Glossary for DESCENDING ROAD

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Baba Yaga’s Field: Baba Yaga, Baba Yaga’s Field: a large assemblage of dark space rubble between the solar system and Zeta Tucanae, unknown at the time of launch but subsequently discovered by later surveys and exploratory missions. The assemblage contained millions of asteroids, planetoids, and several dark dwarf stars orbiting chaotically. The name “Baba Yaga" was taken from Russian folklore, referring to a witch with supernatural powers.

Babi: Babi, Babiar: The lowest zone of the City, at Levels 770 and below. Unused since the Third Dynastic Wars, when its deepest layers were flooded with guerrovirus.

backblast: backblast, backblasts: energy release triggered by, or reflected from, a beam gun shot. The rapid physical and chemical changes produced by beam hits vary as widely as do the results of lightning strikes. Different designs produce different frequencies of energy. Sometimes the targets explode due to instant vaporization. Sometimes their chemical bonds simply dissociate, leaving a variety of flames, burns, stenches, toxic gases and other repellent signs of impact. Sometimes the target’s surface is transparent to the beam, but its volume is not, allowing certain beam types striking a cranium to leave no external sign on a scalp while cooking the brain. If beam frequencies happen to coincide with the reflective frequency range of the target, the beams bounce, sometimes back at the firing weapon itself; and trifaceted mirror-shields take advantage of this shortcoming. In another mode, the beam pumps energy into a volume of gas, either being absorbed with little short-term effect, or creating a reactive plasma. See beamer.

backburrow: a long, low-ceilinged storage chamber open at one end.

backdoor: backdoor, backdoors: most City dwellings and shops and industries face directly onto understreets, but require at least one additional exit to other access pathways. In most areas, utility corridors and narrow understreets run parallel to the front street, but behind the space needing access. These corridors offer alternate, clandestine, routes through the City.

backroom: backroom, backrooms: a room not directly accessible from the understreet.

baeya: an andro name for a color in the five-octave andro color spectrum. baeya is in the human range (375-750 nm), and its name refers to the human color red. In relation to neighboring colors in a musical scale with red at A, this would be A. From tabular data: baeya is the name of a color in the spectrum visible to andros. baeya is in the Human-Visible (375-750 nm). In the five ‘octaves’ of the andro color spectrum, baeya equates to a musical A, and is in the same place in the octave as Red. More information is available in the reference table titled ANDRO COLOR NAMES. From tabular data for “baeya": baeya is the name of a color in the spectrum visible to andros. baeya is in the Human-Visible (375-750 nm). In the five ‘octaves’ of the andro color spectrum, baeya equates to a musical A, and is in the same place in the octave as Red. More information is available in the reference table titled ANDRO COLOR NAMES.

balli: streetchild verb for ‘have fun’. Allashani says to Janny, “Ba dansi, pikki, balli balli,” which means “Go dance, pipsqueak, and have a lot of fun.”

Balo Ransa: the largest gas giant planet in the Zeta Tucanae system, featuring multiple rings like Saturn’s.

Bargaroth: Arlen‘s Argazindar leader.

barhole: barhole, barholes, cubby-bar, cubby-bars, drainhole, drainholes: a gathering-place for young coll members in the lower zones of the City.

barker: barker, barkers: either in the militia or the insurrection’s military, a leader of between three and six fighters.

bat: bat, bats: see stickbat.

Baumesser: a well-known but controversial historian of Tarnus, teaching at the University at the time of the story. Baumesser is chiefly known by his abbreviated and sometimes wrongheaded crib of the work of the great Fandarinn historians of the early Fourth Dynasty. Students are always tempted to quote Baumesser; their professors love to lower their grades as a result. But when Baumesser states, “I’d rather be wrong than sleep-inducing,” he finds much agreement among his contemporaries.

beamcooker: a field cooking range employing special beam cartridge types to deliver a low-power, long-term range of radiation to animal or plant tissue in order to cook it for human consumption.

beamer: beam gun, beam guns, beamer, beamers, beamshooter, beamshooters: energy weapon, varying in size from hand-held to vehicle-mounted. Beam weapons had emerged in the Fourth Dynasty. Two engineers had crossbred nuclear fission triggers, coherent radiation, and nanoshock analysis. A sufficiently intense and well-formed shock wave through the proper medium, they found, produced terawatt energy pulses at a wide range of selected frequencies. Working at the molecular level, they channeled all the energy produced by a small quantity of high explosives into fissioning plutonium to fuse hydrogen nuclei; then they focused the resulting release of pure energy in time and space, and so invented the beam gun. With wave coherence supplied by coordinated shock collapse along the molecularly designed cartridges the guns used, a very small amount of hydrogen produced a disproportionately large amount of pure energy. The results, coupled with the recoilless deadly accuracy of the developed weapons, gratified the inventors, fascinated the military, enriched the corporations, and appalled everyone else. See also backblast.

beamlight: beamflash, beamflashes, beamlight, beamlights: the visible radiation produced by the passage of the primary beam energy through air, making the beam trajectory itself visible. Usually strongest in lower City levels, where air pressure exceed two atmospheres and the ambient level of air particulates was high.

Bearer: Bearer, Bearers: the beings who carried the human genome, with many variants in the copies they held, to the world Tarnus. They arrived long before the human migration that had left many generations earlier, due to their hardiness and small size. The Bearers had been bred simply to carry human genes under the highly adverse conditions of deep-space travel: high acceleration, poor sustenance, temperature and pressure extremes, hard radiation, and long time periods. The beginning genetic material for the Bearers was that of the tardigrades, a tiny (under 1.5 mm) creature of Earth.

beastfucker: beastfucker, beastfuckers: a minor, but clearly-understood, curse.

bedboy: bedboy, bedboys: a young man or andro taken in by a woman for intimate companionship.

bedcell: bedcell, bedcells: a small, cell-like room in the City, underground, fitted with plumbing, bed, and sensi, and used exclusively for lovemaking.

bedmat: bedmat, bedmats: principal in-City mattress for sleeping and resting. Used directly on floor or raised a hand’s-breadth off the surface by a light pallet. Contains a lightweight form of hyperplasm to conform to the user’s body weight.

bedservant: bedservant, bedservants: andros who serve humans in a variety of intimate capacities: washing, minor medical tending, sex.

bedwrap: bedwrap, bedwraps: a thin blanket used either as a bedsheet or a robe.

Beefheart: Beefheart, Major Beefheart: n., a tea made of leaves of several shrubs of the Tarnus northern wastes, known for its soothing and tranquilizing effects.

Belasine: a badly-wounded rebel fighter.

Belinda: one of the small inner moons of Uranus, tenth nearest to the planet.

Ben: slow-time entity encountered during Miriam‘s and Chen‘s cryosleep tests

bena: streetchild verb for ‘come here’.

bens: benefits provided by an employer.

Bermarin: a City militia officer.

Bianca: one of the small inner moons of Uranus, third nearest to the planet.

Billy T: little girl, a member of Mama Bones‘s clan.

bindo: streetchild‘s term for the improvised pack of precious possessions each child kept and carried when on the move.

bioactive: capable of modifying the gene-transcription process in living tissue.

bioandroid: bioandroid, bioandroids: a more formal name for the andros, referring explicitly to their biological basis.

bioarmor: the protective growths of anchitin on the alien soldiers.

biocam: a custom-grown set of circuits from a human’s optic nerves to provide a feed for remote electronic visual-field transmission.

biocap: biocap, biocaps: toxic chemical heads fitted to ballistic bullets.

biocarpeted: a biocarpet is a very expensive form of floor covering that has the feel of a thick-furred, warm-blooded living creature’s pelt.

biochip: biochip, biochips: a structured assembly of biocircuits.

biocircuit: biocircuit, biocircuits: nets of conductive and semiconductive circuits grown from an artificial tissue substrate. Some intelligences, such as certain types found in war helms, are built up from these nets; also, the masks and biocords used to pattern developing andros are made of these nets. Also used for heightening sensory input, as in Arlen‘s stimvest.

Bioclear: a brand of DNA-destroying cleanser that strips away the bacterial and viral layers of protection for the DNA, reduces it to its component acids, and neutralizes it.

biocompensation: the governmental term for the proper methods of rendering human waste, including all garbage, effluents, pollutants, toxins, etc. harmless in the surface environment of Tarnus.

biocord: biocord, biocords: the umbilicus of intelligence and learning connected to each andro via its biohelm in its development tank during growth. Links each growing andro with a living archive of knowledge that prepares the andro for life outside the tank, and for life in innerspace. Channels sensory and hypersensory input to the andro through the biohelm, and takes feedback for the archive to use in modifying the andro‘s learning patterns.

biocrypt: biocrypt, biocrypts: a method of storing and transmitting high-volume, high-security encrypted information through long sequences of nucleic acids organized as DNA strands. These sequences utilize a highly redundant forward-error-correcting code to insure accurate transcription of the content. Ordinarily sent in a messenger’s body as half of a Vernam cipher, the other half transmitted in a similar way through another messenger. For some less-secure messages, one half of the encrypted text travels with a messenger, the other half is transcribed into bacterial (prokaryotic) DNA and sent as an infection with several different messengers. [also used as a verb; adj. biocrypted]

bioenhancements: bioenhancement, bioenhancements: the UniCorp term for certain of its drugs supposedly potent in enhancing both male and female sexual enjoyment.

biofactory: in cryosleep technology, a “symbiotic community of bacteria, viruses, and their initial nutrients” used to assist in lowering human body temperature steeply in the second stage of freezing.

biofilter: biofilter, biofilters: mentioned by Aoriver to Marra, these are semipermeable gas filters derived from the alien‘s host’s tissue, used to limit penetration of noxious or toxic gases into the host’s body.

biofluid: biofluid, biofluids: any of a number of liquid media used by the bioshops to store and display their wares, usually seed tissues for enhanced sensory and motor capabilities. Also, the term identifies any liquid, generated by living or pseudo-living entities, that is used for commercial or military applications.

biofrond: biofrond, biofronds: the soft leaves of large fernlike plants grown along the sides of City understreets for decoration and oxygenation.

biogrades: biograde, biogrades: a genetic enhancement sold illegally on the street, purported by its seller usually to provide humans with enhanced sensory or motor capabilities similar to those of andros. Such claims by sellers are rarely accurate, and biogrades are often dangerous to their users.

biohelm: biohelm, biohelms: the masklike headgear that grows with each andro as it develops in its tank, biocorded to the archives. Supplies the andro with a wide range of early sensory and hypersensory input, and takes out feedback from the growing andro. Also called biomask.

biointelligences: in the evolution of humanity starting in the 21st century CE, researchers developed forms of biological neurocircuitry with many characteristics of the massively-parallel networked computing devices of the preceding era of computers. These developments rapidly evolved forward into enhanced brains rivaling or even improving on the consciousness and capabilities of normal humans. Continued research led to the installation and integration of such neurocircuitry in humans, creating the sentines.

bioinvasive: a class of jector ammunition consisting of microorganisms capable of explosive and immediate growth inside the target’s body, generally rendering the target neurosystem nonfunctional. Death from this class of ammunition normally occurs within one minute, and is not reversible with even the swiftest intervention.

biojector: biojector, biojectors: a type of jector used solely with biological weapons such as bioinvasives.

biomask: biomask, biomasks: see biohelm.

biomatrix: a spongy cushion containing a network of feedlines for nutrients, emollients, drugs, and cleansers, for use with hospital patients in extreme situations such as third-degree burns, tissue destruction, and exposure to radiation.

biopuppet: biopuppet, biopuppets: the result of application of certain procedures which destroy a host human’s brain links to its body while substituting an andro or lesser biologically-derived intelligence for the disconnected brain. Never fully perfected, this process usually resulted in a person with seemingly normal behavior in restricted ranges of situations, and utterly bizarre behavior in any other case. Used by criminals for occasional bank transactions or security penetrations.

bioshop: bioshop, bioshops: a store specializing in body and mind enhancements for its customers. These enhancements usually take the form of tissue transformations at the cellular level to produce special sensations or perceptual fields, or motor capabilities. Of particular interest are mappings of sensory fields for different ranges of electromagnetic radiation, giving the client the ability to ‘see’ into the ultraviolet or infrared ranges. ‘See’ is not an accurate term, because the mapping does not ordinarily take the form of a two-dimensional visual field. Such transformations normally require the use of specially-targeted neuroleader to thread new pathways into the brain for the tecta of the new senses. Sexual sensation is often a target for bioshop enhancement.

biosilk: silk, used in fabric production, created from one of seven or eight strains of spinneret organelle lines derived in ancient times from silkworm cell lines.

biosupplies: the wares of bioshops, herbal shops and other vendors in the cities. Range from pharmaceuticals to genetic modifications.

biosynthetics: substances designed to graft themselves undetectably into a person’s tissues.

biotechnician: biotechnician, biotechnicians: a trained specialist in analysis of biological processes and their genetic and environmental causes, effects and other relationships.

biotracker: biotracker, biotrackers: humans and andros capable of recognizing, discriminating and tracking genesign, the traces of passage of a specific organism.

biotrader: biotrader, biotraders: a trafficker in bioenhancements, biogrades, or other biologicals having transforming properties.

biowarfare: the use of biological agents, usually involving genetic alterations, as weapons in reducing a military or political adversary’s ability to mount effective opposition. This practice was outlawed more than once, but seemed to find life repeatedly due to the ease with which a few experts could produce and deploy powerful agents among a population. Biowarfare eventually lost its usefulness when trace-audit biologicals allowed backtracking to the source of any specific agent used in an attack. Once backtracking was complete, the trace-audit agents could release targeted attack products to eliminate the source.

biowrap: biowrap, biowraps: clothing grown from biological tissue substrates, intended to provide shifting coloration and pattern, body thermal balance, and skin healing functions to the wearer, blending fashion and function. Stimvest an advanced form, including neural functions.

birdcooker: birdcooker, birdcookers: a food preparation firm specializing in roast fowl tasting much like chicken of Ancient Earth.

birdtail: birdtail, birdtails: a mild epithet of skepticism, referring to an old story about a family of birds that traded tails with a family of mice. See also mousefeathers.

birthbrine: n., the fluid in which developing andros are suspended during their gestation in the vats.

black sugar: a confection much like licorice, but far sharper and sweeter in flavor.

blockers: a vernacular term for antorphins.

blood shak: a MuTou playing shak that marks the anj as vital to its owner.

bloodsake: exclamation of frustration or impatience.

bloodstand: the coll ceremony for the newly dead. To ‘stand the blood’ is to hold this ceremony.

bloodwar: the collechi term for a blood feud between two colls.

bloodwort: the well-known herb.

blues: bluecop, bluecops, blues: the City police. Term refers to the base color of their uniform coveralls.

bodysuit: bodysuit, bodysuits: a close-fitting coverall.

bodywear: a typically-understated slang term for armor, weapons, sensors and other military-type equipment worn in the City understreets.

Bondarev: a starship worker and assembly pod operator.

bonefrag: bone fragments, usually created by the impact of high-velocity bullets or other projectiles.

bonestalks: bonestalk, bonestalks: a delicacy used as a snack, a garnish or an appetizer in the City barholes. It consists of the softened wing-bones of City-bred fowl, baked, hollowed and filled with peppers, spices, stimulants and black sugar.

Bonesy: street children’s name for Mama Bones.

bonewelder: a medical device for enhancing rapid bone knitting and regrowth, applied and maintained cutaneously around the affected area.

Bonneville: an Earth site for acceleration testing of human subjects preparing for deep-space missions.

Bonnin: Bonnin Reissan, Incarnastar country boy.

boojuice: a cannabis-laced drink used recreationally on Earth before the starship departures.

bootstrap: bootstrap, bootstrapped, bootstrapping: the reactivation of a process or system using a small (and often specialized) set of elements within the system or process itself. Applied to the recovery of many things, including cultures, cities, nations, families, vehicles, vessels, and genomes.

Boren: Ezzar‘s dead husband from Monford City.

braidings: a Zashinhalh term for a subset of the knotted dimensions of hirh-space.

braincooker: slang term for the drug Pyro.

brainjuice: one of the liquid media used to convey genetic transformers to a user. See katschild, headsmith.

brejin: an andro name for a color in the five-octave andro color spectrum. brejin is in the near ultraviolet range (187-375 nm), and its name refers to a multiple of the human color green. In relation to neighboring colors in a musical scale with red at A, this would be D sharp or E flat. From tabular data: brejin is the name of a color in the spectrum visible to andros. brejin is in the Near Ultraviolet (187-375 nm). In the five ‘octaves’ of the andro color spectrum, brejin equates to a musical D#, and is in the same place in the octave as Green. More information is available in the reference table titled ANDRO COLOR NAMES. From tabular data for “brejin": brejin is the name of a color in the spectrum visible to andros. brejin is in the Near Ultraviolet (187-375 nm). In the five ‘octaves’ of the andro color spectrum, brejin equates to a musical D#, and is in the same place in the octave as Green. More information is available in the reference table titled ANDRO COLOR NAMES.

brev: brev, brew: beerlike beverages. Brev a much milder form, with intoxicating effects of short duration only. Brew, in its strongest forms served in the barholes, is frequently loaded with various drugs calibrated to produce a sequence of overlapping psychological effects ranging from rapidly-cycling polar disorder to paired lust and terror. Most brews are much tamer.

brewtank: brewtank, brewtanks: tanks of brew. See tank.

bridgeblood: the coll ceremony binding the two participants in brotherhood, usually performed across coll lines.

broadneedle: a family of evergreen species, having long flat narrow leaves instead of needles. The largest species of this family grows to four hundred feet in height, and nearly fifty feet in diameter at the fifty-foot height, where the outlying root structures merge with the main trunk. Reputed to be homes to the asharan.

brodo: brodo, brodos, streetbrodo, streetbrodos: a masculine term of greeting for close friends, in some of its variations. May also be ‘drojo’, ‘drooj’, ‘ojo’, ‘oho’, and many others.

Bronson: one of the space stations situated at the stable Lagrange points (L4 and L5) of solar planets and certain moons of the largest planets.

Brownhollow: Brownhollow Score, the street where Lejina and her father live.

buckyball: a slang term used by prisoners at Oberon to refer to the roughly-spherical geodesic balls serving both as their homes and prisons.

bug bastard: bug bastard, bug bastards: a curse directed at the authorities who plan, approve, fund, and carry out the relocations. ‘Bug’ is a reference to the rumored aliens.

bugboy: bug soldier, bug soldiers, bugboy, bugboys, bughead, bugheads, chopper, chopperbug, chopperbugs, choppers: the form most often adopted by aliens for movement among humans in the City. Described in detail in the text: “Its head hung off the top of the car, thrown back, staring with huge black hex-tiled eyes upside down at Andrew and the others. The face seemed almost human, with eyes, nose, mouth, cheekbones and brows in the right places; but the eyes, lidless and shining indigo-black, bugged out like goggles, giving a wider-than-human field of vision; the mouth and jaw, with slash-cut lips now slack and hung open, thrust forward and narrowed into a muzzle with great ripping teeth; the nose opened along nearly the entire muzzle in a series of raised parallel lengthwise folds; the ears, barely visible under the spread of the natural helm‘s edge, recessed versions of the nose; and rising from the thick neck in the rear to cap the overhung brows, a sectioned, gray-green helm of chitin bulged like crowded mushrooms through orifices in the leathery skin. One bulging arm hung beside the head, its forearm section greaved with gray chitin and showing some calligraphic marks incised in a delicate line.”

bugger: curse, both bestowing the unattractive alien form and behavior on the recipient, and assigning the recipient the anal-aggressive sexual role.

bugsucker: bugsucker, bugsuckers: curse, assigning the recipient the role of depraved sexual entertainer for aliens. Adj. ‘bugsucking’.

Bujilla: the proprietor of Kuklagrad.

Burdill: a rebel fighter, operating out in Novander Wye country near Abridor.

Burholm: an artist in the use of the stat process on living creatures to produce works of quasi-living sculpture.

bushfinger: one form the aliens allowed humans to see was the on-board-ship technical-service form, which had two arms each ending in two hundred to six hundred fingerlike tentacles, very thin but capable of hardening into fixed shapes or softening into complete flaccidity. These projections were bushfingers. See also fingerlimbs.

buttfodder: worthless documents or currency.

buttpack: buttpack, buttpacks: a reinforced pouch carried at the small of the back by City militia in the field.

buyout: buyout, buyouts: living in the cities is open to all humans. Since the cities provide services to all, including all recycling of air, water, power and food, all communication services, all medicines and medical help, all public safety, and all education, those wishing to leave a city must provide a sum of money or possessions (usually both) as a form of repayment for what they have received. This sum, set by each city differently for different people, is called the buyout.

buzzbilly: bangbilly, buzzbillies, buzzbilly, cod, cods, electric hand club: an electric nightstick that functions as a high-voltage prod when triggered by its user. Also called “electric hand club" (the official name) or “cod" (unofficial).

Buzzchicken: an inn in the mountains, half a day’s walk from Engrammatic Inn. Buzzchicken is well-known for its entertainment, particularly music, and its mixed human and andro clientele.

bzztchkchk: bzztchkchk, fweee: bzztchkchk fweee chch, an andro expression in anjive, used by Marra, meaning, roughly, “pricks to laugh at”.