Activated by magnetic-electric forces consciously exerted and as much a part of their life as brain energy and nerve currents are of our human life.

Animate, moving, sentient combinations of metal and electric energy." He said: "The opening of the Disk from the globe and of the two blasting stars from the pyramids show the flexibility of the outer--plate would you call it?
I couldn't help thinking of the armadillo after I had time to think at all." "It may be"-- I struggled against the conviction now strong upon me--"it may be that within that metallic shell is an organic body, something soft--animal, as there is within the horny carapace of the turtle, the nacreous valves of the oyster, the shells of the crustaceans--it may be that even their inner surface is organic--" "No," he interrupted, "if there is a body--as we know a body--it must be between the outer surface and the inner, for the latter is crystal, jewel hard, impenetrable.
"Goodwin--Ventnor's bullets hit fair.

I saw them strike.

They did not ricochet--they dropped dead.

Like flies dashed up against a rock--and the Thing was no more conscious of their striking than a rock would have been of those flies." "Drake," I said, "my own conviction is that these creatures are absolutely metallic, entirely inorganic--incredible, unknown forms.