The explosion triggered every vehicle in the line. The damage was complete.
Scratch one threat from the Pyramids—
And almost at once, there was another urgent call from Alia Narova: "Tropile, quickly!"
The Pyramids were the mightiest race of warriors the Universe had ever known. They were invulnerable and unconquerable, except from within. Like Alexander the Great, they had met every enemy and whipped them all. And, like dying Alexander, they writhed and raged against the tiny, unseen bacillus within themselves.
Blindly, almost suicidally, the Pyramids returned to their ancient principle of shove-and-haul.
The geography of the binary planet was like a hive of bees, nearly featureless on the surface, but internally a congeries of tunnels, chambers, warrens, rooms, tubes and amphitheaters. Machinery and metal Components were everywhere thick under the planet's crust. The more delicate and more useful Components of flesh and blood were, to a degree, concentrated in a few areas....