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his mid-forties, and certainly not an adventurer.
    Unbidden, a memory of home overwrote his thoughts—the day his father lost part of his foot to a carnivorous plant. Trace was just a kid. He’d been cautioned about the plants and knew what to look for, but failed to notice the gray-green runners in the field they were clearing. His father ran to warn him. To Trace’s horror, the runners wrapped about his father’s leg and dragged him across the ground.
    Thinking back, Trace realized how inhospitable his home world had been. The world his father conquered.
    “We’ve got another equipment shed,” Wilde called from an open door. “Looks like underbrush broke in through the floor.”
    “This one has plants growing in it, too.” Impani wiped a window with her forearm as she peered inside. “No people that I can see.”
    “They must be somewhere,” Trace said. “Move to the next.”
    Natica stepped from the side of a building. “Trace, take a look at this.”
    He circumvented a large puffball in the center of the road and followed her down an alleyway between two huts. The ground was treacherous with stringy vines. Blue stalks sprouted flowers as they passed, peppering them with spores.
    Natica knelt beside a meter-long gash in the building’s metal hide. Spots of mold surrounded the rift. They almost looked like fingerprints.
    “Something tried to break in. And they knew where to find the seam.” She looked up at him. “Would an animal know to do that?”
    He gazed into the hole. “What’s inside?”
    “I think it’s a generator room.”
    “Then that solves it. The door must have jammed, and the colonists opened a seam to get in.”
    “I don’t think so,” Natica said. “If it were colonists, they’d use a cutting torch or at the least a crowbar. There’s no sign of either.”
    “You’re letting your imagination get the better of you.”
    “See for yourself. This metal’s been ripped.”
    “Come on. Let’s go.” He reached to help her to her feet.
    She didn’t move. “Oh-oh, I’m stuck.” Thin vines laced both her legs to the ground. She squirmed and clawed the wall, trying to stand. “Help me!”
    “Hold on.” Trace took out his knife.
    Just then, an explosion threw him to his hands and knees. His ears rang. He looked back. The puffball had ruptured. It spewed a moist, cottony mass several meters into the air. Thick haze clouded the paddock.
    Beyond it, something moved.
    Trace squinted to see through the fog—and made out a figure. It appeared to be wearing the jungle. Like some sort of camouflage. Humanoid. At least, with arms and legs. The original Scouting team was wrong.
    Maybe the colonists had been attacked.
    Trace’s mouth went dry. First contact protocol shot through his mind. Get up slowly. Make no threatening gestures . He tried to stand.
    He couldn’t lift his arm.
    A thin orange cord slithered about his wrist. He pulled, and it tightened. Painfully. He clawed at it, but it sank so deeply into his glove, he couldn’t get his fingers underneath. He glanced toward the humanoid.
    It moved nearer.
    Trace’s eyes widened. What was he going to do? He was vulnerable, unable to get up, unable even to reach his gun.
    “What are you looking at?” Natica asked.
    “Don’t move,” Trace told her.
    Then Wilde stepped into the gap between the buildings. “Did you see that explosion?”
    “Behind you!” Trace yelled.
    Wilde spun about, stat-gun in hand. “There it goes!” He ran in pursuit.
    “He left us.” Natica gasped.
    Trace’s arm throbbed. “I dropped the knife.”
    “Where?” She leaned backward, blindly searching the ground. Vines struck at her hand like cobras. “Got it.”
    “Free yourself first.”
    She hacked at the vines that pinned her legs.
    Trace groaned and tried to shift his position. His fingers were numb. Another vine looped over his boot, and he kicked it away. “What’s taking so long?”
    “They’re like wire.”
    A vine touched Trace’s