I got nothing but the beast squealed like a canary, an oddly musical sound to come from such a mass. But Deety leaned back, twisted her face to mine and whispered, “If I were a lady, I would blush. What powerful emotion.”
“Come again?”
“The sentiment, fully expressed, sometimes ends, ‘If she could only cook!’ Don’t misunderstand me; it’s platonic—as well as mechanically impossible. But warmly platonic … and strong. And mutual. Great empathy between them.”
“Deety, do you hear thoughts? Telepathic?” (Since I am not, I wasn’t sure whether to be worried or pleased at the notion.)
“Huh? Heavens, no! But I sometimes feel emotions. This time I did and it warmed me clear to my belly button. Such beautiful rapport. They can’t be lonely; they have each other.” Deety raised her voice to buck the wind and said, “Kach Kachkan, since we Earthlings cannot send thoughts to her, may I suggest a name for her? ‘Cannot Cook.’ ”
“But, Princess, a female does not have two names.”
“My cousin-in-law Dejah Thoris has two names.”
“But she is Empress. (blank) is a thoat.”
“Animals may have names, and should have names. Our cousin the Warlord has a calot named Woola. Do I speak truth?”
“I proposed but one name, suggested to me by your name. Kanakook. Kach Kachkan and Kanakook—do they not sound well together?”
Our big friend answered with obvious pleasure, “Kach Kachkan and Kanakook.” (Again, that canary-clear squeal.) “Princess, this has your blessing? May I call her that?”
“Would you like Dejah Thoris to publish a proclamation?”
“No, no, no! I could not presume. But your blessing would make it lawful.”
“The Princess Deety blesses your thoat with the name ‘Kanakook.’ ” The thoat repeated the canary song. “I have spoken.”
Deety added, “She already knows her name! You try it, darling.”
I doubted, but tried it. “Kanakook!” Our mount again uttered the shrill song.
“Goody!” Deety started clapping.
“Damn it, hang on!”
“Sorry, dearest; I got excited.” She grabbed the girth strap and added, “Kach Kachkan, you try it. Call her by name.”
“Kanakook.” The thoat gave out the same three notes.
Our big friend yelled in excitement and repeated it. “Kanakook!”—and was answered. The green giant could hardly contain himself. “Thank you, thank you, Princess! Kanakook!” Kanakook echoed him.
Deety can make friends with anyone, man or beast. But now she muttered, “I’m being bombarded by both their emotions … and getting too excited myself—and this is neither the time nor the place. Help me change the subject.”
“Sure thing. I’m too tired, anyhow.”
“Husband, the conventional ploy is ‘I have a headache, dear.’ But I don’t have headaches.”
“Get the leer out of your voice, wench. Kach Kachkan, you started a sentence, ‘I was hatched’—and broke off.”
“Yes, Captain. I was hatched many cycles ago, in a small horde that lay between land of Tharks and land of Warhoons. This was long before the Warlord put an end to senseless wars and fruitless battles. We were ground as between millstones, until our city was destroyed, our incubator wrecked, our Jed killed, our people dead or scattered—many times more dead than scattered, for we were fierce in battle and never surrendered, knowing what miserable fate awaited prisoners of Thark or Warhoon. Our own women killed our badly wounded and killed themselves rather than become prisoners. So our very name is forgotten, we are no more.
“That final battle was not the first time that Kanakook saved my life, nor the last time. I was sore wounded and Kanakook … sensing that I could not defend myself, fled the field of battle at her greatest speed, much faster than we are now going. I managed, I know not how, to cling to the leather. She took me to a small oasis, not on traveled routes. A plant is, sap is drink, pulp is food. I lived. I grew strong. Time passed, I searched for my brood-horde, found never. Kanakook …”
(“Kiss me.”)
(“I’ll pinch you instead.”)
(“Ouch! Brute. I mean ‘Captain Brute, sir.’ ”)
“… hatched the very day I was hatched and given to me by my brood-father to raise and train, we now had only each other. I became—the word is ‘panthan’ and means a warrior without a chief, seeking work wherever he finds it. For many cycles I fought for Jed after Jed, always moving on after winning one duel and avoiding duels when possible.”
“Why?” asked Deety. “I mean, ‘Why did you move on?’ You must have won every duel—you are here, you are alive. Wouldn’t it have saved trouble to stay with one horde?”
Kach Kachkan was silent so long that I thought Deety had offended him—I should have known better. It was no longer possible for Deety to offend this giant no matter what she said or did … and her immunity had nothing to do with her status as “princess” deriving from the most brassy lies I have ever told. Deety had named Kanakook and made it “official” with a harmless fib that matched my lies. Our friend now owned (or was owned by; the relationship was reciprocal) the only thoat in Barsoom having a name. Deety could do no wrong.
“Not easy to explain; ancient custom, Princess. Winner of duel always challenged again. And again. Until day comes when Jed fights winner to stop losing warriors and to … get rid of … rival. I had no wish to be Jed. I moved on, I moved on, I moved on.
“Times change. Your cousin, the Warlord, makes profession of panthan have little use. I speak no treason, I speak history. My lance and my sword are pledged to Warlord until Issus takes me. No longer panthan—citizen! Helium is my city, the Warlord’s banner, my banner. My skin is green … but by imperial decree I am Red. Am I understood?”
“ ‘Better red than dead.’ ”
“If the captain says so,” Kach Kachkan said dubiously. “But I did not pledge to the Warlord to escape death. First, was not needful. Second, my life is of little value. I would have made the pilgrimage before Captain John Carter of Virginia came to teach us new customs were not Kanakook my responsibility. Once, many cycles ago, I tried to get her to join a herd of wild thoats. I removed her leathers and ordered her to leave me and join her own kind. She would not obey … the only time she has ever refused in both our lives. So I am not free to die while she needs me. Am I making a true understanding?” he added anxiously.
I answered soberly, “Be certain of it, our friend. We of Earth have a similar custom followed by all honorable men and women. Often, a man or woman forces himself to stay alive when his body needs to die … because a debt remains unpaid. Is that what you are saying?”
“The captain speaks truth.”
“You could not die with honor while Kanakook lived and needed you. We understand it … and beings who do not live by this rule are less than animals. Trash. So Kanakook and Kach Kachkan both lived by this rule. Then hard times came knocking at the door. What then?”
“Captain … my English are few. Your pardon?”
“No, I beg your pardon, our friend. I think you said that there were no jobs for your profession. Panthan.”
“Is truth, Captain. No Jed willing to hire my lance. But arena of Warhoons needed blood. We went there, Kanakook and I, and I apprenticed to a free gamesman, a veteran warrior, paying fee to join their guild by indentures. Do I make understanding? I sold me. I did not sell Kanakook.”
(“Golly Moses! Would you sell me, Zebadiah?”)
(“Not cheaply; I have too much invested in you. Wait ’til the price is right.” Then I added, “Don’t stick out your tongue; you’ll get it wind-burned.”)
“We understand you, Kach Kachkan. What does an apprentice do?”
“Serves his master. Attends his thoat. Cares for his weapons and his leather. Massages him before games, dresses his wounds after. Keeps master in practice between games, taking care not to wound him. Sleeps in the stables and eats what his master gives him. And waits.”
/> “Waits for what?” Deety asked.
“Whatever comes, Princess. His master may die on the sand, thus ending indenture. A freed apprentice may sell himself again … or may choose the arena when next his dead master will—would—would have foughten. But in my case, the games master watched me at practice, bought my indenture from my master and entered me in the lists … and in my first game pitted me against my former master.” Kach Kachkan paused. “I killed him. I gained no joy in the killing; I knew his weak points, he did not know mine—since it is not proper for apprentice to wound master.
“So I won his weapons and his thoat, kept what I needed, sold his thoat—and my name was posted for games thereafter. I fought.”
Pushed by curiosity, I asked a snoopy question. “Kach Kachkan, what’s it like, being a professional gladiator?”
I felt him shrug. “It’s a living.”
Shut my mouth! But apparently the question was not offensive, for he continued: “A dull living most time, but comfortable. One eats well. Too well, perhaps; time between games is long, and a warrior can grow fat and soft and slow if he eats too much and trains not enough. Thus end most gladiators, and none but Mother Issus knows whether they sought to sleep in her arms or arrived there through carelessness and sloth.”
He shrugged again. “I was not careless.”
“Clearly you were not,” I answered, with no sarcasm. “You won fifteen bouts.” I added quietly to Deety: “What are the odds?”
(“Thirty-two thousand seven hundred sixty-eight against, assuming that each bout was evenly matched. Clearly not true—I think.”)
Kach Kachkan again took time to arrange his thoughts. “Pardon me, noble Captain—not easy for me to speak true in your tongue. Games four times each cycle. Or more. Or less. Ten days mark one game.”
Deety whispered, “A hundred and fifty days of fighting—I can’t even guess at the odds. Men are not dice.”
“Kach Kachkan, you fought every day? Fifteen games, each ten days long?”
“No, no, Captain. At first—yes. And many ways. Against men, on foot. Against mounted men, Kanakook and I. Against wild calots. Against banths. But the games master is ordered by the Jed to weight each bout evenly, for the crowds will not wager on a known outcome. A man on foot is not pitted against a banth. The banth would win and Jed would order the games master himself to fight the banth next—on foot.
“A warrior who wins many times will be pitted only against other seasoned warriors—not against wild animals, not against beginning warriors. At first I fought daily each ten-day game. Then I fought fewer times for higher stakes. During my last cycle in the games, I fought only seven bouts, all against other seasoned survivors.”
“So once again you ran out of work?”
“No, Captain. I wearied. I grew tired of useless killing. My ancestors would have thought me mad, disowned me. But each new bout became simply a chore to finish quickly, so that I could feed Kanakook, bathe myself, curl up in my silks against her, and sleep. I removed my name from the lists, paying the games master his due, and enrolled in the Berlitz School for English.”
XXI
Jake
Both Hilda and I enjoyed that thoatback ride with Tawm Takus. The scenery was monotonous, but the ride had the carefree feeling of Sunday-afternoon drives of my childhood, when people were content to drive on the ground—instead of zipping across several states without time for scenery, monotonous or otherwise.
Best of all, here was no smog, no fumes, no “Sunday drivers,” no traffic cops—and no need for them. The motion of a thoat is remarkably smooth, no danger of being jounced off. No danger of any sort that I could see. Once, when hills closed in near the end of the ride, Tawm Takus pointed out what he said was a wild banth on the skyline. But that gave only the tiniest thrill of danger, as the speck he pointed out could have been anything. I think the Green Barsoomians have better distance vision than we have—reasonable, since they live in vast vistas like the Plains Amerindians of our history. My distance vision is 20/20 (I wear bifocals, but the upper lenses are zero prescription); I think Tawm Takus must have 40/20 for distance—eagle’s eye.
He assured us that banths never came close to mounted thoats in daylight—although they preyed on wild thoats. They had learned to be wary of rifles.
Tawm Takus was a cultured gentleman—and a soldier, and a courier for tourists, both from Earth and from distant parts of Barsoom. I wondered aloud how he combined the professions. Simple—all Barsoomians were soldiers, from Warlord to simplest peasant. But save for the few staff and “housekeeping” jobs and certain technicians of their air navy, being in the armed forces was not a livelihood. It is much like the Swiss citizen-soldiery, a civic duty but not usually a trade.
Exception: slaves are not soldiers. But the Warlord had abolished hereditary serfdom and the Barsoomian word translated as “slave.” I am sure that my daughter, Deety, a nitpicker in such matters, would construe “indentured servant” as the maximum legal contract wherever the writ of the Warlord was twenty cycles. However—if I understood what I was told—twenty cycles is thirty-eight years, Earth time, and that amounts to slavery in my eyes. It may not seem so to Barsoomians with natural lifespans so long that death by violence or accident is enormously more frequent than death by old age. Tawm Takus assured me that daughters of peasant families swarmed into the capital, eager to list themselves for the auction block at maximum indenture—so numerous that they are a public nuisance. Men were less a problem; commerce needed muscles in this society.
Tawm Takus held rank equivalent to captain on the staff of the Thark regiment stationed at the capital. He described Kach Kachkan as best (Barsoomian obscenity) “sergeant major” and hand-weapons instructor in the whole (obscenity-profanity) planet Barsoom—then apologized abjectly for having let his enthusiasm cause him to lapse into barracks language in Princess Hilda’s presence.
We both assured him that idioms in a language not known to us could not possibly offend Hilda’s refined feelings. Then my playful little bride offered to teach him the full gamut of lurid English improprieties … if “Tommy Tucker” would tutor her in Barsoomian gutter idioms, barracks talk, et cetera.
Tawm Takus was shocked—and tried not to show it while also trying gracefully to refuse without actually saying no to a request from a “princess.”
“Tell him, Doctor,” Hilda urged, while pinching me out of our courier’s sight. “Reassure him as to my scientific interest.”
I attempted one of Zeb’s flights of fancy, helped by the fact that our giant friend could not see my face. “Tawm Takus, my friend, the princess is a linguistic scientist, widely known as the top authority on comparative vulgar and improper idiom among nine representative terrestrial languages. She was awarded the Medal of Mark Twain with diamond cluster for this, as well as the Order of Sir Richard Burton. You would greatly assist my anthropological researches on this planet, were you to grant her request. Whether you wish to learn what she can teach you of this science is, of course, your choice. Is English your principal interest? Or do you know other terrestrial language?”
Once convinced that Hilda’s interest was “scientific,” Tawm Takus eagerly agreed, and accepted the offer of a chance to learn “improper” English (English being the only non-Barsoomian tongue he knew)—it appears that tourists had already left him in doubt as to how well he knew English. His tutor had been an Englishman, sent down from Oxford, and (I surmise) shipped to Barsoom to get him out of sight. Tawm Takus knew some British idioms and words not meant for the parlor—but had not been warned by his tutor.
Hilda agreed to set him straight; they solemnly shook hands on the bargain—a terrestrial custom he knew.
The reddened sun was touching the horizon when the flier found us—I had worried, toward the end, and tried not to show it. Banths did not worry me, but the temperature was dropping. Despite reassurances about furs and about the certainty of the flier finding us, I thought it likely that we would at least hav
e frostbitten hands and feet if anything went wrong.
But this time we escaped Murphy’s Law; the flier settled beside us while it was still light, but getting dark.
Both women were distressed at leaving our new friends to ride home in the dark and cold. But Tawm Takus assured us that riding all night was no hardship to them or their mounts—and this was no all-night march, but an easy jaunt about twice the distance we had covered.
We had to accept their assurances; it was Hobson’s choice, as the flier was too small to carry the three giants (Kad had joined up in mid-march) even if the thoats had been turned loose to go home alone. (Thoats can do this, just as dogs and horses can.)
After Tawm Takus lifted me down, Hilda stood up on our thoat, turned, reached high and grabbed Tawm Takus by his tusks. “Tommy Tucker, you go straight home! You hear me? And be careful!” Then she jumped (floated) down. My daughter was saying good-night to Kach Kachkan while standing at the head of his thoat as she did so and scratching the ugly beast’s snout. Far from resenting it, the monster was uttering squeals that seemed to suggest pleasure.
Deety called out, “Thanks, Kach Kachkan! We’ll see you soon!”—turned to leave. The beast stretched its neck, bumped her shoulder, almost knocking her down.
Deety was not hurt, did not mind it. She caught her balance, turned again, petted it, saying “Kanakook, not so hard, dear! Deety will come see you. I promise.”
The beast trilled like a bird. My son-in-law and I are most fortunate. I have little talent with people. Zeb is better at it; nevertheless he keeps most people at arm’s length by his easy banter. But my daughter and my beloved wife can make friends with anyone, anywhere, anytime, man or beast. (Hilda has the added talent of being able to spank anyone who annoys her—Deety is more inclined to walk away.)
The Barsoomian flier looked more like a boat than an aircraft. No apparent means of propulsion or control. Bow and stern looked alike and the top was decked over. This deck was covered by a transparent canopy that lifted as the hull touched down; the pilot got out—a handsome young-looking Red man dressed in military harness, sword at side, and the Sigil of the Warlord on his chest ornament.
The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes Page 21