The Albino Boar.

Call me crazy, if you want, but you’d scream too if you woke up on the ceiling.

We arrived at the teleport promptly at noon, my trusty aide and sidekick, Quahog, carrying our luggage, looking for a ship ominously named the Pequod. I was flush with money, and merely sought to have a little adventure for my sixtieth transplant, when an associate of mine suggested a hunting expedition in the Kevorkian Outback in Sector 19.

Naturally I was intrigued, but admitted that I knew next to nothing about hunting. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I got the perfect guide for you.” He scribbled a number on one of his cards and deftly slipped it into my top pocket. “Call him. His name is Crank. He’s not cheap, but he’ll take care of everything.”

Crank certainly took care of things all right, but there were times when our definition of accommodations appeared to differ, and he was not a fellow to be trifled with. Short in stature but stocky in build, he resembled a brick, his face and head conformed to a similar flat, featureless shape, as if he’d gone toe-to-toe with a bull elephant and lost a few rounds on points.

Despite his face’s flattened condition, he had bright blue eyes and a way of staring at us and allowing a moment of silence to pass after everything we said, it was an effective and unnerving deterrent to asking questions or volunteering comments, like: ‘You have no landing gear?’ and ‘No really, is this thing really safe?’

I suppose it was. I mean, it got us here, and will probably get us back.

The first thing Crank finally said after we crash-landed was, “We’re hunting the Albino boar, me guppies.”

“The Alpine—what?” Quahog asked as we shook our heads. “I don’t…”

I was staring at our rickety space-ship, half buried in a snow-drift. It was a white ship and the planet was covered in snow and ice. “What about your ship?”

Crank ignored the question and said, “Yer nervous. Course ya’ar. Huntin’ the Albino Boar is a nerve wrackin’ proposition.”

Me and Quahog exchanged a glance. “We’re hunting for the what?”

Crank paused, then answered, “The legendary albino boar.”

I looked around, saw movement in the distance: A boar I guessed to be half the size of a mammoth. I pointed. “Look.”

Crank placed a giant hairy hand on my arm and forced me to lower it. “That’s just a boar, ya dimwit. A big, old, brown boar.” He pulled a solid gold walrus tooth from his pocket and held it up. “See this coin, lads?”

“That’s a tooth,” I said.

He paused, looked at me. “If I say it’s a coin…” He focused on the tooth, put it back in his pocket and pulled a coin out of his other pocket and held it up. “This coin? This coin represents the golden tooth in my other pocket. And it goes to the first man, woman, or…” He looked at Quahog. “…or anyone who first spots the beast I seek.”

“What beast is that?” One of the sherpas heckled from behind us with feigned enthusiasm.

“The Albino Boar, ye scatterbrained mutton. Even you, ya scab off a lambs ass, ye spot the beast before I do and I’ll give ya the tooth, as sure as I’m standing and breathing.”

I turned to my aide, Quahog, and mouthed the words, ‘Are we paying extra for this?’ How was I to know that Crank could read lips?

“No yer not payin’ for the thrill of this chase, ye fetid fag o’ flatulence. I am, ya daft clod.”

Daft clod? Did he just call me a daft clod? “Well, save your money then, you, you dafter, denser clod.”

He stepped closer to me and I stepped back, while Quahog stepped between us, pointing and gesturing at a big, brown boar, lumbering out of the woods a mere twenty meters distant, knocking down trees and giant truffles with equal indifference. One of the sherpas raised his staff in self-defense as the rest of us shrank behind him. Even Crank himself took notice of the behemoth, trying to shoo it away with his tattered hat.

The beast swung its massive head, and horn, did I mention it had a horn? …in a broad sweeping arc, snagging Crank’s hat and bellowing in distress. Crank darted forward, retrieved the hat and smacked the colossal beast on its flank in one fluid move, then booted its butt with his foot and jumped aside. As it trotted past us, another immense beast was right behind it and Crank, our trusty guide, handled that one with equal or greater aplomb.

And so it went, as the day wore on, Crank leading us through dense fog and fir trees, smacking giant boars with his hat and all of us dancing to one side or the other. We and his crew of silent sherpas followed him straight into the horde of lumbering boars.

Our fear initially obscured the fact that we were going up a hill, but after two hours we noticed, after three hours we began to wonder, ‘how high is this hill?’ After four hours we emerged from the forest into a clearing that continued its upward incline. We were not in the least bit winded and soon realized we were getting lighter, and the higher we climbed, the lighter we got. We were fairly bounding over the snow drifts when the ground began to level off. At the peak of the hill sat a stone pagoda, (because it just rolls off the tongue.) It was constructed in a place known as ‘above the sun-line.’ That’s when we realized we had been trudging along in twilight, and our lodging sat in the first crest of frozen land exposed to the closest sun, the brightest one of three. It was a dazzling sight, shimmering like a jewel in the full spectrum of light.

In our ultra-light condition we reached the lodge all too easily and coasted to a rest just above its broad stone patio. A seven-foot monk with six toes emerged from a guardhouse and used a suspended log to ring an immense bell, signaling the start of recess. Flaming citrus coffee drinks were served in cobalt cups, enticing us to drift to the ground and settle into our heated sofas. With only two white dwarf stars for illumination, the last rays of Haventgotta III fell behind the bulk of the world and we felt a thrill of anticipation as the landscape fell into a blue evanescent shadow.

A magnificent herd of gargantuan boars dotted the vast escarpment below us, and in that moment of brief shadow, they all paused in their rooting as if they were all of one mind. Huge, dark brown boars stood like frozen blobs against the vast icy mountain meadows, and then something else moved. A piece of shaggy whiteness rumbled to life against the frozen tableau no more than thirty paces away, startling everyone present. All except for Crank. Who was down on one knee, drawing a bead on the elusive beast as it bounded effortlessly over its brethren heading down the slope and away.

But not before Crank got off one solitary shot—that hit the beast square in the ribs. A bright blotch of fluorescent red erupted on the great boar’s hide as it glanced their way with a look of bewildered surprise on its hairy face.

We all gasped, even Crank, who I dare say never thought he’d hit the damned thing. The light-footed leviathan landed squarely on all six feet and turned its great head to look at its side. The planet’s retrograde sun, Havengotta III attained an observable retrograde motion, and rose once again above the horizon and would appear to stay there for hours, a sight enjoyed by a very fortunate few.

An event now marred by… but no.

The albino boar hopped and spun, reversed himself, obscuring the splotch and bounded off in the opposite direction before disappearing entirely in the glare of the sun, the glittering peaks, and the vast shimmering meadows.

I turned to Crank. “I thought you shot him?”

“It’s a ‘her’ for your information, and we only use water-based paint pellets. Only an idiot would kill an albino boar. Do I look like an idiot to you?”

Later that night he ushered us to our bunks in the heart of the pagoda. For reasons I prefer to keep to myself, I fear and abhor restraints and refused to be leashed to my bed. “Okay by me,” he said, “but when the three suns set and the tidal forces change, you’ll likely be sleeping on the ceiling come morning. And just so you know? I’m an ill-tempered host when roused by the sound of screaming.”