2 - Blades of Mars (2 page)

 
          
 
I recognised the gear from Kane's earlier
descriptions. It was the gear of a pakan - a Warrior of Mars!

 
          
 
'Kane!’
I gasped. ‘What
has happened? Only a few moments ago you were ...
‘ I
broke off, unable to speak, able only to stare!

 
          
 
He strode forward and grasped my shoulder in
his powerful grip.

 
          
 
‘Wait,' he said firmly, ‘and I will explain.
But first, can we return to your house in
London
? You might need that tape-recorder again!'

 
          
 
By means of the power-wagon we drove back to
Belgravia
, this strange, naked warrior with his long
blade and alien, jewelled war-harness, sitting next to me.

 
          
 
Luckily we were unobserved as we entered my
house. He moved lithely, his bronzed muscles rippling - a graceful superman, a
hero from the pages of Myth.

 
          
 
My housekeeper does not live in so I prepared
him a meal myself and brought him some strong, black coffee which he seemed to
relish a great deal.

 
          
 
I switched on the tape-recorder and he began
to talk. Here is the tale he told me, edited only as to my questions and his
asides - and some of the more secret scientific information - so as to present
his own continuous narrative.

 
          
 
EPB.

 
          
 
Chester Square
,
London
, 3.W.L April, 1969

 
          
 
*
See
City
of the Beast, the first
volume in this series.

The Barren Plain

 
          
 
After I had entered the matter transmitter I
felt a tinge of fear. I realised fully for the first time just what I could
lose.

 
          
 
But then it was too late. On your side of the
transmitter you had done your work. I began to experience the familiar
sensations associated with the machine. There was no difference save that this
time I had no certainty of where I was going - you will remember that on my
first trip I had thought I was merely being transmitted to a 'receiver' in
another part of the laboratory building. Instead, I had been transported to my
Mars. Now where was I bound? I prayed that it should be Mars again!

 
          
 
Strange colours spread themselves before my
eyes. Again I felt weightless. There came a period during which I felt in communion
with - everything. Then came the feeling of being bodiless, and yet hurtling
through blackness at incredible velocities. My mind blanked out.

 
          
 
This tune I awoke to comparative darkness. I
lay face down on a hard, stony surface. I felt a little bruised, but not badly.
I rolled over on to my back.

 
          
 
I was on Mars!

 
          
 
I knew it the moment I saw the twin moons -
Umoo and Garhoo in Martian, Phobos and Deimos in English - lighting a desolate
landscape of chilly rocks and sparse vegetation. Over to the west something
glinted - something that might have been a vast stretch of placid water.

 
          
 
I was still in the clothes I was wearing when
I entered the transmitter. Its scanner broke down and translated into wave-form
everything placed inside the machine. I even had some loose change in my
pockets, and my watch. 145

 
          
 
But something was wrong.

 
          
 
Gingerly I sat up. I was still a little dazed
but already the suspicion was dawning on me that something had gone seriously
wrong.

 
          
 
On my first two-way trip I had arrived just
outside the city of
Vamal
on Southern Mars. And it was from Vamal that I had been snatched when
my ‘helpful' brother scientists drew me back to Earth.

 
          
 
But this wasteland was unlike any I had seen
on my Mars!

 
          
 
Mars it was, of course - the moons proved
that. Yet it did not seem to be the Mars of the age I had known - a Mars that
had existed when dinosaurs still walked the Earth and Man had yet to come to
dominance on my home planet

 
          
 
I felt desperate, helpless,
incredibly
lonely. I had cut off all hope of ever seeing my beloved, betrothed Shizala
again or of living in peace in the City of the Green Mists.

 
          
 
The Martian night is long and this seemed the
longest of all until, when dawn began to appear, I finally rose and looked
about me.

 
          
 
Nothing but sea and rock greeted my gaze
whichever way I turned!

 
          
 
As I had guessed, I stood on a barren plain of
brown-orange rock that stretched inland from a great, cold sea that moved slightly
but restlessly, grey under a bleak sky.

 
          
 
Whether this was in the past or future of the
Mars I knew I cared not. I only knew that if I was, as I suspected, on the
exact geographical spot where once had stood - or once would stand - Vamal of
the Green Mists and the Calling Hills, then all was lost to me! Now a sea
rolled where the hills had rolled, rock occupied the place of the city.

 
          
 
I felt betrayed. It is difficult to describe
why I should feel this. It was my own fault that I was here - and not even now
embracing my sweetheart in the palace of the rulers of the Kamala.

 
          
 
I sighed, suddenly weary. Uncaring of what
befell
me,
I began gloomily to walk inland. I had no
purpose, it seemed, but to walk until I dropped from weariness and hunger. The
barrenness of the landscape seemed to reflect the barrenness of ambition in
myself.

 
          
 
All hope was dashed, all dreams vanished.
Despair alone consumed me!

 
          
 
It was perhaps five hours - or approximately
forty Martian shatis - later that I saw the beast. It must have been stalking
roe for some time.

 
          
 
The first thing I noticed about it was its
weird, coruscating skin that caught the light and reflected it with all the
colours of the rainbow. It was as if the beast were made

 
          
 
of
some kind of
viscous, crystalline substance, but that was not so. Strange as it was, a second
glance showed it to be of flesh and blood.

 
          
 
It was about eighteen to twenty kilodas -
roughly six feet - high and thirty kilodas long. It was a powerful beast with a
huge, wide mouth full of teeth that gleamed like crystal too. It had a single,
many-faceted eye - an attribute of several Martian animals - and four short,
heavily-muscled legs ending in big, clawed paws. It had no tail, but a kind of
crest, perhaps of matted fur, oscillated along its back.

 
          
 
It was bent on having me for its
lunch, that
was clear.

 
          
 
Now my mood of despair left me as this danger
threatened. I had no weapons, so I stooped and grabbed large rocks in each
hand.

 
          
 
With an effort of will I faced the beast as it
began to stalk slowly towards me, the crest oscillating quicker and quicker as
if in anticipation of its meal. Yellowish saliva dripped from the open mouth
and the single eye was fixed intently on me.

 
          
 
Suddenly I yelled and flung my first rock,
aiming at the eye, following this shot with my second. The creature vented an
incredible wailing cry, half of pain, half of anger. It reared on its hind legs
and made lashing movements with its forelegs.

 
          
 
I picked up two more rocks and flung them at
its soft underbelly. Evidently these did not have the same effect as those I had
hurled at the eye. The beast dropped to all fours again and held its ground -
as I held mine - regarding me balefully.

 
          
 
It seemed to be stalemate for the moment.

 
          
 
Slowly I stooped and felt around for more
ammunition. I found one rock - there were no more.

 
          
 
Now the crest trembled and fluttered, the
mouth opened still wider and the drooling increased. Then the creature took
several steps backward but I could tell it was not retreating was merely
preparing to spring.

 
          
 
I tried a trick which I knew had worked on
Earth when men had been in a similar position confronted by wild beasts. I
shouted at the top of my voice and ran towards it, the hand holding the rock
upraised.

 
          
 
I ran full tilt almost into its horrid maw.

 
          
 
The beast had not moved an inch!

 
          
 
Now I was in worse straits than I was before!

 
          
 
Deciding to sell my life dearly, I flung my
last rock at the eye and dashed past to get behind it. The beast screamed,
wailed and reared again. Then I saw thick blood beginning to ooze down its
muzzle. It scuttled round, still on its hind legs, forelegs waving, claws
slashing at air. I had hit the lower part of the eye. I must have inflicted
some damage, for the blood was evident, but the beast could still see.

 
          
 
I stooped towards another rock and then, with
a speed I had not expected, it was dashing towards me, jaws gaping!

 
          
 
I flung myself out of its path just in time -
but already it was whirling round and coming at me again. I knew I hadn't a
chance.

 
          
 
I remember lying on the rock trying to turn
over and get to my feet, fearfully aware of that great bulk rushing down on me,
the shining teeth, the saliva...

 
          
 
And then,
only inches from
me, the beast fell to the ground, threshed and was
still.

 
          
 
What had happened? I thought at first that my
rock must have done more damage than I had suspected, but when I got up I saw a
long, heavy lance jutting from the beast's side.

 
          
 
I looked around, saw the figure standing there
- and was instantly on my guard again. This was a Blue Giant - an Argzoon. I
had previously experienced their savagery - I knew they attacked men such as me
on sight.

 
          
 
The Argzoon was well armed, with sword and
mace at left and right hips. He was magnificently muscled and almost ten feet
tall.

 
          
 
What confirmed my suspicion that I was in a different
era was the fact that instead of wearing the normal Argzoon leather breastplate
his was of fine metal, as were his wrist-guards and greaves.

 
          
 
Perhaps he had saved my life in order to have
some sport with me. I began attempting to wrench his lance from the corpse of
the beast so that I would have something with which to defend myself when he
attacked.

 
          
 
I got the lance free as he came close. He
smiled and stood regarding me with some puzzlement in his manner, arms aldmbo,
head
slightly to one side.

 
          
 
'I am ready for you, Argzoon,' I said in
Martian.

 
          
 
He laughed then - not the savage, animal laugh
of the Argzoon but a good-humoured laugh. Had the Argzoon digged so much?

 
          
 
‘I saw your fight with the rhadari,’ he said.
‘You are very brave.'

 
          
 
Warily I lowered the lance, saying nothing.
The voice, too, had been unlike the Argzoon guttural which I knew.

 
          
 
He pointed at me, smiling again. 'Why are you
swathed in that bulky cloth? Are you ill?'

 
          
 
I shook my head, feeling a little embarrassed
already, both by my appearance - which was odd on Mars, to say the least - and
my assumption that he was a foe.

 
          
 
‘I am called Hool Haji,' he said.
'Your name and tribe?'

 
          
 
‘Michael Kane,' I said, finding my tongue at
last. 'I have no native tribe, but
am
an adopted
member of the Kamala nation.'

 
          
 
'A strange name - but I know of the Kamala. By
reputation, they are as brave as you have shown yourself to be.'

 
          
 
'You'll pardon me,' I said, 'but you do not
seem typical of the Argzoon nation.'

 
          
 
He laughed good-humouredly. 'Thank you. That
is because I am of the Mendishar.'