They couldn’t possibly have survived, Jenny found herself thinking, yet here they were. For one wild second she wondered if the electronic warfare field had won, and was feeding the hallucination directly into her neural nanonics.

The two groups stared at each other for over half a minute.

Jenny’s electronic warfare block reported a build-up of static in the short-range datavise band. It broke the spell. “OK, let’s go get them,” she said.

They started to circle round the edge of the barrage zone. The three men watched them silently.

“Do you want all three?” Will asked.

“No, just one. The soldier must be equipped with the most powerful systems if he can create that kind of chameleon effect. I’d like him if we can manage it.”

“I thought chameleon suits were supposed to blend in,” Dean muttered.

“I’m not even sure we’re seeing men,” Will added. “Maybe the xenocs are disguising themselves. Remember the paddle-steamer.”

Jenny ordered her suit’s laser rangefinder to scan the soldier; its return should reveal the true outline to an accuracy of less than half a millimetre. The blue beam stabbed out from the side of her shell-helmet. But instead of sweeping the soldier, it broke apart a couple of metres in front of him, forming a turquoise haze. After a second the rangefinder module shut down. Her neural nanonics reported the whole unit was inoperative.

“Did you see that?” she asked. They had covered about a third of the distance round the barrage zone.