Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [36]
Adroit assemblers continued to manufacture great numbers of the identical, interlocking ships that shot into orbit on test flights, then landed in groups. The aggressive fleet looked like an invasion force. A new trapezoidal framework began to rise in the stony clearing in front of the city towers, the beginnings of a transportal much larger than the one inside the ruins. According to Margaret Colicos, some of the other subhive breedexes were already on the move. The Llaro breedex was consolidating its swarm, while preparing to defend itself.
DD often spent days with Orli when Margaret disappeared among the Klikiss. Though she had lived among them for years, the xeno-archaeologist was always trying to communicate with the hive mind. She felt obligated to explain humans and their culture to it, Orli hoped the older woman was having some success.
The girl sat next to DD on a flat rooftop in the town, overlooking the surrounding landscape. Suddenly, squads of builder sub-breeds marched out in a long stream, flowing around to completely encircle the Llaro settlement. Colonists watched the bugs from their windows or from the streets, a few shouted questions, but no one confronted the diligent insects.
The Klikiss began to build an enclosing wall that would confine them all, like a cage around the entire town.
Some people, especially Roamer detainees, attempted to push their way out, but Klikiss workers drove them back. Nobody seemed to understand what was going on.
Orli felt a leaden weight in her heart. 'They're turning our town into a big pen, like an exhibit in a zoo. And we're in the middle of it.'
Groups of grublike excreters were carried forward on pallets from the construction area. Diggers excavated a trench, or moat, around the town and provided the dirt as raw material to the grubs, which digested it and produced copious amounts of resin cement. Working in a flurry, builders slapped together supports and slathered them with iron-hard polymer mud.
The insect workers granted free passage to Margaret, who returned to the city, looking deeply disturbed, and pushed past the Klikiss. The constructors were building external ramps and including several access gaps through the wall, and Margaret passed in among the colonists.
Seeing the woman's distraught expression, Orli and DD climbed down from the rooftop. They ran to her as other colonists shouted questions, demanding answers, as if Margaret were some kind of ambassador from the breedex. With her grey-and-brown hair blowing in the dry breeze, she raised her hands for quiet. The breedex has located an infestation of black robots on a planet called Wollamor. It intends to launch a great attack through the transportal and destroy every robot there.'
'Good,' Mr Steinman said. 'Smash the damned machines into scrap metal.'
Orli shuddered. 'I won't feel sad to see the robots wiped out, after what they did to Corribus.'
Two of the towering domates strode among the warriors and workers, chittering as the confining wall continued to rise. Margaret cocked her head to listen, as if she could understand what the bugs were talking about, but she did not translate.
Davlin Lotze nodded grimly at the new barrier. 'But how does that explain the wall?'
Margaret lowered her head. The breedex insists that all human colonists remain in one place - here. They will assist you in doing so.'
'“Assist us” in staying in one place?' Roberto Clarin said with a snort. 'By the Guiding Star, what are you talking about?'
'Isn't it obvious?' Mr Steinman said. 'It's only the first step, dammit!'
The camp's other compy, a Governess model named UR who had come with the Roamer detainees, stood near the seven children in her charge. Her programming was to instruct and protect them.
The uproar continued, but the colonists could not resist the Klikiss. Fortunately, thanks to Davlin's wise warning, the people had hidden their food supplies where the bugs couldn't find them. Lately, their rations had been paltry, but