Forge Of The Elders - Tapa blanda

In the twenty-first-century world, Marxist communist humans compete with the capitalist Elders, an alien race resembling giant squid, for control of an asteroid ful of valuable minerals and other resources. Reprint.

Worldwide economic collapse in the 21st century led to a Second Coming for Marxist communism -- which did nothing to alleviate the world depression. Then the People's Astronomers discovered an asteroid chock full of valuable minerals and sent an expedition. But someone else was already there: the Elders, who resembled intelligent giant squid, but with a shell the size of a Volkswagen. They had arrived from an Earth in a parallel universe where they were the dominant species. Worst of all, they were Capitalists!