The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
B >>
Burroughs >> The Chessmen of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20
Tara of Helium saw her last chance fading into oblivion. There
would never be another after today. She cast about for some
pretext to lure him even a little nearer to the hills.
"It is very little that I ask," she said. "Tonight you will want
me to sing to you. It will be the last time, if you do not let me
go and see what those kaldanes are doing I shall never sing to
you again."
Ghek hesitated. "I will hold you by the arm all the time, then,"
he said.
"Why, of course, if you wish," she assented. "Come!"
The two moved toward the workers and the hills. The little party
was digging tubers from the ground. She had noted this and that
nearly always they were stooped low over their work, the hideous
eyes bent upon the upturned soil. She led Ghek quite close to
them, pretending that she wished to see exactly how they did the
work, and all the time he held her tightly by her left wrist.
"It is very interesting," she said, with a sigh, and then,
suddenly; "Look, Ghek!" and pointed quickly back in the direction
of the tower. The kaldane, still holding her turned half away
from her to look in the direction she had indicated and
simultaneously, with the quickness of a banth, she struck him
with her right fist, backed by every ounce of strength she
possessed--struck the back of the pulpy head just above the
collar. The blow was sufficient to accomplish her design,
dislodging the kaldane from its rykor and tumbling it to the
ground. Instantly the grasp upon her wrist relaxed as the body,
no longer controlled by the brain of Ghek, stumbled aimlessly
about for an instant before it sank to its knees and then rolled
over on its back; but Tara of Helium waited not to note the full
results of her act. The instant the fingers loosened upon her
wrist she broke away and dashed toward the hills. Simultaneously
a warning whistle broke from Ghek's lips and in instant response
the workers leaped to their feet, one almost in the girl's path.
She dodged the outstretched arms and was away again toward the
hills and freedom, when her foot caught in one of the hoe-like
instruments with which the soil had been upturned and which had
been left, half imbedded in the ground. For an instant she ran
on, stumbling, in a mad effort to regain her equilibrium, but the
upturned furrows caught her feet--again she stumbled and this
time went down, and as she scrambled to rise again a heavy body
fell upon her and seized her arms. A moment later she was
surrounded and dragged to her feet and as she looked around she
saw Ghek crawling to his prostrate rykor. A moment later he
advanced to her side.
The hideous face, incapable of registering emotion, gave no clue
to what was passing in the enormous brain. Was he nursing
thoughts of anger, of hate, of revenge? Tara of Helium could not
guess, nor did she care. The worst had happened. She had tried to
escape and she had failed. There would never be another
opportunity.
"Come!" said Ghek. "We will return to the tower." The deadly
monotone of his voice was unbroken. It was worse than anger, for
it revealed nothing of his intentions. It but increased her
horror of these great brains that were beyond the possibility of
human emotions.
And so she was dragged back to her prison in the tower and Ghek
took up his vigil again, squatting by the doorway, but now he
carried a naked sword in his hand and did not quit his rykor,
only to change to another that be had brought to him when the
first gave indications of weariness. The girl sat looking at him.
He had not been unkind to her, but she felt no sense of
gratitude, nor, on the other hand, any sense of hatred. The
brains, incapable themselves of any of the finer sentiments,
awoke none in her. She could not feel gratitude, or affection, or
hatred of them. There was only the same unceasing sense of horror
in their presence. She had heard great scientists discuss the
future of the red race and she recalled that some had maintained
that eventually the brain would entirely dominate the man. There
would be no more instinctive acts or emotions, nothing would be
done on impulse; but on the contrary reason would direct our
every act. The propounder of the theory regretted that he might
never enjoy the blessings of such a state, which, he argued,
would result in the ideal life for mankind.
Tara of Helium wished with all her heart that this learned
scientist might be here to experience to the full the practical
results of the fulfillment of his prophecy. Between the purely
physical rykor and the purely mental kaldane there was little
choice; but in the happy medium of normal, and imperfect man, as
she knew him, lay the most desirable state of existence. It would
have been a splendid object lesson, she thought, to all those
idealists who seek mass perfection in any phase of human
endeavor, since here they might discover the truth that absolute
perfection is as little to be desired as is its antithesis.
Gloomy were the thoughts that filled the mind of Tara of Helium
as she awaited the summons from Luud--the summons that could mean
for her but one thing; death. She guessed why he had sent for her
and she knew that she must find the means for self-destruction
before the night was over; but still she clung to hope and to
life. She would not give up until there was no other way. She
startled Ghek once by exclaiming aloud, almost fiercely: "I still
live!"
"What do you mean?" asked the kaldane.
"I mean just what I say," she replied. "I still live and while I
live I may still find a way. Dead, there is no hope."
"Find a way to what?" he asked.
"To life and liberty and mine own people," she responded.
"None who enters Bantoom ever leaves," he droned.
She did not reply and after a time he spoke again. "Sing to me,"
he said.
It was while she was singing that four warriors came to take her
to Luud. They told Ghek that he was to remain where he was.
"Why?" asked Ghek.
"You have displeased Luud," replied one of the warriors.
"How?" demanded Ghek.
"You have demonstrated a lack of uncontaminated reasoning power.
You have permitted sentiment to influence you, thus demonstrating
that you are a defective. You know the fate of defectives."
"I know the fate of defectives, but I am no defective," insisted
Ghek.
"You permitted the strange noises which issue from her throat to
please and soothe you, knowing well that their origin and purpose
had nothing whatever to do with logic or the powers of reason.
This in itself constitutes an unimpeachable indictment of
weakness, Then, influenced doubtless by an illogical feeling of
sentiment, you permitted her to walk abroad in the fields to a
place where she was able to make an almost successful attmept to
escape. Your own reasoning power, were it not defective, would
convince you that you are unfit. The natural, and reasonable,
consequence is destruction. Therefore you will be destroyed in
such a way that the example will be beneficial to all other
kaldanes of the swarm of Luud. In the meantime you will remain
where you are."
"You are right," said Ghek. "I will remain here until Luud sees
fit to destroy me in the most reasonable manner."
Tara of Helium shot a look of amazement at him as they led her
from the chamber. Over her shoulder she called back to him:
"Remember, Ghek, you still live!" Then they led her along the
interminable tunnels to where Luud awaited her.
When she was conducted into his presence he was squatting in a
corner of the chamber upon his six spidery legs. Near the
opposite wall lay his rykor, its beautiful form trapped in
gorgeous harness--a dead thing without a guiding kaldane. Luud
dismissed the warriors who had accompanied the prisoner. Then he
sat with his terrible eyes fixed upon her and without speaking
for some time. Tara of Helium could but wait. What was to come
she could only guess. When it came would be sufficiently the time
to meet it. There was no neccessity for anticipating the end.
Presently Luud spoke.
"You think to escape," he said, in the deadly, expressionless
monotone of his kind--the only possible result of orally
expressing reason uninfluenced by sentiment. "You will not
escape. You are merely the embodiment of two imperfect things--an
imperfect brain and an imperfect body. The two cannot exist
together in perfection. There you see a perfect body." He pointed
toward the rykor. "It has no brain. Here," and he raised one of
his chelae to his head, "is the perfect brain. It needs no body
to function perfectly and properly as a brain. You would pit your
feeble intellect against mine! Even now you are planning to slay
me. If you are thwarted in that you expect to slay yourself. You
will learn the power of mind over matter. I am the mind. You are
the matter. What brain you have is too weak and ill-developed to
deserve the name of brain. You have permitted it to be weakened
by impulsive acts dictated by sentiment. It has no value. It has
practically no control over your existence. You will not kill me.
You will not kill yourself. When I am through with you you shall
be killed if it seems the logical thing to do. You have no
conception of the possibilities for power which lie in a
perfectly developed brain. Look at that rykor. He has no brain.
He can move but slightly of his own volition. An inherent
mechanical instinct that we have permitted to remain in him
allows him to carry food to his mouth; but he could not find food
for himself. We have to place it within his reach and always in
the same place. Should we put food at his feet and leave him
alone he would starve to death. But now watch what a real brain
may accomplish."
He turned his eyes upon the rykor and squatted there glaring at
the insensate thing. Presently, to the girl's horror, the
headless body moved. It rose slowly to its feet and crossed the
room to Luud; it stooped and took the hideous head in its hands;
it raised the head and set it on its shoulders.
"What chance have you against such power?" asked Luud. "As I did
with the rykor so can I do with you."
Tara of Helium made no reply. Evidently no vocal reply was
necessary.
"You doubt my ability!" stated Luud, which was precisely the
fact, though the girl had only thought it--she had not said it.
Luud crossed the room and lay down. Then he detached himself from
the body and crawled across the floor until he stood directly in
front of the circular opening through which she had seen him
emerge the day that she had first been brought to his presence.
He stopped there and fastened his terrible eyes upon her. He did
not speak, but his eyes seemed to be boring straight to the
center of her brain. She felt an almost irresistible force urging
her toward the kaldane. She fought to resist it; she tried to
turn away her eyes, but she could not. They were held as in
horrid fascination upon the glittering, lidless orbs of the great
brain that faced her. Slowly, every step a painful struggle of
resistance, she moved toward the horrific monster. She tried to
cry aloud in an effort to awaken her numbing faculties, but no
sound passed her lips. If those eyes would but turn away, just
for an instant, she felt that she might regain the power to
control her steps; but the eyes never left hers. They seemed but
to burn deeper and deeper, gathering up every vestige of control
of her entire nervous system.
As she approached the thing it backed slowly away upon its spider
legs. She noticed that its chelae waved slowly to and fro before
it as it backed, backed, backed, through the round aperture in
the wall. Must she follow it there, too? What new and nameless
horror lay concealed in that hidden chamber? No! she would not do
it. Yet before she reached the wall she found herself down and
crawling upon her hands and knees straight toward the hole from
which the two eyes still clung to hers. At the very threshold of
the opening she made a last, heroic stand, battling against the
force that drew her on; but in the end she succumbed. With a gasp
that ended in a sob Tara of Helium passed through the aperture
into the chamber beyond.
The opening was but barely large enough to admit her. Upon the
opposite side she found herself in a small chamber. Before her
squatted Luud. Against the opposite wall lay a large and
beautiful male rykor. He was without harness or other trappings.
"You see now," said Luud, "the futility of revolt."
The words seemed to release her momentarily from the spell.
Quickly she turned away her eyes.
"Look at me!" commanded Luud.
Tara of Helium kept her eyes averted. She felt a new strength, or
at least a diminution of the creature's power over her. Had she
stumbled upon the secret of its uncanny domination over her will?
She dared not hope. With eyes averted she turned toward the
aperture through which those baleful eyes had drawn her. Again
Luud commanded her to stop, but the voice alone lacked all
authority to influence her. It was not like the eyes. She heard
the creature whistle and knew that it was summoning assistance,
but because she did not dare look toward it she did not see it
turn and concentrate its gaze upon the great, headless body lying
by the further wall.
The girl was still slightly under the spell of the creature's
influence--she had not regained full and independent domination
of her powers. She moved as one in the throes of some hideous
nightmare--slowly, painfully, as though each limb was hampered by
a great weight, or as she were dragging her body through a
viscous fluid. The aperture was close, ah, so close, yet,
struggle as she would, she seemed to be making no appreciable
progress toward it.
Behind her, urged on by the malevolent power of the great brain,
the headless body crawled upon all-fours toward her. At last she
had reached the aperture. Something seemed to tell her that once
beyond it the domination of the kaldane would be broken. She was
almost through into the adjoining chamber when she felt a heavy
hand close upon her ankle. The rykor had reached forth and seized
her, and though she struggled the thing dragged her back into the
room with Luud. It held her tight and drew her close, and then,
to her horror, it commenced to caress her.
"You see now," she heard Luud's dull voice, "the futility of
revolt--and its punishment."
Tara of Helium fought to defend herself, but pitifully weak were
her muscles against this brainless incarnation of brute power.
Yet she fought, fought on in the face of hopeless odds for the
honor of the proud name she bore--fought alone, she whom the
fighting men of a mighty empire, the flower of Martian chivalry,
would gladly have lain down their lives to save.
CHAPTER VII
A REPELLENT SIGHT
THE cruiser Vanator careened through the tempest That she had not
been dashed to the ground, or twisted by the force of the
elements into tangled wreckage, was due entirely to the caprice
of Nature. For all the duration of the storm she rode, a helpless
derelict, upon those storm-tossed waves of wind. But for all the
dangers and vicissitudes they underwent, she and her crew might
have borne charmed lives up to within an hour of the abating of
the hurricane. It was then that the catastrophe occurred--a
catastrophe indeed to the crew of the Vanator and the kingdom of
Gathol.
The men had been without food or drink since leaving Helium, and
they had been hurled about and buffeted in their lashings until
all were worn to exhaustion. There was a brief lull in the storm
during which one of the crew attempted to reach his quarters,
after releasing the lashings which had held him to the precarious
safety of the deck. The act in itself was a direct violation of
orders and, in the eyes of the other members of the crew, the
effect, which came with startling suddenness, took the form of a
swift and terrible retribution. Scarce had the man released the
safety snaps ere a swift arm of the storm-monster encircled the
ship, rolling it over and over, with the result that the
foolhardy warrior went overboard at the first turn.
Unloosed from their lashing by the constant turning and twisting
of the ship and the force of the wind, the boarding and landing
tackle had been trailing beneath the keel, a tangled mass of
cordage and leather. Upon the occasions that the Vanator rolled
completely over, these things would be wrapped around her until
another revolution in the opposite direction, or the wind itself,
carried them once again clear of the deck to trail, whipping in
the storm, beneath the hurtling ship.
Into this fell the body of the warrior, and as a drowning man
clutches at a straw so the fellow clutched at the tangled cordage
that caught him and arrested his fall. With the strength of
desperation he clung to the cordage, seeking frantically to
entangle his legs and body in it. With each jerk of the ship his
hand holds were all but torn loose, and though he knew that
eventually they would be and that he must be dashed to the ground
beneath, yet he fought with the madness that is born of
hopelessness for the pitiful second which but prolonged his
agony.
It was upon this sight then that Gahan of Gathol looked, over the
edge of the careening deck of the Vanator, as he sought to learn
the fate of his warrior. Lashed to the gunwale close at hand a
single landing leather that had not fouled the tangled mass
beneath whipped free from the ship's side, the hook snapping at
its outer end. The Jed of Gathol grasped the situation in a
single glance. Below him one of his people looked into the eyes
of Death. To the jed's hand lay the means for succor.
There was no instant's hesitation. Casting off his deck lashings,
he seized the landing leather and slipped over the ship's side.
Swinging like a bob upon a mad pendulum he swung far out and back
again, turning and twisting three thousand feet above the surface
of Barsoom, and then, at last, the thing he had hoped for
occurred. He was carried within reach of the cordage where the
warrior still clung, though with rapidly diminishing strength.
Catching one leg on a loop of the tangled strands Gahan pulled
himself close enough to seize another quite near to the fellow.
Clinging precariously to this new hold the jed slowly drew in the
landing leather, down which he had clambered until he could grasp
the hook at its end. This he fastened to a ring in the warrior's
harness, just before the man's weakened fingers slipped from
their hold upon the cordage.
Temporarily, at least, he had saved the life of his subject,
and now he turned his attention toward insuring his own safety.
Inextricably entangled in the mess to which he was clinging were
numerous other landing hooks such as he had attached to the
warrior's harness, and with one of these he sought to secure
himself until the storm should abate sufficiently to permit him
to climb to the deck, but even as he reached for one that swung
near him the ship was caught in a renewed burst of the storm's
fury, the thrashing cordage whipped and snapped to the lunging of
the great craft and one of the heavy metal hooks, lashing through
the air, struck the Jed of Gathol fair between the eyes.
Momentarily stunned, Gahan's fingers slipped from their hold upon
the cordage and the man shot downward through the thin air of
dying Mars toward the ground three thousand feet beneath, while
upon the deck of the rolling Vanator his faithful warriors clung
to their lashings all unconscious of the fate of their beloved
leader; nor was it until more than an hour later, after the storm
had materially subsided, that they realized he was lost, or knew
the self-sacrificing heroism of the act that had sealed his doom.
The Vanator now rested upon an even keel as she was carried along
by a strong, though steady, wind. The warriors had cast off their
deck lashings and the officers were taking account of losses and
damage when a weak cry was heard from oversides, attracting their
attention to the man hanging in the cordage beneath the keel.
Strongs arms hoisted him to the deck and then it was that the
crew of the Vanator learned of the heroism of their jed and his
end. How far they had traveled since his loss they could only
vaguely guess, nor could they return in search of him in the
disabled condition of the ship. It was a saddened company that
drifted onward through the air toward whatever destination Fate
was to choose for them.
And Gahan, Jed of Gathol--what of him? Plummet-like he fell for a
thousand feet and then the storm seized him in its giant clutch
and bore him far aloft again. As a bit of paper borne upon a gale
he was tossed about in mid-air, the sport and plaything of the
wind. Over and over it turned him and upward and downward it
carried him, but after each new sally of the element he was
brought nearer to the ground. The freaks of cyclonic storms are
the rule of cyclonic storms, demolish giant trees, and in the
same gust they transport frail infants for miles and deposit them
unharmed in their wake.
And so it was with Gahan of Gathol. Expecting momentarily to be
dashed to destruction he presently found himself deposited gently
upon the soft, ochre moss of a dead sea-bottom, bodily no worse
off for his harrowing adventure than in the possession of a
slight swelling upon his forehead where the metal hook had struck
him. Scarcely able to believe that Fate had dealt thus gently
with him, the jed arose slowly, as though more than half
convinced that he should discover crushed and splintered bones
that would not support his weight. But he was intact. He looked
about him in a vain effort at orientation. The air was filled
with flying dust and debris. The Sun was obliterated. His vision
was confined to a radius of a few hundred yards of ochre moss and
dust-filled air. Five hundred yards away in any direction there
might have arisen the walls of a great city and he not known it.
It was useless to move from where he was until the air cleared,
since he could not know in what direction he was moving, and so
he stretched himself upon the moss and waited, pondering the fate
of his warriors and his ship, but giving little thought to his
own precarious situation.
Lashed to his harness were his swords, his pistols, and a dagger,
and in his pocket-pouch a small quantity of the concentrated
rations that form a part of the equipment of the fighting men of
Barsoom. These things together with trained muscles, high
courage, and an undaunted spirit sufficed him for whatever
misadventures might lie between him and Gathol, which lay in what
direction he knew not, nor at what distance.
The wind was falling rapidly and with it the dust that obscured
the landscape. That the storm was over he was convinced, but he
chafed at the inactivity the low visibility put upon him, nor did
conditions better materially before night fell, so that he was
forced to await the new day at the very spot at which the tempest
had deposited him. Without his sleeping silks and furs he spent a
far from comfortable night, and it was with feelings of unmixed
relief that he saw the sudden dawn burst upon him. The air was
now clear and in the light of the new day he saw an undulating
plain stretching in all directions about him, while to the
northwest there were barely discernible the outlines of low
hills. Toward the southeast of Gathol was such a country, and as
Gahan surmised the direction and the velocity of the storm to
have carried him somewhere in the vicinity of the country he
thought he recognized, he assumed that Gathol lay behind the
hills he now saw, whereas, in reality, it lay far to the
northeast.
It was two days before Gahan had crossed the plain and reached
the summit of the hills from which he hoped to see his own
country, only to meet at last with disappointment. Before him
stretched another plain, of even greater proportions than that he
had but just crossed, and beyond this other hills. In one
material respect this plain differed from that behind him in that
it was dotted with occasional isolated hills. Convinced, however,
that Gathol lay somewhere in the direction of his search he
descended into the valley and bent his steps toward the
northwest.
For weeks Gahan of Gathol crossed valleys and hills in search of
some familiar landmark that might point his way toward his native
land, but the summit of each succeeding ridge revealed but
another unfamiliar view. He saw few animals and no men, until he
finally came to the belief that he had fallen upon that fabled
area of ancient Barsoom which lay under the curse of her olden
gods--the once rich and fertile country whose people in their
pride and arrogance had denied the deities, and whose punishment
had been extermination.
And then, one day, he scaled low hills and looked into an
inhabited valley--a valley of trees and cultivated fields and
plots of ground enclosed by stone walls surrounding strange
towers. He saw people working in the fields, but he did not rush
down to greet them. First he must know more of them and whether
they might be assumed to be friends or enemies. Hidden by
concealing shrubbery he crawled to a vantage point upon a hill
that projected further into the valley,
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20