He hit it a ringing blow with a sledge hammer. "Blast!" he cried angrily.
Down within the robomb, a lacery lacework of silver in a mass of complex hydrocarbon dielectrics sent impulses along flowing filaments of metal to other shapeless tangles of silver globs. Countercurrents flowed back and the filaments of metal became a tangled highway of multi-purposed impulses. Countercurrents canceled and mixed with flowing currents, creating new wave shapes that flowed in both directions from the mixing point, and the silver-shot masses at either end of the multitudinous filamentary transmission lines accepted the false wave shapes, became confused by their unfamiliarity, and sent forth more shapes of meaningless nature.
It was unable to cope with a situation whereby it was commanded to explode. The right act—upon that stimulus—had not been taught—built into—it.
And still the thoughts beat upon the rudimentary brain.
Lindsay climbed atop the thing. "Blast!" he screamed.
The leering face of a Martian looked up at him, and smiled sneeringly. Lindsay snapped his cutting torch and thrust the white-hot flame in the Martian's eye, and the face distorted and became Jenna. She lifted a hand and pushed the flame away. It went, cutting the hard metal around her face. Characters were burned in her forehead, and he read them without understanding. Tiny hands came out through the cut in the metal and wiped Jenna's face from the top of the fuse. They took the white-hot flame in their hands and directed it.
He lifted. He struck at Jack Grant's laughing face with a bar and drove it loose.