Mother of Demons by Eric Flint

“They’re nuclear batteries!” protested Adams.

Hector shook his head. “No they ain’t, Doctor. Sorry. They’re just little temporary units, designed to be recharged on a regular basis on the Magellan.”

Adams began a vigorous denunciation of the incompetence of the expedition’s planners, but Julius cut him off.

“Stow it, Doctor Adams! It’s water under the bridge. Spilt milk. Let’s get on with the business at hand.”

Adams glared at the biologist, but he kept his mouth shut. Julius continued:

“The way I see it, we’ve got to completely put out of our minds any illusions that we can maintain an advanced technological culture. We’ve got to face the facts. Every single piece of advanced equipment on the boat—the computers, for instance—presupposes a whole technological support base that just doesn’t exist anymore. The problem with the batteries is just the tip of the iceberg.”

A sidelong glare at Adams.

“I happen to know how the temporary batteries in the lifeboats were chosen. Everybody on the planning board wanted nuclear batteries. But nuclear batteries are big, and there was nothing as valuable as space. So the decision was made to have nuclear batteries on the mother ship alone, and use small temporary batteries on the lifeboats. It’s easy to sneer at that decision now. But it was the logical decision to make at the time.

“We’re going to find the same thing is true over and over again. The minute any single component of any of the remaining equipment breaks down, that’s it. There aren’t any replacement parts, and we’ve got no way to make them. Even if we knew how, which we don’t.”

A shrug. “It’s one of the prices we pay for having such a technologically advanced culture. We’re all specialists, by and large. Take me, for example. I know how to use the equipment in a biological lab. But I don’t know how to make it. I don’t even fully understand how most of it works. The same’s true for all of us.”

He smiled. “Except Indira. The historian’s profession hasn’t changed much over the last five thousand years.”

“So what do you propose, Julius?” asked Janet. “Specifically.”

“I propose that we concentrate on teaching the children the essential tools of survival—physical and cultural. Reading and writing. Basic mathematics. Basic medicine. Shelter, and clothing. But most of all, we’ve got to teach them—which means that we’ve got to learn it ourselves, since none of us is a farmer—basic agriculture.”

“That’s nonsense!” expostulated Adams. “We can’t eat the plants. And we don’t need to, anyway—we’ve got the maia.”

Julius stared at Adams in silence for over a minute. Indira started to speak, thought better of it. Everyone else apparently shared her reticence.

Finally, Julius spoke again.

“Do you believe in magic, Doctor Adams?”

“Of course not! And let me say that I find that remark highly—”

“Just shut up!” bellowed the biologist. It was the first time any of them had ever heard Julius raise his voice. All of them, including Adams, were shocked into silence.

Julius glared around the campfire.

“Let me explain something to you, people.” He pointed to the south. “The maia are not your fairy godmothers. It doesn’t matter whether you think they’re animals or sapient beings. If they’re animals, they’re in ecological balance with their habitat. And if they’re sapient, as I believe them to be, they’re at the most primitive possible cultural level. Do you understand what that means?”

Silence.

“It means they don’t have a surplus. They live on the edge of economic survival. Every ounce of regurgitated food which they provide us is an ounce which they don’t have for themselves—or their own young. As it is, we’re lucky that they don’t have more than a handful of youngsters themselves. How many ounces—no, tons—of food are we going to be demanding from them? Where’s it supposed to come from? The maia don’t grow anything. They forage. There’s only so much forage in this valley, and it’s obvious to me that there’s not enough when you add us into the equation.

“So—to get back to your point, Doctor Adams—while it’s true that we don’t need to learn how to cultivate plants for ourselves, we had damn well better learn how to do it for them. Or we’re going to die.”