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Homecoming kin had right-of-way. . . in situations of death; of challenge; of disasters.
Given the Hani's clannish nature that makes sense.
Theirs for managing, for using, for finding the location of his distant people before the mahendo’sat or the kif could do so, and making a wedge for Chanur trade.
Vid image filled one screen, Anuurn itself, blue and marbled with cloud. Beautiful. It was always beautiful on approach, never so spectacular as Urtur, but full of life. It conjured blue skies; and grassy plains and broad rivers and vast seas; it conjured colors; and scents; and textures; and a gut feeling which was different than all other words. . . for hani.
The image conjures all the memories, hopes, dream, and fears attached to "Home."
Kifas Llun was there, first wife, standing near him, and there were others of other houses. A Protected house; the Llun could not be challenged, holding too sensitive a post, like other holders of ports and waterways and things all hani used in common, and he had slid past his prime, but he was impressive when he got to his feet, and Pyanfar exchanged her scowl for a respectful nod to him and to Kifas.
A legally protected, and regulated, monopoly under a single clan who, obviously, maintains their protection from challenges by maintaining their neutrality.
Nature. Nature that made males useless, too high-strung to go offworld, to hold any position of responsibility beyond the estates. Nature that robbed them of sense and stability. Or an upbringing that did.
Nature vs. Nurture might have a much different balance for another socially evolving species. Hani males could be much more controlled by their biology than human males are.
Attacking stations was not a thing hani would do; therefore it was not reasonable; therefore there was no contingency.
The hani don't have enough people who know and understan the kifs' ways in positions to make preparations. They failed to know their "enemy."
Hani always went their own way, disdaining Outside concerns, pricklish about admitting they would not be in space at all but for the mahendo’sat explorers who had found them—but that was so. And hani went on doing things the old way, the way that had worked when there were no colonies and no outside trade; when hani were the unchallenged owners of the world and hani instincts were suited to the world they owned.
The hani have fared better than most technologically cultures have when they meet those with superior technology. is Hani perseverance, or Mahendo'sat restraint, or both responsible for that?
Had Goldtooth despised her for her desertion, because being hani she had had no choice but to go, in the face of every reason to the contrary? Shame pricked at her, the suspicion that all hanikind had failed a mahen hope, that hope which had lent those two ships; and that somewhere up above might be the wreckage of her mahen allies and The Pride itself, with a kif waiting to blow this shell of a lander to vapor and junk, along with the hani brain who had just figured out something critical to the species, far too late.
Pyanfar has reasoned that the Hani cannot apply their standards to other cultures. They must accept those cultures' differences and work with them to advance.
There was not, of course, one language, but the Enafy dialect of the Llunuurn valley became standardized as the language of commerce and diplomacy.
The lingua franca.
The mahendo’sat have more than a hundred languages native to Iji. Their own lingua franca is chiso,
They trade. They are aesthetes and enjoy subtle distinctions in taste and sight. They have forty-seven different words, for instance, for white.
