Four robots had whirled at the clattering, were speeding to the aid of their companion. Cable fingers caught at the black concussors at their waists, were lifting them for lethal shots.
He and Frong threw with gigantic strength, the spears speeding aloft, hovering, dropping just past the coppery strands of electrified wire. Sparks danced a drunken saraband along the fence, grounded through the spears. Then the connecting ropes were pulling taut, the hooks catching firmly. The two giants braced heavy legs, muscles rippling, and swelling along massive shoulders. The ropes tightened, grew solid, and the fence began to lean toward them. Posts snapped with brittle reports--and then the fence was ruptured, broken wires leaping and sparking with white-hot violence.
"Ho, Barbs!" Korm bellowed. "Run for freedom. Dodge the wires and follow me."
Then the action was almost too swift to follow. The four robots turned as one, lifting their concussors to focus on the blond giant. Kimball Trent fired in one swift move, levering the rifle for explosive needles, the racking bellow of the concussions bounding through the churning air. One robot blew to pieces, and the explosion knocked down the second. The third fired, but the shot went wild, for a second rope whirled from nowhere, jerked him off balance. The shot exploded fifty feet over Trent's head, blasted him face down in the dirt.
He scrambled to his knees, fired at the fourth robot, blew it to pieces, then whirled to watch the enclosure again. He saw the two Gharrians standing in the doorway of the tower, blasted two shots their way, saw them rock from the explosions.
Men and women were running for the breach in the fence. Some died, touched by the vicious sparks that flicked from the whipping wires; others scrambled through to safety. They made no sound, but came in an instinctive rush, coming directly toward the great blond and red giants who had torn down the fence with insulated ropes of soft plastic.
"Good!" Neela said quietly, straightened to her full height.
"Broks!" Lura cried desperately, and terror was in the single word, a terror more horrible than the word could express.
They came gliding from a side door, one after the other, until fully a dozen stood before the tower. Then they turned and came in a murderous wave of death up the slope, going straight toward the rescuers, ignoring the escaping prisoners. Saliva dropped from gaping fangs, and their six legs threw them forward with an incredible speed. They mewled like gigantic cats, then hissed their hate.