The birds were clumping together in small flocks of six or seven, swooping and curving just above the tips of the tiger-grass. The more Lawrence watched them the more he was convinced that they were being driven in toward the platoon.

"Sarge?"

"Yeah, man, I got them. But I can't see us shooting every one—we don't have enough ammo for that, even if we could hit them."

One of the telemetry grids on Lawrence's display flashed red.

"Shit!" Kibbo yelled.

"What is it?" Lawrence could see from Kibbo's telemetry that his Skin suit had been struck by something.

"Took a hit. Ahh, shit."

Lawrence turned to see Kibbo fifty meters away, stumbling badly. He fell to his knees, clutching an arm. Skins were running toward him.

The telemetry grid was scrolling down weird data. Lawrence had never seen anything like it. Something had penetrated the carapace, but it was small, barely a couple of millimeters wide. If a bullet had split the surface, the tissue underneath should have absorbed it and clotted immediately. But the synthetic muscle around the puncture was starting to overheat. Its nerve fibers were failing.

Kibbo started screaming. His medical readouts were going wild.

"Down," Ntoko ordered. "Keep down, people."

Lawrence arrived just as Kibbo fell flat on his face. His arms and legs started thrashing, hammering into the ground.

"Some kind of convulsion."

"What's his medical program doing, for fuck's sake?"

"It's his Skin, it's spasming."

Ntoko hurried up, so Lawrence was looking right at him when the dart struck. It slammed into the grenade-launcher ammunition bag he was wearing on his back, nearly knocking him off his feet. He dropped to all fours, grunting hard at the impact Lawrence scrambled over and pushed his sensor focus on the little crater in the bag.

"What the hell was it?" Ntoko demanded.

"Don't know." Lawrence shifted to infrared. The small hole was damp. Spectrographic analysis revealed an unknown type of hydrocarbon fluid. "Shit. Could be some kind of bio weapon." His Skin deployed its aerosol nozzle and sprayed the area with a multispectrum neutralizing agent. The fluid fizzed a livid saffron.

Kibbo screamed again, his bucking lifting him off the ground. The rest of the platoon circled around, not knowing what to do. The Skin's AS and medical systems couldn't even stabilize him. The wild motions stopped suddenly. His helmet's emergency disposal valves opened. Blood poured out.

"Jesus!"

The Skins lurched back, fearful that any of the crimson fluid should splash against them.

"Was that the birds?" Nic asked. "Did they do that?"

"No way, man," Amersy said. "How could they?"

Lawrence risked a quick look around. The air was full of hundreds of fast-spinning birds, a sparkling river that hurtled through the sky. They'd formed a complete ring around the platoon.

"These are the people whose granddaddies invented Skin," Nic said. "If anyone knows how to shut us down, it's them."

"Shoot them," Ntoko ordered. "Carbines out; give me a circular formation, ten-degree overlap. Move."

They were firing as they rose to their feet hosing the bullets at the thick dazzling stipple gyrating around them. The birds broke apart, soaring higher in a scintillating plume. Targeting individual birds was impossible at that distance.

Foster screamed at the same time his telemetry grid flashed its alert. He toppled over, limbs jerking about. The rest of them automatically dived for cover.

"They're killing us," Jones cried. "We're fucking dead. Dead!"

Foster's agonized gurgling was filling the general communication link.

"Lawrence, incendiary grenades," Ntoko said. "We're going to start using this goddamn environment to our advantage. Range two hundred and fifty meters, semicircular pattern. You take north."

"Got it, Sarge." He rolled onto his back and angled the grenade launcher toward north, moving the muzzle until the targeting graphics confirmed he'd ranged ground zero. He began firing. The dull thud of the grenades was audible through his Skin helmet. Ntoko was firing in the opposite direction. Faint smoke trails appeared in the air, forming wide arches that radiated out from the huddled-up platoon.

The first grenade detonated. It was like the dawn of a blue-dwarf sun. A halo of fierce light rose out of the tigergrass. Designed for operation in a normal atmosphere, the incendiaries were burning far hotter than usual in the abundant oxygen. The undergrowth ignited immediately.

Lawrence kept firing, moving the launcher around in precise increments. The brilliant detonations merged swiftly into a solid wall of crackling light. Flames burned a vivid blue, consuming even the living vegetation. Sap sizzled and evaporated before the onslaught, leaving withered blades that burst alight instantly.

It took less than a minute before they were completely surrounded by flame. The circle began to burn inward relentlessly, though Lawrence's sensors could just see another, wider, ring burning outward.

"Use the rest of the grenades," Ntoko said. "I'm not risking the manufacturer's heat-proof guarantee on these ammo bags."

"Right." Lawrence waited until he'd fired all the incendiaries, then switched to fragmentation, using a random dispersal pattern. When he finished, he unslung the bag and threw it and the launcher away toward the advancing inferno.

The birds had all gone, zooming high over the rampaging flames. Foster lay dead on the ground, blood soaking into the soil as it dripped from his open disposal valve.

"Now we'll see," Ntoko growled.

"How do we get out of this?" Jones asked. His voice was panicky. "There's no way through the flame."

"That's the idea," Ntoko said. "You've got to believe in your Skin, my friend. This flame burns so fast it'll be past us in a couple of seconds."

"Oh, Jesus fucking wept, Sarge!"

"Just hold your place."

Lawrence nearly laughed. He'd worked it out just before he started firing. The time to object was long past. They'd all have to ride it out now.

His Skin's audio sensors were relaying the fierce roar produced by the flames. It grew steadily louder. They were approaching at a phenomenal rate as they consumed the tigergrass. His briefing had included strong warnings about fire in this atmosphere, but he'd never imagined anything this potent. There were screams now, rising above the background roar. A new-native charged past the platoon. He was bipedal, with arms that reached down to his knees. There was a long mane of ginger hair streaming out from his spine as he ran, already singed and smoldering. Lawrence caught sight of a narrow bandoleer, with some kind of cylindrical electronic modules slotted into hoops.