Isaac slipped back below the surface of the wall. He was hyperventilating. Urgently, he beckoned Shadrach.

“One of the godsdamned things is right there and it’s laying its eggs so we have to damn well take it right now . . .” he hissed. Shadrach smacked his hand over Isaac’s mouth. He held Isaac’s eyes until the older man had calmed a little. Shadrach turned his back as Isaac had done, then stood slowly and gazed for himself onto the grisly scene. Isaac sat with his back to the bricks, waiting.

Shadrach dropped down again to Isaac’s level. His face was set.

“Hmmm,” he murmured. “I see. Right. Did you say the moth-thing can’t sense constructs?” Isaac nodded.

“As far as we know,” he said.

“Right then. You’ve done a damn fine job programming these constructs. And they’re an extraordinary design. Do you really mean it, that they’ll know when to attack, if we give them instructions? They can understand variables that complicated?”

Isaac nodded again.

“Then we have a plan,” said Shadrach. “Listen to me.”

Chapter 45

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Slowly, trembling almost uncontrollably, the memory of Barbile’s quasi-death vivid in him, Isaac climbed out of the hole.

He kept his eyes rigidly on the mirrors before him. He was dimly aware of the discoloured wall behind them. The vile shape of the slake-moth shook in the mirrors as his head moved.

As Isaac emerged, the slake-moth stopped moving suddenly. Isaac stiffened. It turned its head upwards and flickered its enormous tongue through the air. The vestigial antennae in its ocular sockets waved uneasily from side to side. Isaac moved again, creeping towards the wall.

The slake-moth moved its head uneasily. There was obviously some leakage, Isaac thought, from the edge of his helmet, some trickles of thought that wafted tantalizingly through the æther. But nothing clear enough for the slake-moth to find him.

When Isaac had made his way to the wall, Shadrach followed him up and into the room. Again, his presence discomfited the slake-moth a little, but nothing more than that.

After Shadrach, three monkey-constructs pulled themselves into view, leaving one to guard the tunnel. They began to walk slowly towards the slake-moth. It turned towards them, seemed to watch them without eyes.

“I think it can sense their physical shape and their movement, and ours as well,” whispered Isaac. “But without any mental trail, it doesn’t see any . . . either of us as sapient life. We’re just moving physical stuff, like trees in the wind.”

The slake-moth was turning to face the oncoming constructs. They separated and began to approach the moth from different directions. They did not move fast, and the slake-moth did not seem concerned. But it was a little wary.

“Now,” whispered Shadrach. He and Isaac reached out and began slowly to haul in the metal piping that extended from the top of their helmets.