Under the Moons of Mars

by John Joseph Adams

  And in a high garden on a flange of the immense scarlet five-thousand-foot tower that dominated the city of Greater Helium two men stood and watched the unique panorama. The tower was more singular in that its golden twin in Lesser Helium was still not fully rebuilt after the terrible storm that had toppled it many years ago; from here you could see men and machines swarming about it, doll-tiny in the distance southward where the sister-city lay.

  They leaned on a balustrade of carved stone and looked out past the city to the green strips of farmland that bordered the two great canals that met here. John Carter’s face was grim.

  “I think that the politicians on Earth . . . Jasoom . . . have grown even more feebleminded, cowardly, and corrupt than they were when I lived there more than a century and a half ago. Which is no mean feat! To abandon the attempt to establish travel between our worlds after only one failure. And that due to sabotage, not any fault in the ship!”

  Prince Jalvar grinned at him. “You mean that there, at least, Jasoom is more advanced than Barsoom, great-grandsire?” he said. “In the production of great swordsmen like yourself, and poor statesmen like the ones you are damning so harshly?”

  “And about equal in the production of young scamps like you,” the warlord of Mars said, smiling back.

  “I wonder who I derive this quality of scampishness from?” the prince said. “Which of my distinguished ancestors provided it?”

  John Carter laughed aloud. “Anyone would know your line of descent through Llana,” he said. “Even if it were not visible in your face. Though if you are handsome, that is the legacy of the incomparable Dejah Thoris and your own mother.”

  In truth they were both men who might attract a second glance, even among the comely folk of Helium. The warlord looked to be a man in the prime of his strength, with a regular square-jawed face and a build like a hunting cat, long in the limbs, broad-shouldered, and narrow in the waist. His eyes were an odd gray color and his skin a suntanned white as pale as a Thern’s, but his close-cropped hair was as raven-black as any of the Red race who dominated Barsoom.

  Prince Jalvar Pan was the other man’s height almost to an inch and of similar build, but his hair was lighter, a dark-brown color, and his skin of a similar hue, with only a trace of burnished red-brown that gave it a hue almost like bronze. His mother was John Carter’s granddaughter Llana of Gathol, but his father was Pan Dan Chee, a warrior of the Orovars—the fair-haired, white-skinned race that had ruled Barsoom when it was young and oceans rolled where only ochre moss and savage Green Men roamed now, and who had been thought extinct until the last lost colony of them in the dead city of Horz had been discovered.

  Both wore the harness of warriors, supple tooled-leather straps that carried shortsword, longsword, dagger, and pistol, and beside those, the metal of their rank—gold and silver and platinum carved and inlaid with the strange, lustrous jewels of Barsoom in the insignia of Helium and Gathol and the sigils of their princely houses.

  “Still,” John Carter said, turning again to watch the pageant of Helium’s awakening. “I would have enjoyed seeing men from Earth visit.”

  Jalvar nodded eagerly. All Barsoom—or at least the civilized parts—had been agog with the news that the Jasoomians, after forty years of two-way communication, had at last launched their ship of space. John Carter had been instrumental in establishing that communication, and in encouraging the launching of the first unsuccessful Martian ship.

  But he felt its loss very keenly, Jalvar knew. John Carter would; he has ever hated to send men into peril he did not share.

  “And now the loss of the Barsoom on its maiden voyage toward us,” the warlord said. “Some malign curse seems to operate to keep the worlds apart.”

  “But that need not be, my great-grandsire!” Jalvar said eagerly.

  “Ah,” John Carter replied. “I think I see what you have in mind, my reckless descendant.”

  “You would have done the same at . . . well, you know what I mean.”

  The warlord shook his head ruefully. “I was never your age. I have always been as I am now—on Earth, they would say a man of thirty years. I remember no youth, no childhood, no origin. Only the life of a fighting man. Virginia I called my home, and I fought for it in the War of Secession, but I remember it when it was only a wilderness, and I set foot on it from the little ship Susan Constant with the first Englishmen to settle there. I remember fighting England’s battles; the Armada, at Flodden Field . . . and more, back further, further. It fades into dreams. . . .”

  “But age has not made you cautious,” Jalvar said. “Nor would you be happy if your descendants were.”

  John Carter laughed and clapped a hand on the other man’s shoulder.

  “No. So yes, I will speak with the Jeddak. Even with the second and third atmosphere plants under construction, funds can be found in these times of peace and prosperity. And I suppose you will have the support of your mother’s father?”

  Jalvar signed assent. “Gathol is rich, but it does not have the scientific resources of Helium, or the shipyards,” he said.

  “Five brave men died in our last attempt,” John Carter said grimly. “Do you think you can do better?”

  “With the advances the Jasoomians made in their ship, yes. Your son Prince Carthoris thinks so as well.”

  The Warlord’s agreement held a pardonable pride; Carthoris was a notable inventor in the aeronautic field, developer of the directional compass and several other major improvements in the long-static technology of flight. Some said he was the greatest designer of fliers since the discovery of the gravity-canceling Eighth Ray, nearly a thousand years ago.

  “And,” Jalvar said, “I have thought of one thing that we did not consider in our last attempt.”

  That was tactful; it meant something that John Carter and the savants of Helium had not taken into account.

  “You have demonstrated many times the marvelous strength your Jasoomian origins give you,” Jalvar went on.

  “If I had not, I’d have died on the point of a Thark lance about five minutes after I arrived here,” John Carter said reminiscently.

  I hope I don’t dwell on the past as much when I’m five hundred years old, Jalvar thought.

  Of course, though his natural span would be a thousand or so, he was unlikely to reach it. Death by natural causes was not all that common on Barsoom even today.

  “But the reverse is also true,” he said aloud. “On Jasoom, we Barsoomians will have to contend with a gravity three times that to which our muscles are accustomed. Ordinary men would be cripples; I doubt a Green Man like my friend Tars Sojat could even rise to his feet.”

  “All fourteen feet of him,” the warlord said. “That is a serious problem. Unless you intend your visit to Jasoom to be spent in a hospital bed, and to leave Tars Sojat at home . . . which, if I know the grandson of Tars Tarkas, would be a foolhardy thing to do.”

  Jalvar shuddered. Being a paralytic cripple was not what he had in mind when the phrase great adventure crossed before his inward eye. And he could not ask Tars Sojat to remain behind; that was unthinkable.

  John Carter frowned. “It is a fortunate coincidence that you mention this now, my descendant. But there have been many such in my life. . . . News has recently come to the Jeddak and myself of a plot against me and the royal house of Helium; a strange plot, and one that has a bearing on your plans. Like many such, it begins in Zodanga. . . .”

  He explained, and Jalvar’s eyes lit. “I had thought of Ras Thavas, but . . . do you really think he would lend himself to such treachery and treason?”

  “Perhaps not treason,” John Carter said. “But there is evidence that he is indeed creating hormads again, artificial men.”

  “Monsters, hideous and deformed.” Jalvar shuddered. “Ulysses Paxton, your compatriot, had his brain transplanted to the body of one such. That makes him a braver man than I! I had thought Ras Thavas a reformed man, or at least a chastened one.”

  “We are
not certain if he is truly involved; or if he is, whether he is a free agent or a captive. But it is of the first importance if he is. For we have information that the hormads he can now create are not monsters. They have the full semblance of humanity. Indeed, they can be made to resemble any individual as closely as a twin.”

  “Ah!” the prince of Gathol said. “But not being human, perhaps Ras Thavas feels he can return to his old brain-transplanting tricks without breaking his oath to kidnap no more subjects for such experimentation.”

  “Yes, he was not called the Master Mind of Mars without reason. But the hormads are still of monstrous strength.”

  Jalvar laughed aloud. “Strength enough to survive under Jasoom’s greater gravity!”

  “Yes. And strength enough to be matchless warriors, able to carve their way through far superior numbers. You see why Helium cannot let such wizardry fall into the hands of enemies of the peace of Barsoom.”

  “And if we find Ras Thavas and free him . . . then this work of his genius will be the missing piece needed to make our expedition to Jasoom a success.”

  “In times past I would have investigated this myself, but alas the days when John Carter could disguise himself as the wandering panthan Dotar Sojat with a little dye for his skin are long past.”

  Jalvar nodded; John Carter’s adventures in that role were legendary . . . which meant that any enemy would be on guard for precisely such a mercenary.

  “Whereas I am little known in Helium and its dependencies; Gathol is far, and traffic thence still light,” Jalvar said. “And if I disguise my appearance, few would think to link the Prince of Gathol to a soldier of fortune.”

  “Exactly. Will you accept this mission?

  “Need you ask?” Jalvar said. “I would accept it gladly as my duty to you; and now I have a doubled reason.”

  “I knew the answer, but I did need to ask; this is not something that can be ordered.”

  “And the ship itself, the Jasoom?” Jalvar said. “I do not ask that any great effort be made until I have solved this problem, only that preliminary design and research is begun.”

  “It shall be,” John Carter said, taking the younger man’s hand and placing the other on his shoulder. “Kaor, Jalvar Pan, and fortune go with you.”

  “Kaor, Warlord!”

  The younger man saluted and leapt to the deck of the little one-man flier that drifted at chest-height near a mooring stanchion of wrought bronze and crystal. The propeller whirred into life, and a moment later he was lost in the thronging air traffic over Helium.

  “And how I wish I was going in your place,” the warlord murmured.

  PART II

  A TAVERN IN ZODANGA

  Jalvar Pan did not like Zodanga. Few who hadn’t been born there did. The city had never really recovered from its long-ago sack by the Green allies of the warlord, and its history since as a satellite of Helium had not been a happy one. At the sixth zode—he noted that it would be one o’clock in the afternoon in the odd twelve-based Jasoomian system, to which he must accustom himself—the street was still half-deserted. Only an occasional ground-flier went by overhead, and much of such traffic as there was went by on foot or thoat-back, or in vehicles pulled by zitidars.

  Every fourth or fifth building was still scorched rubble thinly overgrown with scarlet or ochre weeds, and those that had been repaired often had a sleazy, run-down look to them, modern patches over the carvings of antiquity, with gaps where metal and ornament had been wrenched away. The mossy sward of the roadway was patchy and unkempt. Jalvar had disguised himself; black hair-dye and a minor treatment for his half-Orovar skin rendered him indistinguishable from most, and he wore the plain harness of a panthan, a wandering mercenary.

  Unfortunately, there was no way to disguise the fact that Tars Sojat was fourteen feet tall, green, tusked, and four-armed. Green men were not popular anywhere on Barsoom except among their own hordes, but here they were viciously hated still; Jalvar could tell that from the glances he saw, and the hands fingering sword-hilts and pistol-butts. Before the sack, Zodanga had made a policy of destroying the hidden incubators that held the eggs of the Green hordes in an attempt to wipe out the nomads altogether.

  Neither party had forgotten.

  “And I was hoping that my height would help disguise me,” Tars Sojat said mordantly.

  Jalvar suppressed a chuckle; his friend was short . . . for a Thark. He was still more than twice the height of an ordinary man, of course.

  Tars Sojat met the eyes of one passerby until the man looked away and strode on, scowling; probably that was partly for fear of what the Heliumitic garrison would probably do, partly for fear of what the local Jed’s men might do, and more particularly of what Sojat would most certainly do if annoyed. The Green Man had several perfectly legitimate dried severed hands of former enemies hanging from his leathers, in the fashion of his folk. Jalvar kept his eyes on the numbers, and guided them into a particular eating-house.

  The sign over the circular door read: HOME OF THE FIGHTING POTATO.

  Like most of the city outside the palace district, the eating-house had seen better days; there was a perceptible odor of frying food as they entered, which was appetizing enough in itself but should never have escaped the cooking machinery. They seated themselves, Sojat on the floor with his lower set of elbows on the table.

  Jalvar pressed the buttons set into the polished but battered and nicked skeel table. Nothing happened. Jalvar pressed again, harder. A snort of contemptuous laughter came from one of the nearby tables, and the young prince looked over.

  “It’s been a while since the automatic systems worked in The Fighting Potato,” the man there said; he was scar-faced and there seemed to be a disquieting grin lurking somewhere under his impassive face. “Not from Zodanga, are you, friend?”

  In fact, that blow across the cheek should have taken his eye. But he has two, Jalvar noted with a thrill. Perhaps we are near to what we seek.

  “No,” Jalvar said aloud. “I and my companion are panthans, seeking an employer for our swords; I am named Gor Kova, and I am from Manator.”

  “Manator!” the man said; the city was notorious for isolationism and a chess fetish. “I cannot recall ever seeing a man from Manator here.”

  Jalvar shrugged. “Many of us have to seek our fortunes, since the accursed Heliumites attacked the city and set the usurper from Manatos on the throne, may their first ancestors spurn them. Their heel lies heavy on us yet.”

  The man’s eyes slitted, and he smiled with an unpleasant expression.

  “You are not alone in feeling so about the men of Helium and their precious warlord,” he said.

  Then his gaze shifted to Sojat. “We don’t see many Green Men here either,” he added.

  Tars Sojat shrugged elaborately in the manner of his race, four palms turned upward.

  “I am of the Horde of Torquas,” he said. “Or I was. Tars Sojat is my name. Now I wander, and fight.”

  The Zodangan grunted; that remote dead city had given its name, like many others, to a tribal confederation of Green Men who used it as headquarters in their nomadic wanderings. The Horde of Torquas had not been one of the alliance that supported the warlord’s sack of Zodanga, either; that was why the two friends had selected it as Sojat’s putative nation.

  “Kaor, Gor Kova, Tars Sojat,” the man said. “I am Dur Sivas. Also a . . . panthan.”

  Torquas had the added advantage of being very, very far away. Green panthans were rare but not unknown; every now and then some warrior would break one of the innumerable taboos with which the hordes were bound, and less commonly would escape immediate death. For that matter, panthan was a profession anyone whose past didn’t bear close scrutiny could claim.

  Assassins often did, for instance. Or rebels.

  “How does one get food here, then?” Jalvar asked. “If the system no longer works.”

  “You shout,” the stranger said succinctly, and did.

  A woman who mig
ht have been comely if her face and one arm had not been disfigured by terrible burn scars came out from the rear of the establishment. At the sight of Tars Sojat she gave a little shriek and began to back away, but Dur Sivas growled an order and she left to return with a heavy platter.

  “Eat, my friends,” the Zodangan said, and tossed a coin down on the table; the woman snatched it up and fled. “Let me greet fellow-panthans by treating them to a meal. Do not mind her; she has been strange in the head since the Sack.”

  “Thank you,” Jalvar said. “Our swords are sharp, but our purses are light, just now.”

  The food was a little odd; round slabs of grilled ground thoat meat between pieces of bread, mixed with strong-tasting herbs, and with a mound of deep-fried usa slices on the side. Jalvar looked at it dubiously; the usa, the starchy root that was the staple of Barsoomian military rations, was rarely served elsewhere except in the homes of the poor.

  It was hot and surprisingly good prepared thus, especially with salt and a dab of the spicy red sauce that accompanied it.

  “That is a Paxton,” Dur Sivas said. “A Jasoomian dish.”

  “Jasoomian!” Jalvar said, startled.

  Would a panthan from Manator know that Ulysses Paxton was also Vad Varo and came from Jasoom before he became assistant to Ras Thavas and then a prince of Duhor?

  “Yes. Another of that cursed pasty Thern-colored breed has set himself up over good Red Barsoomians, in the city of Duhor. But I will grant him that these Paxtons are a worthwhile innovation.”

  They were; Jalvar ate two, and Sojat put away a dozen. Green men ate hugely when they could, for hunger was a common companion on their treks across the dead sea bottoms in search of pasture for their thoats and zitidars. When they were at ease over their wine the Zodangan leaned back.