But they had. He watched them, unbelieving, as they clustered around the exterior lock of the scout ship. It opened to them. They disappeared inside.
Then, a moment later, the interior hatch to the Hind itself swung open, and five of the alien machines boiled through.
Krake was frozen in astonishment, but others were not. Everyone in the control room of the Hind was shouting at once, and some were acting. Chief Thunderbird threw himself despairingly at the invaders, Kiri Quintero only a moment behind him . . . unfortunately for the Proctor, for it was his death.
The Turde didn't have a chance. The leading Sh'shrane hardly paused in its advance. It simply raised a stubby tentacle and pointed it at him. A fat, violet spark leaped out from the end of the tentacle and flew at the Turtle. The spark was lethal. There was a horrid splatting sound, and a reek of chemicals and foulness, and the body of Chief Thunderbird burst like a child's balloon. Bits of Turtle flesh and chitin scattered horribly around the control room, splattering on the walls and furnishings and people like an awful rain. . . .
And behind Chief Thunderbird, Kiri Quintero was caught in the same blast. His arm and shoulder were ripped away, his head burned black on one side.
Litlun screamed in horror and pain. He dropped frantically to the floor, to scrabble in the butcher's offal that had been his Elder Brother. Moon Bunderan ran to Kiri's side, Thrayl painfully rising to follow her, his great horns questing from side to side.
Krake did not will any action from his own body, but his body had a will of its own. Before he knew it he was charging toward the Sh'shrane—not for any reasoned purpose, only to attack; knowing that no bare-handed attack could accomplish anything but his own death. He could see death coming at him, as two of the machines raised tentacles and pointed them toward him—
And then they stopped.
They froze in place, all five of the Sh'shrane. Every one of them turned abruptly toward the passageway.
There the bouncing red form of Daisy Fay McQueen had appeared, drawn by the commotion in the control room. She stopped short in horror at what she saw.
The Sh'shrane seemed to confer inaudibly among themselves. Then they simply ignored all the survivors in the control room. They advanced on Daisy Fay and bore her back, protesting, struggling, until the sounds of her voice faded out and they were out of sight.
Then there was silence in the abattoir that had been the control room, except for the sounds of weeping from Moon Bunderan. "It's Kiri," she said, sobbing. "I think he's dead."
Though the aiodoi sing on, they listen more intently now to the smallsongs from everywhere. Especially they listen to the song of that aiodos among them who sings lovingly ofall, and yet intends to give up eternity for life. This is a grave concern to all the aiodoi, who seldom act but only are. Yet they sing on, and listen on, to the songs of the old Earth scientist and poet.
"Let's talk a little more about the fine structure of the universe, and what it contains. We'll start by talking about pi.
"You all know what pi is. It's the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and when you measure it out it's a little more than 3. I can be more exact than that, though. To fourteen places, pi is 3.14159265358979.
"I hope I've impressed you by remembering all that, but so you won't get too impressed I'll let you in on a trade secret. An old-timer named James Jeans had trouble keeping that value of pi in mind, so he made up a mnemonic for it. You know what mnemonic is? It's a device to aid your memory, like the notes you scribble on your cuffs before a final. In this case, you use the mnemonic by counting the letters in each word—3, 1, 4 and so on—and it goes:
" 'How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy chapters involving quantum mechanics.'
"You mustn't think that even that fourteen-place figure is right, though. It isn't. It's still an approximation. People with computers have carried pi out to thousands of decimal places now, and they'll never end, for pi doesn't have an end. It's an irrational number.
"Before computers, mathematicians used to amuse themselves calculating extra decimal places for pi by the method of inscribing polygons inside a circle. You can get as close as you like—up to a point—just by increasing the number of sides of the inscribed polygon.
"Now, we already know that they'll never get to the real value of pi, because it doesn't have one, being irrational. But let's make believe it isn't. A question for you all to consider is this:
"Assume the biggest circle you can imagine, with the maximum number of sides; and assume you have all eternity to count and measure the sides. Is it possible to get this mythical 'exact' value for pi that way?
"Answer: It is not. The reason is what we call 'space-time foam.'
"In order to get the maximum closest possible value for pi, the sides of your polygon would have to be very, very small. But smallness has a limit.
"You can't have anything smaller than Planck's ten to the minus twenty-seventh centimeters, because below that size the concept of size itself doesn't exist; it is a philosophical abstraction, irrelevant to quantum considerations. Nothing gets shorter than that. There you are in the realm of quantum effects, and everything is dominated by the superforce.
"Which, you remember, is the force that lets you do anything at all to anything at all. If we could ever learn how to control the superforce . . . well, then you could forget all the 'can'ts' and 'impossibles' I've been saying to you, because nothing at all would be impossible ever again."
And some of the aiodoi sang: "Of course."
And some of the aiodoi sang as always, but listened and listened for the song of that aiodos among them who had chosen to begone.
18
Krake's first thought was to charge after the alien machines— "thought" was too intellectual a word for what he felt; actually it was only the atavistic adrenalin-rush of the attacked and enraged male—but he stopped himself. It wasn't cowardice that stopped him, though he was certain that attacking these mechanical murderers who had slaughtered members of his crew could accomplish nothing but his own quick death. What kept him in the control room was the urgent needs before him.
There was nothing that anyone could do for Chief Thunderbird. Litlun was squatting amid the noisome rubble that had been his Elder Brother, muttering dejectedly to himself, and, queerly, picking up the gobbets and bits—as though neatness could count here! But Kiri Quintero—
Kiri wasn't dead. Not quite. "His heart's beating," Moon Bunderan called from where she knelt with the scorched head in her lap. Krake took one frustrated look toward the corridor, then dropped to his knees beside her.
Yes, there was a pulse, faint but regular at the base of Kiri's throat. "Hold on," Krake said—not so much to Moon as to Kiri himself. While she dabbed at the crusted char, trying not to let the stench of burned flesh affect her, Krake ripped off his shirt and belt, wadding the shirt against the raw meat where Kiri's shoulder and arm had been, winding the belt around the torso to hold it in place. The blood was fountain-ing. But though the wadded shirt was soaked with it at once, the bleeding was at least slowed. It would be the wound to the head that would kill Kiri Quintero, Krake thought, and could only marvel that it hadn't done the job already.
He raised his head quickly, listening to a sudden new outburst of sound from the corridor. It was Marco's voice. He was shouting something—puzzlingly, sounding angry rather than in hurt or fear. Krake swore. "Can you hold Kiri?" he begged Moon Bunderan. "I have to go after them—"