“It had crossed my mind, but this isn’t the right time to hear every detail of a firefight I missed,” she said, “Tell me when we get the hell out of here. What I do want to know if you can get us through that force wall.”

  “I can do that,” he said. “I can do many things that will help you.”

  “Good, let’s go. My team leader might not survive until morning.”

  They started walking with Haak moving about a dozen feet ahead. Malena couldn’t see him, but she was getting better at using her headset by now and was able to sense him without stopping and focusing on it. She knew that meant he had to have some source of X on him. She didn’t know what it was and right now she didn’t care. She just wanted to get moving.

  Walking through a dark swamp isn’t easy, even if you’re following a guide. Branches clawed her face, and her feet plunged through the grassy crust of bog lands a dozen times. She would have twisted her ankle due to bad footing if she hadn’t been wearing heavy boots.

  After about three miles, they heard running water up ahead.

  “Here,” Haak said, “we come now to a bad part. Take my hand.”

  She hesitated, but finally reached out her hand. He took it with strong gloved fingers and pulled her forward. She stumbled down an embankment in the darkness and soon they were sloshing through a stream. They waded for a quarter-mile up the tiny waterway until Haak stopped and cursed suddenly.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Haak chuckled. “I ran into the wall. It is invisible, you know. I find it odd the wall allows water and wind through, but not us. It makes me believe in spirits, almost.”

  Malena walked up to the force wall, feeling for it. She found its solid, vibrating surface and ran her hands over it, from as high up as she could reach down to the river bottom.

  “Yes,” she said, “that is odd. How can water flow through it? I mean, if it acts like unbreakable glass, why doesn’t the water pile up inside as if a dam were blocking the river?”

  Haak’s face flared yellow-orange. She saw he had lit a cigarette. It was Malena’s first glimpse of him. He wore a jungle hat on his head and carried an automatic rifle. He was blond and fuzzy under that hat. His face was surrounded by a full beard, but it was cut short—it was almost stubble.

  What caught her attention most, however, were his eyes. She couldn’t see them at all. There were two black ovals covering his closed eyes. It looked as if someone had glued two smooth stones over his eyes. Malena thought of the headset she had allowed to adhere to the crown of her skull. She suspected his eye pieces operated like that.

  “You’re walking around with your eyes shut, aren’t you?” she said in fascination.

  The view of him quickly faded as he puffed on the cigarette with several deep inhalations before dropping it into the black water in which they stood. It was instantly extinguished with a tiny hiss.

  “Yes. I do not need my eyes to see. In fact, it is best they are shut down when using my—special equipment. The mind can be confused if there is too much visual input. Just imagine you were given two additional eyes. Wouldn’t you find it hard to see everything around you?”

  Malena nodded thoughtfully. “Still, the vision can’t be perfect. Why else did you shine that light upon me?”

  Haak chuckled again. “The vision I possess in darkness is not like what is provided to us by our normal eyes of flesh. I see through layers—not as pretty to see your facial muscles and bone structure.”

  She thought about that for a moment, then she turned and rapped on the surface of the dome. “Isn’t it time we went through it?”

  “Such a hurry to die?” he asked. “Ah, hold on. I’m a terrible host. I haven’t offered you a last cigarette. I’m a barbarian!”

  It was her turn to laugh bemusedly. “No thanks.”

  “It is okay, have no fear. There is no one around. I can see right through the walls of trees for a kilometer. You can smoke here for a few minutes in peace.”

  “No—I mean, I don’t smoke.”

  “Of course,” he murmured. “Americans always deny themselves pleasures. I think it keeps you angry.”

  She laughed at him quietly. “Can you get us through this wall or not?”

  “Yes,” he said, “but you will not enjoy the process.”

  Right away, she was on guard. She fully expected him to tell her she had to strip naked or something. She was quite certain she wasn’t going to fall for any such trickery.

  “You see,” he explained, “the water goes through because the force wall is smart. It is like your suit. It knows a natural substance when it touches one. There are only two ways to pass through. One method is to convince the wall we are stone or water or wind.”

  “What’s the other way?”

  “We must convince it we’re harmless, or that we’re friends.”

  “Friends? You mean friendly?”

  “Yes. To the barrier, a friend would be a visitor, or one of their flying machines.”

  Malena ran her hands over the vibrating wall in a circular pattern. She didn’t know what Haak had in mind, but when he said she wouldn’t like it, she believed him.

  -14-

  Malena excused herself from Haak’s presence and stepped away from him. She had decided it was about time she followed her orders and contacted her superiors. She closed her eyes and attempted to contact Ostlund.

  It took her longer than usual to get through. She focused and concentrated, determined to report in as she’d promised to do.

  Finally, she received a response: “Sleeping.”

  She broke off the connection between her mind and his, and mumbled an apology to no one. She’d forgotten he was her daytime contact, and it was most definitely night.

  She reached out a second time, this time stretching to touch a new mind, one she’d never made contact with before.

  “Who?”

  “It’s Agent Marin reporting in.”

  “Ah, of course. Glad to learn you’re still alive, Marin.”

  “Not as glad as I am,” she said.

  “Hmm, perhaps not. Please make your report.”

  “I’ve reached the barrier. I’ve got Haak with me, commander of Gamma Team. I need clarification, is he an allied agent? Is he from XCU or not? What is his level of clearance regarding classified data?”

  “Haak lived, did he? I’m not in the least surprised. He’s to be treated as an ally, but with reservations. Do not give him more information than what is absolutely required to perform your mission. And don’t trust him completely. He has his own chain of command and his own set of private orders.”

  Malena frowned. She didn’t really like the sound of that. It appeared that although their units were cooperating, they were still competitors. That did help her make sense of some of Haak’s actions.

  “I’ve escaped an enemy machine,” she said, continuing her report, “but I haven’t retrieved Tanner yet.”

  “You’ve made contact then? I must say, out of the entire team, I hadn’t expected you to be the last survivor. You’re doing well as a field agent, Marin.”

  “I’m not necessarily the last survivor. Tanner was carried off, but I didn’t witness his death.”

  “Noted. Continue the mission, Marin. Take Haak into the barrier region if he’ll go with you. Then find the core of the visitation. You don’t have to exterminate them, but you should certainly retrieve any equipment you can. This may be beyond the capacities of one junior agent, and I understand that. But please recon the situation and report with a video file. I want to know what is generating that field. Once you have this data, retreat for pickup. We’re sending in new teams, and the information you’ve been giving us is invaluable to their survival.”

  “What about Tanner?” she asked.

  “If you find him and can retrieve the body safely, you are at liberty to do so.”

  Malena felt a wave of irritation. Without really coming out and saying it, Burke had hinted numerous times that she expected Tanner was dead. That may well be true, but Malena didn’t know it was true, and if she’d been the one to be carried off by a flying crab-machine, she’d like to think someone would attempt to rescue her.

  A number of hot retorts swam in her mind, and she burned to make them. But she didn’t. Swearing at her new boss would do nothing to save Tanner or herself. She might even lose the woman’s sympathies and be less likely to get the promised retrieval effort.

  “I’ll see if I can penetrate the barrier,” she said after a few seconds pause.

  Haak showed up the moment her conversation was at an end. She had to wonder at his promptness. Had he been listening in?

  Haak flicked on a glowing light and directed it down to his fist. She saw he wore black leather gloves. He opened his hand and revealed an egg-shaped object. It looked to Malena like the black stone he wore over his eyes—but it was bigger.

  He handed it to her and she could feel the X in it, driving it. It felt as if it had a dozen bees in it, buzzing and making the object shiver. She didn’t know what it was, but she sensed it was powerful. It filled her palm and was heavier than it looked. She was glad she was wearing her headset. She was certain it would have made her sick otherwise.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  “You like the X, don’t you?” he asked. “You like to feel it.”

  She looked up and saw he was standing very close to her. He was looking down over her shoulder, in fact.

  She hadn’t noticed his approach over the last several seconds, she realized. She’d been too busy studying the egg-shaped smooth artifact in her hand. It was very strange—as if she’d lost a few moments of time while admiring it.

  Deciding he was a bit too close, she took a half-step back. He didn’t advance, fortunately. She was relieved. She didn’t want to have to wave her accelerator in his face.

  “X is seductive,” he said. “When you’re new to encountering it, the material disturbs the mind. It’s not like anything from our world—it’s from another place. We respond to it like animals that pick up an odd scent.”

  Malena flicked her eyes up to his shadowed face when he mentioned scent. “That’s how it is for me, as a sensitive,” she said. “I can feel them moving around, like blobs in my mind, like scents. It must be how a bloodhound perceives its world.”

  “Yes!” he said, sounding delighted all of a sudden. “That’s exactly it. A bloodhound—”

  Haak broke off suddenly and unslung his rifle. It was a short-barreled automatic weapon, some kind of carbine. Following his lead, she lifted her accelerator and aimed it into the dark.

  “We’re in a bad position here,” he said, whispering. “We have our backs to a wall. We can’t move freely.”

  “What do you see?”

  “I saw movement. Something up high. Reach out and tell me what you smell, Agent Marin.”

  Malena closed her eyes to concentrate. She was already upset with herself for letting her guard down. She hadn’t been watching her surroundings. There was something out there…

  “There’s something big,” she said, “it’s coming from the west, following the stream we’re standing in. We have to get through the barrier right now.”

  “That will take too long. We must stand or flee. Which do you choose?”

  She shrugged. There was nowhere to run, really. They were in the dark, and if it was one of the crab-like flying machines they couldn’t outrun it. Malena splashed over to the northern bank and crouched under a tree which dragged its branches in the stream like bony black fingers.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Haak followed her. He crouched beside her and said: “Do you know how to use that thing?”

  Malena thought about handing it over, but rejected the idea. She didn’t trust Haak completely yet. She felt she could handle a gun, even a weird one like this.

  “I can shoot,” she said. She lifted the heavy weapon and sighted down the stream. The contact, whatever it was, moved steadily closer. She could feel it, and like the others, it smelled like pepper in her mind.

  Haak began to say something else, but she never heard the words. The machine was upon them too quickly. It glided up, making a roaring noise. It was coming so fast, Malena barely had time to sight and fire.

  At the last instant, Haak slammed his hand down on her gun, pushing it downward. The barrel flared blue and shot out streams of plasma, counteracting the powerful kick. Even so, it jarred her wrist and arm, all the way up to her shoulder. She hadn’t been prepared for that kind of kick. She’d once fired a .50 caliber handgun at a range—this felt like that. Fortunately, it didn’t flip back into her face. The discharge of plasma spread the kick evenly and it pushed back into her hand, numbing it slightly.

  The accelerator’s discharge went into the stream, causing it to roil and hiss. Steam shot up in a twenty foot long swathe.

  The bolt she fired was brilliant in the night. For a brief instant, she could see the flying crab-machine, arms dangling and shifting. Optical probes moved in every direction at once.

  She didn’t have time to panic or to wonder what Haak’s problem was. The machine flew right up to the barrier and zoomed through it.

  “You shouldn’t have fired,” Haak said in her ear. “It was going too fast. It didn’t see us.”

  She realized now what he meant. The machine would have passed them by if they’d just hid here quietly. Now the question was whether it was going to come back to find them.

  They didn’t have long to wait to find out. The machine’s humming grew again. It was returning to find out who had taken a shot at it.

  “Run,” shouted Haak, “we’re too close to the barrier. We have to get some distance so we will have time to shoot it.”

  Malena heard him splashing away. He was fast on his feet. She rose and ran after him, almost tripping in the stream and the bulrushes.

  “Stand!” he shouted.

  Haak stopped in the stream, whirled around and lifted his gun.

  She followed his example, turning to fire. She aimed upward, and witnessed the visitor as it hummed through the barrier.

  As the machine passed through the wall of force, it shimmered slightly, as if encountering a fraction of resistance. It loomed over them. This one was a little bigger than the last she’d seen. All of its limbs appeared to be in working order. In the powerful beam of Haak’s flashlight, she saw it had a new implement hanging down low from the nearest limb. There seemed to be a trident-shaped fork down there. Each of the three tines was tipped with a barb.

  Malena stared at them for a fraction of a second, then fired as the machine closed in determinedly. She was more frightened than she’d been at any time in her life—even more so than when she’d dropped out of the sky onto Cuba, or when she’d initially faced one of these things. When she’d met up with the first flying crab she’d been too stunned to fully absorb what was happening. Now, she knew all too well what they were capable of. She’d already envisioned how those numerous robotic claws could be used to form a circle of victims. How each claw could possibly be hiding a drill inside, which was designed to buzz its way into a human’s skull and suck out the contents.

  Despite her terror, she was able to aim and fire the heavy accelerator. The kick was vicious, but she was ready for it this time. She’d braced her feet and held the gun with her left hand under the barrel. Her aim was a bit off, but good enough. The machine made a big target. She managed to direct the beam between the two sandwiched metal plates, into the region where the limbs sprouted and the optical-stalks wriggled.

  The blue flash was tremendous again in the darkness. She felt the heat this time too, as her left hand was too far up the barrel of her weapon and too near the backfire vents. Fortunately, the smart material in her gloves absorbed most of the heat.

  The machine absorbed the bolt of high-speed matter and went into a spin. Tilting, carried forward by its momentum, it came at them at a slanting, falling angle.

  “Dive!” shouted Haak.

  Malena didn’t look at him, she didn’t have time. But she could tell by the sound of his voice he was moving out of the machine’s path. She did the same, diving into the stream by flinging herself to one side. It was the sort of maneuver one might take to avoid an approaching car, and was born of similar desperation.

  She wanted to let go of her accelerator, but didn’t dare. She didn’t know if she’d dealt the enemy a fatal blow or not. She might need to take another shot—if she survived the crash.

  Cool water slapped her face. She felt a wave gush over her a moment later, pushing her from behind. Something big and sharp struck her in the back of the legs next. It hurt, and it felt as if one of the crab-like appendages had slashed her as it fell.

  She rolled up, gasping and hurting. She choked for air. There was steam everywhere, obscuring her vision. She lifted her accelerator. The strange machine throbbed and bubbled. Limbs flailed slowly. She raised her weapon a fraction.

  “Stop!” Haak shouted, reappearing on the bank on the opposite side of the visitor. “We can use this—”

  Malena fired anyway. The bolt flared, flashing in the night like a stroke of lightning. The mechanical sounds and the thrashing stopped, but the steam became thicker.

  “All right,” Haak said in annoyance. “Are you done? You’ve killed it. I’m certain of that.”

  “What’s inside these monsters?”

  Haak shrugged, circling around to her position. Both of them wiped their faces of sweat, mud and stinking river water. They stood back at a safe distance, not wanting to face the claws again in case they weren’t quite finished.

  “Something nasty,” he said. “There are many types, you know. I don’t know them all.”

  Malena stared at him for a moment. “No, I didn’t know,” she said. “I’d assumed up until now there was only one species of alien to deal with.”

  Haak laughed unpleasantly, shaking his head. “Fantasies. They are different. We meet new ones often. I’ve seen five or six varieties, but this flying crab-robot is new.”