The Exotic Enchanter (18 page)

"Sounds like one of our more backward Earthly nations," said Shea. "Time for another charm lesson. I meet you in the morning and say: 'Good morning. How do you do?' Then what do you say?"

Ras Thavas grumbled: "I say 'Good morning,' too, even though it be plainly a terrible morning. As for 'How do you do?' I am sure that you would not wish a detailed account of all my symptoms—the toothache, the constipation, the sore toe joint, and so on. So what say I?"

"You say: 'Fine, and you?' "

"Oh, very well. 'Fine. And you?' though I no more want to hear a list of his symptoms than he does mine."

"What next?"

"I forget, Tell me!"

Shea: " 'How nice to see you!' "

"Rubbish! Hypocrisy! Most of the people whom I meet, I do not find at all nice. Those who do not display obvious faults of intellect or character tend to be insufferable bores."

"You must say it anyway. Go on, say it!"

Ras Thavas complied, with the expression of one who has unexpectedly bitten into something sour. "What then?"

" 'How well you are looking!' "

"Even if the fellow looks as if he were about to drop dead?"

"One must exercise discretion. If he really looks all in, you say: 'Can I help you?' "

"Oh, Issus! What if I care naught what befalls the wretch?"

"Make the offer anyway. Go on, say it!"

Ras Thavas groaned but complied. A few blocks further on, Shea said:

"That looks like a respectable eatery. What do you think, Doctor?"

"I am no judge of such matters," said Ras Thavas. "For centuries I have devoted my superior mind to the solution of more recondite scientific problems, paying no more heed to the demands of my animal body than I must to keep the mechanism efficiently functioning."

"No
bon vivant
, you," muttered Shea. Belphebe, dismounting, said: "I'll take a quick look inside and report."

When she came out, she said: "At least it looks passably clean. Come on!"

The eatery served in automat style. Machines proffered dishes to patrons, who collected them on trays as they passed. Belphebe was ahead of her two men in the line, and next before her was a burly red Barsoomian. After her came Shea and Ras Thavas. The latter murmured:

"Have a care with that hoodlum in front of us, Doctor Shea. His metal says that he is one of Ur Jans personal guards, an old comrade from the assassins' guild."

Shea loosened his pistol in its holster. The assassin meanwhile moved so that his naked skin brushed lightly against that of Belphebe. When she turned a frowning face toward him, he muttered:

"Hey, you pretty spear-shaft! How about a little quick fucky-rucky? As you can see, I have the equipment!" He glanced down to where he displayed the physical symptom of lust for all to see, since Barsoomian costume made no attempt to conceal the private parts. Angrily, Belphebe spat:

"Begone, sir! I am an honest wife!"

"Is that so?" said the assassin, loosening his longsword in its scabbard. "Is one of those two behind you, wearing Heliumite metal, your husband? Tell me which, and I'll make you an instant widow. Then I'll show you some lovemaking, the like of which you have never enjoyed!"

Shea tapped the man's shoulder, at the same time bringing up his revolver. He grated: "Sir, I am the husband in question. If you bother us, I shall shoot you dead!"

"Shea!" cried Ras Thavas. "Put that pistol away! You know not what you do! To use a gun is a capital offense, even in self-defense! I will take care of this jackanapes, and you must not interfere! Stand clear! The code does not permit you to help me." Ras Thavas drew his own longsword, saying:

"Sir guardsman, anyone who confronts my friend here must answer to me. He is a foreigner who does not fully understand local customs, whereas you are a mannerless
ulsio
. Draw, scoundrel!"

The guardsman's sword came out with a
wheep
. Slaves rushed out from behind the food counters and shooed people away to clear a space. The guardsman roared:

"Lay on!"

Ras Thavas and the guardsman crossed blades. In an instant they were at it,
zip-whisht-clang!

Shea watched uncertainly, torn between a natural urge to help Ras Thavas and the command laid upon him not to interfere. He expected the guardsman to make mincemeat of the scientist, whom he persisted in viewing as elderly despite his youthful body. But to his surprise, after a few short passages, Ras Thavas nailed his opponent with a coupé and lunge, driving his sword through the guardsman's beefy chest and out his back. The guardsman folded upon the floor.

Ras Thavas wiped his blade with a napkin that someone handed him and sheathed his sword. A couple of slaves picked up the corpse by wrists and ankles and bore it out, while another cleaned up a small puddle of blood with a mop. Another staff member chivvied people back into line at the serving tables.

Shea paid for their meals and said: "Doctor, I never expected to see you such a swashbuckler!"

"That was nothing," said Ras Thavas. "I have listened to your words and practiced with you at singlesticks, and I simply put my knowledge to use. Now, I trust, there will be no more aspersions on my courage!"

Evidently, thought Shea, his remarks about the incident of the pack of wild calots had rankled. Otherwise Ras Thavas might not have been so ready to take up Shea's quarrel with the guardsman. Shea was tempted to twit Ras Thevas on displaying a common human weakness, despite his profession of lofty superiority to such sentiments, but thought better of it. Instead he said:

"You certainly picked up fencing skill in record time. On Earth it takes years of practice to attain that level."

Ras Thavas smiled thinly. "I would attribute that accomplishment to my superior mind, did I not know that allusions thereto displease you. Let us assume that my youthful athlete's body retains some reflexes from its former life."

"What will be done about the guardsman's death? Shall we be arrested?"

"Naught, since he met it in a fair fight. I have committed no legal offense. But if you had fired that gun, we should all have been in deep trouble."

"Kindly explain. Why is it all right to puncture a man with a sword out illegal to do the same thing to him with a bullet?"

"That requires thought to make clear. For many centuries, slaves have been forbidden, for obvious reasons, to wear weapons. So a sword has, as it were, become the symbol of a free man—what one of you aliens would call a 'gentleman.'

"At the same time, the tradition grew up that, to prove his free manhood, a man must be prepared to defend his honor with his sword. So sword fights to the death, like that between me and the late guardsman, were accepted as the normal order of things. Of course, there is an element of luck in the outcome of such a duel; but at least most Barsoomians accepted the notion that such a fight was mainly decided by the skill of the fighters.

"Then, a few centuries ago, they invented guns. This obviously enlarged the role of luck in the outcome. Hence death by shooting was no longer deemed a 'fair fight' and was considered illegal. I do not personally consider these fine distinctions logically sound. To me, courage is an irrational sentiment, even though my glands may force me betimes to attempt to display it. But that is now things now stand on Barsoom."

"Seems to me," said Shea, "that Barsoom has a strong case of class rule here: a majority of slaves, bossed around and bullied by a minority of sword-wearing free men."

"True, O Shea. But from what I hear of Jasoomian—or perhaps I should say Earthly—social systems, all embody a similar distinction betwixt the ruling minority and the subject majority. Laws are passed and constitutions adopted to enlarge the power of the ruled majority over their own destinies; but the ruling minority somehow keeps a grip on power, whether they pass under the name of counts, colonels, capitalists, or commissars. It must be a tendency built into the species' makeup.

"If the ruled revolt and expel or exterminate the ruling class, almost instantly the more aggressive and energetic members of the ruled class form a new ruling class, fording it over the rest. In theory, a free man is not supposed to use his sword on a slave, since that is obviously unfair. But every day we hear of cases where a free Barsoomian lost his temper with a slave and sworded him to death."

"Is anything ever done to the swording bully?"

"Not unless the slave's owner takes offense at the loss of his servitor and challenges the slayer. The result of the duel, of course, depends on the strength and skill of the combatants—and, inevitably, on luck."

"So justice has nothing to do with it," said Shea, rising to leave the eatery. Belphebe and Ras Thavas followed him out. The scientist said:

"What is justice? An ideal, which everyone interprets to his own advantage. Methinks the hostelry we are now passing might furnish us and our beasts with suitable accommodations."

Belphebe said: "Darling, your telling me what sexual puritans the Barsoomians were was a little premature."

Shea sighed. "Live and learn."

The following morning, Shea and Ras Thavas had to wait at the entrance to the hostelry for Belphebe to appear from the women's half of the building. Ras Thavas pestered the clerk to draw him a map showing how to find the house where dwelt Mar Vas, his local informant.

"Turn right as you leave," said the clerk, "and at the third street on the right, turn right again. Number fourteen is the last house at the end of a long block on your left. You cannot miss it."

Shea muttered: "I've had people tell me before that I couldn't miss the place I was looking for, and gotten as thoroughly lost as ever."

Ras Thavas: "I hear that on Jasoom, the streets all have names or numbers, shown by signposts; and the houses are numbered in regular order, with number fifteen following number fourteen and so forth."

"I don't know about Jasoom," said Shea, "but that's how we do it on Earth. It makes places much easier to find."

"You would never get Barsoomians to agree. Why, if anyone could be tracked down from the name of his street and the number of his house, any assassin or enemy could find and kill him! That is the reason that the costlier houses can be raised on telescoping pillars at night."

"Since Jed Ur Jan," said Shea in a lowered voice, "is himself an old assassin, I should think he'd want to make things easier for assassins."

Ras Thavas smiled crookedly. "A Jed soon discovers that he cannot rely solely upon one small part of the populace for support, especially in a world as much given to homicide as Barsoom. A ruler can keep his subjects under control for a while by terrifying penalties. But if he makes himself disliked enough, sooner or later a subject—even a mere slave—will try to shoot or stab him."

Belphebe appeared. As she and Shea exchanged a morning embrace, Ras Thavas said: "Lady Belphebe, had I met you a thousand years ago, my life might have followed a different pattern. I have watched with admiration how you and Doctor Shea act in concert, supporting each other. Even though you squabble occasionally, you always present a united front against the outside world. And I believe the building across the street is the one whereto the clerk directed us."

The building in question was a rooming house, run by a red Barsoomian landlady with four slaves. She informed them that Mar Vas had gone out earlier and had not returned. He had left word, however, that if Doctor Ras Thavas came, he was to be shown to Mar Vas' room.

The room turned out to be used as a home laboratory, with tables here and there bearing unfamiliar pieces of equipment and a tangle of wires everywhere.

"You behold Mar Vas' experiments in wireless communication," said Ras Thavas. "Do you understand this apparatus?"

"I'm afraid not," said Shea. "On Earth they used to sell do-it-yourself kits for making such apparatus, but in my time they sold complete sets, contained in a single compact box, so big." Shea illustrated with gestures. "I never mastered that skill, unfortunately."

In answer to further questions, the landlady said: "I remember his saying something about visiting the Arms Fair."

"Where is that?" asked Shea.

"Go
that
way along the nearest cross street till you come to the public fountain, then turn right. . . ."

Another hour found them before a circus-sized tent, with swarms of Barsoomians going in and out. To one side of the entrance, a stand bore a spacious sign. Shea could not read the writing; for, while Barsoom spoke essentially one language, each nation had evolved its own system of writing. He appealed to Ras Thavas for a translation. The latter studied the sign for some seconds, then spoke:

"It says; 'Down with the Restrictionists! They seek to deprive us honest men of means of defending our lives, property, and honor. They would reduce all free Barsoomians to the status of sniveling slaves! Smite the cowardly scoundrels!' "

"What's that all about?" asked Shea. "Who are the Restrictionists?"

"They are members of a movement to restrict the right of free Barsoomians to go armed. Since a sword is a symbol of being a free man, any threat to take away a man's sword incites him to furious resistance."

"How about guns?"

"Meseems they have not got around to considering guns yet, since guns are a fairly new feature of Barsoomian personal armament. The gun was invented in my own lifetime and has not yet acquired the status in Barsoomian culture that the sword has. You have already learned that, if threatened with a sword, it is deemed a dreadful crime to defend oneself with a gun, which is thought a cowardly, unmanly weapon. But, because of its ability to slay at a distance, in some places the gun is inching its way into the status that the sword has long enjoyed."

"Will the Barsoomians get around to forbidding guns in private hands?"

"They may." Ras Thavas gave a cynical smile. "But even if they manage to stop all carrying of weapons, the only result will be an increase in population, until numbers are again limited by lack of food and water."

Shea frowned at the sign. "What's that squiggle down at the bottom?"

"That, my good Doctor Shea, is the colophon of the Arms Makers Guild, who paid for the sign. I would not be so misanthropic as to accuse the Guild of erecting the sign purely from selfish motives, to stimulate the arms business." The scientist snickered. "But you may judge that matter for yourself. Here, Shea, it is up to you to pay for our admission. The entrance fee is small. I trust that you changed enough of your Jasoomian—excuse me; 1 meant Earthian—gold pieces into local currency?"