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DD hovered close beside UR, like a bodyguard. 'We can protect them. Can't we?' The Governess compy didn't answer, but quickly hustled her wards out of sight.

The Klikiss warriors backed away, leaving the three robots to stand together on the packed ground, as if it were an arena - or an execution field. Four of the monstrous striped domates came forward, chittering, singing, fluting.

'Looks like some kind of dance,' Orli said.

'It is a mockery of their reproduction ritual. I have seen this before - and hoped never to see it again. It was an experiment. The Klikiss did not know what to do with him.' She lowered her voice. The poor man was lost, confused, and terrified. His name was Howard Palawu. When he saw the Klikiss domates and the breedex, he screamed and screamed.'

Orli felt a hot rock in her stomach. 'What… what happened to him?'

'When Palawu screamed, the Klikiss found his song unacceptable, unlike my music box. However, because his song was unfamiliar, the domates incorporated his genetics. That's why some newbreeds carry human characteristics. With each fissioning, the breedex adapts the morphology of the sub-breeds.'

Several of the whitish Klikiss with skull-like faces and cadaver-ish multi-legged forms moved about now, ducking from shadow to shadow as they watched the ritual. These looked more human than the other Klikiss, with hard plates forming a facial outline like a stiff, ugly, mannequin.

'As far as I can determine, the domates find new genetic material so the reproducing hive does not grow stagnant or inbred. They acquire and incorporate designs from other hives, unrelated breedexes. They devour rival Klikiss to gather their DNA, which manifests in the domates' language, their songs!

Orli didn't entirely understand what the older woman was saying, but it sounded horrible.

Now, as domates encircled the robots, taunting them, the three black machines began to warble shrilly, frantically. They emitted a chaotic succession of music, melodies, tones, and screeches, none of which drove the domates back. The striped domates prodded the black robots with long staffs that discharged blue arcs of electricity. The robots squealed, cracked open their back armoured shells, and fluttered as if in great pain.

Margaret continued, 'It took me a long time to learn their whole story. I read their writings, studied the scratched equations they left in their ruins. Most of the Klikiss had been exterminated by their robots. The few survivors fought back, not only against the robots but also the hydrogues. That was when they invented the Klikiss Torch, as a superweapon - but it wasn't enough. One breedex survived and escaped to a distant uncharted planet by reprogramming a transportal. For thousands of years, the race has been recovering, and planning.

'After their near extermination, too few Klikiss remained to provide sufficient genetic diversity. The surviving breedex found another race of primitive predators on a far-flung world. The predators were not quite civilized, not quite intelligent, but the domates devoured that new race, incorporated their genetic structure, and thereby created an even stronger breed of Klikiss, before they went into their long hibernation. After centuries of fallow recovery, the Klikiss awakened again, split into dozens of subhives, and swarmed back through the transportal network.'

'And now they want revenge against the black robots,' Orli said.

'Oh, yes.'

At a silent signal, the domates burst forward, raising sawblade forelimbs. They crashed down on the terrified black robots, smashing their scuffed bodies, ripping into their abdomens, tearing out internal sensors, program modules, artificial connective tissue. One domate twisted off a flat geometric head. There was much squealing, chirping, and jubilant singing among the insects.

Orli wanted to look away but she could not. She remembered the completely destroyed black robot she had found in the cliffside cave on Corribus - where the ancient Klikiss had made their last stand against the robots and hydrogues.