by Various
Right, first find your deformed Greta Garbo and make sure she can hop. Acting might be well down your list of priorities.
That’s what I’m thinking when, gathering herself up, Jahde suddenly jumps two-footed like a giant robin onto the top of a table. She reaches up for a hanging lamp and under her arms is a web of skin, like she has residual wings. They’re tufted with flightless feathers. Jahde Isthor holds up the lamp and points it at the human.
The camera looks at his illuminated legs, his genitalia held in an unflinching gaze.
Our hero’s face moves to speak and a title panel intervenes.
I am a man but not of this world
“This is unbelievable,” said Amy.
I am Herman, Lord of the Tharks.
At that point, the audience just loses it. They howl.
The camera eyes up the Princess’s legs . Her knees double back in the wrong direction and she has the thick thigh muscles of a swan. Her shins are as long and thin as a walking stick, covered with scales. She has the feet of a whooping crane.
“It’s different from the books,” I said. “She laid eggs, but she didn’t have feathers. She had ordinary legs.”
“She laid eggs? Yuck!”
“Her name is different, too. All the names are different.”
Jahde Isthor looks at the camera with the expression of an ostrich, and snaps forward. She’s pecked at the lens.
The film ended suddenly, bang.
There were forty reels of that? It would have cost millions even at 1911 prices. In 1911, Edgar Rice Burroughs was still selling pencil sharpeners in Chicago and the story was only just being serialized in magazines for the first time.
In 1911 there was no film grammar for something that long. The Birth of a Nation had not yet been made. Naw, naw, naw, that was 1927 at the earliest.
The applause was light, scattered. People were in shock. It had been too good. It had been too weird.
I knew I had my story. “That’s a fake, and I’m going to prove it.”
After the next screening, a particularly nauseating silent version of Jack the Ripper, I talked to Mr. Appropriate. God, was he ever. Fresh-faced, I would say, like Andy Hardy on smart drugs.
He was indeed a distant relative of Burroughs and he claimed with UCLA-freshman directness to have gone to do the inventory himself. So I said how convenient it was for everybody that the safe opened itself.
I couldn’t dent his wide-eyed innocence. “That’s the weirdest thing! It had a time-lock and it could only be only opened from the inside.”
He made me feel old and mean, and down and cynical, but I thought, “Gotcha, kid!”
I looked him up in the UCLA directories and found him, guilelessly open to public inspection. It said he was studying dentistry. Come on, I thought, you’re a film major.
Like I’d been. So now I’m a journalist. Who only writes about film.
I know how it goes. Nobody gives you a break, so you fake something to get some publicity, maybe get your toe in the door. What’s your story? You got a famous relative? Your, what, great-great-uncle twice removed? Cash in!
The family papers had indeed been kept in a shoguard storage facility in Burbank. The guard at the entrance was huge, Samoan, and well, guarded. He said hardly anything, except that yes, the safe had been stored with his company and other chattels from the erb estate. I showed him my press pass; said I was doing a story on the film. How long had it been stored there? He said he didn’t know, but gave me names to write to. I did, and got a simple letter back. The Burroughs family inventory had moved there when the previous company upped sticks from Hollywood in 1965. I got the name of that company and the old address. The building was now an office block. The story, as far as I could push it, checked out.
My best-selling book—I mean, the book that sold the most copies though it remained well below the Borders threshold of perception—was called A History of Special Effects.
If the film was a fake, I knew all the people who could have done the work. There are only about forty companies in the entire world who could have animated the Tharks. I wrote to all of them, and visited the five or six people who were personal friends. I told them what I’d seen.
There had been at least two serious attempts to make an erb Mars movie in the ’80s. Had anybody done a particularly fine test reel?
Twice I thought I’d found it. Old Yolanda out at Pixar, a real pioneer now doing backgrounds, she told me that she’d been on board a John Carter of Mars project. She still had some of the production design sketches. We had a nice dinner at her place. I saw the sketches. The princesses all wore clothes. The clothes showed off their lovely and entirely human legs.
I visited Yong, a Thai animator who now worked for Lucas. I told him what I’d seen.
“I know, I heard,” said Yong. He’d done some work on a Burroughs project in the ’90s. “Look, you know that only us and a couple of other companies are that good. And if it wasn’t that good, somebody like you, you’d spot it straight away.” He nodded and chuckled. “It’s gotta be a publicity stunt for a new movie.”
“Well whoever did it, they’re hot. This stuff was the finest fx I’ve ever seen. But the weird thing was the whole style, you know, of the titles? That was all perfect for a silent movie.”
Yong chuckled. “I gotta see this. It sounds good. Really, really good.”
I went home and took out some of my old scripts. Those would have made perfect little films. Only they didn’t.
One was about a mother whose son and his boyfriend both had aids. She gets over it by counseling the boyfriend’s mother, an evangelical. Would have been a great two-hander for Streep and MacLaine. Way ahead of its time. I had the delight of seeing it starring Sallie Anne Field, made for TV. Somebody at the agency just ripped it off.
Another was a crisscross Altman thing about race in LA. Sound familiar? The script is just dust on a shelf now.
One of my best isn’t even dust. It was a new take on the Old South. Now it’s just iron molecules on a scrambled hard drive. Always do your backups. That script now is as far away as Burroughs’s Mars.
At twelve I was an erb fan. I still had some of my old books, and got one down from the shelf. It was the Ace edition with the Frank Frazetta cover.
I’d forgotten that Burroughs himself is a character in the book. He says he knew John Carter, a kind of uncle. His uncle disappeared just after the Civil War and returned. He stood outside in the dark, arms outstretched towards the stars. And insisted that he be buried in a crypt that could be opened only from the inside.
Something else. John Carter never got older. He could not remember being a child, but he could remember serving kings and emperors. And that was why, somehow, he could waft in spirit to Somewhere Else, Barsoom, which even if it was some kind of Mars, did not have to be our Mars.
I got a call from John Doe Appropriate. “There’s been some more film show up,” he said. He sounded like someone had kicked him in the stomach. “In the mail. It’s . . . it’s in color.”
Even he knew they had no color in 1911.
“Can I say that I’m not surprised?” He didn’t reply. “I’m coming over,” I said.
When he opened the door, he looked even worse than he sounded. He had a line of grey down the middle of his cheeks, and the flesh under his eyes was dark. When he spoke, it sounded like slowed-down film. “There’s somebody here,” he said, and left the door wide open behind him.
Someone was sitting with his back to us, watching a video. On the screen, a cushioned landscape extended to a surprisingly close horizon. The ground was orange and the sky was a deep bronze, and a silver zeppelin billowed across it, sails pumping like wings.
The man looked back over his shoulder, and it was Herman Blix.
Herman, as he looked in 1928 or 1911 or 1863, excep
t that he had to lean on a cane. He heaved himself out of the chair and lumbered forward as if he had the bulk of a wounded elephant.
Did I say that he was stark naked?
“Not used to clothes,” he said gasping like he wasn’t used to breathing.
Blink.
Your world turns over.
I saw as he spoke that he had tiny fangs, and that his eyes did glow. Looking into them made me feel dizzy and I had to sit down. The strangest thing was that I knew at once what he was, and accepted it. Like meeting those little Nosferatu elves. No wonder he could waft through space: he wouldn’t need a life-support system.
“Can you make films?” he asked me.
His eyes made it impossible to lie, and I heard myself say yes, because it was true, I could. The kid bled next to me, expendable.
“You’re coming with me.” Blix bore down on me, hauled me off the sofa, hugged me, and everything gasped cold and dark.
Mars was only the beginning.
Copyright © 2008 by Geoff Ryman.
Books by Geoff Ryman
The Warrior Who Carried Life (Allen & Unwin, 1985)
The Unconquered Country (Allen & Unwin, 1986)
The Child Garden (Unwin Hyman, 1989)
Was… (HarperCollins, 1992)
253 (HarperCollins, 1998)
Lust: or No Harm Done (HarperCollins, 2001)
Air: Or, Have Not Have (St. Martin’s, 2004)
The King’s Last Song (HarperCollins, 2006)
STORY COLLECTIONS
Unconquered Countries: Four Novellas (St. Martin’s, 1994)
Paradise Tales: And Other Stories (forthcoming) (Small Beer)
ANTHOLOGIES
Tesseracts Nine (editor, with Nalo Hopkinson) (EDGE, 2005)
When It Changed: 'Real Science' Science Fiction (editor) (Carcanet, 2010)
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While safe aboard his flagship, there were two ways for Dennison to watch the battle.
The obvious method relied on the expansive battle hologram that dominated the bridge. The hologram was on at the moment, and it displayed an array of triangular blue blips representing fighters flying about waist-high. The much larger blue oval of Dennison’s command ship hung a moderate distance above and behind the fighters. The massive and powerful but far less agile leviathan probably wouldn’t see battle this day. The enemy’s ships were too weak to damage its hull, but they were also too fast for it to catch. This would be a battle between the smaller fighters.
And Dennison would lead them. He rose from his command chair and walked a few steps to the hologram’s edge, studying the enemy. Their red ships winked into existence as scanners located them amidst the rolling boulders of the asteroid field. Rebels in name but pirates in action, the group had thrived unhindered for far too long. It had been five years since his brother Varion had re-established His Majesty’s law in this sector, and the rebellious elements should long since have been crushed.
Dennison stepped into the hologram, walking until he stood directly behind his ships. There were about two dozen of them—not a large force, by Fleet standards, but bigger than he deserved. He glanced to the side. Noncommissioned aides and lesser officers had paused in their duties, eyes turned toward their youthful commander. Though they offered no obvious disrespect, Dennison could see their true feelings in their eyes. They did not expect him to win.
Well, Dennison thought, wouldn’t want to disappoint the good folks.
“Divide the squadrons,” Dennison commanded. His order was transmitted directly to the various captains, and his small fleet broke into four smaller groups. Ahead, the pirates began to form up as well—though they stayed within their asteroid-cover.
Through the movement of their ships, Dennison could feel their battle strategy taking shape. At his disposal was all the formal military knowledge that came with a high-priced Academy education. Memories of lectures and textbooks mixed in his head, enhancing the practical experience he’d gained during a half-dozen years commanding simulations and, eventually, real battles.
Yes, he could see it. He could see what the enemy commanders were doing; he could sense their strategies. And he almost knew how to counter them.
“My lord?” an aide said, stepping forward. She bore a battle-visor in her hands. “Will you be needing this?”
The visor was the second way a commander could watch the battle. Each fighter bore a camera just inside its cockpit to relay a direct view. Varion always wore a battle-visor. Dennison, however, was not his brother. He seemed to be the only one who realized that fact.
“No,” Dennison said, waving the aide away. The action caused a stir amongst the bridge team, and Dennison caught a glare from Brell, his XO.
“Send Squadron C to engage,” Dennison commanded, ignoring Brell.
A group of four fighters broke off from the main fleet, streaking toward the asteroids. Blue met red, and the battle began in earnest.
Dennison strode through the hologram, watching, giving commands, and analyzing—just as he had been taught. Dogfighting ships zipped around his head; fist-sized asteroids shattered as he walked through their space, then reformed after he had passed. He moved like some ancient god of lore, presiding over a battlefield of miniature mortals who couldn’t see him, but certainly felt his almighty hand.
Except, if Dennison was a god, his specialty certainly wasn’t war.
His education kept him from making any disastrous mistakes, but before long, the battle had progressed to the point where it was no longer winnable. His complete lack of pride let him order the expected retreat. The Fleet ships limped away, reduced in numbers by more than half. From the statistics glowing into hovering, holographic existence before him, Dennison could see that his ships had barely managed to destroy a dozen enemy fighters.
Dennison stepped from the hologram, leaving the red ships victorious and the blue ships despondent. The hologram disappeared, its images shattering and dribbling to the command center’s floor like shimmering dust, the pieces eventually burning away in the light. Crewmembers stood around the perimeter, their eyes showing the sickly shame of defeat.
Only Brell had the courage to speak what they were all thinking. “He really is an idiot,” he muttered under his breath.
Dennison paused by the doorway. He turned with a raised eyebrow, and found Brell staring back unrepentantly. Another High Officer probably would have sent him to the brig for insubordination. Of course, another commander wouldn’t have earned such disrespect in the first place. Dennison leaned back against the side of the doorway, arms folded in an un-militaristic posture. “I should probably punish you, Brell. I am a High Officer, after all.”
This, at least, made the man look aside. Dennison lounged, letting Brell realize that—incompetent or not—Dennison had the power to destroy a man’s career with a mere comm-call.
Dennison finally sighed, standing up and walking forward. “But, you know, I’ve never really believed in disciplining men for speaking the truth. Yes, Brell. I, Dennison Crestmar—brother of the Great Varion Crestmar, cousin to kings and commander of fleets—am an idiot. Just like all of you have heard.”
Dennison paused, stopping right in front of Brell, then reached out and tapped the man’s chest right in the center of his High Imperial Emblem. “But think of this,” Dennison continued with a light smile. “If I’m an idiot, then you must be pretty damn incompetent yourself
; otherwise they would never have wasted you by sending you to serve under me.”
Brell’s face flared red at the insult, but he showed uncharacteristic restraint by holding his tongue. Dennison turned and strolled from the room. “Prepare my speeder for my return to the Point,” he commanded. “I’m due for dinner with my father tomorrow.”
* * *
He missed dinner. However, it wasn’t his fault, considering he had to travel half the length of the High Empire. Dennison’s father, High Duke Sennion Crestmar, was waiting for him in the spaceport when he arrived.
Sennion didn’t say a word as Dennison left the airlock and approached. The High Duke was a tall man—proud, broad shouldered, with a noble face. He was the epitome of what a High Officer should be. At least Dennison had inherited the height.
The High Duke turned, Dennison fell into step beside him, and the two strode down the Officer’s Walk—a pathway with a deep red carpet, trimmed with gold. It was reserved for High Officers, uncluttered by the civilians and lower ranks who bustled against each other on either side. There were no vehicles or moving walkways on the Officer’s Walk. High Officers carried themselves. There was strength in walking—or so Dennison’s father always said. The High Duke was rather fond of self-congratulatory mottoes.
“Well?” Sennion finally asked, eyes forward.
Dennison shrugged. “I really tried this time, if it makes any difference.”
“If you had ‘tried,’” Sennion said flatly, “you would have won. You had superior ships, superior men, and superior training.”
Dennison didn’t bother trying to argue with Sennion. He had given up on that particular waste of sanity years ago.
“The High Emperor assumed that you simply needed practical experience,” Sennion said, almost to himself. “He thought that simulations and school games weren’t realistic enough to engage you.”
“Even emperors can be wrong, father,” Dennison said.
Sennion didn’t even favor him with a glare.
Here it comes, Dennison thought. He’s finally going to admit it. He’s finally going to let me go. Dennison wasn’t certain what he’d do once he was released from military command—but whatever he chose to do, he couldn’t possibly be any worse at it.
