Mother

Mothers are a sapient all-female species of sessile creatures which communicate by radio waves. They inhabit the planet Baudelaire.

Young members of this species are called Virgins, or Sluggos (a nickname coined by Eddie Fetts).

Biology
Mothers are limbless sessile organisms. At first sight, they resemble large boulders, some as big as a bungalow. They have a retractable antenna, which they use to communicate with each other by radio signals. Their mineral shells are made from materials they absorb from the soil with a system of underground roots. The composition of the shell varies based on the available resources, ranging from mineral shells of granite, diorite, marble, basalt or limestone, to metallic iron shells, glass-like silicate shells, and even wooden shells made of cellulose. When a Mother grows too large, she reabsorbs her shell and secretes a new one, although this makes her temporarily vulnerable to predators.

A Mother's diet is omnivorous. Long tentacles emerge from a slit-shaped vertical opening on the side of their bodies to grab food and pull it into the Mother's hollow interior. These tentacles are strong enough to lift and immobilize Human-sized creatures. They also have glands that produce different kinds of pheromones and release clouds of musk to attract specific kinds of prey. While some animals are consumed, others are kept alive inside the Mother, to be used as a "mate".

Although Mothers reproduce by parthenogenesis, they need a mobile life form to act as a "mate" and attack the conception spot area inside their wombs. This provides the necessary stimulus to trigger the development of the Mother's offspring. The nature of the stimulus is such that it must be inflicted by another creature: a Mother could not start the process on her own even if she were to grab a rock with her tentacles and attack the conception spot herself. After this important task is performed, the captive "mate" becomes food for the Mother, while the conception spot heals and swells into a bag, which bursts open to release ten mouse-sized young offspring called Sluggos.

The interior of the Mother consists mostly of an oval-shaped hollow chamber with fleshy reddish-grey walls crisscrossed with blue and red tubes (possibly akin to veins and arteries) and a number of starfish-like groups of short tentacles scattered over the walls and ceiling. The opening, as stated above, is a vertical slit, also fringed with tentacles. Close to it is the conception spot: a swollen circular area, about 4 ft in diameter (~ 1.2 m) and encircled by twelve long thin tentacles. From the wall directly opposite to the opening protrudes a single mobile stalk with a cartilaginous ruff around the tip. This stalk acts like a radar antenna and tracks the movements of the creatures trapped inside the Mother.

Also hidden on the floor of the hollow chamber is the Mother's mouth, which opens up like a tunnel filled with small, retractable razor-sharp teeth and spears, and leads into a stomach-pit containing a stew of partially digested meat and vegetable matter. Mothers have four stomachs, each filled with water kept at different temperatures ranging from steaming-hot to cold. They can regurgitate the content of any of these stomachs inside their interior chambers for cleaning purposes, as well as to feed the captive "mates" and Sluggos.

Mothers give birth to litters of ten. The young Sluggos are kept inside the Mother's interior while they develop. Having not yet grown their protective outer shells, these younglings resemble piglet-sized eyeless slugs with a flexible stalk on their foreheads and a toothless mouth. If a potential "mate" is brought inside while the Mother is still carrying offspring from a previous conception, the "mate"'s activities will be monitored closely by the Mother's radar-stalk, and her toothed mouth will open up to warn the captive "mate" of what will happen to him if he tries to harm the young ones.

When the Sluggos are big enough (about the size of a hog), they emerge from the Mother's womb and crawl over long distances to find a suitable hill where they can live and develop their roots and protective shell. The higher the hill she settles in, the more powerful the Mother's radio-broadcasting capacity will be, which gives her a more prestigious position in their social hierarchy.

Culture and society
Despite being sessile, Mothers are sociable creatures which communicate with others of their species by radio waves. Their society has a strict hierarchy based on age and broadcasting capacity. Mothers who benefit from a higher social status broadcast first and can't be interrupted. How they enforce this discipline is not known, save that they're taught it at a young age while still developing inside their own mothers.

Appearances

 * "Mother", by Philip José Farmer (1953)
 * "Daughter", by Philip José Farmer (1954)