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.When he had coined the word ‘metalloid’ it had been as a disparaging joke.But the suit-men’s swift and unhesitating actions had changed all that.Suddenly they seemed more capable and intelligent than his prejudices had formerly allowed him to admit.They had become what Amara had always said they were: a new species, wholly at harmony with their own nature.One small detail during the journey to the dodecahedron had struck him with particular force – the way the antennae arrays surrounding the suit-men’s heads and shoulders automatically shifted and turned as they darted unerringly through the rock fields.It was such a natural movement, yet completely non-human.The Sovyans really had adopted a new form of physical existence.Yet in a purely technical sense the suits were not even particularly sophisticated.Ziodean technicians could have produced a version half the size and twice as efficient.Still, for their purpose they were fully effective.The biological and the technical parts of the new entity functioned as a unit.Oxygen was required to be imbibed only once every thirty hours, and then only to top up the reserve tank since the suit was able to split exhaled carbon dioxide.‘Biofood’, a thick fluid whose waste content was minimal, was taken once in ten hours.‘Technofood’ consisted of a small amount of lubricating oil and energy for the electrical systems, which came from an isotope battery replaced every fifty days and a solar cell back-up.For the next half-hour Estru and Amara kept themselves busy, adding notes to their running commentaries on everything they saw.The scene put Estru more and more in mind of a beehive – and the Sovyans reminded him particularly of the bullet-bees found on his home planet of Migrat.He could not deduce the purpose of the dodecahedral building.It contained a great deal of machinery which was being evacuated through the exit as time went on, and the numbers of suit-men in it also decreased.It could, he thought, be a military centre.He reflected that the Sovyans had suffered these attacks for centuries, and presumably knew how to deal with them.The assault would no doubt be followed by a retaliatory raid on Shoji – though the suit-men, being unable to land on the enemy planet, could do little more than bombard its surface.At length Estru and Amara ran out of remarks to put on record, and still no rescue party arrived from the Callan.They looked at one another.Estru knew that, though she tried not to show it, Amara was even more scared than he was.‘What do you think’s happened?’ she said hesitantly.‘I dread to think.’‘Could the Callan …’‘Have been captured? It’s possible.But don’t write us off too soon.We haven’t been waiting all that long.Maybe it’s taking Wilce a bit of time to extricate himself.’‘It will be really awful if—’ she began, and then a gasp of shock caused Estru to look the way her helmet was facing.One of the dodecahedron’s pentagonal walls was bursting inwards.Through the imploding rent, accompanied by the icy light of the rings, floated a dozen space-rafts crammed with cyborg warriors.What followed was horrifying.Only a few Sovyans remained in the dodecahedron.The cyborgs swarmed throughout the structure, hunting them down and slaughtering them in a frenetic orgy.The suit-men were shot, burned, battered to junk with huge hammers.They fought back as best they could, occasionally blowing pale bodies to shreds with rocket-driven shells, but they were outnumbered and their situation was hopeless.The ferocity of it all terrified the two Ziodeans, floating in their cage in frozen fascination.Then a moan of fright escaped Amara as one of the rafts drifted slowly by them only a few yards away.The gowned figure they had encountered a week earlier stood on the raft.Leisurely the cyborg gangster abbot turned his body to look them over, his cowl thrown back, his face, with its bizarre mouth and black eyes, appearing cruel, supercilious, amused.Estru felt like a hypnotized rabbit.The yakusa bonze was gross.The loose gown was open and drawn aside so that he could rest his puffy hands on the pommels of two huge curved swords which were thrust into a sash-like belt, to which also were clipped dozens of appurtenances.Swelling over the belt was a vast belly, corrugated and metal-studded.A semi-circular plate of gold apparently bisected his brain and jutted out from the skull, each half of which sported its own control turret.The psychological implications of that division intrigued Estru, but he had no time to think about it.He felt only relief when the warrior abbot turned away from them, his attention taken by something else.A captured Sovyan was being goaded across the dodecahedron by jerking cyborgs.The bonze floated up from his raft and went out to his meet his enemy, drawing the two great swords with a swift, vigorous motion.His divided brain clearly did not detract from his physical prowess.A normal man, in normal gravity, would have needed two hands to control just one of those unwieldy blades, but the bonze, a sword in each hand, executed a dazzling series of movements, using each weapon to counterbalance the torque of the other [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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