Under the Moons of Mars (17 page)

The Warhoons were not my true concern. It was a full week since Dejah Thoris, princess paramount of Helium, had vanished together with her father and seven red Martian loyal attendants, so it was there I would go, though all the spirits of ancient Mars forbade it. I had thought of little else since my latest arrival on this planet.

The planet Barsoom knows gods of every possible description, and no one has named them all. They inhabit mountains, lakes, caverns, rivers, sizable rocks. They are worshiped through idols, carved symbols, cities, seasonal winds, and masked pretenders. There are hundreds, but all agree that the greatest of all were the ones the ancient White Martians worshipped: gods of radiation and healing, of trivia, of tides, of mystery.

I have long, long outlived my close contemporaries, my nieces and nephews and their children, and anyone with whom I could plausibly claim kinship. I fought in the War Between the States and the wars that followed, each time anticipating it would be my end. I have come to know psychoanalysts, hedge funds, napalm, and John Updike. I have learned French and Russian and Arabic, seen Henry Ford’s production lines, pepperoni pizza, Bruce Lee films, and failure.

The only constant figures in my life have been Dejah Thoris, princess of Mars; her father; Tars Tarkas, chieftain of the Tharks; my son, Carthoris and daughter, Tara; and all the host of Martians. And always, always, there is the red planet called Ares, called Al-Qahira, called Labou, called Nirgal, called Mars, called Barsoom.

This time it took four years, eight months, and six days for me to return, transferred spectrally across the intervening void in the year nineteen hundred and seventy-one. When I arrived, I was found naked and snoring outside the city gates. As I hastened to don Martian garb, the people of Helium explained: Dejah Thoris and her father were on a scientific expedition to learn all they could of a moving light in the sky that flared and died. According to ancient writings, such lights were predictors of terrible changes, perhaps disaster, so she and her father set out along the line of its descent into the southern hemisphere.

I have little time for such reflections. Simply another mystery of Mars! I stalked the streets of Pra-Ohn for almost a full day, sword in hand, happy simply to be alive and hunting. I found no trace of my beloved, but I was strangely drawn to the structure at the city’s heart; its walls were deeply incised with chiseled runes but whether it was palace or fortress or temple I could not say.

All the while, I knew, a deadly enemy was closing in behind me, and still there was no sign of my beloved. As the day waned I gave in to impulse. The broad stone steps were dusted with sand blown in from the desert. Enormous bronze doors inlaid with lapis lazuli hung loose on their hinges, and in the dry air I caught an unexpected whiff of that most precious substance—water! I drew my curved blade and entered.

Less than two thirds of Barsoom has been explored by the Red Martians. The remainder is a wasteland of dead cities, drained oceans, salt flats, inaccessible mountains, forests infested by blue plant-men, apt-riddled cave complexes, accursed river valleys, golden cliffs, Thark-menaced plainlands, psychic heads, pretend deities, enclaves of the elder Martians, Rovers, Therns, Lotharians, and Martians, Yellow, Black, and White. And then there are the Kangaroo Men.

Archway after archway receded before me toward a distant altar where, at the limits of vision, a struggle seemed to be taking place. I ran forward as only an Earth-born man on Mars can run, and as I grew closer I saw in the swirl of wrestling bodies first the face of a hooded Yellow man of Mars, and next the full lustrous raven hair of my own, my beloved, Dejah Thoris. The Yellow Martian held a long dagger gripped overhand. The princess held fast to his wrist; his other hand held her hair. Between them, unconscious or dead, lay her father, Jeddak of Helium. In the concentration of battle her lip quivered, and her eyes were huge. I saw her take her opponent in an Asiatic wrestling hold I had shown her, but before I could see the outcome, a Warhoon, a terrible Green Man of Mars, enemy of the Tharks, rose up before me.

I don’t remember the first Earthman I killed, it was too long ago, perhaps in the War Between the States. I remember the first Green Martian, though—I did it bare-handed and without realizing it. I was a captive of the Tharks and he pulled me roughly to my feet, so I struck him with my fist and he fell to the ground. It was only days later I learned that I had killed him, and that his name was Dotar. I inherited his clothes, weapons, and women, and in some contexts I am still addressed by his name. Since that time I have learned that the weaker gravity here allows the Martians to grow to enormous height but leaves them comparatively weak.

Hand-to-hand combat with a Green Martian is rather like fighting a tree in high winds. The trunk and limbs bend and whip around in fast motion, and the swords follow in terrible rapid slashing arcs and land with tremendous force. I gave ground, parrying desperately and hoping for a moment of opportunity. Our swords clashed and for many minutes the ancient temple rang with sound like a factory floor.

When I sensed the temple wall close behind me, I shoulder-rolled under a backhand swing and struck an overhand blow. My opponent anticipated me; he had already whirled around and met the assault with crossed swords, but nonetheless he staggered. The Martian now knew who he was fighting. He showed no visible apprehension, but he gave off the distinctive floral reek of Green Martian sweat.

Blood covered the tiled floor by the time it was over. Blood coated me as well; it had got into my nose and mouth, a coppery taste. I hastened to the altar, but by then the robed man lay dead, and Dejah Thoris and her father were gone.

Every female animal and sentient being on Mars is oviparous. The woman I have given my heart to was born from an egg, as were both of my children. Mars knows no mammal but myself.

When I gained the top of the dais I could not comprehend how Dejah Thoris had escaped me. An enormous stone idol stood seemingly carved entirely from jade into the shape of a four-armed ape, its mouth open, frozen in a shriek of fury. I stood before it, then abruptly felt the stone slab tilt and fall away beneath me. Martian gravity pulled me down a glassy tube, down and down through absolute darkness, the stone growing colder until it gave way to empty air. I thrashed in black space a full four seconds before I hit the water. Salt! I spluttered and tasted for the first time the cold, bitter seas that lie beneath the Martian desert.

A splash and a clatter of wooden oars against stone turned my head, and I again caught a glimpse of my dear, my only, Dejah Thoris, a flash of coppery shoulder and painted nails as the current bore her from me, down into the swirling cascade and away.

I don’t know what I am. No one knows how or why I come to Barsoom, or what it means. It could be a dream; or perhaps Earth is the dream. It could be a psychotic episode, or the last feverish hallucination of a man dying in an Arizona cave. Barsoom has divided my life at the root, and I’ll never know the person I would have been if I hadn’t become a prince of this lush alien planet. A weaker man, maybe, but one with more capacity for reflection. A man I might despise, or admire. The man who stayed home.

The tunnel swept me along, south by my reckoning, with no need to paddle. After a long interval, an hour perhaps, I began to hear the bass roar of a subterranean cataract ahead of me. The river was descending to a lower level, some deeper subterranean pocket. As I was swept along, I glimpsed a torchlit dock, a stone stairway ascending from the river, and Dejah Thoris standing on the topmost step watching me pass. A moment of parted lips, clear golden eyes, pupils wide in the darkness, and then gone. Or had she winked at me?