"There are. Castellians are adapted for wet planets- some of them breathe water. Inari see in the dark. Heavy Gravity Worlders are adapted to extreme gravity. I'm a Nietzschean, homo spapiens invictus."

He reaches to the strap of one of his arm-wraps, something that appears very much to be a guantlet at the moment, with the boneblades capped by metal spikes. But he loosens it on one arm and slips it off, showing Jim the boneblades beneath.

But they're sawed off two thirds of the way down, uncomfortably blunted like a rhino deprived of its horn.

"A poor example. Usually my people have these." Then he puts the armwrap back on, carefully so the spikes cap the docked bony protrusions.