"You are wrong." The Amplitur reached into the pouch that was slung between its head and forelegs and extracted a small angular plastic shape. Ranji couldn't keep himself from staring.
"What is an Amplitur, the self-proclaimed epitome of higher civilization, doing with a gun?"
"I am not sure. This is quite an anomaly, is it not? But the gun is real. It feels real to me. If I am compelled to use it the effects will be real to you. So you see, you are after all my prisoner."
"You won't use that on me," Ranji observed firmly. "You're not capable of it."
The Amplitur pointed the pistol at a stack of small oblong crates and fired. The crates exploded.
"You know that my eyesight is excellent. It is equal to my resolve. You will come with me voluntarily or if need be I will destroy your limbs and drag you."
"This is very un-Teacherlike behavior," Ranji commented, trying to determine his next move.
"These are very unusual circumstances. Extensive mental discipline and training allows me to temporarily subvert those natural inhibitions which would paralyze a Hivistahrn or T'returian caught in a similar situation. Externally I realize that my actions verge on the unstable, yet through the Purpose I am able to overcome this. Presently I am functioning within a self-induced psychosis.
"The actual methodology of the cerebroethical gymnastics required to accomplish this remarkable feat need not concern you. Concentrate instead on the weapon and the danger to your person, and respond appropriately to my instructions."
Ranji eyed the gun, thinking hard. "I'm not going anywhere without Cossinza."
"By the Wellness, bring her. I calculate that you possess the necessary physical attributes and the distance is not far. I promise you that she will receive immediate and expert medical attention."
Could he make it to cover? How much of the Amplitur's threat was backed by resolve and how much was bluff? Judging from the brief demonstration, the tiny gun was powerful enough to blow his legs off at the knees. Of course, the Amplitur could regenerate them later, but that didn't make the prospect any less pleasant.
In any civilized being thought must precede action. The homily was nonetheless applicable for all that it was Teacher training. Ranji put up his hands.
"All right. I'll go with you. Anything to help Cossinza. "
"Now that," said the Amplitur as it gestured with the gun-wielding tentacle, "is a sensible response."
Ranji approached the Teacher. "Have any of you ever remarked on the cyclical nature of your reasoning? 'The Purpose is everything, so anything can be used to justify the Purpose.' "
"Humankind is a young race, and therefore prone to oversimplification. But I have great confidence. With proper education you will mature."
"What you call education I've learned through bitter revelation is something else. You utilize the same tortured logic to cripple semantics as you do independent thought."
"Both of you, freeze!"
Eyes on stalks and eyes in sockets looked leftward. A single Human soldier stood behind a loading ramp, his heavy cassion rifle trained in their direction. He was male, young, confused, and scared. The bad combination froze Ranji immediately.
The heavily armed youth was staring wide-eyed through his visor at the Amplitur. "I heard about the squids. I studied 'em. But I swear to Gaea I never thought I'd see one in person."
A field soldier's thought processes are necessarily straightforward. To him the relative positions and spatial relationships of gun, tentacle, and hands were all the explanation the tableaux before him required. He addressed Ranji without taking his eyes off the Amplitur.
"Are you all right, sir?"
Ranji turned slowly. "No problem."
"You there, thing. You're my prisoner. Put down your weapon." His finger was taut on the rifle's trigger, the muzzle focused unswervingly between the two eyestalks.
Sigh-moving-Fast hesitated, trying to apportion attention between the mature Human and the young warrior. Two subtentacular digits tensed on the firing mechanism of the angular pistol.
Ranji saw. Too far to jump. His stomach contracted to a small, hard ball.
"You're just in time, Tourmast," he said quickly. "It knows all about us."
Instantly the Amplitur's mental focus shifted fully from the prisoner to the newcomer, hoping to mute hostile thoughts and induce the Restoree to lay his rifle aside. If necessary it would try to push first one, then the other. At worst, if the soldier started to fire then Sigh-moving-Fast could still react rapidly enough to kill one if not both of them. A forceful probe impinged on the soldier's mind.
It brought forth a cataclysmic shriek of raw, uncontrolled energy, a concentrated eruption of fear, horror, loathing, and primitive primate hatred. The Amplitur shook violently. All four legs gave way simultaneously and it collapsed, managing to get off a single shot before blacking out. The pistol's explosive shell blew a hole in the staging chamber's distant ceiling.
Startled, the soldier had also fired once, missing badly. Now he leaned up against a fuel cell of Segunian design, his rifle dangling from one hand as he flipped up his armor visor with one hand and pressed against his forehead with the other. Sweat poured through his fingers.
Ranji had thrown himself to the floor. After checking to make sure he hadn't been hit, he rose and approached the flaccid body of the Teacher. Limp, rubbery tentacle-tips yielded control of the handgun.
Walking up to the fuel cell, he put a comforting arm around the younger man's shoulders.
"Shit." The soldier shakily set his rifle aside and cradled his head in both hands.
"Bad?" Ranji inquired solicitously.
"Going away now." The younger man took several measured deep breaths. "I heard about that, too." He nodded in the Amplitur's direction. "Not going anywhere soon, is it?"
"Not for a while, no."
"Good." He shuddered slightly at the memory of it. The sensation was slipping away like foam on a befouled tide. "Creepy, when it tries to get inside your mind like that. Feels . . . unclean. Like the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you blown up a thousand times bigger for everyone to see. Didn't it know something like this would happen if it tried that?"
Ranji regarded the slack, comatose form. "It thought you were something else."
The soldier's gaze narrowed. "Something else? And who's this Tourmast character?"
"Someone else. Why don't you take charge of our prisoner here?"
"What, me?"
"Amplitur prisoners are pretty rare. You'll probably get a promotion out of it, maybe even a commendation." Ranji looked past him. "Where's the rest of your unit? I've got an injured colleague and I'd rather .not use a communicator to call for help this near to enemy hostiles."
"They should be over that way, sir." The soldier adjusted the communicator built into his visor. "Enemy's been pushed back pretty far. I think we're safe in calling in."
Ranji considered, then nodded. "I'll rely on your judgment. I'll go tell my friend help is on its way. We're back over here." He pointed, and the younger man indicated his understanding.
Lying immobile on its side, the Amplitur didn't look very frightening, the trooper reflected as he studied his prisoner. Soft and slow. One bulging, golden eye gazed vacantly in his direction. It was about the ugliest thing he'd ever seen, and since he'd joined up with the Human battleforce that was aiding the Weave he'd encountered some remarkably ugly things. Ashregan, Crigolit, Molitar, Acuria, Massood and Hivistahm, Wais and Lepar. Ally or enemy, it didn't much matter. Each was a greater paragon of ugliness than the next, and he wasn't especially enamored of the facial features of some of his drinking buddies, either.
He shifted his rifle to a more comfortable position, pleased that like the rest of his friends back home he'd chosen to take part in the great conflict. What more could a man want out of life than the opportunity to eliminate some of the ugliness from the universe?
The Amplitur sensed that its paralysis would fade, but until then it
would have to suffer the feral attention of the biped as well as a certain amount of physical discomfort. Unable to move more than a few extremities, Sigh-moving-Fast shifted one eye to track the departure of the Human Restoree. There was no help to be had, no other brethren within range. It had taken but a moment for its personal status to change from that of captor to captive.
Tricked, and cleverly so. The Restoree had seen and seized a chance to make use of Sigh-moving-Fast's unfamiliarity with combat conditions. But in his haste to aid and comfort an injured companion the Human had forgotten one thing. Secrets could still be divulged, confusion spread, discord sowed.
"Listen to me." The translator croaked enticingly. "That man is no longer wholly Human. He has been changed. He is now more like me than you."
"Yeah, right." The soldier's expression was pensive.
"This is true! He has been modified. First by my kind, subsequently by something else. He can influence minds; he can push, just as can I. He is dangerous."
"You're telling me. All of us Human folk're dangerous, squid. As you're finding out. You know, I picked up a lot about your species in studies, but they never told me you had a sense of humor."
"You must believe me!" The primitive biped's indifference to logic was infuriating. "If you have studied my kind, then you know we are incapable of prevarication."
"Unless that's a lie, too. Our specialists don't completely trust everything the Weave tells 'em. One thing they're far from sure about is you. Don't know enough about you yet to be sure of anything. So they're withholding judgment." He gestured with the tip of the cassion rifle. "So am I. If you want to turn me against one of my own kind, you're gonna have to dream up something a lot less silly than that."
Sigh-moving-Fast raged impotently, but try as he might, he was unable to give the Restorees' secret away.
The Weave strike force took the headquarters complex, capturing or killing all but a few of its inhabitants. Human and then Hivistahm physicians dealt efficiently with Cossinza's injury. With the aid of an implanted neuromuscular stimulator, she was up and walking within a few days.
He'd always been able to talk to Saguio, Ranji knew, but this was different. It was wonderful to finally have someone to share with, in matters of intimacy as well as friendship. Cossinza did more than merely listen. She understood. Heida Trondheim had been sympathetic, but no more. What existed now between him and Cossinza went much deeper. He felt fulfilled.
With time now to relax a little and contemplate things besides combat, other Restorees were also pairing off, developing liaisons, getting to know one another. The special characteristic they shared made it natural as well as necessary.
Their secret remained inviolate. The one Amplitur who had learned the truth had made a desperate break for freedom while being escorted from the captured staging chamber to a waiting sled, only to be shot down by impulsive Human guards before the officer in charge could intervene. It perished ranting, spouting mental and verbal gibberish about unsuspected threats to the stability of civilization. The exact nature of its dying diatribe went unreported, as no recorders happened to be operating in the vicinity at the time.
Wherever they were sent, the Restorees would have to stay in contact with one another, Ranji knew. To report any changes or permutations in the Talent, as they had come to call it; to provide support and understanding for one another; to better assist other deceived and debased Cossuutians in regaining their stolen birthrights, and so they could, if and when necessary, act in concert.
It was good to be Human and have Human friends, he knew. Assuming he and his fellow Restorees were Human, and would not become something else. Actual determination of that was going to take time. He was certain they had much to learn.
For example, had the severed neural connections between the Amplitur nexus and the rest of his brain ceased growing? That was but one of many things that would have to be watched.
I am mine own experiment, he thought. As such he intended to monitor its progress very carefully.
Their plan and intentions exposed, the Amplitur abandoned the great project on Cossuut. Their modified fighters could no longer be trusted in battle, not when every opponent knew and could reveal to them the truth of their origins. Many died natural deaths on that unhappy world, until the end believing themselves to be Ashregan. Others perished in battle. The fortunate ones were captured.
As was only natural, following the requisite surgery the newly Restored were assigned for repatriation to a reeducation group composed of fellow Restorees.
After participation in many battles, Ranji and Cossinza and those of their friends who had survived multitudinous conflict were retired with full honors, the grateful sympathy of the Weave, and the melancholy compassion of their kind. The name of their true devastated homeworld became yet another in a long line of rallying cries and watchwords by which the soldiers of the Weave fought.
In due time offspring were born to those who had survived the ministrations of the Amplitur. They appeared in every way to be normal, healthy children.
Their parents monitored their maturation with the utmost care.
Alan Dean Foster, The False Mirror
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