Titanian (Trouble on Titan)

Titanians are a sapient humanoid species which originated in an unknown star system and colonized Titan in ancient times.

Biology
Titanians are short slender humanoids, less than 5 ft tall and delicately built, although their flesh is visibly tough and hard. They are completely hairless. Instead of ears, they have four filaments on each side of their heads, shaped like a lyre. They can see in the dark and consume food that is harmful to Humans. Unlike most other species, there appears to be no variation of size among Titanians, all individuals being precisely the same height.

Titanians have a gland inside their throats which produces a chemical secretion that acts as a flux, helping to treat metals in a way that lowers their melting point and greatly facilitates metalworking.

Culture and society
The Titanians are a friendly and hospitable people who speak their own language and dress in metallic garments. Their technology includes wheel-less vehicles, and their buildings have no need for windows or internal illumination, since they can see in perfect darkness. They seem to share many gestures of courtesy with Humans, such as smiling and bowing (although it is possible they might have learned these gestures from Human explorer Sidney Murray).

History
The Titanians, in spite of their name, are not actually native to Titan, but originate from another star system. When their ancestors settled on Titan fleeing from an unspecified disaster that forced them out of their homeworld, bitter wars were fought between the Titanians and the native Gora, especially after the latter realized that the Titanians' glandular secretions were not only nutritious, but could also be used as a flux to treat metals and facilitate metalworking. In spite of their technological superiority, the Titanians found themselves at serious danger of losing the war and being enslaved by the Gora.

Eventually, the two races agreed on a symbiotic arrangement in which the Gora would work in the Titanians' cities, performing all labour while the Titanians would live in comfort and allow the Gora to periodically drain them of their precious glandular fluids. The Titanians are content with this arrangement, describing it as having outwitted their opponents and turned the tables on them, making the Gora their slaves rather than the other way around. In reality, however, the Gora have full control of the city and have relegated the Titanians to a status analogous to aphids in an ant colony, kept alive only for their fluids: a situation to which the Titanians remain oblivious.

Appearances

 * "Trouble on Titan", by Arthur K. Barnes (1941)