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Philip, his android colleagues, and the crew of the Sir Isaac Newton moved cautiously along each corridor, the sophonts neutralising guards as and when they encountered them, but being careful not to kill them.
Suddenly, Philip’s super-sensitive hearing made him stop without warning. The humans weren’t talking amongst themselves but he put his finger to his lips anyway. He’d heard footsteps, indiscernible to the human ear but loud enough for his superior hearing to recognise. He signalled his entourage to stop and stay where they were, while he edged forwards towards a corner in the corridor and peered around it for a period so brief that no human would have been unable to register what he saw. In the instant that it took for him to look around the corner he saw not only the armoured
