On Altai, the Mangu Tuman tribe have kibitka, large trucks with solar-energy collectors charging accumulator banks on their roofs. The library kibitka carries thousands of microprinted volumes. Other trucks, sometimes including trains of them, carry arsenals, sickbay, machine tools and textile and ceramic factories. The poorest families each live in a single yurt on a motor cart. There are missiles on flatbed trucks, light tanks and negagav aircraft hovering overhead. The tribe is a military and socioeconomic unit. Everyone works and fights and wealth is shared not equally but more so than on Terra. Their flocks are bio-engineered ostriches and cow-sized descendants of rabbits. The grazing lands include mines where, on their annual round, the tribe digs and smelts. They plant and reap grain, tap and refine oil and trade for what they cannot produce. There are feasts, games, sports and a triennial great fair at Kieva Hill.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I recall how Flandry, in one of his Bertie Woosterish moments, thinking the way the people of the Tebtengri Shamanate lived too austerely "virtuous" for his taste! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It was because Flandry said that that his informant added "feasts, games..." etc.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
True, but careful, recall that official banquet Oleg Khan gave for Flandry. Its description amused me because not a word was said by the guests and ended with Flandry grumbling about how everyone had a riotous time!
Ad astra! Sean
Altai is a fairly grim place; it's only habitable to a substantial degree because the 'nomads' use a fairly advanced technology.
You couldn't have -actual- Mongol nomads on Altai.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And you reminded me of what Oleg Khan himself said, that Altai had been settled only because the first colonists had been too weak to find or grab a better planet some 700 years before.
Ad astra! Sean
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