Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

"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."

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."

"You sure?"

Julius shrugged. "No, I'm not. But it's a hell of a good bet. If analogies to Earth mean anything, the cephalopods were the only large, fast-moving, advanced predators produce by the molluscs. By any of the invertebrate phyla, as a matter of fact. Well, there were the eurypterids, but I've never agreed with those people who think the eurypterids were-"

"Julius!"

"Huh? Oh. Sorry. Old habits die hard. All right, Hector, to cut to the chase-yeah, I'm almost sure it has to be something like the maia. More or less, you understand."