Aerie:
the furthest colony planet from Sol;
dim sun;
summer light like autumn on Earth;
twenty six hour day;
mountainous glaciers to north and south;
cold clashing seas;
one tropical continent colonized;
beautiful rings, the remnants of a moon;
one temperate zone;
herds and crops;
quakes, storms and metal-gnawing mites;
Terrestrial grass sown;
imported birds flourishing;
a local animal called a "scuttermouse";
houses and shops of the Magistrate's retainers;
murky native forest, rarely visited;
castle with homes, worksteads, chapels, stadium, laboratories and a museum;
government mostly by town meetings;
the Magistrate has a militia and a court;
visiting Kith range in their flitters.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think you meant "herds and CROPS," not "cops."
And the socio/political set up on Aerie is a mild kind of feudalism. But that will have to change to a more complex system if the population of Aerie grows much more.
And I wonder what kind of religion the people of Aerie believes in. Mention of those chapels makes me think of speculative possibilities.
Sean
Sean:
SOMEBODY's got to prevent thieves from taking the herds. No, I'm joking; I agree with you on the typo.
Kaor, DAVID!
Ha, ha!!! Actually, I'm sure guarding against crime was one of the duties of the Magistrate's militia. And his court would judge cases thought too serious to be heard by the local town meetings. Or appeals from them.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
My copy of MAURAI & KITH was pub. in 1982 and reprinted with the same contents in 1992. But, it does not contain "The Tale Of The Cat," first pub. by ANALOG in February 1988, ten years before STARFARERS was itself published. I've been wondering why my 1992 reprint did not include that third Kith short story. It would have made sense to make the collection more complete by including "Tale". After all, it belongs to the same Kith "future history"!
I've recently reread only "Ghetto" (and its revision in STARFARERS), But, chronologically, I think "The Tale Of The Cat" belongs between "Ghetto" and "The Horn Of Time."
Sean
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