Abalamahalamatandra

Abalamahalamatandra, called Ab for short, is a unique being created by the extinct Hur'rikku species hundreds of millennia ago, to serve as the organic "key" to a powerful weapon capable of annihilating a collapsar.

Although he appears to be a single life form, Ab is actually made of four individual components, which can separate themselves spontaneously. In fact, they need to do so, so that each segment can be attached to one portion of the anti-collapsar weapon. Each quarter of Ab's body possesses an arm, a leg and an eye. The situation of having four independent quarters struggling to act as a single being goes a long way towards explaining Ab's bizarre movements and eccentricities, such as when one of his hands slaps another.

Biology

Ab has what has been described as a comical appearance. His body is rubbery and pear-shaped, blue in color with vertical green stripes, and stands about 1.5 meters in height. He walks on four legs terminating on circular feet, and has four arms, each terminating on four boneless but well-developed fingers. Around the top of his body he has four orifices, speculated to be hearing organs, and four eyes with double-lids beneath them, which move independently from each other like a chameleon's. His mouth is located at the end of an elephantine trunk protruding from the top of his head.

Ab's diet is omnivorous. He produces honking sounds and can also produce Human speech, although at first he doesn't seem to be able to say anything coherent and generally speaks strings of nonsensical phrases, often in rhyme. In truth, Ab knows more than three million languages, but his attempts to translate several of them simultaneously render his speech largely incomprehensible.

Ab can harmlessly withstand electrical discharges that would kill a Human instantly. He can survive in the vacuum of space, and be perforated by arrows without showing the slightest bit of pain or discomfort.

Appearances

• The End of the Matter, by Alan Dean Foster (1977)