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Kohan's most recent defense of Chanur was against Kara Mahn, son of Pyanfar Chanur and Khym Mahn. Mahn, a nonspacing clan in the Kahin Hills nearby, remains an uneasy neighbor with Kara in Khym's stead, and his full sister Tahy at the head of Mahn's financial interests.
Hani language and religion
There was not, of course, one language, but the Enafy dialect of the Llunuurn valley became standardized as the language of commerce and diplomacy. With considerable resistance it was adopted as the language of the han and is the only language heard offplanet.
The language was the vehicle of the spread of Llunuurn culture planetwide and carries it into space.
Terms of respect are: ker, title of a high clan woman; na title of a clan lord; par maternal daughter of a clan. Nef is the title of an ex-lord, who is no longer entitled to be called by the name of his clan.
Hani terms of disrespect involve uncleanness; age (eggsucker implies one too old to hunt moving game); disavowal by clan (bastard is an inaccurate translation, since legitimacy cannot be at issue in a matrilineal descent); the deities; the condition of the ears, which tell a great deal about one's efficiency in self-defense. More peculiar is the use of feathered, an impious reference to a hani religious debate; and son, as in gods give you sons; since male offspring do no work and are exiled at puberty to return and attempt to take over the estate in their prime, a house with many sons is in constant turmoil.
The Mahendo'sat
Among the tallest species of the Compact, tending to ranginess and length of limb, the mahendo'sat have fur ranging from sleek sheened black to curly brown, with all gradations in between. Their claws do not retract, and are more a tool of utility than a weapon. They are omnivores, native to Iji, from which they control a considerable territory. Their neighbors on the one side are the hani, on the other the kif, with whom they share some territory in dispute.
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The mahendo'sat have more than a hundred languages native to Iji. Their own lingua franca is chiso, which not all mahendo'sat speak; and very many mahendo'sat have never succeeded in learning even the simplified pidgin that they popularized during the hani contact. Ironically, this species which pursues both art and science for its own sake and which is continually engaged in research of all kinds, cannot translate either into or out of its own set of languages with any degree of accuracy, which some might suspect indicates more than apparent idiosyncrasies in psychology as well as physiology.
The fact that the pidgin is mostly hani rests on several facts, most of them having to do with the mahendo'sat's inability to translate their own tongue.
First, mahendo'sat and stsho were already in communication with great difficulty through a bastard tongue involving kif, who spoke stsho.
Second, when hani came into the picture, hani proved able to learn kifish and stsho and with their long experience as traders, evolved a pidgin hani that blended with the current pidgin and virtually supplanted it. This proved something even mahendo'sat could handle, and which kif had less trouble with than they did with stsho. So the mahendo'sat took to it with relief.
As for the inner workings of the mahen culture, even the species name exists in some uncertainty. Mahe is generally singular, sometimes plural; and mahendo'sat actually seems to stand for the species collective mentality, or the species as an entity, or for some concept which refuses translation as nation or species. The term han in its application as the collective of the hani species is clearly a reflection of mahen influence in the formative phase of hani world government.
Mahendo'sat are often collectors, which they have in common with stsho; but mahendo'sat are most interested in natural objects and make elaborate gardens, an art which they taught to the hani, whose gardens nevertheless maintain a hani-like plainness and agricultural practicality. Mahendo'sat on the other hand are devoted to design and derive philosophical meaning from the growth patterns of their carefully tended trees. Mahendo'sat also keep pets, a trait they share with stsho and perhaps tc'a (qv) but mahendo'sat are likely to keep difficult ones and to lavish care on exotics.
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The history of the mahen species is one of pocket kingdoms, continual religious ferment, mysticism, leaders with self-claimed credentials rising to some purpose and vanishing in what may have been a tradition of such vanishments. They are greatly concerned with abstracts and courtesies, symbol and hidden meaning.
Modern and ancient mahen authority rests on Person, involving dignity and charismatic appeal, and interlinking Personages in an elaborate chain of command in which one appoints the next, but in which a higher Personage may be brought down by the malfeasance or error of an appointee. Mahendo'sat set great store by this indefinable quality and esteem it where found, to such an extent that they likewise choose to honor or ignore members of other species with complete disregard of those species' own concepts of authority. Personages are of either of the species' two genders, usually of mature years. Personages come in many ranks and levels of authority, but all are attended by a Voice, a person usually of the opposite gender whose apparently self-appointed task it is to represent the Personage and to utter unpleasantness which the Personage is too serene to deal with.
The mahen social unit is complex, revolving around personage: mating is at apparent random, but Person has a great deal to do with it. Young are traded about with apparent abandon, but this also has to do with the bonds of Person, and the desire to expose the young to good influence or superior instruction.
The mahen government currently rests with a Personage at Iji whose serenity is untroubled; but in the fashion of mahendo'sat, this and the entire form of government are subject to change without notice.
The Stsho
The stsho, native to remote Llyene, are a pale, hairless species, trisexual hermaphrodites, one of each triad bearing young: but that same individual may exist within another triad as a non-bearer. Stsho refuse to explain.
They are omnivores of great sensitivity and fragility. Their limbs break easily. Their very personalities fragment under stress, which seems to serve as a social absolution. It is very impolite to recognize a stsho who 230
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has changed persona, or as stsho call it, Phased. An individual seems to go through many Phases in life.
They trade. They are aesthetes and enjoy subtle distinctions in taste and sight. They have forty-seven different words, for instance, for white.
Like hani, they prefer bowl-structures for chairs and beds. Their elaborate architecture is apparently random and universally pastel in color.
They are the only natives of Compact space who need drugs to survive jump.
They permit no intrusion of oxygen-breathing species within their territory, but they are utterly incapable of enforcing this except through their relationship with the unpredictable methane-breathers who divide them from kif territory. They share one border with the hani; methane-breathers come and go within their space; and to their considerable distress they have discovered humans are at their backs, on the side of stsho space nearest Llyene, which is a mysterious and forbidden world.
They were among the first spacefarers in the region, anomalous, because their primary policy seems to be to acquire the widest possible area about their homeworld from which strangers are excluded. Certainly they did not seem to go to the stars to make contact with outsiders. Or perhaps some experience lies in their past which has made them what they are. Stsho allow no real information about stsho to leak out of their space, which greatly vexes the curious mahendo'sat.
Legendarily Llyene is a treasure world of fantastical wealth. It is certain that stsho trade is lucrative in all directions, and that they are the source of a great deal of technology that the mahendo'sat turn to various purposes.
The Kif
Kif are tallest of the species of the Compact, very lean and having virtually no b
ody fat. They are mostly hairless, except for a close-growing strip down the midline of their elongated, long-snouted skulls— which is seldom visible, as kif go robed and hooded and seldom bare their heads.
The skin is gray and soft, if very tough and much wrinkled, and hot to the touch of hani or mahendo'sat. They are agile and strong; their claws are 231
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retractable and very sharp. Their eyes are usually red-rimmed: they prefer very dim light. What their genders are is a matter of guesswork. They may have two, but outsiders often use it of a kif in complete uncertainty, and he by convention which the mahendo'sat began: kif use he and occasionally she of themselves, but whether this precisely reflects a mahen/hani style gender distinction or something more like the stsho is still uncertain. Kif give few clues to aid the guesswork.
Kif got into space independently, through an arms race, and acquired starflight through contact with tc'a, whose wisdom in this other species question.
Kif are totally carnivorous, incapable of swallowing anything very large.
Two independent sets of jaws exist within the snout, one to bite, another to reduce the intake to pulp and fluids. They prefer live food, and actually have rather delicate appetites: they are repulsed by carrion and could not easily handle cooked meat.
Color does not play a part in their decor, which is generally utilitarian and often black and gray. The light in their dwellings is quite dim. They have keen night vision, and indeed much of their homeworld dwelling is underground, though some mahen scientists have disputed on the basis of the kifish eye (smaller than the eyes of other nocturnals on other worlds) whether the species did not in fact originate as a diurnal hunter and change its lifestyle in the remote past. As kif do not share data with mahendo'sat, and stsho and hani have no interest in the question, it goes unanswered.
Curiously kif do practice art, which seems confined to objects of ordinary use, weapons, cups, boxes and containers, which are embellished in tactile patterns. They place little value on mass-produced goods and great value on objects they believe to be unique, or on consumables such as rare and endangered species or uncommon liquors. They do appreciate intoxicants of various kinds but are the most moderate of known species in their consumption: individual kif who have become intoxicated have been killed outright by their companions.
Kif are facile linguists, great mimics, and in particular speak fluent hani, as well as their own several languages. Their homestar is Akkt, their homeworld Akkht, which outsiders often confuse, and reputedly both mean home or homebase, since home as understood by kif has the 232
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connotation of a place to which one repairs to gather one's forces for the next season. When they discovered outsiders, the shock and subsequent period of organization enabled a few leaders to seize power on Akkht, and eventually let the spacefaring kif seize power over Akkht entirely.
Kif have historically had little organization, usually engaged with each other in disputes and continual snatching of property from weaker kif.
They have the concept of sfik, or face, in which the stronger will hold to a thing and defy all comers. The more attractive and unique the prize, the greater the sfik. Their interest in art perhaps revolves around this; of particular sfik-value are consumables or perishables which may be destroyed or used at any moment and for calculated purpose to frustrate the enemy. Taking such a thing is difficult and of great value, and there are also legendary destructions of great and valued objects.
Along with sfik there is also pukkukkta, which has no true translation except as a devastating blow to a rival.
Usually the kif operate as individuals or as crews, in which one kif is supreme, and weaker kif, if not protected from this one, are at least protected from other kif.
Sometimes a kif rises to a position of supremacy in which others fear to challenge him and in which he gathers great fear and support from those about him. Such a kif is a hakkikt, which kif say means prince. A hakkikt's existence usually means a period in which outsiders will have trouble with kif. There is a growing expectation among kif that a hakkikt will arise to unite all kifish worlds into a power the rest of the Compact cannot withstand.
Tc'a
Tc'a are serpentine beings, leathery gold, methane-breathers, native to'
Oh'a'o'o'o. They have a multipartite brain that thinks in matrices and communicates in harmonics. The mouthparts are toolusing. They can bulk a dozen times the weight of a mahendo'sat and bear several young at once, without apparent attention to the process, which has happened in the middle of conversations. They do trade, and mine, and what they think 233
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remains tc'a business. They usually run the methane side of stations in the Compact, since so far as anyone knows they are the only methane-breathers interested in doing so. They are associated with chi and knnn (qqv), and while a great deal is known about tc'a comings and goings and while they take no aggressive action against any species, virtually nothing is known about the tc'a mind or the history of the species, except that they were in contact with the chi before they met the stsho, and were extremely early spacefarers.
Chi
Chi are neon yellow sticklike beings who (which?) move with great rapidity and often seem to be in total panic. "Crazy as a chi" is a hani proverb widely understood.
It is uncertain whether chi are associates of the tc'a or pets. Chi can run ships but are erratic navigators and it is virtually certain they did not invent their own technology. Tc'a are not found without chi, though occasionally chi may nest in communities into which tc'a do not appear to go.
Natives of Chchchoh, chi regularly accompany tc'a into the most hazardous mining areas. No oxygen-breather has ever reported visiting Chchchoh. Tc'a will not permit it, for what reason is unclear. It is known that chi reproduce by growing a second brain at some point midway along their bodies. Additional leg segments follow; then fission, and the newborn chi races off independently. Gender with a chi is therefore of questionable application. Activities have been observed which may be mating, but this is uncertain.
Knnn
No one knows the name of the knnn homeworld. No one knows if their ships have names— except perhaps the tc'a or the chi, who do not say. No oxygen-breather is even sure which star they come from, except that it is on the underbelly of the Compact, and suspicion centers around one star known to be a hub of knnn activity.
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Knnn look like black nests of hair-snarl with spider legs. Packrats of the galaxy, they breathe methane and sing long involved songs over ships'
radio. They are (perhaps) miners and (one supposes) traders, but their idea of trade (as best the tc'a could communicate with them) is to dash onto station or ship, and exchange what they've brought for what they want or what they take a fancy to. In the bad old days, knnn simply gutted ships.
They go in swarms or solitary, and their ships are the only ships known to change vector in jumpspace. They have a jump boost and turn maneuver that is impossible for oxygen-breathers. They are not popular. One can only talk to them through the tc'a, who can get a kind of general translation— if you can understand the tc'a's seven-part matrix-sentences.
Knnn ships observe no lane regulations or instructions, and no one is about to challenge them on the point. It is suspected in some quarters that the knnn may have been the origin of much of the technology of the Compact. No one except the stsho knows whether the stsho actually devised their own technology, and perhaps stsho in general do not know: certainly they do not comment on it.
Knnn were unknown at Anuurn until Pyanfar Chanur brought them there.
Her people are not grateful.
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