Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons by Cordwainer Smith, 1950. Taken from the short story collection The Rediscovery of Man. I'm currently re-reading his novel Nostrilia and the short story collection has a lot more gems in it, such as The Crime And The Glory Of Commander Suzdal and Golden The Ship Was - Oh! Oh! Oh!. (Yes, I love just the titles by themselves, too.)
The moon spun. The woman watched. Twenty-one facets had been polished at the moon's equator. Her function was to arm it. She was Mother Hitton, the weapons mistress of Old North Australia.
She was a ruddy-faced, cheerful blonde of indeterminate age. Her eyes were blue, her bosom heavy, her arms strong. She looked like a mother, but the only child she had ever had died many generations ago. Now she acted as mother to a planet, not to a person; the Norstrilians slept well because they knew she was watching. The weapons slept their long, sick sleep.
This night she glanced for the two-hundredth time at the warning bank. The bank was quiet. No danger lights shone. Yet she felt an enemy out somewhere in the universe—an enemy waiting to strike at her and her world, to snatch at the immeasurable wealth of the Norstrilians—and she snorted with impatience. Come along, little man, she thought. Come along, little man, and die. Don't keep me waiting.
Read Cordwainer Smith's Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons
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