Wyst: Alastor 1716 (31 page)

[1]
  The colors served as a code to local conditions. By adjusting a switch, the
Connatic might select any of several categories of reference. With the switch in its ordinary position, at
General,
the Connatic at a glance could gauge the circumstances in aggregate of three trillion people. When the Connate touched one of the lights, its name and number appeared on a pane. If
he should increase the pressure, information cards detailing recent and significant local events dropped into a slot. Should he speak a number, the world so designated showed a brief burst of white light and again the cards were produced.

[2]
  Shunk: monstrous creatures indigenous to the Pombal swamps, notably
cantankerous and unpredictably vicious. They refuse to thrive on Zumer, though
the Zur are considered the most adept riders. At the Arrabin stadia spectacles
involving shunk are, along with the variety of hussade, the most, popular of entertainments.

[3]
  See Glossary #1.

[4]
  Cursar: the Connatic’s local representative, usually based in an enclave known
as “Alastor Centrality.”

[5]
  From the Gaean
condaptriol: the
science of information management,
which includes the more restricted field of cybernetics.

[6]
  Zeck is a world of a hundred thousand islands scattered across a hundred seas,
inlets and channels; the single continent is mottled with lakes and waterways.
Many families live aboard houseboats, and often own a sea-sailer as well.
Mooring posts are ornate constructions, symbolic of status, profession, or special
interests.

[7]
  For the folk of Alastor Cluster, the stars are near and familiar, and “astronomy”
(star-naming) is taught to all children. A knowledgeable person can name a
thousand stars or more, with as many apposite anecdotes. Such star-namers in
the olden times commanded great fame and prestige.

[8]
  It is no doubt unnecessary to point out that constellations as seen from one
world of the Cluster differ from those of every other; accordingly, each, world
uses its local nomenclature. On the other hand, certain structural features of
the Cluster—for instance, the Flamifer, the Crystal Eel, Koon’s Hole, the
Ooodby Place—are terms in the common usage.

[9]
  See Glossary, No. 2.

[10]
Ozols: a monetary unit roughly equivalent to the Gaean SVU: the value of an
adult’s unskilled labor under standard conditions for the duration of an hour.

[11]
The illicit Arrabin intoxicant: a heavy beer prepared from salvaged gruff,
industrial glucose and sometimes tar-pods from’ the roof garden.

[12]
Mutuality: the Arrabin code of conduct, with force deriving not from abstraction,
or tradition, but from mutuality of interest

[13]
Reference to a peculiar vice associated with food, encountered almost exclusively
on Wyst.

[14]
An almost fabulous starmenter, guilty of the most atrocious ravages. See
Glossary #3.

[15]
Jantiff
would later learn that many folk furnished their apartments in unique, or even
bizarre, styles, scrounging and pilfering materials over a period of years, and
spending immense effort to achieve some special effect. Such apartments were
generally considered unegalistic, and those who lived there often incurred derision.

[16]
Hussade: See Glossary, #4.

[17]
An arbitrary rendering of a word in the Arrabin dialect, expressing the quality
of leisurely, luxurious and well-arranged existence.

[18]
A more or less accurate paraphrase. The Arrabin dialect avoids distinction of
gender. Masculine and feminine pronouns are suppressed in favor of the neutral
pronoun. “Parent” replaces “mother” and “father”; “sibling” serves for both
“brother” and “sister!’ When distinction!’ must be made, as in the
conversation transcribed above, colloquialisms are used, almost brutally
offensive in literal translation, reference being made to the genital organs.

[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.