Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

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?

Yes.

Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes.

They're intelligent.

Not intelligent like in: "Isn't he just the smartest little dog?"

No. Intelligent.

Like in: Critter sapiens.

Even Indira had been doubtful. The other adults were totally unconvinced.

"I tell you, they're intelligent," insisted Julius. It was five days after the discovery of what they would eventually know as "childfood." The adults of the colony were sitting around the campfire where they made a habit of gathering every night, after the children were asleep. This night, and for two nights past, the sound of hungry weeping was mercifully absent.

It wasn't much of a fire. They had found no substance on the planet which burned well. Dry wood, or its equivalent, did not seem to exist. On the lush, verdant world of Ishtar, everything seemed to be full of succulence. When vegetation died, it never had time to dry before it was consumed by "mosses" and what looked for all the world like toadstools. (The resemblance was not superficial-the colonists had discovered early on that the pseudo-mushrooms were highly toxic.)

The mosses, when "ripe," burned the best. But it was impossible to sit in the pungent fumes without gagging, so the colonists were forced to move constantly about the fire as the soft winds in the mountain valley shifted.

"That's nonsense, Julius!" expounded Dr. Francis Adams. (He insisted on the title. Indira thought it typical of the man, whom she considered a pompous ass. To her, "doctors" were people who healed people. Adams had a Ph. D. in physics.)

Privately, she thought Adams was right. But her dislike for the man drove her to speak.

"You can't say that. I'm not sure if Julius is right, but you have to admit that it's striking how these creatures have come to understand our needs."

Adams waved a dismissive hand. "Means nothing. Pure instinct. Julius already explained that these things are chromatophoric. They react to colors as indications of emotions and needs. Khaki just happens to be the color of hunger. That's what tipped Julius off-he saw that the child's clothing was almost the same color as the one which the creatures' young turn when they want to be fed."

He made it sound as if Julius had finally figured out that two plus two makes four. Indira clenched her teeth. She had no doubt that if Adams had been the one to have discovered Manuel, he would have been paralyzed both in mind and body.

"Pure instinct. Not uncommon, you know. Newly-hatched fowl will imprint on humans, if that's the first thing they see, and-"

Julius interrupted. "That's nonsense!"

He overrode Adams' splutter of protest.

"Look, folks, I know you've all heard stories about the marvelous power of blind instinct. And there's certainly a lot of truth to many of those stories. But instinct is not magic. It does not derive from some supernatural power. Every instinctive behavior on the part of an animal is the product of its evolutionary history.

"It's true, there are many examples in natural history of instincts being short-circuited. Adams mentioned one. I can give you a better example. Cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. When the cuckoos hatch-they're big chicks-they expel the rightful hatchlings out of the nest. The parent birds instinctively feed whatever chick is in the nest, and ignore anything outside of it. So the cuckoos get to eat, while the legitimate heirs die of hunger.

"But the reason the cuckoo's stratagem works is because it fits so perfectly into the life cycle of the other birds. The parent birds are expecting a hungry chick to feed. There -in the nest. At that time. The cuckoo hatchling bears a reasonably close physical resemblance to their own chicks, and it's at the right place and at the right time, acting the right way. So it gets fed.

"None of those criteria apply to this situation. These-will somebody think up a name, for Chrissake?"

"Lobsterpusses," proposed Hector Quintero, the pilot of the first landing boat.

Julius glared at him.

"You will burn in the fires of eternal damnation," he predicted.

"How about 'land-squids'?" suggested Janet Mbateng, the chemist.

"Never mind!" Julius exclaimed, throwing up his hands in disgust. "I should know better. I will name the critters, drawing upon my vast store of professional learning."

He winced. "Even though, in so doing, I will bring down upon my head the most ancient and feared curse known to Man."

"What's that, Julius?" asked Hector.

" 'Hell hath no fury like an amateur scorned.' "

When the laughter died down, Julius sat erect in a magisterial pose, his index finger pointed to the sky.

"I pronounce these critters- Maiatherium manuelii. We can call them 'maia' for short."

"What does it mean?" asked Indira.

"Manuel's good mother beasts."

She had liked the name, as had the others. (Adams had snorted, but even he adopted the name within two days.)

Still, Julius was unable to convince them of his thesis. As much as the colonists had confidence in him, there just seemed too many facts about the maia which pointed in the opposite direction.

First and foremost, the maia used no tools. None. Even Julius was forced to admit, after carefully studying them for weeks, that he had not observed even a temporary use of casual tools, such as chimpazees exhibit when they dig for ants with a stick.

Second, there was the placidity of the creatures. No one for years had believed in the preposterous concept that humanity evolved from "killer apes." Dart's thesis-popularized by Ardrey-had been exploded two centuries earlier, when more careful study had shown that the australopithecenes were prey rather than predator. But still, it was difficult to imagine a species evolving into intelligence without some instinct for aggression. And, for all their size and strength, the maia exhibited not a trace of belligerence.

Adams had explained the phenomenon, in his inimitable style, as being due to the fact that they were herbivores.

Julius was no longer even pretending to hold Adams in anything but contempt.