“It sure won’t.” LeCleur rose and extended his mended leg. “Because next time, you’re doing the periphery arthropod survey.”

It was a week later when Bowman, holding his coffee, walked out onto the porch, sat down in one of the chairs, and had the mug halfway to his lips when something he saw made him pause. Lowering the container, he stared for a long moment before activating the com button attached to the collar of his shirt.

“Gerard, I think you’d better come here. I’m on the porch.”

A dozy mumble responded. The other agent was sleeping in. Bowman continued to nag his partner until he finally appeared, rubbing at his eyes and grumbling. His vision and mind cleared quickly enough as soon as he was able to share his partner’s view.

On the far edge of the ravine, muffins were gathering. Not in the familiar, tidily spaced herd cluster in which they spent the night seeking protection from roving carnivores, nor in the irregular pattern they employed for browsing, but in dense knots of wall-to-wall brown fur. More muffins were arriving every minute, crowding together, filling in the gaps. And from the hundreds, going on thousands, there rose an unexpectedly steady, repetitive peep-peeping that was somehow intimidating in its idiosyncratic sonority.

“What the hell is going on?” LeCleur finally murmured.

Bowman remembered to take a drink of his coffee before pulling the scope from its pocket on the side of the chair. What he saw through the lens was anything but reassuring. He passed it to his partner. “Take a look for yourself.”

LeCleur raised the instrument. The view it displayed resolved into groups of two to three muffins, bunched so tightly together it seemed impossible they could breathe, much less peep. Each showed signs of swelling, their compact bodies having puffed up an additional 10 percent, the brown fur bristling.