[JohnCarterofMars]

If you missed the first two chapters, you can find them here:

http://www.theville.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2508

CHAPTER III

MY ADVENT ON MARS



I opened my eyes upon a strange and weird landscape. I knew that
I was on Mars; not once did I question either my sanity or my
wakefulness. I was not asleep, no need for pinching here; my inner
consciousness told me as plainly that I was upon Mars as your
conscious mind tells you that you are upon Earth. You do not
question the fact; neither did I.

I found myself lying prone upon a bed of yellowish, mosslike
vegetation which stretched around me in all directions for
interminable miles. I seemed to be lying in a deep, circular
basin, along the outer verge of which I could distinguish the
irregularities of low hills.

It was midday, the sun was shining full upon me and the heat of it
was rather intense upon my naked body, yet no greater than would
have been true under similar conditions on an Arizona desert. Here
and there were slight outcroppings of quartz-bearing rock which
glistened in the sunlight; and a little to my left, perhaps a
hundred yards, appeared a low, walled enclosure about four feet in
height. No water, and no other vegetation than the moss was in
evidence, and as I was somewhat thirsty I determined to do a little
exploring.

Springing to my feet I received my first Martian surprise, for
the effort, which on Earth would have brought me standing upright,
carried me into the Martian air to the height of about three yards.
I alighted softly upon the ground, however, without appreciable
shock or jar. Now commenced a series of evolutions which even then
seemed ludicrous in the extreme. I found that I must learn to walk
all over again, as the muscular exertion which carried me easily and
safely upon Earth played strange antics with me upon Mars.

Instead of progressing in a sane and dignified manner, my attempts
to walk resulted in a variety of hops which took me clear of the
ground a couple of feet at each step and landed me sprawling upon my
face or back at the end of each second or third hop. My muscles,
perfectly attuned and accustomed to the force of gravity on Earth,
played the mischief with me in attempting for the first time to cope
with the lesser gravitation and lower air pressure on Mars.

I was determined, however, to explore the low structure which was
the only evidence of habitation in sight, and so I hit upon the
unique plan of reverting to first principles in locomotion,
creeping. I did fairly well at this and in a few moments had
reached the low, encircling wall of the enclosure.

There appeared to be no doors or windows upon the side nearest me,
but as the wall was but about four feet high I cautiously gained my
feet and peered over the top upon the strangest sight it had ever
been given me to see.

The roof of the enclosure was of solid glass about four or five
inches in thickness, and beneath this were several hundred large
eggs, perfectly round and snowy white. The eggs were nearly uniform
in size being about two and one-half feet in diameter.

Five or six had already hatched and the grotesque caricatures which
sat blinking in the sunlight were enough to cause me to doubt my
sanity. They seemed mostly head, with little scrawny bodies, long
necks and six legs, or, as I afterward learned, two legs and two
arms, with an intermediary pair of limbs which could be used at will
either as arms or legs. Their eyes were set at the extreme sides of
their heads a trifle above the center and protruded in such a manner
that they could be directed either forward or back and also
independently of each other, thus permitting this queer animal to
look in any direction, or in two directions at once, without the
necessity of turning the head.

The ears, which were slightly above the eyes and closer together,
were small, cup-shaped antennae, protruding not more than an inch on
these young specimens. Their noses were but longitudinal slits in
the center of their faces, midway between their mouths and ears.

There was no hair on their bodies, which were of a very light
yellowish-green color. In the adults, as I was to learn quite soon,
this color deepens to an olive green and is darker in the male than
in the female. Further, the heads of the adults are not so out of
proportion to their bodies as in the case of the young.

The iris of the eyes is blood red, as in Albinos, while the pupil
is dark. The eyeball itself is very white, as are the teeth.
These latter add a most ferocious appearance to an otherwise
fearsome and terrible countenance, as the lower tusks curve upward
to sharp points which end about where the eyes of earthly human
beings are located. The whiteness of the teeth is not that of
ivory, but of the snowiest and most gleaming of china. Against
the dark background of their olive skins their tusks stand out in
a most striking manner, making these weapons present a singularly
formidable appearance.

Most of these details I noted later, for I was given but little time
to speculate on the wonders of my new discovery. I had seen that
the eggs were in the process of hatching, and as I stood watching
the hideous little monsters break from their shells I failed to note
the approach of a score of full-grown Martians from behind me.

Coming, as they did, over the soft and soundless moss, which covers
practically the entire surface of Mars with the exception of the
frozen areas at the poles and the scattered cultivated districts,
they might have captured me easily, but their intentions were far
more sinister. It was the rattling of the accouterments of the
foremost warrior which warned me.

On such a little thing my life hung that I often marvel that I
escaped so easily. Had not the rifle of the leader of the party
swung from its fastenings beside his saddle in such a way as to
strike against the butt of his great metal-shod spear I should have
snuffed out without ever knowing that death was near me. But the
little sound caused me to turn, and there upon me, not ten feet
from my breast, was the point of that huge spear, a spear forty
feet long, tipped with gleaming metal, and held low at the side
of a mounted replica of the little devils I had been watching.

But how puny and harmless they now looked beside this huge and
terrific incarnation of hate, of vengeance and of death. The man
himself, for such I may call him, was fully fifteen feet in height
and, on Earth, would have weighed some four hundred pounds. He sat
his mount as we sit a horse, grasping the animal's barrel with his
lower limbs, while the hands of his two right arms held his immense
spear low at the side of his mount; his two left arms were
outstretched laterally to help preserve his balance, the thing he
rode having neither bridle or reins of any description for guidance.

And his mount! How can earthly words describe it! It towered ten
feet at the shoulder; had four legs on either side; a broad flat
tail, larger at the tip than at the root, and which it held straight
out behind while running; a gaping mouth which split its head from
its snout to its long, massive neck.

Like its master, it was entirely devoid of hair, but was of a dark
slate color and exceeding smooth and glossy. Its belly was white,
and its legs shaded from the slate of its shoulders and hips to a
vivid yellow at the feet. The feet themselves were heavily padded
and nailless, which fact had also contributed to the noiselessness
of their approach, and, in common with a multiplicity of legs, is a
characteristic feature of the fauna of Mars. The highest type of
man and one other animal, the only mammal existing on Mars, alone
have well-formed nails, and there are absolutely no hoofed animals
in existence there.

Behind this first charging demon trailed nineteen others, similar
in all respects, but, as I learned later, bearing individual
characteristics peculiar to themselves; precisely as no two of us
are identical although we are all cast in a similar mold. This
picture, or rather materialized nightmare, which I have described at
length, made but one terrible and swift impression on me as I turned
to meet it.

Unarmed and naked as I was, the first law of nature manifested
itself in the only possible solution of my immediate problem, and
that was to get out of the vicinity of the point of the charging
spear. Consequently I gave a very earthly and at the same time
superhuman leap to reach the top of the Martian incubator, for
such I had determined it must be.

My effort was crowned with a success which appalled me no less than
it seemed to surprise the Martian warriors, for it carried me fully
thirty feet into the air and landed me a hundred feet from my
pursuers and on the opposite side of the enclosure.

I alighted upon the soft moss easily and without mishap, and turning
saw my enemies lined up along the further wall. Some were surveying
me with expressions which I afterward discovered marked extreme
astonishment, and the others were evidently satisfying themselves
that I had not molested their young.

They were conversing together in low tones, and gesticulating and
pointing toward me. Their discovery that I had not harmed the
little Martians, and that I was unarmed, must have caused them to
look upon me with less ferocity; but, as I was to learn later, the
thing which weighed most in my favor was my exhibition of hurdling.

While the Martians are immense, their bones are very large and they
are muscled only in proportion to the gravitation which they must
overcome. The result is that they are infinitely less agile and
less powerful, in proportion to their weight, than an Earth man, and
I doubt that were one of them suddenly to be transported to Earth he
could lift his own weight from the ground; in fact, I am convinced
that he could not do so.

My feat then was as marvelous upon Mars as it would have been upon
Earth, and from desiring to annihilate me they suddenly looked upon
me as a wonderful discovery to be captured and exhibited among their
fellows.

The respite my unexpected agility had given me permitted me to
formulate plans for the immediate future and to note more closely
the appearance of the warriors, for I could not disassociate these
people in my mind from those other warriors who, only the day
before, had been pursuing me.

I noted that each was armed with several other weapons in addition
to the huge spear which I have described. The weapon which caused
me to decide against an attempt at escape by flight was what was
evidently a rifle of some description, and which I felt, for some
reason, they were peculiarly efficient in handling.

These rifles were of a white metal stocked with wood, which I
learned later was a very light and intensely hard growth much prized
on Mars, and entirely unknown to us denizens of Earth. The metal of
the barrel is an alloy composed principally of aluminum and steel
which they have learned to temper to a hardness far exceeding that
of the steel with which we are familiar. The weight of these rifles
is comparatively little, and with the small caliber, explosive,
radium projectiles which they use, and the great length of the
barrel, they are deadly in the extreme and at ranges which would be
unthinkable on Earth. The theoretic effective radius of this rifle
is three hundred miles, but the best they can do in actual service
when equipped with their wireless finders and sighters is but a
trifle over two hundred miles.

This is quite far enough to imbue me with great respect for the
Martian firearm, and some telepathic force must have warned me
against an attempt to escape in broad daylight from under the
muzzles of twenty of these death-dealing machines.

The Martians, after conversing for a short time, turned and rode
away in the direction from which they had come, leaving one of their
number alone by the enclosure. When they had covered perhaps two
hundred yards they halted, and turning their mounts toward us sat
watching the warrior by the enclosure.

He was the one whose spear had so nearly transfixed me, and was
evidently the leader of the band, as I had noted that they seemed
to have moved to their present position at his direction. When
his force had come to a halt he dismounted, threw down his spear
and small arms, and came around the end of the incubator toward
me, entirely unarmed and as naked as I, except for the ornaments
strapped upon his head, limbs, and breast.

When he was within about fifty feet of me he unclasped an enormous
metal armlet, and holding it toward me in the open palm of his hand,
addressed me in a clear, resonant voice, but in a language, it is
needless to say, I could not understand. He then stopped as though
waiting for my reply, pricking up his antennae-like ears and cocking
his strange-looking eyes still further toward me.

As the silence became painful I concluded to hazard a little
conversation on my own part, as I had guessed that he was making
overtures of peace. The throwing down of his weapons and the
withdrawing of his troop before his advance toward me would have
signified a peaceful mission anywhere on Earth, so why not, then,
on Mars!

Placing my hand over my heart I bowed low to the Martian and
explained to him that while I did not understand his language, his
actions spoke for the peace and friendship that at the present
moment were most dear to my heart. Of course I might have been a
babbling brook for all the intelligence my speech carried to him,
but he understood the action with which I immediately followed my
words.

Stretching my hand toward him, I advanced and took the armlet from
his open palm, clasping it about my arm above the elbow; smiled at
him and stood waiting. His wide mouth spread into an answering
smile, and locking one of his intermediary arms in mine we turned
and walked back toward his mount. At the same time he motioned his
followers to advance. They started toward us on a wild run, but
were checked by a signal from him. Evidently he feared that were
I to be really frightened again I might jump entirely out of the
landscape.

He exchanged a few words with his men, motioned to me that I would
ride behind one of them, and then mounted his own animal. The
fellow designated reached down two or three hands and lifted me up
behind him on the glossy back of his mount, where I hung on as best
I could by the belts and straps which held the Martian's weapons and
ornaments.

The entire cavalcade then turned and galloped away toward the range
of hills in the distance.
_________________
JohnCarter, Warlord of Mars