Alex noticed that there were large wet areas of the beach, each about fifty feet in a rough circle, that the scorpions seemed to avoid. In fact, they were taking great pains to detour around them. Some were taking longer to bypass the slightly raised circular shapes and looked to try to head back up the sand, so Takeda moved quickly to head them off. One of the larger creatures swivelled its eye stalk backwards and on seeing the two-legged predator almost on top of it, decided to cross the empty, wet-looking circle. It got no more than five feet onto the circle when it stopped dead, but not because it had decided to freeze. Rather, it looked glued to the spot.

Alex felt his heightened senses jump and they allowed him to react immediately—this was danger. He shouted for Takeda to halt; unfortunately, Takeda only heard the command after he too had taken several large steps onto the circular pad; he stopped and looked down.

His feet had sunk in and were stuck fast; it was like fly paper. Takeda tried to remove his feet and then used his sword to try and cut himself free. The pad started to draw itself towards the centre of the circle, which had dropped into the wet sand to display a ragged black-red maw. It was some type of enormous living creature that was buried beneath the sand and was using the pad as a trap for unwary animals—a trap that was now being reeled in and sucked down into the dark orifice of its mouth. As the carpet of flesh was tugged violently from under Takeda he was tipped over to land flat on his side. Now, rising back to his feet was impossible as he found most of one side of his body trapped fast.

Alex raced down the beach. He stopped at the edge of the pad and fired his rifle into the round “tongue.” It had no effect; Takeda was now only ten feet from the centre and he could just lift his head to observe the sea scorpion disappear inside. The pad stopped for a second or two and a crunching could be heard as the scorpion was pulverised by a still hidden, powerful set of jaws beneath the sand.

Alex fired again, this time into the centre of the hole, but it still had no effect. He was about to leap forward onto the moving pad, planning to use his enormous strength to pull himself free when Aimee cried out. “Don’t, we need you with us.”

Takeda had not uttered a word or a cry. He looked at Alex and shook his head. Alex nodded, understanding the unspoken communication and said quietly into his helmet comm unit, “Farewell, my friend,” followed by a single word, “Grenade.”