Under normal circumstances, the Uplift Institute would have never wound up giving the Rousit to the Hoon, to then have the Rousit begin the process of uplift as the Hoon's first client race.

Normal circumstances?

Right.

Since when has the universe ever shown any formal recognition and acceptance to a set definition of "normal circumstances?" A definition that first has to be presented by a living being. A member of any sapient race of any order of life. A definition that relates to the quality of life that has no meaning without there being that life to qualify it.

The universe itself can define 'abnormal' as normal any damn time it pleases. Or any damn time it don't please--as pleasure and lack of pleasure again are both terms that hardly have any meaning without a sapient mind existing somewhere to codify such a vagrancy of opinion over fact.

Over ninety-eight percent of all oxygen based life that can understand Anglic know the meaning to the expression, "Epistemology begins with the understanding that if there exists a supreme being, and that that being can be called male, then 'He pissed them all' is certainly, by example, a more correct pronunciation."

Oh, gee...

And to put it crudely, of the two percent of oxy life that can not get pissed, ten percent of them don't give a s*** either.

So who's to say what's normal.

But enough with this digression of using an alien lifeform's plumbing system as a cosmic metaphor to achieving truth. Back to the Rousit.

Arilerah had been fallow for the requisite number of years and it was time for a galactic institute survey. The planet had been assigned to the----well, ahh, the name is not important. In fact, if you ask a Library Unit, you won't get the answer. Zip, zero, nachos without the salsa. To minimize embarrassment on a galactic scale, all records of this incident have been purged.

Though if you ask the average er on the street, (average as being defined 'under normal circumstances'), you'll readily get an answer. Or, if you ask the one wrong race, you'll get a blaster--or worse.

In any case, this unnamed race found nothing of interest on Arilerah. Average variation; from tundra to jungle. Average flora. Average fauna. No candidate for uplift was found in any of the various local climate / environments. And it produced the average reaction. If the planet wasn't going to produce an upliftable race, then the rest of this survey job was going to be nothing more than a bean count.

So this unnamed race, hereafter called race A, did the sensible thing when the job called for counting beans. They subcontracted the job to race B, the Guthatsa.

The Guthatsa spent less time on Arilerah than race A did before they came to their own conclusion. They realized that they were more interested in counting Navigation and Trade beans than in counting flora and fauna beans for the Uplift Institute. It was easy to see a solution to their problem. Race B passed it off to race C. The Guthatsa subcontracted their contract to the Hoon.

C could see that they were at the end of the line of pass offs. They had to unsheathe their toe-hooks and dig on in. There wasn't a way to D feet the contract.

So they started the bean count. And passed the time by umbling as they worked. Umbling in the tundra, umbling in the grasslands, and umbling in the jungle.

And the Rousit finally came out of hiding.

It was easy to avoid race A, and it was easy to avoid race B, the Guthatsa. Neither one acted as cleverly as the main predator they had been learning to avoid for ages. Both smells were very distinct from any other jungle smell. As for the machines A or B used, well they were either metal or plastic, so they had even more unique smells. Of course they could also be easily avoided.

But the Hoon could be heard.

So the Rousit cautiously came out to listen.

Rousit met Hoon.

Hoon met Rousit.

Hoon reacted; Rousit sped away.

The Hoon couldn't find the Rousit. They couldn't even find any tracks.

The Hoon went back to umbling. The Rousit came back.

This time the Hoon didn't react. They just kept on umbling and specifically ignored the Rousit.

And then stopped umbling.

A rousit finally came up to the back of a hoon and tugged on his leg fur.

The hoon slowly turned and the rousit held his hand to his ear.

And that's how the Hoon met the Rousit.

Arilerah was under contract to A, subcontracted to B who then subcontracted to C, the Hoon.

It could have been a glorious legal mess.

But the Uplift Institute Court, in a rare example of simplicity for a quick and simple answer, held court in the jungle of Arilerah.

And the Rousit sat hidden in the jungle for anything or anyone except for an umbling hoon. They sat behind the branches that they always carried to cover up their tracks. Obviously well on the road to being pre-sentient.

In a way the Rousit had chosen the Hoon more than the Hoon had chosen the Rousit.

The Rousit, raw, sat on Arilerah 'til the hoon came down and found them.

Vilyehm's comments:

And I don't like it.

Not the facts.

The story. It needs work. I'm not satisfied.

The Rousit had to have been discovered after the Hoon arrived on Jijo.

The Rousit are small and furry.

The Rousit are small in comparison to a chimpanzee.

The Rousit did not have a speaking line in Heaven's Reach.

The Rousit, like a noor, can sit on a hoon's shoulder.

The Rousit, like the Hobbits, were left off of the original list. (Re Trent Shipley's Alliance for Progress Encyclopedia.)

The Rousit may have been simply added to the novel by Dr. Brin as fluff, or extra detail not meant to go anywhere.

If so, I disagree.

If we ever get back to Alvin, Huck, and Mudfoot, then watch out for what happens with the Rousit.

Now re: The Rousit, raw, sat on Arilerah 'til the hoon came down and found them.

I only expect a very few readers to be groaning. Some of you may have a subconscious inkling that the scan is a bit funny.

It's a play on the very old Dr. Seuss cartoon, Horton and the Egg. The song was not in the book.

In fact the real song wasn't in the cartoon either.

Via Google......

The Hut-Sut Song
Horace Heidt
Words and music by Leo V. Killion, Ted McMichael & Jack Owens

In a town in Sweden by a stream so clear and cool,
A boy would sit and fish and dream when he should have been in school.
Now, he couldn't read or write a word but happiness he found
In a little song he heard and here's how it would sound;

Hut-Sut Rawlson on the rillerah and a brawla, brawla sooit,
Hut-Sut Rawlson on the rillerah and a brawla sooit.
Hut-Sut Rawlson on the rillerah and a brawla, brawla sooit,
Hut-Sut Rawlson on the rillerah and a brawla sooit.

Now the Rawlson is a Swedish town, the rillerah is a stream.
The brawla is the boy and girl,
The Hut-Sut is their dream.

Hut-Sut Rawlson on the rillerah and a brawla, brawla sooit.
Hut-Sut Rawlson on the rillerah and a brawla sooit.

------Now the only line used in the cartoon was:

Hut-Sut raw sat on a rillerah and a so on so on so forth.

So there.

If our good Dr. Brin never named the Rousit's homeworld, why not Arilerah?