It made her nervous, in a way that camera-view did not, that picked up the wider
vanes, the rakish lines of the vane-columns. That was plain to inspection. The
heart and core of it was not, that added some twenty percent to their unladed
mass and threw varied percentages into the figures of moving that mass. Old
familiar reckonings went by the board. They had to lean on comp entirely, trust
it without the dead-reckoning knowledge what the answers ought to be, when it
told them The Pride could make a jump that she could never in a mahen hell have
survived half a week before.
“We go with it,” she said.
Continued in
THE KIF STRIKE BACK
Appendix Species of the Compact
The Compact
The Compact is a loose affiliation of all trading species of a small region of
stars who have agreed by treaty to observe certain borders, trade restrictions,
tariffs, and navigational procedures. It is an association, not a government,
has no officials and maintains no offices, except insofar as all officials of
the various governments are de facto officers of the Compact.
The hani
Native to Anuurn, hani may be among the smaller species of the Compact, but the
size range, particularly among males, is so extreme that individual hani may
overreach and outbulk the average of other, taller species. Their fur is short
over most of their bodies except for manes and beards. It ranges in color from
red gold to dull red brown with blackish edges, and in texture from crimped
waves to curls to coarse straightness.
Hani were a feudal culture divided into provinces and districts a few centuries
previous to the events of The Pride of Chanur. They had well-developed trade and
commerce when they were contacted by the spacefaring mahendo’sat (qv) and flung
from their middle ages, with its flat-earth concept and territoriality, into
interstellar trade.
The way of life previous to that age had been this: that individual males carved
out a territory by challenge and maintained it with the aid of their sisters,
currently resident wives, and female relatives of all sorts, so long as the male
in question remained strong enough to fend off other challengers. Actual running
of the territory rested with a lord’s sisters and other female relatives, at
least a few of whom, if he was fortunate, would prove skillful traders, and
whose marriages with outclan males would form profitable links with the females
of other clans. Such males as lived to become clan lords were sheltered and
pampered, kept in fighting trim at the urging of their female relatives, and
generally took no part whatsoever in interclan dealings or in mercantile
decisions, which were considered too exacting and stressful for males to cope
with. The male image in most households was that of a cheerful, unworldly fellow
mostly involved in games and hunts, and existing primarily for the siring of
children and, in time of challenge, idolized for those natural gifts of
irrational temper and berserker rage which would greet the sight of another
male. The females stood between him and all other vicissitudes of life. Much of
hani legendry and literature, of which they are fond, involves the tragic
brevity of males; or the cleverness of females; or the treks and voyages of
ambitious females out to carve out territory for some unlanded brother to
defend.
Under the management of certain great females, vast estates grew up. Certain
estates contained crucial trade routes, shrines, mountain passes, dams — things
which were generally the focus of ambition. Certain clans formed amphictionies,
associations of mutual interest to assure the access of all members to areas of
regional importance, which was usually done by declaring the area in question
protected. Out of such protected zones grew the concept of the Immune Clan; that
is, a clan whose hold over a particular resource must not change, because of the
need of the surrounding clans to have that resource managed over the long term
by a clan with experience and peculiar skill: such clans devoted themselves to
public service and dressed distinctively. Immune males enjoyed great ceremonial
prestige and were generally cloistered and pampered, while the sons of Immune