"Alan Dean Foster - Damned 1 - Call to Arms" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

Chapter One

One-who-Decides lay back on the sickle and relaxed, the curved command lounge suspended high
above the floor at the end of its powerful, flexible armature. At a touch it would drift higher or lower, left
or right so that the Amplitur could inspect, interview, check on, or give advice to those under its
command. It could do the same by means of the communications hook clamped snugly across its head,
but it believed strongly in the personal touch.

It lay comfortably on the supportive cushion, straddling it with four short, stumpy legs. This arrangement
allowed free movement of the two tentacles that protruded from either side of the head. Each ended in
four manipulating digits that rippled and flexed lazily as though conducting an unseen orchestra in a silent
waltz.

The globular gold-flecked eyes scanned the vast chamber, the slitted pupils expanding and contracting as
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 before the Purpose. One-who-Decides knew it was so because
of history. The very idea was alien, 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 be left in peace to develop at
their own pace, 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 have existed prior to the Purpose? Baffling!

Early 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 yet 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 animal protein into energy by means of clever intestines and horny
mouthparts.

That much it could comprehend. What was difficult to imagine was the Amplitur civilization that had
existed prior to the Purpose. It was there for any to examine: in the histories, in the ruins and records of
past 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.

Merely pondering it was enough to bestow 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 understand. That they could comprehend
that which they did not themselves possess was a tribute to their perseverance.