With the coming of dawn we were floating but a few hundred feet above the ground; the volcanic country was far behind us, and as far as we could see stretched lovely, rolling hills, sparsely timbered with the drought-resisting skeel upon which it has been said the civilization of Barsoom has been erected.
As we topped a low hill, passing over it by a scant fifty sofads, we saw below us a building of gleaming white. Like all the cities and isolated buildings of Barsoom, it was surrounded by a lofty wall, but in other respects it differed materially from the usual Barsoomian type of architecture. The edifice, which was made up of a number of buildings, was not surmounted by the usual towers, domes and minarets that mark all Barsoomian cities and which only in recent ages have been giving way slowly to the flat landing-stages of an aerial world.
The structure below us was composed of a number of flat-roofed buildings of various heights, none of which, however, appeared to rise over four levels. Between the buildings and the outer walls and in several open courts between the buildings there was a profusion of trees and shrubbery with scarlet sward and well-kept paths. It was, in fact, a striking and beautiful sight, yet having so recently been lured to near destruction by the beauties of Hohr and the engaging allurements of her beautiful women, we had no mind to be deceived again by external appearances. We would float over the palace of enchantment and take our chances in the open country beyond.
But fate willed otherwise. The wind had abated; we were dropping rapidly; beneath us we saw people in the garden of the building, and simultaneously, as they discovered us, it was evident that they were filled with consternation. They hastened quickly to the nearest entrances, and there was not a human being in sight when we finally came to rest upon the roof of one of the taller sections of the structure.
As we extricated ourselves from the loops in which we had been sitting, the great bag, relieved of our weight, rose quickly into the air for a short distance, turned completely over and dropped to the ground just beyond the outer wall. It had served us well and now it seemed like a living thing that had given up its life for our salvation.
We were to have little time, however, for sentimental regrets, for almost immediately a head appeared through a small opening in the roof upon which we stood. The head was followed by the body of a man, whose harness was so scant as to leave him almost nude. He was an old man with a finely shaped head, covered with scant, grey locks.
Apparent physical old age is so rare upon Barsoom as always to attract immediate attention. In the natural span of life we live often to a thousand years, but during that long period our appearance changes but little. It is true that most of us meet violent death long before we reach old age, but there are some who pass the allotted span of life and others who do not care for themselves so well, and those few constitute the physically old among us; evidently of such was the little old man who confronted us.
At sight of him Nur An voiced an exclamation of pleased surprise. “Phor Tak!” he cried.
“Heigh-oo!” cackled the old man in a high falsetto. “Who cometh from the high heavens who knows old Phor Tak?”
“It is I—Nur An!” exclaimed my friend.
“Heigh-oo!” cried Phor Tak. “Nur An—one of Tul Axtar’s pets.”
“As you once were, Phor Tak.”
“But not now—not now,” almost screamed the old man. “The tyrant squeezed me like some juicy fruit and then cast the empty rind aside. Heigh-oo! He thought it was empty, but I pray daily to all my ancestors that he may live to know that he was wrong. I can say this with safety to you, Nur An, for I have you in my power, and I promise you that you shall never live to carry word of my whereabouts to Tul Axtar.”
“Do not fear, Phor Tak,” said Nur An. “I, too, have suffered from the villainy of the Jeddak of Jahar. You were permitted to leave the capital in peace, but all my property was confiscated and I was sentenced to death.”
“Heigh-oo! Then you hate him too,” exclaimed the old man.
“Hate is a weak word to describe my feeling for Tul Axtar,” replied my friend.
“It is well,” said Phor Tak. “When I saw you descending from the skies I thought that my ancestors had sent you to help me, and now I know that it was indeed true. Be this another warrior from Jahar?” he added, nodding his old head towards me.
“No, Phor Tak,” replied Nur An. “This is Hadron of Hastor, a noble of Helium, but he, too, has been wronged by Jahar.”
“Good!” exclaimed the old man. “Now there are three of us. Heretofore I have had only slaves and women to assist me, but now with two trained warriors, young and strong, the goal of my triumph appears almost in sight.”
As the two men conversed I had recalled that part of the story that Nur An had told me in the pits of Tjanath which related to Phor Tak and his invention of the rifle that projected the disintegrating rays which had proved so deadly against the patrol boat above Helium the night of Sanoma Tora’s abduction. Strange, indeed, was the fate that it should have brought me into the palace of the man who held the secret that might mean so much to Helium and to all Barsoom. Strange, too, and devious had been the path along which fate had led me, yet I knew that my ancestors were guiding me and that all must have been arranged to some good end.
When Phor Tak had heard only a portion of our story he insisted that we must be both fatigued and hungry and, like the good host that he proved to be, he conducted us down to the interior of his palace and, summoning slaves, ordered that we be bathed and fed and then permitted to retire until we were rested. We thanked him for his kindness and consideration, of which we were glad to avail ourselves.
The days that followed were both interesting and profitable. Phor Tak, surrounded only by a few faithful slaves who had followed him into his exile, was delighted with our company and with the assistance which we could give him in his experiment, which, once assured of our loyalty, he explained to us in detail.
He told us the story of his wanderings after he had left Jahar and of how he had stumbled upon this long-deserted castle, whose builder and occupants had left no record other than their bones. He told us that when he discovered it skeletons had strewn the courtyard, and in the main entrance were piled bones of a score of warriors, attesting the fierce defence that the occupants had waged against some unknown enemy, while in many of the upper rooms he had found other skeletons—the skeletons of women and children.
“I believe,” he said, “that the place was beset by members of some savage horde of green warriors that left not a single survivor. The courts and gardens were overgrown with weeds and the interior of the building was filled with dust, but otherwise little damage had been done. I call it Jhama, and here I am carrying on my life’s work.”
“And that?” I asked.
“Revenge upon Tul Axtar,” said the old man. “I gave him the disintegrating ray; I gave him the insulating paint that protects his own ships and weapons from it, and now some day I shall give him something else—something that will be as revolutionary in the art of war as the disintegrating ray itself; something that will cast the fleet of Jahar broken wrecks upon the ground; something that will search out the palace of Tul Axtar and bury the tyrant beneath its ruins.”
We had not been long at Jhama before both Nur An and I became convinced that Phor Tak’s mind was at least slightly deranged from long brooding over the wrongs inflicted upon him by Tul Axtar; though naturally possessed of a kindly disposition he was obsessed by a maniacal desire to wreak vengeance upon the tyrant with utter disregard of the consequences to himself and to others. Upon this single subject he was beyond the influence of reason, and having established to his own satisfaction that Nur An and I were potential factors in the successful accomplishment of his design, he would fly into a perfect frenzy of rage whenever I broached the subject of our departure.
Fretting as I was beneath the urge to push on to Jahar and the rescue of Sanoma Tora, I could but ill brook this enforced delay, but Phor Tak was adamant—he would not
permit me to depart—and the absolute loyalty of his slaves made it possible for him to enforce his will. In our hearing he explained to them that we were guests, honoured guests as long as we made no effort to depart without his permission, but should they discover us in an attempt to leave Jhama surreptitiously they were to destroy us.
Nur An and I discussed the matter at length. We had discovered that four thousand haads of difficult and unfriendly country lay between us and Jahar. Being without a ship and without thoats there was little likelihood that we should be able to reach Jahar in time to be of service to Sanoma Tora, if we ever reached it at all, and so we agreed to bide our time, impressing Phor Tak with our willingness to aid him in the hope that eventually we should be able to enlist his aid and support, and so successful were we that within a short time we had so won the confidence of the old scientist that we began to entertain hope that he would take us into his innermost confidence and reveal the nature of the instrument of destruction which he was preparing for Tul Axtar.
I must admit that I was principally interested in his invention because I was confident that in order to utilize it against Tul Axtar he must find some means of transporting it to Jahar, and in this I saw an opportunity for reaching the capital of the tyrant myself.
We had been in Jhama about ten days, during which time Phor Tak exhibited signs of extreme nervousness and irritability. He kept us with him practically all of the time that he was not closeted in the innermost recesses of his secret laboratory.
During the evening meal upon the tenth day Phor Tak seemed more distraught than ever. Talking, as usual, interminably about his hatred of Tul Axtar, his countenance assumed an expression of maniacal fury.
“But I am helpless,” he almost screamed at last. “I am helpless because there is no one to whom I may entrust my secret, who also has the courage and intelligence to carry out my plan. I am too old, too weak to undergo the hardships that would mean nothing to young men like you, but which must be undergone if I am to fulfil my destiny as the saviour of Jahar. If I could but trust you! If I could but trust you!”
“Perhaps you can, Phor Tak,” I suggested.
The words or my tone seemed to soothe him. “Heigh-oo!” he exclaimed. “Sometimes I almost think that I can.”
“We have a common aim,” I said; “or at least different aims which converge at the same point—Jahar. Let us work together then. We wish to reach Jahar. If you can help us, we will help you.”
He sat in silent thought for a long moment. “I’ll do it,” he said. “Heigh-oo! I’ll do it. Come,” and rising from his chair, he led us towards the locked doorway that barred the entrance to his secret laboratory.
chapter X
THE FLYING DEATH
PHOR TAK’S LABORATORY occupied an entire wing of the building and consisted of a single, immense room fully fifty feet in height. His benches, tables, instruments and cabinets, located in one corner, were lost in the great interior. Near the ceiling and encircling the room was a single track from which was suspended a miniature cruiser, painted the ghastly blue of Jahar. Upon one of the benches was a cylindrical object about as long as one’s hand. These were the only noticeable features of the laboratory other than its immense emptiness.
As Phor Tak ushered us within he closed the door behind him and I heard the ominous click of the ponderous lock. There was something depressing in the suggestiveness of the situation, induced, perhaps, by our knowledge that Phor Tak was mad and accentuated by the eerie mystery of the vast chamber.
Leading us to the bench upon which lay the cylindrical object which had attracted my attention, he lifted it carefully, almost caressingly, from its resting-place. “This,” he said, “is a model of the device that will destroy Jahar. In it you behold the concentrated essence of scientific achievement. In appearance it is but a small metal cylinder, but within it is a mechanism as delicate and as sensitive as the human brain, and you will perceive that it functions almost as though animated by a mind within itself, but it is purely mechanical and may be produced in quantities quickly and at low cost. Before I explain it further I shall demonstrate one phase of its possibilities. Watch!”
Still holding the cylinder in his hand, Phor Tak stepped to a shallow cabinet against the wall, and opening it revealed an elaborate equipment of switches, levers and push-buttons. “Now watch the miniature flier suspended from the track near the ceiling,” he directed, at the same time closing a switch. Immediately the flier commenced to travel along the track at considerable speed. Now Phor Tak pressed a button upon the top of the cylinder, which immediately sped from his extended palm, turned quickly in the air and rushed straight for the speeding flier. Slowly the distance between the two closed; the cylinder, curving gradually into the line of flight of the flier, was now trailing directly behind it, its pointed nose but a few feet from the stern of the miniature ship. Then Phor Tak pulled a tiny lever upon his switchboard and the flier leaped forward at accelerated speed. Instantly the speed of the cylinder increased and I could see that it was gaining in velocity much more rapidly than the flier. Half-way around the room again its nose struck the stern of the fleeing craft with sufficient severity to cause the ship to tremble from stem to stern; then the cylinder fell away and floated gently towards the floor. Phor Tak opened a switch that stopped the flier in its flight and then, running forward, caught the descending cylinder in his hand.
“This model,” he explained, as he returned to where we stood, “is so constructed that when it makes contact with the flier it will float gently downward to the floor, but, as you have doubtless fully realized ere this, the finished product in practical use will explode upon contact with the ship. Note these tiny buttons with which it is covered. When any one of these comes in contact with an object the model stops and descends, whereas the full-sized device, properly equipped, will explode, absolutely demolishing whatever it may have come in contact with. As you are aware, every substance in the universe has its own fixed vibratory rate. This mechanism can be so attuned as to be attracted by the vibratory rate of any substance. The model, for example, is attracted by the blue protective paint with which the flier is covered. Imagine a fleet of Jaharian warships moving majestically through the air in battle formation. From an enemy ship or from the ground and at a distance so far as to be unobservable by the ships of Jahar, I release as many of these devices as there are ships in the fleet, allowing a few moments to elapse between launchings. The first torpedo rushes towards the fleet and destroys the nearest ship. All the torpedoes in the rear, strung out in line, are attracted by the combined masses of all the blue protecting coverings of the entire fleet. The first ship is falling to the ground, and though all of its paint may not have been destroyed, it has not the power to deflect any of the succeeding torpedoes, which one by one destroy the nearest of the remaining ships until the fleet has been absolutely erased. I have destroyed a great fleet without risking the life of a single man of my own following.”
“But they will see the torpedoes coming,” suggested Nur An, “and they will devise some defence. Even gunfire might stop many of them.”
“Heigh-oo! But I have thought of that,” cackled Phor Tak. He laid the torpedo upon a bench and opened another cabinet.
In this cabinet were a number of receptacles, some tightly sealed and others opened, revealing their contents, which appeared to be different coloured paints. From a number of these receptacles protruded the handles of paint brushes. One such handle, however, appeared to hang in mid-air, a few inches above one of the shelves, while just beneath it was a section of the rim of a receptacle that also appeared to be resting upon nothing. Phor Tak placed his open hand directly beneath this floating rim, and when he removed his hand from the cabinet, the rim of the receptacle and the handle of the paint brush floating just above it, followed, hovering just over his extended fingers, which were cupped in the position that they might assume were they holding a glass jar, such as would ordinarily have belonged to a rim like that which I
could see floating about an inch above his fingers.
Going to the bench where he had laid the cylinder, Phor Tak went through the motions of setting a jar upon it, and, though there was no jar visible other than the floating rim, I distinctly heard a noise that was identical with the sound which the bottom of a glass jar would have made in coming in contact with the bench.
I can assure you that I was greatly mystified, but still more so by the events immediately following. Phor Tak seized the handle of the paint brush and made a pass a few inches above the metal torpedo. Instantly a portion of the torpedo, about an inch wide and three or four inches long, disappeared. Pass after pass he made until finally the whole surface of the torpedo had disappeared. Where it had rested the bench was empty. Phor Tak returned the handle of the paint brush to its floating position just above the floating jar rim, and then he turned to us with an expression of childlike pride upon his face, as much as to say, “Well, what do you think of that? Am I not wonderful?” And I was certainly forced to concede that it was wonderful and that I was entirely baffled and mystified by what I had seen.
“There, Nur An,” exclaimed Phor Tak, “is the answer to your criticism of The Flying Death.”
“I do not understand,” said Nur An with a puzzled expression upon his face.
“Heigh-oo!” cried Phor Tak. “Have you not seen me render the device invisible?”
“But it is gone,” said Nur An.
Phor Tak laughed his high crackling laugh. “It is still there,” he said, “but you cannot see it. Here,” and he took Nur An’s hand and guided it towards the spot where the device had been.
The Collected John Carter of Mars (Volume 2) Page 69
