And they were truly neither more nor less than ants. He was no more than an epidermal cell in a monster that was dueling with another monster, very careful of its inner organs but careless about its epidermis. There was something comfortingly abstract and impersonal about the idea of being united in such a way with many other men, not because of any shared purpose, but merely because they belonged to the same monster, a monster so large that it could readily do duty for fate and necessity. The fellowship of protoplasm.
The blond soldier murmured two or three words, and for a moment he thought the whole army had spoken to him. Then he understood and made the necessary adjustment in the instrument they were setting up.
But those two or three words had plunged him with breathtaking abruptne
