"It's getting weird out there," said Costanzo as he wheeled another shopping cart of canned goods down the ramp to the basement. Two guard visitors came in with him and took up position with the others around the wall where they could watch the humans carefully.

Duffy looked up from Bergman's computer. "Weird how?" he asked.

"Everything looks glittery," said the soldier as he crossed the room to what had become their kitchen area, the trolley's wheels squeaking as he struggled to keep it going straight. "Like a cold morning when everything's covered in frost, except it's hot and dry. Like someone's coated everything in diamonds. The road, the buildings. Everything."

"You mean like that?" said Bright, nodding her head towards the image of the other world in the centre of the Furnace. Everything they could see of it seemed to be made of crystals. Even the mountains they could see on the horizon had a strange regularity to them as if each one had started out as a single giant gemstone, roughened and rounded by erosion but still having the same basic angular shape. In the foreground were things that looked like grasses and small shrubs, but closer inspection revealed that they were crystals too. Dendritic structures glittering in the light of a sun that still hadn't moved in the sky.

"Yes, sort of," said Costanzo. "Is that what our world's going to turn into if we can't stop it?"

"I'm beginning to think it might," said Duffy. "I wonder how long the food will be edible for? What if it also starts turning into crystals?"

"So far as I could tell, anything with water in it seems to be staying the same," said the soldier, though. "The plants. Plastic bottles of water. Food's got water in it so maybe we'll be lucky."

"We'd better hope so," the physicist replied. "With all those creatures eating it, all the food in the city will run out soon enough in any case."

Costanzo nodded. "The plants aren't turning into crystals," he said, "but they're changing in other ways."

"Like those turnips we saw on the way here?" said Bhatt, looking up from his own computer. "The ones with the roots that looked like worms?"

"Yeah," the soldier replied, looking unhappy. "I mean, no worms, but I just didn't like the look of them. They seemed wrong to me, and I don't think it was the anomaly altering my perceptions. I sort of know what that feels like now. This felt different, as if it was real but my stupid soldier brain couldn't figure out how it was wrong."

"I'm sure you're right," said the mathematician. "Every living thing we've seen has been changed by the anomaly. Why should palm trees be any different."

Costanzo nodded. "Are you having any luck figuring out how to put that thing in reverse?" He jerked a finger towards the Furnace.

"Well, I think we might not have to," said Duffy, looking up. "Bergman's had me studying the physics of the plasma flow, but the more I think about it the more I think the answer lies in the magnetic field lines. Each controls the other, of course, but it's the magnetism that's doing whatever the Furnace is doing to space here. The plasma flows just guide it. There's a whole bunch of files here on the weak force. I think Bergman might actually have found a way to couple the two forces..."

"You're not ready for that," said Bergman urgently, coming down the ramp from the car park where he'd been answering a call of nature. "You need a basic grounding in plasma theory first."

"I am a world class physicis," said Duffy irritably. "I alreay know all about plasmas. I thought you were focusing on them because you'd figured out something important about superconducting turbulence, but we've been at this for a full day now and it's like being back in a high school class." He stared at Bergman suspiciously. "It's almost as if you're trying to distract me. Keep me away from where the real answers are."

"I think the anomaly is affecting your perceptions," Bergman replied. "Making you paranoid."

"And what I think," Duffy replied, "Is that all we've got to do, all we've ever had to do, us turn that thing off." He jerked a thumb at the Furnace.

"Hell yes!" said Costanzo. "Is there an off switch? What if we just start yanking wires?"

"The intersection between the two universes has become semi-stable," said Bergman, though. "Turn it off and the anomaly will remain, and the anomaly will keep us from being able to re-start the Furnace. If you want to collapse the anomaly, the Furnace has to be eased gently into reverse without interrupting the magnetic field it's generating."

"Yes, that's been your line all along," said Duffy, "but your deliberately keeping me away from the magnetism equations is making me start to wonder."

"It's the anomaly, making you paranoid," said Bergman, though, his voice growing more strident. "Turn off the anomaly and you're dooming the whole planet."

"You are a brilliant physicist," said Duffy, meeting the other man's gaze steadily. "A once-in-a-lifetime genius ranking alongside Newton, Maxwell and Hawking. Your magnetism equations are beautiful in their simplicity, but that very simplicity makes it very easy to use them to predict the effect of just turning off the machine."

Around them, the anomaly creatures seemed to tense up, as if readying themselves for action. Duffy saw it and felt fear replacing some of his suspicion and anger. Were Bergman and the creatures working together? Had the formation of the anomaly really been an accident?

"The equations don't take account of the plasmon effect," Bergman replied. "I was going to add the extra variables to represent the free electron gas density."

"Bullshit! Why are you doing this? Why don't you want the anomaly destroyed?"

"I do want it destroyed, just as much as you do, but there's only one way to do that and that's to invert the plasma fields. Anything else, you're just handing the planet to the Crystal Entity."

"The what?" said Sarah, sitting up and staring at Bergman. "Crystal Entity?"

"The intelligence," said Bergman, but he was looking alarmed as if he knew he'd betrayed himself. "We agreed that there was some kind of intelligence controlling the anomaly creatures."

"Yes," said the linguist, "but why call it the Crystal Entity?"

"It's the name I gave it in my head," the physicist replied. "I mean, we had to call it something. We can't just keep calling it the Intelligence."

"But it's not really much of an improvement, us it?" asked Sarah. "Intelligence. Crystal Entity. They're both rather vague. Why prefer one over the other?"

"It was you who called it the Intelligence," Bergman pointed out. "I was thinking of it as the Crystal Entity before you used the word Intelligence for the first time." He pointed at the image of the alien planet. "The whole planet's made of crystals. I just assumed that an entity from there would also be crystalline in nature."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"But none of us had any reason to suspect the existence of an intelligence until those creatures began hatching out from corpses." Sarah pointed to the guard creatures, all of which were staring at her with their flower-heads. Some of them were producing claw-tipped tentacles. "How did you know there was an intelligence on that world before that?"

"I... I..." Bergman's eyes leapt from one of his fellow humans to another as if looking for someone to take his side. He pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and mopped his forehead with it. "I didn't know. I just... I have a wild imagination. I was all alone here for days before you turned up, staring at that scenery. I had nothing to do but let my imagination run free. I wondered whether there was life on that world and, if there was, what it would be like. I imagined creatures of crystal. That's all it is. I swear it."

"I might almost believe you," said Duffy, "except that your friends over there seem to be getting a little worked up. As if they're also very determined that the Furnace not be turned off."

"You can't possibly know that's why they're getting worked up," Bergman replied. "They're probably just alarmed to see us arguing."

"Maybe," said Duffy, "but I'm suddenly rather curious to see what they do if we try to turn the Furnace off."

He moved towards the primary power converter, where heat from the plasma inside the Furnace was turned into electricity to power the Furnace. There was a large circuit breaker on the side of the grey-painted metal, looking remarkably like something from Frankenstein's laboratory. He reached out a hand towards the downward-pointing handle...

The creatures charged at him, one of then throwing a claw that tore through his robes and gashed his arm. He gave a cry of pain and jerked his arm back, sheltering it behind his body, and then the nearest creature crashed into him and he felt claws pressed against his throat. He froze and the claws also froze. A warning, telling him not to try anything, but then Bhatt was running past, also going for the circuit breaker. Another creature rushed at him and the mathematician pushed it away, suffering a cut to his hand in the process.

"Don't!" called out Sarah, but the man was determined, driven by a sudden furious rage. The creature picked itself up and rushed at him again, claws outstretched. Bhatt grabbed one tentacle with both hands and pulled, separating two of the sausages of which it was composed. Then, holding the claw like a knife, he slashed at the creature, tearing open several of the fish eggs of its body. The creature recoiled and the mathematician turned back to the circuit breaker, but two more of the creatures leapt at him and blood sprayed as they slashed at him with their claws.

Taking advantage of the diversion, Costanzo ran up the ramp to the service entrance and into the car park. Duffy saw him go to the equipment wagon, tear open one of the crates stacked on it and pull out two objects. A black machine gun and a long, curving ammunition magazine that he slapped into it before running back down into the basement.

The creatures turned to face him and Costanzo aimed the weapon at the nearest of them. Three shots rang out and the creature exploded in a shower of gore. Costanzo fired three more shots at another creature, blowing it apart, and then he aimed the weapon at the Furnace.

"No!" cried Bergman, running forward as if a beloved family member was the target. Costanzo ignored him and pulled the trigger. Another three shots rang out and sparks flew from the Furnace as the bullets hit thick sheets of steel. Costanzo cursed and shifted his aim, pointing the weapon at an instrument panel covered with dials and switches. He pulled the trigger again but Bergman charged at him, spoiling his aim. The three bullets went high, missing the Furnace and blowing holes on the far wall of the basement.

Bergman reached for the weapon and Costanzo swung it like a club, striking the physicist on the forehead and making him fall away with a cry of pain. Costanzo aimed the weapon again but then three guard creatures were on him, stabbing and slashing with their claws. A fifth burst of gunfire came from the weapon, and then the soldier lay still. The creatures stabbed him a few more times for good measure before withdrawing and Duffy saw that, in addition to a host of other injuries, his throat had been cut from ear to ear. Blood jetted from the injury for a moment, spraying across the tiled floor, but then it slowed and stopped as his heart stopped beating.

Duffy and Sarah Bright could only stare at the aftermath of the brief battle, frozen with shock. Bhatt was still alive, Duffy saw as the creatures moved away from him. He was cut and slashed in a dozen places but none of his injuries looked serious. Almost as if the creatures still had use for him, Duffy thought.

He and Bright ran to the mathemarician. The guard creatures raised their clawed tentacles but then drew back as if recognising that the humans only wanted to help their friend. Several of them moved between the humans and the Furnace, though. Forming a wall to keep them away from it. Bergman simply watched, his face pale with shock as if unable to comprehend what had happened.

"Help me take his clothes off," Bright ordered.

"I can take my own bloody clothes off," mumbled Bhatt weakly, but he lay still and made no further protest as the others undid buckles and buttons.

"There's a first aid kit on the wagon," said Bright as she stripped off Bhatt's shirt.

"There's a first aid kit right here," said Duffy, running over to the shelf on which it was sitting. He brought it back, opened it and saw bandages and antiseptic. "Think they'll let us go to a hospital and bring back something to sew him up with?"

"I think we just threw away a lot of trust." The linguist took one of the bandages, opened it and began wrapping it around the most serious cut, along his ribs. Duffy helped her lift the mathematician up so she could wrap it around his chest.

"We didn't throw it away," said Duffy quietly, glancing around at the guard creatures. Could they understand human spoken words yet? Safest to assume they could. "We had to try," he said in a low voice while moving his head close to hers. "That was our best shot. I doubt we'll get another chance."

"What about Rick?" asked Bright. She glanced across at the soldier but it was obvious that he was beyond help. He was lying still with his eyes open, and the huge puddle of blood around him had stopped growing. She swallowed, her brown face turning grey with shock, and turned her attention back to the mathematician.

"Will he be alright?" asked Bergman, stepping closer nervously.

Duffy felt a wave of fury rise up in him and he forced it down with an effort. This wasn't the time. He suspected the creatures might turn on him if they thought he was about to commit violence on the other physicist. He forced himself to speak calmly therefore. "So you're on their side," he said.

"It's not a question of sides..." Bergman began.

"Bullshit!" said Duffy. The creatures tensed up and extended their tentacles. Duffy forced himself to calm down. "You created the anomaly on purpose, didn't you? You knew what would happen when you turned it on."

"The device in China caused a phenomenon similar to what you call the anomaly," Bergman replied, "but it didn't cause any ill effect. It didn't do me any harm at all."

"Wenzhong let you try your triple plasma vortex then," said Duffy.

"No," Bergman replied. "He was adamant that it would be a mistake. I knew it would work, though, so I went to the lab late at night when it was all locked up and empty. Made the alterations and fired it up. It worked, just as I knew it would. The 4-brane proximity effect, what you call the anomaly, appeared, as did the window into another world. That was unexpected, I admit."

"And then what happened?" asked Duffy.

"Wenzhong turned up," said Bergman, suddenly looking ashamed. "I've got no idea what brought him there at that time of night but he knew what had happened the moment he saw the prototype Furnace. He flew into a rage, accused me of being irresponsible and reckless."

"Sixty thousand dead in Maricopa alone," said Bright, her eyes burning with anger.

Duffy waved her to silence. Bergman was talking. Accusations could wait. "Then what happened?" he asked.

"He tried to turn the machine off," Bergman replied. "I tried to stop him. That's all I wanted to do, to stop him. I swear it. But somehow we both fell. He hit his head on the edge of the table."

"He died?" Duffy guessed.

Bergman nodded. "There was obviously no point in confessing, in turning myself over to the police. What would that have accomplished? He'd still have been dead, and I still had so much to contribute to the world. Going to prison would have been a waste of my talents. Covering up what happened was the most logical course of action."

"So what did you do to the body?" asked Duffy, although he'd already guessed.

"I pushed it through the window into the other world," Bergman replied. "And then I turned off the machine. It was hard to do, but I knew I'd be able to build another so long as my reputation remained intact. The mystery of Wenzhong's disappearance was never solved, but with his absence the project was shut down. I came back to the states and began lobbying for funds to carry on the work here."

"But now that you know what the anomaly's doing," said Bright, staring at him with her bright, white eyes, "Why don't you want it turned off? It's killed so many people..."

"A small price to pay," said Bergman quietly.

"A small price to pay for what?" asked Duffy.

"Isn't it obvious?" asked Bergman, glancing from one to the other of them as if they were confused. "Look at it." He waved a hand at the other world, still visible in the centre of the Furnace.

They both looked. "I don't understand," said Duffy in confusion.

"What's not to understand?" asked Bergman, his voice rising as if he couldn't believe how dense they were. "Look at it. It's so beautiful! And when the whole Planet Earth has been transformed it will be beautiful as well."