A Call to Arms

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Certainly,” said T’var. “By doing so you will deny yourself an experience beyond your imagining, but that’s your choice. I’m sure we can find another of your kind willing, even eager, to accompany us.” He hoped the translator would make it sound intriguing and not patronizing.

  The native appeared to hesitate. Then its lips curled upward slightly. It really did possess a remarkably flexible face for a vertebrate, T’var mused.

  “Hell, I’ve come this far. One of my old composition teachers used to say inspiration is where you find it. Okay, I’ll go with you. If you promise to bring me back to my boat when I’m ready to return.”

  “We promise,” said T’var. As if anyone in the room except the native could conceive of doing anything else, he thought. Was it individuality they were dealing with here, or species insanity? More than ever he felt the need to subject the specimen to a proper examination.

  The native was visibly awed by the interior of the ship, though less so than might have been expected from a member of a non-space-traversing species. It was as if it was impressed by the ship itself but not its existence. Caldaq included the observation under the burgeoning file labeled “Human.”

  Members of the crew invariably paused to gawk at the strange creature as it was escorted through their midst. When they finally reached the heart of the ship’s research facilities, Will found himself directed to a low but comfortable lounge. He’d been anticipating another platform. The plush informality of the lounge was greatly reassuring.

  “More examinations?” He reached for the waistband of his trunks. “Want me to get undressed again?”

  “Not necessary will that be.” For a Hivistahm, Chief-of-Medicine had a commanding tone.

  Will smiled. There was a dreamlike quality to the chamber in which he found himself, soft and reassuring compared to the improvised examination room on board the shuttle. He climbed onto the lounge, which was large enough to hold two people, put his hands behind his head, and let himself relax.

  Caldaq, Soliwik, and T’var were among those looking on as the examination proceeded, while Z’mam tended to routine ship operations. They stood in the observation room which overlooked the chamber. Soliwik was outspoken in her comments.

  “What ridiculous-looking creatures they are. Though no more so than a S’van.”

  “Thank you,” said T’var dryly.

  “Look at it! That absurd little clump of fur atop the skull and practically none anywhere else. The tiny eyes, hardly bigger than a Lepar’s. The flat face and useless teeth. I grant the defined musculature, but otherwise it strikes me as very poor design.” She turned to Caldaq. “How do you think it will react to the scan?”

  “I do not know.” Caldaq stood very close to the glass. “It does not know about that. Chief-of-Medicine thought more uncontaminated results could be obtained if the subject was kept ignorant as to its purpose. I am not certain I agree, but I am not prepared to overrule him. I try to avoid making decisions outside my field. However, Second-of-Medicine expressed similar reservations, which she felt she was not yet ready to explain. I find her hesitancy more interesting than the reservations themselves.”

  The cerebral scan was a technique that allowed Weave technicians to simulate the projective abilities of the Amplitur. Its development was a triumph of Weave technology, complicated by the fact that in the entire history of contact only a few Amplitur had been captured alive. Study of such captives was an extremely dangerous and difficult proposition which had to be carried out sufficiently outside the Amplitur’s projective range to insure the safety of the examiners.

  Much of what the Weave knew of the Amplitur and their peculiar abilities came from those who had been captured by the enemy and subjected to their control. Or to communication, as the Amplitur preferred to call it. Hundreds of years of intense study of the matter had failed to produce the hoped-for artificial means of shielding a mind against an Amplitur probe. But work went on, driven more by hope than expectation. If such a device could be constructed, it could significantly affect the course of the conflict.

  Soliwik gestured toward the room. “They are starting. The native appears uneasy.”

  Indeed, they could hear and see the specimen protesting as two of the technicians attempted to slip the mesh over its head.

  “I’d better get down there.” T’var excused himself. Moments later they saw him enter the room and hurry to loungeside. Edging aside the Wais, he began talking to the Human. The native promptly lowered his arms, his head nodding slowly, and eventually allowed the technicians to proceed with their work.

  “I also wonder at Second-of-Medicine’s inability to elaborate.” Soliwik stood watching. “The Hivistahm are rarely reluctant to express themselves.”

  “I believe she is worried about proceeding too rapidly. We have no choice, of course. The Amplitur will not slow their advance to accommodate our studies.”

  “I see no danger. From what I have seen and heard, this species is barely civilized.”

  “They are difficult to categorize. Just like their planet. It is premature to say if that will render them unsuitable as allies. Second-of-Medicine may think so, but I am convinced that among the staff her opinion is in the minority.”

  “Do you believe that, or is it wishful thinking?”

  Caldaq eyed his Second sharply. “You know me better than that.”

  Soliwik stared through the transparency. “It looks like they are ready to proceed.”

  The operators were at their stations. One sat in a chair to the left of the lounge, close to a monitoring console. Her head was covered with a mesh pickup very similar to the one the native now wore. An O’o’yan bustled about her legs, busying itself with redundant checks of readouts and instrumentation.

  Both the interfacer and the native closed their eyes as the scanner eased them into respective sleep states. A pale nimbus appeared around each mesh as the scan commenced. Off to one side, T’var chatted idly with the Wais. Technicians sat at their stations, seeking the memorable while recording the mundane, striving to learn through intense application and imperfect machinery what a single Amplitur could accomplish effortlessly in a few moments.

  As time passed uneventfully Caldaq let his mind drift to other matters. He was startled when Soliwik nudged his leg with hers, a traditional Massood means of gaining another’s attention. She was pointing into the room.

  “Did you see that?”

  “See what?” He blinked.

  “Watch the scanner interfacer. There.”

  Caldaq saw the mesh-capped technician twitch slightly. Had she been Massood Soliwik would have ignored the reaction. But she was Hivistahm. The Hivistahm might shake, but they did not twitch.

  Concern on its reptilian face, the attending O’o’yan reached out with his free hand to adjust one corner of the mesh.

  Caldaq jumped as the interfacer lashed out with her left arm, sending teeth and blood spraying from the technician’s face. You could hear the sickening contact through the transparency. The technician landed on his back, his hand console flying across the room as the interfacer went berserk, legs kicking convulsively, arms flailing. Beneath darkened shades, eyelids twitched and fluttered.

  Nearby the sleeping Human turned onto its side, then rolled the opposite way on the lounge. One leg kicked out repeatedly, striking air.

  The terror and fury it was experiencing was wholly and unashamedly delineated in its twisted expression.

  * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  Emerging from the momentary paralysis brought on by what they’d seen, several physician-seconds rushed to the aid of the bleeding, sputtering O’o’yan. Others attempted to restrain the interfacer, who was hissing violently as she continued to strike out in all directions.

  The bravest rushed the lounge. One O’o’yan threw himself on the native’s left arm. The specimen reacted with a loud moan and threw the technician aside. A Hivistahm caught a foot that sent her tumbling.

  Sweari
ng, Caldaq and Soliwik abandoned the observation chamber and rushed to help.

  By the time they arrived the technicians had the mesh off the interfacer and were gently lowering her motionless form onto a medical pallet. Chief-of-Medicine himself was squatting over her, carefully running a diagnost around her head. Blood trickled from one nostril, running the length of her snout.

  “What happened here?” Caldaq’s tone was short, clipped.

  “Truly truly most truly we do not know.” Second-of-Medicine looked stricken.

  A technician arrived with a small readout. Caldaq grabbed the device, called up a preliminary interpretation in Massood as someone placed a funnel-shaped respirator over the interfacer’s snout. Gas hissed.

  “I cannot make sense of this.”

  Second-of-Medicine took the readout and peered through his eyeshades at scrolling information. Delicate fingers made demands of fine switches.

  “Look here,” she said, speaking through her translator. “Everything normal at the beginning. Nothing out of the ordinary. Alien but not abnormal sleep pattern.” Nervously she looked over her shoulder at the examination lounge. The Human was still asleep, no longer kicking but still wearing a strange expression. The technicians had managed to remove the mesh from its head.

  “Through the usual prescribed stimuli we ran, starting slow and imprecise at first, analyzing and recording as we proceeded. Different species react to different stimuli and in differing fashion.”

  “As study proceeded and stimuli grew more actively intrusive more atypical reactions we began to note.”

  “A difficult observation to argue with,” Soliwik muttered.

  “Besides the physical, I mean. Buildups far out of the ordinary. For example, an astonishing increase in cortical electrical activity there was. Right off the chart.”

  “What type of stimuli?” Caldaq asked.

  How abrupt, how terse. How like the Massood, Second-of-Medicine thought. With a long, slim finger she traced patterns on the readout’s screen.

  “A mildly threatening episode, here. See the parallel lines used for comparison purposes? This one would be expected of a Hivistahm, this nearly straight line for a Lepar. This is what we got from the native.”

  Caldaq leaned over to examine the jagged scribblings. It was the kind of recording one might expect to take from the mind of an insane sentient. The native Will Dulac was many things, but he was not insane. Yet the readout was real, not an invention. It had monitored something.

  “What happened to her?” Soliwik gestured toward the interfacer, now resting quietly on the medical pallet.

  “Truly we do not know yet.” Second-of-Medicine regarded her unconscious colleague with concern. “Preliminary diagnosis is cataleptic shock.”

  Caldaq’s nose and ears were twitching sharply. “From what?”

  The Hivistahm craned her neck to look up at the towering Massood. “In the absence of alternative explanations, one must assume it involves the feedback she received from the native. Still checking we are, but thus far nothing to indicate mechanical failure was involved is there.”

  “Whatever the actual cause, the result was an incredibly violent episode. Chief-of-Medicine says she has never witnessed the like.”

  “Neither have I, but then I do not spend much time in labs.” Caldaq tapped the readout’s screen. “The native insists it and its kind are peaceful creatures. Can it have been lying to us outright?”

  “Possibly, but if it had something it wished to hide from us I do not see why to these tests it agreed to submit.”

  “I see no explanation for the contradiction,” Caldaq muttered.

  The Hivistahm looked thoughtful. “At the time of the episode in deep sleep was the native. It remains so. Therefore we must conclude that what occurred was not the result of conscious effort but was instead an instinctive reaction by its mind and body to the intrusive stimuli.” She dug at an ear opening with a finely manicured claw, scales glistening in the bright examination lights.

  “I am by this more troubled than if the native of its own conscious volition had reacted. It suggests there is a portion of its nervous system over which it has no control.”

  “I am glad to hear that,” declared Caldaq. “It indicates to me that the native did not intend to harm the interfacer.”

  “Yet she has truly been harmed.”

  “But you cannot yet say exactly what happened?”

  “A lot of data there is to be analyzed. Most importantly, the corroboration of her own testimony we need. I look forward to her recovery.”

  “Surely,” Soliwik commented, “the shock cannot be so severe?”

  “Treating her now they are.” The Hivistahm looked on worriedly as her colleagues worked on the unconscious interfacer. “I hope you are right, Second-of-Command.”

  The interfacer came out of it a little while later. Came out screaming and whistling shrilly as if being pursued by one of the great carnivores of the homeworld. Attending physicians and techs quieted her with medication and reassuring words, manually darkening her eyeshades. At her insistence they also removed her from the examination chamber to another part of the ship.

  Two hours later Will Dulac rolled over, yawned, and opened his eyes. The nap had left him refreshed, relaxed, and wondering why he’d made such a fuss over the harmless probe. In response to questions from the Hivistahm and S’van he replied that he had felt nothing, remembered nothing. No nightmares, no unease. His neck was a little stiff, but otherwise he had slept comfortably. The intensity of their queries puzzled him.

  In response to his request they provided him with food. Some of it was Massood, the rest S’van. Studies indicated with a good degree of certainty that his body would find all of it nourishing. Taste, however, was much more difficult to quantify. Some of what they were certain he would enjoy he set aside in disgust while dishes Caldaq would not have touched the native appeared to find quite palatable.

  It was a good deal later when Chief-of-Medicine reluctantly allowed the injured interfacer to be interviewed.

  She lay on her side on a clean medical pallet, a thermoletic sheet covering her body. Both Chief- and Second-of-Medicine were present along with several specialists, Caldaq, and all three Seconds-of-Command. Caldaq would have liked to have had Jaruselka present as well, but it would not have been proper. Anyway, he could discuss the findings with her later.

  “What can you tell us about what happened?” he inquired as gently as possible. The interfacer’s shades had been blacked out and he could not see her eyes.

  Her voice was wispier than normal, her breathing terse. “Truly truly I do not know. The probe commenced without incident or abnormality. I encountered no resistance. There was the expected strangeness at first but otherwise nothing remarkable. The mind of the native open and clear remained. Particularly unsophisticated I thought it.” She hesitated and sipped liquid from a tube before continuing.

  “With the prescribed sequence of stimuli I proceeded. Then chaos without warning. It was as if into the nether pit of the universe I had been plunged. I… I do not think at this time an adequate description of the experience I can render.” She looked up at Chief-of-Medicine. “Please do not ask me too much to remember. Not now, not yet.”

  “It will not be required.” The older Hivistahm bent over the interfacer and murmured something too low for the translators to pick up. As he spoke he repeatedly ran an index finger from between the patient’s eyes up over her head and down the back of her neck. She relaxed visibly. Her voice grew softer still.

  “As if my brain was on fire it was,” she mumbled finally. “The horror, the sheer hatefulness.” Unexpectedly she sat up and pushed back the darkened eyeshades. “instinctively homicidal are these creatures. They hide their natural selves beneath a veneer of civilization. Inside as bloodthirsty and primitive as a Stachc they are.”

  “We still do not know for certain during the scan what happened,” said one of the specialists. “On personal experience onl
y is based your interpretation. This species is manifestly not primitive.”

  “Technologically no,” argued one of his colleagues, “but sociologically it is a different matter. They fight among themselves, which for a species that has achieved their level of technological sophistication is unprecedented.”

  “There’s also the testimony of the specimen itself.” All eyes turned to T’var. “It cooperates with the scan and any other examination we wish to perform. It speaks only of peace and friendship and insists that’s the ultimate goal of its people. It alludes to the astonishing infighting of its kind by insisting the activity is in rapid decline.”

  “Species infighting has been recorded elsewhere,” a tech pointed out, “but only in societies that in a pretechnologic stage of development are.”

  “Yet the implications of our studies thus far in light of what has happened today are profound,” argued a colleague.

  Another captain might have injected his own opinions by now. Not Caldaq. Very early in life he had realized that it is difficult to learn anything with one’s mouth open. On the other hand he knew that if left to run unchecked the debate could continue well into the night shift.

  “Something important has taken place here. I am not as interested in why or how as much as I am in whether or not it can be used against the Amplitur.”

  “No!” Startled, he turned along with everyone else to the medical pallet. As if stunned by her own outburst, the interfacer put her head down against the backrest and repeated more softly, “No. This species as an ally we do not want. Anything to do with them we do not want!” Her eyes flicked wildly from one astonished onlooker to the next.

  “Dispose of this one and depart before we are detected. My recommendation that is. I am not in command, but that is what I would do.”

  “Calm yourself you must,” Chief-of-Medicine urged her. “Still subject to the aftereffects of the shock you suffered are you. Do not try to analyze. Dream instead of home.”