[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
young, like this was only late spring or early summer, but I could already
recognize onions and lettuce and carrots in the fields closest to me.
Honest-to-goodness Earth food growing in a big gorgeous garden that smelled of
humus and greenery.
A paved road ran close in front of me, parallel to the canal and separated
Page 36
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
from the water by the scrawny trees growing on the bank. Here and there along
the road stood little environment domes in clusters of two or three living
spaces for the families who worked these farms. At the moment, I couldn't see
anyone out in the fields... but the strong orange sun was straight overhead,
and toasty hot even with my clothes soaked to the skin, so I guessed everybody
had gone inside for siesta.
I got up, brushed the worst-caked mud off my uniform, and started down the
road toward the nearest domes. No one would want me showing up unannounced in
the middle of lunch; but I'd wait till people went back out to work, and I'd
say hello then. On a day like this, there was no need to hurry. It was heaven
just to breathe real air, away from the nanites and the black ship and
Troyen...
A doorway dilated in the side of the closest dome. Out stepped a
Mandasar-warrior caste, big and red. The instant he caught sight of me, he
screamed a battle cry and charged.
Mandasar warriors are only half as big as queens, but they're still the size
of Brahma bulls. They've got the basic lobsterish look, but bulked-up and
stocky, from their flat wide faces to their strong blunt tails. If a warrior
props his tail good and solid on the ground behind him, you can hit him with a
truck and he won't be knocked backward; in fact, once he gets his eight legs
on solid footing, he can push that truck back the other way, over rough
terrain, for hour after hour. Put a bunch of warriors together and you get a
line of foot soldiers who can steamroll over anything in their path... except
another line of Mandasars driving the opposite way.
Don't get the idea warriors are slow-moving hulks; they can storm forward on
those eight strong legs as fast as horse cavalry. When they're running they
look like old Greek centaurs, because the front part of their body is angled
up vertically as tall as a human. Upright front, lobstery behind.
Like queens, every warrior has pincer claws, but only two of them, on stubby
arms down at the waist. The claws are sharp and nasty enough to lop clean
through a human's leg, bones and all, if you're careless enough to let your
ankle come within reach. At shoulder level, warriors have another set of arms,
called theCheejreth or "clever twigs": spindly six-fingered things used for
fine manipulation.Cheejreth are nearly as long as human arms, but skinny and
fragile so weak, a human five-year-old could wrist-wrestle a warrior ten wins
out of ten. During a serious fight, theCheejreth stay folded against the
chest, tucked into arm-sized niches in the warrior's carapace; those niches
evolved to keepCheejreth safely out of the way, rather than flopping around
and getting snapped off.
Topping the body is a head like a cannonball, its carapace armor twice as
thick as any other part of the warrior's shell. The head has a few delicate
parts huge feathery ears like moth antennas, and cat-style whiskers around the
snout to serve as extra scent receptors, waving about to catch odor molecules
from the air but the flimsy bits aren't at all vital. If they break or get
mangled during a fight, it scarcely hurts a bit. The warrior just can't hear
or smell as well for a few days, until the damaged part grows back.
The one indispensable part of a warrior's face is the spike on his pointy
snout. It's sharp and bony, only as big as a human thumb, but perfect for use
as a bayonet in an emergency, the warrior can use his spike to stab an enemy
in the eye. Of course, it has to be abig emergency. All Mandasar castes have a
finicky sense of smell, and they absolutely hate the stink of someone's blood
Page 37
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
gucking up the tip of their noses.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]