Mother of Demons by Eric Flint

Hard as steel, yes. But never evil. Would you have survived her life, Julius Cohen? With your soul intact—as she did?

He looked away. After the meeting, he would spend the rest of the day in the company of Rottu. He saw more of Rottu than he did of Indira, now. Somehow—Julius never did understand how Indira had maneuvered him into it—Julius had become Rottu’s partner in crime.

“Research,” Indira had called it. “You and Rottu will jointly organize a research team.”

Yeah, right. “Research team.” Such a nice phrase. It brings to mind starry-eyed visions of Julius Cohen, paleontologist, plumbing the secrets of the unknown.

Treacherous, sneaky, conniving she-devil. An historian, to boot, who knows perfectly well what the phrase really means—and could have said so in plain language.

Manhattan Project Marries Peenemunde. Absent-Minded Professor of Death and Destruction, Meet Your New Associate—Her Squidness, the Spy.

Julius grinned again, very widely. Unlike Indira, he had no fear of having his emotions easily understood by the gukuy. For two reasons. First, he didn’t give a damn. Second, he had a secret weapon whenever needed. The gukuy possessed, as a rule, very good senses of humor. But Jewish jokes baffled them completely.

Except, possibly, Rottu. Julius glanced at his partner again.

When I told her I was making her an honorary Jew, she immediately replied that she was too old to convert and besides, she didn’t want to be circumcised. Now, where the hell did she learn about that? I think she’s getting coached by Indira on the side.

Treacherous, sneaky, conniving she-devils—the lot of them.

Rottu met his glance. A second later, the Pilgrim spymistress looked away, conveying in some subtle manner the message: Stop daydreaming, Julius. The meeting is about to come to the key point.

Julius snorted. He wasn’t in the slightest concerned about that. He should worry? When Indira, Mistress of the Dark Secrets, was running the show?

Paying little attention to the meeting, Julius began pondering the real problem he had on his plate. Wasn’t there anything on this miserable soft-wooded planet that would make a decent bow?

He mimicked Indira in his mind. “The Mongols made composite bows.” That’s great, sweetheart. How? I’m a 22nd century paleontologist, not a 13th century nomadic bowyer.

He dismissed the problem from his mind. Rottu had heard vague rumors of some kind of sea-monsters whose weird innards might make suitable material for a bow. She said she would look into it, but it would be a long time before she discovered anything. Very few gukuy peoples had anything to do with the ocean, because of its dangers. And those were far away, and little known.

So forget bows, for the moment. We don’t have enough time for long-range planning. The main armies of the Utuku will be here within a few months, by Rottu’s estimate.

Chemical warfare, by God. There’s the thing.

He began chewing his upper lip. By now, he had completely blanked the proceedings of the session out of his mind.

Greek fire. Or its Ishtarian equivalent. Rottu’s already sent an expedition back into the Swamp. O-doddo-ua says there’s a kind of oily quasi-vine there which burns like nobody’s business. She promised to bring back a pile of the stuff. If we can concentrate whatever the active substance is, we’ve got the makings of a nice firebomb. By then, Adrian should have finished building the catapults—no, what’s the right word? Trebuchet, I think. I’ll ask Indira. She ought to know. The Wicked Witch of the Sky designed the damned thing, after all. Like a magician pulling rabbits from a hat, the way she hauls things out of that chamber of horrors called History.

Feeling a sudden tension in the air, Julius focused his attention back on the meeting.

He stared at Indira. He could tell, by subtleties in her posture he could not begin to analyze consciously, that she was poised to strike.

I love you, she-devil.

“Pay attention, Guo!” whispered Woddulakotat fiercely. “Stop daydreaming. They’re getting around to the meat of the question.”

Guo repressed a whistle of derision. She adored her preconsorts—especially Woddulakotat—and would under no circumstances reprove them publicly. The fact remained that they were still, in some ways—especially Woddulakotat—a bunch of silly males. Fretting over foolishness.