Kuhsi

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Joel Shepherd, on writing Skah's POV: "In The Spiral Wars, I always look forward to writing scenes with Skah -- he's just a kid, he's kuhsi (an alien species), he's one of the many ragtag mob of misfits who come to make up the Phoenix crew. But in a world of adults, there's nothing like a child's perspective to shine some illumination on the true nature of things, and to notice things that adults miss because they're so busy thinking adult things." (From An Interview with Joel Shepherd, Fantasy Book Review)

kuhsi physiology

Skah / Furball, species kuhsi, age 7

Fanged, bi-pedal humanid (D-3, KV-21) but could pass for a furry animal:

"the big, wide ears of a kuhsi… then a glimpse of the face, a short muzzle too canine to be feline, but too feline to be canine. A flat, wide head, made wider by those amazing ears that went far more sideways than upwards. They weren’t as tall as chah'nas, usually a touch shorter than humans, and so didn’t stand out in crowds… until you saw the ears." (R-2)

• furry - Tif and Skah have tawny fur (R-17)
• big golden eyes
• wide ears🐹
• fast reflexes
• acute vision and hearing: "They hadn’t seen it, Skah realised. Human eyesight wasn’t as good as kuhsi, Mommy had said. Nor their hearing. Only their smell was better, and that wouldn’t help them here." (KV-4)
• potential pilots
• "kuhsi had those double-articulated ankle-joints and short, padded feet for extra spring" (KV-21)
• sharp retractable claws — “long blade-like nails protruding from her three middle fingers” ... those blades can open you ear-to-ear” (R-17)

The claws were a marvel of bio-engineering —there were only vestigial nails left on little finger and thumb, but the middle three were huge, the length of half a human hand when extended. Retracted, they segmented in unison with finger joints, giving kuhsi middle fingers a clicky, awkward coordination. Extended, they locked together, and were obscenely sharp. (R-17)

• sharp teeth
• carnivores, plus: "Kuhsi did eat mostly meat, but also some vegetables, well cooked. Absolutely no fruit, as their digestion welcomed protein and some carbs, but regular sugar in even small quantities could make them ill.” (D-3)
• become jittery from adrenal overload
• Speak Gharkhan. because of fangs, kuhsi cannot articulate the sounds represented by the letters L and M

Tif

• Tif - female, probably about 30 yrs old in human terms, born on planet Choghoth, near Heshog Highlands (R-18)
• where women are repressed and male chauvinism prevails (R-18)
• "She’d run from her family estate in the Heshog Highlands as a youngster, to the great plain city of Regath. Her family had tried to kill her by the old laws of clan-right, but Lord Kharghesh’s agencies had stopped them, and punished several. Those were the new laws, Lord Kharghesh and his supporters’ invention, to give a new role to women in all the nation of Koth. Inspired, Tif had applied to an academy, and been accepted on aptitude. (DL-34)
• 16 years as command pilot on Choghoth (R-29)
• Rank Second Lieutenant shuttle pilot on UFS Phoenix
  • the first alien to serve on a Fleet vessel
• Tif speaks a rare kuhsi dialect, not any of the 500 kuhsi dialects included in the translator program
  • “she has to speak some Gharkhan whatever her native tongue, doesn’t she?” Lisbeth reasoned. (R-18)
• kuhsi cannot form M or L sounds:
  • “...down in two ninute,” Tif came through, and Trace might have grinned to hear her were she not so busy moving and covering. (KV-31)
• her lover “Lord Kharghesh” was a modernist. He wanted to educate kuhsi females — even as pilots — but he was murdered and Tif and Skah were kidnapped by chah'nas

Tif’s apearance:

• slightly shorter than Trace, slim, lithe, quick, furry, golden eyes, big wide ears, claws, fangs

The kuhsi stared at her, faintly trembling with tension. She had tawny fur, brown fading to pale, dark at the tufts of the ears. A powerful jaw, short whiskers, and long, blade-like nails protruding from her three middle fingers. A lot of females had those removed, she’d heard, voluntarily or otherwise. These were short, but looked effective enough. (R-17)

Skah / Furball

• Tif’s son, about seven years old in Renegade. He's heir to Lord Kharghesh, a powerful but dead kuhsi landowner.
• Skah is mentored by Styx who takes a particular interest in him (see Defiance)

The little boy was kuhsi, tawny-brown furred and golden-eyed with the most impossibly big, wide ears.

“Now keep out of the way of the marines, Skah. That armour is very powerful and it could hurt you if you get in their way.”

“Not Skah, Furbaw!” Skah insisted. He liked the nickname the marines had given him much better. (R-3)

• His tutors / friends:

Different crew volunteered to do his lessons, so he’d do some with Mummy, then some with Jace or his friends Sal or Reece, and then of course there was Jessica and her marine friends. Sometimes even one of the big officers from the bridge had taught him a lesson. His favourite had been big Lieutenant Kaspowitz, who had taught him some maths. Lieutenant Kaspowitz was funny, and Skah wished he would teach him maths all the time… but he hadn’t wanted to offend anyone else by saying so. (D-11)

Skah

Lord Kharghesh, Skah’s Sire

• Skah is heir to wealthy Lord Kharghesh, who was recently murdered for trying to bring females out of the den into modern age, with marketable skills, including piloting

“Skah was an heir to Koth, the eighth biggest nation of the kuhsi homeworld, whose leader had been murdered, Tif insisted, by kuhsi who did not want the social changes that exposure to all these new aliens was creating." (DL-12)

• "Lord Khargesh controlled a big territory, with nearly two hundred million kuhsi.” (R-18)

Lord Khargesh had run the eighth biggest clan… a hugely powerful man. Erik’s brief scan of Phoenix database revealed more details, big reforms to gender roles being one of them. He seemed more an economic rationalist than a moralist, he said it was economically inefficient for women not to work the higher skilled jobs they were qualified for. He’d had a lot of support, but a lot of enemies too. (R-18)

Tif and Skah, kuhsi

culture

• language Gharkhan, with hundreds of dialects. Due to fangs, kuhsi cannot articulate the sounds represented by the letters L and M
• Choghoth planet has almost 5 billion kuhsi
• male-dominated laws
• females denied education and employment aside from sexual, mistress
• clan-based society
• "Kuhsi had clans, and big lords had many mistresses. Kuhsi didn’t do marriage, nor monogamy in any human sense, though a mistress to a big lord had better not sleep around if she knew what was good for her. It meant only high rank males got to procreate, which made the lower ranked rebellious. A very big lord could have as many mistresses as he wanted." (R-18)
• newly achieved space age
• kuhsi hate confined spaces (R-17)

Kuhsi and Humans

• Humans discovered the kuhsi species and encouraged them to modernize, reform traditional patriarchal bias, and chauvinism, and join the space-age
• "Kuhsi were humanity’s contribution to species uplift —they’d been found near human space, on the verge of their own FTL flight, and so humans had hurried them on a little, needing all the friends they could get. Certainly the kuhsi had been pleased to be ‘discovered’ by humans and not krim..."(R-2)
• Humans encouraged kuhsi to grant females basic rights of education, freedom to choose employment, to leave the home, etc
• but the chah'nas told kuhsi not to change and after modernist Lord Kharghesh was murdered, kidnapped his heir Skah, seeking to strangle the reform movement (R-18)