He hadn’t worried at first; like his wife, he was kept by the low gravity from feeling any real fear of falling, and didn’t consider skiing dangerous here. He assumed that Samians would be even less concerned, since most of their planets were high weight and their physiques certainly less prone to injury. The few members of the species on Habranha were mostly researchers, Diplomacy Guild representatives, or, nowadays, individuals from one or another of the Six Races who felt an interest in the hypothesis that the intelligent Habranhans might actually be a remnant of the Seventh Race, known so far only from archaeological data. None of the Samians were settlers; there was no room for settlers.
Hugh’s first sight of Barrar “dressed” for skiing had caused him some other doubts, though. Instead of the six-limbed horizontally arranged sensibly stable walker which he usually employed, the administrator had appeared on something vaguely resembling a headless human skeleton made of some highly resistant — Hugh hoped — black and apparently resilient composition. The reddish-brown limbless, eyeless, and generally featureless slab of leathery-looking meat which was the Samian himself rode inside the rib cage, the fine wires which connected it with the various effectors and sensors of the “body” just barely visible from two meters away. Ordinary skis were mounted on framework feet which had been designed to fit them.
Even Janice, not usually a worrier, had tactfully suggested on their way to the jump area that familiarizing himself with a new mechanical body and a new method of locomotion at the same time might not be a fair trial of either, but Barrar had assured her there would be no problem.