Renegade of Callisto
- Автор: Картер Лин Спрэг
- Серия: Callisto #8
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Renegade of Callisto». Краткое содержание книги:
Far from his adopted home, the Golden City of Shondakor, Koja, self-exiled insectoid of the Yathoon Horde, has blundered into the savage land he had renounced, accompanied only by little Taran, ward of Prince Jandar. Lost in the treacherous scarlet plains, the two are hurled to separate, unnamable fates —Taran forsaken in shackles, along with the lovely Princess Xara, while the renegade Koja is locked on a perilous course of vengeance for the evils done to his clan. All destinies collide at the Great Yathoon Games in the hidden valley of Sargol — the impenetrable citadel girdled by a seething mote of flames.
In the spine-tingling tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lin Carter again transports us to a strange and sublime landscape pulsating with the flash of swords, secret splendors, and ever-lurking danger.
Bozo likes me very much―but he loves Taran, since the boy had been with Lankar almost from the very first. While in the palace, Bozo sleeps wherever he likes, sometimes in the suite I share with my beloved Darloona, sometimes on hot nights in the cool gardens―but, more often than not, he chooses to share the little bed on which Taran sleeps when he is not on duty in the cadet barracks.
The boy and the waddling pair of othodes remained close friends even after Taran left the legion to serve with the sky cadets.
And it is entirely because of this simple fact that the most surprising adventure occurred, whereby the fate of many thousands was changed, and the destinies of nations were forever altered … .
2 The Runaways
On a lazy afternoon, following flight practice, Taran brought his little gig down to one of the rooftop mooring masts and expertly anchored the craft into position with a deft twist of the mooring cable. The cable was a light but strong length of line with a small, collapsible grappling hook attached to it―rather like a miniature anchor for this little ship of the skies.
The mooring mast itself was one of the several that thrust skyward from one of the middle tiers of the royal palace. Here were anchored the skycraft of various officers and courtiers, messengers with important dispatches, and similar functionaries. The young sky cadet was actually supposed to return his craft to its berth at the huge skydrome on the other side of Shondakor, near the shipyards. But the boy wished to demonstrate his new facility to his friend Koja, whose suite of apartments was situated in this part of the palace.
Taran found Koja with Bozo and Fido, returning from a spell of exercise in the palace gardens. Othodes had first been domesticated by the Yathoon warriors, who used them for hunting and tracking, and Koja had taken unto himself the enjoyable task of training the two waddling brutes to come at command and to obey simple orders.
Actually, it wasn’t Taran who found Bozo and Edo, it was really Bozo and Fido who found Taran. The beasts had an extraordinary sense of smell and detected the approach of their little friend and playmate long before he knew they were about. Whuffing and snorting vigorously, the two othodes came bounding up to the lad and cavorted happily about him, leaping up to lick his face. Fido, like the overgrown puppy he was, kept trying to snatch a mouthful of the short, hip-length cloak the boy wore, in order to play a rather one-sided game of tug-of-war.
Koja followed the two Callistan hounds as they ,vent bounding off toward the terrace, and came up to them to find the boy hugging and petting the two brutes, who stared up into his face with love in their eves, showing grins that stretched from ear to ear, and riving desperately to wag their tails as dogs would. Nature failed to equip othodes with tails, and their efforts were not only futile but also exceedingly comical to watch. You really have to see for yourself an othode trying to wag a tail that isn’t there.
His features an impassive mask as always, Koja surveyed the healthy, long-legged boy from head to foot, approving of what he saw. In fact, the stalk-legged arthropod was beaming fondly upon the boy, although you would never have guessed this from the cold glitter of his enormous eyes or the rigor of his expression.
“You look like a real sky cadet today, little Taran,” remarked the insect-man in his grating, metallic tones. He had not before seen the boy in full-dress uniform, winged silver helm, short cloak of sparkling silvery fabric, close-fitting sky-blue trousers tucked into calf-high silvered-leather boots, and deep blue tunic emblazoned over the heart with the Shondakorian emblem. The boy grinned back at the arthropod, flushed and happy.
“Do I really look good, Koja-chan?” he asked, spreading his cloak with both hands and gazing down to admire himself in all his resplendance. Words tumbling all over themselves, Taran told his solemn friend that he had just come from a special display of practice put on for Kaamurath of Soraba, then visiting Jandar and Darloona on a tour of state. The friendly Seraan of neighboring Soraba was here to purchase some scoutcraft of his own.
“… an’ Glypto was there, too!” the lad finished breathlessly. Koja nodded jerkily; he had known of the state visit of the Soraban monarch, but had avoided attending the festivities as such occasions he found a dreary bore. Indeed, they usually are―but little boys find little in life that bores them aside from lessons.
He turned from his contemplation of Taran’s military finery to admire the little gig as it wobbled and bobbled at the end of its mooring cable. Sleek and trim it was, a slender, tapering projectile with open cabin and four bucket-seats, like a canoe, riding the breeze on its airtight pontoons. It was in these twin cylinders that the levitating gas was pent. From wingtip to rudder, the sleek little aircraft had been painted in blue and silver, with the blazon of Shondakor on the left side on its prow. Just above the insignia, a neat row of scarlet characters had been inscribed.
Koja did not know that Taran had been privileged to name his own gig―an honor reserved for the upper percentile of cadets―and leaned forward to read the lettering.
“I call it after Lankar-jan,” sighed the boy, a momentary expression of wistfulness dimming his ardor. “I do miss him so, Koja.”
“I know,” observed the Yathoon. “So does Bozo―look at him.”
Taran giggled. The burly othode had leaped up on the top of the parapet and now stood with his hind legs on the wall and his front paws hooked over the lip of the cockpit, sniffing the seat eagerly. Fido scrambled and cavorted about in an agony of frustrated curiosity beneath.
“Yes―I forgot!―I brought them a snack from the welcoming feast―”
Bozo found the haunch of meat hidden beneath the pilot’s seat, however, all by himself, and hopped clumsily down to waddle away with his treat, growling at his son in such a manner as to suggest “This is my snack―go find your own!”, which was greedy of him, but not at all unothodelike.
Taran ran after the older othode, scolding him and trying to take away the meat so as to make him share it with Fido. Koja stood watching, his back turned to the skycraft, and he would have chuckled tolerantly, had nature designed him for chuckling, which it hadn’t.
While neither of them was looking, Fido decided to investigate the pilot’s seat on his own. Disappointed in not being allowed to share in the treat, the ungainly pup obviously wished to determine if any further goodies reposed in the craft.
The pup had watched how his father had jumped up on the parapet and then stood on his hind legs while holding onto the edge of the cockpit with his forepaws. Now the pup repeated this sequence of actions, somewhat more clumsily and more gracelessly than had Bozo, but without accident. However, there was the matter of that middle set of legsl Fido could not quite remember how his father had disposed of them, so he hooked them into the cockpit, too.
With the natural result that, when the first gust of wind came to make the Lankar-jan wobble from side to side, Fido found his hind legs losing contact with the parapet, and in the next moment the othode discovered himself hanging onto the edge of the cockpit, with the rest of him dangling in thin air.