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.He had, as was his designed purpose, closed with the enemy, marching into the blaze of a half-dozen hand-cannons.Once in close quarters, the Boldo-creature’s orbs snaked out on stalks that had been withdrawn for protection.The cusps popped open, exposing the orbs but also allowing for much greater speed and accuracy.What must have seemed like a slow-moving, unstoppable tank of flesh to the humans now turned into a threshing machine once he was in their midst.The Boldo-creature’s horn-blades, long and curved, swept heads from bodies with each stroke.It had been determined this was the most efficient approach to disposing of humans.They were easily destroyed by the removal of their single brain, which was inexplicably grown inside the top head-appendage.Like harvesting seed-pods from a field of starch-producing plants, the Boldo-creature slaughtered them most efficiently.A few managed to get off shots at close range, blowing off portions of the Boldo-creature’s anatomy.It would take a few days to regrow stalks and orbs, in particular.The central mass had been penetrated, despite the thickness of the carapace.The Savant felt fortunate that the enemy didn’t have any bigger guns available, or the struggle might have gone less smoothly.As it was, the corridors were soon silent.The walls dripped with crimson protoplasm.Twitching bodies were stacked and brought to a large central area that seemed to have served as a feeding center for the humans.Benches and tables were pushed aside and the bodies were stacked up for the Savant to work with at her leisure.She ordered the Boldo-creature with an openly transmitted datablip to rest and feed on the human foodstuffs until she could get there.The Savant built a bubble of resin to keep warm for transport to the human nest.The vacuum would kill her delicate bio-system with any lengthy exposure.She attached the bubble onto the Kizzy-creature’s back and slipped inside.Looking like a giant hump-back, the Kizzy creature staggered with the weight, but held.The knees in particular, the Savant noted, were weak points.She had found many such flaws in their physiology.Who had designed these ungainly humans? She was annoyed with the level of modifications they needed to become effective.The trip from the lifepod to the base was harrowing, but successful.When she was finally deposited in the midst of a mass of workable protoplasm, she felt better.Deciding to err on the side of caution, she immediately built a fresh combat creature from the best of the males.Then she had the Kizzy-creature base herself and impregnated her growth sacks with bio-seeds.She needed some standard types, such as arls to pilot ships, hests to work the equipment and shrades to scout every centimeter of the base.She grew no culus creatures to fly with the shrades.In this environment there was no room to fly, and no air on the moon’s surface to allow it outside.The shrades would have to hump about on their own.There had been, to the best of the Savant’s knowledge, very few transmissions from this base.Some incoming transmissions had been detected, but nothing yet that indicated a counterattack was imminent.She had a little time, she figured.The beachhead she’d managed to form here was very vulnerable right now.She still had the element of surprise and confusion, but that couldn’t last forever.One good bomb dropped upon this nest would extinguish all hope for the Imperium in the Kale system.She could not afford any mistakes.Accordingly, she ordered all her creatures to give her only the shortest, dampened transmissions.Their datablips were to be compressed and transmitted with minimal power and directionally focused.The aliens would only know that one of their bases had gone silent.They could not be allowed to suspect the truth.Overall, the Savant was very pleased with herself.She had managed to take the human nest, and now reigned supreme within.The pathetic aliens had put up little resistance.The only thought that kept her outlook from turning jubilant was the memory of the nife’s transmitted records from Garm.At first, the aliens had been easily defeated on every front.They had been taken utterly by surprise and seemed all but helpless.After those early victories, however, the aliens had pulled together and gathered their strength.They had turned out to be formidable fighters when organized and comprehending of the danger they faced.Surprise, therefore, was critical.She must maintain that advantage for as long as possible.She reminded herself that she had only the tiniest of strongholds in the furthest reaches of the Kale system.Many more battles would have to be won.The biggest decision she had to make was the creation of a Parent.She would dearly love to seed one, but in the end she decided the time was not yet right.She had to have more available sources of food first.Parents were far more useful on planets, where the food supplies were much greater.They could produce more creatures, with a greater variety, but they were less efficient in producing them.The Savant was able, using modification techniques, to take a human form and construct a useful creature.The Parent had to consume vast quantities of flesh to produce larvae, which in turn had to grow and feed.After considering the situation, she realized she simply didn’t have the bio-mass yet to support a Parent.She would probably have to reach the planet before they would be viable if the other remote human bases resembled this one.Having made her decisions, she worked without rest.She had rested long enough in that lifepod.She had had centuries of rest.She planted seeds in churning wombs.She designed new genetic modules and attached them to critical nerve junctions.Her army grew by the day and by the hour.#Nicu had come to hate his locker.Not long ago he had been willing to do anything he could to spend as much time as possible hiding inside, but now he dreaded each cramped, trapped day.His suit’s waste unit had long since backed up and failed.His legs were burned by overflows of urine, but as yet he had not dared to try for the showers [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]