The Martian Megapack. Leigh Brackett
She looked at me intently for several minutes before she replied. It was as though she were attempting to read my inmost soul, to judge my character and my standards of chivalry in that long-drawn, searching gaze.
Apparently the inventory satisfied her.
“I am Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang, Holy Hekkador of the Holy Therns, Father of Therns, Master of Life and Death upon Barsoom, Brother of Issus, Prince of Life Eternal.”
At that moment I noticed that the black I had dropped with my fist was commencing to show signs of returning consciousness. I sprang to his side. Stripping his harness from him I securely bound his hands behind his back, and after similarly fastening his feet tied him to a heavy gun carriage.
“Why not the simpler way?” asked Phaidor.
“I do not understand. What ‘simpler way’?” I replied.
With a slight shrug of her lovely shoulders she made a gesture with her hands personating the casting of something over the craft’s side.
“I am no murderer,” I said. “I kill in self-defence only.”
She looked at me narrowly. Then she puckered those divine brows of hers, and shook her head. She could not comprehend.
Well, neither had my own Dejah Thoris been able to understand what to her had seemed a foolish and dangerous policy toward enemies. Upon Barsoom, quarter is neither asked nor given, and each dead man means so much more of the waning resources of this dying planet to be divided amongst those who survive.
But there seemed a subtle difference here between the manner in which this girl contemplated the dispatching of an enemy and the tender-hearted regret of my own princess for the stern necessity which demanded it.
I think that Phaidor regretted the thrill that the spectacle would have afforded her rather than the fact that my decision left another enemy alive to threaten us.
The man had now regained full possession of his faculties, and was regarding us intently from where he lay bound upon the deck. He was a handsome fellow, clean limbed and powerful, with an intelligent face and features of such exquisite chiselling that Adonis himself might have envied him.
The vessel, unguided, had been moving slowly across the valley; but now I thought it time to take the helm and direct her course. Only in a very general way could I guess the location of the Valley Dor. That it was far south of the equator was evident from the constellations, but I was not sufficiently a Martian astronomer to come much closer than a rough guess without the splendid charts and delicate instruments with which, as an officer in the Heliumite Navy, I had formerly reckoned the positions of the vessels on which I sailed.
That a northerly course would quickest lead me toward the more settled portions of the planet immediately decided the direction that I should steer. Beneath my hand the cruiser swung gracefully about. Then the button which controlled the repulsive rays sent us soaring far out into space. With speed lever pulled to the last notch, we raced toward the north as we rose ever farther and farther above that terrible valley of death.
As we passed at a dizzy height over the narrow domains of the therns the flash of powder far below bore mute witness to the ferocity of the battle that still raged along that cruel frontier. No sound of conflict reached our ears, for in the rarefied atmosphere of our great altitude no sound wave could penetrate; they were dissipated in thin air far below us.
It became intensely cold. Breathing was difficult. The girl, Phaidor, and the black pirate kept their eyes glued upon me. At length the girl spoke.
“Unconsciousness comes quickly at this altitude,” she said quietly. “Unless you are inviting death for us all you had best drop, and that quickly.”
There was no fear in her voice. It was as one might say: “You had better carry an umbrella. It is going to rain.”
I dropped the vessel quickly to a lower level. Nor was I a moment too soon. The girl had swooned.
The black, too, was unconscious, while I, myself, retained my senses, I think, only by sheer will. The one on whom all responsibility rests is apt to endure the most.
We were swinging along low above the foothills of the Otz. It was comparatively warm and there was plenty of air for our starved lungs, so I was not surprised to see the black open his eyes, and a moment later the girl also.
“It was a close call,” she said.
“It has taught me two things though,” I replied.
“What?”
“That even Phaidor, daughter of the Master of Life and Death, is mortal,” I said smiling.
“There is immortality only in Issus,” she replied. “And Issus is for the race of therns alone. Thus am I immortal.”
I caught a fleeting grin passing across the features of the black as he heard her words. I did not then understand why he smiled. Later I was to learn, and she, too, in a most horrible manner.
“If the other thing you have just learned,” she continued, “has led to as erroneous deductions as the first you are little richer in knowledge than you were before.”
“The other,” I replied, “is that our dusky friend here does not hail from the nearer moon—he was like to have died at a few thousand feet above Barsoom. Had we continued the five thousand miles that lie between Thuria and the planet he would have been but the frozen memory of a man.”
Phaidor looked at the black in evident astonishment.
“If you are not of Thuria, then where?” she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders and turned his eyes elsewhere, but did not reply.
The girl stamped her little foot in a peremptory manner.
“The daughter of Matai Shang is not accustomed to having her queries remain unanswered,” she said. “One of the lesser breed should feel honoured that a member of the holy race that was born to inherit life eternal should deign even to notice him.”
Again the black smiled that wicked, knowing smile.
“Xodar, Dator of the First Born of Barsoom, is accustomed to give commands, not to receive them,” replied the black pirate. Then, turning to me, “What are your intentions concerning me?”
“I intend taking you both back to Helium,” I said. “No harm will come to you. You will find the red men of Helium a kindly and magnanimous race, but if they listen to me there will be no more voluntary pilgrimages down the river Iss, and the impossible belief that they have cherished for ages will be shattered into a thousand pieces.”
“Are you of Helium?” he asked.
“I am a Prince of the House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium,” I replied, “but I am not of Barsoom. I am of another world.”
Xodar looked at me intently for a few moments.
“I can well believe that you are not of Barsoom,” he said at length. “None of this world could have bested eight of the First Born single-handed. But how is it that you wear the golden hair and the jewelled circlet of a Holy Thern?” He emphasized the word holy with a touch of irony.
“I had forgotten them,” I said. “They are the spoils of conquest,” and with a sweep of my hand I removed the disguise from my head.
When the black’s eyes fell on my close-cropped black hair they opened in astonishment. Evidently he had looked for the bald pate of a thern.
“You are indeed of another world,” he said, a touch of awe in his voice. “With the skin of a thern, the black hair of a First Born and the muscles of a dozen Dators it was no disgrace even for Xodar to acknowledge your supremacy. A thing he could never do were you a Barsoomian,” he added.
“You are travelling several laps ahead of me, my friend,” I interrupted. “I glean that your name is Xodar, but whom, pray, are the First Born,