Daniels turned off the radio, then turned angrily to Jeffcott. "You do not argue with me in front of the men," he said with sideways glances at Archie and Brooks.

  "I wasn't arguing," Jeffcott replied. "I just wanted you to be aware that..."

  "When you argue with me publicly, you degrade my authority," Daniels interrupted him. "When you argue, you encourage the men to think that they can argue with me as well. I cannot have that."

  "Then what do I do if I think you're making a mistake?"

  "You make a suggestion, or a recommendation. You ever argue with me again, I'll throw you out and you can walk back to Phoenix."

  "I have personal experience of the anomaly," Jeffcott replied. "You don't. I know what it's like to be under its influence. I did advise you. Twice. I deliberately worded it as a suggestion, that you pull them back, closer to the convoy. You ignored me and as a result people were almost killed. If suggestions don't work, what am I supposed to do?"

  "Follow my orders, like everyone else." The Captain's eyes were blazing with fury. "The only way I will tolerate a civilian is if you follow my orders as if you were in the army. If you disobey me you will be treated the same as a soldier who disobeys my commands. Do you understand?"

  "I was only..."

  "Do you understand?"

  Jeffcott swallowed the comment he wanted to make. He was beginning to suspect the Captain was serious about his threat. "I understand," he said between gritted teeth.

  "Good. I do listen to reasonable suggestions, Mister Jeffcott. Perhaps the men are too far out." He turned the radio on again. "All members of the advance force," he said. "Fall back to within ten feet of the forward vehicles. No-one is to venture further than that from the MCV's."

  "Yes, Sir," said the voice of Corporal Ellis over the radio.

  "Thank you, Captain," said Jeffcott. "I'm sorry if I crossed a line."

  "The trouble with Civilians is that they don't know where the lines are," the Captain replied. "In a combat situation, the commanding officer is often the only one who knows the full picture. Lives depend on the men obeying his orders instantly, even when they don't know the reasons for it. Even when it might seem, with their limited knowledge, that what they're being asked to do is wrong. Soldiers are taught all this in basic training, which you haven't had. That makes you a danger to this whole mission."

  "I very much want this mission to be a success," said Jeffcott earnestly. "I'll try to mend my ways. I promise."

  "See that you do."

  An awkward silence fell in which Jeffcott fixed his attention on the viewscreens in order to avoid looking at Daniels. The Captain, in return, seemed to dismiss the physicist from his attention, as if he wasn't worth any further consideration. Jeffcott looked over at Archie and saw him grinning back at him, while being careful to keep his face turned away from the Captain. Jeffcott smiled back and felt himself relaxing.

  Daniels began composing a message to send back to the new forward operating base that was being established in Flagstaff. A brief summary of everything that had happened since entering the anomaly. He called the M113 for the names of the injured men and their conditions, and Archie relaxed when he heard the voice of the doctor saying that Bird's condition was stable and that he expected him to make a full recovery. "Don't expect him to be able to return to duty any time soon, though," he added. "He's going to be off his feet for a few days."

  "Understood," the Captain replied.

  Daniels then transmitted his message by way of the Polaris equipment mounted on top of the MCV. Jeffcott half expected them to receive no reply, as had happened during the first mission, and so was surprised and relieved when the Captain's monitor screen lit up just a couple of minutes later. Daniels studied the reply for a while before speaking.

  "They got a new satellite image since we left," he said. "Apparently there are roadblocks being established on the road ahead of us. Vehicles being picked up and moved by what they describe as 'a very large living organism with tentacles.'"

  "Creaturezilla," said Brooks with a glance at Jeffcott.

  "A colourful name but probably accurate," replied the Captain. Then he turned his attention to Jeffcott. "They also saw a living human being walking the streets of the city. Apparently pushing a shopping trolley."

  Jeffcott stared in astonishment. "Some of them are still alive?" he said.

  "Evidently," the Captain replied. "After you said they were all killed."

  "I never said I saw them die," said Jeffcott defensively. "I saw them killing people. I heard people screaming as they were killed. I said all this during the debriefing. There was no opportunity to see if they left anyone alive. I had to get out before they killed me as well."

  "If they left other people alive, they might have left you alive as well."

  "I didn't know they'd left people alive. Besides, if I'd stayed, I wouldn't have been able to bring back the information I gave you."

  Daniels stared at Jeffcott for a moment longer, but then he looked away as if something on his display screen had taken his attention. Jeffcott found that he was trembling and made an effort to control himself.

  "So we have a new mission?" asked Archie. "Rescue the prisoners?"

  "Our mission remains the same," the Captain replied. "We make an attempt to rescue the prisoners only if we can do so without compromising the primary mission. If no such opportunity presents itself, we just blow up the building and too bad for anyone in there."

  The Captain stared at Jeffcott as if daring him to say something but the physicist remained silent. It was a cold decision the Captain had made, but he understood it. The anomaly threatened the whole world. Everyone was in danger, not just the prisoners in the lab. If they were prisoners...

  "The guy was just out in the street, pushing a shopping trolley?" he said. "Could he have just run away?"

  "They may have other prisoners," Brooks replied. "Hostages to ensure his return. They might have threatened to kill them if he tried to get away."

  "They could only do that if they were able to communicate," said Jeffcott, though. Then he looked up, suddenly hopeful. "Sarah was a linguist. She was there in case there was an intelligent agency at the heart of the anomaly, so she could try to communicate with it. Could she have succeeded?"

  "So quickly?" asked Brooks. "It takes years to learn a new language."

  "It might take a lot less time to just learn a few key concepts," Jeffcott replied. "She wouldn't need to be able to discuss philosophy with them. Just a few key nouns and verbs. Anyone can learn to ask directions to the nearest railway station in just a few minutes."

  "A worrying thought," said the Captain. "What might she have told them about us? About our capabilities?"

  "I'm sure she wouldn't betray us," said Jeffcott.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  "Perhaps not intentionally," the Captain replied, "but once you can talk you can be interrogated. They might torture her for information once they learn to ask the questions." He scowled angrily. "Bloody liberal politicians, sending scientists and linguists. If they'd sent a force composed only of stout, patriotic soldiers the first expedition might have gone very differently."

  "Lucy, the psychologist, helped us get there without going crazy from the anomaly effects," said Jeffcott, bristling slightly. "And if Duffy is still alive there's no knowing what he might have learned about the Furnace by now."

  "The only thing we need to know about the Furnace," said Archie with a grin, "is how many blocks of C4 it'll take to blow it up. Right, Captain?"

  "Right," Daniels agreed. He turned to Jeffcott. "You might learn a great deal from listening to these men, Mister Jeffcott."

  "I already have," Jeffcott replied.

  The Captain looked at him as if wondering what he meant by that. Then he returned his attention to the communications console in front of him.

  "There is one other interesting possibility if they've learned to talk to us," said Jeffcott. "The next time we come across anomaly creatures we could negotiate with them. Discuss terms of their surrender."

  "Our orders are very clear," said Daniels, though. "Our mission is to destroy the Furnace. That's all. If we succeed and there are creatures still alive in here, the next expedition can bring an ambassador."

  "What if they try to surrender to us," asked Jeffcott.

  "We tell them to stand aside while we destroy the Furnace. If they make no attempt to obstruct us I see no need to harm them."

  Jeffcott nodded, knowing that was the most he could expect from the Captain. Then he looked back at the viewscreens showing the feed from the hull cameras and watched the desert passing by outside. He amused himself for a while looking for landmarks he recognised from the first trip to Maricopa, but then he got bored and started playing games of Solitaire on his phone.

  ☆☆☆

  They arrived back at the road a couple of minutes later, and Jeffcott could feel the relief rising from everyone around him as the vehicles climbed back onto the hot, smooth tarmac. They were then able to return to full speed and the ten armoured cars rushed towards Maricopa at fifty miles an hour.

  They saw signs of crystallisation all around them. None of the poles on which the traffic lights had been mounted were still standing, and some had shattered as if made of glass when they'd hit the ground. The wires of the waist-high fence lining the road had snapped between almost every pole, as had the wires that had hung from the electricity pylons that lined the horizon on their left. Sentry plants turned their eye-stalks to watch them as they sped past, and now and then Ostermann reported seeing cold spots on the road through his infra-red goggles. Anomaly creatures watching them pass.

  They began noticing something else as well. Everything glittered as if it was covered with a layer of frost. It reflected the light of the sun, creating a glare to the east, where the sun was still rising, that made it difficult to look in that direction. To the west, though, where the light of the sun was reflected almost back the way it had come as it passed through the crystals, it was refracted into a brilliant inverted rainbow that made the landscape look like a fantasy fairyland.

  "God, it's beautiful," said Archie as he stared breathlessly at the images In the viewscreens. "I wonder what it looks like to the naked eye?"

  "This isn't a sightseeing trip, Archambault," said the Captain, but Jeffcott noted that he was staring at the viewscreens just as avidly as the two Privates. "Please remember the seriousness of our mission."

  "Yes, of course, Sir." Archie was trying to sound sincere but there was a gleam of amusement in his eye as he glanced sideways at Jeffcott. The Captain scowled as if the Private was fooling no-one.

  "Coming up on Maricopa now," said Collingwood, the driver of Stryker One. "There's the roadblock. Right where they said it would be."

  They all looked at the viewscreen showing the feed from the forward camera. The roadblock was a wall of cars and other vehicles, placed with precision as if by a master architect. It was three cars tall and filled the entire width of the highway between the walls to left and right behind which were the gardens of private residences. The roadblock also looked to be several cars deep, as if the alien intelligence hoped that the sheer weight of metal would be a barrier to the invaders. The vehicles all had their windows broken, he saw, and vines grew in and through them, linking the vehicles into a single solid structure.

  "Those vines must have grown in a single day," said the Captain thoughtfully. "They can't be very strong. Probably as weak and fragile as tomato stalks.

  Jeffcott, who knew something about the tensile strength of plant tissue, decided to keep silent.

  "I wonder what kind of plant they were before the anomaly changed them?" said Brooks.

  "Who cares?" said Daniels. "Ostermann, got another obstacle for you to clear."

  "Yes, Sir," said the voice from the radio. A moment later the Stryker fired, the kinetic buckshot round hitting an expensive black mercedes that formed the base of the wall in front of them. The entire wall shook with the force of the impact and the mercedes was thrown back, the side facing them crumpled in as if punched by a giant's fist. Shards of metal were thrown outwards with enough force to hit the forward vehicles of the convoy and Jeffcott tensed up nervously as the vehicle was filled with a succession of loud clangs. A cloud of dust was thrown up by the impact, blocking their view, but as the light breeze blew it away they saw that the wall was essentially intact.

  The Stryker fired again and the mercedes was blown to fragments. Some parts of it were still held to neighbouring vehicles by the vines which, as Jeffcott had suspected, were tougher than the Captain had thought. There were other vehicles behind it, though. Damaged by the gunfire but pretty much intact. The Stryker fired a third time, then a fourth, and it took a fifth shell before the wall, which turned out to be three vehicles deep, had a hole in it, the vehicles above the hole still held in place by the vines.

  "Captain, Your vehicle's got bits of metal stuck to it," said someone over the radio. "You know, 'cos of the magnets."

  "Can't be helped," Daniels replied.

  "Could start getting heavy," the other man added.

  "This vehicle's tough," said the Captain confidently. "We'll be okay."

  The Stryker kept on firing, and Stryker Two added its firepower to the first as the second group of five vehicles drew up alongside. The wall shuddered again and again as it suffered the punishment and the street in front of it was soon covered by a carpet of twisted, smoking metal. Somehow, though, the main structure of the wall remained intact.

  "How much ammunition do the Strykers carry?" asked Jeffcott.

  "Eighteen shells each," Brooks replied.

  "Will that be enough?" the physicist asked. None of the military men answered.

  Eventually, though, the section of wall in front of them had been reduced to a low mound of tangled wreckage that Jeffcott thought a tank, with caterpillar tracks, would be able to climb over. Whether a vehicle with wheels would manage it, though, was another matter. "We should have brought a bulldozer," he said miserably.

  "Forward your suggestion to the department of hindsight," said Daniels dryly. "Ostermann, if we keep on firing, can we clear the road enough to drive over?"

  "We're out of ammunition," the Stryker's gunned replied. "We're done."

  "We've got three shells left," the gunner of the other Stryker added. "We could fire at a low angle. The buckshot might shove some of that debris out of the way."

  "What if there's another roadblock further on?" asked Brooks.

  "We've got to get past this one first," the Captain replied. "In the city, there are many alternative routes to wherever we want to go. If one road's blocked we can take another."

  "If we don't use the shells," said Archie, "the only other way to clear it would be for men to go out there and clear the ground manually."

  "We might have to do that anyway," said Jeffcott. "Our vehicle's magnetic. A lot of that junk is going to stick to us. We'll become a big ball of scrap metal struggling to move under its own weight."

  "If we go outside we could get swarmed by creatures hiding on the other side of that wall," said the Captain, shaking his head. "Okay, Gruber, we'll try it your way. One shell, aimed low at the ground. Let's see what it does."

  "Yes, Sir," the gunner replied.

  A moment later Stryker Two fired again and they saw the forward-most fragments of metal thrown back before the scene was hidden behind a cloud of dust. When it cleared they saw that a wide section of the road had, indeed, been cleared, but in the process the tarmac had been scored and gouged as if by an army of men with pickaxes. The Captain scowled, but then gave the order to fire again. "A little higher this time," he said. "We don't want to damage the same section of road.

  The Stryker fired again, and then a third time. "That's it," the gunner said over the radio. "We're out." The Captain nodded silently.

  When the smoke cleared Jeffcott saw that the road had largely been cleared, although there were still fragments of metal littering it. A normal motor vehicle trying to cross it would have had its tyres sliced to ribbons but Jeffcott was remembering what Murphy had told him about these foam-filled army tyres. They were about to find out whether the five thousand dollars they each cost was money well spent.

  "Okay," said the Captain. "Take us through. Easy as you go everyone, and all gunners be on the lookout for hostiles."

  A succession of a knowledgements came over the radio and then the first group of five vehicles began to edge forwards.

  The MCV bumped and rattled as it drove over the wreckage of the roadblock, and bits of metal wreckage were picked up by the magnetic shielding to stick to the armour in a constant percussion of clangs. The vehicle slowed a little as it grew heavier but it managed to keep going. Jeffcott kept expecting to hear the hissing of a burst tyre, followed by the tilting of the vehicle towards the punctured side, but Murphy's words concerning the miracle military wheels turned out to be accurate and they made it over without incident.

  On the other side, the wreckage of the roadblock had been scattered further, but was thinner on the ground. They drove over it, the vehicle clanging as it picked up more pieces of twisted metal and the wheels bumping over pieces of rubber and plastic, but then they were on clear road and speeding deeper into the city.