Renegade of Callisto

1 Masters of the Upper Air

Human ingenuity is the crowning marvel of all Creation.

And, of all the works of man’s invention, I regard the unique and unparalleled ornithopters of Thanator as among the more ingenious and remarkable.

To conceive of the very notion of a flying machine in a society whose science has yet to progress beyond something resembling the High Renaissance is in itself remarkable. And it would have seemed even more remarkable to me had not the mighty brain of Leonardo―that titan intellect of the Renaissance―duplicated the feat of the unsung and nameless Callistan engineer who first conceived of the ornithopter. For the Florentine superman himself dreamed of a flying machine that flew as a bird flies―by flapping its wings. But some Callistan genius actually perfected the concept, from its initial visualization to the physical reality.

It was lifting gas, found only in the White Mountains, that made the dream of weightless flight come true. Sometimes I wonder whether, had hydrogen or helium been known in the Florence of Leonardo da Vinci, the age of flight might not have begun centuries before the Wright brothers.

When my friends and I succeeded in destroying for all time the power of the cruel and rapacious Sky Pirates of Zanadar, we wrote finis to their unchecked reign as masters of the upper air. And from the ruination of their buccaneering kingdom we carried off the secrets of constructing the sky-ships. Thought and experiment and a certain amount of luck had enabled my people of Shondakor to construct a Sky Navy: now we were the masters of the upper sky, Lords of the Air.

The Golden City of Shondakor enjoys a kindly and beneficent reign over the kingdoms of Thanator. Its rulers are not likely to employ their new airfleet to conquer or subject neighboring realms. I can say this with utter certitude, and a degree of pride as well, for I and my beloved Princess, Darloona, are the rulers of Shondakor.

The sky-ships are immense and ungainly, albeit weightless, and require the strength of human muscles, or the lucky direction of the winds, to give them motive power. Even the little four-man gigs must be pedaled―for all the world like airborne bicycles!―in order to fly. And this has long bothered me: this discrepancy between the technological marvel of the huge flying ships themselves and the primitive muscle power required to move them about the sky.

I could see no reason why some form of lightweight engine could not be added to their structure to drive the jointed and mobile vans. And I had long intended to seek sufficient leisure in which to tinker up such a device, as yet unconceived even by the most advanced Callistan genius.

But, alas, the rulers of cities oft have many weighty burdens to occupy their time, and leisure is a rare commodity for kings. Making just and needed laws, enforcing them with alacrity and even-handedness, establishing tax rates (and collecting them) , dispensing justice, hearing the argument of suits, studying petitions, overseeing the various governmental offices, officiating at ceremonial functions, laying cornerstones, rewarding loyal service and punishing the venal―these and a thousand other bothersome duties add weight to the burden of a crown, and a ruler dares to delegate his authority only so much and no more.

But once the power of the insidious Mind Wizards had been crushed, and we had returned from our long wars on the Far Side of Thanator, my kingdom entered upon one of those golden times kings dream of. Peace reigned, and Shondakor was at enmity with no other nation or people. Trade flourished, since we had newly entered into close and cooperative alliance with our neighboring cities, Soraba and Tharkol, and an abundance of wealth and prosperity flowed through our gates.

Thus it was that I seized the advantage offered by this brief, prosperous, peaceful period in Shondakor’s history and turned my attention to the reinvention of the airplane engine. Since I had long been an aviator on my native world, I didn’t think that the project could be other than simple and easy.

Well, it proved a lot more difficult than I had imagined. It is one thing to be able to order pistons and fuel tanks, propeller blades and spark plugs from the nearest supply house, and quite another to try to describe them to a bunch of bewildered Renaissance craftsmen and artisans!

Take, for example, that plain and lowly device, the simple spark plug. What, exactly, goes inside the damned thing? What is it made of?―how much goes in?―how is it processed?―what are the sizes and weights and proportions of each component?―and the precise sizes, weights, and proportions, if you please!

Reinventing the airplane engine meant I had to reinvent a hundred other gadgets first, and the tools to make them, too. For many months I kept the craftsmen, artisans, and ironsmiths of Shondakor, Tharkol, and Soraba busy, busy, busy, putting together engines that blew up, caught fire, or did nothing but sit there like mere dead lumps of metal.

A thousand times I would readily have given it all up for just one of the primitive little gas-gulpers that drove the Wright brothers’ box kite at Kitty Hawk. But, constantly redesigning for something lighter in weight and less complex, I persevered. And, eventually, success was mine.

The problem went beyond merely building the tools and the parts; the trouble lay in the fact that the lifting gas contained in the double hull was ferociously explosive and flammable, and the hull itself was only heavy paper laminated with coat after coat of baked-on glue. One, spark from the engine and we would have a flying torch! I had to devise a way of keeping the engine out of contact with the hull of the craft, and eventually I came up with the notion of hanging it on the tail, mounted by means of a metal bracket. This way, any sparks that went flying out in the black smoke would be whipped away by the slipstream behind the sky-ship.

It was crude―and it was complicated―but it worked!

The Sky Navy of the Three Cities by this period consisted of some eight of these flying ships. Among these were the Xaxar and the Jalathadar, which had been salvaged from the destruction of Zanadar, and the Zarkoon, the Avenger, the Arkonna, and the Conqueress, which had been constructed in the shipyards of Tharkol. My country had its own shipyards by this time, and our two new vessels, the Shondakor and the Darloona, completed the fleet.

Still more vessels were under construction at Tharkol and in Shondakor, in a variety of new designs. Among these were some purely mercantile transport ships financed by the merchants of Soraba, and a squadron of small, speedy scout-vessels which would be employed to patrol our mutual borders.

Naturally, once my engine was perfected, the older ships were outfitted with the new invention and their old, cumbersome apparatus of hand-turned wheel systems was removed from the mid-deck hold. And all of the ships newly built or currently under construction would automatically be fitted with the “Jandar engine,” as it had been named.

Until a new modern squadron of scouts was ready to be launched, we employed the old four-man gigs for that purpose. These curious vessels resembled outrigger canoes with rigid wings: they were small, light, speedy, and maneuverable. Their supplies of lifting gas were strictly limited, because scouts could carry only a light cargo. Young, relatively lightweight Shondakorian cadets were therefore trained to fly them, usually boys in their teens.

One of the cadets was Taran, the little jungle boy Prince Lankar had rescued from the web of the giant spider in the Grand Kumala, and whom he had brought along with him to Shondakor. The bright, good-natured, likable lad soon made many good friends, and after Prince Lankar returned home to his―and my―native planet, Earth, little Taran stayed in Shondakor and was enlisted as a cadet in the legions of the Golden City. When we began to train a cadre of young officers for the Sky Navy, the lad begged to join their ranks, and thus Taran of the Ku Thad became a sky cadet.

When Prince Lankar first encountered Taran in the jungle country, the child was about twelve―slender of build, with coltish legs and a sturdy chest and shoulders, emerald eyes twinkling mischievously under an unruly mop of red-gold curls, with a full-lipped, childish mouth whose softness was belied by the resolute and manly set of his jaw. But by the period of which I write he was nearly fourteen, a tall, longlegged youth who had not lost his boyish sense of pranksome fun, but had added to it a more serious sense of responsibility.

We had all grown immensely fond of Taran. Indeed, it was not possible to resist for very long his good humor and playfulness, and the very genuine earnestness with which he tackled every task that came before him. Since he was an orphan, and therefore a Ward of the Throne, all of us at court more or less adopted him and vied with each other for the pleasure of his company. Sir Tomar, who was not all that much older than he, had been as a brother to the boy; but now that Tomar and Ylana of the Jungle Country were wed and had become the parents of twins, it was Koja and Ergon and Lukor and I who served in loco parentis; too much older to be like brothers, I fear, we were regarded by him as affectionate and indulgent uncles, nothing more. His heart he had given only to Prince Lankar the Earthling, who had rescued him from the ximchak’s web. But of us all I believe young Taran loved Koja the best.

On the surface of it, there was absolutely nothing about either of the two to draw them together. Koja, of course, being a Yathoon Hordesman, was not even human: the people of the Hordes are true arthropods, insect-men, tall, gaunt, ungainly, their stalking limbs clad in horny gray chitin, their heads expressionless masks of horn with knobbed antennae and great compound eyes like clusters of black jewels. Cold, emotionless, devoid of sentiment, they are ferocious warriors, implacable foes, enemies of all men.

It is a matter of particular pride to me that, of all the men and women who have ever walked the surface of Thanator the Jungle Moon, I was the first to make friends with a warrior of the Yathoon Horde. Of this rare accomplishment I have written at length in another portion of these journals,* so I shall not describe here the combination of patience, cultivation, luck, and sheer accident by which the miracle was accomplished. Suffice it to say that, once I had shared with Koja the true meaning of friendship, he discovered for himself the meaning of love. And, of all the hundreds of comrades and friends I have made during the years of my sojourn upon this fifth moon of Jupiter, none, with the royal exception of my beloved Princess, lies closer to my heart than the solemn arthropod whose slave and possession I once was.

Of all that brave and stalwart company, no more true and loyal friend have I than Koja, whose selfless dedication and love for me I am proud and privileged to return.

On the surface of things, it seemed highly unlikely that Koja and Taran, being worlds apart, would become the closest of friends. But friends they did indeed become, despite the gulf that yawned between them, the differences of age, race, and personality. The reason for their closeness may have sprung, in fact, from these very differences―for neither Taran nor Koja had been reared here in Shondakor, and were thus strangers from distant lands; in addition, both were unique―Koja, being the only Yathoon in captivity, so to speak, and Taran, much younger than any of the others at court. Perhaps their aloneness drew them together.

In the eyes of young Taran―still the eyes of a boy―the gaunt, solemn, humorless Yathoon was the most fascinating of playmates―it was as if a child of my race could have for a friend Winnie the Pooh or Reepicheep or the Tin Woodsman of Oz. And Koja, I knew, had developed a warmly protective feeling for the children of our race. His own kind mate but never marry, and do not rear their young personally, but in a far and secret place near the South Pole of the planet, a realm they regard with superstitious veneration as holy for some reason ‘ I have never known. Our custom of raising our children in family groups seems strange to such as Koja; having observed the love and affection we humans share between child and parent, I believe he envies us and yearns, in the depths of his unknowable heart, to share in that closest of all bonds.

I know that my own little son, Prince Kaldar, now a chubby and tireless little rascal of two and a half, crows with delight whenever Koja is near, laughs delightedly at his solemn voice and expressionless face, loves to be bounced on his gaunt and bony lap, and breathlessly confides his every childish escapade or mishap to his “Uncle Koja.” So the fondness which grew between Koja and Taran came as no particular surprise to me.

You never saw anything as amusing, or as touching, as the two of them together. Tall and long-legged as Taran is, the gigantic insectoid towers to twice his height; and when Koja exercises the boy in the art of the blade, two more unequal adversaries could not be imagined. Koja’s sword, a true Yathoon whip-sword, is longer than Taran is tall!

I have smiled at the sight of them strolling on the esplanade or in the palace gardens or on the terraces, talking together confidentially in low tones, the towering stilt-legged Yathoon gently holding the trusting boy’s hand in his powerful armored grasp, his expressionless head bent to observe the lad’s excited, mobile face and sparkling eyes, carefully replying to the boy’s torrent of eager questions or complaints in cold, tone. less, and metallic monosyllables.

How wonderful a miracle is love! For it can bring together the most different of creatures, though they truly be worlds apart.

Most recently, a third partner has entered into the close friendship that exists between Koja and Taran. I refer to that waddling and bowlegged purple-furred monstrosity with a huge and faithful heart of purest cold, Bozo the othode.

Again, as was the case with Taran himself, it was Prince Lankar who befriended the burly-chested beast in the Grand Kumala. On his home world and in his private life, my Earthling friend has a fondness for dogs. And when he was here among us on Callisto, however briefly, Lankar would not have been Lankar had he not made friends with the mighty othode―Thanator’s closest equivalent to something resembling a bull mastiff grown larger than a Great Dane, fitted out with a few extra legs, a grinning, froglike mouth that gawps from ear to ear, and goggling eyes like a gigantic Peke.

I suspect that, of all the friends he made here on Callisto, the one he most hated to part from was Bozo. While we were escorting Prince Lankar to the Callistan terminus of the Gateway Between Two Worlds, and while the Prince was fretting over how to say good-bye to his immense friend, Bozo―or was it Nature?―solved the problem for him. For it would seem the mating season for othodes had come, and the huge beast responded with as much alacrity to the Call of the Wild as ever did Buck the wolf-dog in the pages of Jack London’s excellent novel.

I later sent a message to my friend back on Earth, informing him that we had seen Bozo and his mate, together with a litter of eight of the fattest, most adorable othode pups imaginable. Well, it would seem that othodes do not mate for life, because in the interim Mrs. Bozo has gone back to the wild, with most of her litter, and Bozo, together with one of his male pups, feeling the need for human companionship again, now that the urge for domesticity had waned, took to haunting the gates of Shondakor, and finally deigned to join us in the palace as a pet of the entire court.

On the whole, the Ku Thad generally do not adopt pets. Othodes, however, long ago formed a sort of truce with the Golden People which is similar to that which was long ago arranged back on Earth during the early Ice Age, when the first man made friends with the first dog. That is to say, my people train othodes for hunting. Generally, the beasts are used in hunting packs, but it is not entirely unknown for a single human hunter to work game in comradeship with a lone othode. At any rate, my courtiers were already fond of Bozo―for it was none other than the faithful Bozo who had found the hidden door to Kuur, and because of his keen nose and hunting instinct, we found and crushed the dread and dangerous Mind Wizards. Hence Bozo was more than tolerated. Indeed, he was loved. And so was his son, an awkward and ungainly half-grown pup I had christened Fido, because “Fido, son of Bozo” has a nice ring to it.

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.

On occasions such as this, when his inquisitive or mischievous ways had gotten him into trouble, the pup had learned to call for assistance. So Fido raised his voice in a mournful howl, while clinging to the cockpit for dear life, kicking and scrabbling with his hind legs for something to stand on.

Eventually, he found the pontoon. Standing on it, however, made the craft veer half over in a sickening way. So the pup did the only sensible thing under the circumstances, and half-clambered, half-fell into the cockpit.

At the first unhappy yowl, Bozo pricked up his ears and saw the trouble his bothersome pup had gotten into. He promptly dropped the bone and went racing to where the unhappy Fido sat in the pilot’s seat. With a gasp of horror, Taran saw the pup’s danger―and also the horrible chance that the terrified othode might damage the skycraft entrusted to his care―and sprinted to help Fido out of his predicament. Koja was at his heels, but Taran reached the craft first.

Jumping up, the boy caught the mooring line and, clambering along it as agile as any monkey, climbed into the Lankar-jan from the rear. And just then the Unpredictable happened

If it hadn’t, of course, the events described in this book might never have occurred, and this book would never have been written.

But it did, and it was. And thereby hangs a tale …

Two things followed, both almost at the same time.

In the first place, Taran had apparently not been quite as deft as he had thought when he snagged the mooring mast with the grappling hook. There is an art to mooring a gig―a clever twist of the wrist when you toss out the mooring cable―and it is not unlike the deft twist you must give in throwing out a lasso. An expert lasso-tosser is adept at doing this properly.

Taran now proved, if not actually careless, at least somewhat less than adept. For when he clambered into the rear of the Lankar-jan, he joggled the craft rudely.

And the anchor came undone.

Before Taran or Koja or even Fido knew what had happened, the little skycraft went floating off away from the tier until it was drifting out over the streets of the city.

And the only one in the pilot’s seat was Fido. At any moment, the frantically wriggling othode might touch a lever or push a pedal and start the engine. If this happened, the little craft would fly off under power with no one at the controls―perhaps to hurtle into the side of a building, or to turn upside down and pitch its two young occupants to their death.

What Koja did then he did too swiftly to have considered the potential consequences of his action. It must have been sheer instinct―the innate urge of the mature to protect their young. .

Springing to the edge of the tier, he threw himself into space!

His arms were longer than those of a human being, his body much lighter, and his double-jointed rear limbs packed more than human strength and were capable of fantastic leaps.

For these reasons, then, I suppose, instead of falling to his death on the stone pavement far below, he actually managed to catch hold of the rear strut of the left pontoon.

Dangling by his claw-tips, with the rest of his body dangling above the rooftops, Koja let the drifting craft carry him where it would.

Fido raised an unhappy yowl as this additional weight made the rear of the skycraft sag alarmingly, while the nose lifted steeply heavenward. And in his panic, the pup stepped on that pedal after all.

The engine coughed once, then roared into life.

And the Lankar-jan, pointed giddily skyward, soared into the zenith without a human hand at the controls!

The wind tugged at his cloak and whipped his face with an invisible lash that made his cheeks sting and his eyes tear. Taran was dreadfully frightened, but there was no time for such feelings now. So the brave boy forgot all about his fears and climbed over into the front seat and proceeded to attempt to pry the panicky pup from the controls.

Perhaps this sounds easy, but the doing of it proved difficult. Poor Fido was nearly scared out of his wits (such as they were!) , and he clung desperately to Taran with all six legs. For another thing, even though he was only half-grown, a half-grown othode is still a lot of beast.

It took a bit of doing, but Taran eventually managed to lift Fido out of the pilot’s seat and drag him into the rear seats where, presumably, the panicky pup could do no harm.

By this time Koja had caught hold of the edge of the cockpit. He hauled himself into the craft and helped the boy to immobilize the othode. All four seats had been fitted out with safety belts―such small, light craft can easily be capsized by a sudden gust of air, being virtually weightless―and it was not long before the two succeeded in fastening one of the rear safety belts to the collar Fido wore, using the belt as a makeshift leash.

Once this was accomplished, Taran climbed into the pilot’s seat and began to examine the controls. The craft was still climbing into the sky at a steep angle, but the young cadet managed to work the ailerons and tailfin rudder in such a way as to bring the Lankar-jan’s nose down and elevate the tail until the craft was flying on an even keel again.

It had, however, ascended to a considerable altitude by that point and the air was bitterly cold. Worse than that was the fact that Shondakor no longer lay beneath them. The Golden City of the Ku Thad was, in fact, no longer visible below.

Taran stared around him, searching the horizon with eyes tightly narrowed so they would not water in the wind. Afternoon had become darkness quite suddenly, as was the way of things on Callisto where “day. light” does not depend on radiation from the sun, and such phenomena as sunset and twilight are, therefore, unknown. It was pitch-dark below them and even Taran’s sharp young eyes could discern no particular feature of the night-shrouded landscape as it rushed past beneath them.

“Is everything all right with the machine?” inquired Koja quietly. The young sky cadet shook his head wordlessly, trying to think.

Their predicament was a peculiar one. Taran knew they could not possibly be more than just a few minutes’ flying time from the city of the Ku Thad, but he had absolutely no idea in which direction the city might lie. The trouble was that, during those first few crucial moments when the aircraft had been soaring into the heavens above Shondakor, they had both been too busy trying to get Fido tied down to notice in which direction the runaway ornithopter was heading.

The craft bore nothing on its instrument panel to serve in lieu of a compass, and, as the Thanatorians have never learned to ascertain direction from the stars, Taran was helpless to know which way to turn. At this very moment, they might indeed be flying back to Shondakor; on the other hand, it was equally possible that every consecutive instant of flying time could be carrying them farther and farther from the city. What was he to do?

Incidentally, the reason why the races native to Thanator do not possess much knowledge of the skies is due, quite simply, to the fact that their world is part of the Jovian moon-system. When you share the heavens with a dozen or so major luminaries, stars and constellations are not all that easily visible. And the orbits of the moons of Jupiter are excessively complicated―and the situation is further complicated by the fact that the Thanatorian races live on the surface, of one of those moons, in the very midst of the system.

Trying to think of something to do, Taran took the controls tentatively. And the Lankar-jan hurtled on, careening blindly through the impenetrable darkness.

Behind, on the parapet of the palace, Bozo stared after the hurtling craft. The mighty othode knew in the depths of his faithful and loyal heart that something was very wrong, but he did not know precisely what. He knew, however, that Taran and Koja and Fido were somehow in trouble, in danger, and the great beast threw back his head and lifted his voice in a hoarse, despairing howl.

Then he turned, left the tier, and went waddling down the inner stairs of the palace as fast as his six bowlegs could move―which was quite fast.

The courtiers and guards were accustomed to seeing the burly othode trotting here and there by now and paid him no particular attention. Nor did Bozo chance to encounter one of his particular human friends, such as Lukor or myself. Hence he did not attempt to convey what had chanced to occur, but, ignoring the humans he encountered on his way through the palace, Bozo left the immense edifice by the nearest exit and galloped through the parks and gardens, soon gaining the streets of the city beyond.

The worried beast had noted the direction in which the ornithopter had been flying when it had receded into the distant sky, dwindling from his view. Now every instinct of his brave and loyal heart urged him to follow the craft in which his friends arid his son were being carried off.

Within a few minutes Bozo was out of the city entirely.

He paused on the outskirts, then waddled through the nearest gate, peered long and earnestly into the darkness that by now had mantled the broad and level Plains of Haratha, and then, stretching his six powerful legs into an easy and tireless lope, the othode began to chase the flying craft on foot.

There was nothing else for Bozo to do. And he knew with his every instinct that he must do something.

The sentinels at that gate saw and recognized Bozo as a palace pet; they saw him go loping off into the night but thought nothing of it.

Later―much later―they had reason to regret their inattention.

3 Lost in the Sky

Taran was frightened. The boy had not been this frightened in a long time, not since he and Bozo had taken part in the attack on Kuur, the underground citadel of the Mind Wizards on the Far Side of Callisto. But he tried not to show it.

Fate, it seemed, had played one last trick upon them. It was bad enough to be lost in the skies, without knowing which way to go. What made it so much worse was the fact that they could not control the direction of their flight, even if they had known!

For as soon as the sky cadet attempted to work the controls, he discovered that they no longer worked. The control cables had snapped, which meant that he could no longer exert any influence over the direction or altitude of their flight.

Obviously, in his frantic scrambling about, Fido had broken the cables. Nor could they be repaired while they were still aloft, Taran knew. Like all other Shondakorian sky cadets, he had been taught how to make emergency repairs―but these could only be made when the skycraft was at rest.

The reason why this was obligatory was very simple: you had to climb under the skycraft and rethread or reconnect the cables from beneath.

When he conveyed this dispiriting information to Koja, the solemn Yathoon counseled him not to worry.

“Things are never quite as bad as you at first assume them to be,” the arthropod pointed out in his toneless, metallic voice. “We are at present in two different kinds of danger. The first of these is that we have become lost and do not know which is the direction in which we desire to go. This is, however, only a temporary predicament. With daylight we shall be able to ascertain our approximate position on the surface of Thanator from the surface features visible to us.”

“I don’t see how we can be―”

“I mean that if, by day, we find ourselves flying over jungles, we shall know that we are over the Grand Kumala, and are therefore due west of Shondakor. And, should we find ourselves flying over a vast body of water, we shall thereby know that we have flown due east, and are over the Corund Laj.”

“I see what you mean,” the boy said seriously. “And if we’re over grasslands, it’s the Great Plains of Haratha, right?”

“Correct,” nodded Koja with a stiff little jerk of his horny head. “Similarly, if we find ourselves in the vicinity of a city, the chances are excellent that we shall be able to recognize it, either from the surroundings or from the city’s appearance. And, whether we are over Tharkol or Soraba or Ganatol, or even Narouk or Farz or great Perushtar itself, we shall know exactly where we are in relation to Shondakor the Golden. It is quite impossible for us to become really lost, as long as we keep our wits about us.”

The young cadet nodded thoughtfully and began to relax just a bit as his consternation subsided. Koja stole a furtive glance at the boy sideways, but said nothing. Actually, he was nowhere near as certain that they could not become thoroughly lost as his soothing words seemed to suggest. He had been striving to calm the boy’s fears so as to spare him needless worry. So he had not exactly been candid with Taran in his estimate of their difficulties.

If, with day, they found themselves over water, for example, it could as easily be the Sanmur Laj as the Corund Laj―and these bodies, the two seas of Callisto, lay at opposite ends of the world.

And should they find themselves flying over the level grasslands, these would indeed be the Great Plains of Haratha: but the Great Plains cover many thousands of square miles―and any one of these square miles looks much like another.

They flew on into the darkness, not speaking.

After a time a fleck of golden flame rose above the horizon. This, they knew, was Juruvad―the “Little Moon”―which we know as Amalthea. And before long a jade luminance painted the dim horizon with pallid emerald fire. This was another of the many moons of mighty Jupiter, and much larger: Orovad, the Callistans call it, but to us it is Io, the second moon.

Within half an hour the dark landscape was illuminated by a much larger spheroid, of frosty azure, which we call Europa but the Callistans name Ramavad, the “Silver Moon.” By this new increment of silvery blue moonlight, Taran and Koja searched the gloomy landscape rushing by underneath their keel, but could discern no surface feature of importance. They were flying over level plains of scarlet grass, but this came as no surprise to the two adventurers. Shondakor is surrounded on all sides by the grassy prairies of the Haratha Plains, and it was yet too soon to tell in which direction they were flying.

If the Lankar-jan were heading west, very soon now they would be able to see the vast jungled tract called the Grand Kumala. But if this did not happen, they could as well be flying north or south or east. If they were headed east, they should be passing over the walls and boulevards and spires of Tharkol the Scarlet City, where Zamara was queen. Koja thought this highly unlikely: that is, he did not believe they would actually see Tharkol, even if they were flying in its direction. Privately, he was of the opinion that they would by now already have passed over Tharkol, if they were indeed flying in that direction, but could not have seen it in the darkness.*

Before very long, the firmament flushed with light of a peculiarly beautiful shade of rose-red, which heralded the rising of Ganymede, fourth moon of Jupiter, which the peoples of Callisto call Imavad, the “Red Moon.”

By that time, with the varicolored luminance of several moons lighting the dark, it was possible to see the landscape beneath quite clearly.

Taran uttered a short cry, clutched Koja’s arm, and pointed ahead of them.

“What is it?” inquired the Yathoon.

“I thought I saw a flash of light―a twinkle!” the boy said breathlessly.

The two watched, straining their eyes, but saw no repetition of the flickering gleam of light that Taran had thought he saw.

Then―

“There it is again!” the boy exclaimed. Then, sorrowfully, “Now it’s gone.”

Koja said nothing, his. chitinous features expressionless, his huge glittering black eyes inscrutable. He stared at the rushing leagues of grassland passing by beneath them. The light which Taran had glimpsed might well have been the campfire of a traveler or a huntsman, or firelight gleaming through the window of a farmhouse. There was really no way of making sure …

However, Koja thought he knew.

They flew on through the night. After another hour or so, smaller and dimmer moons began to ascend the skies. The first to lift above the horizon was a dim redgold moon called Kuavad, or Semele, followed before long by the stark white disc of Daravad, or Leda.

After the Gold Moon and the White Moon had risen, tiny Antiope and Danae, and the all-but-invisible spark of Taygete climbed into the sky. These are the outermost of the moons of Jupiter, and lie out beyond the orbit of Callisto itself, and they are very much smaller than the giant inner moons, some of which, like Ganymede or lo or Callisto, are large enough to be considered small planets.*

Their light was too feeble to visibly augment the moonlight.

But then the dimness of the moonlit night of Callisto gave way to a ruddy, yellow flush like a dimmer dawn as the giant bulk of Jupiter floated up over the horizon, soon occupying nearly a quarter of the sky. Vast and round, its tawny yellow-orange surface banded with belts of ruddy ochre, it glared down at the flying craft with its angry red eye, like some obese and dreadful divinity. It is from the presence of that eye, the Great Red Spot in the southern hemisphere, that the Callistans drew the name Gordrimator―which translates literally as “World of the Red Eye.”

By the brilliance of Jove’s light, which made the night almost as luminous as day, Koja could see the landscape clearly, and his heart sank within him as he realized that his worst fears were all too well founded.

Ahead of them, directly in the path of their flight, the scarlet meadows were silver-threaded by the meandering paths of twin rivers.

It was the twinkle of momentary reflections of the many moons in the narrow waters of the twin rivers that had made the flashing lights which the keen eyes of Taran had glimpsed.

The boy had never seen the twin rivers before, and looked down at them with surprise and curiosity.

“What are they, Koja-chan?” he inquired interestedly.

His features unreadable, his voice emotionless and without inflection, Koja explained that they were the Juru-ajand and the Akka-ajand. The boy screwed up his features in puzzlement at this answer, so the Yathoon warrior patiently explained further.

Shondakor is built on the eastern shore of the Ajand, a river that flows north to Soraba and empties into the Corund Laj. But south of the Golden City, the stream divides into twin rivers known to the Thanatorian geographers as the Greater and the Lesser Ajands.

“Then we’re flying south, is that it?” inquired Taran.

“Almost precisely southeast, I should say,” corrected Koja solemnly.

He did not at that time elaborate on his information. He saw no reason to worry the lad more than he was already worried.

But he could have remarked that the reason why Taran did not recognize this part of Thanator was that the Ku Thad seldom penetrated this region.

For the Ku Thad knew that it was a very dangerous place.

The southlands of Callisto are the dominion of the great nomad Hordes of the Yathoon. These savage warriors exist in perpetual enmity, both with each other and with all of the other inhabitants of Callisto.

The Yathoon nation is divided into five great Hordes or Clans. Nominally, each Horde is independent, and is ruled by its own lord, an akka-komor, or high chief. But actually the five Hordes are under the absolute command of the mighty Arkon, who is the sole and only Warlord or Emperor of the Yathoon nation as a whole.

Little is known in cities such as Shondakor or Tharkol or Ganatol of this mysterious and enigmatic personage.

But although Koja had lived for years in Shondakor, he was not a Shondakorian.

He was a Yathoon; and he knew all too well how dangerous and despotic was the cruel and absolute monarch of the Yathoon nation―into whose territories they had inadvertently blundered!

The erratic flight of the Lankar-jan continued on. Driven by its whirling rotors and lifted upon the invisible wings of the wind, the little aircraft arrowed on ever deeper into the unknown and unexplored southlands of Callisto.

Aboard, Koja―a renegade self-exiled from his true Clan, and thereby under perpetual sentence of death and Taran―a Shondakorian youth in the Sky Navy of the Golden City―flew to an unnameable fate.

For each of them, discovery by one of the Yathoon Hordes meant death.

And, with their aircraft out of control, there was nothing they could do about it.

But far behind them, to the northwest, a burly and indefatigeable beast clung doggedly to their trail.

Bozo the othode knew that his friends were in danger. And, as long as a spark of vitality remained in his massive body, the faithful Callistan hound would pursue that trail.

Never before had the loyal othode followed a trail he could neither sense nor smell. Never, since the very dawn of time, had an othode of Callisto attempted to track a flying thing.

But Bozo refused to yield to circumstance, or to permit the novelty of this adventure to faze him.

He would follow the trail of the Lankar-jan through the skies into the unknown southland until the last breath left his body and Death itself stole the final atom of strength from his indomitable and courageous heart.

4 Marooned Above the Plain

Neither Koja or Taran got any sleep that night. For that matter, neither did Fido.

The othode pup was cold and miserable and hungry. Long before this unseemly hour he would have dined ravenously from a bowl of ground meat mixed with warm milk and crept into his bed of straw in the palace stables to curl up cozily by the warm and breathing bulk of his mighty sire, Bozo.

None of these pleasurable events, to which Fido was comfortably accustomed, had occurred. And, while Fido did not know for certain, he sensed dimly that he had done something to twist awry the normal sequence of events. He crouched miserably on the floor of the cockpit, whimpering plaintively to himself, the nap of his purple fur roughed by the cold winds of this altitude.

He was very uncomfortable. And in his heart of hearts the son of Bozo resolved never―never―to mess around with flying ships again, if he could possibly avoid it.

Koja and Taran were cold and miserable and hungry. The boy was less cold than he might have been at this height, for the Sky Navy had taken into consideration such hazards of flight when they had designed the uniform issued to sky cadets. His tight blue trousers were snug and warm, his tunic was made of heavy cloth, and his silvered sky-boots were lined with the Callistan equivalent of fleece. And his cape, although rather short, was woven of warm blue wool.

Nor did Koja suffer particularly from the cold. His chitinous armor was proof against the chill winds of this height, and the unique circulatory system of his arthropod anatomy protected him as well.

But they were both hungry, and there was nothing that either of them could do about that.

With dawn, everything looked brighter. Koja could see well enough by the light of day to climb back into the tail assembly and disengage the engine, which had a set of alternate controls designed for manual use.

This reduced their airspeed, although nothing much could be done about the height at which they flew. True, standcocks were affixed to both of the pontoons and a quantity of the levitating gas wherewith the pontoons were charged could be bled off. However, once the hydrogen-like gas had been discharged into the atmosphere, it could not be replaced. And the aileron and rudder controls, and those which governed the pitch and tune of the rotor blades, by whose combined means the little gig could have been brought down to the surface, were out of operation.

They were soaring over the southernmost extremities of the Great Plains of Haratha, and seemed to be heading almost exactly southeast. If they continued in this direction they would fly over the Black Mountains, which Koja knew to be infested by the Yathoon Hordesmen. Eventually, he also knew, they would approach the regions of the South Pole. Little was known about the polar regions, save that they were clad in snow and ice.

Were they to continue on their present course until they reached the polar regions, snow crystals would accumulate on the aircraft, forming ice, which would drag the ornithopter down to a disastrous collision with the frozen plains. Either that―a swift, terrible death in the crash―or a slower, more agonizing, indefinitely prolonged death awaited them, as they froze to death by gradual but inexorable degrees.

Neither prospect sounded very inviting.

Koja kept these grim ruminations to himself rather than trouble the boy with them. But he knew that their only real hope lay in bringing the Lankar-jan down to a safe landing now―or somehow manage to turn it around. In regard to this second possibility, it seemed all but impossible: the steering mechanism was hopelessly disarranged. And the ship could not be steered manually, by any conceivable manipulation of the ailerons or the tailfin rudder.

If at all possible, he meant to land safely before they reached the Black Mountains. If they were to crack up among the southern peaks, there would be no way to elude capture by the warriors of the savage Horde.

Koja knew all too well the secret that had lain hidden among those grim and ominous peaks for immeasurable ages. He knew also with what fierce tenacity, with what alert and tireless vigilance, the Yathoon warriors guarded all modes of access to those mountains, wherein reposed the ultimate secret of their race, and that portion of the surface of Thanator they deemed most sacred.

By mid-morning the forward velocity of the Lankar-jan unaccountably slowed to a mere fraction of its former speed. This unexpected respite cheered Koja immensely, as the reduction in their speed delayed the fateful hour when they would reach the frowning ramparts of the mountain wall and gave him more time in which to accomplish the required miracle of somehow bringing the aircraft down in one piece.

It was Taran who explained the new slowness of their flight. With the engine shut off, the vessel continued to accelerate through momentum alone, somewhat boosted by the strong tailwinds they had experienced all night. The friction of the atmosphere sufficed to retard the velocity of the ornithopter, and the winds had died to a gentle breeze.

Perhaps I should clear up one point here that may be puzzling. While the great flying ships of the Sky Pirates of Zanadar, and their recent offspring, the aerial galleons of the Sky Navy of the Three Cities, are true ornithopters, the little scoutcraft, such as Taran’s gig, were not; but I am so accustomed to the employment of this term that I find it difficult to continuously monitor my pen.

An ornithopter, in fact, is a flying vessel that navigates the firmament on the same motive power as that which enables a bird to fly: that is, by flapping its wings. On the ships of the Sky Navy, hinged and jointed vans, manipulated by an ingenious contrivance of wheels and cables, accomplish this action. But the mechanism is far too cumbersome and complicated to be used on the smaller gigs and scoutcraft. They have wings, of course, for stability in flight and maneuverability, but these are fixed and rigid.

The true ornithopter is one of the most interesting inventions of the human imagination. Leonardo da Vinci sketched plans for them in his secret notebooks, but it was reserved for an unknown, unsung genius of Zanadar to create them in actuality, and even then they were only made possible by the fortuitous discovery of a natural gas akin to helium or hydrogen, found among the White Mountains of the northern hemisphere of Callisto.

By noon the wind had died completely, and the Lankar-jan drifted alone in the heavens, making no particular progress in any direction, but coming no closer to the surface of Thanator.

As I have already mentioned, Koja could have “bled” some of the levitating gas from the twin pontoons by merely unscrewing the standcocks for a time. He was not yet prepared to do this because the gas, once released into the atmosphere, could not be replaced. And the scoutcraft, with its flying abilities left unimpaired, was their only real hope of returning to Shondakor with any swiftness or safety.

To attempt the long journey north on foot would mean traveling overland through Yathoon country, which was perilous in the extreme. It would also mean a lengthy and fatiguing journey of many korads. It seemed foolish to disable their craft, thereby making it an absolute necessity that they walk back to Shondakor, and Koja was determined not to do this unless all else proved hopeless.

For the moment, then, they were reprieved.

But they were still marooned in the sky.

Taran, filled with the ebullience of youth, was considerably more optimistic about their chances than was Koja. He pointed out that they could very well be rescued at any time now.

“‘Cause last night folks must have noticed that we weren’t there,” the boy chirped. “Fido, tool Also, my captain will have seen the berth roster by this morning, an’ he’ll know I didn’t get the Lankar-jan back to the docks like I was s’posed to. He’ll know something’s wrong! And then they’ll just come looking for us…

Koja made a noncommittal reply; privately he felt events would not progress quite as simply as that. The palace was a huge place with many courtiers, visitors, and officials, and it was easily possible to go days without running into Valkar or Ergon or Tomar and Ylana, or without anyone thinking something might be wrong because you didn’t see them.

In time, of course, Koja knew quite well that he would be missed, and that eventually his friends would become worried and then alarmed over his prolonged and unexplained absence. And the same was true of Taran―sky cadets cannot just vanish into nowhere without their officers noticing the fact.

But cadets do occasionally take off and go on the Shondakorian equivalent of A.W.O.L., he knew, for boys will be boys even on Callisto. And there was absolutely no reason for anyone to connect Koja, Taran, and Fido! Three separate disappearances were no more remarkable than one, and even if a search for the missing three was to be launched, no one could guess where they were or in which direction they had gone. Koja estimated that they had come at least one hundred korads from Shondakor aboard the runaway scoutcraft by this time. They had flown for about ten hours, he assumed, before the engine was shut off and the tailwind died, leaving them adrift. That meant that their average velocity had been about seventy miles an hour, which was really better than could have been expected, since the gig’s motor was still a fairly primitive device not able to maintain great speed for long.

No one would reasonably expect them to have come so far, even by aircraft.

And to search an area on the surface of the jungle Moon for one hundred korads in every direction, with Shondakor as their starting point, meant there were an awful lot of square korads that must be combed to find them.

Such a search, even a concerted one with many parties out, would consume days, probably weeks. And, again, Koja reminded himself of that dire factno one could reasonably expect them to have come this far.

It looked quite hopeless.

Daylight had warmed the air and they no longer suffered from the cold winds, but they were by now very hungry, having missed dinner, breakfast, and lunch, and would soon become hungrier, with no prospect of another meal in sight.

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―”

“Have I my Prince’s permission to organize an aerial search?” the officer asked formally. I told him to launch one immediately: if Taran had carelessly flown beyond the city and had a crack-up, the boy might be injured and in imminent peril.

Later that evening I mentioned Taran’s absence to Lukor, as the gallant old sword-master had inquired into the reasons for my distracted mood.

“The lad’s missing, eh?” he mused, tugging at his small, neat, silvery beard. “Odd coincidence, my boy―very odd! Because our old friend Koja is away from home, too. Or he was after dinner when I went to his apartments hoping to share a game of Darza and a jug of fine vintage quarra with our solemn friend. His servants informed me that their master had not been seen since yesterday afternoon.”

“But Koja often gets moody and rides out on the plains to think his own thoughts and commune with nature,” Valkar pointed out.

“Not this time, it would seem,” fretted Lukor, visibly agitated. “His favorite thaptor is still in the stables, because the same possibility also occurred to me, and I bothered to inquire.”

I dispatched a page to the dockyards to pass this information along to the searchers, as now it began to seem likely that Koja and Taran, wherever they were, were together.

It was not until the next day, however, that we realized both Fido and Bozo were also missing from the palace. My equerry questioned the guards, at length eliciting the information that Bozo had been seen leaving by a certain gate.

“And Fido was with him?” I asked.

“No, sire, the othode was alone,” my officer replied.

“Odd,” mused Darlooha. “Father and son are always together, and Bozo would not have gone hunting alone.”

“He left the city and went out into the plains, you say?” I repeated. “And when last seen, was heading southeast? Why in that direction, I wonder? If he was going hunting, he would have gone due west, into the Kumala … “

“I really do not know, sire,” the officer replied. “But the guard said that he seemed to be in a dreadful hurry.”

“Mystery upon mystery!” grouched Lukor, scratching the roots of his beard. “I do not like this one bit, my boy! Something is very definitely wrong here.”

“I begin to think you may be right, Lukor,” I said grimly. And when the search squadron returned on the afternoon of the day following, having combed the landscape between Shondakor and the Kumala, and a similar distance in all other directions, without finding the slightest trace of the scoutcraft or the two othodes or Taran and Koja, we all became very definitely fearful for their safety.

“Call out the palace squadron,” I commanded. “And have my private yacht made ready for immediate departure.”

“Then you’re going out searching yourself, eh, lad?” crowed Lukor with gusto.

“I am, indeed. First we shall traverse the Great Plains in the direction Bozo was last seen running,” I said grimly. “The stout-hearted old fellow was very attached to Taran, and would lay down his life to protect the boy. If any creature on Callisto knows where Taran has gotten to, I’ll lay my money on Bozo the othode.”

“May I lend my sword to this worthy endeavor?” Lukor cried, jumping up. I smiled.

“There is no sword in all this world I would rather have at back in an adventure,” I said ‘truthfully.

A little late, perhaps, but we were off to the rescue at last!

Bozo maintained a steady, tireless stride all that first night. The six bowlegs of the othode were short and fat, making him resemble, in that aspect of his person, at least, an English bulldog. But they were strong and powerful, those legs, and did not easily tire. He soon adopted an easy, loping stride that he could maintain without faltering for many hours and that remorselessly devoured the miles.

South of the city, the Ajand River divided into its twin branches, and Bozo followed the southerly curve of the dual waterway as long as its twists and turns did not cause him to turn aside from the direction he pursued with unswerving purpose.

When at length, however, the twists of the river did impede his path, Bozo did not pause or falter, but plunged into the waters of the stream and paddled across to the farther bank. Othodes are not used to swimming much, but, like men, find themselves capable of extraordinary feats when their need is overpowering.

Emerging at length on the far side of the river, the devoted Callistan hound dragged himself ashore in the reeds, wading through reeking alluvial mud, at last gaining the dry ground. Then he shook himself dry from head to tail (or to where his tail would have been, if he’d had a tail). This action was uncannily like a Terran dog attempting to dry himself off, yet furthering the canine resemblance.

Once dry, he again took up pursuit.

By midnight he was far to the south of the city, and growing very weary. Although his iron strength and endurance were by no means exhausted as yet, his stamina was not inexhaustible and soon he knew he must rest. As well, thirst was beginning to torment him: hunger he could for a time ignore, but his tongue lolled from his panting mouth and he yearned for water.

An hour or two before dawn, the need for water had become a nagging torture to the tireless othode. For the interval he abandoned his quest, and, laying his nose to the scarlet grasses he began to employ his sensitive nostrils, hoping to locate a lake or pond, or perhaps one of the peculiar “mobile oasises” that are utterly unique to the grasslands of Thanator.

I refer, of course, to the jinko trees. As I have already described this amazing species of perambulating vegetable in the fourth of these memoirs, I shall not bother to discuss the famous “walking trees” of Callisto in any further detail here. Suffice it to say that, ere long, Bozo detected the faint but unmistakable spoor of a good-sized jinko and hunted it down, finally cornering the unhappy vegetable in a cul-de-sac formed by low, rocky hills. While the poor tree trembled in every limb and feebly attempted to jerk its bladder-laden branches up out of his reach, the inexorable othode seized in his jaws one fat bladderleaf, which he detached from its quivering branch with a sidewise wrench of his powerful jaws.

Bozo then proceeded to chew through one end of the distended leaf and lapped up the cool, pure water contained therein, paying no attention to the panicky jinko’s attempts to sidle past him and make an escape.

It required the contents of three leaves before Bozo the othode had quenched his mighty thirst and was content to rest, panting, permitting the nervous tree to scamper off to a place of safety across the plain.

Returning to his path and taking up the quest again, Bozo was a second time diverted from his goal, however briefly, when a herd of vanth galloped across his way. He chased down and killed one of the does and satisfied his hunger by gorging mightily on the raw, bloody meat. Then, after a brief rest, feeling very nearly restored, he continued across the plain.

What Bozo was striving to accomplish with all the tireless devotion of his brave heart was, in fact, an almost impossible task. Had his friends been carried off by riders or wild beasts, he could perhaps have followed their trail for scores of leagues.

But a flying machine leaves no spoor that can be followed, even by an othode such as Bozo.

All he could do, actually, was follow the direction in which the Lankar-jan had originally flown. And this he did with unswerving and unfaltering accuracy. For some reason, Nature has seen fit to equip the beasts of Thanator with an innate sense of direction which I, for one, find uncannily accurate.

The people of Thanator share this invaluable trait, which is particularly strong among the more primitive inhabitants of the jungle Moon, such as the Yathoon barbarians.

All that day the othode continued on into the southeast, on the trail of the runaway scoutcraft. Twice more he paused to devour a kill, to drink, and to rest. He saw no slightest sign of civilization during his progress across the Great Plains of Haratha.

By nightfall he found himself very deeply into the south. Bozo had no way of knowing how far he had come in a day and a night, for his kind do not measure the distances they traverse in miles or kilometers or korads, but by their expenditures of strength.

And Bozo was approaching the end of his tireless stores of energy. Still the othode did not turn aside to rest, but doggedly continued the pursuit of those he loved. By now foam beaded his grinning lipless gash of a mouth and gathered at its corners and dripped down to splatter his flanks. From time to time he stumbled, losing the complicated rhythm of his six-legged stride.

Once he fell and lay there panting for a time before grimly lurching to his feet again.

That second night seemed endless. Many times he fell, but each time he struggled gamely to regain his feet and continued pursuit. And now his head lolled and hung low, as if the othode no longer possessed the strength to hold it up. From time to time scarlet

blood flecked the yellowish foam that now slavered continually from his panting mouth.

It was love that goaded Bozo on. The ugly, purple, goggle-eyed creature, with his six bowed legs and grinning, froglike mouth, bore but scant resemblance to an earthly dog, but his heart was a dog’s heart, a bottomless well of loyalty and devotion. The love in that heart was inexhaustible, though he was near the end of his body’s strength.

Only the inexorable terminus of death could quench the vigor of that mighty heart.