Jandar of Callisto

4. KOJA OF THE YATHOON HORDE

Now I entered the first period of my captivity upon Thanator. For two months I was a prisoner among the strange beings who had saved me from the attack of the yathrib. The days passed slowly and without incident, as I learned the curious ways of this jungle world. To relate a day-by-day chronicle of my imprisonment would occupy far too many pages of this manuscript; hence I shall speak only of the discoveries I made in the camp of the Yathoon Horde.

When I got a closer look at the weird creatures who had captured me, I saw they were in no respect human. If anything, they resembled in their tall attenuated forms and jerking, many-jointed stride, gigantic insects like the praying mantis. Whether or not they were true insects, according to the technical definition of the word, I must leave to whatever scientists may one day peruse this document I now inscribe. Suffice it to say, they more closely resembled insects than any other form of life I could think of.

They stood about seven feet tall and were impossibly slim and skeletal. Like many true arthropods, their lean bodies were clad in an external horny coating like chitin. This segmented exoskeleton was a uniform silver-gray and exuded a sharp but not unpleasant scent which I eventually identified as the harsh metallic odor of ants―formic acid, I believe it is called.

Like many terrene insect forms, the Thanatorian arthropod has a body composed of three major sections.

First, the head, which is a horny and all but featureless ovoid like a slightly elongated egg, sharply pointed at the smaller end. These heads have neither nose nor nostril, insofar as I have been able to observe, and the mechanism of the mouth and jaw is concealed on the underside of this casque-like ovoid and too complicated for me to accurately picture in words.

They have two eyes, one on each side of the head, and much larger than the human, but without whites. These do not seem to be the usual faceted, compound eye structures I have seen in magnified drawings of insects. They are black, glittering, and devoid of any expressiveness. In order to blink, the arthropod uses two horny translucent membranes, one descending from the upper rim of the eye case and one rising from the lower, both covering the eye completely.

The insect creatures have no ears, or at least no external ears, and I have never been able to understand just how they manage to detect sounds. But they do have two long, slender, tapering and jointed antennae or feelers which extend from just above either eye, curving backwards gracefully over the skull. For all I know, these may be sensitive to the vibrations of sound.

Instead of necks, they have a jointed tubular structure composed of two rings, wherewith their heads are fastened to the second portion of their bodies, the thorax, which is a smooth, glistening, upright ovoid larger than the head, and shoulderless. From this two long arms with multiple joints extend. Their arms are twice as long as human arms and have an extra joint, like a secondary elbow. Slim and tapering shafts of chitin, these arms look like bare bones, ending in very long, thin, splayed, segmented fingers. There are four of these fingers, the central pair being about four inches longer than the outermost and innermost fingers, which are also of equal length. They have no thumb, but as the fingers have six joints each and are capable of extreme flexibility, they are able to handle objects at least as easily as do our human hands with their opposing thumbs.

The thorax of the arthropod―the upper chest, you might call it―is joined by a narrow banded waist to the abdomen, a long tapering spindle-shaped structure which thrusts out behind the legs. These hind limbs also have an extra joint like those of the forelimbs, and end in four-toed, or -clawed, splayed feet. In the case of the feet, three widely separated toes are thrust out in front and the fourth toe, like the spur on a bird's foot, extends to the rear. These multiple-jointed hind limbs are oddly constructed. The first segment (you might call it the thigh) thrusts forward from the hip joint, ending in a knee joint; the second segment, the lower leg, thrusts sharply backwards, ending in an ankle joint, from which a third segment thrusts forward again, ending in yet another ankle joint, to which is affixed the enormous, splayed, clawlike toes.

These hind limbs, with their multiple joints and odd articulations, strongly resemble the structure of a dog's hind leg. The arthropods run with incredible swiftness; their great hind limbs send them bounding along in springing leaps. They also use these limbs most peculiarly in war. The Yathoon warriors go armed with most unusual swords, in addition to the great black war bows. These whip swords, as they are called, are not unlike the fencing epee, but are of amazing length―a good sixty inches of finger-thin, very flexible steel, ending not in a point but in a bladed barb like an arrowhead. They use these swords very much like whips, and the wound inflicted by the lashing blow of that bladed barb is a terrible one. In battle, the arthropods leap suddenly into the air like great grasshoppers, their long ungainly arms bringing the whip-sword down in swift, lashing strokes that are very difficult to parry and can best be avoided by hopping backwards or to one side. A duel between two Yathoon warriors―and I saw many such during my internment among them―is a bewildering scene of leaping, agile figures bounding several yards into the air, the whipping needle of their swords whistling through the air shrilly.

Yet for all their height, agility, and speed, the arthropods are less strong than a human being. This is due to the nature of their musculature. In human anatomy, our inner skeletons serve as a solid structure against which our muscles are anchored, giving leverage. But the insect creatures have no internal skeletons ―their external crust of horn serving to hold them rigid. The muscles of the arthropods, then, are anchored rather flimsily to the inner walls of this exoskeletal crust, which gives them nowhere near the muscular leverage or, thus, the strength of men.

Whether or not they are truly evolved from insects I cannot say. But, if I recall correctly, terrene insects have no lungs, their under-thorax containing small perforations through which oxygen enters their system. The arthropods of Thanator have genuine lungs, for the segmented plates of the thorax expand and contract rhythmically, held together by a hard but flexible gummy substance like cartilage, and their thoraxes swell and diminish to the breathing of inner lungs. It might well be they are not insects at all, but that some form of crustacean life acted as their evolutionary ancestors. I can but give the data I observe

I lack the knowledge to interpret it scientifically.*

For the duration of my captivity I remained in the possession of the warrior who had captured me―the same male who had led the hunting party and whose bow had slain the yathrib there on the slope of that hill. I soon learned that the insect creatures had a language, and that my owner was known to them as Koja.

My position among the warriors of the Yathoon (as they call themselves) was difficult to explain. I was a prisoner, but not exactly a slave; I was permitted to wander where I would in the camp but not allowed to leave its perimeter, which was constantly guarded.

Koja was a komor or chieftain among the Horde. His rank was earned by his prowess in war rather than by any nobility of birth. His position in the hierarchy of his clan was very high, and his retinue was princely.

This retinue, or household, to which I now belonged consisted of a dozen young cadet warriors and twice that number of servitors. The cadets were not his offspring, but youthful warriors of the clan who were in his service to learn from a warrior of the greatest distinction the arts of combat and hunting. It was not unlike the system used in the terrene Middle Ages, whereby the younger sons of a noble house would enter the service of another lord, thereby receiving knightly training and schooling in the gentle arts of courtesy, chivalry, and honor. The cadets lived with Koja, served him, assisted in his hunting parties, and wore his markings.

The camp area reserved for the retinue of Koja consisted of some twenty tents of black felt, arranged in a double circle with the largest tent in the very center. Koja himself dwelt in the central tent, together with his hoard, or treasure. As to my position in the band of Koja's retinue, I think I was considered more a possession than a captive, and in this connection I should explain that, among the Yathoon, rank and position were recognized not only on fighting skill but also on the basis of wealth. The arthropods use no medium of exchange such as coinage, but the retinue of each warrior chieftain protects his hoard of treasures. These are not what we would call treasures ―gems or precious metals or even artworks are valueless to the Yathoon―but what we would consider a collection of curios. Rare shells, oddly shaped or colored stones, weirdly twisted .bits of wood, bright feathers, the skulls of beasts―these constitute the "treasure" guarded by a Yathoon chieftain. The tents of his retinue resemble a jackdaw's nest, or the hoard of a packrat. And it was with wry amusement that I came at length to realize my true position, as a prized possession, or amatar, of Koja.

I was an exotic curio!

I assumed at this time that all of Thanator was inhabited only by these nomadic tribes of arthropods, and that I was unique. It was not until much later that I discovered that the Yathoon Horde shared their world with at least three other distinctly different races of intelligent human beings, and that it was the peculiar hues of my yellow hair and blue eyes that rendered me valuable―a "collector's item."

My first impressions of these ungainly, stalking insect creatures was, I think naturally, one of revulsion and horror. I have never had a neurotic terror of crawling insects, but the weird, gaunt, faceless arthropods were so completely unlike anything I had ever encountered that my initial reaction was to find them repulsive and loathsome.

My reaction during these opening days of my enslavement was due in part to a fear that I was in imminent danger of being served up as the main course in some sort of disgusting cannibal feast―or at least that I was soon to be tortured to death on the altars of some alien divinity. But no such fate ensued, and in time I learned that I was in no danger of either cannibalism or torment, and would receive decent treatment from my captors.

My first reaction to the arthropods was, as I have said, one of revulsion at what I deemed their hideous and inhuman aspect. Inhuman they certainly were, but "hideous" is a matter of open question. The fact that they differed enormously from Homo sapiens was no reason to find their appearance automatically loathsome. Very soon I found myself admiring them. Slim, stalking figures, they were not without a certain grace ―even a certain cold inhuman beauty. With their attenuated limbs and extreme height they came, with familiarity, to assume something of the dignity and impressiveness of the lean gaunt statues of Giacometti or Henry Moore's weird stone figures.

Indeed, they had also something of the sleek, economical efficiency of a well-designed machine. Almost I could picture those stalking, multijointed limbs as smoothly machined pistons. Something of the passionless beauty of the machine was theirs, and something of the grandeur of sculpture.

In short, I no longer found them frightening, having no reason to fear my fate at their hands.

I found that they treated me well, or at least did not mistreat me overtly. They seemed, if anything, to pay very little attention to me, wrapped up as they were in their own unimaginable inner lives and busied with their own affairs.

Indeed, the retinue of Koja's slaves―captive arthropods won in battle with rival clans―fed and cared for me solicitously, if coldly. The arthropods do not know the human emotions―love, kindness, mercy, and friendship are completely alien to their mentality. This is a mixed blessing, at best. But, at least, if they know no kindness they are equally ignorant of cruelty. They neither torture nor mistreat their captives. Ignorant of the nobler sentiments, they are devoid of the more bestial.

Koja interrogated me at length upon our return to the vast war camp of the Horde. He seemed baffled at my inability to understand his harsh metallic language. And he seemed equally puzzled as the sounds of English words came from my lips. I tried Spanish and Portuguese, with which I was intimately familiar from my childhood, and a few phrases of French, German, and Vietnamese. He was equally unfamiliar with all of these. Eventually he stalked out, leaving me in the care of one of his servitors, an arthropod named Sujat. Sujat was personally in charge of caring for my needs, which he did with cold efficiency.

A row of uncouth symbols was painted across my chest―symbols whose meanings I was not to discover until somewhat later. As for the rest of my person, I went as naked as when I had first appeared on this world. The Yathoon, of course, with their chitinous exoskeleton which protects their soft inner parts from harm and from extremes of temperature, have no need of clothing. Lacking external sexual organs, they are devoid of the very concept of bodily modesty, as they are of ornament or fashion.

Their only garment, if it can be dignified with such a term, is a leather strap worn across the thorax like a baldric, and to which is affixed the long supple length of the whip-sword, held thus scabbarded across what would be their shoulders if they had shoulders, which they do not. The five-foot length of this blade would make it impractical to be worn at the hip. This baldric, and a row of painted symbols across the front of the upper thorax, constitutes their entire raiment. These symbols are not unlike those painted upon my own chest, and I was shortly to learn their meaning.

Although Sujat was in charge of me, it was Koja himself who served as my instructor in the Thanatorian tongue. This was, I suppose, a signal honor, but I think it was prompted purely by Koja's curiosity about his new toy. At any rate, Koja taught me his language with enormous patience and an unswerving sense of purpose that I would have thought highly admirable in a human being. But I could not, at least at this early date, think of my "owner" in terms of human attributes. His gaunt, alien person still, to some degree at least, seemed repellent to me.

This language was very interesting and, in many aspects, unique. I later discovered that the four races who inhabit Thanator have―incredible as it may seem, in mind of their enormous differences―a common tongue which is identical in all respects save, perhaps, in vocabulary. For the arthropods have not, or at least do not use, any words for such purely human conceptions as "love," "friendship," "mother," "father," "wife," or "son."

Such concepts do have a place, I later learned, in the universal language of this planet, but as the arthropods have no use or need for such terms, they are ignorant of them.

No other language than this single universal tongue has ever been known on the jungle moon; indeed, it was with the very greatest difficulty that, in the early days of my captivity, I made my captors grasp the notion that I was totally ignorant of their tongue and required patient instruction therein. The very concept of an intelligent being unfamiliar with the common tongue=to say nothing of the idea of a being who spoke "another" language―seemed incomprehensible to them. I am convinced that, at the beginning at least, Koja believed me mentally deficient; an idiot or at least a low-grade moron. But with some effort I managed to get across the idea that I wished to learn their language, and he taught me with great efficiency.

Since I have spent the greater part of my life knocking about the odd corners of the globe, I have developed an ear for languages and have a nodding acquaintance with a dozen earthly tongues. Hence I really did not find it difficult to master the basics of Thanatorian. At the beginning it was easy. I would point to objects, to parts of the body or of the landscape, to tools, weapons, articles of furniture, and receive from the expressionless Koja the relevant Thanatorian term. To assist in memorizing these words I wrote them down in English letters, a process that seemed greatly to mystify my tutor. Among the jackdaw's nest of curiosities that formed the wealth of Koja, I found an enameled box containing writing implements, rather like a Japanese writing case. This was, by the way, my first inkling that the Yathoon warriors shared their world with a higher civilization. For the arthropods were completely ignorant of writing, and when I suggested with appropriate gestures to Sujat that I would like to use these instruments he stalked from the tent to fetch his master, who came to stand, impassively watching as I displayed the uses to which I wished to put the writing case.

It was obvious to me that Koja had no understanding of why I wished to make little squiggly marks with the cut end of a thaptor feather* dipped in black substance and scrawled upon sheets of brownish paper that looked like coarse papyrus. But as I handled the implements with delicate care, he resolved to permit me to play with them as it seemed I had no intention of harming his "treasures."

Thus, able to compile a vocabulary of Thanatorian terms for my own study, I made quite rapid progress in my mastery of the language. We shortly progressed beyond simple nouns to verbs, and here we must have made a ludicrous spectacle, acting out various actions. I recall in particular one hilarious scene: Koja was giving me a verb which he illustrated by hopping up and down. It took me some little while to figure out whether he was giving me the word for "hop" or "walk" or "up" or what. And all the time the poor fellow, with his solemn and totally expressionless face, stood there on the beaten earth outside my tent, soberly jumping up and down like some ungainly grasshopper!

As I say, we encountered no real difficulty in our language lessons until we passed beyond simple nouns and verbs, colors and numbers, into the more baffling regions of the participles. I suppose this is a common difficulty in learning any language in this manner―how in the world do you illustrate such elusive terms as "and," "the," or "of"?―but then I had never before had to master a language without a text or at least a teacher familiar with my own tongue.

In the course of these lessons, which we pursued almost every single day from morning to evening, I picked up an enormous amount of miscellaneous information. I discovered that the arthropods were a race of warlike nomads, divided into several rival clans who were perpetually at war, each clan against all others. These clans, five of them in all, were―this internecine rivalry notwithstanding―all part of the same Horde, the Yathoon, and all under one common leader, who was known as the Arkon, which I suppose could be defined as "king." The Arkon, whose name was Uthar, lived far away at a certain secret place in the mountains. The various clans of the Horde went forth every few months from this hidden place to hunt for meat (and "treasure") , returning at a certain specific date. When they entered their capital―Koja called it "the Secret Valley of Sargol,"―they were instantly at peace with one another, regardless of the fact they were at each other's throats until they reached the very entrance stone of the Secret Valley!

I never found out the name of the clan that had taken me captive. I do not, in fact, believe the five clans had names to differentiate them―a fact which I found rather remarkable. Koja explained it to me in his usual solemn way.

"We know the clan to which we belong," he said. "And we know that the males of all other clans are our foes. And we know a strange male when we encounter him. What need have we, then, for labels?"

I could find nothing wrong with this statement; for all I knew it was by their different smell that the members of one clan identify a stranger. But I seized this opportunity to ask a question that had been puzzling me for some time.

"What, then, are the colored markings on the upper thorax of all Yathoon warriors?"

I should explain that on the front of the thorax a peculiar series of symbols were painted in bright colors: red, black, green, and gold. These were nothing like alphabetical symbols―for, as I learned from Koja's reaction to my use of the writing case, the arthropods have no conception of writing―but were instead geometrical symbols, lines, curves, and irregular splotches of raw color.

My tutor explained to me that these were―ah, but here I come to an untranslatable concept peculiar to the insect creatures. The glyphs, or whatever they were, served as markings to identify tribal rank, prestige, and the number of enemy kills―a strange combination of army rank insignia with the stickers on the fusilage of a fighter plane, I suppose, which indicate the number of enemy craft one ace has downed. I was glad to have my curiosity on this subject satisfied: hitherto I had assumed them to be in the nature of personal names or heraldic blazons, indicating family alliances. But I had discovered that the Yathoon warriors hold their females in common and have no conception of an individual mate. Indeed, paternity itself is unknown to them; all they know is that at regular intervals their females lay a grublike larva which eventually matures into male or female specimens of their race. Since no Yathoon knows who his father or mother were, and since all of the Yathoon larvae or young are raised in common, the arthropods are completely without anything like a family life. I have often wondered whether this total lack of family, or of mating, or of father― and motherhood, was the reason they lacked the more tender emotions.

Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Since they were not human―or even mammalian―I suppose it would be foolish to expect the warmer emotions from these weird creatures, and vain to feel them somehow lacking in that they know them not. And yet surely they were a stark cold race, devoid of religion, science, art, philosophy, and sentiment. They lived only for war and the hunt. They were an amazing people.

The servitors in a chieftain's retinue bore no such marking painted upon their thoraxes. I, however, did. Koja, when queried, explained at last my amusing position as an exotic "oddity" in his hoard or curio collection; all of his possessions were marked thus, to render impractical and difficult the theft of his treasures by a rival chieftain.

As I became more familiar with the Thanatorian language, I spent many hours conversing with my "owner." Koja, I learned, was one of the mightiest komors in all his clan, a warrior of great renown, a huntsman of enviable skill. The meat taken by the Yathoon on this long foray was salted or somehow pickled in kegs of spiced wood, which would be borne along in the midst of the war party in wains drawn by thaptor teams when at last they came to make their long trek home to the Secret Valley of their race.

This great homeward migration would commence in about three weeks, I learned. I was curious to see under what conditions the Yathoon females lived and how they reared their young, so it was with a certain eagerness that I awaited the signal to decamp.

Before the migration could begin, however, there occurred an unforeseen incident that resulted in my making my first friend among the strange and inhuman inhabitants of this distant world.

Koja had been absent from my language lesson for the greater part of this particular day, and I took the opportunity to roam the enormous camp of the Horde, exploring its peculiar ways.

Returning to the cluster of tents belonging to my owner, I saw the servitors of Koja's retinue in an unwonted agitation. The only one of the servitors whom I knew well enough to recognize―at this stage, frankly, one arthropod looked very much like another to me―I caught his attention. It was Sujat. I asked the reason for the flurry and confusion, and he informed me in his cold harsh voice that our mutual master, Koja, had been on a hunting party that morning and had been attacked by a rival hunting party from another clan nearby. The warriors of our clan had been defeated and driven away.

"And what of Koja?" I asked. His cold unwinking gaze bore no expression as he made reply.

"He is sorely wounded and has been left to die," he informed me.