Page 141 - The Perpetrations of Captain Kaga

Sorting the Sexes on Dulup

Ovulator. For instance, if ten thistle-pounders
rendezvous at an Ovulator with the other sexes
represented in lesser quantities, the thistle-pounders
come out relatively worse; their potential output has not
been realized. If, on the other hand, they are in the
minority, the reproduction of their sex in that instance is
at a maximum.

Since all the groups are nomadic, no clear pattern of
return in the same numbers to the same Ovulator has
ever developed. This has served in two ways to keep the
population balanced: first, it maintains the relative
numbers of each sex in equilibrium by randomizing the
disparity in birthrate over the total mating area; second,
it keeps any of the individual sexes from overpopulating
and depleting its source of food. If one sex were to
become extinct, the entire species would be doomed.

Hmm, thought Captain Kaga, this group ought to provide some
interesting material for the aminoscope. I wonder what the PKU has
done on Dulup since contact was established.
He stopped the report and requested the latest post information. Its
date, he noted, was considerable earlier than Lugo’s arrival on the
planet. Nevertheless, he reflected, it ought to give a valid picture of
the current situation. He advanced the reader past a description of the
base facilities and a list of past PKU representatives to a summary of
the trade agreement.

Offshore test boring having proven the size of octanium
deposits, the standard mineral rights contract was finally
agreed to by senior members of each gastrobrachioid
nomadic sexual subgroup. At first the Dulupians were
reluctant to make any deal at all, since they did not want
anything we had to offer from the usual array of staples
and trinkets. Our negotiating team was frustrated until
some extrapolated demographic data showed that the
total gastrobrachioid population was slowly but steadily
declining. This was a consequence of the haphazard way
in which differing quantities of each sex assembled at

139