"I couldn't see why, if people were hungry, some of them didn't volunteer to be butchered so that the rest could eat... on Mars this is obvious - and an honor.  I couldn't understand why babies were so prized.  On Mars our two little girls in there would simply be dumped outdoors, to live or to die - and on Mars nine out of ten nymphs die their first season.  My logic was right but I had misread the data: here babies do not compete but adults do; on Mars adults don't compete at all, they've been weeded out as babies.  But one way or another, competing and weeding has to take place... or a race goes down hill.