Critical Path

“I don’t believe that,” Denver said as he stepped in. “But there’s only one way to know for sure, right?”

* * *

The journey through the tunnels had taken at the very least half an hour. All the while Clone-Maria fielded his questions in the most vague ways. It seemed to him she was more of a robot in spirit than a free-minded clone.

At least his Maria had opinions and emotions.

Eventually they arrived at Hagellan’s room deep within the ground. Back to the beginning, Denver thought. The irony of fixing up one of their ships for them to rise up from out of the ground wasn’t lost on him.

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.”