The Exotic Enchanter (17 page)

"First, the capitalist who launched the scheme tried to disarm his passengers, demanding that all weapons—swords, daggers, pistols, and so on—be handed in to the gate guards. But you must understand that, for Barsoomians, the sword has a mystical prestige. To ask a free Barsoomian to surrender his sword is like asking him to become a slave.

"Hence fights broke out, with gate guards and would-be passengers slain. Hence the passengers dropped off, and his company went bankrupt by the end of last year."

"What happens to one who goes bankrupt here?"

"He is auctioned off as a slave to his creditors. Of the money paid for him, most goes to the government's tax collectors, while the remainder is divided amongst the unsuccessful creditors. I am sure that your home world, being technologically more advanced than we are, has long since mastered such problems."

"I fear not," said Shea. "Among certain classes of Jasoomians, the pistol has acquired something of the same mystical glorification that here applies to the sword. A few centuries ago, the sword on my world had much the same status. Wearing a sword proved that one belonged to the gentleman class. Now that the sword is obsolete as a military weapon, the pistol has somewhat taken its place psychologically."

Belphebe: "That's all very well, but then how do we get to Zodanga? You don't seem to have railroads or buses."

Ras Thavas said: "I fear we must either walk or ride on the backs of thoats. Do you two ride any riding animal?"

"Yes," she replied. "We are both experienced riders of a Jasoomian beast called a 'horse.' How long would it take to get to Zodanga on thoat-back?"

"Three thousand
haads
. . . " Ras Thavas frowned in thought, twitching his fingers to do sums. "With good beasts, assuming no accidents or hostile encounters, forty to fifty days."

Shea grunted and Belphebe groaned. Shea said: "Is there no way to get us there faster?"

"Not that I know of, unless Sir Harold can work his symbolic-logic spell to move us to another part of the planet."

"I fear that won't work, either," said Shea. "An attempt would probably snap us back to the planet we started from."

"Then," said Belphebe, "we must make the best of it. It might even have advantages. Harold can work on Doctor Ras to make him into the perfect Barsoomian gentleman."

Ras Thavas made a face of disgust.

"Yes," said Shea, "And, Doctor, have you been eating regularly? You look starved."

Ras Thavas waved a dismissing hand. "My body keeps signaling that it wants more to eat; but I cannot afford the time away from my research to indulge its primitive lusts. Its previous owner was an athlete, and his body doubtless wishes to continue in the gluttonous habits it formed in its previous life."

"For our scheme," said Shea, "you must be in top physical trim. So be prepared to eat what and when I tell you to."

"The body I now wear," said Ras Thavas haughtily, "was the physically finest among the hundreds of specimens that have passed through my laboratories. In fact its previous owner, if weak in intellect, had a repute as a champion wrestler or something of the sort."

"It may have been a perfect body then," said Shea, "but I can see where you've let it run down. Too much crouching over lab tables, not enough food, and not enough exercise. Daily workouts will soon fix that! Then I must try you out on some sword practice, since Barsoomians have such romantic ideas about the glory of the sword."

Ras Thavas groaned.

III

Harold Shea said: "Seems to me we've ridden far enough for one day. What do you think, darling?"

"I think you're right," said Belphebe, mentally commanding her thoat to halt. Hitching her longbow up out of the way, she slid off the animal.

Shea dismounted with a grunt. "I fear we shall have some sore muscles tomorrow."

"We haven't done enough riding lately to keep in shape," said Belphebe. "It's not as if I hadn't reminded you."

"I know," said Shea. "But there's always a meeting at the damned Institute, or a stack of papers to grade. At least, with all those legs, these critters give a smoother ride than a horse."

Ras Thavas had more difficulty in halting his thoat. The animal trotted on for several thoat-lengths before he brought it under mental control and circled back to join the others.

"Accursed beast," he growled, dismounting. "How comes it that you two aliens manage to guide your beasts as well as native Barsoomians; whereas I, despite being Barsoomian-born and having the most highly developed brain on this planet, find it difficult to do so?" It was plain to see that Ras Thavas had gained weight, compared to the starveling savant whom the Sheas had first met.

"My guess," said Belphebe, "is that you take a purely intellectual approach to your beast, whereas Harold and I make friends of ours."

"Mean you that these dumb brutes are motivated by irrational emotions, like human Barsoomians of the lowest kind?"

"That's one way of putting it," said Shea, rounding up the eight thoats—two for baggage and three as spare riding animals—and staking them out. Spreading their eight spindly legs apiece, the thoats fell to grubbing up mouthfuls of the salmon-pink moss that covered most of the Barsoomian surface.

Ras Thavas growled: "It is wrong that I, the greatest mind on Barsoom, should have to truckle to the irrational whims of these animals."

"No doubt," said Shea. "It is also wrong that I, if I fell off a pier into deep water on my native Earth, should have to give a bad imitation of an aquatic animal to escape death by drowning. But that's the choice that would face me." He turned to Belphebe. "Target practice?"

Belphebe was setting up a tripod to support an archery target. "Absolutely, love. Without practice, you soon lose any skill."

Having dug the legs of the tripod into the moss, she walked from the tripod, counting her paces as she went, and strung her bow. She and Shea, like Ras Thavas, were entirely naked save for footgear and a few straps supporting pockets and, in Shea's case, a large purse, a longsword, a shortsword, and a pistol. Both Sheas had been stained all over with bright-red pigment to match the Barsoomians. Belphebe's red-gold hair had been dyed black, not only on her scalp but also wherever else it grew.

"Time for your workout, Doctor," said Shea to Ras Thavas. "We'll start with deep-knee bends."

Ras Thavas groaned, but Shea bullied him into calisthenics. At the end Shea, sweating freely, said:

"Now for a whack with the sticks."

From the pile of gear removed from one of the baggage thoats, Shea pulled out a pair of padded jackets, of wire face masks, and of wooden singlesticks with basket guards. Soon the dry clatter of the sticks resounded. Shea said:

"You're coming along, Doctor; much better than when we left Helium—
unh!
"

Ras Thavas had feinted a lunge and, when Shea parried in sixte, competently doubled and poked Shea in the solar plexus with the blunt end of the singlestick. "Hey!" said Shea. "That was good!"

"No problem to one of my intellect," said Ras Thavas. "I simply listened to your instructions and applied them intelligently."

"Okay," said Shea. "But, as I've told you over and over, you'll have to get out of the habit of telling everyone who'll listen about your superior mind."

"It is a simple statement of fact!" protested Ras Thavas.

"No doubt; but to get along with your fellow mortals, you'll find it more effective to keep quiet about your marvelous intellect. Remember poor Edgar the crow!"

Ras Thavas chewed on this unwelcome advice. At last he asked: "What should I say?"

"Pass off the victory with a light laugh and say you were merely lucky."

"Rank hypocrisy!" snorted Ras Thavas.

"True, but hypocrisy is one of the factors, like liquor and religion, that enables mortals to put up with one another, at least when they form masses larger than primitive foraging bands."

"Foraging bands? Kindly explain."

Shea gave a summary of current Earthly theory of human prehistory, from the time when Australopithecines in Africa adopted erect posture and bipedal walking down to the rise of civilization.

"That is not at all our Barsoomian view," said Ras Thavas. "Know you the story of the Tree of Life?"

"I know of it. Not having done scientific investigation here on Barsoom, I won't say anything against it. But we have had similar traditional stories on Earth—the Garden of Eden, the Red Sea crossing, and so forth—which turned out to be mere myths and legends. To set back to our last subject, if one of these thoats—" Shea gestured toward the eight animals "—took a grudge against you, do you think it would do any good to lecture it on your mental superiority?"

"I suppose not," grumbled Ras Thavas. Then he looked past Shea with a widening gaze. "Behind you, Shea!"

Shea whirled. Stealing up on the fencers were half a dozen wild calots, the Barsoomian equivalent of a pack of wolves. Each had eight lean legs, bent so that the animals slithered along with their bellies brushing the moss. Their heads, which reminded Shea of those of Earthly bulldogs, had gaping jaws full of fangs, whence the animals drooled on the moss.

Shea's instant thought was for his weapons, which lay with his harness in the direction whence the calots were coming. In fact, the leader of the pack now stood over their gear, gave it a brief sniff, and resumed its stalk, leaving the fencers to face the pack with singlesticks. Over his shoulder, Shea called:

"Hey, sweetheart!"

As he did so, Ras Thavas threw his singlestick at the leading calot, turned, and ran. Instantly the calot bounded erect from its crouch and sprinted after the fugitive, detouring past Shea.

Having eight legs to Ras Thavas' two, the calot, Shea could see, would overtake the savant in seconds. The rest of the pack ran after their leader.

Shea dashed to the pile of equipment that he and Ras Thavas had dumped on the moss. As he did so, he heard the snap of Belphebe's bowstring. The leading calot doubled up with a howl. A second shaft laid it, writhing, on the pinkish-yellow moss.

Ras Thavas continued his flight. The five other calots hesitated at the sight of their leader's throes, then resumed the chase.

Shea straightened up with pistol in hand. Holding it in a two-handed grip, he fired it at the calot closest to the fleeing Ras Thavas; missed, and fired again. The animal collapsed, just after another of Belphebe's arrows struck another calot. The latter beast began to turn in circles, trying to reach the shaft in its flank with its jaws. Shea fired again, and the calot fell.

The three remaining members of the pack ran away. Breathing hard, Ras Thavas came slowly toward Shea, unfastening his padded jacket. Shea said:

"Well, you're a fine one to have as an ally in a tight fix!"

"On the contrary," said Ras Thavas, "it was obvious to my superior mind that singlesticks were inadequate weapons for coping with beasts of prey. That was all we had, thanks to your stupidity in leaving our swords and things out of reach."

For a few seconds, Shea struggled with a primitive lust to beat the shit out of this mastermind. When he finally got his rage under control, he said: "On the other hand, if you hadn't panicked and run, we might well have faced them down until my wife got her bow into action. Jasoomian predators hesitate to attack any prey animal who boldly faces them; but when one runs away, they go after it instantly. From what I've seen, it's the same for Barsoom."

"I did but follow the logical course," said the scientist. "I knew that I could not outrun the calots. But if I led them close by you, they might attack you instead of me, affording me a chance to escape."

Shea snorted: "Any normal Barsoomian would call that the act of a son of a calot."

"That merely shows the primitive mental state wherein most of them dwell. Any thinking person could see that, between the two of us, my mind is infinitely the more valuable to the planet."

"And you wonder why people don't like you!" roared Shea. Ras Thavas held up a hand.

"Please, let us not continue this bootless argument further. Had we known of the incident in advance, we could doubtless have planned a more generally satisfactory course of action.

"To go to a more agreeable subject, I note that you fired three shots from your alien pistol without reloading. This must be one of those repeating Jasoomian firearms whereof Carter and Paxton have told us. Our Barsoomian smiths have tried to make them, but they always jam. Our smithery is not yet accurate enough. Of course that Earth man who wrote about life on Barsoom said many things that are simply untrue, like the number of legs on some animals, and repeating firearms that shoot a distance of eighty
haads
."

Shea took off his jacket. Belphebe walked past him, saying: "I missed one shot; help me to find it. I don't see anything around here that we could use to make more, such as wetlands with stands of cane or reeds. I'd have done better with that Turkish composite bow, but I was afraid I hadn't had enough practice with it."

"Next time we make arrows," said Shea, "let's paint the shafts a color that contrasts with that of the moss. It may take
zodes
to find this one. And then we must cut the others out of the calots you hit. I could use some pistol practice, too."

She said: "There's just not enough time to practice all the skills we might find useful. Oh, there's my shaft, half buried in the moss."

Ras Thavas said; "You will find plenty of plants of the sort you mentioned in the Great Toonolian Marsh. But count yourselves lucky if the pursuit of Malambroso lead you not thither. Do you mean to cook and eat the dead calots?"

"If you consider them edible, and our little oil stove works." As Shea puttered with culinary preparations, he asked:

"Tell me something, Doctor. Barsoom, being the fourth planet from its sun, corresponds in a general way to a planet called Mars in my universe. Yet it differs from Mars in a number of striking respects. Mars, in the words of an Earthly friend, lacks enough air to keep an insect alive.

"Now, you call your sun's third planet Jasoom, and it corresponds more or less to the Earth in my universe. My question is, how much like Earth is Jasoom? Carter and Paxton both thought they were going to our Mars and landed on Barsoom instead. On our Mars they would have died of anoxia in a matter of minutes. What is the Jasoom of your universe like?"

"I do not know," said Ras Thavas. "It appears to be inhabited by a species somewhat like yours, Doctor Shea. But our means of communication are not yet perfected enough to enable me to say more."

Shea flashed a grin at Belphebe. "We must learn not to confuse Jasoom with our own Earth. Any time we get restless, darling, we can crank up the old syllogismobile and set it for Jasoom."

She replied: "You forget, sweetheart, were parents now. We can't any more just dash off on adventures whenever the whim takes us!"

The trio, trailed by the extra thoats, trotted through the Zodangan suburbs along a road that became smoother and better maintained with each passing haad. Ras Thavas explained:

"The reason the houses all look so new is that they are new. When the city fell to besiegers in the jedship of Than Kosis, the Heliumites and their Thark allies destroyed most of the old city. But thanks to its natural advantages, it has been rebuilt and is now almost as populous as the old Zodanga."

"What are its natural advantages?" asked Shea, staring about at the monotonous, featureless, pinkish-yellow, moss-covered Barsoomian plain. "It has none that I can see."

"Why," said Ras Thavas, "it lies at the crossing of the road from the Heliums to Ptarth and Phundahl, and the road from Zor to Duhor."

"I see," said Shea.

"That attack on Zodanga," said Ras Thavas, "was one more example of the incorrigible stupidity of most of my fellow Barsoomians. Since the last big war, guns had evolved from smoothbores to rifled muskets, far more accurate. Yet Tars Tarkas repeatedly led his Tharks in massed mounted frontal attacks on the Zodangan defenses. Naturally they took tremendous losses, whence the Thark nation has not yet recovered."

"I recall similar events on Earth," said Shea. "Battles in places called Fredericksburg and Gettysburg."

Ras Thavas sighed. "You must tell me more about your Earthly history, since your people seem capable of quite as egregious stupidities as ours. Sometimes one wonders whether it be worthwhile to try to do anything for the future of this planet at least, since anything good one accomplishes will soon be undone by the stupidity and shortsighted selfishness of individual Barsoomians."

"The same can be said of Earth," said Shea. "And if the dominant species on Jasoom is similar, I daresay it could be said of that world also."

They came to the main wall of the city, where their badges, identifying them as subjects of Jed Mors Kajak of Lesser Helium, got them past the gate guards without questioning.

"That was easier than I expected," said Shea.

"We are fortunate that Lord Carter be not off on one of his lunes, such as trying to abolish assassination," said Ras Thavas. "If he were, you can be sure that Ur Jan, the elected Jed and head of the local assassins, would subject every Heliumite to minute examination ere admitting him, if he let him in at all. Inside, he would be followed night and day by the Jed's police agents. Vad Varo thinks that Barsoom needs a system of passports like that of his native world. Belike it does, but that would make travel even more difficult than it now is."

"How long does Ur Jan's term of office run?"

"According to the newfangled constitution, it should have ended some time ago. But Ur Jan pronounced the constitution null and void and declared himself supreme and absolute ruler. Since his followers had the power, no other Zodangans dared to object."