Read Onlinealan Dean Foster's a Call to Arms

  A Phone call to Arms

Alan Dean Foster

The Damned - Book i

Chapter 1

One-who-Decides lay dorsum on the sickle and relaxed, the curved command lounge suspended high higher up the flooring at the cease of its powerful, flexible armature. At a touch it would drift college or lower, left or right so that the Amplitur could audit, interview, check on, or give advice to those under its command. It could do the same past means of the communications hook clamped snugly across its head, just information technology believed strongly in the personal touch on.

It lay comfortably on the supportive cushion, straddling it with iv curt, stumpy legs. This arrangement allowed free motion of the two tentacles that protruded from either side of the caput. Each ended in 4 manipulating digits that rippled and flexed lazily as though conducting an unseen orchestra in a silent flit.

The globular gold-flecked eyes scanned the vast chamber, the slitted pupils expanding and contracting every bit they focused on specific sectors, seeking positions where efficiency could be improved. When making such suggestions One-who-Decides spoke always encouragingly, never with the brusqueness that characterized other races. The Amplitur had never been harsh. Once, they had been hesitant, but that was all before the Purpose. Before maturity.

Hard to believe there had been a time earlier the Purpose. I-who-Decides knew it was so because of history. The very thought was conflicting, an unbelievable fragment of another time and universe. It was realization of the Purpose that had matured and forever altered the Amplitur.

Now it was changing the galaxy.

Prior to realizing the Purpose, the Amplitur had been content to refine their modest civilization: excelling at certain arts, mastering intricacies peculiar to their species, wishing only to exist left in peace to develop at their ain step, desiring only to be themselves. Then had come realization of the Purpose.

One-who-Decides gently nudged a control and the sickle swung left and down toward Navigation. How could the Amplitur accept existed prior to the Purpose? Baffling!

Early on evolution had been entirely instinct-driven. Amplitur lying quietly in the warm waters of the homeworld, barely able to hunch about on muddy shorelines on as withal undeveloped legs as their sensitive tentacles probed the mud for crustaceans and edible bivalves. Amplitur in which intelligence was still a flickering spark, reproducing through mindless budding, creating offshoots of themselves as they converted vegetable matter and creature protein into energy past means of clever intestines and horny mouthparts.

That much information technology could comprehend. What was difficult to imagine was the Amplitur civilization that had existed prior to the Purpose. It was there for whatever to examine: in the histories, in the ruins and records of by triumphs, in the steady march of the unique Amplitur technology.

All meant nothing: technology, art, even life itself was meaningless without the Purpose to give form and substance.

Only pondering information technology was enough to bequeath strength and confidence on the uncertain. One-who-Decides was honored to be an Amplitur in its service.

Crew and ship hummed softly beneath the hovering sickle and its questing passenger. Technicians chatted in their multitudinous languages, exchanging gestures and humor. The latter was a concept the Amplitur struggled hard to sympathise. That they could comprehend that which they did non themselves possess was a tribute to their perseverance.

Non that information technology mattered. What mattered was that they all served the Purpose. It was the hallmark of civilization.

Of course, there had been i or two species blind to the Purpose. History told of them every bit remorselessly every bit it spoke of advancement. Races who could non be convinced or biologically altered or otherwise persuaded of the truth. The relentlessly hostile and unremittingly insane. Nothing for them but the most reluctant elimination lest they stall the expansion of truth.

This the Amplitur regretted about of all. Not so much because they found the obliteration of an entire species inherently wrong, only because once gone a people could never be integrated into the Purpose. It was a step they had been forced to take simply twice in thousands of years. Memory of those isolated catastrophes served to prod the Amplitur and their allies to ever greater efforts.

1-who-Decides was adamant that it would never preside over such a failure. Those aboriginal Deciders had done what was necessary, but the stigma of failure still clung to their bud-lines.

The Amplitur had come far since those times. Many new peoples had joined with them to accelerate the Purpose, and general knowledge and science had expanded accordingly. Other races contributed mightily to expansion, providing new ways of thinking, new approaches to old bug, each adding its ain special abilities to the service of the Purpose.

In this the Amplitur viewed themselves as no improve than any other race. All were equal below the Purpose. As its discoverers, even so, they knew that certain responsibilities accrued to them. These they had not sought and would gladly have surrendered, if a new species capable of bold the burden had appeared. In the absence of such, the Amplitur continued to serve.

Someone had to brand decisions, One-who-Decides knew.

Other peoples contributed in unlike ways. The Crigolit were fine soldiers who diameter the brunt of fighting when that could not be avoided. The Segunians were skillful manufacturers. Multitudes of active T'returi fed many more peoples than themselves. The Molitar, physiologically similar to the Amplitur, supplied brute force and an overawing appearance whenever that was deemed useful. Sometimes an impressive demonstration was plenty to convince the recalcitrant to modify their ways.

Information technology was also price-constructive. Combat was wasteful and fourth dimension-consuming. A life lost in boxing was a mind lost to the Purpose.

No reason for such solemnity, I-who-Decides thought. All was going well. Non long ago another intelligence had been brought into the Purpose. Physically powerful but technologically primitive, the Ashregan had resisted only briefly in the confront of a engineering science then far in advance of theirs that they could barely brainstorm to comprehend it. When contacted they were less developed than the Crigolit, more and then than the Molitar, and as helpful equally any.

Unlike some other peoples, they had wisely chosen not to fight when fighting would have been futile. They had demonstrated unexpected maturity past immediately opening themselves to the beauty and wonder of the Purpose.

That was the inevitable decision of any truly civilized people, One-who-Decides knew as the sickle swung from Navigation toward Internal Applied science. Seeing their commander approach, the staff at that position busied themselves. Their reaction pleased information technology.

The Commander could not have smiled had it wished to, for its mouthparts were non well designed for expression. Light flashed off its mottled orange peel, the gold and silver streaks which identified individual Amplitur highlighting its torso and head.

The entire wall contrary Technology was transparent: a concession to aesthetics. Screens and long-range detectors were much more useful for locating objects exterior the vessel. The transparency was a testament to Amplitur-allied manufacturing techniques. Within certain physical limits they had achieved perfection, of which the wall was one sit-in.

One-who-Decides studied the streaking stars, the staff responsible for safely convoying a craft full of living organisms betwixt them, and abruptly nudged a command. The sickle shot upwardly. Many Amplitur were afraid of heights, but not One-who-Decides. It was a matter which could be conquered. 1 responsible for the safety of many ships could not exist dominated by psychological weakness.

Information technology had been driven out through introspection and sheer determination, the kind of determination which had raised One-who-Decides to commander. Modest gratification for much hard piece of work.

Information technology was only a matter of having confidence in the supportive engineering, in the padded sickle and the due west

oven fiber armature and the motors that enabled it to move freely above the command middle. Not everyone could practice it, One-who-Decides knew. Slitted optics regarded the efficient hurry below the hovering perch.

A dozen different races worked side past side in the Command room while others executed vital functions elsewhere on the send. None felt superior to its neighbour. Tiny Acaria assisted massive Molitar. Spindly Segunians made way graciously for fluid Ashregan. All were united by the Purpose. All save perhaps a few degenerate individuals, for there were private exceptions in every species. The crew was a tight unit, their thoughts and actions devoted to a single terminate.

That was all the Purpose was. An finish. In that location was nothing exotic about it, nothing even a simpleminded Vandir could neglect to understand. The Purpose was integration: utter and complete concrete, cultural, and mental integration.

When a race reached a sure level of technological and sociological sophistication, information technology either self-destructed or began a long slide leading to complete cultural degeneration. Voices of promise that might accept contributed to a great multiracial culture vanished in mindless orgies of barbaric self-indulgence or atomic immolation. They were forever lost to the Purpose.

When that happened the Amplitur sorrowed, and their allies in the Purpose sorrowed with them. On such occasions something distinct and unique went out of the cosmos, never to be shared or enjoyed by others.

One time, the Amplitur had actually intervened in a desperate effort to save a psychotic race from itself, so great was its promise. Such had been the fury, the blind hopelessness, and the depth of self-loathing to which that people had sunk that not even the Amplitur with their peculiar abilities had been able to preclude the cataclysm. In spite of all that could be washed, the species perished, destroying itself utterly and rendering its exquisite planet uninhabitable.

One-who-Decides raised the front part of its torso, aware that the eight tips of its tentacles had been clenched nigh painfully during its thoughts. This was an improper time for such musings. There was work of Purpose to be done.

Sometimes logic and reason were not enough. On such occasions it was necessary to employ archaic but graphic methods to demonstrate new realities to the unenlightened. The Amplitur always regretted this, but not as much every bit they would accept regretted abandoning an intelligent race to the inevitability of cocky-devastation. Every bit a people, the Amplitur had dedicated their very existence to the prevention of such disasters. Equally long as they had the will and the strength to help, no species would fail to realize its full potential.

For this sacrifice the Amplitur did not expect fifty-fifty gratitude. Their sole reward lay in the cognition that by their work they were furthering the Purpose. Merely to be Amplitur meant to be set to sacrifice oneself.

From time to time members of other races and even the occasional Amplitur would question it all. What was the Purpose? What might be its end?

With unfailing logic it was pointed out that the Purpose was the finish unto itself. When the work was done, when all had been unified, something greater would manifest itself. For now it was enough to practise the work, secure in the cognition that it was the right work to do. Reason was a wonderful matter, One-who-Decides knew.

But when would an end be made to it all? When every intelligent existence in the galaxy had been integrated into the service of the Purpose, it was alleged with the finality of obviousness. And, if Amplitur scientific discipline somewhen succeeded in finding a way of crossing the intergalactic gulfs, when any intelligences at that place had besides been brought into the Purpose.

One-who-Decides could non business organisation itself overmuch with such weighty matters. There were decisions of much more than immediate import to make. Everything that happened aboard ship somewhen devolved upon the Commander. It was a responsibleness to exist accepted with honour.

The heavy trunk shifted irritably on the cushion. Soon would come the fourth dimension of reproduction, which could not be allowed until the present attempt on behalf of the Purpose had been satisfactorily concluded. Once there had been a fourth dimension when such biological functions had been dictated by simple hormonal balances. Only in the time of culture had the Amplitur learned how to arrange their body'south endocrine organisation… and those of others.

1-who-Decides could non let decision-making power to be impaired past the exigencies of reproduction. A tentacle tip made a note to report for testing. If necessary, a pill could be taken.

Aureate optics studied the vast arc of the transparent wall, pondering the area of space outside the ship. Much beauty was to be establish in the cascade of stars and worlds, in the iridescent wash of nebulae and then similar the changing gold and silver patterns that highlighted Amplitur pare. Underspace shifting diffused the shapes beyond, reducing bully suns to ethereal blurs of color which only added to their loveliness. Just in the total lite of the Purpose could such magnificence be truly appreciated.

One-who-Decides did not have optics capable of making sense of what they saw. Only avant-garde instrumentation could do that. With a gentle exhalation the Commander turned dorsum to the sickle'southward control panel.

This expedition was to exist regretted.

The majority of new races readily accustomed the logic of the Purpose and embraced it fully upon start encounter with Amplitur envoys. Sometimes the Amplitur's presence was not even required and allied peoples could make the presentation themselves, for the delight of the newly persuaded often exceeded that of their instructors. There were even instances when the enthusiasm of allied races had to exist restrained lest they give the wrong impression to those very people they were trying to convince.

Withal there remained those times when reason and logic were non enough. On such occasions a display of the nobility of Purpose was ordinarily sufficient to catechumen the recalcitrant. A small-scale force of, say, thirty warships suddenly materializing from Underspace in orbit around an indecisive world was oft enough to persuade the locals to take the requisite next stride up the ladder of galactic civilization so that they, as well, might bask in its glory.

Only rarely had it been necessary to use actual strength. Like now. Such piece of work the Amplitur institute emotionally draining, but they could not in good censor delegate it wholly to their friends. Their destiny compelled them to participate in such action confronting their own wishes.

The power arm hummed in response to a control and the sickle plunged its passenger floorward, until information technology hung a brusque distance in a higher place the highly reflective surface. A passing Ashregan officer blinked and turned in response to the gentle mental touch from One-who-Decides.

"Ship status, engineer?" One-who-Decides was not ignorant of the condition of the vessel, but it would not do for its subordinates to think that their commander spent all its time high to a higher place the floor, dreaming upon the sickle.

The Ashregan responded. An efficient species, physically potent but non specially intelligent or imaginative. Ane-who-Decides thought of them equally catchalls, every bit nonspecialists who could be relied upon to exercise a footling of everything efficiently merely nothing especially well. They fabricated proficient supervisors, good integrators.

The Commander listened to the study and accepted the slight bow which passed for a sign of respect amongst the Ashregan peoples before dismissing the officer with a slight mental push that was simultaneously reassuring and rewarding. The ability to do that was the other thing which distinguished the Amplitur from all other intelligences. Even from the Korath, who for sheer intellectual chapters exceeded their Amplitur mentors.

Only the Amplitur possessed projective minds. Just they could convey through thinking alone their wishes, desires, and the pure dazzler of the Purpose. All other races were receivers, sensitive to varying caste to Amplitur projections. Those who were naturally deficient could be biologically altered to make them more than receptive, and their newfound receptivity passed on to succeeding generations. The Amplitur were deft bioengineers, and the altered races did not object to the procedure. Why should they, when information technology strengthened their bonds inside the Purpose? Furthermore, the Amplitur could only project. They could not truly "read" the minds of their

allies. There was no question of invasion of privacy, a basic demand which the Amplitur themselves understood.

Talented though they were, the Amplitur had yet to notice a mode to change the heed of another existence to get in projective. The brunt of projection therefore remained heavily and solely their province.

Perhaps that was why the Amplitur had been the race called to reveal the Purpose to an ignorant universe, idea Ane-who-Decides. Other peoples had been given strong legs and muscles to drive them. The invertebrate Amplitur had been compensated for their physical deficiencies with the power to project. Cheers to their peculiar ability, feelings and actions could be communicated amid peoples of antagonistic evolutionary backgrounds, with the Amplitur interim as relays for the demands of the Purpose. There was no loneliness within the Purpose. All worked together to advance it. Perhaps in time another species would achieve projection, or Amplitur scientists would devise a way to change another mind to project as well every bit receive. That would be a grand day for all.

And presently one entirely hypothetical, mused One-who-Decides. Enough to exist content with the ample piece of work still to be done.

Information technology might not be necessary to use weapons. The Amplitur could projection much likewise orders and good feelings. Doubtfulness, discomfort, and equally a terminal resort and then but to accelerate the Purpose, pain. If applied selectively to ruling members of a hesitant species, this was sometimes enough to mute their resistance. When it was non, an individual or ii might perish. That was notwithstanding preferable to an armed assault on the surface of an inhabited globe.

That was non going to happen hither, Ane-who-Decides thought firmly. War was the last resort of the incompetent. The proper thing to exercise was not to place oneself in a position where such an outrage was required. The very thought of it sent a subcutaneous ripple down the mottled torso.

Sometimes the Commander wondered what information technology would be similar to take a skeleton instead of a flexible internal webwork of ligaments and tendons. Bones were an evolutionary throwback, of form, restrictive and circumscribed. They compelled the species to concentrate on physical evolution to the concurrent neglect of the mind. All the higher intelligences were invertebrates, with merely a few exceptions, like the Ashregan and Crigolit.

segernothiphop.blogspot.com

Source: https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/alan-dean-foster/59783-a_call_to_arms.html

Bagikan Artikel ini