Captain Daniels left MCV two and hurried back to MCV one, getting there just ahead of Archie who was still looking anxious. "How is he?" the Captain asked as he returned to the Command and Control console at the far end of the rear compartment.

  "His face looked like it'd been burned," Archie replied. "Like he'd been injected with acid. Red with blisters... God I hope he's okay. I was getting rather fond of the little guy."

  "He'll be fine," Brooks assured him. "Those M113's have got almost everything a regular hospital has. He couldn't be in better hands.." He turned to Jeffcott. "Right?" he said.

  The physicist looked doubtful. "Right," he said, though. "He couldn't be in better hands."

  Archie stared at the physicist as if he knew he was being evasive, but then he nodded. "So let's go," he said. "The sooner we get this job done, the sooner we can get him to a proper hospital."

  "We can't just drive off," said the Captain, though. He opened a channel to one of the Rhinos. "Ellis, take a dozen men to walk twenty feet ahead of the convoy. Two men to wear thermal cameras. Cover each other with your weapons and check the ground for more pits. We don't want to drive into another trap. And those sentry plants have poison stingers so don't get too close to them."

  "Roger that," a voice replied. A moment later Daniels saw the men jumping out of the Rhino in one of the viewscreens.

  "Co-drivers in the forward vehicles," Daniels said into the radio. "Keeo your infra-red goggles on and keep a sharp eye out for camouflaged enemy creatures. Yell out immediately if you see one. All drivers, we will proceed at walking speed until we're back on the road. We'll be taking a sharp turn to the right to avoid the pit, then heading south." The drivers acknowledged one after another.

  "This journey is going to take a little longer than we thought," said Brooks sourly.

  "So long as we get there," the Captain replied.

  Brooks nodded unhappily and turned back to his instrument panel. "Nitrogen temperature holding steady," he said. "Everything looks good."

  The Captain nodded. "Advanced infantry force," he said. "Proceed forward at a slow walk. Check as best you can that the ground can support the weight of a tank. Vehicles, follow slowly. Do not close to within twenty feet of the infantry. Shoot at anything that moves."

  Voices came from the speaker acknowledging the order and then the MCV jerked into motion.

  ☆☆☆

  Private Michael Murphy held his M4 rifle against his chest as he walked slowly forward, testing the ground with his feet with every step. The ground felt solid here, but here and there were fissures where sand had fallen down newly opened cracks in the bedrock. The small earthquake that had created the escarpment had had effects further afield, it seemed.

  He stepped carefully around the sentry plants, as did the other men walking in a line beside him. The plants turned their eye-stalks to look at him as he passed, and one of them waved a stinger, the sharp point aimed towards the tough leather of his boot. It made no move to attack, though. Murphy wondered whether it was smart enough to know that the point wouldn't go through.

  "Watch out for all the other plants," said Corporal Ellis to his left. "If the anomaly can turn potato plants into these horrors, who knows what it's done to everything else."

  Murphy nodded to himself as he spared a glance at the agaves and desert marigolds around him. He didn't know much about plants, as he'd have been the first to admit. He had trouble even keeping houseplants alive. So far as he could tell, though, the desert plants looked completely normal. There was a tree with yellow flowers a few dozen feet away. It didn't seem to have suffered any ill effects from the anomaly at all.

  "Cold spots ten yards ahead of you," said the voice of Samuel Ostermann over the comms. "Bogeys in disguise."

  "I see 'em," said Corporal Ellis, one of two men in the advance force wearing infra-red goggles. He fired a burst at them with his M4. "They're running," he said, sounding satisfied.

  "Confirmed," Ostermann replied. "Cold spots are retreating. There's one just to the left of that large boulder. The one with the cactus next to it."

  "Roger."

  There was another burst of gunfire and Murphy saw what he would have sworn was a patch of empty desert erupt into blood and scattered fish-eggs. He clutched his weapon tighter as he continued to walk at a steady pace. These new creatures were scary fast. If he saw one racing towards him, would he be able to shoot it down before it cut his throat?

  He saw the pit looming beside him. The one they would have driven right into if some mechanical problem hadn't forced them to stop. "Looks like it wasn't dug," he muttered to himself, seeing the rough, natural-looking sides. Rugged and uneven. "Looks like a natural opening."

  "Probably created at the same time as the escarpment," said the voice of David Jeffcott over the comms. "Just a lucky accident they took advantage of. I'm guessing they moved a few boulders to guide us towards it."

  "I dunno," said one of the other men of the advance force. "Some of those boulders are pretty big."

  "Creaturezilla," said an unfamiliar voice.

  "Probably," Jeffcott agreed. "First it shifted the boulders. Then it re-organised itself to become a sheet over the pit, to hide it and then it became the dozens of normal-sized creatures that attacked us. They can take many forms, it seems, to serve whatever purpose suits them at the time."

  "Clever little buggers," said Murphy to himself. "You sure they're all gone?"

  "No cold spots in the infra-red," said Ostermann. "The area's clear."

  He heard the vehicles following a couple of dozen feet behind him. The gentle rumble of the engines. The crunching of wheels and caterpillar tracks and the clanking of the chains connecting the ten vehicles. He tried to take comfort from the sound, to rid himself of the feeling that they were walking on the surface of another planet. It wasn't just the sentry plants. It was the anomaly itself, he realised. The dozen men of the advance force must be right on the edge of the magnetic shield, where the protection it offered was weakest. It still allowed their weapons and electronic communications to operate but the feel of the anomaly was able to leak in. Something that was trying to enter his body and change it. Turn it into something alien that would be an enemy to the country he had sworn to defend. He took a moment to feel the reassuring bulk of the magnet strapped to his chest. They said it would protect him from the anomaly's effects. He desperately hoped it was true.

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  They left the pit behind and headed out across the empty desert beyond. There was a rusty drinks can half buried in the sand, he saw. A comforting reminder of the normal, familiar world they'd left and to which they would hopefully soon return. Someone had passed by this way some time in the past, he mused. Possibly the owner of one of the farmsteads that dotted this part of the country. He'd drunk from the can, then casually discarded it with no thought for the pristine environment he was defiling. Now, though, years later, his thoughtless act of littering was providing comfort to a stranger in a way he couldn't possibly have anticipated.

  The men carried on walking and the vehicles carried on following. "Sentry plants are spaced about twenty feet apart, so far as I can see," he said. "If they were all originally potato plants, I assume we know how many of them were being grown in the anomaly. That means we can estimate how much ground they cover. Right?"

  "We can do better than that," said Daniels with a smug sounding voice. "We can see them in the satellite photos. They're arranged in a ring around Maricopa about a mile deep and along either side of the roads approaching the city. That means we'll have them for the rest of our journey."

  "So a force on foot, approaching the city across the desert, would be unobserved until they were a mile away from the city?"

  "They'd have no MCV," said Ellis. "No working weapons except swords. The creatures would swarm them and wipe them out the moment they entered the city."

  "Yeah," muttered Murphy. "So this is the only way in? What we're doing?"

  "Are you questioning the competence of the command staff back home?" asked Daniels. "Perhaps the brilliant Michael Murphy thought of something all those experts and Generals overlooked."

  "No of course not," said Murphy, feeling annoyed. "There's nothing to do out here but think, though. This place, it does strange things to a man."

  "That far from the MCV's," said Jeffcott, "It's possible you're feeling some of the mind-altering effects of the anomaly. We didn't think we'd have to worry about that this time, because we'd all be in the vehicles, buy you're pretty far out." There was a change in his voice as if he were talking to someone in the MCV with him, rather than into the radio. "Perhaps they should fall back a bit. Stay closer to the vehicles."

  "We need them to test the ground for more pits," the Captain replied. "If just one vehicle drives into one, we could lose half our force."

  "But they can do that closer to the vehicles, can't they?" Jeffcott pressed.

  "They stay where they are," Daniels replied. "They'll be fine. If their comms still work, they're protected."

  "The brain is a much more delicate piece of equipment than a radio," Jeffcott replied. "A radio might carry on working despite quite a lot of interference, but the brain..."

  "My orders stand," Daniels insisted. "That's final."

  Murphy felt his heart beating faster as the words of the physicist took meaning. He'd heard what had happened to the first expedition. Madness. Delirium. Suicide. Was that about to happen to him? He looked across at the other men walking beside him and saw his own fear reflected in their eyes. None of them liked this. A stand-up enemy you could shoot at was one thing, but this...

  "Ground still firm underfoot," the man to his right said. "We must be well past the escarpment by now. Shouldn't we start angling back to the road?"

  "Affirmative," Daniels replied. "Adjust to a heading of 145 degrees but maintain your spread and speed. Keep testing the ground and watch out for hostiles."

  "Good idea," said Murphy curtly. "Wish I'd thought of that."

  "Watch your tone, Murphy," warned Daniels.

  "Yes, Sir. Sorry sir."

  The men to the left end of the line slowed their pace while the men at the other rmen walked faster. The line turned until it was facing south east and then they continued on at the same slow speed, the vehicles trundling along behind them. Suddenly they heard a burst of gunfire and everyone dropped to the ground.

  "Who's shooting?" demanded Daniels.

  "Saw something," said a voice from further along the line. "It got away."

  "I didn't see anything," said Ellis, making an adjustment to his goggles. "Still don't."

  "It was there I tell you! I saw it!"

  "Okay, Watford," said Daniels calmly. "No-one's doubting you..."

  The man was staring frantically in all directions, though, his finger on the trigger of his weapon. "They're out there," he said. "I know they are. I can hear them."

  "I don't hear anything," said Ellis. "Pretty sure they've all gone for now."

  "They're out there," Watford insisted, though. "There!"

  He fired another burst from his M4, towards the spot where Murphy was climbing back to his feet. The self styled irishman leapt back in alarm as bullets tore into the ground just a few feet away from him. "You bloody maniac! he shouted. "What the bloody hell are you doing?"

  "There!" Watford was shouting triumphantly, though. "Told you? I told you! Shit, they're everywhere!" He slapped another magazine into his weapon and fired more shots into the ground ahead of him, spinning around to shoot first in one direction, then in another. Several shots went close to other members of the advance force, who swore and jumped aside until Murphy ran over and tackled him to the ground. The weapon fired again as Watford fell on top of it, and then Murphy sat on him until the magazine was empty. "Everyone okay?" he asked.

  "He won't be when I get hold of him," said Burnley, glaring at the other man. He was holding his weapon as if he really wanted to aim it at Watford.

  Watford was just confused, though. "What are you doing?" he shouted up at Murphy. "Get off me."

  "Get Watford back to the Rhino," came the Captain's voice over the radio. "The rest of you, carry on as you were."

  "He's not to blame," Murphy heard Jeffcott saying. Quieter because he was further from the microphone. "He's suffering from an anomaly delusion. It could happen to more of them if they stay out there."

  "I won't risk my convoy running foul of another pit trap," the Captain replied firmly.

  "Then at least pull them back closer to the convoy," Jeffcott advised. "Before they end up shooting each other."

  The radio link suddenly fell silent. Murphy, still sitting on Watford, tensed up in alarm. "Have we lost comms?" he asked.

  "I can still hear you," said Ostermann. "I'm guessing the Captain doesn't want us to hear him ripping Jeffcott a new one."

  Murphy nodded. That made sense. In the meantime he had orders. "Release your weapon," he told Watford, shouting into his ear for emphasis.

  "I just saved your life!" Watford replied indignantly. "They were all around you."

  "I said release your weapon or I'll knock you senseless. Now!"

  "All right, all right." Watford let go of his M4 and Murphy threw it away to land on the desert sand. Burnley picked it up. Murphy then pulled Watford to his feet. "The anomaly got to you, mate," he said as he also took the man's sidearm from its holster. He tucked it into his belt. "Not your fault, but you need to take I easy for a bit. Until you're all better."

  "There's nothing wrong with me," Watford insisted, but he made no further protest as Murphy led him back to the Rhino. As they approached the vehicles Murphy felt his head clearing, as if a fuzziness had come over him without his realising. The magnetic shield of the MCV was once again protecting him from the malign effect of the anomaly.

  Watford was recovering as well. "God, I could have killed you!" he said as they walked. "What was I thinking?"

  "Not your fault mate," said Murphy with sympathy. He knew it could just as easily have been him. "You didn't hurt anyone."

  At that moment the Captain's voice came back over the radio. "All members of the advance force," he said. "Fall back to within ten feet of the forward vehicles. No-one is to venture further away from the MCV's."

  "Thank God for that," said Burnley with feeling.

  Murphy echoed the sentiment as he took Watford the rest of the way back to the convoy.