And almost at once, there was another urgent call from Alia Narova:
"Tropile, quickly!"
* * * * *
The Pyramids were the mightiest race of warriors the Universe had ever
known. They were invulnerable and unconquerable, except from within.
Like Alexander the Great, they had met every enemy and whipped them
all. And, like dying Alexander, they writhed and raged against the
tiny, unseen bacillus within themselves.
Blindly, almost suicidally, the Pyramids returned to their ancient
principle of shove-and-haul.
The geography of the binary planet was like a hive of bees, nearly
featureless on the surface, but internally a congeries of tunnels,
chambers, warrens, rooms, tubes and amphitheaters. Machinery and metal
Components were everywhere thick under the planet's crust. The more
delicate and more useful Components of flesh and blood were, to a
degree, concentrated in a few areas....
And one of those areas had disappeared.
Tropile, battering futilely with his mind at the periphery of the
vanished area, cried sharply to Alla Narova and the others: "It looks
as though they've broken a piece right out of the planet! Everything
stops here--there's a physical gap which I can't cross. Hurry, one of
you--what was this section for?"
"Propulsion."
"I see." Tropile hesitated, confused for the first time since his
awakening. "Wait."
He retreated to the snowflake and communed with the other
eight-branched members, now become something that resembled his general
staff. He told them--most of them already knew, but the telling took so
little time that it was simpler to go through it from beginning to end:
"The Pyramids attempted to cut the propulsion-pneuma out of circuit
some seconds or days ago and were unsuccessful; we awakened additional
Components and were able to maintain contact with it. They have now
apparently cut it loose from the planet itself. I do not think it is
far, but there is a physical space between."
"The importance of the propulsion-pneuma is this: It controls the
master generators of electrostatic force, which are used both to
move this planet and ours, and to perform the act of Translation. If
the Pyramids control it, they may be able to take us out of circuit,
perhaps back to Earth, perhaps throwing us into space, where we will
die. The question for decision: How can we counteract this move?"
* * * * *
A rush of voices all spoke at once; it was no trick for Tropile and the
others to sort them out and follow the arguments of each, but it cannot
be reproduced.