"Now, just a minute," Colonel Hastings interrupted. "You said that she got pregnant, di Vino. You mean that she laid a fertile egg?" "Yes. I mean, well, no, not exactly. She produced _four_ fertile eggs. Which is pretty darned unusual. Her mother and father got all excited. The Shanni was all a dither, and her consort was getting so nervous he went into a fit of the shakes. You should have seen that old gal running around like a scalded cat. And you should have been there when the fit hit the Shann. It's the first time any Oassi female has ever produced four fertile eggs at once." He looked at Newhouse again. "Just what did you do?" "Yes," said Colonel Hastings heavily. "I think we all deserve an explanation." "The biotechnicians would be able to tell you better than I, sir," Newhouse said. "They're writing up a report on it. It's a simple process, in effect, but a very delicate one. "We simply had to wait until the single ovum the Shannil was carrying had arrived at the proper stage of development--something the biotechs had found out in checking on the local savages. They removed the unfertilized ovum and put it through two different processes. First, they self-fertilized it. When an ovum is formed by splitting of the parent cell, the egg itself retains half the chromosomes, while the other half are thrown off in what is called a polar body. The boys simply used the polar body to fertilize the egg. Then they waited until the fertile ovum divided the first time and separated the cells; when the second division occurred, the cells were separated again, giving them four. These were replaced, and in due time, the Shannil produced four fully developed eggs. And they'll all hatch females; it's possible to tell by the shape of the rubbery shell whether an egg will be a male or female, so the Shanni was happy as a lark. The girls, of course, will be exact genetic duplicates of their mother--who is also their father, although she doesn't know it. Still--" He grinned. "--there's an old saying: 'If you want a job done right, do it yourself.'" THE END