She wasn’t sure she would have eventhen except she heard a sound she hadn’t expected to and it joltedher out of her introversion.
“She is alive?”
The question, in completelycomprehendible English, jerked Ultima’s eyelids open as if theywere somehow attached and she whipped a look toward thesound.
Confusion immediately followed—becauseit seemed only two more cyborgs had arrived.
The one hovering above herresponded.
Her confusion deepened as the two newarrivals drew closer.
One was unmistakably cyborg. He wasvirtually identical to the one she’d thought would end her life—aduplicate of every other cyborg she had seen. The third—well, hewas not exactly the same although, seen together, she saw that hewas a close facsimile.
So … was he actually one of them? Orthe model for the others? Perhaps a captured human?
She’d always thought it an odd thingthat whatever it was creating the cyborgs had the savvy to makethem so very human-like and yet seemed to have ‘missed’ the factthat no two humans were exactly alike.
Granted, the variations in nature wereoften very subtle, but humans could easily identify one another—andstrangers as unknowns.
There was no identifying the cyborgsas individuals when they were absolutely identical except,occasionally, due to damage and therefore no doubt in the mind ofany human that it was one of the alien monsters.
So what was the purpose in making themhuman-like to start with when they damned sure couldn’t foolhumans?
“What?”Assassin Tau demanded quickly, tensing andlifting his weapon.
The newcomer held up hishand in a sign of surrender.“Apologies. Ihave been interacting with the humans ….”
Tau remained tensed forattack until he had had the time to scan the mind of the other andverify that he was indeed one of them—the missing man, in point offact.“You were not at therendezvous.”
Xi’s attention was on the human. Hescanned the form carefully and concluded it was female. “You havecaptured a female? To what purpose?”
A jolt went through Tau. Resentmentswiftly followed that Xi had leapt to a false conclusion upon noevidence whatsoever. Curiosity warred with it. “How do you know itis female?”
Xi struggled with a whollyinappropriate sense of superiority. “I have spent my time hereinteracting with them.”
“To what purpose?”Assassin Tau demanded. “Surely if they knew how and where to findthe traitor they would have done so and disposed of it so that itwas no longer our problem?”
Xi frowned, not pleased that theassassin had so quickly and neatly turned the tables on him and puthim on the defensive. “I could not know that without investigating.The intention was to be thorough. And, as it happens, it ispossible that they could make shorter work of our assignment. Theymay not know where the traitor is at this point, but they knowtheir own world far better than we do. If we can ally ourselveswith them ….”
Tau struggled with his outrage at thesuggestion that they rely upon an inferior race to defeat theirenemy. “They are biological ….”
“And, to all intents andpurposes, so are we at this point. And the traitor.”
Tau was a little dismayed to discoverthe entity in question seemed to have expired while they discussedits usefulness. “This one will be of no use. It hasexpired.”
Xi frowned and crouched beside it,placing one hand on the chest.
The creature’s eyes flew open themoment it was touched.
Tau felt a jolt flash throughhim.
Quan actually jumped back.
Which amused both Xi and Tau althoughboth were careful to contain it.
“It was feigning,” Tausaid tightly.
“Maybe. Or had fainted.The wounds look bad.”
