I jumped back, swearing, for I could see nothing except the hot waste of glistening sand. There were dunes, hummocks with strange grasses and brush sticking up through them like beards; but I had struck the limit of my trek and could not reach any of those visible spots beyond.
I pushed against it with my hands. It gave, but only as a taut wire net might give, then press back against the hands; it was a strain to make the thing bulge. The counterpressure was strong. I could not advance. I turned to the right and saw that the nearest patrol had stopped. The two men were fumbling in the air like blind men. They were raising and lowering their feet as if they felt for steps above an abyss. They, too, had come to the end of possible advance. They had come into contact with invisibility also—invisibility that was inflexibly tough beyond a certain brief limit.
The two men turned now and looked at me. I gave the halt signal and started toward them. I ran into something and caromed off, falling to my knees. The horrible thought struck me that each group might have stumbled inside some hideous globe and become separated from all other groups. But it wasn't so. I got to my feet, put my left hand out against the invisible wall—which felt warm to the touch, as if it were a living thing—and started toward the northeast group.
The surface of that strange substance was undulant; it zig-zagged, like the weaving walk of a drunken man.
I reached the first patrol, Corporal Hoge Ziegler and Private First Class Barry Preble. Their faces were white. I wouldn't say they were scared but they were definitely concerned.
"Well, at least we've discovered what it was we ran through at the moment we hit the beach," I offered. "All we need to do is find a way through it, and go on with our maneuver."
Ziegler shook his head. "No, sir, I don't see it like that. We can see through this stuff, or seem to, but we can't see back the way we came, astern of the landing craft."
"Right, corporal; what do you think it is, then?"
"I'm no scientist, sir. I'd say it is a net of some kind, in which we have been caught, landing craft and all, like so many fish. But by whom? By what? For what reason? It has me stopped."
"I wonder—" began Preble, then stopped, staring at the place where he and Ziegler had come to a dead stop. Preble stepped back. In his arms he cradled one of the latest automatic weapons.