 Who are the Chingsi?
The sun glinted on black rock glazed by ice, chasms and ridges and bridges of ice. Two months later your time, one second later by us. Walking, talking natives on a blue sky planet with 1.1 g gravity and a twenty per cent oxygen atmosphere at fifteen p.s.i. The odds against finding Chang on a six-sun survey on the first star jump ever must be up in the googols. "The Chang natives aren't very technical—haven't got space travel for instance. We were able to show them our sun, in their telescopes. Look more like cats than people, but they're people all right. "One, they learned our language in four weeks. When I say they, I mean a ten-man team of them. "Two, they brew a near-beer that's a lot nearer than the canned stuff we had aboard the Whale . "Four, the ten-man language team also learned chess and table tennis. People who talk English, drink beer, like jokes and beat me at chess or table-tennis are people for my money, even if they look like tigers in trousers. The rest of us seemed to lose whichever Chingsi we played. Of course it's a screwy situation, playing chess with something that grows its own fur coat, has yellow eyes an inch and a half long and long white whiskers.
 A race of cat-like humanoids from the planet Chang.
 The Chingsi are the inhabitants of Alpha Centauri.  A race of cat-like humanoids from the planet Chang.  Chingsi is what the people of China call themselves in this story.  The Chingsi are genetically mutated cats.