Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

For a mollusc, a shell is that which protects. So help me, we've become the guardian angels of their quasi-religion.

The real problem, in fact, turned out to be that all the owoc wanted to come. Oddly enough, Kupu was particularly adamant. She seemed quite upset (judging by the mottled blue and brown of her mantle) when Indira insisted that she could not accompany the expedition. It would be hard enough for any of the owoc to manage the trek through high country, much less the huge and bulky mother.

"Why in the world would she want to come?" Indira asked Julius later. "Kupu usually never leaves her oruc grove. What's so funny? "

Julius was howling.

"Don't you get it?" he gasped. "The other owoc want to come because they think it would be nice to pay a social call on their neighbors. But Kupu-"

He stopped speaking, choked with laughter. Indira waited impatiently.

"But Kupu wants to come because-" Wheeze, wheeze. "Because she's a swinger."

Indira was not amused, until the next morning, when Julius' little joke came to life. More than anything else, it was the dumbfounded expression on his face when she told Julius that the owoc were now insisting that Kupu had to come along.

"You mean-?" His rubbery face twisted into a befuddled scowl. "It's not possible! They're primitives. They can't possibly understand the dangers of inbreeding."

Indira was grinning from ear to ear. As much as she loved Julius, she often found him excessively opinionated.

"Don't ask me, O great biologist. But the owoc are quite clear on the matter-much clearer than usual, in fact. Kupu has to come along because, and I quote, 'the clan needs to twine itself further into the Coil.' Sounds like a clear argument for exogamy to me. But what do I know? I'm just a lowly historian."

Julius' glare was a joy to behold.

The trip was long and difficult. Not arduous, for the humans. Joseph had found that the mountain valleys were all interconnected by passes and gullies which posed no more than a mild challenge for humans in as good a physical condition as the colonists were. But it was hard for the four owoc who accompanied them, especially Kupu. Seeing how terribly the trip strained the ungainly mother, Indira was amazed at her stoic determination to continue.

I never fully realized just how ill-suited the owoc are to live in the mountains.

She turned and looked to the south. She could not see it, of course, but Joseph had described the vast, lush, flat plain which stretched south of the mountain to the distant horizon.

What horror must live on that plain, to drive these poor beings here?

The trip took so much longer than anticipated that Indira began to wonder if the humans could sustain their activity on the small amount of childfood they each received every day. When the expedition arrived at the first of the valleys which Joseph had found, however, the owoc immediately began gorging themselves on the uroc which grew thickly there. At first, Indira thought they were just indulging themselves in their favorite treat. But when she saw the great quantities of childfood which they produced, she realized that the beings had understood the problem. Not for the first time, she had underestimated their intelligence. The owoc were perhaps not as smart as humans-they certainly did not think the same way-but they occasionally showed an uncanny grasp of things.

They stayed in the valley for an entire day. The owoc clearly needed the rest, and the humans were glad to eat more than rations. The next day, before they left, the owoc spent most of an hour tearing off succulent oruc leaves, until they each had as much as they could carry. When the humans realized what they were doing, they immediately made lashing material out of various vines which they found in the area. In the end, the owoc set off with their broad backs piled high with leaves.

Finally, on the seventh day of a trip which the humans alone could have easily managed in two, the expedition came over the crest of a pass and onto the slope leading down to the big valley.

God, it is big, thought Indira. Three or four times the size of the one we live in. So much for my occasional worries about overpopulation.

Then she remembered that this valley was already populated, and felt a sudden shame.

We are not conquerors, to do with this land and its people what we will. Let it never be so. Conquistadores are an evil of our past.

(It did not occur to her, then, that humans might not be the only conquistadores on Ishtar.)

As they descended into the valley, Indira gradually realized that this huge valley was much less thinly populated than their own. Even before the humans had arrived, the small valley to the south had been fairly thick with owoc. Twelve years of human agriculture had produced a bounty of food beyond the owoc's wildest dreams. That surplus, combined with the high numbers of surviving spawn, had resulted in a population density which sometimes reminded Indira of her visits to her mother's Bengali homeland.

Eventually-still at a distance of well over a kilometer away-she spotted the "big hut" Joseph had described. Joseph's description, she now understood, had been inaccurate.

He's never seen one before, of course. But if that's not a temple, I'm going to resign in disgrace from the World Historical Association.

The structure was quite large, given the limitations of the bamboo-like plant which the colonists had found to be the only suitable wood on the mountain for construction. On Earth it would have been labeled "three-stories." From what Indira could see at a distance, she doubted that the building actually had stories, as such. It was built along the lines of a simple A-frame. A shallow ramp led up to a terrace, which stretched across the entire width of the building. From a distance, she could not see into the building itself. The terrace was covered by the sloping roofs, but she could not tell how far back it ran.

Perhaps it runs all the way through. There might not be any interior walls at all. The building may just be a place for congregation. In this warm climate, the only real reason for shelter is to keep off the drizzle. And personal privacy. We humans have even adopted the dress of Polynesians. Sarongs.

She smiled wrily. Since Janet died, Indira was the only woman on the planet who covered her breasts. The young women simply wrapped the sarongs around their waists.

As they neared the building, Indira began to spot owoc and gukuy moving about. There were not many of them, and they were not engaged in the "dance" which Joseph had described. (Which, she now suspected, was some kind of religious ritual.) The handful of owoc she could see were scattered about, browsing on patches of oruc. The gukuy-she counted three of them-were all clustered in a field of upunu. Now that she was closer, she could see that the field had a cultivated look about it. Yet there was something odd about its appearance, which nagged at her memory until recognition came.

That field's absolutely infested with uduwo snails. Why don't they do something about them?

(It was not until later that she remembered what Julius had told her. The beaks of the gukuy were adapted for eating meat, not vegetation. The gukuy cultivated upunu fields not for the plants themselves but for the snails which fed on them.)

Indira now began rehearsing her speech of peace and well-wishes. Halfway through the rehearsal, the speech became a moot point.

The owoc, it turned out, had their own ideas on proper social behavior.

Suddenly, the four owoc with them began hooting loudly. Kupu's hoots were especially deafening.

Immediately, the owoc and the gukuy in the valley stopped what they were doing and looked up.

Within a few seconds, hoots were being exchanged back and forth between the owoc on the slope and the owoc in the valley. Indira understood the hoots of her owoc companions-poetic variations, basically, on the general theme of "howdy." She could almost understand the hoots which came in return.