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Involving an earth man on a planet circling Rigel, where the green-skinned natives (called “Klahari” or “K’ahari” as I recall) are attacking and wiping out the colonizing earthers. Although Rigel is so far away from the planet it appears only as a very bright star, earthers must wear special contact lenses to help them reduce the star’s glare and save their eyesight.

I believe I read this in an anthology when I was a middle schooler in the 60s.

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The green skinned K’ahari attacking Terran colonists is in the story Jean Dupres by Gordon R. Dickson. I read it in the anthology Nova 1 edited by Harry Harrison.

Nova 1

For there were two of the K’ahari young men standing just inside the edge of the small clearing about twenty feet off. They must have been there before I stepped through the last ferns myself, because my scanner would have picked them up if they had been moving. They were seniors, full seven feet tall, with their skins so green that they would have been invisible against the jungle background if it hadn’t been for the jewels and weapons and tall feather headdresses.

It is set on the planet Utword, though this does not orbit Rigel but rather the star Alpha Eridani. However it does mention the lenses needed for protection from the light:

We came out on to a plowed field and saw a planter’s home and buildings about six hundred yards off, looking small and humped and black under the bright white dazzle of the pinhole in the sky that was Achernar, old Alpha Eridani. The contact lenses on my eyes had darkened up immediately, and I looked at the boy, for he was too young to wear contacts safely—but he had already pulled a pair of goggles down off his sun-cap to cover his eyes.

(thanks to Eike Pierstorff for spotting this)

A footnote: I also found the story in the anthology The Seven Deadly Sins and Cardinal Virtues of Science Fiction edited by Isaac Asimov, but in that printing the aliens are referred to as the Klahari instead of K’ahari. I don't know why this was changed.

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  • Not Rigel, but contact lenses - "We came out on to a plowed field and saw a planter's home and buildings about six hundred yards off, looking small and humped and black under the bright white dazzle of the pinhole in the sky that was Achernar, old Alpha Eridani. The contact lenses on my eyes had darkened up immediately, and I looked at the boy, for he was too young to wear contacts safely—but he had already pulled a pair of goggles down off his sun-cap to cover his eyes".
    – Eike Pierstorff
    Jul 24, 2021 at 12:33
  • @EikePierstorff Thanks, I had missed that :-)
    – John Rennie
    Jul 24, 2021 at 12:36
  • Thanks so much for this. Dickson’s one of my favorites so I’m not surprised to have remembered the story after all these years even though I didn’t remember the author or title. By the way, I BELIEVE the reason for the different name Klahari/K’ahari is that the tall green-skinned folks couldn’t pronounce the “L” and so “K’ahari” is what they called themselves. Of course it begs the question “if they call themselves “K’ahari,” wouldn’t that be the correct form of the make, and “Klahari” the incorrect form?
    – Bill P
    Jul 25, 2021 at 12:30
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    @BillP please will you click on the green tick symbol to the left of my answer as that marks the answer as accepted. Thanks :-)
    – John Rennie
    Jul 25, 2021 at 14:42

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