13 - The Gods of Mars - A Break for Liberty

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Gods of Mars, Chapter thirteen, A Break for Liberty.
Zodar listened in incredulous astonishment to my narration of the
events which had transpired within the arena at the rights
of Issus. He could scarce conceive, even though he had
already professed his doubt as to the deity of Issus,

(00:23):
that one could threaten her with a sword in hand
and not be blasted into a thousand fragments by the
mere fury of her divine wrath. It is the final proof,
he said, at last, nor Maw is needed to completely
shatter the last remnant of my superstitious belief in the
divinity of Issus. She is only a wicked old woman

(00:44):
wielding a mighty power for evil through machinations that have
kept her own people and all Barsoom in religious ignorance
for ages. She is still all powerful here, however, I replied,
so it behooves us to leave at the first moment
that appears at all propitious. I hope that you may

(01:05):
find a propitious moment, he said, with a laugh, for
it is certain that in all my life I have
never seen one in which a prisoner of the first
borne might escape to night will do as well as any,
I replied. It will soon be night, said Zodar, How
may I aid in the adventure? Can you swim? I

(01:25):
asked him. No, Slamy Sillion that haunts the depths of
Chorus is more at home in the water than is Zodar.
He replied, good, the Red One, in all probability, cannot swim,
I said, since there is scarce enough water in all
their domains to float the tiniest craft. One of us
therefore will have to support him through the sea to

(01:47):
the craft we select. I had hoped that we might
make the entire distance below the surface, but I fear
that the Red youth could not thus perform the trip.
Even the bravest of the brave among them are terrorized
at the mere thought of deep water, for it has
been ages since their forebears saw a lake, a river,
or a sea. The Red One is to accompany us,

(02:10):
asked Zodar. Yes, it is well. Three swords are better
than two, especially when the third is as mighty as
this fellows. I have seen him battle in the arena
at the rights of Issus many times. Never until I
saw you fight had I seen one who seemed unconquerable,
even in the face of great odds. One might think

(02:32):
you to master and pupil, or father and son. Come
to recall his face. There is a resemblance between you.
It is very marked. When you fight, there is the
same grim smile, the same maddening contempt for your adversary,
apparent in every movement of your bodies and in every
changing expression of your faces. Be that as it may, Zodar,

(02:53):
he is a great fighter. I think that we will
make a trio difficult to overcome. And if my friend
Tars Tarkas Jeddak of Thark were but one of us,
we could fight our way from one end of Barsoom
to the other, even though the whole world were pitted
against us. It will be said Zodar, when they find

(03:14):
from whence you have come. That is but one of
the superstitions which Issus has foisted upon a credulous humanity.
She walks through the holy Therns, who are as ignorant
of her real self as are the Barsoomians of the
outer world. Her decrees are born to the Thurns, written
in blood upon a strange parchment. The poor, deluded fools

(03:35):
think that they are receiving the revelations of a goddess
through some supernatural agency. Since they find these messages upon
their guarded altars, to which none could have access without detection,
I myself have borne these messages for Issus for many years.
There is a long tunnel from the Temple of Isis
to the principal temple of Mataishng. It was dug ages

(03:58):
ago by the slaves of the First Born, in such
utter secrecy that no thern ever guessed its existence. The Thens,
for their part, have temples darted about the entire civilized world. Here,
priests whom the people never see, communicate the doctrine of
the mysterious River iss the valley door the lost Sea

(04:18):
of Chorus, to persuade the poor, deluded creatures to take
the voluntary pilgrimage that swells the wealth of the holy
Thens and adds to the numbers of their slaves. Thus,
the Thens are used as the principal means for collecting
the wealth and labor that the First Bond wrest from
them as they need it. Occasionally, the first Born themselves

(04:39):
make rains upon the outer world. It is then that
they capture many females of the royal houses of the
red men, and take the newest in battleships and trained
artisans who build them, that they may copy what they
cannot create. We are a non productive race, priding ourselves
upon our non productiveness. It is criminal for our first

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born to labor or invent. That is the work of
the lower orders, who live merely that the first born
may enjoy long lives of luxury and idleness. With us.
Fighting is all that counts. Were it not for that,
there would be more of the first born than all
the creatures of Barsoom could support. For in so far

(05:22):
as I know, none of us ever dies a natural death.
Our females will live forever but for the fact that
we tire of them and remove them to make place
for others. Us alone, of all, is protected against death.
She has lived for countless ages. Would not the other
Barsoomians live forever but for the doctrine of the voluntary

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pilgrimage which drags them to the bosom of iss at
Or before their thousandth year. I asked him, I feel
now that there is no doubt but that they are
precisely the same species of creature as the first born,
And I hope that I shall live to fight for
them in atonement of the sins I have committed against
them through the ignorance born of generations of false teaching.

(06:09):
As he ceased speaking, a weird call rang out across
the waters of Omean. I had heard it at the
same time the previous evening, and knew that it marked
the ending of the day. When the men of Omean
spread their silks upon the deck of battleship and cruiser
and falled into the dreamless sleep of Mars, our guard
entered to inspect us for the last time before the

(06:30):
new day broke upon the world above. His duty was
soon performed, and the heavy door of our prison closed
behind him. We were alone for the night. I gave
him time to return to his quarters, as Zodar said
he probably would do. Then I sprang to the grated
window and surveyed the nearby waters. At a little distance

(06:52):
from the island, a quarter of a mile perhaps lay
a monster battleship, while between her and the shore were
a number of small cruisers and one man scouts. Upon
the battleship alone was there a watch. I could see
him plainly in the upper works of the ship, and
As I watched, I saw him spread his sleeping silks

(07:13):
upon the tiny platform in which he was stationed. Soon
he threw himself at full length upon his couch. The
discipline on Omean was lax, indeed, but it is not
to be wondered at. Since no enemy guessed the existence
upon Barsoom of such a fleet, or even of the
First Born, or the sea of Omean, why indeed should

(07:36):
they maintain a watch. Presently I dropped to the floor
again and talked with Zodar, describing the various craft I
had seen. There is one there, he said, my personal
property bill to carry five men. That is the swiftest
of the swift. If we can border, we can at
least make a memorable run for liberty. And then he

(07:59):
went on to ascribed to me the equipment of the boat,
her engines, and all that went to make her the
flier that she was. In his explanation, I recognized a
trick of gearing that kantos Kan had taught me that
time we sailed under false names in the navy of
Zodanga beneath sab than the Prince, and I knew then

(08:20):
that the First Born had stolen it from the ships
of Helium, for only they are thus geared. And I
knew too that Zodar spoke the truth when he lauded
the speed of his little craft, for nothing that cleaves
the thin air of Mars can approximate the speed of
the ships of Helium. We decided to wait for an
hour at least until all the strangers had sought their silks.

(08:44):
In the meantime, I was to fetch the Red Youth
to our cell, so that we could be in readiness
to make our rash break for freedom. Together. I sprang
to the top of our partition wall and pulled myself
up on to it. There I found a flat surface
about a foot in whids and along this I walked
until I came to the cell, in which I saw

(09:04):
the boy sitting upon his bench. He had been leaning
back against the wall, looking up at the glowing dome
above Omean, and when he spied me balancing upon the
partition wall above him, his eyes opened wide in astonishment.
Then a wide grin of appreciative understanding spread across his countenance.

(09:25):
As I stooped to drop to the floor beside him,
he motioned me to wait, and, coming close below me, whispered,
catch my hand. I can almost leap to the top
of that wall myself. I have tried it many times,
and each day I come a little closer. Some day
I should have been able to make it. I lay
upon my belly across the wall and reached my hand

(09:47):
far down toward him. With a little run from the
center of the cell. He sprang up until I grasped
his outstretched hand, and thus I pulled him to the
wall's top beside me. You were the first jump I
ever saw among the red men of Barsoom, I said,
He smiled. It is not strange. I will tell you

(10:08):
why when we have more time together. We returned to
the cell in which Zodar sat, descending to talk with
him until the hour had passed. There we made our
plans for the immediate future, binding ourselves by a solemn
oath to fight to the death for one another against
whatsoever enemy should confront us. For we knew that even

(10:31):
should we succeed in escaping the first Born, we might
still have a whole world against us. The power of
religious superstition is mighty. It was agreed that I should
navigate the craft after we had reached her, and that
if we made the outer world in safety, we should
attempt to reach Helium without a stop. Why Helium, asked

(10:52):
the red youth. I am a prince of Helium, I replied.
He gave me a peculiar look, but said nothing further
on the subject. I wondered at the time what the
significance of his expression might be, But in the press
of other matters, it soon left my mind, nor did
I have occasion to think of it again until later come,

(11:15):
I said at length, Now is as good a time
as any. Let us go. Another moment found me at
the top of the partition wall again, with the boy
beside me. Unbuckling my harness, I snapped together with a
single long strap, which I lowered to the waiting zodar below.
He grasped the end and was soon sitting beside us.

(11:38):
How simple, he laughed. The balance should be even simpler,
I replied. Then I raised myself to the top of
the outer wall of the prison, just so that I
could peer over and locate the passing sentry. For a
matter of five minutes I waited, and then he came
in sight, on his slow and snail like beat about
the structure. I watched him until he had made the

(12:01):
turn at the end of the building, which carried him
out of sight of the side of the prison that
was to witness our dash for freedom. The moment his
form disappeared, I grasped Zodar and drew him to the
top of the wall. Placing one end of my harnessed
strap in his hands, I lured him quickly to the
ground below. Then the boy grasped the strap and slid

(12:22):
down to Zodar's side. In accordance with our arrangement, they
did not wait for me, but walked slowly toward the water,
a matter of a hundred yards, directly past the guard
house filled with sleeping soldiers. They had taken scarce a
dozen steps when I too, dropped to the ground and
followed them leisurely toward the shore. As I passed the

(12:45):
guard house, the thought of all the good blades lying
there gave me pause, For if ever men were to
have need of swords, it was my companions and I
on the perilous trip upon which we were about to embark.
I glanced towards Zodar and the youth and saw that
they had slipped over the edge of the dock into
the water. In accordance with our plan, they were to

(13:07):
remain there, clinging to the metal rings which studded the
concrete like substance of the dock at the water's level,
with only their mouths and noses above the surface of
the sea, until I should join them. The lure of
the swords within the guard house was strong upon me,
and I hesitated a moment, half inclined to risk the
attempt to take the few we needed. That he who

(13:30):
hesitates is lost proved itself a true aphorism in this instance.
For another moment saw me creeping stealthily toward the door
of the guard house. Gently, I pressed it open a
crack enough to discover a dozen blacks stretched upon their
silks in profound slumber. At the far side of the room,

(13:50):
a wreck held the swords and firearms of the men. Warily,
I pushed the door a trifle wider to admit my body.
A hinge gave out a resentful groan, One of the
men stirred, and my heart stood still. I cursed myself
for a fool to have thus jeopardized our chances for escape,

(14:10):
But there was nothing for it now but to see
the adventure through with a spring as swift and as
noiseless as a tiger's. I lit beside the guardsman who
had moved. My hands, hovered about his throat, awaiting the
moment that his eye should open. For what seemed an
eternity to my overwrought nerves, I remained poised. Thus, Then

(14:32):
the fellow turned again upon his side and resumed the
even respiration of deep slumber. Carefully, I picked my way
between and over the soldiers until they had gained the
wreck at the far side of the room. Here I
turned to survey the sleeping men. All were quiet. Their
regular breathing rose and fell in a soothing rhythm that

(14:56):
seemed to me the sweetest music I had ever heard. Gingerly,
I drew a long sword from the rack. The scraping
of the scabbard against its holder as I withdrew it
sounded like the filing of cast iron with a great rasp,
And I looked to see the room immediately filled with
alarmed and attacking guardsmen, but none stirred. The second sword

(15:19):
I withdrew noiselessly, but the third clanked in its scabbard
with a frightful din. I knew that it must awaken
some of the men at least, and was on the
point of forestalling their attack by a rapid charge for
the doorway, when again, to my intense surprise, not a
black moved. Either they were wondrous heavy sleepers or else

(15:41):
the noises that I made were really much less than
they seemed to me. I was about to leave the
rack when my attention was attracted by the revolvers. I
knew that I could not carry more than one away
with me, for I was already too heavily laden to
move quietly with any degree of safety. Or as I

(16:01):
took one of them from its pin, my eye fell
for the first time on an open window beside the rack. Ah,
here was a splendid means of escape, for it let
directly upon the dock, not twenty feet from the water's edge.
And as I congratulated myself, I heard the door opposite
me open, and there, looking me full in the face,

(16:24):
stood the officer of the guard. He evidently took in
the situation at a glance and appreciated the gravity of
it as quickly as I, for our revolvers came up simultaneously,
and the sounds of the two reports were as one
as we touched the buttons on the grips that exploded
the cartridges. I felt the wind of his bullet as

(16:44):
it whizzed past my ear, and at the same instant
I saw him crumple to the ground where I hit him.
I do not know nor if I killed him, for
scarce had he started to collapse. When I was through
the window at my rear. In another second, the waters
of Omean closed above my head, and the three of
us were making for the little flier a hundred yards away.

(17:08):
Zodar was burdened with the boy, and I with the
three long swords the revolver I had dropped, so that
while we were both strong swimmers, it seemed to me
that we moved at a snail's pace through the water.
I was swimming entirely beneath the surface, but Zodar was
compelled to rise often to let the youth breathe. So
it was a wonder that we were not discovered long

(17:31):
before we were. In fact, we reached the boat's side
and were all aboard before the watch upon the battleship,
aroused by the shots, detected us. Then an alarm gun
bellowed from a ship's bow its deep boom reverberating in
deafening tones beneath the rocky dome of Omean. Instantly the

(17:52):
sleeping thousands were awake. The decks of a thousand monster
craft teemed with fighting men. For an alarm on Omean
was a thing of rare occurrence. We cast away before
the sound of the first gun had died, and another
second saw us rising swiftly from the surface of the sea.
I lay at full length along the deck with the

(18:14):
levers and buttons of control before me. Zodar and the
boy were stretched directly behind me. Prone also that we
might offer as little resistance to the air as possible.
Rise high, whispered Zodar. They dare not fire their heavy
guns toward the dome. The fragments of the shells would
drop back among their own craft. If we are high enough,

(18:37):
our keeue plates will protect us from rifle fire. I
did as he bade. Below us, we could see the
men leaping into the water by hundreds and striking out
for the small cruisers and one man fliers that lay
moored about the big ships. The larger craft were getting
under way, following us rapidly, but not rising from the water.

(18:59):
A little you'll write, cried Zodar, for there are no
points of compass upon Omean, where every direction is due north.
The pandemonium that had broken out below us was deafening.
Rifles cracked, Officers shouted orders, men yelled directions to one
another from the water and from the decks of myriad boats,

(19:19):
while through all ran the purr of countless propellers, cutting
water and air. I had not dared pull my speed
lever to the highest for fear of overrunning the mouth
of the shaft that passed from Omean's dome to the
world above. But even so we were hitting a clip
that I doubt has ever been equalled on the windless sea.

(19:40):
The smaller flyers were commencing to rise toward us when
Zodar shouted the shaft. The shaft dead ahead, and I
saw the opening black and yawning in the glowing dome
of this underworld. A ten man cruiser was rising directly
in front to cut off our escape. It was the
only vessel that stood in our w but at the

(20:01):
rate that it was traveling, it would come between us
and the shaft in plenty of time to thwart our plans.
It was rising at an angle of about forty five degrees,
dead ahead of us, with the evident intention of combing
us with grappling hooks from above. As it skimmed low
over our deck, there was but one forlorn hope for us,

(20:23):
and I took it. It was useless to try to
pass over her, for that would have allowed her to
force us against the rocky dome above, and we were
already too near that as it was. To have attempted
to dive below her would have put us entirely at
her mercy and precisely where she wanted us. On either side,
a hundred other menacing craft were hastening toward us. The

(20:47):
alternative was filled with risk. In fact, it was all risk,
with but a slender chance of success. As we neared
the cruiser, I rose as though to pass above her,
so that she would do just what she did do
rise at a steeper angle to force me still higher. Then,

(21:07):
as we were almost upon her, I yelled to my
companions to hold tight, and, throwing the little vessel into
her highest speed, I deflected her bows at the same
instant until we were running horizontally and at terrific velocity,
straight for the cruiser's keel. Her commander may have seen
my intentions then, but it was too late. Almost at

(21:30):
the instant of impact, I turned my bows upward, and then,
with a shattering jolt, we were in collision. What I
had hoped for happened. The cruiser, already tilted at a
perilous angle, was carried completely over backward by the impact
of my smaller vessel. Her crew fell twisting and screaming

(21:50):
through the air to the water far below, while the cruiser,
her propellers, still madly churning, dived swiftly head foremost after
them to the bottom of the Sea of Omean. The
collision crushed our steel boughs, and notwithstanding every effort on
our part, came near to hurling us from the deck.

(22:10):
As it was, we landed in a wildly clutching heap
at the very extremity of the flier, where Zodar and
I succeeded in grasping the handrail, But the boy would
have plunged overboard had I not fortunately grasped his ankle,
as he was already partially over unguided. Our vessel careened
wildly in its mad flight, rising ever nearer the rocks

(22:33):
above it took but an instant, however, for me to
regain the levers, and with the roof barely fifty feet above,
I turned her nose once more into the horizontal plane
and headed her again for the black mouth of the shaft.
The collision had retarded our progress, and now a hundred
swift scouts were close upon us. Zodar had told me

(22:57):
that ascending the shaft by virtue of our repulse of
rays alone would give our enemies their best chance to
overtake us, since our propellers would be idle, and in
rising we would be outclassed by many of our pursuers.
The swifter craft are seldom equipped with large buoyancy tanks,
since the added bulk of them tends to reduce a

(23:18):
vessels speed. As many boats were now quite close to us,
it was inevitable that we would be quickly overhauled in
the shaft and captured or killed in short order. To me,
there always seems a way to gain the opposite side
of an obstacle. If one cannot pass over it, or
below it, or around it, why then there is but

(23:39):
a single alternative left, and that is to pass through it.
I could not get around the fact that many of
these other boats could rise faster than ours by the
fact of their greater buoyancy. But I was none the
less determined to reach the outer world far in advance
of them, or die a death of my own. Choosing
in event of failure, Reverse screamed Zodar, behind me, for

(24:04):
the love of your first ancestor Reverse, we are at
the shaft. Hold tight, I screamed in reply. Grasp the
boy and hold tight. We are going straight up the shaft.
The words were scarce out of my mouth as we
swept beneath the pitch black opening. I threw the bow
hard up, dragged the speed lever to its last notch, and,

(24:27):
clutching a stanchion with one hand and the steering wheel
with the other, hung on like grim death, and consigned
my soul to its author. I heard a little exclamation
of surprise from Zodar, followed by a grim laugh. The
boy laughed too, and said something which I could not catch.
For the whistling of the wind of our awful speed.

(24:49):
I looked up above my head, hoping to catch the
gleam of stars by which I could direct our course
and hold the hurtling thing that bore us true to
the center of the shaft. To a touch the side
at the speed we were making would doubtless have resulted
in instant death for us. All but not a star
showed above, only utter and impenetrable darkness. Then I glanced

(25:13):
below me, and there I saw a rapidly diminishing circle
of light the mouth of the opening, above the phosphorescent
radiance of Omean. By this I steered, endeavoring to keep
the circle of light below me, ever perfect as best,
it was but a slender cord that held us from destruction.
And I think that I steered that night more by

(25:34):
intuition and blind faith than by skill or reason. We
were not long in the shaft. Possibly the very fact
of our enormous speed saved us, For evidently we started
in the right direction, and so quickly we were out
again that we had no time to alter our course.
Omean lies perhaps two miles below the surface crust of Mars.

(25:59):
Our speed must approximated two hundred miles an hour, for
Martian flyers are swift, so that at most we were
in the shaft not over forty seconds. We must have
been out of it for some seconds before I realized
that we had accomplished the impossible. Black darkness enshrouded all
about us. There were neither moons nor stars. Never before

(26:23):
had I seen such a thing upon Mars, and for
the moment I was nonplussed. Then the explanation came to me.
It was summer at the south pole, the ice cap
was melting, and those meteoric phenomena clouds unknown upon the
greater part of Barsoom were shutting out the light of
Heaven from this portion of the planet. Fortune, indeed, it

(26:47):
was for us, Nor did it take me long to
grasp the opportunity for escape which this happy condition offered us.
Keeping the boat's nose at a stiff angle, I raised
her for the impenetrable curtain which nature had hung above
this dying world to shut us out from the sight
of our pursuing enemies. We plunged through the cold camp

(27:08):
fog without diminishing our speed, and in a moment emerged
into the glorious light of the two moons and the
million stars. I dropped into a horizontal course and headed
due north. Our enemies were a good half hour behind us,
with no conception of our direction. We had performed the
miraculous and come through a thousand dangers unscathed. We had

(27:33):
escaped from the land of the First Born. No other
prisoners in all the ages of Barsoom had done this thing.
And now, as I looked back upon it, it did
not seem to have been so difficult. After all, I
said as much to Zodar over my shoulder. It is
very wonderful. Nevertheless, he replied, no one else could have

(27:54):
accomplished it, but John Kata. At the sound of that name,
the boy jumped to his feet. John Carter, he cried,
John Carter, Why man John Carter, Prince of Helium, has
been dead for years. I am his son. End of
Chapter thirteen.