" From the boy came a yammer of pleading: “My knife, my good knife! Oh where will I get another? Give me back my property!” Neither Myron nor Schwatzendale heeded the plea. From the shadows the boy called out in fury, “Ugly milk-fed tourists! Go back to your wallow! In two more seconds I would have had the squonk’s hide, and now I have lost my knife!” Myron and Schwatzendale returned to the flitter. As they flew back down to Sholo, Myron asked, “What is a ‘squonk’?” Schwatzendale reflected, then said at last, “I believe it to be some sort of hairless white rat. "

― Jack Vance , Ports of Call