“Has anyone ever captured one of those?”
“Who cares?” asked Omi. “Kill him.”
“Maybe we should—”
Omi’s Gyroc kicked. The rocket-packet ignited. The APEX shell moved fast.
Webbie Octagon was exhausted. He’d shuffled under the heavy load for a long time. His shoulders ached and a point in his back knifed him every time his right leg moved. He yearned to throw off the laser-pack, but the kill-order prevented him from doing so.
He longed to glimpse Marten Kluge again. He would burn off a leg first, then an arm and then maybe a foot. He would enjoy the spectacle. Yes, it would be glorious to hurt and maim Marten Kluge. It was his greatest wish to see that barbarian—
It might have been a premonition, but Octagon looked up then. He saw a spark in the darkness. It rushed toward him. He switched on the vacc-suit’s helmet lamp. The beam washed over a kneeling, armored figure. The soldier’s helmet was aimed at him. The visor was clear. In it, he spied Marten Kluge.
Octagon hissed as he raised the laser carbine. Finally, his greatest life’s joy was about to be—
Omi’s APEX shell struck Octagon in the chest. The round pierced his body. Then the shell exploded, raining bits of rib-bone, heart-muscle, fat and brown vacc-suit. With its gaping, smoking hole, the corpse thudded onto the floor.
“You’re getting slow,” Omi told Marten.
“Did he look familiar to you?” Marten asked.
“Don’t be crazy. Who do we know that could have become a Webbie?”
It was then Osadar reached them via radio and told them what had happened in the armored chamber.
“The Web-Mind trapped the Praetor,” Omi said. “It escaped.”
Marten scowled. Then he picked up his IML. “If it’s over, we have to get out of here.”
“And do what?” Omi asked.
“Find a patrol boat and escape,” Marten said.
Omi shook his head. “It’s probably already too late for that.”
“When we’re on the cyborg converter, then it’s too late. Until then, we keep trying.” Marten shouldered his IML and started back for the dome.
-26-
Inside the large stealth-capsule, the Praetor struggled mightily. Because of the EMP blast, his battleoid-armor had frozen. With continuing grueling effort, he unlatched his suit’s seals. Sweat poured from his flesh and his muscles quivered at the effort. Rage gave him the power as his indomitable will drove him.
The Web-Mind had tricked him. It had trapped him.
With a roar, the Praetor tore off the last seal and heaved the battleoid open. Slippery with sweat, he slithered free of the encasing armor. He thus became the first enemy to see a Web-Mind.
It was a living nightmare. There were rows of clear bio-tanks. In them, were sheets of brain mass, many hundreds of kilos of brain cells from as many unwilling donors in the Neptune System. Green computing gel surrounded the pink-white mass. Cables, bio-tubes and tight-beam links connected the tanks to backup computers and life-support systems. The combination made a seething, pulsating whole, with the brain-mass sheets squirming slightly. The bio-tubes gurgled as warm liquids pulsed through them. Backup computers made whirring sounds as lights indicated a thousand things.
As the Praetor glared, a panel opened. Out of it rolled a robotic device with multi-jointed arms. At the ends were laser welders, melders and calibrating clippers. The various arms moved as the robotic device charged across the floor at him.
The Web-Mind’s gloating at capturing a Highborn and burning the others changed to panic. Against all probability, the Highborn had struggled free of his frozen armor-suit. Now the giant humanoid was inside the chamber.
That meant the Highborn must die. It would have been enjoyable to test the Highborn’s psychology during the long trip to Earth. Instead, it ordered repair units to dismember the shouting creature.
At the same time, the Web-Mind piloted its stealth-capsule through the tunnels. It headed for the surface and safety. The attacking vessels and missiles were gone. It was time to re-link with Gharlane and it was time to relay information through the laser lightguide with the Prime Web-Mind in the Neptune System.
The fight was short and vicious against the two repair units. It left the Praetor bleeding from six deep wounds as his right arm dangled uselessly. Gore oozed from the hole where his left eye used to be.
“You freakish bastard,” he mumbled. Then he stumbled at the bio-tanks. With a metal strut broken off a repair unit, the Praetor shattered ballistic glass. He thrust the metal strut through his belt, and with his hand, he began to tear out clots of pink-white brain mass. Gel spilled onto the floor as a klaxon began to wail.
“That’s right!” the Praetor snarled. “Scream while I kill you. Scream for me, my pretty. Scream.”
The Web-Mind sent out a distress call to the remaining cyborgs on Carme. Even as the Highborn destroyed computing power, it maneuvered the stealth-capsule.
The black vessel exited a tunnel and flew to an approaching party of cyborgs.
Then something akin to horrified panic erupted. The bleeding, dying humanoid smashed another globule of brain-mass. The destruction initiated a deep and hidden program.
Web-Minds were the ultimate creation, sublime beings beyond the capacities of inferior creatures to understand. Each Web-Mind was akin to what lesser creatures conceived of as gods. It was unthinkable that lower order creatures capture gods. It was vile to consider creatures tearing down a god or rendering them half-operable and imprisoning them. Destruction was preferable to creature-slavery.
As the harsh and unyielding program ran through its logic parameters, the shouting Highborn dug his large fingers into brain-mass. He yanked out the section that held the primary deletion program, meaning that sub- systems took over, trying to reconfigure the exact sequencing.
In its growing terror, the Web-Mind opened all channels, calling for all cyborgs to converge immediately on its coordinates. Then it began to search for a place to land.
The Praetor coughed up blood. Pain racked him. He hurt everywhere. It stank horribly in this awful place. Despite that, he forced his legs to move, and he hammered more ballistic glass. Then he continued to pluck out fistfuls of pink-white mass. It was brain tissue. He knew that much. He was killing his hated enemy.
