Harry Turtledove - A World of Difference

“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.

“Goodbye,” Reatur said. Irv tried to read emotion in his voice and failed. In Reatur’s grip, the babies made noise. Reatur paid no attention to it, so Irv supposed it was the kind of noise baby Minervans were supposed to make.

“Come on,” the anthropologist said. The three humans left the females’ chambers through the room where most of Reatur’s-spouses? again Irv found himself stuck for a word-were still amusing themselves.

The females came crowding round, as full of curiosity as before. Irv was glad he could neither understand nor answer their questions.

Outside Reatur’s castle stood three all-terrain bicycles. They could go places a four-wheeled vehicle could not, and six of them weighed a lot less than a rover would have. “I’m going back to the ship,” Pat said, climbing aboard hers. “I want to get these pictures developed.”

“I just want to get away and think for a while,” Sarah said. She pedaled down the curved track that ran through Reatur’s fields. Her breath streamed out behind her like a frosty scarf.

Irv hesitated. “Which way are you heading?” Pat asked.

“Want to ride along with me?”

“I think I’d better see to Sarah.”

“She’ll be all right.”

“I know. Even so, though-“ He left the words hanging and started after his wife.

“Ah, well, see you later, then,” Pat called to his retreating back. When he did not answer, she slowly rode off toward Athena.

“I didn’t understand that, Valery Aleksandrovich,” Tolmasov said. “Ask Fralk to say it again.” “He said-“ Bryusov began.

The colonel raised a hand. “I thought you understood it. I want to make sure I do, too, and if you translate for me all the time, how can I?” Having decided to learn Minervan, Tolmasov was throwing himself into the project with his usual dogged persistence.

“Again, please,” Bryusov said in the best Minervan he could muster.

“Slowly,” Tolmasov added. That was one word he had used often enough to feel confident about it.

“You give me-“ Fralk pointed to the hatchets, hammers, and other tools the Russians had brought for trade goods. “Some l give Hogram, he-“ The word that followed was unfamiliar to Tolmasov. He looked at Bryusov.

“Trade, I think,” the linguist said doubtfully. “Maybe context will make it clearer.” He turned back to Fralk. “Go on.”

“Hogram, he-“ That word again. “Then he use what he get to get you things. Some things you give me, I not give Hogram. I”-and again-“them myself. Some of what I get for them, I keep and save. Some I use to get other things; them, to get more things. Some I use to get you things you want.”

“Not ‘trade,’ “Tolmasov exclaimed. “I know what that word means-it means sell. Fralk will sell some of what he gets from us, use some of the profits to acquire more goods, whether from us or his own people, and invest the rest.” The colonel rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “What does that make him?”

“A capitalist,” Bryusov said in a small voice.

“Just what I was thinking.” Tolmasov looked at Fralk, not altogether happily. As an alien, the Minervan could be studied for his own sake, without preconceptions. Thinking of him as a capitalist brought in a whole load of ideology. The colonel suddenly laughed out loud.