The refugees
discovered that climatically their new world was not too different from
Africa, a lucky chance which might happen only once in a thousand times.
So they thrived, the handful who survived. But the white technicians
they had kidnaped to run the ships didn't. For they set up a color bar
in reverse. The lighter your skin, the lower you were in the social
scale. By that kind of selective breeding the present Khatkans are very
dark indeed.
"They reverted to the primitive for survival. Then, about two hundred
years ago, long before the first Survey Scout discovered them, something
happened. Either the parent race mutated, or, as sometimes occurs, a
line of people of superior gifts emerged--not in a few isolated births,
but with surprising regularity in five family clans. There was a short
period of power struggle until they realized the foolishness of civil
war and formed an oligarchy, heading a loose tribal organization. With
the Five Families to push and lead, a new civilization developed, and
when Survey came to call they were no longer savages. Combine bought the
trade rights about seventy-five years ago.
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