Jeffcott watched on the viewscreens as six men still wearing gas masks emerged from Rhino 4. They were carrying machine guns that they aimed this way and that as they searched for threats. Then they broke up into three teams of two, each team heading for one of the other Rhinos. Infected soldiers saw them and came hurrying over with clawed hands outstretched like zombies from a horror movie. The soldiers mowed them down with machine gun fire and Captain Daniels winced with every gunshot.

  They reached their target vehicles, where one man covered the other as he opened the door. Then they both hurried in and closed the doors behind them. A moment later voices came over the radio. "Milligan here. Rhino Two ready to proceed."

  "McCoy here. Rhino One ready to proceed."

  "Ramires here. Rhino Three ready to proceed.'

  Jeffcott saw Daniels relax a little, although there was still tension and guilt in his frame as he sat before the command console. "Very good," he said. "Let's get under way. And everyone keep your gas masks on. We carried dust in on our clothing. It could still be dangerous."

  Acknowledgements came over the radio and then the vehicles began moving forward again. They reached an intersection and turned right, into the road on which Kensington Labs were located. They were just minutes away from it now.

  "No more of those gourd things are bursting," said Brooks, his voice sounding nasal and distorted through the mask. "There's still plenty of then in the trees but they're not bursting."

  "And the dust from the ones that did burst is blowing away," Archie added. "It'll be safe to go back out there soon."

  "No-one's going out there," said the Captain sternly. "If they're clearing the air it's because they're preparing to attack in force."

  "Good," said Private Van Lyden, who had opened the top hatch of M113 One and was manning the Browning machine gun. "Time for some payback."

  "Everyone, weapons at the ready," the Captain added. "Prepare to defend the convoy."

  On one of the viewscreens, Jeffcott saw the twelve gun ports in the sides of Rhino 4 open and the muzzles of machine guns emerge from them. In the other three Rhinos, though, only one gun port opened. Apart from the drivers, they only had one other person aboard. He wondered how they'd cope if the creatures attacked from that direction.

  The road sped by under the wheels and the caterpillar tracks of the convoy vehicles. In a viewscreen Jeffcott saw Kensington Labs ahead of them, its above-ground storeys looking little more than skeletons of concrete now that the great glass windows that had fronted it had collapsed. The south wing of the building lay in ruins, he saw. No longer able to support its weight as the steel beams that reinforced the concrete had crystallised. He wondered whether the basement containing the Furnace would hold up if the rest of the building collapsed on top of it. Maybe their whole expedition had been unnecessary, the Furnace being doomed right from the start.

  Something fell from the sky, landing on MCV Two with a crash that sent shards of crystallised metal scattering in all directions like shrapnel from an explosion. The armour covering the vehicle took most of the force but a jet of vapour came from the top of the MCV where one of the liquid nitrogen pipes had been ruptured. The vehicle drove on, its magnetic shield still holding, and the other four vehicles chained to it drove on as well.

  "What was that?" someone shouted.

  "A car," someone replied, sounding incredulous. "Something threw a car at us."

  "Another!" A man shouted. This time it was Jeffcott's vehicle that was hit. The sound was deafening, a crashing concussion that hit his ears like a hammer as the vehicle was thrown sideways under the impact. His head hit the reserve nitrogen tank with a shock that sent stars dancing in front of his eyes. For a moment he was dazed, and by the time his head cleared the vehicle was driving on, having survived the impact.

  He looked at the viewscreens to see another car hitting MCV Two. It survived the second impact with no further damage but the air was filled with chatter as people asked each other what was going on. "I got nothing to shoot at!" cried Van Lyden in outrage. "Where're they coming from?"

  "Creaturezilla!" said Archie. "They've all formed one giant creature that's throwing cars at us."

  "Where?" asked Brooks. "Where is it?"

  "Way back out of sight," said Archie. "It doesn't want to come within range of our guns."

  "Then how does it know where to throw the cars?" asked Brooks.

  "The sentry plants," said Jeffcott as realisation hit him. "Those plants with eyes. They're spotting for it."

  "Shoot the sentry plants," the Captain commanded. "The plants with eyes. Shoot them all, but be careful not to shoot the gourds. We don't need more of that dust."

  The air filled with the clamour of gunfire and all along the sides of the road plants exploded into splinters of wood and sap. Above it was the deeper, more powerful sound of the two Brownings shooting their fifty calibre bullets into whatever their operators could find to shoot at. They briefly fell silent, one after another, as they ran out of ammunition, then fired up again as their operators fed another belt in.

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  More cars kept falling, though, each one targeting one of the MCV's. Jeffcott felt the vehicle shuddering with one impact after another, each one safely fielded by the thick plates of armour that covered it. The armour had been attached hurriedly, though, to a vehicle that hadn't originally been intended to wear it. There hadn't been time to fill every gap and with every impact tiny pieces of crystallised steel made it through to puncture the vacuum insulation or the tubes of liquid nitrogen that ran beneath. Soon the two command vehicles were surrounded by clouds of vapour as the cryogenic cooling fluid boiled away into the air.

  "Nitrogen temperature is rising," said Brooks. "We're going to lose our shield."

  "How soon?" asked the Captain.

  "Seconds," the big man replied. "Any time."

  "How far away are we from the lab?"

  "Couple hundred yards. We might just make it."

  The engine of the other MCV was stuttering, though, as were the four vehicles linked to it by chains and a moment later they came to a stop, left behind as the forward five vehicles carried on. The machine gun fire from the rearmost five vehicles also ceased as the gunpowder in their ammunition lost the ability to detonate. "Van Lyden," said the Captain. "Yell out to them. Tell them to chase after us. Stay within our magnetic shield."

  "We're about to lose ours as well," said Brooks, though. "Nitrogen temperature's rising faster."

  "Okay," said the Captain. "When the shield goes, everyone exit their vehicles and race for the lab. Mister Jeffcott will show you the way. You'll have to use your sabres to protect yourselves but keep your guns safe. Get to the Furnace as fast as you can where its magnetic field will protect us. Jeffcott, if the Furnace has an off switch, hit it the moment you get there. The rest of you, cover him with machine gun fire. There'll probably be thousands of hostiles. Keep them off Jeffcott as long as you can."

  "With the Furnace turned off, we'll lose its magnetic shield," pointed out Archie.

  "With the Furnace turned off..." There was another crash as a thrown car hit the vehicle. One of the viewscreens went dark as the camera feeding it was destroyed by a flying shard of debris. In the other viewscreens Jeffcott saw the men from Platoon 2 cringing as shrapnel flew around them. Then they picked themselves up and continued to run towards the still-moving vehicles of Platoon 1.

  "With the Furnace turned off..." The Captain continued, looking at Jeffcott sharply, "the anomaly should dissipate. Right?"

  "That's the theory," said the physicist.

  "It'd better be more than just a theory or we're all dead," said the Captain fiercely. "It's the Furnace that's creating the anomaly, right? So once it's turned off..."

  "If the anomaly hasn't become semi-stable by now," the physicist replied. "It may linger for some time. Maybe a long time."

  "Mister Jeffcott," said the Captain, "if my men have been sacrificing themselves for nothing I'll kill you with my bare hands."

  "It'll dissipate," said the physicist, trying not to cringe visibly. "I'm sure it will."

  "It'd better."

  "And without the anomaly the Intelligence will have no way of commanding the creatures," the physicist added. "They'll become simple animals, like the ones back at Papago. They'll cease to be a threat."

  "Kill them anyway," said the Captain. "Brooks, how much further?"

  "Almost there. Another hundred yards..."

  There was a series of loud clatters as the pieces of twisted metal that has been held against the armour by the vehicle's magnetic field fell to the ground. The engine was coughing and spluttering and the sounds of gunfire fell silent as the guns stopped working. "Everyone out!" shouted the Captain. "Sabres out the moment you hit the road. Cut down anything that moves and run for the lab."

  "What about her?" asked Jeffcott, indicating Sarah who was still zip-tied to her seat.

  "Leave her," Daniels said without looking around.

  "We can't just..."

  "I said leave her!"

  Jeffcott stared at him, unable to believe the harsh, cold decision, but deep down inside he knew the Captain was right. There was nothing of Sarah left to save. He reached out a hand towards her shoulder. "I'm sorry..." he began, but he snatched his hand back as she lunged her head forward in an attempt to bite him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a smirk appear on the Captain's face and he found himself hating him.

  Archie threw open the door and jumped down onto the carpet of sharp crystals that covered the road. He drew his sabre and stood guard while the others jumped out after him. Jeffcott drew his own sabre and stood there for a moment, wondering if he'd know what to do with it if any creatures turned up, and then the Captain was pushing him from behind. "Lead the way, Jeffcott," he commanded. "We'll follow."

  Jeffcott ran and sixty men fell in behind him as they ran for the building within which Kensington Labs had been located. He was soon puffing and panting while the much fitter men shuffled along impatiently behind him, anxious to get to safety quickly. Then someone shouted in terror. "There! There it is!"

  Jeffcott turned his head as he ran and saw a vast bulk rising into view from behind the newly built houses that lined the southern side of the road. It stood on four elephantine legs, each one composed of thousands of fish-egg body modules, crushed into pancakes by the weight of the creature they were supporting. Two long tentacles reached out to the sides, one of which was holding a car which it dropped with a crash. The whole thing was covered by hundreds of flower-heads which, from this distance, looked like a covering of coarse, bristling hair. Even as he watched the thing was disintegrating, thousands of individual fish eggs falling to the ground in a silvery rain. They lay there for a moment like the aftermath of a hailstorm, then began collecting together to form warrior creatures that came scampering towards the humans waving viciously clawed tentacles.

  As if that weren't bad enough, the infected soldiers were shambling towards them, drooling idiotically as they stumbled across the crystalline road. He felt a hand between his shoulder blades, roughly shoving him forward. "Move dammit!" Jeffcott hadn't realised he'd paused in the street but now he picked up his feet and sprinted towards the ruined building ahead of them.

  The warrior creatures were fast, but a dozen soldiers formed a line to hold them back, swinging their sabres to slash the creatures in half as they approached. The surviving fish eggs of the fallen creatures fell away, though, running across the ground like drops of mercury to join those of other fallen creatures to create new warriors. While they were doing this other warriors were leaping over the line of reforming creatures to attack the humans, who fell back under the onslaught. Jeffcott heard screams as one man fell after another but he ran on, aware that they were sacrificing themselves for him. He wasn't going to let their sacrifice be in vain.

  Reaching the building he ran in through the first broken window and ran across what had been the reception lobby towards the door at the back. With men hurrying behind him, he led them along a corridor, around a corner and along another until he came to the door behind which were the stairs leading down to the basement. He opened the door...

  There was a warrior creature right behind it. Jeffcott just had time for his eyes to register its presence before it raised a clawed tentacle and slashed his throat.