[Dustcover Illustration]
[Cover Illustration]
THE MOON MAID
[Illustration: The Moon Maid]
THE
MOON MAID
BY
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
AUTHOR OF
THE TARZAN BOOKS,
THE MARTIAN STORIES,
THE CAVE GIRL,
THE BANDIT OF HELL’S BEND, Etc.
[Illustration]
N E W Y O R K
G R O S S E T & D U N L A P
P U B L I S H E R S
Copyright
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
1926
———
Published February, 1926
———
_Copyrighted in Great Britain_
_Printed in the United States of America_
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER PAGE
Prologue—The Message from Mars. . . 1
I The Flight of _The Barsoom_. . . . 8
II The Heart of the Moon. . . . . . . 26
III Human Quadrupeds. . . . . . . . . . 40
IV In the Hands of the Va-gas. . . . . 54
V A Lunar Storm. . . . . . . . . . . 67
VI An Exodus and a Battle. . . . . . . 80
VII The Moon Maid Escapes. . . . . . . 94
VIII Into the Mouth of the Crater. . . . 105
IX The Fight with the Kalkars. . . . . 120
X The Kalkar City. . . . . . . . . . 131
XI Laythe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
XII Ko-tah Threatens the Princess. . . 160
XIII Ko-tah Is Killed. . . . . . . . . . 174
XIV Back to _The Barsoom_. . . . . . . 189
PART II
THE MOON MEN
Prologue—The Conquest. . . . . . . 207
I The Flag. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
II The Hellhounds. . . . . . . . . . . 224
III Brother General Or-tis. . . . . . . 231
IV A Fight on Market Day. . . . . . . 243
V The Court-Martial. . . . . . . . . 252
VI Betrayed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
VII The Arrest of Julian 8th. . . . . . 276
VIII I Horsewhip an Officer. . . . . . . 281
IX Revolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
X The Butcher. . . . . . . . . . . . 300
PART III
THE RED HAWK
I The Desert Clans. . . . . . . . . . 313
II Exodus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
III Armageddon. . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
IV The Capital. . . . . . . . . . . . 342
V The Sea. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
VI Saku the Nipon. . . . . . . . . . . 365
VII Bethelda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
VIII Raban. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
IX Reunion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
X Peace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
THE MOON MAID
PART I
PROLOGUE
THE MESSAGE FROM MARS
I met him in the Blue Room of the Transoceanic Liner _Harding_ the night
of Mars Day—June 10, 1967. I had been wandering about the city for
several hours prior to the sailing of the flier watching the
celebration, dropping in at various places that I might see as much as
possible of scenes that doubtless will never again be paralleled—a
world gone mad with joy. There was only one vacant chair in the Blue
Room and that at a small table at which he was already seated alone. I
asked his permission and he graciously invited me to join him, rising as
he did so, his face lighting with a smile that compelled my liking from
the first.
I had thought that Victory Day, which we had celebrated two months
before, could never be eclipsed in point of mad national enthusiasm, but
the announcement that had been made this day appeared to have had even a
greater effect upon the minds and imaginations of the people.
The more than half-century of war that had continued almost
uninterruptedly since 1914 had at last terminated in the absolute
domination of the Anglo-Saxon race over all the other races of the
World, and practically for the first time since the activities of the
human race were preserved for posterity in any enduring form no
civilized, or even semi-civilized, nation maintained a battle line upon
any portion of the globe. War was at an end—definitely and forever.
Arms and ammunition were being dumped into the five oceans; the vast
armadas of the air were being scrapped or converted into carriers for
purposes of peace and commerce.
The peoples of all nations had celebrated—victors and vanquished
alike—for they were tired of war. At least they thought that they were
tired of war; but were they? What else did they know? Only the oldest of
men could recall even a semblance of world peace, the others knew
nothing but war. Men had been born and lived their lives and died with
their grandchildren clustered about them—all with the alarms of war
ringing constantly in their ears. Perchance the little area of their
activities was never actually encroached upon by the iron-shod hoof of
battle; but always somewhere war endured, now receding like the salt
tide only to return again; until there arose that great tidal wave of
human emotion in 1959 that swept the entire world for eight bloody
years, and receding, left peace upon a spent and devastated world.
Two months had passed—two months during which the world appeared to
stand still, to mark time, to hold its breath. What now? We have peace,
but what shall we do with it? The leaders of thought and of action are
trained for but one condition—war. The reaction brought
despondency—our nerves, accustomed to the constant stimulus of
excitement, cried out against the monotony of peace, and yet no one
wanted war again. We did not know what we wanted.
And then came the announcement that I think saved a world from madness,
for it directed our minds along a new line to the contemplation of a
fact far more engrossing than prosaic wars and equally as stimulating to
the imagination and the nerves—intelligible communication had at last
been established with Mars!
Generations of wars had done their part to stimulate scientific research
to the end that we might kill one another more expeditiously, that we
might transport our youth more quickly to their shallow graves in alien
soil, that we might transmit more secretly and with greater celerity our
orders to slay our fellow men. And always, generation after generation,
there had been those few who could detach their minds from the
contemplation of massacre and looking forward to a happier era
concentrate their talents and their energies upon the utilization of
scientific achievement for the betterment of mankind and the rebuilding
of civilization.
Among these was that much ridiculed but devoted coterie who had clung
tenaciously to the idea that communication could be established with
Mars. The hope that had been growing for a hundred years had never been
permitted to die, but had been transmitted from teacher to pupil with
ever-growing enthusiasm, while the people scoffed as, a hundred years
before, we are told, they scoffed at the experimenters with _flying
machines_, as they chose to call them.
About 1940 had come the first reward of long years of toil and hope,
following the perfection of an instrument which accurately indicated the
direction and distance of the focus of any radio-activity with which it
might be attuned. For several years prior to this all the more highly
sensitive receiving instruments had recorded a series of three dots and
three dashes which began at precise intervals of twenty-four hours and
thirty-seven minutes and continued for approximately fifteen minutes.
The new instrument indicated conclusively that these signals, if they
were signals, originated always at the same distance from the Earth and
in the same direction as the point in the universe occupied by the
planet Mars.
It was five years later before a sending apparatus was evolved that bade
fair to transmit its waves from Earth to Mars. At first their own
message was repeated—three dots and three dashes. Although the usual
interval of time had not elapsed since we had received their daily
signal, ours was immediately answered. Then we sent a message consisting
of five dots and two dashes, alternating. Immediately they replied with
five dots and two dashes and we knew beyond peradventure of a doubt that
we were in communication with the Red Planet, but it required twenty-two
years of unremitting effort, with the most brilliant intellects of two
worlds concentrated upon it, to evolve and perfect an intelligible
system of inter-communication between the two planets.
Today, this tenth of June, 1967, there was published broadcast to the
world the first message from Mars. It was dated Helium, Barsoom, and
merely extended greetings to a sister world and wished us well. But it
was the beginning.
The Blue Room of _The Harding_ was, I presume, but typical of every
other gathering place in the civilized world. Men and women were eating,
drinking, laughing, singing and talking. The flier was racing through
the air at an altitude of little over a thousand feet. Its engines,
motivated wirelessly from power plants thousands of miles distant, drove
it noiselessly and swiftly along its overnight pathway between Chicago
and Paris.
I had of course crossed many times, but this instance was unique because
of the epoch-making occasion which the passengers were celebrating, and
so I sat at the table longer than usual, watching my fellow diners,
with, I imagine, a slightly indulgent smile upon my lips, since—I
mention it in no spirit of egotism—it had been my high privilege to
assist in the consummation of a hundred years of effort that had borne
fruit that day. I looked around at my fellow diners and then back to my
table companion.
He was a fine looking chap, lean and bronzed—one need not have noted
the Air Corps overseas service uniform, the Admiral’s stars and anchors
or the wound stripes to have guessed that he was a fighting man; he
looked it, every inch of him, and there were a full seventy-two inches.
We talked a little—about the great victory and the message from Mars,
of course, and though he often smiled I noticed an occasional shadow of
sadness in his eyes and once, after a particularly mad outburst of
pandemonium on the part of the celebrators, he shook his head,
remarking: “Poor devils!” and then: “It is just as well—let them enjoy
life while they may. I envy them their ignorance.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He flushed a little and then smiled. “Was I speaking aloud?” he asked.
I repeated what he had said and he looked steadily at me for a long
minute before he spoke again. “Oh, what’s the use!” he exclaimed, almost
petulantly; “you wouldn’t understand and of course you wouldn’t believe.
I do not understand it myself; but I have to believe because I know—I
know from personal observation. God! if you could have seen what I have
seen.”
“Tell me,” I begged; but he shook his head dubiously.
“Do you realize that there is no such thing as Time?” he asked
suddenly—“That man has invented Time to suit the limitations of his
finite mind, just as he has named another thing, that he can neither
explain nor understand, Space?”
“I have heard of such a theory,” I replied; “but I neither believe nor
disbelieve—I simply do not know.”
I thought I had him started and so I waited as I have read in fiction
stories is the proper way to entice a strange narrative from its
possessor. He was looking beyond me and I imagined that the expression
of his eyes denoted that he was witnessing again the thrilling scenes of
the past. I must have been wrong, though—in fact I was quite sure of it
when he next spoke.
“If that girl isn’t careful,” he said, “the thing will upset and give
her a nasty fall—she is much too near the edge.”
I turned to see a richly dressed and much dishevelled young lady busily
dancing on a table-top while her friends and the surrounding diners
cheered her lustily.
My companion arose. “I have enjoyed your company immensely,” he said,
“and I hope to meet you again. I am going to look for a place to sleep
now—they could not give me a stateroom—I don’t seem to be able to get
enough sleep since they sent me back.” He smiled.
“Miss the gas shells and radio bombs, I suppose,” I remarked.
“Yes,” he replied, “just as a convalescent misses smallpox.”
“I have a room with two beds,” I said. “At the last minute my secretary
was taken ill. I’ll be glad to have you share the room with me.”
He thanked me and accepted my hospitality for the night—the following
morning we would be in Paris.
As we wound our way among the tables filled with laughing, joyous
diners, my companion paused beside that at which sat the young woman who
had previously attracted his attention. Their eyes met and into hers
came a look of puzzlement and half-recognition. He smiled frankly in her
face, nodded and passed on.
“You know her, then?” I asked.
“I shall—in two hundred years,” was his enigmatical reply.
We found my room, and there we had a bottle of wine and some little
cakes and a quiet smoke and became much better acquainted.
It was he who first reverted to the subject of our conversation in the
Blue Room.
“I am going to tell you,” he said, “what I have never told another; but
on the condition that if you retell it you are not to use my name. I
have several years of this life ahead of me and I do not care to be
pointed out as a lunatic. First let me say that I do not try to explain
anything, except that I do not believe prevision to be a proper
explanation. I have actually _lived_ the experiences I shall tell you
of, and that girl we saw dancing on the table tonight lived them with
me; but she does not know it. If you care to, you can keep in mind the
theory that there is no such thing as Time—just keep it in mind—you
cannot understand it, or at least I cannot. Here goes.”
THE MOON MAID
CHAPTER I
THE FLIGHT OF “THE BARSOOM”
“I had intended telling you my story of the days of the twenty-second
century, but it seems best, if you are to understand it, to tell first
the story of my great-great-grandfather who was born in the year 2000.”
I must have looked up at him quizzically, for he smiled and shook his
head as one who is puzzled to find an explanation suited to the mental
capacity of his auditor.
“My great-great-grandfather was, in reality, the great-great-grandson of
my previous incarnation which commenced in 1896. I married in 1916, at
the age of twenty. My son Julian was born in 1917. I never saw him. I
was killed in France in 1918—on Armistice Day.
“I was again reincarnated in my son’s son in 1937. I am thirty years of
age. My son was born in 1970—that is the son of my 1937
incarnation—and his son, Julian 5th, in whom I again returned to Earth,
in the year 2000. I see you are confused, but please remember my
injunction that you are to try to keep in mind the theory that there is
no such thing as Time. It is now the year 1967 yet I recall distinctly
every event of my life that occurred in four incarnations—the last that
I recall being that which had its origin in the year 2100. Whether I
actually skipped three generations that time or through some caprice of
Fate I am merely unable to visualize an intervening incarnation, I do
not know.
“My theory of the matter is that I differ only from my fellows in that I
can recall the events of many incarnations, while they can recall none
of theirs other than a few important episodes of that particular one
they are experiencing; but perhaps I am wrong. It is of no importance. I
will tell you the story of Julian 5th who was born in the year 2000, and
then, if we have time and you yet are interested, I will tell you of the
torments during the harrowing days of the twenty-second century,
following the birth of Julian 9th in 2100.”
I will try to tell the story in his own words in so far as I can recall
them, but for various reasons, not the least of which is that I am lazy,
I shall omit superfluous quotation marks—that is, with your permission,
of course.
* * * * *
My name is Julian. I am called Julian 5th. I come of an illustrious
family—my great-great-grandfather, Julian 1st, a major at twenty-two,
was killed in France early in The Great War. My great-grandfather,
Julian 2nd, was killed in battle in Turkey in 1938. My grandfather,
Julian 3rd, fought continuously from his sixteenth year until peace was
declared in his thirtieth year. He died in 1992 and during the last
twenty-five years of his life was an Admiral of the Air, being
transferred at the close of the war to command of the International
Peace Fleet, which patrolled and policed the world. He also was killed
in line of duty, as was my father who succeeded him in the service.
At sixteen I graduated from the Air School and was detailed to the
International Peace Fleet, being the fifth generation of my line to wear
the uniform of my country. That was in 2016, and I recall that it was a
matter of pride to me that it rounded out the full century since Julian
1st graduated from West Point, and that during that one hundred years no
adult male of my line had ever owned or worn civilian clothes.
Of course there were no more wars, but there still was fighting. We had
the pirates of the air to contend with and occasionally some of the
uncivilized tribes of Russia, Africa and central Asia required the
attention of a punitive expedition. However, life seemed tame and
monotonous to us when we read of the heroic deeds of our ancestors from
1914 to 1967, yet none of us wanted war. It had been too well schooled
into us that we must not think of war, and the International Peace Fleet
so effectively prevented all preparation for war that we all knew there
could never be another. There wasn’t a firearm in the world other than
those with which we were armed, and a few of ancient design that were
kept as heirlooms, or in museums, or that were owned by savage tribes
who could procure no ammunition for them, since we permitted none to be
manufactured. There was not a gas shell nor a radio bomb, nor any engine
to discharge or project one; and there wasn’t a big gun of any calibre
in the world. I veritably believed that a thousand men equipped with the
various engines of destruction that had reached their highest efficiency
at the close of the war in 1967 could have conquered the world; but
there were not a thousand men so armed—there never could be a thousand
men so equipped anywhere upon the face of the Earth. The International
Peace Fleet was equipped and manned to prevent just such a calamity.
But it seems that Providence never intended that the world should be
without calamities. If man prevented those of possible internal origin
there still remained undreamed of external sources over which he had no
control. It was one of these which was to prove our undoing. Its seed
was sown thirty-three years before I was born, upon that historic day,
June 10th, 1967, that Earth received her first message from Mars, since
which the two planets have remained in constant friendly communication,
carrying on a commerce of reciprocal enlightenment. In some branches of
the arts and sciences the Martians, or Barsoomians, as they call
themselves, were far in advance of us, while in others we had progressed
more rapidly than they. Knowledge was thus freely exchanged to the
advantage of both worlds. We learned of their history and customs and
they of ours, though they had for ages already known much more of us
than we of them. Martian news held always a prominent place in our daily
papers from the first.
They helped us most, perhaps, in the fields of medicine and aeronautics,
giving us in one, the marvelous healing lotions of Barsoom and in the
other, knowledge of the Eighth Ray, which is more generally known on
Earth as the Barsoomian Ray, which is now stored in the buoyancy tanks
of every air craft and has made obsolete those ancient types of plane
that depended upon momentum to keep them afloat.
That we ever were able to communicate intelligibly with them is due to
the presence upon Mars of that deathless Virginian, John Carter, whose
miraculous transportation to Mars occurred March 4th, 1866, as every
school child of the twenty-first century knows. Had not the little band
of Martian scientists, who sought so long to communicate with Earth,
mistakenly formed themselves into a secret organization for political
purposes, messages might have been exchanged between the two planets
nearly half a century before they were, and it was not until they
finally called upon John Carter that the present interplanetary code was
evolved.
Almost from the first the subject which engrossed us all the most was
the possibility of an actual exchange of visits between Earth Men and
Barsoomians. Each planet hoped to be the first to achieve this, yet
neither withheld any information that would aid the other in the
consummation of the great fact. It was a generous and friendly rivalry
which about the time of my graduation from the Air School seemed, in
theory at least, to be almost ripe for successful consummation by one or
the other. We had the Eighth Ray, the motors, the oxygenating devices,
the insulating processes—everything to insure the safe and certain
transit of a specially designed air craft to Mars, were Mars the only
other inhabitant of space. But it was not and it was the other planets
and the Sun that we feared.
In 2015 Mars had dispatched a ship for Earth with a crew of five men
provisioned for ten years. It was hoped that with good luck the trip
might be made in something less than five years, as the craft had
developed an actual trial speed of one thousand miles per hour. At the
time of my graduation the ship was already off its course almost a
million miles and generally conceded to be hopelessly lost. Its crew,
maintaining constant radio communication with both Earth and Mars, still
hoped for success, but the best informed upon both worlds had given them
up.
We had had a ship about ready at the time of the sailing of the
Martians, but the government at Washington had forbidden the venture
when it became apparent that the Barsoomian ship was doomed—a wise
decision, since our vessel was no better equipped than theirs. Nearly
ten years elapsed before anything further was accomplished in the
direction of assuring any greater hope of success for another
interplanetary venture into space, and this was directly due to the
discovery made by a former classmate of mine, Lieutenant Commander
Orthis, one of the most brilliant men I have ever known, and at the same
time one of the most unscrupulous, and, to me at least, the most
obnoxious.
We had entered the Air School together—he from New York and I from
Illinois—and almost from the first day we had seemed to discover a
mutual antagonism that, upon his part at least, must have been
considerably strengthened by numerous unfortunate occurrences during our
four years beneath the same roof. In the first place he was not popular
with either the cadets, the instructors, or the officers of the school,
while I was most fortunate in this respect. In those various fields of
athletics in which he considered himself particularly expert, it was
always I, unfortunately, who excelled him and kept him from major
honors. In the class room he outshone us all—even the instructors were
amazed at the brilliancy of his intellect—and yet as we passed from
grade to grade I often topped him in the final examinations. I ranked
him always as a cadet officer, and upon graduation I took a higher grade
among the new ensigns than he—a rank that had many years before been
discontinued, but which had recently been revived.
From then on I saw little of him, his services confining him principally
to land service, while mine kept me almost constantly on the air in all
parts of the world. Occasionally I heard of him—usually something
unsavory; he had married a nice girl and abandoned her—there had been
talk of an investigation of his accounts—and the last that there was a
rumor that he was affiliated with a secret order that sought to
overthrow the government. Some things I might believe of Orthis, but not
this.
And during these nine years since graduation, as we had drifted apart in
interests, so had the breach between us been widened by constantly
increasing difference in rank. He was a Lieutenant Commander and I a
Captain, when in 2024 he announced the discovery and isolation of the
Eighth Solar Ray, and within two months those of the Moon, Mercury,
Venus and Jupiter. The Eighth Barsoomian and the Eighth Earthly Rays had
already been isolated, and upon Earth the latter erroneously called by
the name of the former.
Orthis’ discoveries were hailed upon two planets as the key to actual
travel between the Earth and Barsoom, since by means of these several
rays the attraction of the Sun and the planets, with the exception of
Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, could be definitely overcome and a ship
steer a direct and unimpeded course through space to Mars. The effect of
the pull of the three farther planets was considered negligible, owing
to their great distance from both Mars and Earth.
Orthis wanted to equip a ship and start at once, but again government
intervened and forbade what it considered an unnecessary risk. Instead
Orthis was ordered to design a small radio operated flier, which would
carry no one aboard, and which it was believed could be automatically
operated for at least half the distance between the two planets. After
his designs were completed, you may imagine his chagrin, and mine as
well, when I was detailed to supervise construction, yet I will say that
Orthis hid his natural emotions well and gave me perfect cooperation in
the work we were compelled to undertake together, and which was as
distasteful to me as to him. On my part I made it as easy for him as I
could, working with him rather than over him.
It required but a short time to complete the experimental ship and
during this time I had an opportunity to get a still better insight into
the marvelous intellectual ability of Orthis, though I never saw into
his mind or heart.
It was late in 2024 that the ship was launched upon its strange voyage,
and almost immediately, upon my recommendation, work was started upon
the perfection of the larger ship that had been in course of
construction in 2015 at the time that the loss of the Martian ship had
discouraged our government in making any further attempt until the then
seemingly insurmountable obstacles should have been overcome. Orthis was
again my assistant, and with the means at our disposal it was a matter
of less than eight months before _The Barsoom_, as she was christened,
was completely overhauled and thoroughly equipped for the interplanetary
voyage. The various eighth rays that would assist us in overcoming the
pull of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter were stored in
carefully constructed and well protected tanks within the hull, and
there was a smaller tank at the bow containing the Eighth Lunar Ray,
which would permit us to pass safely within the zone of the moon’s
influence without danger of being attracted to her barren surface.
Messages from the original Martian ship had been received from time to
time and with diminishing strength for nearly five years after it had
left Mars. Its commander in his heroic fight against the pull of the sun
had managed to fall within the grip of Jupiter and was, when last heard
from far out in the great void between that planet and Mars. During the
past four years the fate of the ship could be naught but conjecture—all
that we could be certain of was that its unfortunate crew would never
again return to Barsoom.
Our own experimental ship had been speeding upon its lonely way now for
eight months, and so accurate had Orthis’ scientific deductions proven
that the most delicate instrument could detect no slightest deviation
from its prescribed course. It was then that Orthis began to importune
the government to permit him to set out with the new craft that was now
completed. The authorities held out, however, until the latter part of
2025 when, the experimental ship having been out a year and still
showing no deviation from its course, they felt reasonably assured that
the success of the venture was certain and that no useless risk of human
life would be involved.
_The Barsoom_ required five men properly to handle it, and as had been
the custom through many centuries when an undertaking of more than usual
risk was to be attempted, volunteers were called for, with the result
that fully half the personnel of the International Peace Fleet begged to
be permitted to form the crew of five.
The government finally selected their men from the great number of
volunteers, with the result that once more was I the innocent cause of
disappointment and chagrin to Orthis, as I was placed in command, with
Orthis, two lieutenants and an ensign completing the roster.
_The Barsoom_ was larger than the craft dispatched by the Martians, with
the result that we were able to carry supplies for fifteen years. We
were equipped with more powerful motors which would permit us to
maintain an average speed of over twelve hundred miles an hour, carrying
in addition an engine recently developed by Orthis which generated
sufficient power from light to propel the craft at half-speed in the
event that our other engine should break down. None of us was married,
Orthis’ abandoned wife having recently died. Our estates were taken
under trusteeship by the government. Our farewells were made at an
elaborate ball at the White House on December 24, 2025, and on Christmas
day we rose from the landing stage at which _The Barsoom_ had been
moored, and amid the blare of bands and the shouting of thousands of our
fellow countrymen we arose majestically into the blue.
I shall not bore you with dry, technical descriptions of our motors and
equipment. Suffice it to say that the former were of three types—those
which propelled the ship through the air and those which propelled it
through ether, the latter of course represented our most important
equipment, and consisted of powerful multiple-exhaust separators which
isolated the true Barsoomian Eighth Ray in great quantities, and, by
exhausting it rapidly earthward, propelled the vessel toward Mars. These
separators were so designed that, with equal facility, they could
isolate the Earthly Eighth Ray which would be necessary for our return
voyage. The auxiliary engine, which I mentioned previously and which was
Orthis’ latest invention, could be easily adjusted to isolate the eighth
ray of any planet or satellite or of the sun itself, thus insuring us
motive power in any part of the universe by the simple expedient of
generating and exhausting the eighth ray of the nearest heavenly body. A
fourth type of generator drew oxygen from the ether, while another
emanated insulating rays which insured us a uniform temperature and
external pressure at all times, their action being analogous to that of
the atmosphere surrounding the earth. Science had, therefore, permitted
us to construct a little world, which moved at will through space—a
little world inhabited by five souls.
Had it not been for Orthis’ presence I could have looked forward to a
reasonably pleasurable voyage, for West and Jay were extremely likeable
fellows and sufficiently mature to be companionable, while young Norton,
the ensign, though but seventeen years of age, endeared himself to all
of us from the very start of the voyage by his pleasant manners, his
consideration and his willingness in the performance of his duties.
There were three staterooms aboard _The Barsoom_, one of which I
occupied alone, while West and Orthis had the second and Jay and Norton
the third. West and Jay were lieutenants and had been classmates at the
air school. They would of course have preferred to room together, but
could not unless I commanded it or Orthis requested it. Not wishing to
give Orthis any grounds for offense I hesitated to make the change,
while Orthis, never having thought a considerate thought or done a
considerate deed in his life, could not, of course, have been expected
to suggest it. We all messed together, West, Jay and Norton taking turns
at preparing the meals. Only in the actual operation of the ship were
the lines of rank drawn strictly. Otherwise we associated as equals, nor
would any other arrangement have been endurable upon such an
undertaking, which required that we five be practically imprisoned
together upon a small ship for a period of not less than five years. We
had books and writing materials and games, and we were, of course, in
constant radio communication with both Earth and Mars, receiving
continuously the latest news from both planets. We listened to opera and
oratory and heard the music of two worlds, so that we were not lacking
for entertainment. There was always a certain constraint in Orthis’
manner toward me, yet I must give him credit for behaving outwardly
admirably. Unlike the others we never exchanged pleasantries with one
another, nor could I, knowing as I did that Orthis hated me, and feeling
for him personally the contempt that I felt because of his character.
Intellectually he commanded my highest admiration, and upon intellectual
grounds we met without constraint or reserve, and many were the
profitable discussions we had during the first days of what was to prove
a very brief voyage.
It was about the second day that I noticed with some surprise that
Orthis was exhibiting a friendly interest in Norton. It had never been
Orthis’ way to make friends, but I saw that he and Norton were much
together and that each seemed to derive a great deal of pleasure from
the society of the other. Orthis was a good talker. He knew his
profession thoroughly, and was an inventor and scientist of high
distinction. Norton, though but a boy, was himself the possessor of a
fine mind. He had been honor-man in his graduating class, heading the
list of ensigns for that year, and I could not help but notice that he
was drinking in every word along scientific lines that Orthis
vouchsafed.
We had been out about six days when Orthis came to me and suggested,
that inasmuch as West and Jay had been classmates and chums that they be
permitted to room together and that he had spoken to Norton who had said
that he would be agreeable to the change and would occupy West’s bunk in
Orthis’ stateroom. I was very glad of this for it now meant that my
subordinates would be paired off in the most agreeable manner, and as
long as they were contented, I knew that the voyage from that standpoint
at least would be more successful. I was, of course, a trifle sorry to
see a fine boy like Norton brought under the influence of Orthis, yet I
felt that what little danger might result would be offset by the
influence of West and Jay and myself or counterbalanced by the liberal
education which five years’ constant companionship with Orthis would be
to any man with whom Orthis would discuss freely the subjects of which
he was master.
We were beginning to feel the influence of the Moon rather strongly. At
the rate we were traveling we would pass closest to it upon the twelfth
day, or about the 6th of January, 2026.
Our course would bring us within about twenty thousand miles of the
Moon, and as we neared it I believe that the sight of it was the most
impressive thing that human eye had ever gazed upon before. To the naked
eye it loomed large and magnificent in the heavens, appearing over ten
times the size that it does to terrestrial observers, while our powerful
glasses brought its weird surface to such startling proximity that one
felt that he might reach out and touch the torn rocks of its tortured
mountains.
This nearer view enabled us to discover the truth or falsity of the
theory that has been long held by some scientists that there is a form
of vegetation upon the surface of the Moon. Our eyes were first
attracted by what appeared to be movement upon the surface of some of
the valleys and in the deeper ravines of the mountains. Norton exclaimed
that there were creatures there, moving about, but closer observation
revealed the fact of the existence of a weird fungus-like vegetation
which grew so rapidly that we could clearly discern the phenomena. From
the several days’ observation which we had at close range we came to the
conclusion that the entire life span of this vegetation is encompassed
in a single sidereal month. From the spore it developed in the short
period of a trifle over twenty-seven days into a mighty plant that is
sometimes hundreds of feet in height. The branches are angular and
grotesque, the leaves broad and thick, and in the plants which we
discerned the seven primary colors were distinctly represented. As each
portion of the Moon passed slowly into shadow the vegetation first
drooped, then wilted, then crumbled to the ground, apparently
disintegrating almost immediately into a fine, dust-like powder—at
least in so far as our glasses revealed, it quite disappeared entirely.
The movement which we discerned was purely that of rapid growth, as
there is no wind upon the surface of the Moon. Both Jay and Orthis were
positive that they discerned some form of animal life, either insect or
reptilian. These I did not myself see, though I did perceive many of the
broad, flat leaves which seemed to have been partially eaten, which
certainly strengthened the theory that there is other than vegetable
life upon our satellite.
I presume that one of the greatest thrills that we experienced in this
adventure, that was to prove a veritable Pandora’s box of thrills, was
when we commenced to creep past the edge of the Moon and our eyes beheld
for the first time that which no other human eyes had ever rested
upon—portions of that two-fifths of the Moon’s surface which is
invisible from the Earth.
We had looked with awe upon Mare Crisium and Lacus Somniorum, Sinius
Roris, Oceanus Procellarum and the four great mountain ranges. We had
viewed at close range the volcanoes of Opollonius, Secchi, Borda, Tycho
and their mates, but all these paled into insignificance as there
unrolled before us the panorama of the vast unknown.
I cannot say that it differed materially from that portion of the Moon
that is visible to us—it was merely the glamour of mystery which had
surrounded it since the beginning of time that lent to it its thrill for
us. Here we observed other great mountain ranges and wide undulating
plains, towering volcanoes and mighty craters and the same vegetation
with which we were now become familiar.
We were two days past the Moon when our first trouble developed. Among
our stores were one hundred and twenty quarts of spirits per man, enough
to allow us each a liberal two ounces per day for a period of five
years. Each night, before dinner, we had drunk to the President in a
cocktail which contained a single ounce of spirits, the idea being to
conserve our supply in the event of our journey being unduly protracted
as well as to have enough in the event that it became desirable
fittingly to celebrate any particular occasion.
Toward the third meal hour of the thirteenth day of the voyage Orthis
entered the messroom noticeably under the influence of liquor.
History narrates that under the regime of prohibition drunkenness was
common and that it grew to such proportions as to become a national
menace, but with the repeal of the Prohibition Act, nearly a hundred
years ago, the habit of drinking to excess abated, so that it became a
matter of disgrace for any man to show his liquor, and in the service it
was considered as reprehensible as cowardice in action. There was
therefore but one thing for me to do. I ordered Orthis to his quarters.
He was drunker than I had thought him, and he turned upon me like a
tiger.
“You damned cur,” he cried. “All my life you have stolen everything from
me; the fruits of all my efforts you have garnered by chicanery and
trickery, and even now, were we to reach Mars, it is you who would be
lauded as the hero—not I whose labor and intellect have made possible
this achievement. But by God we will not reach Mars. Not again shall you
profit by my efforts. You have gone too far this time, and now you dare
to order me about like a dog and an inferior—I, whose brains have made
you what you are.”
I held my temper, for I saw that the man was unaccountable for his
words. “Go to your quarters, Orthis,” I repeated my command. “I will
talk with you again in the morning.”
West and Jay and Norton were present. They seemed momentarily paralyzed
by the man’s condition and gross insubordination. Norton, however, was
the first to recover. Jumping quickly to Orthis’ side he laid his hand
upon his arm. “Come, sir,” he said, and to my surprise Orthis
accompanied him quietly to their stateroom.
During the voyage we had continued the fallacy of night and day, gauging
them merely by our chronometers, since we moved always through utter
darkness, surrounded only by a tiny nebula of light, produced by the
sun’s rays impinging upon the radiation from our insulating generator.
Before breakfast, therefore, on the following morning I sent for Orthis
to come to my stateroom. He entered with a truculent swagger, and his
first words indicated that if he had not continued drinking, he had at
least been moved to no regrets for his unwarranted attack of the
previous evening.
“Well,” he said, “what in hell are you going to do about it?”
“I cannot understand your attitude, Orthis,” I told him. “I have never
intentionally injured you. When orders from government threw us together
I was as much chagrined as you. Association with you is as distasteful
to me as it is to you. I merely did as you did—obeyed orders. I have no
desire to rob you of anything, but that is not the question now. You
have been guilty of gross insubordination and of drunkenness. I can
prevent a repetition of the latter by confiscating your liquor and
keeping it from you during the balance of the voyage, and an apology
from you will atone for the former. I shall give you twenty-four hours
to reach a decision. If you do not see fit to avail yourself of my
clemency, Orthis, you will travel to Mars and back again in irons. Your
decision now and your behavior during the balance of the voyage will
decide your fate upon our return to Earth. And I tell you, Orthis, that
if I possibly can do so I shall use the authority which is mine upon
this expedition and expunge from the log the record of your
transgressions last night and this morning. Now go to your quarters;
your meals will be served there for twenty-four hours and at the end of
that time I shall receive your decision. Meanwhile your liquor will be
taken from you.”
He gave me an ugly look, turned upon his heel and left my stateroom.
Norton was on watch that night. We were two days past the Moon. West,
Jay and I were asleep in our staterooms, when suddenly Norton entered
mine and shook me violently by the shoulder.
“My God, Captain,” he cried, “come quick. Commander Orthis is destroying
the engines.”
I leaped to my feet and followed Norton amidships to the engine-room,
calling to West and Jay as I passed their stateroom. Through the
bull’s-eye in the engine-room door, which he had locked, we could see
Orthis working over the auxiliary generator which was to have proven our
salvation in an emergency, since by means of it we could overcome the
pull of any planet into the sphere of whose influence we might be
carried. I breathed a sigh of relief as my eyes noted that the main
battery of engines was functioning properly, since, as a matter of fact,
we had not expected to have to rely at all upon the auxiliary generator,
having stored sufficient quantities of the Eighth Ray of the various
heavenly bodies by which we might be influenced, to carry us safely
throughout the entire extent of the long voyage. West and Jay had joined
us by this time, and I now called to Orthis, commanding him to open the
door. He did something more to the generator and then arose, crossed the
engine-room directly to the door, unbolted it and threw the door open.
His hair was dishevelled, his face drawn, his eyes shining with a
peculiar light, but withal his expression denoted a drunken elation that
I did not at the moment understand.
“What have you been doing here, Orthis?” I demanded. “You are under
arrest, and supposed to be in your quarters.”
“You’ll see what I’ve been doing,” he replied truculently, “and it’s
done—it’s done—it can’t ever be undone. I’ve seen to that.”
I grabbed him roughly by the shoulder. “What do you mean? Tell me what
you have done, or by God I will kill you with my own hands,” for I knew,
not only from his words but from his expression, that he had
accomplished something which he considered very terrible.
The man was a coward and he quailed under my grasp. “You wouldn’t dare
to kill me,” he cried, “and it don’t make any difference, for we’ll all
be dead in a few hours. Go and look at your damned compass.”