Vivian said impatiently, "What's this got to do with the prisoners? There they are. We can kill them or let them go. If we let them go, they'll be coming back, six months from now, to take another crack at us. Alan is cute as a button, but I don't think he should meddle in women's affairs."
But most of them were silent. They looked up at him, waiting for him to go on.
"I suppose," Sally said, "that you're coming to a point, dear?"
He nodded, his face tight. "I'm coming to the point. The point is that we've got to change the basis of clan society. This isn't working any more—if it ever did. There's such a thing as planned breeding ..." it had been hard to say this, and the younger women in the audience, in particular, tittered "... and we're going to have to think in terms of it."
Sally had flushed. She said now, "A certain dignity is expected at a clan meeting, Alan dear. But just what did you mean?"
Vivian said, "This is nonsense, I'm leaving," and she was up from the speaker's table and away. Two or three of her younger girls looked after, scowling, but they didn't follow her out of the hall.
"I mean," Alan said doggedly, "that one of those Crow women has been the mother of two fertile men. To my knowledge she is the only woman within hundreds of miles this can be said about. We men have been keeping records of such things."
Sally was as mystified as the rest of the clan.
Alan said, "I say bring these women into the clan. Unite with the Turtles and the Burros so that we'll have three clans, five counting the Horses and Crows. Then we'll have enough strength to fight off the forager-hunters, and we'll have enough men to experiment in selective breeding."
Half of the hall was on its feet in a roar.