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

Not that it mattered. What mattered was that they all served the Purpose. It was the hallmark of
civilization.

Of course, there had been one or two species blind to the Purpose. History told of them as
remorselessly as it spoke of advancement. Races who could not 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 most of all.
Not so much because they found the obliteration of an entire species inherently wrong, but because once
gone a people could never be integrated into the Purpose. It was a step they had been forced to take
only twice in thousands of years. Memory of those isolated catastrophes served to prod the Amplitur and
their allies to ever greater efforts.

One-who-Decides was determined that it would never preside over such a failure. Those ancient
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 advance 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 problems, each adding its
own special abilities to the service of the Purpose.

In this the Amplitur viewed themselves as no better than any other race. All were equal beneath the
Purpose. As its discoverers, however, they knew that certain responsibilities accrued to them. These they
had not sought and would gladly have surrendered, if a new species capable of assuming the burden had
appeared. In the absence of such, the Amplitur continued to serve. Someone had to make decisions,
One-who-Decides knew. Other peoples contributed in different ways. The Crigolit were fine soldiers
who bore the brunt of fighting when that could not be avoided. The Segunians were skillful
manufacturers. Multitudes of active TтАЩreturi 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 enough to convince the recalcitrant to
alter their ways.

It was also cost-effective. Combat was wasteful and time-consuming. A life lost in battle was a mind lost
to the Purpose.

No reason for such solemnity, One-who-Decides thought. All was going well. Not long ago another
intelligence had been brought into the Purpose. Physically powerful but technologically primitive, the
Ashregan had resisted only briefly in the face of a technology so far in advance of theirs that they could
barely begin to comprehend it. When contacted they were less developed than the Crigolit, more so than
the Molitar, and as helpful as any. Unlike some other peoples, they had wisely chosen not to fight when
fighting would have been futile. They had demonstrated unexpected maturity by 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
Engineering. Seeing their commander approach, the staff at that position busied themselves. Their
reaction pleased it.

The Commander could not have smiled had it wished to, for its mouthparts were not well designed for
expression. Light flashed off its mottled orange skin, the gold and silver streaks which identified individual
Amplitur highlighting its torso and head.
 The entire wall opposite Engineering was transparent: a concession to aesthetics. Screens and