an atmosphere where they could survive and a human would die, or was it a test to just try and find an atmosphere that they could survive in on earth, with enough of the root extract mixed into the atmosphere. Regardless of which one it was, Layla knew either way was bad news for humans.
Increasing the land conversion statistics now started to make a little more sense. The urgency of the request baffled her at first, but after seeing this it seemed a full colonization and extinction event was planned.
Chapter 18
CHARLIE STOKED the fire with a stick, inhaling the succulent scent of roasting rabbit.
“The boy done good, eh?” Charlie said as he used his hunting knife to cut a piece from the spit. Waiting for it too cool before he took a bite and delighted in the tenderness of the meat. He nodded. “Yup, you caught a good one there, son.”
Charlie wiped his knife on a rag tucked into his belt and slapped his son on the shoulder. Ben and Ethan picked at the rabbit with a set of old forks as though it were some alien creature ready to reanimate at any moment. Maria tentatively took a bite, analyzed it, realized the taste suited her, and returned for a second serving.
“You two are too used to eating processed grey slop, right?” Denver said, pointing his knife to the two men. “The stuff they fed you from the trays?” Grease dripped from his lips and soaked into his beard. He dabbed at it with the back of his hand.
“It wasn’t so bad there,” Ben said.
“You won’t have to put up with this much longer,” Denver added before he cast eyes back to Maria as she chewed on a rabbit leg.
For a very brief moment, Charlie had a flashback to sitting with Pippa by a fire in their ice cave, cooking up a fox they caught. Maria’s mannerisms and easy nature were so similar. Either that, or the distance of time had compressed Pippa into a half-remembered mimic, whose real personality was but a ghost.
Charlie had noticed that since Maria and Ethan had joined by the riverside, sitting on logs surrounding a fire, that Denver had barely taken his eyes off Maria. And he didn’t blame him.
Aside her physical attraction, Charlie could see what Denver saw in her: a good healthy balance of emotions that she wasn’t afraid to show or act upon. Some people, like his old National Guard officer, thought that those who were best equipped for survival were the ones who throttled their emotions.