Critical Path (The Critical Series Book2) (4 page)

“You want me to farm root?” Charlie said.

“Amongst other things, yes. Is that not clear?”

Charlie squeezed his eyes tight and bit his lip. It didn’t help; he couldn’t hold it in any longer. The hopelessness of the situation coupled with the suggestion made him burst out in laughter, which echoed around the room.

Aimee gave him a stern look. The large croatoan returned and stood by her side. She dismissively waved her hand in Charlie’s direction. “Very well. Have it your way. I was prepared to give you a chance, against advice…”

“Whose advice? Why did you bring me here?”

“You were recovered from a pod. That makes you a person of interest. I know more about you than you think.”

“Like what? Who around here knows me?”

“Somebody you’ve been annoying for years.”

Footsteps slapped across the stone floor behind him.

Charlie’s face straightened.

An instantly recognizable voice said, “The little wasp. Did you really think you would get the better of me?”

Augustus walked in front of Charlie. He stopped and removed his right sandal.

“You will fight my champion in the arena,” Aimee said. “Then we shall see who is the one laughing once the festivities are over.”

“May I?” Augustus said, pointing at Charlie.

Aimee nodded. “Do what you will.”

“Hold him steady,” Augustus said to the croatoan restraining Charlie.

He raised his sandal above his head and swept it down, striking it against Charlie’s cheek. Charlie winced with the strike, but refused to give the bastard the satisfaction of knowing he had hurt him.

The blow stung, but that was the least of Charlie’s worries.

The man who knew what Charlie had done now had control of him. And by the sounds of it, Charlie was set for a public fight.

Augustus knelt down and fastened it back around his foot before straightening his mask and rearranging his robes. At least this answered the question of what happened to him. The pod clearly had protected them both.

But what kind of deal did Augustus strike to have attained such a lofty position so soon?

Aimee stood and pointed down. “I want him alive tomorrow, Augustus. Don’t disappoint me.”

She left by the same side entrance, followed by her burly guard.

Augustus brought his masked face right in front of Charlie’s, close enough that Charlie could feel the Roman’s hot breath. “Did you see that monster with Aimee? He’s your opponent.”

“You saved me so you could watch me fight an alien?”

Augustus grunted. “I didn’t save you. I simply prolonged your miserable life for a few weeks. There’s no way in the world I would allow you an easy death.”

“And if I win?”

“I’ll have you flogged every day you aren’t fighting in the arena. History will not remember you. I won’t allow it.”

“You don’t get to write history. If you did, your own wouldn’t be so abysmal.”

“I beg to differ. Future generations will be in awe of me. You… you’re a flea.”

Charlie looked Augustus in the eye. “What does it feel like to lose two empires?”

Augustus stepped back and raised a clenched fist. He slowly lowered his hand by his side and turned to the croatoan. “He’s not worth my effort. Take him to the ludus. Throw him in with our other new arrival.”

Charlie’s camo shirt scrunched around his neck as the alien gripped the back of his collar and dragged him up and shunted him to the door. Charlie glanced back. Augustus licked his fingers and extinguished a candle.

CHAPTER FOUR

A young girl, dressed in a fresh white robe, carried a metal platter piled with pig’s trotters to the dining room table. She carefully placed them in front of Augustus. He pointed at his hammered metal goblet and cleared his throat. She scurried to a side table, grabbed a clay jug and returned, filling the vessel to the brim.

“I remembered from last time,” Aimee said.

She sat at the opposite end of the table, wearing an extravagant blue dress and a pearl necklace. Soft light, radiating from the candles at the center of the table, gave her face a gentle glow. The muscle-bound croatoan behind her provided a stark contrast to her beauty. He hovered close like a bird of prey.

“Thank you for inviting me this evening,” Augustus said. “You don’t mind if I—”

Aimee smiled. “Take off your mask? Please do.”

Augustus unclipped the strap from behind his ear. He placed it on the table and wrapped his fingers around the goblet’s stem. The days of feeling self-conscious were over. The burned, twisted flesh was a reminder to everyone that he was a survivor. He took a large mouthful of sour wine, trying not to show signs of disgust when swallowing.

“Delicious. Did you make this here?”

Aimee sniffed her wine and pushed it to one side. “If you think this is fine wine, then you are less cultured than I previously thought.”

Augustus bowed his head and picked up a trotter. “We don’t need to get into an argument about culture. I know all about yours. While you were in stasis, I read about you and your little cultural diversion. Quite the adventure you had.”

Aimee scoffed. “What do you know of me?”

He detected irritation in her voice. An attitude Aimee never displayed before the downing of the mother ship. The price for Augustus’ silence about the cut-off group in Canada was a ludus, where he could spend leisure time away from the watchful eyes of the croatoan council. Now she knew he couldn’t crush her like a pea, she seemed to be changing, taking advantage.

Augustus swallowed more wine to wash down the overcooked meat. “In history books you have two names. Aimee du Buc de Rivery, a French heiress, and Naksidil Sultan, a reforming queen mother of the Ottoman Empire. I made it my business to know about all stowaways.”

She screwed up her face and hunched forward. “A stowaway? Are you trying to be funny?”

“I’m sorry. It must have been hard with the pirates.”

“Pirates?”

“Your transition from Aimee to Naksidil. I’m sympathizing. The kidnapping must have been tough. I’ve also had my hardships. I understand—”

Aimee let out a short, sharp laugh. “I thought you meant on the croatoan ship. I went to the empire out of choice. Your book is wrong.”

“It seems the sands of time have wronged both of us.” Augustus sighed. “History is written by the winners. Lies carved in stone that become facts after a few generations. But we can purge that history. Right the wrongs scrawled by the manipulators, who projected their contemporary views onto historical matters that they knew very little about.”

“And what exactly are your wrongs?” An amused smile crept onto her lips.

She wouldn’t be smiling if she knew Augustus’ plans. He knew how to run a real empire, not just a collective of savages, cutthroats and thieves like she had presided over. His would be a place way above the level of a lying harem concubine like her.

Augustus’ hands shook with barely controlled anger as he recalled the lies he’d read in the history books. He clenched his fists. The left corner of his mouth twitched as he tried to smile. “They say I marked the beginning of the Roman Empire’s collapse. How can one man be responsible for that? How? You tell me.”

Aimee raised her goblet. “How does one go from pirate slave to queen? Let us toast to forgotten history and our future making of it.”

“Indeed.” Augustus raised his goblet. He’d asked himself the same question when gazing at her stasis pod back up on the mother ship with the others. She clearly had some talent, otherwise the town wouldn’t exist, and the croatoans only chose a dozen figures from history, including those they had experimented on at Roanoke, so there was something about her they valued.

The overall terraforming plan earmarked the upper areas of North America as nonessential due to terrain and climate. He’d cut off the northern attachment’s communications and left them to survive or die, and only visited out of curiosity four years later. And there Aimee was, forming a town with everyone in the area, human and croatoan. She could not be underestimated. Or tolerated.

“So tell me. Why were you so eager to keep your little wasp Charlie Jackson alive?” Aimee said.

Augustus chewed on a tough trotter and swallowed with a grimace. “He’s not important, but we do have some unfinished business. He’ll be facing off against your champion tomorrow.”

Jackson would pay for what he had done to the croatoan ships, and ultimately Augustus’ plans, but Augustus wanted to see him suffer rather than a quick easy kill.

Aimee leaned back, touched the croatoan’s muscly left arm, and pompously snorted. “You’re lining up that old man against Halkstan? We want to put on a show, not a slaughter.”

“He’s surprisingly capable. But not enough to avoid what he deserves.” Augustus dabbed the corner of his mouth with a napkin and lowered it over the platter. He raised his hand and clicked his fingers.

The young servant girl didn’t move. She looked at Aimee, who returned a nod.

The girl scurried over, took the platter, and reached for Augustus’ goblet. He held his hand flat over the top of it. “Bring me some root wine.”

Augustus yawned. He needed a fix—another reason why he had to take control of Unity. With the destruction and revolt of the farms and the harvesters, the town provided the only protected source of root he knew of.

Aimee stood. “Join me by the fire. We still have things to discuss.”

She sauntered over to a pair of wooden chairs positioned in front of a stone hearth that was already crackling with flames. Augustus followed and sat down. The croatoan picked up a section of sawn log and clumsily tossed it onto the fire. Red embers shot across the floor around Augustus’ sandals.

“Careful, you stupid…” he trailed off.

The alien let out four raspy clicks. Aimee rubbed its arm again. “You can leave us to it. I’ll join you shortly.”

The thought of her having sex with the creature turned Augustus’ stomach—if that’s what was happening, the rumors were that she had yet to have intercourse with anyone or anything, but she seemed overly fond of this one. Integration had its limits, and fornication crossed his personal line. Besides that, the croatoans were relegated to a minority in his mind, susceptible to a coordinated human attack if the remaining population managed to organize themselves. She was nailing her colors to the wrong mast. Augustus shook his head.

“Is there something wrong?” Aimee said.

“No. I was just thinking about how I could be of best use to your town. I have impeccable administrational and leadership skills. The ludus is… fun, as you would say, but I can offer so much more.”

It felt so low having to sell himself to her, but the hand that wields the knife never wears the crown. Others could do the dirty work; he had to remain clean in the eyes of her supporters.

“You’re planning on staying around after all?” Aimee said.

“This seems to be the best place to start rebuilding our world now the alien council is no more. Together we can regain the glory of our former empires.”

The servant brought two goblets of root wine. Augustus felt a noticeable lift almost immediately after two large gulps. Aimee drank greedily; wine dribbled from the side of her vessel, down her chin, and onto the front of her dress.

Although centuries younger than he, he reckoned she also feared a rapid ageing process without a regular supply of the croatoan root.

“Because of your previous rank, I’m prepared to give you a senior position on the local council—this is something I’ve been considering since you came back to Earth in such a spectacular way last month. You can keep your ludus if you can ensure a regular supply for the arena. We’ll review your status after a couple of months.”

She gave him a condescending smile.

Augustus resisted throwing the contents of his goblet in her face. He couldn’t take much more of her arrogance. He smiled. “Very well. Entertainment is a key part of keeping up morale. Tomorrow, Jackson will be a retiarius. A step up in sophistication from the usual sword-swinging butchery you’ve served up here.”

Aimee shrugged. “What’s a retiarius?”

“It’s normal when facing a heavy opponent like your champion.” Augustus swung his arm around his head. “Jackson will have a weighted net and a three-pointed trident. It’s designed to make him more agile to make up for the lack of armor. We want to at least make it appear like a fair fight.”

Augustus viewed it as a no-lose situation. He knew Jackson bettered the hunter Baliska and heard all of the whining stories from that useless lump of excrement Gregor. If Jackson proved triumphant, he’d get rid of one problem—Aimee’s lethal bodyguard. If he lost, it would still be pleasurable, especially if Jackson remained alive and Augustus could don the robe and mask of Charon and inflict the deathblow with a large sledgehammer to the temple.

Having missed his opportunity on the mother ship, Augustus was eager for another.

“You’re daydreaming, Augustus,” Aimee said. “What do you see in your dreams?”

“A crushed insect,” Augustus said. He clapped his hands together and smiled at the thought of Charlie Jackson being squashed under the foot of his superiors.

“Just remember,” Aimee said. “If you help me, I can make your life in this town comfortable. Our strength is teamwork, living together and sharing resources.”

Augustus slowly nodded and held his goblet toward Aimee. She clinked her vessel against his and smiled. Most of what she said was meaningless to him. Soon, she would find out exactly how efficient he could be.

The last true Roman yielded to no man, or woman.

CHAPTER FIVE

Layla smiled at Venrick as they looked at each other through the window.

Although the croatoans didn’t really have the musculature to smile, there was a kind of eye movement that indicated a show of friendship. Layla picked this up from a number of the smaller engineer-types in the farms.

Venrick was of the combative type, she appeared different to the others, almost as if she worked on a different level of sophistication.

Despite the croaotoans’ ancient life spans, their hierarchy purposely kept those beneath them in distinct castes and responsibilities. They all had a drone-like quality to them in that they only really ever seemed to exist for their jobs.