Fragment

12:11 P.M.

Zero had both his video cameras trained through the bubble window of the XATV-9. The rover crew leaned forward instinctively, grabbing handholds.

“I don’t think we should just blast in like this,” Andy shouted.

The driver paid no attention. If anything, he seemed to accelerate.

The XATV-9’s cowcatcher grate bashed into the forest. It wedged open the trees at its edge, throwing the five men forward against their shoulder harnesses as the towering sections of the cactuslike trees snapped apart and thudded over the roof, spraying blue fluids.

“No worries. That’s ten-inch-thick acrylic,” the driver assured them. “These windows are designed for submarines.”

“That’s good, ’cause we’re about to punch through into the first corridor,” Quentin muttered as trees continued to fly apart around them.

“Slow down!” Andy yelled.

The rover muscled forward, its massive tires and rear halftracks digging in and thrusting them through the dense undergrowth. They heard branches snap and thud against the sides and roof. Sagging clusters of berries dropped from the trees and splattered turquoise, yellow, and magenta juice across the bubble windows as the rover finally started to slow down.

Knocking aside the last few branches, the rover finally broke into an open corridor inside the jungle and came to a stop.

“How’s this?” asked the driver.

Quentin grinned. “Perfect.”

The tunnel lined by trees extended in a long arc toward them and curved out of sight in the other direction. The rover had pierced an elbow of a winding corridor.

A tornado of creatures chased one another through the tunnel from right to left, curving around a banked corner in front of them and launching down the corridor to their left before swerving out of sight around a forked bend.

As the torrent of animals whipped past the rover’s windows, some snatched berries or eggs off tendrils that hung down from the dense canopy. Others became ensnared in the tendrils, which reacted like tentacles, jerking their victims up into the treetops.

“Want to listen in?”

“Yeah!” Quentin said.

The driver pressed a button on the dash that turned on the outboard microphones.

Over the speakers came a deafening drone of insects. The sound was punctuated by hoarse shrieks, anguished screams, and bloodcurdling howls that sounded like a haunted house ride.

“Jesus H. Christ,” the driver muttered. He turned and looked at the others.

“Hey!” Andy pointed up the corridor to the right.

A wave of badger-sized animals pounced with astonishing speed after a pack of fleeing Henders rats.

The rats jumped thirty feet through the air down the corridor and landed right in front of the rover. Changing direction, they stayed one step ahead of the badgers, who hammered into the bank of earth right behind them.

One of the yellow-striped badgers tripped on a fallen branch. It was attacked by rats that doubled back, swiftly followed by a wave of disk-ants and wasps coming up from the rear. A deadly gang-fight instantly ensued.

As the badger struggled to shake off its attackers, a dog-sized animal with a head like a grouper and a crown of eyes plunged out of the trees directly across the corridor from the rover and devoured them all with bone-crunching jaws. The retreating grouper shook its head and threw off a few rats, which skittered over the ground and were immediately buried by a swarm of what looked like mouse-sized barracudas with twenty rippling legs, and a platoon of disk-ants hurled into the fray.

The fractal explosion of violence left the human beings inside the rover speechless.

Bugs smashed into the right hemisphere of the front window, building up a coating of pulpy blue slime that other creatures tried to eat quickly before being attacked.

It was a perpetual street riot, Zero thought, as he tried to suck it all into his lens, his heart pounding. He could die after this-if he survived it-and ascend to photographer Valhalla.