Kainudy stretches out on the top floor of the Skygazer tower, soaking up a bit of sun. There's not much else for her to do..
Copernicus has been gone the past day or two, spending time either with the council or with his pregnant mate. Due to the slow rebuilding of trade for the Chirr'T'Thar, many more than normal are presently on or near the planet Tharhome. A adult female felitaur with the Skygazer fur pattern lands on the roof next to Kainudy.
Kainudy opens one eye. "Oh, hello Andromeda."
Andromeda grins at the lounge lizard and purrs, "Hello Kainudy. Coper told me all about your coming to visit. Having a good time?"
Kainudy sits up.. "Well, a relaxing one anyway. }:)"
Andromeda strrrrrrrretches and purrs, "Well, there's many ways to relax. And with a lot of bored Chirr'T'Thar around a lot more of that than usual is going on lately. And my brother is acting weird around Melora too. You up for doing something, anything other than just sit around?"
Kainudy smiles, "Sure. I haven't even been out of the building yet since I got here."
Andromeda blinks, "What? I'll have to talk to my brother about that when I see him next. Horrible way to treat a guest. You've at least been sleeping with the family so you've not been all alone?"
Kainudy says, "Well, yeah.."
Kainudy doesn't talk about the solitary tendencies of her breed..
Kainudy says, "So, what do you do for entertainment around here?"
Andromeda grins, "Ah, inanimate entertainment? Well, to each her own I guess. We have gaming rooms, places to dance, play space tag, we even have places to sing, though no other race has ever really enjoyed that for some reason. We have a few museums, hunting parks. If you were interested in doing someone instead of something you could volunteer at the male training center. ;)"
Kainudy blinks.. "Copernicus never cared much for my lessons, even if they did him good in the long run. What sort of museums are there?"
Andromeda purrs, "We have museums on the history of our race. Also some on various art forms around the galaxy...er, the old galaxy anyhow. He never liked your lessons? I thought he said you and he never mated?""
Kainudy hmms. "Our relationship transcended physical intimacy. We only argued as if we were mated."
Andromeda's nose wrinkles and her ears flick, but despite her best efforts, she still breaks out laughing.
Kainudy smirks.
Kainudy says, "I'd love to see a museum of Chirr'T'Thar historical artifacts."
Andromeda purrs, "I'll bet. I know my brother very well, and from what I've heard about you and seen of you, I know what you mean. Sure, our history is rather spotty in places. You can fly, right?""
Kainudy shakes out her wings, "I think so. }:)"
Andromeda grins and nods, "Let me go in and tell my moms where I'm going, as they expected me to drop by for a bit. It'll be interesting to see what you think of the museum."
Andromeda jumps down through the open roof and disappears for a few moments.
Kainudy does a few stretching exercises while she waits.
Andromeda leaps back up next to Kai and offers her some more iced milk, "A quick drink before we head off."
Kainudy has gotten used to the drink by now.. if not where it comes from, exactly. She drinks it down.
Andromeda laps her drink down and purrs, "We can get some snacks at the museum if you wish. Ready?"
Kainudy nods.
Andromeda nods and leaps off the top of the 50 story building, doing a dive before snapping her wings open and looping back up into the air.
Kainudy follows in a less dramatic glide.
Andromeda loops around and pulls close to Kainudy and teases, "Are you really as serious and somber as my brother told me?"
Kainudy hrmphs. "Copernicus probably exaggerated. Besides, I'm on vacation now. }:)"
Andromeda smirks, "Oh, of course. Well, there's the museum. It's rather odd, the main entrance is at ground level."
Kainudy heads down towards it. "Was it built by Chirr'T'Thar?"
Andromeda nods as she swoops down towards the building, "The reason why is to remind us of a bit of our history."
Kainudy lands before the entrance.
The building itself is pretty typical of those found in the city of Chareka. A short building though, maybe 5 stories. The large entranceway has the slash like script of the Chirr'T'Thar over it, and in trader standard it says, "Chirr'T'Thar Museum of Fel inthroplogy".
Kainudy says, "Do many Chirr'T'Thar go into Felinthropology?"
Only a few felitaurs are around, and most of them apparently work at the museum. Andromeda shrugs, "We all learn the basics, but I think it'd be easier to show you. This place is more for non Chirr'T'Thar, to help them understand us, or at least try. You need to register first though."
Kainudy blinks, "Register? Okay.."
Andromeda nods, "We like to know how many people of other races visit, and see if it's doing any good. Just step over to that square by the wall and place your hand on that plate."
Kainudy does as instructed, pressing her hand to the plate.
A light scans across Kainudy's palm and a voice in trade standard purrs out, "Please state your race, planet of origin and reason for visiting Tharhome."
Kainudy hmms. "Tyrrhyan. Terra. Because it was there."
The voice purrs, "We hope you enjoy your visit to Tharhome, and remember to drop by the gift shop before you leave." Obviously the computer is one of the few humorless things on the planet.
Kainudy takes her hand away from the plate. "Who was I talking to?"
Andromeda snickers, "Oh, just the registration computer. It's only a couple steps up above a recording really. I love your reason, shame it can't appreciate the humor."
Kainudy thinks, . o { What humor? I was serious! } "Okay. I don't have a lot of experience dealing with mechanisms that talk and live in walls."
Andromeda blinks, "Oh, it's not alive. Just a simple machine really. Let's go in, they've got a nice snack bar we can go to after we check out the fifth floor."
Kainudy remembers that the fifth floor would be the ground floor, and follows Andromeda.
Andromeda pads lightly in and grins, "If you'd prefer, I can act as your tour guide rather than have the computers talk to you?"
Kainudy smiles, "I'd appreciate that. I can trust a real brain."
The inside of the museum is intriguing. It's more like a coliseum. The center is totally open, including the roof. Wide walkways with exhibits circle the inside of the building for all five floors. The center has a small pool and what looks like a small forest park. Andromeda pads over to a star chart that gives an overview of the known universe.
Kainudy eyes the chart, tilting her head this way and that to try and peer beyond the edges of the hologram.
Andromeda chuckles, "Later I'll have to ask you what it's like to work with living mechanisms. Well, the start was somewhere on here, about 500,000 years ago, probably a millennia or two more actually. Our parent race was on a planet somewhere, but we've never found it. This galaxy here was home to a race we now only know as the "slavers" as their original names have been deliberately forgotten over the millennia."
Kainudy says, "How do you deliberately forget something? Never mind.. What was your homeworld called?"
Andromeda purrs, "They were a very technologically advanced civilization, supposedly more so than nearly any other now. They were however not fond of doing work themselves, and didn't trust robots overly much. Reasons for that are unknown. Some scholars suggest some sort of revolt. Who knows. Regardless, the slavers were looking for living servants.""
Andromeda purrs, "We don't know what it was called."
Andromeda frowns a bit as she thinks about that.
Andromeda shrugs it off and purrs, "So these slavers went from system to system, adapting various races to work for them as living tools. They eventually came to our home system, wherever that was, or maybe still is, located."
Kainudy says, "Why didn't they just modify themselves?"
Andromeda pads over to the next display, which shows a variety of four and six legged feline forms and purrs, "They felt that their form was made in the image of their creator, and that altering it was some sort of crime. However, other races were not so "honored" by the creator, so that was ok it seems."
Kainudy hmms, and looks at the new display.
Andromeda purrs, "Regardless, the slavers found a very durable feline species. Again, we're not totally sure what we originally looked like. These are some of the possibilities that seem likely. Notice, nothing resembling wings. There were at least two things we know we didn't have when the slavers found us. Wings....and sapience."
Andromeda ears are flicking back and you can tell this "fact" bothers her greatly.
Kainudy says, "Well, wings need to be custom made for larger creatures. The musculature of a standard shoulder just can't beat fast enough.. err.. never mind."
Andromeda rotates around, torso and neck, to look back at Kainudy, "That's right, you..do that kind of "custom" work, don't you?"
Kainudy grins, "My race doesn't have wings. I had to figure out how to grow them myself."
Andromeda's fur settles down as she purrs, "Oh, you altered yourself. Well, anyhow, we weren't sapient yet. A few of the nastier races have said we would have never reached sapience without the slavers. I hope we find our parent race someday and show them to be wrong. The odd thing was that the slavers found something special about our race, as they never made the kind of modifications they did to us to any other race."
Kainudy says, "The vacuum hardening?"
Andromeda nods, "And the wings and muscular system capable of orbital flight. And the feathers and claws too."
Kainudy says, "Quite a lot to pack into a single entity."
Andromeda purrs, "Something about our biology made us good subjects. One data fragment indicated something unusual about our immune system. Thats why our elders have forbade us to ever let other races study our physiology."
Kainudy blinks at that.
Andromeda purrs, "The slavers made us the ultimate space ship tools. We can cut hull metal, grow feathers that can weld and cut and work on delicate material or blast asteroids out of the way. We can only stay in space for two days or so at a time, but we feel happiest when we are in space.""
Kainudy hmms, not really seeing how any of those abilities are useful.. but then, she never spent much time in space.
Andromeda purrs, "They augmented our intelligence, but shaped it to two areas. The first was the principles of engineering, so that we have a natural feel for machines."
Andromeda pads along a series of holodisplays showing the varied ways that Chirr'T'Thar are able to use their bodies as tools to repair and build space craft.
Kainudy wonders how a feel for machines can in any way be natural, but doesn't comment.
Andromeda purrs, "How the tempering began is another odd mystery. Rather than have shuttles land, they'd have their "slaves" fly to the surface of the planet. Somehow, the tradition of having them occasionally plummet to the surface to cull out the weak started. It's one of the more controversial traditions that we still follow."
Kainudy says, "Yes, I remember the problems Copernicus caused when he last did that.."
Andromeda is taken aback, "He did it on an inhabited planet?"
Kainudy says, "It was the only one available }:)"
Kainudy says, "Your entire race could have fallen and probably not hurt anyone though. Very sparse population."
Andromeda sighs, "Whoever thought a runt could cause so much trouble."
Kainudy doesn't comment, wisely.
Andromeda sighs once more and then continues, "Well, there was one other thing the slavers did. It seems they enjoyed entertainments of all sorts, and designed us to keep them company in their private rooms. We have a biological and psychological need for company and physical companionship."
Kainudy hmms, "I wonder if that can be used as a clue to their own physiology.."
Andromeda nods, "That's been suggested too. This display just shows some of our "flexibility" for physical intimacy. We think they may have been bipedal as we seem to have few problems interacting with smaller two legged races."
(Details left out to keep the PG-13 rating ;)
Kainudy says, "They may have had other servitor races that were bipeds though."
Andromeda purrs, "How long we were tools of the slavers, we don't know. But about 500,000 years ago, something truly amazing and wonderful happened that led to their downfall."
Kainudy thinks, o O { Centuries of decadence, no doubt. }
Kainudy says, "The First Mother?"
Andromeda purrs, "They checked each generation for signs of increased intelligence and sapience, to prevent possible problems with free will. However, one female, who was apparently very popular with the slavers, did develop both sapience and free will. And somehow she was able to pass that on to others. Yes, our First Mother. Copernicus has mentioned her?""
Kainudy nods.
Kainudy says, "Especially her haunches."
Kainudy says, "Is she on Tharhome? I'd like to meet her sometime."
Andromeda smirks, "Well, there are other oaths to the First Mother that mention more than her haunches. Here on Tharhome? Her remains are on another planet, one where she had settled down with the last of her 50 mates to establish the last lines of the Chirr'T'Thar. She's been dead for nearly 400,000 years."
Kainudy says, "Oh.. I hadn't realized she was dead. Our First Mother is still alive."
Andromeda pads into the garden and purrs back to Kainudy, "We have statues of her all over the planet. There's a really nice one in the center of this garden."
Kainudy follows along.
Andromeda purrs back, "I didn't realize your race was so young."
Kainudy shakes her head. "She's close to three million years old now. Can be a real pain sometimes."
Andromeda stops and blinks, "3 million? Your race is immortal?"
Kainudy says, "No, just a few of us. Most live to around 500 years."
Andromeda hmms, "That's about what our males average. The ones that live past puberty anyhow. Well, here's my favorite statue of the First Mother."
Kainudy sits down to examine the statue.
A small clearing amongst the trees. Statues of male Chirr'T'Thar, in highly varied poses of exhaustion are scattered within the tall grass. Near the center, a truly impressive looking, and very voluptuous female is curving her head back to nip at the neck of the male perched on top her back. Her eyes seem to gleam with a mixture of joy, power and mischief. Looking at her, you really wonder who was mounting whom.
Kainudy says, "Did she choose her own mates?"
Andromeda looks startled, "Of course she did! We've always had strict rules on freedom to choose."
Kainudy nods and smiles and decides not to tell anyone here about her own race's directed breeding projects.
Andromeda purrs, "We do of course have some control. Our population is never large, so we have to keep inbreeding down. We do give suggestions as to which clans a particular breeding group might want to avoid for mates. And as we don't go in for this "possession of mates" like many races, even if you can't have children by them, you can still love anyone you choose. This statue tells a lot about us. We are a very physical, and very loving race for the most part. And anyone who thinks we females are oppressed cause one male breeds three females just needs to look at her to see the foolishness of that idea."
Kainudy says, "Inbreeding? I wouldn't think that would be a danger in a .. modified species."
Kainudy says, "Unless the recessive traits are the same ones that limited your sapience."
Andromeda licks her nose and purrs, "That could be it. But the very few who study our genetics say it's more than that. Occasional backcrosses are done to strengthen lines now and then. But more than two generations in a row and the offspring become infertile with their own clan and have to go outside to breed. It's like some mechanism to keep one group from isolating itself from the rest of the race. Maybe something built in due to our spreading out through space."
Kainudy says, "A block against evolution."
Andromeda smiles slightly, "And of course, with the exceptions of where it's been physically or socially impossible, we have yet to encounter a race with which we are not fertile, which seems to argue against your idea."
Kainudy says, "That is an odd capability. You shouldn't advertise it though."
Andromeda giggles, "Well, luckily we also have a built in method for birth control."
Kainudy grins. "So, where is the snack bar you mentioned? }:)"
Andromeda is staring at one of the anatomically correct male statues and starts, "Oh, up on the fourth floor, next level up."
Kainudy says, "Do we just fly?"
Andromeda nods, "We do have a gravity tube at the far end if you need it though. This place was designed to remind us we started off as ground dwellers, and to make it easy for wingless types too."
Kainudy says, "Why not have stairs then? }:)"
Andromeda frowns, "Well, gravity tubes let everyone get a small taste of flight. The least we could do for them. And we quadrupeds have troubles on stairs. ;)"
Kainudy blinks. She's never had problems with them, but lets it pass.
Andromeda leap glides to the next level up and lands on the wide walkway.
Kainudy follows, and looks around.
Despite the insistence that Chirr'T'Thar are designed for working with technology, all of the buildings so far seem to hide it. Every floor is festooned with plants and various small animals. Obviously they still enjoy the wilder parts of their ancestry, even if they were genetically programmed for modern life. One of the food vendors even has a stone pit and a real "fire" to cook some strips of meat on spiced skewers. A dessert of some sort. Small cages with various creatures are hidden here and there, with a few touch pads on top.
Kainudy says, "What do you suggest getting?"
Andromeda stops short and hmms, "Do you like fast food?"
Kainudy says, "Err.. fast in what sense?"
Andromeda purrs, "Do you prefer to run or fly after your meal? Or would you like something else?"
Kainudy says, "Hmmm. Something more sedentary would be preferable I think.."
Andromeda purrs, "Live or cooked? Or do you prefer plants?"
Kainudy says, "Cooked with some plants is best for me."
Andromeda scritches her head, "You like both? Together?"
Kainudy nods, "I'm an omnivore."
Andromeda looks momentarily stunned then purrmutters to herself, "I guess my brother is right. Other races look at us funny for being nearly omnisexual, why should weird eating habits bother us?"
Kainudy hrmphs. "Weird?"
Andromeda blushes a bit and purrs, "As I said, we need to learn to appreciate differences, not try and make everyone the same. I didn't mean to offend."
Kainudy nods and smiles.
Kainudy says, "Not everyone can have a flexible digestive tract, after all. }:)"
Andromeda smirks lightly at Kainudy, "Well, if it's flexibility you prize, I'd be happy to show you the famous felitaur flexibility some evening. But for now, let me go order you some food."
Kainudy hrmms, and doesn't comment.
Andromeda comes back with a shishkebab of sorts. Meat interspersed with WHOLE fruit impaled in between. She's munching on something scaly.
Kainudy accepts the shishkebab and strips the skewer in one bite.
Andromeda pops the last of the saurian into her mouth and purrs, "Want some more? And afterwards, more history or maybe something more energetic?"
Kainudy says, "That was enough food for me. What else did you have in mind?"
Andromeda tilts her head and grins at Kainudy.
Kainudy rubs the side of her head, "Should that grin frighten me?"
Andromeda sighs, "No, it was just a suggestion. Figured I'd have better luck than my brother is all. So you're not interested in THAT kind of full contact sport. We have various gaming rooms also. Some of those are fun. You just have to know how to duck if you're not from an overly durable race."
Kainudy blinks, "What sort of games do you play??"
Kainudy says, "And don't feel bad.. I'm just too old to be easily seduced. }:)"
Andromeda purrs, "Most are a combination of chance and skill testing. Oh, well, if that's the case, I'll just have to really work at it. We also play space tag, though few races enjoy playing in space suits, and I don't know if we have one to fit you.""
Kainudy says, "I have my own, sort of."
Kainudy says, "So your games are like sports?"
Andromeda nods, "Many of them, yes. Some of them you gamble on. Usually for who spends the night where. ;)"
Kainudy says, "Well, they sound interesting to watch at least. Where are they played?"
Andromeda purrs, "Some of them are up in space, others are in well reinforced buildings at the edge of town."
Kainudy says, "I think I'll stick to the ground-based ones for now. I've had enough of space for awhile. }:)"
Andromeda gives a bit of a smirk to Kainudy and leaps into the air, leading Kainudy to the far side of town for her next inoculation of Chirr'T'Thar culture.
{Be here next time for "Oooh, that's gotta hurt" or "Dwagon Ball Buster"}