"- if you did a blinded study of the effects of having a forthcoming child, you could blind the men but not the women, and then the men would presumably not display any of the emotional changes associated with expecting a baby. But no one would actually do that, because people want to know when they're going to have a baby and would probably not sign up for this study."

"I believe that it's typically for pregnancies to be rather obvious in humanoid species."

Here are some pictures of how various humanoid species have pregnancies. 

"Yes, so the pregnant ones would notice right away, exactly."

"Oh, by blind do you mean actually blind? I was used to that meaning something different in the context of scientific studies."

"- what I mean is that, in normal situations, both parents know they are going to have a baby from around the time of conception. Hypothetically, in an experimental setting, you could mix things up so that the male subjects did not know they were going to have a baby, maybe by swapping around sperm samples or something, not by literally blindfolding them, but the female subjects would still know within a couple of days even if there was also a sham intervention taking the place of insemination. However, no one has ever done this study. Though I guess you could use results from gamete donors... I'm sorry, I didn't realize that would be so confusing to talk about."

"It's not actually a topic amaliens know much about - we don't reproduce."

"Which is itself very interesting! Where did you come from?"

"We don't know - I think Vira's current theory is that we were engin-eered on purpose."

"And then whoever made you just vanished from the scene? Oh no!" It goes quite unquestioned that someone would reasonably want a bunch of permanent children in the first place, of course.

Lucien has no idea whether someone would want permanent children, or what that has to do with amaliens.

"The same happened to most humanoid species we suspect, just with less ob-vious engineering."

"Which implies what about our apparent evolutionary history?"

"Vira has some theory about how there's subtle guidance somehow towards similar humanoid body plans - regardless of whether convergent evolution would make sense. You can ask her about it if you're curious."

"I am, though I don't have much specialist understanding of archaeology," Katme says.

"I believe she's in her work room, figuring out how to terraform Katme. I think she would be happy if you to visited."

"Mr. Achan, could I have a private word?"

"Of course," says Spree, getting up.

"We have advanced medical tech-nology, and if you'd like help with your leg our doctors could prolly fix it easy."

"Oh! That would be amazing. The cartilege is getting a bit worn out in that knee, I'm thirty-eight."

"Of course,  Noofy here can show you the way."

Noofy is a bouncing excited looking amalien girl, with frizzy hair that goes in all sorts of inventive directions. 

"Thank you, Noofy." Follow follow.

Noofy stops outside the med bay.

"Okay this is the med bay. Um. I'm a bit nervous 'round the doctor, will you be okay on your own?"

Prolly she shouldn't be asking for that but maybe it's okay with him.

"- why are you nervous around the doctor?"

"She used to be a friend and then she wasn't cause she became all robot-y so we could talk to some scary people but now she acts different and is scary."

"She's still a really good doctor though!"

"...okay." Spree will go in by himself then.

What appears to be the corpse of a girl, with cyborg augmentations surgically grafted on to it, is standing completely still on one side of the room when Spree enters. After a moment, it turns to look at him and speaks, in a badly synthesized voice.

"Tʜɪs ᴜɴɪᴛ ɪs ᴅᴇsɪɢɴᴀᴛᴇᴅ Xᴇᴇʟɪᴀ, ᴄʜɪᴇғ ᴍᴇᴅɪᴄᴀʟ ᴏғғɪᴄᴇʀ ᴏғ Sᴛᴀʀsʜɪᴘ Kᴇᴇᴛɪᴍ. Yᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ sᴛᴀᴛᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴍᴇᴅɪᴄᴀʟ ᴍᴀʟғᴜɴᴄᴛɪᴏɴ."

AUGH okay no he is going to hobble right out there and NOT state his medical malfunction.