Stepping through the doorway, Charlie stepped to the left while Denver stepped to the right—almost as though they were preparing to flank a target. Habits die hard, it seemed. But for all Denver knew, Hagellan would one day be a target.
The alien in question stepped out from a small antechamber and sat down on its grand throne. The damned thing looked even uglier than the regular reptilian bastards. Age wasn’t kind to this one. It seemed ingesting root compounds would only do so much.
“You came,” he said, clicking with the alien staccato sound Denver had got so used to hearing, usually from the shadows or camouflaged as he took one out with his rifle. He dipped his head and closed his eyes. Layla had told Denver this was a peaceful sign of respect.
Denver did not give one shit. Neither did Charlie. Both of them stood, their arms crossed, waiting for it to get on with it. When Hagellan brought his head back up, he spoke something in croatoan, and Clone-Maria bowed before leaving. She touched Denver on the elbow and whispered, “Thank you for trusting me.”
He didn’t have time to respond as she scuffled off into the tunnels.
“First question,” Charlie said. “How do you expect us to go to a planet when we haven’t got space suits?”
“The atmosphere is similar to here. It’s easier for us to use our apparatus on the ships because we can’t make you a suit. We have little more than two days, and I need to talk about the plan.”
“I get the urgency,” Charlie said, easing up a little. “The plan seemed pretty clear-cut to me. I get Mike over here to work with your engineers, fix up your ship, then go blow the shit out of one of your jump gates. What else is there to discuss?”
“The team,” Hagellan replied, rasping out the words. “This ship was designed for surveillance—it doesn’t have a large capacity.”
Denver was taken aback by its ability to speak perfect English. But given the damned thing was ancient, it wasn’t entirely surprising. And it showed just how much interest they took in human affairs while they waited. The thought gave Denver a cold shiver. To think that the human race had been spied upon by these entities for thousands of years… how much influence had they had on history?
The question blurted out before he knew what he was saying. “How much did you lot meddle with human affairs while you waited to slaughter us?”
The room fell quiet. Hagellan did the eye-close thing and then focused on Denver solely. “Almost zero interaction. Apart from taking a few opportunities to… acquire certain resources for the cause. I won’t even dare apologize for what we did. Firstly, it was the plan and the Elder Gods dictate our course of action, and secondly, it wouldn’t bring back those you lost.”
“And likewise, don’t ever expect us to apologize for those of yours we took,” Charlie said. “And what did you mean, acquire resources? Are you referring to that fool Augustus and Aimee?”
“Among others, yes,” Hagellan said.
“Wait, how many of these people did you take, and how the hell did you keep them alive until now—don’t say the root, because although it has some effects on us, I know for a fact no one could live that long on it,” Denver said.
Charlie gave him a quizzical look at the last sentence. Denver would have to get him up to speed about Layla’s research on the root, but he knew his father wouldn’t like it.
“It’s not important right now,” Hagellan said, addressing Denver’s question. “We’ll have time during the trip to discuss Earth matters. Right now, we need to address a more immediate question.”
“And that is?” Charlie asked.
“The ship holds six. Four of those positions are accounted for. We need to decide who makes up the final two.”
Denver assumed he, Charlie, and Hagellan made up three. “Who’s the fourth?”
“Baliska,” Hagellan responded. “In the spirit of peace and cooperation, I’d suggest we keep the team split evenly human and croatoan. Who is your third choice?”
Charlie and Denver came together.
“Who do you think?” Denver said, whispering. “Gregor and Augustus can go to hell. Mike and Mai are too old and we can’t split them up. One of Layla or Maria?”
Scratching his chin, Charlie seemed to think on it. “Layla would be best. She knows these fuckers well from her time studying them.”
“That’s a fair point,” Denver said. “But on the other hand, Maria is a clone—what if she has the croatoan knowledge hidden away that could be activated. Wouldn’t that be of great importance to us? Imagine the advantage we would have.”
“But we don’t know what we’re flying into on this gate world of theirs—and this activation thing might not be something we can do, if Maria would be at all happy to even contemplate it.”
Denver sighed and realized he was viewing Maria in the same way as the croatoans viewed most of humanity—as tools and resources. “Okay, Layla it is—if she wants to go.”
He didn’t really like the idea. He would have preferred for her to stay behind where it was safer. But it would be her choice, not his.
Turning to face Hagellan, Charlie said, “We’ve someone in mind for our third choice. What about you? Who are you taking along on this merry little jaunt of ours?”
“I will decide in due time. For now, though, I wanted to share with you information given to me by my junior engineers about the state of the ship and what is required to repair it. They have given me a list of parts needed. When your engineer friend arrives, I’d like for you to present him with this. We don’t have the skills here to complete the project. If we’re to get to the gate world, we’re going to need to work—”
“Peace and cooperation,” Denver said, cutting him off. “We get it.”
Charlie took the datapad of information from the alien. For a blink of an eye with each of them holding one end of the pad, Denver expected a confrontation to take place, as they paused, each not willing to give in to the other.
Finally, Hagellan let go and Charlie took the pad.
“We’ll be in touch,” Charlie said, leading Denver out of the tunnel as Hagellan stared on impassively. When they got into the tunnels Denver noticed one of the emissaries in their robes skulking away into the shadows as though they had been just outside, listening in.
Something about the way they moved bothered Denver. It was familiar, and not at all like how he’d seen the other robed figures moving, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He put it down to the effects of root-withdrawal and followed his father up through the tunnels as they headed back to their chalet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Gregor, wearing a long robe to disguise himself, dashed along a muddy street, following Augustus’ directions to the croatoans’ underground entrance.
He was to scout out the area and make sure that Hagellan was indeed where the spy’s report suggested. Once located, Gregor could plan for his assassination.
An attack ship poked out of a sinkhole on the edge of town.
Two peasant men approached in the opposite direction. He pulled the robe’s hood further over his face, looked down, and squeezed the handle of his concealed dagger. People in town didn’t know him yet, and an unfamiliar face might arouse suspicion.
Looking at the houses and dirty workshops, he realized the potential of Unity. It had the feel of his village just outside Yerevan, where he was raised on a pig farm.
From there, he rose to lead his gang in the city from nothing. They called him Pig Boy when he first arrived.
A few severed tongues put an end to that nickname. Here, he already had an advantage in the form of Augustus. As much as Gregor hated the man, he had given him a chance to run something again, and to get revenge on the croatoans.