House of Steel by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novela, Ciencia ficción
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 2013-05-07T04:00:00+00:00

Nonhuman Sentient Species

The Star Empire of Manticore counts among its inhabitants two of the twenty-seven sentient nonhuman species discovered to date: the Sphinxian treecats and the Medusans. Like the Barthoni, treecats are one of the few nonhuman species to have established a multiple planetary presence, with small colonies on Grayson and Gryphon in addition to their native Sphinx. The Medusans remain limited to their planet of origin in the Basilisk system.

As a result of treecat-human bondings and the presence of treecats in the courts of several generations of Manticoran monarchs, the Sphinxian treecats now enjoy legal status as citizens of the Star Kingdom and the acceptance of most of her Majesty’s subjects. However, they enjoy that citizenship only in the status of minor children, and until they began to communicate directly with humans through sign language, even many Manticorans dismissed them as intelligent animals rather than a true sentient species.

The Medusans, on the other hand, have had less exposure to the other members of the Star Empire and have, at times, found themselves the subject of uneasiness and ambivalence.

Treecats

Treecats are the native sentient species of Sphinx. As such, they are considered citizens of the Star Empire, albeit with protected status.

PHYSIOLOGY

Treecats are hexapedal like all of Sphinx’s indigenous mammals. ’Cats are built long and lean, somewhat along the lines of a Terran ferret or weasel crossed with a lemur monkey. They average about sixty centimeters in body length or about one hundred thirty centimeters overall, including their tails. Their foremost limbs end in well-developed “true-hands,” each with three fingers and a single opposable thumb. Their mid-limbs end in similar “hand-feet” that are considerably stronger but less agile, and their rearmost limbs end in “true-feet” that have toes, rather than fingers. All digits are tipped with retractable claws, approximately one centimeter in length. These claws are scimitar-shaped and formed of extremely dense, hard material, resembling terrestrial sharks’ teeth much more than they do the claws of terrestrial cats. The back edge of each claw is extremely sharp, which turns them into quite lethal weapons. It is uncommon for a ’cat to shed a claw, but it can happen. When it does a new claw grows to replace it.

Treecats are covered in thick, fluffy coats that grow in three separate layers. The two outer layers are subject to seasonal variations in length and thickness, with a shedding process governed by a temperature-sensitive biological mechanism, and a treecat’s full winter coat is almost twice as bulky as its summer coat. The outer surfaces of treecat tails are also very fluffy, but many people do not realize that those tails are actually flat, with a bare, leathery “gripping” surface on the “bottom.” Under normal circumstances, powerful muscles keep the tail curled into a tube, showing only the outer, furry side. The tube relaxes into its flattened state in order to allow the ’cats to attain secure holds on limbs and branches that may be wet or coated in ice.

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