Chanur's Venture (27 page)

Into this situation came the mahendo'sat, who chose for their landing site the

Llunuurn basin, as the most extensive river system on the planet and the area

with the most developed roads and habitations. Because of this selection,

initial contact happened to be with the largest and oldest amphictiony, in the

lordship of na Ijono Llun.

Na Ijono's sister ker Gifhon Llun went out to meet the intruders, since they

were neither hani nor (as Gifhon assumed incorrectly in several cases) male. By

the time she understood what she was dealing with, dealing had begun, trade had

been offered, and the world, without Gifhon's clearly realizing it for some

years, had forever changed.

Other amphictionies felt threatened by this relationship of Enafy province to

the mahendo'sat and the elevation of the Llun clan from supervisors of the dams

of the lower Llunuurn tributaries, to supervisors of a starfaring shuttle-port

and station. The mahendo'sat played one against the other and snared all the

hani leaders into trade.

The hani amphictionies, however, whether or not it accorded with mahen

intentions (and perhaps it was the intent of the mahendo'sat from the start)

began to deal with each other in the concept of a much larger amphictiony, one

with Anuurn itself as the Resource which had to be protected.

So the hem was created, the council of councils, the heart and center of hani

government, microcosm of the world in which alliance, province, clan and

Immunity still played their role -- as, indeed, han has another meaning as a

collective meaning All Hani. Theoretically every hani lord was ceremonially part

of the body: some actually attended and addressed the assembly. The seats, one

to each clan, belonged to the female heads of household, or, in practice, to any

senior female in the vicinity of the several meeting halls, one of which existed

and exists in every province. The han is thus composite, and only infrequently

holds a true general meeting, the location of which is subject to intense

negotiation.

Hani relations with other starfaring folk were not generally positive. The stsho

(qv) were not in accord with the mahendo'sat intervention on Anuurn: their

motives might be judged to be several -- unwillingness to see the mahen sphere

of influence increase; the fact that they and the hani shared a territorial

border; their distrust of all virtually exclusive carnivores based on their

experience with the kif (qv); their fears of instability in the Compact; or

other reasons which like minds might comprehend. The kif understood the arrival

of the hani on the scene as opportunity, in the exercise of which they were

driven back by mahendo'sat and hani combined. The opinion of the compact's other

species was never solicited nor received.

Hani territory included originally Anuurn system. The name of their home star is

Ahr. The planets of Ahr system are, in order: Gohin, a hot and barren world

without atmosphere; Anuurn itself; Tyo, a cold, barren world partially

terraformed for a hani colony; the gas giants Tyar and Tyri; and frozen Anfas.

Gaohn station was built by mahendo'sat in orbit about Anuurn and turned over to

Llun, whose males were the only hani males ever to leave the surface. Kilan

station was built in orbit about Tyo, never particularly prosperous; and Harn

station was built as a shipyard facility.

The Chanur Family

A very old clan of Enafy province, occasionally obscure but more often involved

in the amphictiony of Enafy under a series of ambitious leaders, Chanur sprang

into considerable prominence as one of the first clans to see the benefits of

offworld trade.

Kohan Chanur is current lord: his principle mates are Huran Faha, Akify Llun,

Lilun Sifas. Actual manager of the estate is his aunt Jofan Chanur par Araun.

His sisters are Pyanfar, Rhean and Anfy Chanur, whose mates are of clan Mahn,

Anury, and Quna respectively, and who captain the ships The Pride of Chanur,

Chanur's Fortune and Chanur's Light. His daughters are: Hilfy, by Huran; Nifas,

by Akify, among others; and two sons (exiled).

Araun is a tributary clan, rated as cousins to Chanur; other cousin clans are

Tanan, Khuf, and Pyruun. Jisan Araun par Chanur was mother to Haral and Tirun

through an obscure tributary clan lord from remote Llunuurny, long since

defeated and replaced by a male Haral and Tirun declined to support, leaving him

to his numerous if unambitious sisters. Nifany Pyruun, Jofan Chanur's blood

cousin, is birth-mother to Chur and Geran and a son in exile. She is

administrator of Chanur offices in the port authority. 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 mahen-do'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.

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. 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 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.