Bones of Air, Bones of Stone

Venus is a planet of shallow seas, and occasional deep trenches. The biggest of these trenches is the Great Darkness. Only once does solid land crop up from the sea. Blackstone, the volcanic island home to the famous Pit, the dead caldera of a thousand myths. Port Blackstone is the only permanent human settlement, and it extends underwater, into the native dominated Undersea Port. Curiously, humans seem to have learned the lessons from Earth when it comes to making contact with strangers. The locals, called the shreeliala have little bad to say about the humans. The humans agree to keep out of the areas the shreeliala forbid them to, and work with the shreeliala Green Council.

Humans come to Venus for many reasons. You can have a hell of a cruise on Venus's Always Sea. Port Blackstone itself is home to many illicit pleasures though it has the worn tired look of all port towns which are hammered by the rage of the ocean. There are floating islands of vegetation out there, where the seas are calm, and there are human settlements beneath the surface of the ocean, out of the dreams of Jacques Costeau, habitats which drift with the currents, where you can see Venus' strange aquatic life through your wall.

The shreeliala are themselves an unusual species. They have been happy enough to take the technologies humanity has to offer, but they have little use for anything which isn't for fishing or medicine. The shreeliala are similar to seals in appearance, with a little of the anglerfish, salamander and chameleon thrown in for good measure. Before humankind came to Venus, they were literally a Stone Age people, and much of their civilisation is built on stone still. Shreeliala can get about on land now thanks to human built breathing units, which give off a slight odour of cinnamon as they breathe. All shreeliala on land speak English. Underwater, their language is one of visuals, formed from bubble shapes. This has little utility on land for obvious reasons and the best lingua franca is English.

Shreeliala don't go in for things humans have killed for, like nationality and religion. They have a faith, but its hard to say that they have gods. They keep to their kin, travelling in schools, but its hard to say they have nations. They share a tribal and cultural life focussed around the Great Darkness. It is the belief of the shreeliala that the dead are reborn, but only if they are chosen by the Lights-in-the-Water, which reside in the Great Darkness. When a shreeliala dies, their tribe takes their body to the Great Darkness where they sink. Shreeliala have gastroliths to grind up the vegetation they eat (they are omnivores but evolved from carnivores and don't have molars), but it is their belief that these stones contain a shreeliala's soul. The Lights-in-the-Water consume the dead's flesh, and take the stones. Those stones which are particularly beautiful are put where bud-mothers can find them, and a shreeliala's soul is reborn. Shreeliala aren't born by sexual reproduction, their schools are formed around non-sentient bud-mothers.

The social structure of the shreeliala is built upon their relationship with bud-mothers. Each tribe is focussed around a different bud-mother, and when that bud-mother dies, the tribe collapses and mingle with others. Control of the tribes is in the hands of the overseers, who amount to Big Men. Tribes coalesce into larger Houses, and each House is represented on the Green Council. There is a degree of genetic exchange between shreeliala individuals but there is nothing sexual about this. When a lone shreeliala tries to join a tribe, they have to regurgitate one of their gastroliths and offer it to the bud-mother. If the bud-mother consumes it, they are accepted, and the act of consumption also absorbs some of the new tribesmen's genetic material. Access to the bud-mother is controlled by the overseer.

Access to the Great Darkness is banned to humans though there have been a couple of expeditions when regulations were looser. It seems that the Lights-in-the-Water are real, though what their nature is unknown, and probably never will be known.

The one major social cleavage amongst the shreeliala, that transcends tribal or House allegiance is somewhat racial. Some shreeliala have a mutation which gives them 'bones-of-air' which are hollow. These individuals cannot sink so are never given to the Great Darkness. Instead, they are taken to Mount Blackstone, where they are burnt in the caldera. Because they cannot go to the Great Darkness, they can never be reborn. There is a belief amongst those with bones-of-stone that the mutation is a punishment for acts in a past life, and that having bones-of-air is a sign of bad character. Many with bones-of-air are cast out of their tribes at a young age, and they tend to live on the fringes of shreeliala society. They tend to get on well with humans. Some have done very well though, and there are at least two members of the Green Council with bones-of-air.

The human population, particularly those born there, are increasingly going native. Just as the above-surface Port Blackstone has an increasing number of landlubber shreeliala with breathing apparatuses (mostly bones-of-air), so Undersea Port has many humans with surgical alterations like gills wepped hands and even strange flipper feet. These humans are scrupulous depilators, a shaven body is more streamlined than one that is not. The longer you've had alterations, the more they mature, and the more alien the humans look. Long time residents often have great red fronds extending from necks, draped over their shoulders. They tend to be pale, thanks to Venus' perpetually grey skies. The language is changing too, body language mirroring that of the shreelialia and the number of words they have for different kinds of rain has to be heard to be believed. They wear a lot less clothes than Earth-born humans might be comfortable with, but on hot, wet Venus it just seems sensible.