inherited from our criminal ancestors can be shrugged off at last. The folk of the Slope aren’t trespassers — or sooners — anymore.
Jijo is theirs, to care for and defend as best they can.
I have faith they’ll come out all right. With a little help from Ifni’s dice.
Speaking of strange colonists, I’m now being nagged by a little otterlike creature who wants yet another favor.
Ever since admitting he could talk, Mudfoot has been a real chatterbox, constantly demanding to know if Tymbrimi ships have come to Hurmuphta Port, or if any vessels are bound for the war front in Galaxy Two. Mudfoot’s impatience is characteristic. Though he calls himself a tytlal, he’ll always be a noor to me. I prove it by puffing my throat sac and humming a favorite umble. He joins my pet Huphu on my shoulder, and soon they’re wrapped up together, dumb to the outside world.
“He will never leave,” Dor-hinuf predicts. Indeed, Mudfoot seems to enjoy his daytime job on the yacht, scrambling among the sails and spars, chewing sourballs and muttering caustic remarks about the landlubber passengers.
Yet, I’m not so sure. A flame burns inside the small creature, like a human with a cause, or an urs with a gadget she wants to try. Mudfoot will never rest till he’s taken care of unfinished business.
Knowing what I do about tytlal, it probably has to do with a joke. Something long range and desperately funny … unless you happen to be on the receiving end, that is.
Someday, I figure we’ll wake up and find him gone — with all our lanyards tied in knots as his way of saying a fond good-bye.
Mudfoot is reading over my shoulder as I write this, panting and grinning enigmatically, enjoying my speculations without offering a clue.
Enough. Come on, you little rascal. There are customers waiting. The breeze is fine, and companies of clouds march in neat rows past a silver horizon.
Let’s go give some stuffy old hoons the thrill of their lives.
Glossary of Species and Terms
Cast of Sapient Species
g’Keks — the first sooner race to arrive on Jijo, some two thousand years ago. Originally uplifted by the Drooli, the g’Kek have biomagnetically driven wheels and four eyestalks rising from a combined torso-braincase. Due to vendettas by enemies, the g’Kek are extinct throughout the Five Galaxies, except on Jijo.
glavers — the third sooner race to reach Jijo. Uplifted by the Tunuctyur, who were themselves uplifted by the Buyur. Glavers are partly bipedal with opalescent skin and large, bulging eyes. Roughly a meter tall, they have a prehensile forked tail to assist their inefficient hands. Since illegally settling Jijo they devolved to a state of presapience, dropping out of the Commons of Six Races. To some, glavers seem to be shining examples, having shown the way down the Path of Redemption.
hoons — the fifth wave of settlers to arrive on Jijo, bipedal omnivores, with pale scaly skin and woolly white leg fur. Their spines are massive, hollow structures that form part of their circulatory system. Hoons’ inflatable throat sacs, originally for mating displays, are now used for “umbling.” Since their Uplift by the Guthatsa, this race have found widespread service as dour, officious bureaucrats in Galactic culture.
humans — the youngest sooner race arrived on Jijo less than three hundred years ago. Human “wolflings” evolved on Earth, apparently achieving technological civilization and crude interstellar travel on their own, or else assisted by some unknown patron. Passionate debates rage over this issue.
Jophur — semicommunal organisms resembling cones of stacked donuts. Like their traeki cousins, Jophur consist of interchangeable spongy “sap-rings,” each with limited intelligence, but combining to form a sapient community being. Specialized rings give the stack its senses, manipulative organs, and sometimes exotic chemosynthetic abilities. As traeki, this unique species was originally gentle and unaspiring when first uplifted by the Poa. The zealous Oalie later reinvented them by providing “master rings,” transforming the traeki into Jophur, willful and profoundly ambitious beings.
qheuens — the fourth sooner race on Jijo. Originally uplifted by the Zhosh, qheuens are radially symmetric exoskeletal beings with five legs and claws. Their brain is partly contained in a retractable central dome or “cupola.” A rebel band of qheuens settled Jijo attempting to hold on to their ancient caste system, with the gray variety providing royal matriarchs while red and blue types were servants and artisans. Conditions on Jijo — including later human intervention — provoked the breakdown of this system.
Rothen — a mysterious Galactic race. One human group (the dakkins or Daniks) believe the Rothen to be Earth’s lost patrons. Rothen are bipeds, somewhat larger than humans but with similar proportions and charismatic features. Believed to be carnivores.
traeki — second illicit settler race to arrive on Jijo. Traeki are a throwback variant of Jophur, who fled the imposition of master rings.
urs — the sixth sooner race on Jijo. Carnivorous, centauroid plains dwellers; they have long, flexible necks, narrow heads, and shoulderless arms ending in dexterous hands. Urs start life as tiny, six-limbed grubs, turned out of their mothers’ pouches to fend for themselves. Any that survive to “childhood” may be accepted into an urrish band. Urrish females reach the size of a large deer, and possess twin brood pouches where they keep diminutive mates, who are smaller than a house cat. A female with prelarval young ejects one or both husbands to make room for the brood. Urs have an aversion to water in its pure form.
Glossary of Terms
allaphor — the metaphorical interpretation made by sentient minds of certain features in E-Level hyperspace.
Anglic — a human language created in the Twenty-First century, using many English words, but influenced by other pre-Contact tongues and modified according to new understandings of linguistic theory.
Buyur — former legal tenants of Jijo, froglike appearance, known for wit, foresight, and gene-crafting of specialized animal-tools. Departed when Jijo was declared fallow half a million years ago.
client — a race still working out a period of servitude to the patrons that uplifted it from presapient animal status.
criswell structures — fractal shells designed to surround small red suns, utilizing all light energy. The fractal shape allows maximum possible “window area,” unlike a simple Dyson sphere.
Daniks — a vulgarized term for “Danikenite,” a cultural movement dating from humanity’s first contact with Galactic Civilization. Daniks believe Earthlings were uplifted by a Galactic patron race that chose to remain hidden for unknown reasons. An offshoot cult believes Rothen are this race of wise, enigmatic guides.
