A Beast For Norn
Tuf is approached by Herold Norn, Senior Beastmaster of the Norn House of Lyronica. The House of Norn requests beasts for gladiatorial fighting in Lyronica's Bronze Arena. After seeing an example of the Arena battles (and, it is strongly implied, being appalled by its barbarity), Tuf agrees to provide a breeding stock of cobalcats (and a stock of innocuous-looking prey animals from the cobalcats' homeworld to be released into the cobalcats' new Lyronican habitat) for the House of Norn.
As the House of Norn racks up victories with their cobalcats, Tuf is approached seriatim by the other houses for ever-more-lethally effective beasts (and compatible prey animals), until the greatest of the Houses at last approaches him for a beast and also with a proposal for him to cease all further dealings with the Houses of Lyronica. Tuf graciously accepts the offer.
Herold Norn returns to Tuf to complain about Norn's cobalcats not mating (and about the prey species reproducing without effective suppression and overrunning the Norn lands, making it impossible for the House of Norn to return to breeding their original Arena beasts). Tuf gets the last laugh, as the introduction of the various prey species into each House's territory irrevocably changes the regional ecosystem such that all become incapable of sustaining the large predators upon which the gladiatorial contests had originally depended, thus leading to the (unstated) end of the Bronze Arena.
Read more about this topic: Tuf Voyaging
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“The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars, his eyes see through the earth, his ears understand the language of beast and bird, and the sense of the wind; and, through his sympathy, heaven and earth should talk with him. But that is not our science.”
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