Critical Path

He couldn’t accept his final act would be screaming as they fed him into a meat-processing machine and turned into silver trays of slop. Not that… anything but that.

For the last five minutes, faint sounds drifted across the breeze. He glanced over his shoulder. The trail of croatoans headed into a massive basin. Half of the ten aliens had already disappeared down it.

The sweet odor of the root field quickly changed to a nostril-invading stench. A mixture of cooking meat and dung wafted up from the basin.

Distant noises became clearer: the repeated clank of metal being struck, a dog barking, a rapid rhythmic sound of sawing wood. And then raised human voices, one laughing. Nothing like any farm he’d previously stalked and attacked.

The croatoan slowed as the ground changed from harvested land to a dirt road on a steep incline. Another alien stalked close with its strange bouncing gait and stopped to have a staccato conversation with Charlie’s captor.

Both of their uniforms were old and tatty. The body armor was faded and stained, their visors lacking their usual trademark sheen.

Charlie reached out and gripped the pole, twisting himself around to try to get a better view of his intended destination.

He fully expected a meat-processing warehouse. But the sight surprised him.

Smoke curled into the sky from at least fifty different places from a small town within the basin at least forty meters deep and a couple of kilometers wide.

Croatoans trudged down the dirt road in procession. It cut to the bottom of the basin in a series of shallow switchbacks and ran through the center of the settlement.

Either side of it, a mixture of two hundred or so small buildings with wooden and canvas roofs formed a cluttered surrounding, some with animal pens attached. A scattering of people moved between the individual places.

In the center, a larger building, perched high on a piece of raised ground, glinted in the sun. Charlie shielded his eyes and gasped. Constructed out of debris stone, it reached three stories high and featured a number of glistening metal turrets, completed by solid-looking wooden doors protecting its arched entrance.

Around the perimeter of the basin, a series of five giant steps were cut into the side. Like a stadium for giants. On the left-hand side, twenty or so buildings with more of a modern look nestled on each level, constructed with a mixture of materials.

Some looked like mini warehouses, others like log cabins or adapted trailers. Nothing seemed quite right with each one. The closest mini warehouse had a brick constructed dwarf wall running around the bottom; a cabin had silver window shutters. Several had washing lines out front. The clothing on them flapped in the breeze.

On the steps running around the right-hand side, root spread across the bottom three levels as far as the eye could see. Wheat and barley gently rippled on the upper sections.

A gaping sinkhole lay between the main settlement area and the basin’s left edge. Bigger than any Charlie had previously seen, a dull silver cone protruded out of the left-hand side. He recognized it as one of the initial invasion vessels.

Beyond the chasm, a high stone wall surrounded an area the size of a football field. Visually sweeping the landscape again, he attempted to assimilate the strange configuration. No frame of reference for the mash-up came to mind.

Whatever it was, it had been for some time.

A bearded man dressed in a filthy white apron walked around the side of the nearest building. After throwing the contents of a bucket into a pigpen, he turned and gazed upwards. Charlie raised his hand. The man shook his head, wiped his hands on his apron-front, and returned inside.

The croatoan tugged at the control pole, pulling Charlie to the ground. His heels slipped against the dusty surface as he tried to gain traction.

The alien increased its speed of descent. Charlie’s legs no longer had the strength to maintain a crab-like walk. He grabbed the pole with both hands, lifting his back off the ground, and scraped to the bottom of the incline on the balls of his feet.

A golden retriever bounded up, tail wagging. It panted in Charlie’s face and walked alongside. The croatoan loudly clicked, waving its dusty black glove at the dog until it scampered away. The alien hauled Charlie to his feet and pushed him forward, jabbing the pole into the back of his neck, encouraging him to walk along the two-hundred-yard road through the settlement and toward the main building.

Charlie shuffled forward, stumbling every time he received a thrust from behind. He glanced into the first building on the right. Different cuts of meat hung from hooks on the ceiling. Behind a wooden table, spattered in blood, the man in the filthy apron glared back at him before slamming a cleaver into a pig’s severed leg.