The rest of the planet was nearly uninhabited. Part of it was real wilderness, like the land where Blade and Riyannah were now. The wild animals roamed there, the glaciers crunched down the mountainsides, the snow fell and the flowers bloomed as if there wasn't a single intelligent being on the planet

The Kananites never went into the true wilderness. They hiked and swam and hunted in areas closer to the cities, equipped with shelters, free of wild animals-in short a «tame» wilderness. Few Kananites ever spent a night in the open, picked berries for food, or built their own shelters. Their «wilderness» was fine for getting healthy exercise, fresh air, and sunshine, but not for learning to survive outdoors.

The Kananites were not decadent. They understood both the pleasure and the need for the outdoor life. At the same time they weren't willing to give up the comforts they'd known all their long lives.

Kananite medicine was as advanced as the rest of their science. Riyannah was over a hundred Home Dimension years old and she could expect to live to nearly three hundred. That made Blade think even more highly of her courage. She'd been willing to give up two hundred years of life for whatever cause brought her here. It also made him realize why most Kananites were so cautious and conservative. How had they managed to build an empire among the stars in spite of this?

«An empire?» said Riyannah when Blade raised the question. «You mean-many planets settled by Kananites?»

«Something like that, yes.»

She laughed. «Why should we want to do that when we have everything we could hope to need at home? Besides, some of the other planets might someday have their own people. So we should leave those planets alone.» Her face hardened. «The Targans think differently. They would take Kanan itself if they could.»