What Valland had radioed—good thing our gear included some portables!—suggested that attack by certain rivals of the Azkashi was not unthinkable. He hadn’t learned much about them yet, except that they belonged to quite a different culture and must have sent those canoes we’d spied at sunset. No doubt the Azkashi were prejudiced. They were … well, you couldn’t call them simple hunters and gatherers. A Pack was only vaguely equivalent to a human-type tribe; Valland suspected that rather subtler concepts were involved. He was still unsure about so elementary a matter as what “Azkashi” meant. It referred collectively to the different Packs, which shared out the inland hunting grounds and lakeside fishing rights, spoke a common tongue and maintained a common way of life. But should the name be translated “hill people” as he thought at first, or “free people,” or “people of the galaxy god,” or what? Maybe it meant all those things, and more.
What do You think about World Without Stars (2011)?
