The instant it contacted the electrically waved air, a scrambling muffin body was immediately electrocuted. As was the one following behind it, and the next, and the next. In their dozens, in their hundreds, their wee corpses were piling up at such a rate that those advancing from behind would soon be able to stumble unhindered into the compound. Those that did not pause to feast on the bodies of their own dead, that is.

“I think we’d better get inside and lock down until this is over,” LeCleur murmured quietly as he stood surveying the surging sea of southeastward-flowing carnage.

An angry Bowman was already heading for the master console. Though it held an unmistakable gruesome fascination, the migration would mean extra work for him and his partner. The perimeter fence would have to be repaired. Even with automated mechanical help it would take weeks to clear out and dispose of the tens of thousands of muffin corpses that had filled the ravine and turned it into a moat full of meat. They would have to do all that while keeping up with their regular work schedule. He was more than a little pissed.

Oh well, he calmed himself. From the first day they had occupied the outpost everything had gone so smoothly, Hedris had been so accommodating, that it would be churlish of him to gripe about one small, unforeseen difficulty. They would deal with it in the morning. Which was not that far off, he noted irritably. As soon as the greater part of the migration had passed them by or settled down to a more manageable frenzy, he and LeCleur could retire for an extended rest and leave the cleaning up to the station’s automatics. Surely, despite the muffins’ numbers, such furious activity could not be sustained for more than a day or two.

His lack of concern stemmed from detailed knowledge of the station’s construction. It had been designed and built to handle and ride out anything from four-hundred-kilometer-an-hour winds to temperatures down to 150 below and the same above.