Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

"I don't understand."

She stared at him, grim-faced. "The Zulus were an impressive people, in many ways. But they were a disaster for their neighbors. So were the Romans, if you recall. It's easy to admire the culture of the early Roman republic. But the republic didn't last, Julius. It gave way to the empire, and all the rest of it. Not immediately, of course. It took centuries. But historians think in terms of centuries. Sure, our kids are filled with democratic and egalitarian ideas. How many generations will that last-in a Bronze Age society?"

She stared down the valley.

"What have we set loose upon this world?"

Whatever the future might bring, the change in authority set loose an immediate whirlwind of activity.

The first thing Joseph did, after re-establishing the training program, was to institute a systematic policy of exploration and reconnaissance. Despite the fact that it had been twelve years since the humans arrived on Ishtar, they really knew very little about the planet except the immediate vicinity of the valley. Julius had often expressed a desire to explore further, but the press of immediate concerns had always led him to postpone the task.

The task would no longer be postponed. Nor was there any need to postpone it. Grudgingly, Julius admitted to himself that he had fallen into a pattern of inertia and routine. The truth was that the cultivation of the upunu fields did not require all that much of the colony's labor. In fact, the fields were producing a surplus well above what the owoc in the valley needed, even without the colonists engaging in constant toil. In the first years of upunu agriculture, the colonists had been kept very busy exterminating the uduwo-snails that proliferated every few months. But years of systematic slaughter had done their work. For the past three years, they had only found snails on rare occasions. And those were obviously recent immigrants from outside the valley-which only emphasized the importance of learning more about the region surrounding them.

The first exploring expedition was led by Joseph himself. The explorers were gone for only four days. (The limit was set by the length of time that childfood would last without spoiling. Julius had once tried to find a way to prepare the childfood for longer storage"puke jerky," he called it-but his experiments had not succeeded.)

When they returned, Joseph reported that the valley was nestled on a plateau atop the huge mountain, near to its southern crest. They had only been able to explore the southern and western crests of the mountain. According to Joseph, the western slope of the mountain was very steep and rocky. Humans could climb it, with difficulty, but the boy doubted that gukuy could manage to do so.

Nor was the steep slope the only obstacle to potential invaders. A river, coming somewhere from the north-west, curved around the western edge of the mountain, before disappearing to the southeast into a gigantic swampy jungle. The jungle stretched west and south-west almost to the distant horizon-many, many kilometers away.

The danger lay to the south. There, the mountain's slope was much shallower, and divided by many canyons which-from a distance; they had not gone down into them-seemed to provide relatively easy access to the plateau above. One of those canyons must have been the route followed by the invaders.

Joseph intended to explore those canyons, and soon. But his next project was to complete the circumnavigation of the plateau.

After resting for only a day, Joseph and his explorers set forth once again.

Four days later, they returned with exciting-and disturbing-news. The mountain plateau contained three more valleys like the one in which the colony was situated. Two of those valleys were of approximately the same size, but the third was much larger. It was located on the eastern side of the plateau. And there were owoc living in it. And gukuy.

"Gukuy?" demanded Julius. "Did you… Was there any fighting?"

Joseph shook his head firmly.

"No, Julius. We first saw them from a distance, while we were still coming down the slope into the valley. The gukuy were doing some kind of-dance, I guess you could call it. In front of a big hut of some kind, in a clearing on the floor of the valley. There were some owoc there, too. The owoc weren't participating in the activity, they were just browsing. But they didn't seem at all nervous. Their mantles were gray, with even a touch of green.

"We tried to sneak up and spy on the gukuy, but they spotted us once we got close."

Julius grunted. That was not surprising. If the gukuy were like owoc-and there seemed no reason not to suppose so; they were obviously cousin species-their vision would be better than that of humans. The beings' color sensitivity was especially acute, naturally enough. But they were also even better than humans at detecting movement.

"Then what happened?"

"It was the strangest thing, Julius. The gukuy started whistling, and they all turned red. But instead of fleeing, they-well, I know this sounds weird, but I'd swear they started trying to herd the owoc into the fern groves. As if they were trying to hide them, or something. And then some of the gukuy went into the hut and came back out carrying those whip-like weapons. But they weren't threatening the owoc with them. Instead, they started to come toward us. We left at that point. I didn't want to do anything further without discussing it with the council."

"It sounds like they were trying to protect the owoc," commented Indira. "That's a hopeful sign."

Hearing an odd noise coming from Julius, she eyed him quizzically.

"You don't agree?"

"Well, yes and no. Or maybe, yes or no. Oh, hell! The point is this: I agree that the gukuy were trying to protect the owoc. But I don't necessarily see that as a good sign."

"Why ever not?" demanded Indira.

Julius sighed. "Am I the only one around here with a dark and evil imagination? Indira, not everyone who protects someone else does so from good motives. Ranchers on Earth protect their calves against coyotes. So that they can eat the meat themselves."

Indira gasped. "You can't be serious!"

He shrugged. "I'm not saying that's what's happening here. I'm just suggesting we not jump to conclusions."

At the council meeting that night, it was decided that another expedition would be sent to the big valley. A larger expedition-a full platoon, in fact. But the size of the expedition was simply to protect Indira. Julius was unhappy at the idea of her going. But it was a fact, which he admitted, that she was still the best linguist in the colony. Her owoc accent would never be as good as that of the younger generation, but she was far better trained and equipped than they were to learn a new language.

It was also agreed that the colonists would attempt to convince one or two of the owoc to accompany them on their journey. The presence of owoc would, hopefully, reassure the inhabitants of the other valley. They would also make it possible to extend the length of the trip. One or even two owoc could not, of course, feed an entire platoon. (The colonists had found from experience that one owoc could feed three humans.) But they could enable the expedition to stay out for a few extra days.

To Indira's surprise, the owoc agreed readily to the trip. She had thought the timid beings would be fearful of undertaking such a journey. But it seemed that they had developed a mystical confidence in the ability of humans to protect them. It was, as always, difficult to understand the owoc. But she knew that the beings had, over the years, woven the existence of humans into their concept of the Coil of Beauty. The term which the giant creatures used for humans was "the Shell of Beauty." The term had not made much sense to her before. But now she understood.