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"Of course today everybody knows all about the Mancji hive intelligence, and their evolutionary history. But we were pretty startled to find that the only wreckage consisted of the Mancji themselves, each two-ton slug in his own hard chitin shell. Of course, a lot of the cells were ruptured by the explosions, but most of them had simply disassociated from the hive mass as it broke up.
But some of them may disappear and the others be greatly modified into awls for piercing, or a tube for sucking honey. Into the wonderful transformations of these modified legs we cannot enter. The muscles are no longer arranged to form a sack as in annelids. Transverse muscles, running parallel to the unyielding plates of chitin or horn could accomplish nothing. They have largely disappeared.
Stanton moved in to press his advantage and landed a beaut on the Nipe's lower left eye. Then he tried a body blow. It wasn't too successful. The alien had an endoskeleton, but he also had a hide that was like somewhat leathery chitin. He pulled back, out of the way of the Nipe's judo cuts. His fists were beginning to hurt, and his leg was paining him badly where the Nipe had clamped on to it.
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