Aerovoyant

  Camsin: A hot beverage prepared with leaves of Camellia siniensis. Tea.

  Conjunction: The alignment of Bel, Letra, and Turaset into a straight line. During conjunction, Bel’letra appears as a single stellar mass and radiation bathes Turaset.

  Copperwood tree: The name of this Turasetian plant suggests the wood is valuable, but the soft, fibrous bark is the cash crop. The fiber can be worked and spun, is naturally a pale shade of red, and can be bleached with acid, after which it takes dye.

  Deadly hells: Swear-phrase in the foothills and belt.

  Distavoc: A device that would once have been called a telephone. When humanity fled Earth, countless measures were taken to avoid communications surveillance by sentient AI. One such measure was to substitute a range of etymological roots into common words.

  Fierno: (1)The radiation that bathes Turaset twice yearly, during conjunction. During these radiation bursts, ocean life descends to the benthos, land forms become more vibrantly pigmented, and soils form a leathery crust. (2)(metaphorical/archaic) The fires of purification. (3)A city-based swear word.

  Holy heavens: Foothill phrase denoting disbelief.

  Lele: A stringed instrument similar to the Earth ukulele.

  Letra: One of the two stellar masses (stars) around which Turaset orbits.

  Martire: Martyr.

  Miere: A city-based swear word meaning excrement. A roughly equivalent word in the foothills and belt is “scat.”

  Moarab: Tusked, multi-appendaged (up to fourteen-legged) beast, with lizard-like head and skin, roughly the size of a small bear. Moarab are indigenous to the forests of Nasoir and are considered dangerous. Moarab can eat virtually any plant or carcass or piece of debris they find, and they store what they eat as layers of a fat-like substance. They’re occasionally hunted, and their meat smoked.

  Museo: Museum.

  Meldeto/maldeto/maldeta (spelling varies by city): A city-based curse associated with Autorism and derived from the word “malediction.” Similar in intent to the Earth word “damnation.” In essence, the word implies the degree of suffering that would be associated with damnation. To be in maldeto pain is to be in pain beyond comprehension.

  Nanquit: A small animal indigenous to the Singing Sea along the coast of Nasoir. They are comprised of a central mass with four radiating arms and measure eight inches from tentacle tip to tip. They move by spinning through the water (or through the air when the fog layer is sufficiently dense). Nanquits are chemo-attracted to iron and capture small prey with their tentacles, usually fish or mice. They sometimes mistakenly wrap around iron fencing and railings. Baby nanquits are called nanquittens.

  Okeafolk: The intelligent life living deep in the oceans of Turaset. Okeafolk are tentacled and beautiful, and their songs enrapture men and women alike. Sea maidens. The okeafolk were encountered after humanity began sailing the oceans.

  Quiverfish: Animal native to Turaset. Quiverfish are approximately 12 inches long and resemble small eels. They have six paddle-like appendages along their ventral line. Orange quiverfish pigments were reverse-engineered into the human code during the First Great Death.

  Raptorfowl: Beaked animals native to Turaset. Raptorfowl have webbed limbs and can coast for a mile or more following a single leap. Their flight is described as bounding.

  Rebla: Standard unit of currency. In principle, one rebla can feed a person for approximately one week.

  Sandsap: A tree native to Turaset that grows above eight thousand feet of altitude. The tree retains water but the high solute concentration in the sap gives it a sandy texture.

  Scat: A swear word in the belt meaning excrement. The analogous word in the cities is “miere.”

  Spiceberry: Native shrub of Nasoir. Spiceberries are not true berries but small fluid-filled sacs localized to plant meristems. Spiceberries are sweet and will cause nausea when eaten in large doses.

  Spinebark: A low-lying sessile organism, like a carnivorous plant, that camouflages with the surrounding soil. Small animals that run across spine bark fall paralyzed and are consumed.

  Tar: Stringed instrument similar to the old Earth guitar.