John Carter (5 page)

T
HE
T
HARK
settlement had once been a great port city. Now its stonework stood weathered and chipped, towers and temples torn down by sand, time, and scavenging hordes.

Carter sprang from rooftop to rooftop, cupola to crumbling parapet, zigzagging his way up toward the listing Helium airship. He paused, darted a glance ahead. Only one thin-ledged cupola stood higher now, and it was at least fifty feet away. He hesitated.

Then the Helium airship lurched over, tipping onto its side in mid-air. The woman lost her grip, cried out, and began to fall.

Grimacing, Carter crouched and sprang as high as he could.

He rose. She fell. Carter stretched in mid-air until he caught her flailing body. She grabbed tight to him and he twisted again, managing to land on the cupola. His chain unspooled down off the platform, almost toppling him from the ledge. He staggered for a second, then recovered, still clutching her in his arms.

Time seemed to stop as they stared into each other's eyes. For an instant, he felt that sense of purpose that had been missing for so long.

Then a gangplank slammed down onto the cupola's ledge. Carter looked up and saw one of the Zodangan airships hovering just above. Red-garbed soldiers poured down the gangplank, swords and guns drawn.

Carter set Dejah down on her feet. “Beg your pardon, ma'am.” As she watched in surprise, he grabbed the sword out of her hilt. “If you'll kindly stay behind me…this might get dangerous.”

The soldiers swarmed off the gangplank. Carter grabbed the chain still leashed to his body and cracked it like a whip, slamming into the first two soldiers.

With his other hand, Carter swung the woman's sword in a wide arc, marveling at how light and flexible it was. One soldier screamed and grabbed his slashed chest. The other was less fortunate—the blade stabbed straight into his heart.

Carter had done well so far. But as he caught his breath, the last remaining Zodangan swung his gun like a club, knocking the blade clean out of Carter's hand. Stunned, Carter watched it fly…straight toward the woman. She grabbed it expertly by the hilt, tumbled acrobatically down in front of Carter, and impaled the Zodangan with a single quick, neat motion.

Carter stared down at the dead man, then up at the fierce woman. “Maybe I ought to stay behind
you
,” he said.

She smiled; it was a warm smile, very unlike the monstrous grins of the Tharks. “Let me know when it gets dangerous,” she said.

She reached down and wiped her blade clean on Carter's baby garment. Only then did he realize he was still wearing the loincloth Sola had dressed him in the night before. He felt briefly embarrassed.

Then a great shadow fell on them both, and Carter looked up to see the other two Zodangan warships converging on their position. One of them, the highest, bore the strange black weapon he'd seen before. The Helium ship still hung next to it, smoking and listing on its side.

Aboard the nearest Zodangan ship, a fresh contingent of soldiers appeared at the top of the gangplank. Their leader pointed, and they started down toward Carter and the woman at a run.

“I've had about enough of these boys,” Carter said. He pointed to a spiral ramp leading down the far side of the cupola to the settlement below. “Ma'am, may I suggest you run?”

Without waiting for her reply, Carter charged the gangplank and vaulted over the astonished soldiers, landing just above them. Another leap took him onto the deck of their ship, where more surprised Zodangans whirled to face him, drawing their swords. But Carter was already airborne again, springing to the roof of the ship's bridge. He gazed out toward the second airship and hissed in a deep breath.

Then he jumped through empty air toward the second ship. He banked off its deck, then leaped up to that ship's roof in turn. Without letting himself think, Carter sprang up again toward the biggest ship, aiming straight for its weapons deck.

The startled gun crew saw him coming, pointed, and struggled to swivel their weapons in his direction. Too late. Carter arced down like a missile, landing with a flurry of punches and kicks. He knocked the gunmen off the deck, not even turning to watch as they fell. Then he grabbed a mounted gun, pivoted it, and aimed it downward.

The mechanism was unfamiliar, but simple enough. Carter peered through the gun's sight, centered it on the airship directly below, and fired. Once, twice, three times.

The second Zodangan airship lurched, cracked in half, and burst into flames. It began to plummet, towing the still-tangled Helium ship in its wake.

For a sick moment, Carter thought the two ships might strike the Thark settlement. The Tharks' ways were barbaric, and they'd treated him like a child. But he didn't want them slaughtered.

He sighed in relief as the ships swung wide, striking the sand just beyond the settlement where, in centuries gone by, the sea had once been. The ground shook with the tremendous crash.

Carter thought he heard something else from below, too: the cheering of the Tharks.

Then he turned to see a fierce warrior facing him. Cruel human eyes, a golden breastplate fringed with fur, and the red cape of Zodanga. Carter reached for his weapon, realized he had none.

The warrior raised a hand. It was covered in a strange, glowing blue weapon unlike anything Carter had ever seen.

“I am Sab Than, ruler of Zodanga,” the man said. “And I sentence you to…”

He trailed off and seemed to cock his head at some unknown voice. The weapon's glow faded, and Sab Than looked down at his own hand in dismay. “What? Take him
alive
?”

A trio of soldiers swarmed Carter. He swung his chain, knocking them back, slashing deep.

Sab Than cried out. “Leave him!”

Then Sab stepped forward, drawing his sword. He smiled, almost a leer. “This should be fun.”

Carter snatched up a sword from one of the fallen Zodangans, raising it just in time. The two blades clashed, glancing off each other with a bright spark. Sab Than pulled back, grinned, and thrust forward. Carter parried, but just barely.

“What are you?” the Zodangan asked. “You aren't a red man. You aren't
quite
a white ape…”

Carter had trained with blades, but the weapon was unfamiliar, and Sab Than was clearly a master swordsman. Slowly, the Zodangan backed him up against the gunwale.

“Whatever you are,” Sab Than hissed, “you will bleed like a—”

The Zodangan stopped, gaping over the deck past Carter.
“Tharks!”

Carter turned, looked down, and caught a splitsecond glimpse: the green horde stood massed atop the ruins, heavily armed. Every weapon aimed straight up at the airships.

Carter slashed out wildly, forcing Sab Than back. Then he leaped, bouncing off the remaining airship's roof just as the Tharks opened fire.

The airship burst into flame, exploding in a huge conflagration. Carter felt the heat on his back as he soared through the air, swimming and flailing, trying to aim for a soft area on the sand below. It was a long way down.

Above him, the sole remaining airship—Sab Than's vessel—took hit after hit, but remained aloft. Sab's gunners recovered, firing a few rounds back down at the Tharks. But the ship was clearly damaged.

Carter braced himself for a hard landing, looked down…and saw a small red figure, followed by a flash of green, running out on the sand away from the Thark settlement. It was the red woman, the one from the Helium ship. He crashed down on a sand dune directly in front of her.

The woman watched him land and held up her hands.

Carter looked past her and saw her pursuer: Sola. The Thark female stopped in her tracks, unsure.

In the distance, the wreckage of three airships burned, filling the air with a charred smell of wood and human flesh.

The Helium woman handed her sword to Sola, but her eyes never left Carter. She spoke with the terse confidence of a commanding officer. “You may take me captive now.”

Sab Than burst onto his bridge. Soldiers lay dead everywhere, slumped over smoking equipment. As the ship lurched beneath him, Sab heaved the Light Master's body off the light meter and checked the readings. He moved from one station to another, slamming levers hastily.

The surviving Navigator stared at him with frightened eyes.

“Prepare to turn about,” Sab said. “We're going after the princess.”

Then he felt the familiar tingling in his mind, and Matai Shang was there again. In his thoughts, on his bridge, always with him. Always in control.

The price Sab Than paid for unlimited power.

“No,”
Matai Shang said.
“The Tharks have her. This opportunity has been lost.”

“Why did you want him alive? The white ape—man—whatever he is?”

“Go home, Sab Than. Another chance will present itself.”

“How will you find them again?”

Matai Shang smiled a thin smile, and Sab Than winced at a brief, sharp stabbing in his brain.

“We can find anyone.”

H
ER NAME
was Dejah Thoris, and Carter had never met a woman like her. Strong arms, dancing blue eyes, full lips that curled in a smile. Her skin was tinged with red, a savage hue that matched the alien sands beneath their feet.

They stood together for a long moment as the airships smoked and the Thark woman, Sola, watched uneasily. Then a wild chant rang out, and Carter whirled around to see the entire Thark horde charging straight toward them.

“Did I not tell you he could jump?” Tars Tarkas demanded.

Carter crouched to leap, but something held him back. He looked down to see the faithful doglike animal, Woola, gripping his leg in playful affection.

Carter patted Woola's head—“Let go!”—but it was too late. The Tharks swarmed around him, pulling him away from Dejah Thoris, slapping him roughly on the back.

Tars Tarkas pushed through the crowd. He grabbed Carter up in all four of his arms, beaming like a proud father. “You are ugly, but you are beautiful. And you fight like a Thark!”

Carter sputtered, but before he could speak Tars set him down in front of the warriors. One by one they lined up, handing him their gear and weapons, dressing him up like a Christmas tree.

Tars Tarkas himself removed his baldric, draping it around Carter. And Carter spotted something hanging around the leader's neck: the medallion, the object that had brought him to this strange place.

Tars frowned at him, and Carter realized he was staring. He pointed at the medallion, started to speak—

“Jeddak of the Tharks!”

Everyone turned at the sound of Dejah's voice. Sola stood guarding her at gunpoint.

“I am Dejah Thoris,” she continued, “Regent of the Royal Helium Academy of Science. My research vessel was attacked. I managed to restart its Eighth Ray drive, but I was unable to save my—”

Tars stepped up roughly, shoved Dejah into Carter's arms. “Your share of the spoils,” Tars said.

The Tharks laughed, a horrible sound. Dejah turned even redder.

“Sola,” Tars said, “tend to Virginia's property.”

“Yes, my Jeddak.” Sola grabbed the struggling Dejah in all four arms. Carter watched, helpless and unsure.

“You know,” Dejah snarled, “once Sab Than has conquered me, he will turn his weapon on you.”

“I know that Zodanga has found a way to defeat you,” Tars replied. “And now you seek a weapon of your own. But Virginia fights for us! He will fight the Torquas in the south, the Warhoons in the north. And he will be called ‘Dotar Sojat'! My good right arms!”

The Tharks raised their weapons in a mighty cheer. Tars turned to Carter, grinning his horrific Thark grin.

“No,” Carter said.

Tars's face fell.

“I don't fight for anyone. Not anymore.”

Exhausted, Carter began to strip off the Thark gifts: a belt, a rifle, a large amulet. The adrenaline rush had worn off, and the reality of the situation began to wash over him. This was not his home; these were not his people. They were barely people at all.

Tars moved toward him, grinning again.

“Virginia,” he said, low. “Reject this honor, and I cannot guarantee the safety of your red girl.”

Carter stared at Tars, eyes dropping once again to the spider-patterned medallion around the Jeddak's neck. Then he looked past Tars at Sola's scars, the barbaric markings that covered her arms. He scanned the faces of the Tharks. Sarkoja and Tal Hajus stood watching, eager for Carter to make the wrong decision. They would be only too happy to see him exiled or killed.

And lastly there was Dejah. Still proud, still haughty, but with a hint of fear in her eyes.

Grimacing, Carter pumped his fist…weakly at first, then with as much vigor as he could manage.

“I…I am Dotar Sojat,” he said.

The Tharks erupted in madness, whooping and cheering louder than ever.

Tars Tarkas pointed to the wrecked airships. “To the plunder!” Still cheering, the Tharks took off at a run toward the wreckage. Sarkoja and Tal Hajus paused to glower briefly at Carter. Then they too followed.

Carter moved toward Dejah, still held firm in Sola's grasp. But the Helium woman gave him a dark look and turned away.

Hours later, a bleak sun set over the wreckage of Helium's airship. The fires had died down, but Tharks still swarmed over the ship's splintered decks like an army of giant green ants. Carter stood a few feet away on the sands, watching as the Tharks tossed Helium corpses aside carelessly.

Dejah stood next to him, biting her lip to hold back tears at the fate of her countrymen. A crude leash, held by Sola, encircled her neck.

“War,” Carter said. “Shameful thing.”

The words sounded weak, inadequate.

“Not when a noble cause is taken up by those who can make a difference.” Dejah turned to him, serious. “You made a difference today, Virginia.”

“The name's John Carter. Virginia is where I'm
from
.”

She circled him slowly, her leash trailing behind. “How did you learn to jump that way?” Scientific curiosity gleamed in her eyes.

“Don't know.” Carter shrugged. “How'd you learn to fly?”

“Your ships cannot sail on light? In ‘Virginia'?”

“No, Professor. Our ships sail the seas.” From her blank look, he could see that she barely grasped the concept. He gestured around at the barren sands. “Water. Endless water, everywhere.”

She nodded patronizingly, then grabbed his arm and squeezed. “Skeletal structure seems normal. Perhaps the density of your bones…” She smacked his leg. “Jump for me.”

“No!”

“Enough.” Sola gave a tug on Dejah's leash. “There will be time for playfulness later.”

Dejah tugged back, defiant. “I want no playfulness from him. I want his help.” She turned back to Carter. “Explain to me how you do it—the jumping! If it's a skill, I will pay you to teach it to Helium. Name your price.”

“I'm not for hire. Got a cave of gold all my own.” Carter walked away. “Somewhere.”

He glanced at the sun's weak orb just vanishing over the horizon. The light was fading now, sand shifting from red to brown. A Thark sentry patrolled in the distance, his spidery green form dwarfed by the huge thoat beneath him.

I want to go home
, Carter realized. Suddenly nothing was more important…not even this alluring, frustrating woman who'd fallen out of the sky.

“There are no seas on this planet,” Dejah called to him. “Not anymore. Only a madman would rave about the Time of Oceans.”

He turned to look back. “That your expert view? I'm mad?”

“Or a liar.”

Sola gave a tiny Thark smirk. “She is well matched to you, Dotar Sojat.”

“Don't call me that—” He stopped, snapped his head to face Dejah. “You said ‘planet.'”

Dejah stared at him, a strange look in her eyes. Walking to the end of her leash, she knelt down, picked up a stick, and drew a single circle in the sand.

“Sun,” she said.

Then she drew a ring around it, and another. Nine circles in all, surrounding the “sun.” As Carter watched, Dejah marked a dot along each circle, beginning with the innermost.

“Rasoom,” she counted off.

“Mercury,” Carter said softly.

“Cosoom.”

“Venus. Then Earth—that's us.”

She looked up at him, a strange light of discovery in her eyes. “That is Jasoom.” Then she placed a dot in the fourth ring out from the sun.

“You are on
Barsoom
, John Carter.”

He turned away, shaking his head. The sun had set; darkness was falling swiftly. Carter cast his eyes upward…and saw not one but two bright moons shining in the night sky.

“Cluros and Thuria,” Dejah said. “The Heavenly Lovers. Paired, like the bands you wear on your finger.”

Carter fingered his wedding rings. Suddenly he felt a deep sorrow, as vast as the distance between here and…and
Jasoom
.

“I'm on Mars,” he whispered.

“So your home is Jasoom—sorry, ‘Earth.'” Dejah's tone was skeptical. “Did you come here in one of your sailing ships? Across millions of karads of empty space?”

Carter was too shell-shocked even to rise to her taunting. “No,” he said. “A medallion brought me here. The same one that now hangs around Tars Tarkas's neck.”

“A medallion…” Dejah straightened. “Ah! Well, that explains everything.”

“It does?”

“Yes. You're a Thern…and you wish to return to your rightful home. Is that it?”

“I don't know what a Thern is.”

“We can sort this out right now. Come on.”

Grabbing hold of her leash, Dejah started off away from the wreckage, toward the Thark settlement. Sola frowned, looked to Carter. He shrugged, and together they followed.

“I don't like her tone,” Sola said.

Carter had to admit: he didn't either.

“You cannot enter here,” Sola protested. “It is forbidden!” But Dejah Thoris paid her no heed. The Helium woman ran into the ruined temple, waving a torch to illuminate toppled pillars and walls made of jumbled stone.

Carter and Sola followed her into a huge, echoing chamber. An ancient statue of a goddess loomed above them, several stories high.

“
You
insisted I unleash her,” Sola said. Carter nodded, grimacing.

Dejah lifted her torch, lighting up a window made of dusty, rose-colored glass. In its intricate stone mullions shone a nine-legged pattern identical to the one on the medallion.

“Look familiar?” she asked.

Sola knelt. She raised two hands to cover her head, two to her heart.

“Sure,” Dejah sneered, “kneel before the Holy Thern.” She turned angrily to Carter. “You can cloak yourself in religion to fool savage Tharks, but not me. I see what you're doing.”

Carter shrugged, baffled.

“You waste my time with fantasies of ‘Earth' while my city lies on the verge of defeat.”

“You called me a—a Thern.” Carter pointed to the statue. “Is that what
she
is?”

“She is Issus!” Sola cried. “Her temple stands at the heart of every city on Barsoom. All worship the Goddess.”

“Not quite all,” Dejah said.

But Carter had stopped listening. He was staring up at a bas-relief, intertwined with an unknown, ancient script, running around the base of the temple ceiling. A geometric pattern wove in and out of it.

He'd seen that pattern before. In the cave, in Arizona. Back home.

“What does that say?”

“Forgotten your own scripture? How convenient.”

Carter grabbed Dejah and sprang upward, enjoying her yelp of surprise. He landed on a tottering pillar just below the bas-relief.

Dejah struggled in his grip, almost dropping her torch. “Put me down!”

“As soon as you read this to me.”

Grimacing, she handed him the torch. He held it up to the wall, and she pointed at the first in a row of images: human or near-human figures wearing medallions, standing above a vast mountain range.

“‘In the time of oceans, all Barsoom was lawlessness and chaos.'” She paused, struggling to read. “‘There came…the Therns. Holy messengers of the Goddess Issus…they took the firstborn and divided the red men from the green. To each they gave the gifts of knowledge…'” Her finger passed over a series of blurred, overlapping images of godlike Therns.

“The doubled faces,” Carter said. “What do they mean?”

“Supposedly the Therns once walked among us as guardians. Taking any form they wished…speaking directly to men, in their minds. Guiding them, protecting…”

“Like angels.”

Once again he grabbed up Dejah, then leaped to a ledge on the opposite side of the temple. Dejah glared at him and turned back to the wall. She ran her finger along an image of a long, snaking river.

“‘The Therns' final gift of knowledge,'” she read, “‘was the Way of the Goddess—'”

Carter stabbed out a finger to touch the far end of the river's image. Another medallion was depicted there within an upside-down pyramid. “There's the medallion again. What does it mean?”

“Don't rush me. ‘. . . that those who seek the solace of eternity may journey down the River…to pass through the sacred Gates of Iss and find everlasting peace in the bosom of Issus.'”

Carter followed her gaze to a carving of huge, ornate gates. “‘The Gates of Iss…' Do you think the answer is there?”

She hesitated. “Yes. I'm certain of it.” Then she cast a glance down at Sola, on the ground, and lowered her voice. “What if I could take you there?”

He frowned. “What if I don't trust you?”

“Then we'd be even.”

He smiled.

“I can lead you to the Gates,” Dejah continued. “To the answers you seek. A way back to Jasoom.”

“Earth.”

“Earth.” She looked around conspiratorially. “Assuming you can get us out of here.”