Page 140 - The Perpetrations of Captain Kaga

Sorting the Sexes on Dulup

“Really? I didn’t know that. We administrators are always the last to
find out what’s going on. Too bad I’ve lost my deepspace rating; I’d
go on this boondoggle myself.”
Thus Captain Kaga had set forth on his quest. His own rating was
not much higher than Oorj’s, so he was glad to have another chance
to visit the outer worlds. The initial Dulup report he was scanning
turned from a lengthy description of the lower phyla of flora and
fauna to intelligent life.

…and so the environmental upheaval noted in the strata
of the Septenary Epoch resulted in a severe limitation of
the alimentary resources available to the
gastrobrachioids. Unable to migrate from their newly-
isolated habitat, they responded to ecological pressure by
rapidly specializing intraspecifically in modes and sources
of foraging. This adaptation was phenotypically manifest
in the development of extremities suited to particular
niches of nourishment. Like other higher forms of
Dulup organism, the gastrobrachioids are polysexual,
and the differentiation of limbs followed these lines.

Enough of the subsoil mycospiral network survived in
the old forest areas to permit the sedentary Ovulators to
remain in their original home in solitary symbiosis. Aerial
surveys show about four hundred Ovulators located at
roughly sixty-five kilometer intervals throughout the
peninsula. The other five sexes, forced to disperse in
order to survive, only reunite for mating once every full
moon, an interval of 126 sidereal days. They are: algae-
scrapers (tide pools), thistle-pounders (desert highlands),
grub-diggers (jungle swamps), berry-pickers (mountains),
and pollen-suckers (valleys).

The reproductive process among all polysexual species
on Dulup follows very rigid rules of fertilization: the
number of offspring of each sex produced is a) equal
among the sexes, b) limited by the number of the sex in
least attendance at the mating, and c) a function of that
minimum in combination with hormones secreted by the

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