Perhaps Oyarsa was hnau, but a very different hnau. He had no death and no young.

‘These séroni know more than the hrossa?’ asked Ransom.

This produced more a debate than an answer. What emerged finally was that the séroni or sorns were perfectly helpless in a boat, and could not fish to save their lives, could hardly swim, could make no poetry, and even when hrossa had made it for them could understand only the inferior sorts; but they were admittedly good at finding out things about the stars and understanding the darker utterances of Oyarsa and telling what happened in Malacandra long ago—longer ago than anyone could remember.