“The damned rocks are alive!”

“And hungry! ”

“And friggin’ hard to kill!”

The entire swamp was filled with carnivorous creatures thrashing, slashing, grabbing at our bodies as if we had been sent by heaven to feed them. My troopers splashed through the soupy water, shooting at the swamp creatures while trying not to hit one another.

And our equipment packs, the components of the transceiver and all our supplies, had sunk out of sight to the bottom of the swamp.

“Full power on the pistols,” I called to them on the command frequency. “Whoever’s got two hands free, unlimber a rifle and go after them.”

Panting, battered, frightened, we finally fought free and made our way into the trees. The ground was firmer there and free of things that wanted to eat us. At least, it seemed that way.

We sprawled on the solid ground, massive trees rising in the darkness all around us, and caught our breaths.

“What the hell were they?”

“Think they come up onto dry land?” asked a worried voice in the darkness.

“They must have been figments of our imaginations,” one of the women said, sourly. “The briefing tapes specifically told us that no threatening carnivores have been identified on Lunga.”

“The highest form of living creature on planet Lunga,” quoted another soldier from the tapes, “is a harmless furry tree-dwelling mammalian about the size of a tree lemur.”

“So much for the scientific survey of this planet.”

“So much for Intelligence.”

“And the friggin’ scouts.”

“There’s no intelligence in Intelligence.”

“When’s the last time you saw one of those bald guys away from his computer?”

Another of the women grumbled, “But they’re so damnably smart about it. You notice they said no carnivores have been identified on the planet.”