“Let’s,” he said after a moment’s thought. “If Reatur or Biyal don’t want us along, they’ll let us know about it.” His first thought was that they would get far enough along behind Reatur’s back that the chieftain would let them continue instead of sending them away. But of course Reatur had no back to be behind. With eyes all around, he saw the humans’ first steps after him.
He hesitated, then used one arm to wave them on. This time Sarah and Pat both gave Irv a squeeze. “You were right,” Pat said, her blue eyes glowing.
Reatur led Biyal into a small chamber. It was crowded when the humans also came in. There was no place to sit down except the floor; Minervans were not built for sitting. All the humans stayed on their feet. Their boots were much better insulated than the seats of their pants.
Biyal reached out with a fingerclaw, scraped some ice from a wall, and reached up to put it into her mouth. Reatur got her more. He gently touched her while she crunched it up.
“He takes good care of her,” Sarah said approvingly. She studied Biyal. “She doesn’t seem to be in much distress, does she?” Sarah laughed at herself. “Of course, I have no idea whether she’s supposed to be. It would be nice if she weren’t, wouldn’t it?”
Pat moved around as best she could in the cramped space, taking picture after picture. Biyal pointed at the camera. “Noise? What?” she asked. Females always spoke more simply than males, Irv had noted; Biyal simplified still more to get her meaning across to humans.
“Autowinder,” Pat said: not an explanation, but at least a name to give to the thing that whirred. Reatur, by now, was used to the noise. Then Pat spoke to Irv and Sarah. “The splits in her skin above each bud are getting longer.”
“Six babies born all at once?” Irv shook his head. “My cousin and her husband have two little kids, a couple of years apart, and they’re ragged.” Remembering the chaos at Victoria’s house made him have trouble thinking like an anthropologist. Finally he managed, musing, “An enormous extended family like the one Reatur has here must make things a lot easier.”
“Splits are longer still,” Sarah said. “If things go on at this rate, either those babies will be born very soon or Biyal’s going to fall apart in so many segments like an orange. And she’s perfectly happy, too. When we send the data back to Earth, I think a lot of women are going to be jealous.”
The splits were growing wider, as well as longer. Minervans, Irv saw, were born feet first. Six young, each with six legs, plus Biyal’s six… Irv began figuring out how many legs that was, and found himself thinking of the man with the wives and the cats and the rats, all on their way to St. Ives. Adding in arms and then eyestalks as they appeared only brought the nursery puzzle more strongly to mind.
“They’re connected to their mother by their mouths,” Pat observed. “Very neat; they get their nourishment directly from her, and never had to evolve anything fancy like a placenta.”
“I wonder how they do dispose of their wastes, though,” Sarah said.
“There.” Pat pointed. “See those little tubes around the central mouth, the ones linking mother and infant? I’ll bet they have something to do with it. Six of them, of course. That seems to be the pattern here.”
“Yes,” Sarah said. She sounded curious, eager to find out what would happen next, trying to guess along. “How do you suppose the babies are going to separate from Biyal, Pat?”
“I don’t know, but I think we’ll find out pretty soon. Look- the ring of little tubes has already come free. She’s bleeding a little from where they went into her, do you see? Minervan blood is browner than ours, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Sarah said again. She leaned forward for a better look.
Irv was watching Reatur watch Biyal. When the bleeding began, the male stepped closer to her. He reached out to pat her on the side, then said something to her. Irv thought he heard the word “Goodbye” again. He touched his pocket. The tape recorder would tell him for sure.
“Here we go,” Sarah said. “Look, Pat-you can see the muscles loosening around the babies’ mouths. Must be some sort of sphincter ring there-”
“Yes, like marsupial babies’ mouths have, to keep them attached to the teat when they’re in their mother’s pouch,” Pat broke in. “Here, though, I’d say the babies will just let go and fall plop on the floor.”
The babies let go and fell plop on the floor.
Biyal’s blood spurted after them, six streams of it, one from each inch-and-a-half wide circle where a baby had been attached. With so much being lost so fast, the streams quickly diminished. Less than a minute after she had given birth, Biyal’s arms and eyestalks went limp and flaccid. She swayed and started to topple.
“Goodbye,” Reatur said; this time Irv was certain he recognized the word. The male eased Biyal down, making sure she would not fall on any of the newborn Minervans.
“She’s dead.” Pat’s voice was shocked, indignant.
“She certainly is,” Sarah agreed grimly. She lifted one foot.
Minervan blood dripped from her boot; it was all over the ground. “Judging by this, I’ll say giving birth for a Minervan is just about the same as getting both carotids cut would be for one of US.”
“This can’t be normal,” Pat protested. “Something must have gone wrong-”
“No,” Irv said before his wife could answer. She glanced at him sharply, but he went on. “This must be what always happens. Look at Reatur. He knew exactly what to expect. He’s seen it before. He may not be happy about it, but he’s going on about his business.”
Reatur was doing just that. He was rounding up the six new little Minervans, which scurried about on the floor. Active as they were, they reminded Irv more of newly hatched lizards or turtles than of newborn human infants. Reatur caught them and picked them up, one after another. Finally he had three in one hand, two in another, and the last separately in a hand on the other side of his body.
“Why apart?” Irv asked him, pointing at the last baby; Reatur had carefully transferred it away from the others, as if he wanted to keep special track of it.
“Male,” Reatur said. He held up the other struggling, squealing infants. “Females.” He said something else that Irv didn’t quite catch. The anthropologist spread his hands, a gesture of confusion Reatur had learned. The-baron paused to think for a moment, then lifted the females to show they were what he meant, saying, “Goodbye fast, like-“ He used a free hand to point to Biyal’s still, dead body.
“That’s all females do here?” Sarah’s back was stiff with horror and outrage. “Get pregnant and then die? But they’re intelligent beings, too, and could be as much as the males, if, if-“ She could not get it out.
“If they lived longer,” Irv finished for her. She nodded, her head down; she would not look at him, or at Reatur.
“Biologically, it makes a certain amount of sense,” Pat said reluctantly. “They reproduce, then get out of the way for the next generation.”
“But who takes care of the babies?” Sarah said.
Pat watched them squirm in Reatur’s grip. “They look like they’re pretty much able to take care of themselves. If they can find their own food-and I’ll bet they can-”
“Then males could nurture as well as females,” Irv broke in. “Or maybe they leave the females in here with their own kind, knowing, uh, knowing they’ll not last long, and take the one male out to train him up to be part of the bigger society.”
“That’s disgusting,” Sarah said. She still was not looking his way.
“I didn’t say I liked it.” Something else occurred to Irv, with force enough that he whacked himself in the forehead with a gloved hand. “We’d better be careful about how we let Reatur and the rest of the natives learn that we aren’t all males ourselves.”
At that, Sarah looked at him, and Pat, too. “We’d better leave,” his wife said in a tight, overcontrolled voice. “If I start laughing, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”
Irv waited until one of Reatur’s eyes found him. Then he bowed and said, “Goodbye,” in the local language. Using the word after what he had just watched sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with the icy air in the room.