Star Barbarian by Dave Van Arnam

Author:Dave Van Arnam [Van Arnam, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fantasy, far future, sci-fi, science fiction
ISBN: 9781434442550
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2014-09-11T05:00:00+00:00

“I begin to see the thrust of your thoughts,” said the computer, “but the wisdom of this course may be another question. You seem almost to profess non-violence, and yet you plan an expansionist career! I hold ancient patterns in my memory-banks which deal with others through the course of mankind’s history throughout the galaxy. Many sounded as you do now, but went down at last in blood and slaughter, and their people into infamy.”

Jamnar grinned, seeing his way out. “What weapons did they use? Killer-weapons—you need not tell me. Not till I actually fired the electrostun on blast did I realize that there is another way.”

“What, the electrostun? I laugh,” commented the voice, and uttered a mechanical clattering. “I cannot tell you if it is still used elsewhere—offplanet, I mean—because I have, you understand, been rather out of the main currents of events for three thousand years. But the stungun in various forms has existed practically since the multiwave was first used to reach out for the stars. Men use such weapons as it pleases them to, once they have become accustomed to them. When a weapon becomes familiar as one’s own hands, that weapon begins to be misused. And this process occurs for leaders as well as soldiers; it acts on generals and spear-carriers and all.”

Jamnar took a deep breath. “If I had fifty stunguns, set permanently at ‘stun’ completely eliminating the ‘blast’ setting—my people could conquer with such a weapon, and yet destroy nothing!”

“Mmmm. You would still have problems, some of them most amusing, others not, though your idea has great promise. I will say I am rather gratified.

“Still, you are actually dealing with an overgroup of peoples—I mean the collective peoples of the Viadhash Borderlands, the southern tribes as well as the northern. From what I gleaned from the mindtouch before, this overgroup might not understand if you began a march of conquest with an entirely new weapon.

“Of course, they might come over to your side in a fervor of super-religious awe—but they might be as likely to rise up as one people and obliterate every member of your blasphemous tribe. You understand however that this is not a prediction, but a first and hasty approximation of possibilities.”

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