The Niss collapsed. Tremaine drew a rasping breath, blinked back tears of pain, took in a group of Niss in a glance.
Die!
They fell. The others turned to flee then, but like a scythe Tremaine's mind cut them down, left them in windrows. Hate walked naked among the Niss and left none living.
Now the machines. Tremaine thought. He fixed his eyes on the harmonic generator. It melted into slag. Behind it, the high panels set with jewel-like lights blackened, crumpled into wreckage. Suddenly the air was clean again. Tremaine breathed deep. Before him the surface of the rock swam into view.
NO! Tremaine thought thunderously. HOLD THAT APERTURE OPEN!
The rock-face shimmered, faded. Tremaine looked into the white-lit room, at the blackened walls, the huddled dead. No pity, he thought. You would have sunk those white teeth into soft human throats, sleeping in the dark ... as you've done on a hundred worlds. You're a cancer in the cosmos. And I have the cure.
WALLS, he thought, COLLAPSE!
The roof before him sagged, fell in. Debris rained down from above, the walls tottered, went down. A cloud of roiled dust swirled, cleared to show a sky blazing with stars.
Dust, stay clear, Tremaine thought. I want good air to breathe for the work ahead. He looked out across a landscape of rock, ghostly white in the starlight.