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?