by Jack Vance
[19] A pallid rendering of the Arrabin term which translates into something like: “confrontations of fateful glory.”
[20] Shredded seaweed, wound around a twig and fried in hot oil.
[21] In the Alastrid myths karkoons are a tribe of quasi-demonic beings, characterized by hatred of mankind and insatiable lust.
[22] Among the Arrabins paternity is always in doubt, but even when an acknowledged fact, incurs no burden of obligation.
[23] A hairless rodent, long and slender, capable of producing a variety’ of odors at will.
[24] * Bombah: Arrabin slang for a wealthy off-worlder: by extension a tourist.
Loud Bombah: an important and powerful off-worlder.
Loudest Bombah: the Connatic.
[25] Monkey-pole: the Pedestal overlooking the Field of Voices.
[26] Untranslatable.
[27] Offensive epithet signifying bedragglement, offensive odor and vulgarity of manner.
[28] Subservience: In the Arrabin world view, the contractors, their technicians and mechanics area caste of interplanetary riffraff, quite outside all considerations of egotistic dignity. The Arrabins like to think of the contractors as servile work, masters, eager to oblige the noble egalists and at all times conscious of their inferior status. Hence the word “subservience” often appears in conversations concerning the contractors.
[29] Omnibus.
[30] Mutuality: a contract police force of non-Arrabins, inconspicuous, small in number, efficient in practice, directed and controlled by the local Panel of Delegates.
[31] See Glossary, #5.
[32] The Primarchic is an aggregation of stars somewhat lesser than Alastor Cluster, at one time controlled by the Primarch, now in a chronic state of disorder, factionalism and war.
An important function of the Connatic’s Whelm is protection against raids from the Primarchic.
[33] Swarkop’s reference to Giampara is facetious. Were he in earnest he would no doubt have invoked Core of the Four Bosoms, who controls his home world Kandaspe. Jantiff perceives this nuance of usage but is not altogether reassured.
[34] Inexact translation. Uslak is “devil’s dross”; the adjective uslakain means unholy, unclean, profane, repulsive.
[35] A complicated game of assault and defense, played on a board three feet square, with pieces representing fortresses, estaphracta and lancets
[36] Percebs: a small mollusk growing upon sub-surface rocks along the shores of the Moaning Ocean. The percebs must be gathered, husked, cleaned, fried in nut oil with aiole, whereupon they become a famous local delicacy.
[37] A light weapon used for the control of rodents, the hunting of wild fowl, and like service.
[38] Colloquialism for the Connatic’s head tax.
[39] A coin worth the tenth part of an ozol.
[40] The oath spoken in Biala idiom exerts considerably more impact: Shauk chutt!
[41] In the traditional fables of Zeck, Jilliam is a talkative girl who is captured by a starmenter and almost immediately set free because of her incessant prattle.
[42] From Thaia, one of the twenty-three goddesses.
[43] From naae: a set of aesthetic formulae peculiar to the Space Ages: that critique concerned with the awe, beauty and grandeur associated with space ships. Such terms are largely untranslatable into antecedent languages.
[44] Alastor Cluster is divided into twenty-three realms, each nominally rated by one of the twenty-three mythical goddesses, and the Connatic is formally styled: “Consort to the Twenty-three.” In early times each realm selected a maiden to personify its tutelary goddess, with whom the Connatic, during his ceremonial, visits, was expected to cohabit.
[45] Historians (non-Arrabin) are generally of the opinion that Caradas strangled Disselberg during an ideological dispute.
[46] Weirdlands: those areas of Trembal and Tremora to the north and south of Arrabus, once civilized and cultivated, now wilderness inhabited only by nomads and a few isolated farmers.
