He drove straight at the fence. It went down and he was out of the enclosure, entirely surrounded by vermin. On all sides, farther than he could see, were purposeless animals, no longer in orderly ranks, obeying a single dictate. How long would they remain severed from the controlling brains?
Desperately, Mac fixed in his mind the position of the place where he had seen unified activity. He headed directly for the war council of intelligent centaurpedes.
The treads of his tractors made sucking, splashing sounds through the mud. 'Pedes, not bright enough by themselves to get out of the way of danger, died by the thousands under the grinding chains.
He was drawing closer, into the thickest cluster of all. The vermin here were also wandering around, but they seemed to be trying to make up their minds. Mac knew the blanketing wave was weaker here, that the council of queens 'pedes was struggling to get its nearer minions under control again. Before that happened, they had to be destroyed.
But where were they? Two hundred yards away was a great battle square of centaurpedes, setting themselves with idiot bravery to stop his invincible machine. Mandibles opened wide, they crouched back, ready to spring and rend the indestructible steel.
Were the 'pede dictators in the center of that battalion? Theoretically, they should be, but Mac knew better than to expect the obvious. Were they brain-like, slug-like, or did they hide their vast significance behind protective disguises of mediocrity, pretending to be nothing but ordinary centaurpedes?
The tractor lumbered on across the mud, smashed into that wall of nauseating bodies. The cracking and squashing made his stomach heave, yet he kept grinding ahead.
"Damn your murdering hearts, where are you?" he bit out.
He crashed through the battalion, started to turn back for another charge. Instead, he clamped his teeth together and continued savagely. Far before him, he had seen several 'pedes, identical with the rest, racing in different directions toward the ocean. They had set up a rear guard to cover their retreat.
He wrenched the wheel aside. Crack!