Mother of Demons by Eric Flint

He fell silent, still glaring. After a moment, Koresz spoke.

“I believe Julius’ point is irrefutable.” The doctor smiled crookedly. “If we are to survive, we shall have to adopt toward the maia the classic slogan of the Vulcans. `Live long, and prosper.’ ”

Indira took charge, then, proposing a concrete division of labor.

Basic education in literacy and mathematics: Herself and Francis Adams.

Agriculture: Julius, with Hector as his assistant.

(“What’s this shit?” Hector demanded. “I fly almost twelve light years so I can become a bracero?” But he was grinning when he said it.)

Housing, clothing and dyeing: Janet Mbateng.

Medicine: Vladimir Koresz, with Janet as his assistant.

* * *

Two weeks later, Julius added another basic skill to the list: weapons-maker.

“What?” demanded Indira. “Whatever for? We’ve seen nothing threatening to us in the valley except for a few small predators. We can handle those with shovels.”

The expression on the biologist’s face was somber.

“Indira, as part of my job I’ve been systematically studying the maia. I’ve gotten to know all of them. In fact, I’ve catalogued them in my notebook.”

“So?”

“So two of them are scarred. Big scars, too. On their mantles.”

Indira had noticed scars on one of the maia herself, but hadn’t really thought much about it.

“An accident—”

“Not a chance.” Julius was vigorously shaking his head. “They’re not lacerations, such as might be caused by a fall. The maia never leave level ground, anyway. They’re puncture wounds, Indira. Caused by some kind of tooth, or claw, or something.”

Indira’s face was pale. Julius smiled, in his lopsided way, and stroked her cheek.

“Sorry, sweetheart. There’s trouble in paradise.”

The other adults—except Hector—were skeptical. But Julius insisted, and Hector was released from his former duties in order to design and construct weapons. The pilot was not unpleased at the change.

“Hey, I’ve gone from field hand to head of the military-industrial complex at one fell swoop.” He shrugged modestly. “It’s a small step for a man, but it’s a giant step for La Raza.”

Then, more seriously:

“But, hey, Julius—it’s a weetle bit hard to figure out what kind of weapons we need when I’ve got no idea what we’re going to be using them against. What are we talking about here? Giant snakes? Super-snails? The creature from the black lagoon?”

Julius squatted and began chewing his upper lip.

“Let me try to apply my biological expertise, such as it is. As far as I’ve been able to tell, just about all the terrestrial animals on this planet fall into two basic phyla—pseudo-molluscs and pseudo-worms.”

He waved his hand. “Yeah, yeah, sure, the worms are probably divided into umpteen different phyla, like they are on Earth. Who cares? A worm is a worm is a worm is a worm. Most boring critters ever made. A moving hose—food goes in one end, crap comes out the other.”

He spit on the ground. “So fuck the worms.”

More lip-chewing.

“As far as the molluscs go, based on what I’ve seen so far I’ve tentatively broken them down into six classes: the pseudo-snails, the pseudo—oh, screw the pseudo business!—there’s snails, there’s these things that are like land-clams, there’s the whole chiton group, there’s a pile of slugs, there’s those bizarre little brachiating critters that have no equivalent on Earth except (so help me!) primitive primates, and there’s the maia. The Ishtarian equivalent of cephalopods.”

“There’s also those weird floating things, like balloons. I’ve seen a few of them pass overhead.”

“Yeah, I forgot about them. I’m dying for one of them to land in the valley so I can cut it open. At a guess, they’re probably a whole separate phylum. Something roughly like what we used to call coelenterates. But they’re all small. And they don’t seem to have much capability for directed movement. From a distance, at least, it looks like they’re just drifting with the breeze. I can’t imagine them being dangerous—at least, not to something the size of a maia.”

“So what’s your conclusion?”

“It has to be something relatively similar to a maia. In the same general class, at least. Unless there’s a phylum or a mollusc class I haven’t seen—which is always possible, mind you; we’ve only seen a tiny portion of Ishtar’s surface—it has to be a quasi-cephalopod of some type. Or types.”