by Eric Flint
Joseph finally cornered an owoc, and spoke with her for an hour.
When the conversation was over, he came to Julius and said, fighting tears:
"She says—it's not very clear to me—but I thinks she's saying that the babies die because they have to. She says it's part of the Coil of Beauty."
"I know, Joseph," replied Julius sadly. He reached out an arm and hugged the boy. "She's right, you know. It's the way it has to be, with the owoc. It seems unnatural to humans, because we're K-strategists. But the owoc aren't. They're r-strategists."
Joseph demanded to know what that meant, and Julius explained it to him. The boy did not understand all of it, but he understood enough. That night, after asking the adults not to attend, Joseph called a meeting of all the children. (It was the first time the boy ever assumed that mantle of authority among the younger generation; it would not be the last.) He explained, in his own terms, what Julius had taught him. The children discussed the matter thoroughly, for hours, with a seriousness and gravity far beyond what one would expect of nine and ten year-olds. At the end, they were satisfied (if not happy). But Julius noted that each child took an owoc baby as a personal pet, and kept it free from harm.
He was upset at the situation himself, of course, as were all of the adult humans. But, for he alone, the emotion of unhappiness was offset by another.
Awe, and wonder.
I would have sworn (he wrote in his notebook) that no intelligent species could evolve using the r-strategy. Prejudice, pure prejudice. We humans have always been Earth's quintessential K-strategists, so naturally we assume that the reproductive strategy of producing a few (only one, usually, in our case) offspring—and then lavishing care upon them—is the inevitable method for the higher forms of life. It's not just homo sapiens, after all—most of the mammals follow the same strategy, even if they don't take it to the same extremes that we do.
But the invertebrates have always been r-strategists. The hell with protecting a few kids. Just have a few thousand. Sure, most of them will get it in the neck. So what? A few will make it. Everything evens out in the end.
The owoc don't follow a pure r-strategy, of course. There's always been a handful of youngsters, ever since we arrived, and they take care of them well enough. That's one of the reasons I assumed, without thinking about it, that they were K-strategists. I'm willing to bet that as the babies get older—the few of them that survive—a critical point will be reached when different instincts kick in.
He was right. A year later, the surviving owoc babies began to hoot, and it was as if the eyes of the adult owoc suddenly focused on them. They were very surprised, though—according to the human children, who were still the only ones who could readily understand the hoots—at how many young owoc there were. In fact, the adult owoc seemed utterly bewildered. The reason for the surplus, of course, was the human children. Julius estimated that 90% of the surviving babies were the ones the children had taken in as pets. But, bewildered or not, the adult owoc began taking care of their young. And there was no shortage of food, because of the upunu fields. There was even an unexpected side benefit, noted Julius with amusement. The human children, who had previously complained bitterly about "field-work" and used every excuse to avoid it, were now the most assiduous of cultivators.
Of course, if I hadn't been so preoccupied with the immediate necessities of life in the colony, I would have been able to spend my time doing what I'd like to do, which is—hey, once a prof, always a prof—research. (Yum yum.) Which I've been doing, finally, this past few weeks. And made some discoveries.
The big news?
The owocs are social animals. Not social, as in: "Let's throw a party!" No, social, as in: bees; or ants.
I kid you not. All this time I thought the owoc were more or less like us. You know, boys and girls. Differences, of course. The sexual dimorphism among the owoc makes the miniscule differences between human males and females positively subatomic. The males are tiny, compared to the females. Tiny, and weak. At least, the bodies are. The heads are quite well developed. Much smaller, compared to those of the females. But I'm willing to bet that if you plotted the comparative brain sizes of the males and females against their relative body sizes, you'd find that they are just about identical on the EQ scale. So the two sexes are probably of equivalent intelligence. But other than that, the males are a shadow of the females, like super-runts. Hell, most of the time I see one of the few males (oh, yeah—note: males are only 6.25% of the population, by exact count) they're riding inside the females—nestled in the anterior mantle cavity, next to the head. Cozy as can be—even got a cowl over their heads to keep off the semi-constant drizzle.
(Time out for complaint: Is there ever any sunshine on this misbegotten planet? Day after day, the same solid light-gray sky. Makes Seattle look like Miami.)
Back to the ranch. The peculiar "riding" position of the males inside the females is so common that I'm even beginning to think it explains the (relatively) much longer arms of the males. Although that might be one of those "Just So Stories" kind of explanations. I can see where the males would enjoy it well enough—beats working—but I can't really see where there's any adaptive advantage to—Julius Cohen. Julius Cohen. Reproductive organs, dummy. That's why the male arms are so long. So they can reach way down deep inside the female's mantle, where the good stuff is. Talk about convergence! That's how male octopi transmit their sperm to the female—one of the arms is specially designed to carry sperm packets from the male sex organ to the female's. (If I remember right, that arm's called a hectocotylus.) More logical system than we have, when you think about it. Why waste valuable biotic energy growing a separate penis when you can do double duty with an arm?
OK. But why are all the arms long? If the owoc parallel the octopi, only one of the arms is adapted as a sexual organ. The others are just arms. So why are they all the same length?
Bingo. That's just the way the genetic switches work with the owoc. The regulatory DNA (or whatever equivalent exists on Ishtar—and would I love to know!—but I'm willing to bet that it's the same trusty old adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine, or at least three out of four of them) has all eight arms linked. You want just one of them long? Sorry, ma'am. Only comes in the economy eight-pack.
Anyway. To get back to the point, I always knew there were males and females. What I didn't know is that there are also mothers.
I just thought Kupu, the female who hardly ever moves out of that one little oruc grove, was the owoc equivalent of the fat lady in the circus.
Turns out the reason she's four times as big as all the other females is because she isn't really a female at all, she's a "mother." This distinction seems bizarre to humans, because for us "female-ness" and "mother-ness" are almost identical. But among the owoc, they're practically a different sex.
No, that's not the best way to put it. Makes it seems like there's three sexes. And there aren't. There's only two—female and male. But the females come in variants. Female and mother.
Why not female (meaning mother) and "neuter." Because it slides around the question. What's a "neuter," after all? It's either a neutered something—male or female—or it's some kind of bizarre sex-that-isn't-a-sex.
Fie on it. Let's stick to the ABCs of biology. In all sexed species, the female is the fundamental sex. Gotta have females. Males—the thought grieves my chauvinist heart, but facts, as the man says, are stubborn things—are unnecessary. Oh, sure, lots of species use males to reproduce. (Including mine, praise the Lord.) But they can be done away with, if necessary. Parthenogenesis, for instance. So the basic body plan of any sexed species is female. Males are just a specialized adaptation.
Since the infertile females are far and away the most common type of owoc—and the dominant ones, insofar as that aggressive term can be used with these beings—it seems to me most logical to refer to them as the females, and to call the ones which are specialized to actually reproduce "mothers."
I'll
stick with that for now. (Note: ask Joseph to talk to the owoc about it. Be interesting to see what they have to say.)
He did, and Joseph reported that the owoc term for female was, just as Julius suspected, used to refer to the infertile ones. Kupu was called a term which translated quite closely as "mother." Joseph also reported that, according to the owoc, males came in two variants as well—the fertile ones, which were by far the most common type; and a rare type of male, which was not fertile. According to the owoc, there was no representative of that quasi-sex currently living in the valley. There had been one, some (indefinite—the owoc were always vague regarding questions of time) period ago, but he had died.
Julius tentatively labeled the sterile males "eumales." And then drove himself crazy trying to figure out an adaptive reason for the evolution of infertile males. ("The most useless creatures imaginable!" he exploded once, in Indira's presence; to his everlasting regret, for she expanded on the theme, at length.)
So there you are—just like a colony of bees. A queen—the mother—who does all the actual breeding. A small number of males, to service her. And a host of infertile females, to do everything else.
Like all analogies, of course, you can't take it too far. For one thing, the owoc are intelligent (not very, but intelligent nonetheless) whereas the social insects are as dumb as—hey, what do you expect?—bugs. For another, owoc society has none of the "slavish" characteristics of insect hives.
But I'd be willing to bet that if the owoc were smarter their complicated sexual relations would produce all kinds of fascinating cultural variants. Including, probably, some variants that are savagely oppressive.
He proved to be right. On both counts.
Chapter 9
Doctor Koresz was the first adult to die, six years after their arrival on Ishtar.
It did not come as a surprise, for he had known for months he was dying.
"I do not know why, really," he had told them, lying on his pallet in the hut which the doctor shared with Janet and Hector. "I have only been able to scratch the surface, when it comes to understanding life and death on Ishtar. I shouldn't be dying, of course. I am only forty-two years old, and if I had not been in perfect health the Society would never have approved me for the Magellan. But—as Julius never tires of reminding us—facts are stubborn things. And the fact is that I am dying."
All of the adults were gathered around, except Adams, who had drawn more and more apart from the colony as time went on. He was the only one of the adults who still lived in the landing boat. All the others had long since moved into the huts which Janet had designed from native vegetation. The children were housed in four large barracks (no, "long houses," Indira had named them, after the Iroquois).
Except for Adams, the adults lived in two separate huts: Indira and Julius in one, the doctor and Janet and Hector in the other. The ménage à trois into which Hector, Koresz and Janet had happily settled, within a few months after the crash, was a logical enough arrangement under the circumstances. And sexual mores on Earth in the 22nd century were characterized by considerable latitude and tolerance.
Julius immediately named their hut "Sodom and Gomorrah." And he demonstratively refused to come near it, fearing, or so he claimed, the wrath of God.
"You don't even believe in God!" Indira had once protested.
Julius chewed his lip. "No, I don't. But you never know. And if He does exist, He has two outstanding characteristics. Judging, at least, from the Old Testament."
"Which are?"
"He's the most hot-tempered, narrow-minded, mean-spirited, intolerant, anal-compulsive, bigoted redneck who ever lived. And, what's more to the point, he's a lousy shot."
"It's true!" he insisted, in the face of Indira's laughter. "Read the Book yourself. Somebody pisses Him off, does He nail 'em right between the eyes like Buffalo Bill? Hell, no! He drowns everything. Or He blasts whole cities, or drops seven lean years on entire nations. Indiscriminate, that's what He is. The Sawed-off Shotgun In The Sky. So I ain't getting anywhere near that den of iniquity."
And he hadn't, until he realized that Koresz was really dying.
"But why?" demanded Janet. She wiped away tears. "If it's a disease, maybe you can find a cure. You've done miracles, Vladimir! Not just with us, with the owoc too."
Koresz shook his head weakly.
"It is not a disease, Janet. At least, not in the sense that you are using the term. It is—call it massive systemic shock."
"Explain," said Julius softly.
"I cannot, Julius. Not clearly. There is still an enormous amount we do not understand about life. Organisms are adapted by evolution to a particular environment. Some are more finicky about it than others, but any organism only has a certain tolerance range. Humans do quite well, in that regard, compared to most animals. But we have long known that totally new environments place a tremendous stress on organisms. In unforeseen ways, often. Did you ever read any of those old science fiction classics, written before humanity actually got into space?"
Julius shook his head.
"It is fascinating, really. The writers all thought that weightlessness would improve human health. Seemed like a logical idea at the time, I suppose. Gravity does wear our bodies down. But we are adapted to gravity. And when we finally got into space, we discovered that we cannot survive weightlessness. Not for really extended periods of time. Bone loss; muscle atrophy; eventually, Kabakov's syndrome and death."
He levered himself to a semi-erect position.
"But we can survive weightlessness for quite some time before we succumb. And that, I think, is a good analogy to what is happening to me. My body lasted for years, but it is finally just giving up."
Indira gasped. "Does that mean—?" She swallowed. "The kids—"
Koresz shook his head. "I believe the children will be fine. Young animals are more adaptable than adults. The ones who survive, that is to say. Typically, young animals either survive or they die quickly. But the ones who make it—"
He stopped, turned pink with embarrassment. "I'm sorry, Julius. Indira. My big mouth."
The biologist's face was pale, as was Indira's. But Julius smiled his lopsided smile, and said:
"S'okay, Vladimir. It was a long time ago. My daughter—oh, hell, if I'd left the poor kid on Earth she would have been all right. But here—" He sighed heavily. "Nobody ever said natural selection was kind."
He shook his head sharply, clearing away the memory.
"But what's important now is that I think you're right. A few of the kids who died in the first year, like Indira's, died of trauma. But most of them—just died. Nothing we could do to stop it, as hard as we tried. Lost almost twenty percent, the first year. A few the next year. But since then, they seem to be doing just fine. And you think they'll be okay from now on—and their kids, too, I assume?"
Koresz nodded. "Basically. Oh, I expect there will be a high child mortality rate. But the colony will survive that, especially if the children follow nature's age-old strategy. Be fecund."
He cleared his throat. "Which brings up something I have been meaning to raise. I have not said anything about it before, because it was a moot point. But the children are just about at the age where they discover a fascinating new game."
He gave them a hard stare. "I do not know what cultural prejudices may still be lurking deep within the recesses of your nasty little minds—"
"This—from you?" demanded Julius. "The pervert who's going to fry for eternity?"
When the laughter died down, Koresz continued.
"You must allow the children maximum sexual freedom. More than that. You must positively encourage promiscuity. This is not the time and place for the nuclear family and sexual fidelity. The gene pool is small enough as it is. I believe we have a large enough gene pool—barely—if the genes are mixed up constantly. Even then, genetic drift is going to loom large. I suspect we shall see the resurgence of all sorts of recessive traits. Hemophilia, that sort of thing."
"Swingers' paradise," snorted Julius. "Rome of the Caesars."
Koresz smiled. "Not so bad as all that, Julius. At least, I have not seen much of a sadistic streak among the children."
He looked at Indira. "Why the big frown, Indira? You never struck me as the sexually-repressive type." A chuckle. "Even though you and Julius have selfishly refused to share your treasures with us sinners."
Indira smiled, faintly. "It's not that, Vladimir. I have no moral problems with allowing the kids to develop a sexually permissive culture. I'm in favor of it, actually. It'll avoid a lot of social neuroses. No, it's just . . ."
She took a deep breath.
"It's just that up until now the boys and the girls have been on a equal footing. They understand that there's a difference between the sexes, of course. But they don't think much of it. Their games are completely integrated, and a number of the girls are emerging as leaders. But if they start having lots of kids, well . . ."
She fell silent. Koresz seemed puzzled.
"I still don't—"
"She's worried about the rise of the patriarchy, Vladimir," explained Julius. "She's mentioned it to me before, in private. Indira says that if the colony were to remain in the state of primitive hunters and gatherers that it wouldn't be a problem. Primitive cultures, she says, are generally characterized by sexual equality."
Indira interrupted. "There's always a division of labor between the sexes, but it rarely translates into a relationship of dominance and subjugation. But the point is that we're not primitive hunters and gatherers. We've already developed agriculture, of a sort—a kind of modified pastoralism, without the migration—and with everything else we've taught the kids they're well on their way toward civilization, of a basic sort. And throughout human history, the rise of civilization was always accompanied by a transformation in the relationship between the sexes. What's called the patriarchy."
