Lankar of Callisto

We managed to cover quite a distance during the next two days. And I must admit, with more than a little pride which seems to me only justifiable under the circumstances, that I was beginning to feel fit and hardy and well able to survive in the wilderness, after my first few miserable days.

I felt stronger and tougher than I had in years, and was able to stride through the underbrush for miles without needing rest. I no longer suffered quite as much as I had at first from the lack of such civilized luxuries as fresh hot coffee and cigarettes―although it took an effort of will to keep my mind off such tempting thoughts, and more than once I woke from dreams of tender, succulent filet mignon, dry martinis, or fresh, fragrant, steaming cups of fresh-brewed Maxwell House. And, as for thoughts of food, I learned that raw fruit, a handful of nuts and berries, and an occasional morsel of vastodon steak may sound like a Spartan diet, but they certainly satisfy the inner man and you can easily learn to get along on them―because you have to, especially when the nearest decent restaurant is something like four hundred million miles away.

Yes, for a lazy, self-indulgent, unathletic science-fiction writer nearing forty and of sedentary habits, I had come through the ordeal a whole lot better than even I could have imagined possible. My head was clear, my eyes were keen, my “wind” was better than it had been since my twenties, and I could keep going for half a day before sitting down to rest.

“Lo saraj, Lankar-chan!”* chirped Taran, trudging along at my rear, pointing off to the left. I didn’t ask how the boy knew where water was, because I couldn’t yet phrase out the question. But Bozo sensed the nearness of the brook in almost the same instant. The big fellow had been forging along steadily for a couple of hours now, and, from the way his pink tongue was lolling between his frog-like jaws, he was beginning to get thirsty, as were we. Sniffing the air, he uttered a guttural sound that was an othode’s equivalent of a dog’s bark, and went waddling off to the left as fast as his six short, fat, bowed legs could carry him. When we arrived he was standing in the middle of the stream, lapping up cold, fresh water.

Taran knelt at my side and drank noisily from cupped palms, again and again, before settling back with a sigh of repletion. He cast me a bright-eyed glance and said something untranslatably colloquial, which might be rendered as “That’s mighty good!” or “Nothing like a bellyful of water on a hot day!” All I can say for certain is that the remark terminated in “Lankar-chan,” which he had recently taken to calling me. The term was a respectful one, such as a youngster might politely use towards an older man, serving for the nonce, as was I, in loco parentis. The word chan meant “sir.” Therefore I suppose Lankar-chan would translate to something like “Mr. Carter.”

My acquaintance with the Thanatorian language was still a crude thing, merely a matter of a few verbs and nouns. So I had not yet learned anything of the youngster’s story, of who he was and how he had come to be caught in that ximchak-web. A long time after our jungle journey I elicited from him the fact that he had been born and raised in a small Ku Thad hunters’ settlement deep in the Grand Kumala. The Ku Thad had once lived amidst the vast tract of black-and-crimson jungle, driven into hiding in those regions by the Chac Yuul who had invaded and conquered their homeland. Even after Jandar’s arrival on Thanator, and the subsequent destruction of the bandit legion, which the Ku Thad had driven out of Shondakor, many of the Ku Thad preferred the rough, hardy, outdoors life of hunting in the dense jungles; Taran’s father had been one of these.