Starquake.pdf

heard a grunt as the warrior next to him took a ball through the brain-knot. His dead body, carried over
the front of the Flow Slow by the moving plates, was crushed into the crust beneath.
'Three-three. Four-seven. Four-two. Five-seven. Six-seven. Seven-seven," said Star-Counter.
"My tubes are empty," Metal-Bender said.
"Attila's Flow Slow has almost reached the barrier and the other two are not far behind," Crust-Crawler
told them. "We have got to stop those Flow Slows! Activate the robots."
The tubes that acted like fountain plants had finally stopped shooting pellets. They were approaching the
barrier. Attila slowed his Flow Slow, wary of new surprises. Lying in front of the nearly invisible magnetic
barriers were complex chunks of metal. Suddenly, they seemed to come alive. Each one had a number of
large manipulators that pinched, cut, or burned. The robots had been programmed to go after the Flow
Slows, especially the riders on top. Some were crushed under the massive armored plates, while others
scurried around to the trailing edge and started to ride up on top. They were impervious to sword blades;
and once a Swift had encountered one of the cutting, burning, pinching robots, they refused to go near
them again.
"Use your quirrls!" Attila shouted to the mounted warriors around them.
The warriors loaded their specially adapted pouches with short heavy quirrls and used their internal
muscles to throw the quirrls in a short arc from their perches high up on their Swifts. The quirrls
punctured the metallic hides of the robots, leaving a glowing wound. Some stopped working; some were
pinned to the crust; but the others kept on.
"Two are climbing the Flow Slow!" said one of the warriors next to him.
"Throw quirrls!" Attila was thumping the Row-Slow hard to make it reverse itself. The robots now had
to climb against a down-flow of moving plates, and they slowed their advance. First one, then the other
was picked off by quirrls. The Flow Slow groaned again. One of the quirrls had found a chink in its
armor. The Flow Slow was now surrounded by a swirling mass of Swift-riding warriors that had silenced
the rest of the robots as they tried to attack.
'The robots got two of the Flow Slows," Star-Counter said.
"We can hear that through the crust," said Crust-Crawler over the bellows from the Flow Slows. "It
can't be pleasant having a construction robot cutting and burning its way down to your brain-knot."
With a wailing cry, the bellows stopped. The remaining Flow Slow echoed the cry of its dying mate, then
returned to its usual complaining groans as the mite on its topside pricked it into motion once again.
"They didn't get the important one," said Crust-Crawler. "Attila is going to breach the magnetic barrier."
"Follow me," Attila shouted. Limber-swords whirling a victory flourish, he urged the armored Flow Slow
up onto the magnetic barrier. The crust groaned as the generators attempted to maintain the field, then the
barrier fell. With shouts of triumph, the vanguard of the Speckled Horde poured through the opening.
They fell back as they were met by a barrage of positron beams that ate holes in their hides. The positron
beamers had limited range in the tenuous atmosphere, but the range of the beamers was longer than the
range of the quirrls. The quirrls, however, could be thrown in any direction, while the positron beams
spiraled along the east-west magnetic field lines. The spacers with their beamers and the warriors with