Mercurian n.

There’s reason to doubt, whether the Mercurians [translating Latin Hermopolitae]…are much more airy and ingenious than we.

We see a dark body surrounded by an immensity of light; and the inhabitants of all the planets may see it just as we do; as well the Mercurian as the Herschelian.

English name of inhabitant—Mercurian, Venerian, Tellurian, Martian, Jovian.

He remembered the Mercurian who had valeted one of the friends of his student days. Khambee was the Mercurian’s name.

What had the Mercurian said? Vane tried to remember.

I said, ‘You old Mercurian! You old Plutonian! You want to blow up Earth!’

The Mercurian moved forward, towards me.

Meetings between the Martian delegation and the Mercurians had been going on in Terminator for weeks, and Zo was tired of them, both the meetings and the Mercurial negotiators, a secretive self-important group of oligarchic mullahs haughty and fawning at the same time, who had not yet comprehended the new order of things in the solar system.

Overall, it was a good argument for the Mercurians’ experiment with a ‘democracy of limited choice’.

The Mercurian reaches the other side of the street and stumbles, falling hard to the ground. There’s no sign of a leak in the suit, but still I wonder why the Mercurian is out of its district. There’s no overt discrimination on Mars—anyone can go anywhere, unless you’re a criminal—but a fall like that could’ve punctured the environment suit and then the Mercurian would’ve died. The notoriously late ambulances would be left delivering the body back to the district. What could be so important?