"True," T'Kal Vlan put in. "It is what warriors and merchants will look for when they judge the quality of our blades, and it is well to know what creates it. But where else do we find these ingredients? If we do start to have problems, we could mine them separately and add them, no?"
"Yes," Roger said with a frown. "The problem is finding them and separating them. I'd say that for the time being, you should probably just use what you have. I'll talk to a couple of your ironmasters if you want. Between us, Dobrescu and I might be able to explain it and point them in the right direction. If I recall clearly, chrome is actually easier to detect and separate."
"It is if you have an acid," Dobrescu agreed. "Less so, otherwise. And it's tricky to hit the right proportions and heat treatments. Humans didn't turn out good chromium steel until, oh, the last century and a half or so before space flight, I think. Of course, they didn't have anyone from the outside telling them how it worked, either."
"No, but they had more or less started figuring out chemistry on their own by then," O'Casey pointed out, and frowned thoughtfully. "I wonder if we could help them make that jump," she mused, and Pahner snorted.
"It sounds to me like we could probably spend a year or three just trying to remember what we don't remember about the processes," the Marine observed. "It would be better to just come back with a lander filled with science texts."
"Agreed." Roger chuckled. "Or, hell, a lander filled with a social reconstruct team. I don't want to crack Mardukan society; I like most of what I see. But I do want to bring them into the Empire."
"We can do that," O'Casey said. "God knows we've brought in enough devolved human societies without smashing their forms."
"Like Armagh?" Roger asked with a grin.
"Well," the chief of staff said, "there's something to be said for a planet full of battling Irishmen. Look at the Sergeant Major."
"True, true," Pahner said. "However, to bring back a Soc team, we need to get to the port. And to get to the port..."
"We just have to put one foot in front of the other," Roger said. "And that means breaking up this little party."
"Yep." Pahner nodded. "Targ, Vlan, thank you for coming."
"Not a problem," Vlan said. "We're at your disposal until you leave."
"Thank you," Pahner said, carefully not raising an eyebrow at the surreptitious signal Dobrescu flashed him. "I think we'll see you tomorrow. Until then?"
"Yes," Targ said. "Thank you. And good night."
Pahner waited until the Mardukans had left the tent, then turned to the medic.
"Yes, Mister Dobrescu? You had something to add without the Mardukans present?"
The warrant officer glanced at the shaman behind Roger.
"Yes, Sir. But I'm not sure about Cord."
"He stays," Roger said coldly. "Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of my asi."
"All righty, Your Highness," the medic said. "It's about the Mardukans. And about some assumptions we've been making."
"What assumptions?" Pahner asked warily.
"Oh, it doesn't relate to security, Captain," Dobrescu said with an evil grin. "I'm not sure it matters at all, actually. But, you see, we've got their genders confused."
"What?" O'Casey demanded. As the manager for the translation program it was her job to make sure that that sort of thing didn't happen, and she started to bristle indignantly. Then she remembered all the times the program had tried to switch gender, and looked at Cord, stretched out behind Roger.
"But..." she began, and blushed.
"What you're looking at, Ms. O'Casey," the medic told her with an even wider evil grin, "is an ovipositor."
"An ovi... What?" Roger asked, checking his impulse to turn around and look. Dealing with the habitually nude Mardukans had slowly inured the humans to the size of the natives'... members, but he wasn't about to turn around and get all depressed again.
"Gender is a slippery term when you start discussing xenobiology," the medic continued, pulling up a different entry on his pad. "But the current 'definitive' definition is that the 'male' gender is that which supplies numerous gametes to fertilize a single gamete. However that's done."
"I take it, then, that Cord and his 'gender' do not supply numerous gametes," Pahner said carefully. "They certainly look... capable of doing so."
"No, they don't, and yes, they do," Dobrescu responded. "The gender we've been calling 'male,' Cord's gender, that is... implants, is the correct term, between four and six gametes that are functional cells, with the exception of a matching set of chromosomes. Once these have been implanted, they're fertilized by free swimming zygotes resident in the egg pouches of what I suppose should technically be called 'brooder males.'" The medic pursed his lips. "There are a few terrestrial species of fish that use a similar method, and its common on Ashivum in the native species."
"So, Cord is actually a female?" Pahner asked.
"Technically. However, there are sociological aspects that make the 'males' fill traditional female gender roles and vice versa. That and the physiology are what have been confusing the program."
"And me," O'Casey admitted, "but I'll bet you're right. We didn't have much of a language kernel to start with, and I never tried to get at its fundamental, underlying assumptions. Even if I'd thought about it, I wouldn't have known how to access them or what to do with them once I had. But given what Mr. Dobrescu just said about 'definitive' definitions, I'd guess that whoever prepared the kernel in the first place knew that Cord and his gender were technically 'female.' It tried to switch gender a couple of times, which is just the sort of literal-minded lunacy you might expect out of an AI with partial data, and I wouldn't let it."
"I am not a female," Cord stated definitively.
"Shaman Cord," Eleanora said, "we're having a problem with our translator. Try not to pay any attention to the flipping gender discussions."
"Very well," the shaman said. "I can understand problems with your machines. You have them all time. But I am not a female."
"What was the word he actually used there?" Dobrescu asked.
" 'Blec tule'?" O'Casey consulted her pad. "The etymology looks to be something like 'one that holds.' 'One that holds the eggs'? 'One that broods'? I bet that's it."
"What about Dogzard?" Roger asked, looking at the faintly snoring lizard.
"Another interesting aspect of local biology," Dobrescu answered. "There are two dominant families in Mardukan terrestrial zoology. You can think of them as equivalent to reptiles and amphibians if you want. Cord is from the 'amphibian' type. So are damnbeasts and damcrocs and bigbeasts. They all have slimy skin and similar internal organ structures.
"But the feck beasts, the dogzards, and the flar-ta are completely different. They have a dry integument with some scaling and radically different internal structures. Different heart chambers, different stomachs, different kidney analogs."
"So is Dogzard a he or a she?" asked Roger in exasperation.
"She," Dobrescu answered. "The 'reptile' analogs are set up, sexually, much like terrestrial reptiles. So Dogzard will eventually have puppies. Well, eggs."
"So what do we do about the translator?" Roger asked.
"We don't do anything about it," Pahner said. "We inform the troops of the physical aspects, and explain to them that the Mardukans are flipped gender, but we'll continue with our current distinction. As Elenora just suggested, the difference is purely technical, and since none of us are xenobiologists, I think we can get away with ignoring it. I can't see that it matters one way or the other, anyway, and this way we keep from confusing the troops. And the software."