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Volume 1733
Presents
The ERB / Lin Carter Connection
LIN CARTER'S CALLISTO SERIES
12345678
Part 3 of 10
THE ALIEN RACES OF CALLISTO
by Den Valdron
 Lin Carter Callisto Articles by Den Valdron
Carter's Callisto
Shape of Thanator
Alien Races of Callisto
Civilization of Callisto
Barsoom-Thanator Connection
Callisto Pellucidar
Callisto Future
Literary Zanthodon
Literal Zanthodon
Linguistic Zanthodon, 
Pellucidar, Mangani, Pal-ul-don
. .
Colonial Barsoom
Colonial Appendix
.
 

CONTENTS
Yathoon - Cold Insect Intelligences
Zarkoon, the Winged Gatekeepers of the Far Side
The Dreaded Mind Wizards
Laj-Thad, an Amphibian Anomaly


Yathoon - Cold Insect Intelligences

There are three principal known races on Callisto.  Humans, Yathoon and Zarkoon.   The first ones that we meet, of course, are the Yathoon.    The Yathoon race features in Jandar of Callisto and Mad Empress of Callisto, where John Dark is their prisoner for periods of time.   One of the Yathoon, Koja, becomes a regular featured character of the series and appears in most books, but for the largest part, we don't get any sort of insight into the race from his appearances.  In Renegade of Callisto, we are treated to a more detailed look at the Yathoon, including their ‘home’ in their secret valley in the Black Mountains.

The range of the Yathoon seems to be the temperate and tropical bands of the southern hemisphere on the near side, particularly much of the plains of Harantha and the southern portions of the Grand Kumala.   Their area of range is probably several million square miles, although as we will see, they are thinly distributed and highly mobile within this range.

In our first glimpses, in Jandar of Callisto, we discover that the Yathoon are tall bipeds, approximately seven feet in height, silver gray in colour, with a faint odour of formic acid.   They are arthropods, with a chitinous segmented exo-skeleton and no internal bones.

Their head is a large, almost featureless oval shape, with two large eyes on the side and complex mouth parts hidden on the underside.  The eyes are not faceted, nor do they contain whites, but are simply black glittering orbs, protected by lid-like membranes.  (Some passages, however, refer to bulging compound eyes).  They have no obvious ears, but do perceive sound.  They also possess two antenna which are used for non-human senses.

The head is connected to the torso or thorax by a jointed tubular structure (a neck) composed of two rings.   The thorax is a large oval structure, which has genuine lungs, and which also sports two arms, twice as long as human arms, and with an extra joint or elbow.  This ends in four fingers, each with six joints,  the inner pair of fingers being four inches longer than the outer ones.   They do not have opposing thumbs, but the fingers appear to be dextrous enough to do the job.

A narrow waist connects to the abdomen, described as a tapering spindle shaped structure thrusting out behind the legs.  The two legs have an extra joint, which resembles the hind legs of birds in facing backwards.  The legs end in four toed feet, with three toes pointing forward and one pointing backwards.

The Yathoon are not as strong as humans, but are apparently much faster, both in reflex speed and in a straight dash.  Their dexterity, endurance and intelligence seem comparable.   They are incredible leapers and one of their combat techniques is leaping entirely over their adversary and striking down at unprotected heads.

In neither Jandar of Callisto or Mad Empress of Callisto do we see Yathoon females, nor do we learn anything about their reproductive life.  Presumably they are egg layers.  Possibly, they're colonial creatures, with a very few or single queen laying all the eggs.   They have no words for 'father,' 'mother,' 'wife' or 'son.'   Or perhaps more accurately, they have no use for these words in their culture, since they speak the common language of the planet.

Yathoon society seems to be seasonally nomadic, with four great hordes and two smaller hordes traveling about through the plains and jungle.  The hordes are exclusively male, and organized semi-feudally, with chieftains accumulating retinues of followers.  They are curious beings, gathering all manner of oddments as 'treasure.'   Anything peculiar or unusual will be prized by a Yathoon and added to the ‘treasure.’  Likely for later study or examination with an eye towards potential direct or indirect usefulness.   Accumulation and evaluation of oddities is probably their equivalent for curiosity and innovation.   Although they use symbols to mark their property, they are not a literate society.   While nomadic, the hordes war upon each other ceaselessly.

However, at the end of the season, the Yathoon return to their hidden valley in the black mountains.  Presumably, they take their treasures and accumulated foods and resources there with them.  And presumably, that is where they reproduce and raise their offspring.  While in the hidden valley, peace endures between all the Hordes.

In Mad Empress of Callisto John Dark and his friends are captured and kept by another Yathoon Horde.  Because they are non-human and lack human emotions, they treat their captives without cruelty or undue restriction.

Mad Empress gives us a little more information on the Yathoon.   For one thing, they're dead shots with an arrow over amazing ranges.  Their arrows are tipped with a fast acting neurotoxin which brings about immediate death or paralysis.

The Yathoon have much more acute senses than human, they can distinguish a far greater spectrum of colours and have a more discerning sense of smell.  Finally, they have an additional sense called hamouph, described as a dim telepathic ability to detect other life forms.

They also have a domesticated animal, another insect-like creature called a Xanga, a dog-like creature resembling a gray-green bumblebee, whose venom is both paralytic and preservative, and which the Yathoon use to preserve their meat for extended periods of time.

Dark notes that the Yathoon are the greatest hunters he has ever seen, and that they will track and pursue game far longer and with far more tenacity than any human hunter.  Add to this their superhuman accuracy with bow and arrow, their heightened senses, and their superior technique for preserving food, and we can see that the Yathoon thoroughly outmatch any potential human hunter/gatherer society.

Indeed, Dark never acknowledges this, but if the Yathoon were so minded, they could well pose a threat to the city states.   Possibly this is the reason why the Human city states do not seem inclined to extend their reach into Yathoon territory.  It's quite possible that somewhere on Thanator are the ruins of a human city or two that made the mistake of picking a fight with the Yathoon.

Finally, in Renegade of Callisto, we learn a little bit about the Yathoon home life.   The social order of the wandering males appears to be organized around 'Komors' or Chieftains, individuals who show remarkable prowess or abilities and so gather followers.  The Komors seem to be the essential building block that Yathoon culture organizes itself around.  Beneath the Komors there are followers, slaves and 'treasure hordes', all directly connecting to the Komors.  Followers and slaves, while different in status, do not relate to each other, but to the Komors.   Part of the duty of the Komor is to accumulate a 'trove.'

To progress beyond the level of Komor, to Chief (Akka-Komor) or High Chief (Arkon) the Komor must challenge for the position in a trial by combat to the death.   The hierarchical Yathoon will accept the winner of such trials, regardless of whether he is well liked or regarded.  Inept Akka-Komors are more likely to be challenged to further trials by combat of course.   However, this is not the only method of succession, it appears that the Arkon or even rival horde's Akka-Komor's are also able to select or at least influence the selection of Akka-Komor.   High ranking or extremely influential Chieftains are able to rebel against an Akka-Komor and break away to found their own horde upon occasion.   And the Akka-Komor voting as a sort of ad hoc council can overrule the Arkon.   We assume that Yathoon politics also has other means of succession or replacement.

Politically, the Akka-Komor are the generals or rulers of the hordes and exercise power much as do secular Princes.   The Arkon rules no horde, but rather, acts as a sort of intermediary.   His powers seem to be those of a Judge or Arbiter, rather than Emperor, although he can give commands.

Interestingly, the power dynamics of the males convey no special access to females.  Koja, at the end of the book, wins a female, Noura, not by becoming Emperor or Arkon, but through excellence in games.  Neither Komors nor Akka-Komors are automatically entitled to, or given preference to breeding.  The politics of leadership is strictly to govern relations among males.

Once a year, the Yathoon males all make a pilgrimage, or migration back to their secret valley in the Black Mountains where their hidden city is.  Behaviourally, this is similar to salmon or eels returning to spawn, though it may have elements of human religious pilgrimage.  As part of the pilgrimage, they bring vast quantities of foods to support the city.  Indeed, the nomadic foraging lifestyle of the male Yathoon seems to be oriented towards feeding their city.   The Yathoon do not practice agriculture, so what we have here is a remarkable example of a hunter gatherer society accumulating and storing a large enough surplus to keep a major city.  Of course, being hunter gatherers, the territory they must forage is immense in comparison to agricultural societies.

Their hidden city is called Sargol.  Sargol lies within a volcanically heated portion of the Black Mountains, and is surrounded, at least in part, by rivers or currents of open lava. It is the repository of all their females and young.

While in Sargol, the warring male hordes enforce a universal truce, no individual or horde may attack another.  Instead, the male Yathoon compete with each other in 'games' of prowess.  While this sounds and operates like the Olympics, this really seems more like the sexual 'prowess' or 'display' competitions that we see on Earth among bowery birds or sea lions.  The idea is that males, instead of beating on each other, compete to prove to their peers and females that they are the most appealing mates.   Among the Yathoon, breeding privileges go to the winning Yathoon and the runner ups.  Nevertheless, the competitions are occasionally lethal, and become more lethal the higher they go.

Competition is fierce.   The male Yathoon population is 20,000.   The female population is 39.   Lin Carter writes that the Yathoon are dwindling into extinction.  Females are identical to males in general appearance, by the way, but are smaller and slimmer of build, with less developed mandibles and a more graceful hue.

Based on the demographics of the Yathoon, we can estimate that Sargol's permanent population is around 2000 to 5000, consisting perhaps of the 39 females, a population of ‘elders’, an honour guard of warriors, artisans and caretakers, and the larva and juveniles.

The relatively small number of breeding females gives us an insight into the dynamics of Yathoon society.   The male population is around 20,000.  But attrition among males through accidents, hunting, inter-horde wars and internal duels is likely to be high.  The lifestyle is harsh, advancement often comes through combat to the death, and the hordes battle constantly.   We can assume a mortality rate as high as 5 to 10% per year.   This means that the Yathoon population, if stable, must be replaced every 10 to 20 years.   This in turn means that each breeding female must lay 500 to 600 eggs in this period.   This gives us a rate of reproduction of between 30 to 60 eggs in any particular breeding year.

Breeding is intensely seasonal, rather than year round.   So it's likely that all of a Yathoon females eggs are fertilized during a nuptial period after the great games.  Yathoon know their fathers, though they attach no particular significance to it (eggs or larva are marked with their fathers identity symbol, and Koja wins sole breeding rights to one female).  This tells us that in a particular breeding period, Yathoon females are monogamous with their males.   This means that in a breeding period, as few as one, or as many as 39 male Yathoon may be fathers.  It's possible that the male breeding roster changes each year with new winners in the games, but it is likely that some Yathoon may win games several years running.  In the course of a Yathoon generation, we would have no more than a few hundred and perhaps as little as a few dozen fathers.

Consequently, only 1% to 2% of Yathoon, perhaps fewer, actually participate in reproduction.    All the rest, 98% to 99% of the males are null and reproductively irrelevant.   One effect of this is that you could wipe out the vast majority of the male Yathoon population, without effect.  In a few years at most, their population would regenerate.

Another consequence is that all Yathoon are borne to a very, very few fathers and mothers.   Hence, most of the male population is going to be closely related to each other, either as full siblings (30 to 100), half siblings (500 to 1000) , or as uncles/nephews (1000 to 2000).   A major horde will consist of 2000 to 5000 individuals, and a small horde might represent only a few hundred, which suggests that the relationships noted could be extremely large and powerful constituencies within these hordes.   It seems likely that the critical social strata which organizes the hordes and the Komors are actually these hidden patterns of relationships.

The Yathoon are not true colonial insects as we understand them.   Although social insects like ants, bees, wasps or termites have similarities, there are many points of departure.   Most colonial insect colonies consist of a single queen, who lays all the eggs.   Here, we've got a very small female egg laying population, but it is a population nevertheless.

Most colonial insects are made up mostly of nonproductive or sterile females, whereas the Yathoon are principally fertile or potentially fertile males.  It's possible that most Yathoon males may be sterile, but this sterility may well be more social than biological - i.e., subordinate Yathoon may be hormonally depressed, either by subordination or by lack of accomplishment.

Nor do we see Yathoon society dividing into biological castes, as termites and ants do with workers and soldiers.   All the male Yathoon, and female Yathoon, are recognizably the same phenotype - we don't see Yathoon forms for soldiers, workers, nurses, drones, etc.

Interestingly, Yathoon society does have castes however - on the one side, there are the Komor and Akka-Komor.  On the other side there are slaves (human and Yathoon) who seem to form a worker caste, and the Xanga insects, who are not biologically related to the Yathoon   It's interesting that in the case of slaves, the Yathoon make no distinction between human and Yathoon slaves - this implies that the Yathoon are just slotting beings into a cultural role without paying attention to the actual nature of the beings themselves.   All of this implies that the Yathoon culture might well have once had different biological or phenotypical castes in the nature of colonial insects, but lost these differentiations (though not the cultural defaults for it) at some point in their history.

The Yathoon pose several puzzles.   Why is this obviously non-human race speaking a human language as its own?   More importantly, where do they come from?   I'm not sure that the Yathoon are native to Callisto.  By way of explanation, if we go back to Barsoom and take a look around, we can be pretty sure that the Green Men are native to Mars.  They have a closely related species in the White Apes, they have a handful of six limbed relatives, and there are a multitude of multi-limbed critters, all of which goes to show us that the Green Men are part and parcel with the local life forms.  They fit right into the local ecology.

The Yathoon, on the other hand, are sticking out like a sore thumb.   Setting humans aside for now, all the other animal life on Callisto appears to be quadrupedal endoskeletal mammal-reptile creatures.   No large or giant multi-jointed, four limbed, exoskeletal arthropods.   The only other large arthropods are a sort of 'dog insect' which they have domesticated, and a dog sized spider, of no particular resemblance to the Yathoon.   In short, the Yathoon are a biological anomaly.  They're not consistent with the rest of the range of Callistan life.

Two possibilities arise.   The first is that the Yathoon are survivors of a now largely extinct line of evolution.   So, its possible that Callisto was at one time dominated by an ecology of large and giant sized four limbed, exoskeletal arthropods, and they all just went out of business, leaving the field open for the endoskeletal vertebrates....   Much like mammals took over from the dinosaurs.

This strikes me as pretty unlikely.  First, the time scale is appalling.  It would take millions of years for the vertebrates to dislodge the arthropods from their niches, or in the case of a sudden mass extinction, millions of years for them to grow into those niches.   Yet, when we look at the vertebrates, we are seeing a full ecology of large creatures solidly ensconced in their niches.   This in turn means that the Yathoon would have to survive for millions of years as the sole representative of their line.   This just seems unlikely.

As unlikely as a single line of hadrosaur or carnosaur surviving the extinction of the dinosaurs and carrying on into modern times as a single unique species.   In fact, it's a lot more unlikely than that, because dinosaurs are our kissing cousins.  The Yathoon represent an evolutionary line a long long way off.

The other possibility is that the Yathoon simply are not from around here.   That is, they are not native to Callisto at all.   They're a transplanted species, which came to Callisto sometime in the past.

But if so, where are they from?  Neither Burroughs, nor Kline's, nor Farley's planets have anything like them.   The closest cousins to the Yathoon appear to be the insect people from H. G. Wells ‘Man in the Moon.’   However, both Burroughs and Kline see the lunar landscape as being dominated by humans and vertebrates.   So....   In the Burroughs/Kline pulp universe, if Wells insects are on the moon, its likely that they're from somewhere else as well.

At this point, my thinking is to place them in some unexplored territory.   Perhaps Mercury, or perhaps one of the other Jovian moons.   But, I'm definitely of the opinion that they're alien to Callisto.


Zarkoon, the Winged Gatekeepers of the Far Side

The Zarkoon appear in Mind Wizards of Callisto, and are referred to, but not seen, in Lankar of Callisto.

"They were still somewhat larger than men, measuring about eight feet from barbed, sinewy tail to cruel, hooked beak.  Their wings resembled those of immense vultures or condors and were covered with long feathers of a metallic azure.  Their heads were crested with a stiff topknot of blue feathers, touched with crimson at the tips; their bodies were covered with swarthy brownish yellow hide which paled to a bright canary yellow at throat, breast, belly and thighs.... The oddest thing about the giant bird winged creatures was that they were essentially anthropoid or human-ike in form.  Disregarding for the moment their brilliant blue plumage of wing and prehensile barbed and featherless tails, their bodies were quite manlike with long gaunt arms, whose hands ended in cruel hooked talons, and long sinewy hind legs which terminated in powerful grasping claws.  Stark naked, their boy umber and yellow torsos were encumbered with some articles or implements, I could not at first discern.   I saw with an uncanny thrill of amazement that the bird-monsters wore crude harnesses of leather straps from which dangled stone axes, flint knives, short throwing spears and a variety of curved scimitar like sword with a wicked glittering blade of chipped obsidian.....   One look I had into that nightmarish face, all clacking parrot beak and mad, glaring orange eyes under blue feathered, overhanging brow...  From the gash in the breast of the bird warrior, a weird purple gore dripped...  Not the honest red blood of men flowed in their veins, but the purple gore of monsters."

The Zarkoon are an intelligent species.  They are tool users, wearing harnesses, using ropes and employing bows and arrows, spears, axes and knives.  Most of the tools that Jandar observes are stone, suggesting that the Zarkoon are sophisticated flint workers, but perhaps not otherwise advanced.   Nevertheless, there are iron chains and iron cages in their colony, and a Zarkoon is observed with a key around its neck that it uses to open the cages.  This suggests that the Zarkoon either had a much higher technological culture, or perhaps stole their ironmongery from another culture.

The Zarkoons are language users, although here the evidence of Dark seems ambiguous.   Dark is very definite that they do not speak the common tongue of Yathoons and Humans, so if they do have a language, it is Thanator's second distinct tongue.  On the other hand, from a comparatively brief exposure, Dark is able to discern the names of three Zarkoon and picks up the gist of a conversation.   This suggests that the Zarkoon language is close enough to the common speech, that Dark can subconsciously get a sense of it.   Dark refers to the sound of clacking beaks and hoarse metallic cawing voices, so its likely that they are speaking the common tongue, except merely with such thick accents and dialectical differences that he does not recognize it given his limited and tumultuous encounter.   We don't learn much else of the Zarkoon, except that they seem to have a king or high leader, apparently named Skeer, sub-chiefs one of whom may be named Zawk, and shamanic elders, one of whom is named Kloog.  But these names may actually be titles rather than personal signifiers.  Apart from that, we know that they are nocturnal, that they hunt in flying packs, and they bring meat and curiosities back to the colony.

John Dark refers to the Zarkoon as cannibals, by which he means that they eat humans.    But there's no evidence that the Zarkoon eat each other, and no evidence that they're related closely to humans.  However, its clear that they will eat humans, and he observes them eating meat on a couple of occasions, so they're definitely carnivores.   Still, it seems that the Zarkoon are wide ranging aerial predators.  This poses an interesting problem.   So far as we know, the entire Zarkoon population resides in a single huge colony in their mountain aerie (although its likely that there are probably other, much smaller colonies elsewhere on the far side).  Each Zarkoon is approximately the size of a human being, and to be able to fly effectively, must have a fairly hot metabolism.  That's a lot of predator, and a predator like that eats a lot of meat.   And there are a lot of Zarkoon.

Yllanna refers to the Zarkoon as constant predators in the Cor Az, and, except for Othodes and Large Spiders, there are no other land carnivores.  So it is likely that they are the apex predators in that jungle region.  By the same token, they probably hunt the plains around their mountain as well.    Given the size of the colony and its requirements for meat (even if the Zarkoon manage to supplement their diet with some types of plants), we must assume that the Zarkoon hunting territories probably extend several hundred miles beyond their colonies site.

Going by the map, and assuming that the Cor Az represents the easternmost edge of their range, its likely that their territory extends to the borders of the Black mountains in the south, to the eastern shores of the Corund Laj and the adjacent northern mountains, and very nearly to the dividing line between near and farside hemispheres.   Essentially, any travellers or colonists from the human territories trying to explore or establish themselves on the Far Side would inevitably enter and travel through the Zarkoon hunting territory....  Where they would inevitably attract attention and attack.   Any exposed human settlement attempted in the Zarkoon territory would simply be harvested and eaten.

This does much to explain why the Far Side of Callisto is uninhabited and unexplored.   Conceivably, human explorers could have approached the Far side from the opposite side, but to do this, they would either have to cross vast empty plains, mountains or the Grand Kumala.   They would form a huge obstacle to any human plains or nomadic culture mounted on Thaptors, and an obstacle to any attempt at civilization or agriculture within their territory.   The remarkable thing is how a human culture managed to establish itself in the Cor Az.

On the other hand, the Zarkoon are considered largely mythical in the adjacent nearside city of Tharkol, so obviously, they don't get out much.   Their mythical or unknown status comes from a couple of sources.  Obviously, the city states are not big on exploring, most of them seem confined within their territories.  Secondly, the Zarkoon probably put most of their hunting effort into the biologically richest territories, so there's a much higher intensity of predation on the Cor Az, and probably a lot of activity around migrating herds.   Empty plains don't get much attention, until they aren't so empty.

It seems likely that the Zarkoon, similar to the Yathoon, may not be native to Callisto.   And, in the context of the Burroughs universe, they seem to bear the greatest resemblance to the Angans of Burroughs Venus, although they're considerably nastier.  They may also be related to the Wieroo of Caprona, given their predatory habits.


The Dreaded Mind Wizards

Are nasty little bastards.  They're yellow skinned, wrinkled, hairless dwarves.   They have remarkable powers of telepathy and mind control, there were only a few dozen of them to start with, and they're not from Callisto.

 Jandar isn't sure where they come from, possibly one of the other moons of Jupiter.   His view was that they were a dying race with no female members left.  They were ruled over by a 23,000 year old brain in a glass jar and they'd been on Thanator for about fifty years.   All of this is from Jandar, related to Lin Carter while they are captives, so its unclear how reliable all of it is.

The Mind Wizards were the secret troublemakers of Callisto.   One of their number, the false priest Ool, was the power behind the Black Legion and its overthrow of Shondakar.   He was mentioned in Jandar of Callisto, and featured prominently in Black Legion of Callisto.

Subsequently, another Mind Wizard was learned to be manipulating Prince Thutan of Zandahar, though he didn't particularly need help to be ambitious and evil.   We're told that originally, three mind wizards were running Zandahar, but two died in some airship accident.  Thereafter, the last one went slightly renegade and picked a fight with the Black Legion in Shondakar.  All of this we learned in Lankar of Callisto, as in none of the preceding books was there any hint of this.

After that, they decided to focus on the city of Tharkol, using it as a lever for world conquest.   Ang Chan  was their agent.   The Mind Wizards were exposed as the secret puppeteers of Zamorra of Tharkol when she attacked Shondakar in the Mad Empress.  Zamorra threw off its domination, and joined with Darloona and Dark in Callisto's first 'world war', as the cities of Shondakar, Tharkol and Soraba, joined forces to cross into the Dark side and obliterate the Mind Wizards city in Lankar of Callisto and Mind Wizards of Callisto.  Ylanna of Callisto followed the adventures and well deserved death of the final Mind Wizard.

In Yllanna it is confirmed that the Mind Wizards were not native to Callisto, when the last survivor, in passing, notes that he is from another world.  Their true origins, it is hinted, are one of the other Jovian moons.   We don't know where they came from exactly, or why.  They don't seem able to have gone home... no spaceships or teleports, and they didn't seem to have active communication with their home world.

Perhaps because of their offworld origins, they had the most remarkable technology on the planet, using television and radio to allow their agents to communicate between cities.   They also practiced 'Ras Thavas' levels of surgery, and used their mental powers to reduce their victims to zombies.  They projected massive illusions, either technologically or psychically, and possessed ray guns and other pieces of high technology.

The Mind Wizards inhabited the hidden city of Kuur in the Harangzar Valley, concealed by mountains and a permanent cloud.  Even the cave entrance to their hidden city was hidden by an illusion, and on top of that, they had a guard posted and booby traps set.

Since no one on Callisto was hunting them before John Dark came along, and they had no other enemies on the planet, this suggests that they were hiding out from someone, most likely, extraplanetary.

But it isn't exactly clear what they wanted with the rest of the planet.   Jandar's theory was that they were bent on conquest of the planet as a source of slaves and spare body parts, but this hardly seems persuasive.

Had they been the secret Masters of Callisto for generations, manipulating the relations between the cities?  To what end?  Simply to keep them down and away from the Dark Side?  Or was there some greater purpose?  Or perhaps it was simply an elaborate game that they played with each other, using human cities and lives as pawns?   Or was their drive to manipulate and control the human cities a recent development?   If so, what triggered their surge of activity?


Laj-Thad, an Amphibian Anomaly

A mysterious race appears in Renegade of Callisto.  Laj-Thad are 'people of the sea,' and we meet a single representative, Zothon, who is a prisoner of the Yathoon.  His hair is shocking white, his eyes are lavender, and his skin is african dark with a greenish hue.   His strength and endurance are remarkable, far beyond persons larger than he is.  Oh, and he has gills or gill slits in his ribs.

Obviously, they are amphibians, but where?  The Corund Laj, whose shores are well settled by Perush, is ruled out.   There's also no likelihood that they are from the giant Cor Az lake on the Far side.  Their most likely home is the Sanmur Laj, or smaller southern sea, although Carter's protagonist, Valkar, wonders if there might be a third sea on the far side (not according to Carter's maps).

The Sanmur Laj is largely unexplored, being bordered by the sub-polar lands on its southern side and the plains of Harantha on its north.  Access to this sea is hampered by the fact that you would have to traverse through a large expanse of Yathoon territory to get to it.   The area is thought to be uninhabited and the consensus of the civilized world is that there's nothing attractive there, or at least, nothing attractive that cannot be found more cheaply and in greater quantities closer to home.

Despite this, it does appear that the Sanmur Laj is inhabited by this humanoid amphibian race, and that there is both a population and a culture there.  Sothon speaks the universal language, which suggests that his culture may speak it as well.  But its also possible that he simply picked it up while in the custody of the Yathoon.   Sothon tells his companions that he is a 'Zetitikar' which translates as 'searcher' or 'seeker' or 'wanderer.'   The impression is that this is a formal social role in the culture, rather than just a name.

And that's all we know.  This brief discussion is actually longer than the collected references to Sothon and his peculiarities in Renegades of Callisto.   Clearly, as an amphibian, Sothon resembles but is not truly human.  On the other hand, amphibians are not native to Callisto.  So once again, like the other intelligent races, he seems to be a bit of an anomaly.   It's worth noting that both Burroughs and Kline place amphibian races on Venus, and the Lu people of Burroughs Caprona are also amphibians.  Gilled or amphibian humans are also common in pulp fiction.
 

Lin Carter Callisto Articles by Den Valdron

Carter's Callisto
Shape of Thanator
Alien Races of Callisto
Civilization of Callisto
Barsoom-Thanator Connection
Callisto Pellucidar
Callisto Future
Literary Zanthodon
Literal Zanthodon
Linguistic Zanthodon, 
Pellucidar, Mangani, Pal-ul-don
. .
Colonial Barsoom
Colonial Appendix
.
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