"I have seen an enemy bleed," Gill went on. "They do not know how to heal a wound."
"That might be true of some," one of delegates answered. "Some of our old ones have forgotten, too. But you spoke as if the individual community of cells could be extended to include integration with all external matter."
"By touch; I have done it myself."
"You mean the extension into the energy units of your hunting club." The delegate smiled depreciatingly. "We all understand that. But a wooden club was once a living thing. Community control over other forms of matter is entirely different."
"No, the machines respond the same way. I made a motor turn over, when it had been idle and without fuel for twenty years. It frightened me when it happened. The energy in the metal was something new, and I couldn't understand the structure at first. But I've thought about it since, and I'm sure—"
"We'll look into the possibilities—after we capture the enemy machines. Our problems at the moment is to get the machines."
The delegates returned to their discussion. They had agreed, long ago, that the only way to attack the skyport was from inside the protective, force-field dome. For years the Almost-men had tried to encourage trade between the skyport and the treaty area, and the resistance council had turned that to their advantage.
Gradually they had increased the number of young men who went to the city with necklaces of animal teeth and meaningless gee-gaws for the tourist trade. The Almost-men had grown used to seeing a mob of men milling on the bridge and in the lower tiers of the city. The council had regularly altered the trading parties, so that every man in the San Francisco colony had been under the dome half a dozen times. They knew their way around in the skyport; they knew the location of the power station and the city arsenal. When the attack came, fifty men in the city would seize the power plant and the rest would attempt to take the arsenal.
One of the hotheads arose from his place beside Gill. "We have discussed this and argued it for almost as long as I can remember," he said. "There is nothing more to be said, for it or against it. Hasn't the time come to take a vote?"
A moderate protested mildly, "But have we weighed all the risks? If we make a mistake now—"