Staring at them, Jarl Corvett could only choke and tremble. There was room for but one thought within his reeling brain: Wassreck was right—! He was right! He was right...!
It made this whole mad gamble worth the while. Even if he died here, all his efforts unavailing, it would still be worth it.
And what could not an army of these giant automatons accomplish? What chance would even the mighty Federation stand against them?
It was destiny. More surely even than he knew his name, Jarl knew that destiny had brought him here ... the strange, dark destiny of courage and fighting men that ever seemed to ride on the side of the outlaw worlds, and freedom.
But now that he was here, destiny would need a strong right arm to implement it.
His arm.
He swung round, then, with his old, bold coat of arrogance upon him—surveying his captors, searching for some faintest hint of hidden weakness.
But the primitives did not waver. Their eyes stayed cold, leering out at him from their metal masks, grim as the day of judgment.
Those masks.... With a sudden rush of recognition, it came to Jarl that their stylized patterns were modeled after the head-units of the towering robots.