The extended conversation was making me giddy, and the atmosphere of the dome—with its small vapor content—dried my faculties. However, this was a historic occasion: no personal weakness must be allowed to interfere. I stiffened my tentacles and began.

“After the matrimonial convention, when the chain is established, each sex’s germ-cells are stimulated into meiosis. The germ-cell divides into seven gametes, six of them with cilia and the seventh secreted either inside or outside the Plookh, depending on the sex.”

“What’s this chain?”

“The chain of reproduction. The usually stated order is srob (aquatic form), mlenb (amphibian), tkan (winged), guur (plant-like), flin (a burrower), blap (tree-dweller). And, of course, the chain proceeds in a circle as: srob, mlenb, tkan, guur, flin, blap, srob, mlenb, tkan, guur, flin, blap, srob—”

Hogan Shlestertrap had grasped his head with his hands and was rocking it slowly back and forth. “Starts with srobs and ends with blaps,” he said, almost inaudibly. “And I’m a—”

“Srobb,” I corrected him timidly. “And blapp. And it doesn’t necessarily start with one and end with another. A birth may be initiated anywhere along the chain of a family, just so it passes through all sexes—thus acquiring the necessary chromosomes for a fertilized zygote.”

“All right! Please get back to chromosomes and sanity. You just had a germ-cell dividing—a srob’s, say—into seven gametes instead of a decent two like all other logical species use.”

“Well, so far as our weak minds can compass it, this is the chromosome pattern worked out by Gogarty and his assistant, Wolfsten, after prolonged microscopic examination.