A World of Difference by Harry Turtledove

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.
    “Good-bye,” 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’d 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 onehand, 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, “Good-bye 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, “Good-bye,” in the local language. Using the word after what he had just watched sent a chill through