But we had bargained without Clem. The encounter with young Holcomb had changed her. He had tried to kill her ... tried to sunder her body. The childish core of her had become that hateful thing we had felt in the shaft. She had been attacked and her reaction was quick and dreadful.
Almost before we were out of her shadow, she turned in an impossibly short arc and charged us, atomic hell blazing from her tail. Like a vengeful comet, she sought us out.
Like a vengeful comet, she sought us out.
I called to the other ships to scatter and they leaped away from us like arrows. One went up and to starboard, the other went down and to port. I gave my own tiny boat full throttle and headed straight for the bright crescent of Venus.
Clem would not be denied. One of the lifeships was caught in her tail-flare and I saw it vanish in an incandescent blot as the heat detonated the tank of monoatomic hydrogen it carried. Debris fanned out from the scene of the explosion, banging against our ship's flanks.
And still the infuriated metal monster was not satisfied. She caught the second lifeship ... Swanson's ... about fifty miles astern of us and gored it to death with her needle-sharp prow.