This theme first came up in Baxter's short story “Sheena 5”; see [Variety SF](http://variety-sf.blogspot.in/2007/10/stephen-baxters-sheena-5-when-humans.html) for a review, which is much more about the squid and less about the humans.

> But the really far fetched twist is - no humans will go there. A squid will have her mind genetically enhanced to make her smart, & to make her communicate with humans - particularly Dan! She will go in her tiny water habitat that will be part of the ship. No need to bother getting her back safely - since squids' natural life is only 2 years (I haven't verified it from other sources).

> Sheena 5 is the squid that will go. Apparently, 5th in the line of engineered squid. Since she can never leave her water habitat, she will control an army of small robots that will actually do the construction job aboard the asteroid.

> What no one foresaw was: she got pregnant just before the trip. Since she is smart, she gave birth in space in a way that hid the fact from mission control for too long. Now her craft is on asteroid, the rocket is fitted to asteroid & pushing it towards earth, but she has too many babies in her too small a habitat!

> Turns out 4 of her babies are very smart; rest are typical dumb squids. Dumber ones will get eaten by their smarter siblings. But soon, the life support starts getting overstretched.

> That is when Sheena 6, one of the smarter kids, makes Dan educate her on how to use local resources & her robots to extend the habitat. Expansion is done, & all is well for the moment.

> Dan's lab is taken over by military, people lose interest in Project Bootstrap - the one that would have brought asteroid, Dan moves out. Years pass - less than a decade, I think.

> Then, one fine day, someone manning Hubble II telescope decides to have a peek. And all hell breaks loose.

> Not only have the squids made their little asteroid wholly habited, they have ships all over Sol! Reinmuth is headed to earth, & humans are afraid. Near end, we will see hints of the doom of humanity - as nuclear attack against Reinmuth fails, & it's entering earth's atmosphere. Sheena 46 appears to be in charge.