abode. It gives me a terrible psychosomatic itch.”
This time Cresk-Sar gave them another long look, made an irritated, snuffling
sound that did aot translate, and continued with what it was saying.
“… There is a great deal of illogical behavior associated with sexual
differences,” it went on, “and I must emphasize once again, unless the sex of a
particular entity has a direct bearing on its course of treatment, the subject
must be ignored if not deliberately avoided. Some of you may consider that such
knowledge of another species would be helpful, conversationally useful during
off-duty meetings or, as often happens in this place, when a particularly
interesting piece of gossip is circulating. But believe me, in this area,
ignorance is a virtue.”
“Surely,” said a Melfan trainee halfway down the line, “there are interspecies
social occasions, shared meals or lectures, when it would be a gross act of bad
manners to ignore another intelligent and socially aware person’s gender. I
think that—”
“And / think,” Cresk-Sar said with a bark, or laugh, “that you are what our
Earth-human friends call a gentleman. You haven’t been listening. Ignore the
difference. Consider everyone who is not of your own species as neuter. In any
case, you would have to observe some of our other-species people very closely to
tell the differ-ence, and that in itself could cause serious embarrassment. In
the case of Hudlar life-mates, who alternate between male and female mode, the
behavior patterns are quite complex.”
“What would happen,” the Keigian beside her said, “if they should go, completely
or partly, out of synchronization?”
From the line of trainees there were a number of different sounds, none of which
registered on her translator. The Senior Physician was looking at the Kelgian,
whose fur, for some reason, had begun to move in rapid, irregular ripples.
“I shall treat that as a serious question,” Cresk-Sar said, “although I doubt
that it was intended as such. Rather than answer it myself, I shall ask one of
you to do so. Would the Hudlar trainee please step forward.” So that, Cha Thrat
thought, is a Hudlar. It was a squat, heavy life-form with a hard, almost
featureless dark-gray skin, discolored by patches of the dried paint she had
seen it spraying on itself before they had entered the lecture theater, and she
had decided then that it was extremely careless in its application of cosmetics.
The body was supported on six heavy tentacles, each of which terminated in a
cluster of flexible digits, curled inward so that the weight was borne on heavy
knuckles and the fingers remained clear of the floor.
There were no body openings that she could see, not even in the head, which
contained eyes protected by hard, transparent shells and a semicircular membrane
that vibrated to produce the creature’s words as it turned toward them.
“It is very simple, respected colleagues,” the Hudlar said. “While I am
presently male, Hudlars are all sexually neutral until puberty, after which the
direction taken is dependent on social-environmental influences,sometimes quite
subtle influences that do not involva body contact. A picture of an attractive
male-mode Hudi lar might impel one from neuter toward female mode, or the other
way around. A conscious choice can be made if the career one intends to follow
favors a particular sexj Unless one is mated, the postpuberty sex choice is
fixed for the remainder of one’s life.
“When two adults become life-mates,” the Hudlar went on, “that is, when they
join for the purpose of becoming parents and not simply for temporary pleasure,
the sex changes are initiated shortly after conception. By the time the child is
born the male has become much less aggressive, more attentive and emotionally
oriented ward its mate, while its mate is beginning to lose the female
characteristics. Following parturition, the process continues, with the
father-that-was taking responsibility for the child while progressing to full
female mode, and the mother develops all the male characteristics that will
enable it to be a father-to-be.
“There is, of course, a time during which both life-mates are emotional
neuters,” the Hudlar added, “but this is a period of the pregnancy when physical
coupling is contraindicated.”