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the area around the emitter. There were dozens of holes in the ground, all of them punched up from below like the one in the lava and the base of their shelter.
    ‘Aneka?’ Lidia’s voice sounded concerned over the radio.
    ‘We’re on our way back,’ Aneka replied, and then she added, ‘I’ve seen enough, we’re leaving,’ out loud.
    ‘I do not understand,’ Indaia said. She actually managed to look a little perplexed.
    ‘You see those rocks on the ground around your equipment? The ones that look like worms? I think they are worms, of a sort. Some sort of silicon life form…’
    ‘The infrasound,’ Indaia said, her eyes widening. ‘Something like that would have no eyes, and infrared sensing would be out of the question, but magnetism and sound… My device attracted them.’
    ‘They’re obviously dangerous. They’re still hot and they must have been dead for an hour or more. We need to get back to the shuttle. Now.’
    ‘No argument here,’ Grumand stated, turning on his heel.
    ~~~
    ‘Okay,’ Aneka said, ‘so the lava plug in the mining office building starts to make some sense.’ They were back in the shuttle with the hatches sealed and she felt safe enough to take stock before lifting off.
    Rice nodded. She was examining the video from Aneka’s memory showing the hot rocks that had once been searing hot worms able to melt through aluminium plate. ‘The ground would have been hotter with magma from the eruptions closer to the surface. The magma worms swarmed and burst through into the buildings. It’s quite possible that they live off sulphur compounds in the rocks, so they could use some sort of hydrogen sulphide jet as a defence mechanism. That’s what killed Mark.’
    ‘They couldn’t have caused the eruptions, could they?’ Bicks asked. ‘I mean, if they’re attracted to sound, maybe the smelting plants attracted a lot of them…’
    ‘Too small,’ Adams replied. ‘It would require millions of them. Billions! Shouldn’t we be leaving?’
    ‘You wanted to stay a quarter of an hour ago,’ Aneka reminded him, but she started toward the cockpit anyway.
    ‘That was before we had proof that this planet is infested with poisonous alien worms.’
    ‘Garnet Hyde to Ground Team. Come in, Ground Team.’ Drake’s voice over the speakers sounded urgent and Aneka grimaced.
    What now? ‘Aneka here, Drake. What…?’
    ‘We have a vessel approaching. Military. We detected a drop ship leaving it about thirty seconds ago. Aneka, they’re…’ The connection dissolved into static and Aneka bolted toward the cockpit.
    ‘Everyone get strapped in,’ she yelled over her shoulder. ‘David, get on sensors and see if you can detect anything.’ She dropped into the pilot’s seat and began powering up the flight systems.
    Grumand appeared behind her. ‘Pirates?’ he suggested.
    ‘What would pirates be doing out here?’
    ‘Looking for an easy meal ticket? Maybe they use this place as somewhere to hole up.’
    ‘Wouldn’t we have seen some sign of occupation? Doesn’t matter. I’m more worried about why the Hyde went silent.’
    ‘I’m picking up a lot of noise,’ Monkey said from the sensor console. ‘I think someone’s jamming the radio. So far no sign of anything dropping out of orbit.’
    Aneka engaged the antigravity system and pushed the ship upward a few metres. A touch raised the landing gear and she fired up the main engines, blasting them forward at full throttle, though the inertial compensation took most of the bite out of it.
    ‘Aren’t you a little low?’ Grumand said.
    ‘There’s not much ground clutter to help, but if I stay low they may not detect us so easily. I have a few advantages when it comes to low-altitude flying.’ In-vision she could see the view from four forward-looking cameras, which gave her an unobstructed view of where the hull was in relation to the ground.
    ‘They’ll detect the exhaust from those engines quickly enough.’
    ‘Not where