Cosmocopia by Paul di Filippo Page B

‘writing’?”
    “You don’t—This world has no writing?”
    “Apparently not.”
    Lazorg pondered long and hard upon that statement before saying: “Perhaps you’re just illiterate. People who live in poverty often are. When I can ask others, surely they’ll tell me what the local equivalent of writing is. Palisander will know.”
    Although the word “illiterate” was just gibberish, Crutchsump resented Lazorg’s tone. “It’s true that I live on few scintillas, but I am as smart as any rich dweller on Hedgepath Avenue! My gut brain has a deep lineage! You are the stranger in this world, not me!”
    Lazorg seemed genuinely humbled. “I apologize.”
    Mollified, Crutchsump found herself intrigued by the way Lazorg thought. “Accepted. Now, why did you expect the closets to be separate for males and females?”
    “Because that’s how it works where I come from.”
    “Don’t we all share identical organs of voiding? What would be the point of one sex concealing their equipment from the other?”
    “Oh, then your—your introciptors have nothing to do with waste elimination?”
    No aspect of Lazorg’s looks or speech had truly disgusted Crutchsump until this moment.
    “That is the most perverted thing I have ever heard of! Perhaps you are a monster after all!”
    Sensing his mistress’s dismay, Pirkle stilted himself higher in a threatening manner.
    Lazorg hastened to explain himself. Crutchsump listened attentively, her ire gradually dwindling along with Pirkle’s stature, then said, “Truly, the more distant a Cosmocopian plane is from the Conceptus, the more primitive life there shows itself. Well, you can thank your lucky ghosts that you have ended up one stage closer to the font of creation, where such absurd biological insults have no meaning.”
    Lazorg’s curiosity now switched topics. “So the shape of the introciptors is what distinguishes male and female among your people?”
    Putting herself in Lazorg’s position—alone and bereft in a strange land, desperate for information—Crutchsump could pardon his indelicate presumption. Nonetheless, the topic was unwelcome. She felt herself flushing beneath her caul.
    “Your ideas are ridiculous right down the line! Male and female introciptors are shaped identically.”
    “Then what—?”
    “Male and female are variable roles based on size. During mating, whichever introciptor is the smaller will slip inside whichever is the larger. The smaller is considered the male.”
    “And at that point?”
    “Well, eventually … after, ah, some activity … the male passes his gamete to the female, where it bonds with the matching gamete inside her. The fused gametes grow, and the female eventually gives birth.”
    “So an individual can function as male or female, all depending on their partner’s size?”
    “Yes.”
    “And do individuals exhibit preferences for performing as either sex? Do they search out partners that allow them the desired role? And what of partners with identically sized organs?”
    Crutchsump regarded the packed dirt floor of her quarters. “Not so much. Occasionally. That is, attraction to one’s character—”
    This was ridiculous! Discussing sex with a being from another world! Crutchsump looked up with a fierce glare.
    “Enough of this foolish racy talk! What does it matter to you after all? You’re sexless!”
    Lazorg made no reply to this rebuke, and Crutchsump felt she had effectively if harshly put an end to this unproductive line of talk.
    “Pay attention now. If you’re to continue living here, we have to make some alterations in this apartment. And that’s going to cost money. We can spend what I have, but we’ll need more for afterwards.”
    “I can help. I don’t want to be a burden. Are we going to collect more bones from the Mudflats?”
    “No. Almost as soon as I sold Rheaume the ostealist my harvest, all my peers will have learned that the Shulgin Mudflats are no longer haunted, and will have