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.
And there was, of course, another problem becoming ever more evident and that was created by their need to relieve themselves.
Characters in fiction seldom seem concerned about the need to eliminate bodily waste. But this is not a novel, and in real life it is a necessity with which we all must cope. And Koja, Taran, and Fido were increasingly reminded of this necessity as the day wore on.
Especially Fido.
As the day waned into afternoon, a dark clump of trees appeared amidst the endless scarlet meadows.
The Great Plains are not entirely flat and smooth, of course, and are dotted at infrequent intervals with small forests or stands of trees. As this particular clump became clearer to see, since the gentle currents of the air sluggishly propelled the Lankar-jan in its direction, Koja and Taran were able to make out that the forest was composed largely of borath.
And this gave Koja the idea he was looking for.
The most common tree that grows on the jungle
Moon is the jaruka, with a ropy and twisted black trunk and heavy growth of scarlet foliage. Most of the trees in the Grand Kumala are jaruka.
Quite rare, and held in a peculiar form of superstitious reverence by the more primitive denizens of Thanator, is the sorad tree. This curious botanical specimen unaccountably reverses the normal coloration and has a scarlet trunk and silky black foliage.
Both jaruka and sorad are rather small trees, with thick trunks and low, spreading branches.
But the borath is something else, in that it resembles our mountain pine or spruce and grows to a considerable height. Indeed, so tall and straight do the borath trees grow that I have often thought of them as the sequoias of Callisto.
And the small forest in which direction they were drifting was a stand of borath trees.
“Whatever are you doing, Koja-chan?” demanded Taran puzzledly―for the gaunt arthropod had climbed out of the cockpit and now sat straddling the rear fusilage, from which point he could untie the mooring cable.
Koja made no reply. As Taran and Fido watched uncomprehendingly, the Yathoon reeled in the long, light cable, measuring its length and calculating the height of the Lankar-jan in relationship to the height of the tallest of the borath trees which they were slowly approaching.
Then he turned to Taran and expressionlessly commanded the boy to take off his clothes, beginning with his cloak; somewhat bewilderedly, Taran did as he had been told and handed the garment to the arthropod, who proceeded to tear the cape into long strips which he knotted together.
After that, Koja requested the removal of Taran’s tunic and, finally, of the close-fitting blue pants which all but completed his Sky Navy uniform.
The boy was left with a brief white loincloth only, and was afraid that Koja would ask for that next. Save for breechclout, and of course his boots, the youth was naked.
However, he soon perceived the direction of Koja’s thought. His garments, torn into strips and knotted together, served to greatly lengthen the mooring cable, to one end of which the collapsible metal grappling hook was fastened. By means of this “skyanchor” Koja hoped to snag one of the uppermost branches of the tall borath trees when they drifted over them.
He hoped, in fact, to anchor the floating craft to the treetops and then either haul the Lankar-jan in, hand over hand, or perhaps clamber down the line and descend the tree.
Although he was nearly naked and shivering in the cool breeze, Taran hugged himself excitedly at the prospect of getting down to the ground again and relieving himself behind the nearest bush, and per. haps even finding something to eat.
Then, of course, it began to rain and he was no longer quite so happy.
5 To the Rescue!
More or less as Koja had assumed, his absence from the palace was not at once noted; nor were the disappearances of Bozo and Fido any immediate cause of concern to the court.
The two othodes came and went as they pleased, and we were accustomed to their being away for a day or two at a time. Bozo, in fact, was in the process of teaching his ungainly pup how to hunt, and frequently led him into the edges of the Grand Kumala for further lessons in the tracking and killing of game.
As for Koja, the gaunt, solemn arthropod was on good terms with everyone, but his dearest and closest friends were Lukor the Ganatolian, young Taran, my mate Darloona, and myself. From time to time moodiness overcame my insectoid friend, or perhaps he became lonesome for his home on the measureless plains among the mighty Hordes of his kind. On such occasions he might ride out of Shondakor to prowl the grasslands for a day or more, hunting for food, eating his kill, brooding over his somber and forever unknowable thoughts.
This being the way things were, when Koja did not show up for the state dinner in honor of a friendly monarch, our neighbor, Kaamurath of Soraba, nobody thought anything of it. And, when young Taran failed to report to his barracks for bed-check, nobody thought too much of that, either. Young blood is often hot, and the girls of Shondakor were very lovely. It was only when the duty officer, a young komor named Jorad, compared rosters and discovered that the scoutcraft Lankar-jan had not been checked back into its berth in the dockyards that he began to feel that all might not be well with one of his charges.
Yet, he did not become worried. The nights were summery and the moonlight was very romantic. And, as I have mentioned, the girls of Shondakor are quite beautiful. Taran would not have been the first young sky cadet to take a susceptible young lady for a joyride over the moonlit plains in his skycraft―even though such misbehavior with government property was officially frowned upon.
Jorad himself was only a few years older than Taran, and had a natural tendency to overlook such small, very human infractions of the rules.
But, by the next day, when neither Taran nor the Lankar-jan had returned, he became alarmed. Superiors were reluctantly informed and questions were asked in Taran’s barracks. None of his fellow cadets could shed any illumination on the mystery, and his best friend, a cadet named Nadan, volunteered that to the best of his knowledge his bunk-mate had no current sweetheart.
Since Taran was an orphan and a ward of the Throne, I, Jandar, was the concerned party who must be informed. Thus, on the evening of the day after his disappearance, a very uncomfortable and heavily perspiring Captain Harad, commanding officer of the cadet legion, came before me in my study to report that the boy was missing.
As it happened, no court balls, banquets, or ceremonies were scheduled for that evening, and my Princess and I had looked forward to spending a cozy and intimate evening together―a pleasure that monarchs find increasingly rare with the weight of empires.
“Perhaps the boy has a sweetheart in town,” Darloona suggested with a warm, maternal smile, “and merely let time get away, as can so easily happen with young lovers.”
“Such, my Princess, is not believed to be the case,” Captain Harad said seriously.
“A joyride, then?” I suggested. “Rather than return his ship immediately after the parade formation, Taran might have felt like taking a little spin―”
“For a full night and a day?” murmured Darloona, with just the slightest frown of worriment beginning to form a crease between her flawless brows. We were both very fond of little young Taran, and thought of him almost as a son―our own son being happily yet too young for such high-jinks as adolescents so easily get themselves into.
“You are right, my beloved.” I nodded thoughtfully, beginning to feel the first stirrings of trepidation myself. “The boy must have had an accident―”