The black-clad Niss on the alien machine half rose, erecting a black-scaled crest, exulting. Then, shockingly, his eyes fixed on Tremaine's, his trap-like mouth gaped, exposing a tongue like a scarlet snake, a cavernous pink throat set with a row of needle-like snow-white teeth. The tongue flicked out, a gesture of utter contempt.
And suddenly Tremaine was cold with deadly rage. We have a treatment for snakes in this world, he thought with savage intensity. We crush 'em under our heels.... He pictured a writhing rattler, broken-backed, a club descending; a darting red coral snake, its venom ready, slashed in the blades of a power mower; a cottonmouth, smashed into red ruin by a shotgun blast....
BACK, SNAKE, he thought. DIE! DIE!
The thunder faded.
And atop the Niss Generator, the black-clad Niss snapped his mouth shut, crouched.
"DIE!" Tremaine shouted. "Die!"
The Niss seemed to shrink in on himself, shivering. His crest went flaccid, twitched twice. The red eyes winked out and the Niss toppled from the machine. Tremaine coughed, gripped the handles, turned his eyes to a gray-uniformed Niss who scrambled up to replace the operator.
I SAID DIE, SNAKE!
The Niss faltered, tumbled back among his fellows, who darted about now like ants in a broached anthill. One turned red eyes on Tremaine, then scrambled for the red cut-out switch.
NO, YOU DON'T, Tremaine thought. IT'S NOT THAT EASY, SNAKE. DIE!