Qui pesters Gan with questions and remarks that irritate Gan to the point that the two siblings engage in a fight. This story disturbs Gan sufficiently for him to think of T’Gatoi with suspicion now. The Tlic mate let this happen rather than risking the lives of her young ones. Qui reveals descriptions of a horrible birthing process he saw when he was young, one where the grubs ate through the impregnated man because there was no secondary host animal to eat through. Qui presses Gan for details of what happened, but Gan is unwilling to reveal anything. Gan is sick at these sights and T’Gatoi lets him go outside to vomit.Īfter Gan does so, he comes across Bram’s mate and a doctor who rush inside. The grubs are then inserted into the carcass of the animal so that they can feed on the animal now. T’Gatoi is indifferent to Bram Lomas’s pain and wholly focused on the operation. Bram Lomas screams in agony and Gan feels miserable seeing all of these. T’Gatoi cuts open Bram Lomas’s belly with a claw and begins retrieving the Tlic grubs out of him. Ideally, Bram Lomas’s Tlic mate should have performed the procedure but it is revealed later that she is ill and hence, absent. He finds that she has stripped Bram Lomas’s clothing off and is tying up his legs.
He returns to T’Gatoi with the dead animal when he is called. While taking the animal carcass inside, Gan realises that he is afraid to witness the gory birthing process.
Qui, Gan’s older brother, is sent to call for help while Gan is told to slaughter and bring an animal for the Tlic hatchlings to eat once they are removed from Bram Lomas’s body. If the eggs are not removed from the host’s body before the gestating Tlics eat through their egg shells, they will begin to eat their Terran host from the inside out. She comes in with Bram Lomas, a Terran male who has been impregnated by a Tlic and whose eggs are ready to hatch. T’Gatoi rushes outside sensing something is wrong. In a flashback it is revealed that T’Gatoi and Gan’s mother Lien were good friends when they were young and that Gan was promised to T’Gatoi before he was even born. Gan knows very well how T’Gatoi, as ruler of the Preserve, protects all of the Terrans from the masses of Tlic, and how the Terrans are all indebted to her. Gan’s father frequently drank eggs and lived longer than most Terrans, giving birth to Tlics three times and to Terrans four times. Gan’s mother, Lien, initially refuses to drink the egg but she later gives in when T’Gatoi chides her for letting old age catch up with her because the eggs can prolong life. Gan and his family drink the sterile Tlic eggs, which for Terrans have a pleasant, intoxicating and even invigorating effect. T’Gatoi is politically a significant entity in ensuring the safe survival of the Terrans in this alien world. A Terran named Gan is soon expected to be implanted with the eggs of a female Tlic named T’Gatoi.
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