Lots of muscle. These beasties are strong. The entire body is held up, about fifty centimeters off the ground, by the two rail-feet. (Yeck. Let’s stick with “peds.”) It’s a clumsy-looking method of locomotion, but—
But nothing. It is clumsy. And slow. It’s a marvel that a “molluscan” Bauplan could provide enough flexibility for these things to evolve into land animals. Let’s not ask for miracles on top of that. The simple fact is that the vertebrate structure is vastly superior to that of the—what do I call this phylum? Panzerpoda? God, no; ain’t the slightest resemblance between these sweet creatures and the Wehrmacht!
I’ll figure out what to call them later. To get back to the subject, measured by any standard of speed and mobility, vertebrates have it all over these creatures. That’s not chauvinism, it’s just a fact. From everything I can see—not just these creatures, but all the life-forms I’ve seen—humans are at least twice as fast as anything that moves on Ishtar. And we’re slow, compared to most big warm-blooded vertebrates.
(Oh, yeah, before I forget. The critters are warm-blooded. The genuine article, too—homeothermic, endothermic, and tachymetabolic. I admit I can’t prove the last, because I don’t have the equipment to precisely analyze their metabolism. But I’m positive about the homeothermy and the endothermy.)
Back to the point. Compared to the dominant large-bodied terrestrial phylum on this planet (whatever we wind up calling it), vertebrates are:
a) Much faster.
b) More mobile, by a large margin.
Score one for the home team. (Visiting team, I should say.)
BUT—any football team that had one of these guys for a fullback would be invincible. Here’s how the game goes:
Kickoff. Ball goes into the end zone. Start on the twenty. Hand off to Slow-But-Sure. Three minutes later—one play, mind you—Slow-But-Sure racks up six points. Guaran-teed. And introduces the world to a new culinary delight: linebacker pancake.
I kid you not. I can’t imagine being able to knock one of these things down. I’m not sure a rhinoceros could do it.
And they’re quicker than you might think. Their reflexes don’t seem to be any slower than ours. It’s just that their basic structure is so much more limiting than that of vertebrates.
Okay. Let’s get to the best part. The head.
The head itself looks—
Oh God, Thy Name is Convergence.
—like an octopus. Almost to a T. Bulging “brow” (only here that’s for real—more on that later), two gorgeous eyes (almost human looking, except they’re the size of saucer-plates, and the iris takes up more of the eyeball), and a beak for a mouth surrounded by eight tentacles (OK—arms).
There are some differences from octopi, of course. (If there weren’t, I’d give up my profession and start spinning prayer wheels.) The eyes are located on the front of the head rather than the sides, giving them binocular vision. And everything seems harder and tougher than on an octopus. The skin, the features, everything. Inevitable. The exact pathway and method was different, but no creature I can imagine could make the transition from marine life to terrestrial life without developing a watertight outer membrane. It’s fine for octopi in the ocean deep to have soft, slimy skins. Try that on land and you’ll dessicate.
Then, the arms are only generically octopoid. There are at least two obvious differences, one of which is major. First, the minor difference: No suckers. None. Not a trace. Instead—the major difference:
They’ve got fingers. Sort of. The arms brachiate, more than three-quarters of the way down their length (which, by the way, I estimate at an average of seventy centimeters). The tips of the arms consist of two mini-“tentacles,” which have the following chief features:
1) They’re flexible, like tentacles; not segmentedly rigid, like fingers.
2) They’re flattened—unlike the arms above the branch, which are more or less tubular. (Think of thick fleshy spatulas, about fifteen centimeters long.)
3) The inner surface of the “fingers” consists of a roughened pad, useful for gripping, which makes perfect sense because—you guessed it; give the man a prize—
4) The “fingers” are opposed.
Yup. The critters can manipulate. (So to speak. We’ll stretch the Latin.)
A faint glimmer of a possibility is coming to life somewhere deep in the recesses of your mind, is it not?