Who is Lanik Mueller from A Planet Called Treason and what is their importance?

Lanik is the protagonist of the novel. He is 16 when the story begins and, as he travels throughout the planet Treason, especially as he alters time, he grows older. At the end of the novel, he is an old man having lived a full life and having saved the planet by a terrible personal sacrifice. As he travels from place to place, he learns skills and attitudes that he later uses all together to defeat the Andersons, who are masters of deception and have trapped all the Families and their countries into following the Andersons' betrayals.