John Carter

by Stuart Moore

  As the medallion slipped from the creature’s limp fingers, Carter snatched it up.

  “Wyees—Barsoom,” the figure finished.

  Carter stared at the glowing artifact. “Barsoom?”

  He had just enough time to see Powell reach toward him, crying out in alarm.

  And then John Carter was gone.

  THE LEGS of the spider seemed to stretch out in all directions, fracturing space and time in an infinite web of light. Carter was falling, falling forever, unable even to reach out and grab one of the light strands that might lead back home. Then the strands seemed to compress, weaving together into a single thick, shining cord of light. It tugged at him, pulling him to it with an irresistible gravitational force. Carter fell into it, blind and helpless…

  Then he lifted his head and spat crimson sand.

  He looked around, blinking in disbelief. He definitely wasn’t in the cave anymore. Pale red sands stretched away in all directions as far as Carter could see. Yellow moss covered scarlet rocks; strange, bulbous rock formations dotted the desert landscape. Carter shook his head, sprang to his feet.

  And pinwheeled through the air. Twenty feet, then thirty, finally crashing back down on a bed of the strange yellow moss.

  Stunned, he crawled slowly to his feet. Took another tentative step—and soared upward, corkscrewing like a high diver.

  Over the next half hour, Carter tried skipping, creeping, frog hopping, treading water in air, and bunny hopping. Every move ended in a painful return to the desert floor. In desperation, he squatted down and tried to crab walk himself along the sand safely. The process was slow and humiliating, but it worked. Frustrated, he accelerated his pace and shot back up into the air, narrowly missing a rock formation as he crashed back down again.

  Enraged, Carter picked up a stone and hurled it with all his might. It took off like a missile, flying away as far as he could see. Carter’s eyes went wide. He crouched down and threw himself into the air, just like the stone. Twisted in mid-air and managed to land safely, on his feet.

  Four or five jumps later, he was almost having fun.

  He executed a complex arc through the air, barely avoiding a ring of jagged rocks. Then he noticed, just ahead, a strange octagonal structure like a corral with featureless, opaque sides and a faceted glass top. Carter crept up to it, hoisted himself up to peer in through the top.

  And gasped.

  Large eggs filled the floor of the enclosure, quivering like Mexican jumping beans. As Carter watched, spellbound with horror, a wiry green arm punched its way out of a cracked egg. Another crack, and another arm. Then a pair of green legs.

  One of the eggs shattered open, and a thin, monstrous baby blinked and glared up at Carter. Its skin was green all over. Two small, stubby tusks protruded from its smooth, newborn cheeks.

  Carter couldn’t look away. It’s an incubator, he realized.

  Another egg hatched, and then a third. Soon the incubator was filled with a writhing stew of angry green babies. One of them started to wail and the others joined in, forming a horrible blare of noise. Carter winced.

  Then came an answering howl from behind Carter, followed by a roar of massive hooves. A herd of gigantic beasts thundered into view, kicking up a red dust cloud. Enormous creatures, each one the size of a small stable house, with gray tusks, four legs on each side, and odd, flat tails. Carter had never seen anything like them.

  But when he spotted the beasts’ riders, Carter felt a new kind of fear.

  They were vaguely human-shaped but green in color, with elongated, spiderlike bodies. They stood ten feet tall at least, with four arms instead of the normal two. They wore ceremonial warrior garb and carried an impressive array of spears, guns, and unfamiliar weapons. Like their mounts—and like the babies Carter had just seen hatched—each rider sported two sharp, curved tusks curling up from the lower half of his face.

  What had Powell said back in the cave?

  This place for sure ain’t Apache.

  The lead rider yelled something, aimed a sharp lance at Carter, and charged. Not even thinking, Carter leaped straight upward and sailed far over the rider’s head. The beast slammed into a boulder, tossing its rider free. The green man crashed down hard, then lay sprawled in the dirt.

  Carter landed easily, just as the first shot rang out.

  The riders charged, firing their long rifles. Carter dove and rolled behind a pile of boulders. Bullets chewed into the stones, eating away at his cover. Old war instincts took over, and he started a zigzag, hop-scotching series of short leaps from rock to rock, edging toward higher ground.

  He glanced back just in time to see the leader—now recovered from his fall—slap away the rifle barrel of a warrior with a broken tusk.

  “Katom! Tet mu yat Jeddak hok ta!”

  As Carter watched warily from behind a boulder, the lead warrior ordered his men back with a severe, imperious hand motion. The broken-tusked warrior glared briefly, then reluctantly joined the others in forming a perimeter around Carter’s position.

  Then the leader moved in toward Carter. “Kaor!” he called. “Jah mu tet!”

  Carter tensed as the green warrior approached him—slowly, deliberately, his eyes never leaving Carter’s. The leader laid down his lance, unstrapped his sidearm, and unsheathed each blade in turn, stacking the weapons in a neat pile on the ground. When he spoke again, his tone was calm, almost soothing.

  “Jah mu tet. Satav…satav.”

  Carter stepped out and raised his hand, palms forward. “All right, you got me. I surrender.”

  “Jeddak.” The creature pointed toward itself. “Tars Tarkas.”

  “Jeddak?” Carter repeated.

  “Tars. Tars Tarkas.”

  The creature grinned, an awful, terrifying grin. Carter tried not to wince. “Captain John Carter. Virginia.”

  “Vir-gin-ya,” the creature said slowly, then pointed sharply to Carter. “Virginia!”

  “No, no. John Carter. I’m from Virginia.”

  Then Carter grinned, and it was the creature’s turn to wince. While he was distracted, Carter vaulted clear over him, landing neatly next to the pile of discarded alien weapons. The four-armed being stared at Carter in a stunned silence. Clearly, he had never seen anyone with Carter’s abilities before.

  “Vir-gin-ya!” The leader whirled and took off at a run toward Carter, his eight arms pinwheeling almost comically. “Tet! Tet saal! Tet saal!”

  Carter glanced at the ring of warriors and spotted the broken-tusked one drawing a bead on him. Frantically, Carter snatched up the leader’s enormous pistol from the pile. He fumbled with it, struggling with its firing mechanism. Then the leader slammed into him, knocking him aside—just as a bullet sliced into Carter’s left buttock before exploding in the sand. Carter screamed in pain.

  Somehow he knew his ordeal was just beginning.

  The next part passed almost as if in a dream. The creatures gathered up the newborns from the incubator, trussed and swaddled them, and hung them from the flanks of two of the largest pack creatures. At the leader’s insistence, they dressed Carter’s wound with one of the diapers. Vaguely Carter was aware that he should be humiliated. But all he could think about was the pain in his hindquarters.

  After the babies had been gathered, a small number of eggs remained unhatched: a dozen, perhaps two. The broken-tusked warrior cocked his rifle, and the leader—Tars Tarkas—looked over at him sharply. Then Tars nodded and joined the broken-tusked one over at the incubator.

  Tars issued a short, regretful-sounding order. Then, together, the two warriors opened fire into the incubator, shattering and obliterating the unhatched eggs.

  Much later, when he had gotten to know these creatures, Carter would learn that they were called Tharks and their beasts, thoats. And then he would know the meaning of Tars Tarkas’s hesitant command: leave nothing for the white apes.

  BARSOOM. A world on the brink…

  She shook her head, started over. Rehearsi
ng the words in her mind.

  Zodanga’s newfound power threatens to destroy our city of Helium. And if Helium falls, so falls Barsoom…

  No. Too strong!

  Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, stood alone in the grandly appointed throne room, frowning at a long table. Her life’s work lay upon that table, draped in a silk cover, concealed from view. She tugged at the cloth nervously.

  Your Highness—no, My Lord. My…Jeddak. My Jeddak, after years of tireless research, I present to you…the answer.

  Aloud, she added: “I hope.”

  Dejah was tall, regal, and very beautiful. Half the men of Helium had asked for her hand in marriage at one time or another. One particularly florid suitor had described her haunted eyes as the blue of vanished oceans. Her skin, he’d said, was tinged with the rich crimson of Barsoom itself.

  But Dejah Thoris had no time for romance. She understood the precipice her city—her very world—stood at the brink of. Her every waking moment was devoted to saving her people.

  A clamor of voices, and Dejah snapped to attention. Her father burst in: Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium. He looked agitated, tired. Kantos Kan, the Jeddak’s battle-stained admiral, followed, and then the other members of the High Council.

  Tardos Mors glanced briefly at the covered object on the table, then frowned. Avoided Dejah’s gaze.

  “My Jeddak.” She bowed. “After years of tireless research, I present to you—”

  “I’m sorry, Princess.” He swept right past her. “Your presentation will have to wait.”

  “Father? What’s happened?”

  Kantos shot her a look: not now.

  Tardos Mors ascended to his throne and sank heavily into it. The council members swarmed around him, all talking at once in low voices. Something had happened with Zodanga…Dejah caught the words “last chance” more than once.

  Finally Tardos spoke up. “I know the terms set by Sab Than! What I want to know is, can we afford to reject them?”

  “The eastern border is a wasteland,” Kantos said grimly. “Sab Than has burned through our defenses with his new weapon. The borderfolk have been massacred.”

  Dejah’s eyes grew wide. Urgently, she swept the cover off the table, revealing a complex, sophisticated machine.

  Her father and the Council paid her no heed. “Our best troops and fleetest ships have proven useless,” Kantos Kan continued. “And now comes word that our last remaining squadron has been lost.”

  Tardos lowered his head. “Helium is lost. My people, my world…I have failed them all.”

  “No, my Jeddak. You haven’t.”

  All eyes turned, then, to Dejah. She reached for the device, powered it up with a hum.

  Kantos frowned. “My lady, you have not seen the Zodangan weapon. It radiates the most intense, baleful—”

  “Blue light?”

  As she spoke the words, Dejah flicked the final switch…and a beam of pure blue light stabbed down to the floor, glinting harmlessly off the ornate tiles.

  Tardos rose from the throne. The council members moved with him, toward Dejah and her machine. They stared at the blue beam, keeping a cautious distance from it.

  Dejah cleared her throat. “When I read our reports on Sab’s weapon, I knew: somehow that idiotic brute had discovered it first.”

  “Discovered what?”

  “The Ninth Ray. Unlimited power.”

  The blue beam began to flicker, to play against the tiles, illuminating dust motes in the air. Hope filled Tardos’s eyes. Even Kantos began to nod.

  “Sab uses it only for slaughter,” Dejah continued. “But think what we might accomplish with such power. Transforming the deserts…restoring the seas…”

  The council members crowded closer, examining the machine, peering at the beam from different angles. Tardos turned to the admiral. “Is that what you saw, Kantos?”

  “It looks very close.”

  “Give it time,” Dejah said. “It will work.”

  Then something strange happened. From the corner of her eye, Dejah thought she saw a quick movement in the group of council members—almost like a flash of blue lace, arcing out to strike the machine. She turned in alarm—just as a surge ran through the device, shorting it out. Sparks flew. The blue beam swung wildly for a moment, and everyone shrank back in fear. Then the beam died, and the machine sat silent, smoking slightly.

  The council members all turned their attention to Dejah, their expressions a mixture of disappointment and confusion. She closed her eyes in despair.

  “Everyone leave us,” Tardos Mors said. “Now.”

  Kantos left last, throwing Dejah a pitying look. The giant doors slammed shut.

  Dejah stood across the smoking device from her father. She tried not to cringe as he touched a severed wire, fidgeted with it briefly.

  “It was working, Father.” She struggled to keep the quaver from her voice. “And then something happened…some sort of sabotage…?”

  She trailed off. Even to her own ears, it sounded like a weak excuse.

  “Dejah,” Tardos said slowly. “Ever since you were a little girl, you—you’ve always met the expectations placed on you. Exceeded them, in fact…”

  She looked up at him sharply. Something else was bothering him. She reached out, took his quivering hand, and forced him to look her in the eye.

  “Sab’s terms,” he whispered.

  “What are they?”

  He clapped his other hand over hers.

  “He will spare Helium if you accept his hand in marriage.”

  “Sab Than?” She yanked her hand away. “He’s a monster!”

  “Dejah—”

  “Father, you have to refuse him.”

  “He’s already on his way here.”

  “But—all my work—” She gestured frantically at the ruined machine. “I just need more time! You can’t just—how can you bow down to Zodanga?”

  “A wedding will save this city.”

  “Perhaps. But it could destroy Barsoom.”

  He turned away, glaring.

  Dejah kept after him. “With no one to stop Zodanga, it will be the beginning of the end. You are the Jeddak of Helium. You must find another way—”

  “There is no other way!”

  She turned away, stung. Immediately Tardos softened, placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “My child…you know if there were another choice, I would risk anything to seize it. This is the chance we’ve been given. Perhaps…perhaps it is the Will of the Goddess.”

  “No. It’s your will.”

  He flinched at her tone.

  “When I was little,” she continued, “we would look up at the stars, and you’d tell me about the heroes whose glory was written in the sky. You’d say there was a star up there just for me. Is this what you imagined would be written on it?”

  Kantos Kan reentered the room, cleared his throat. “Sab Than’s corsair approaches the city, my Jeddak. They’ve signaled for permission to land.”

  For a long moment, Tardos and Dejah stood together. Eyes locked, neither one willing to budge.

  “Grant permission,” Tardos said. “And let us all prepare for a wedding.”

  Then he strode out of the room, leaving Dejah Thoris—Princess of Helium, possible future queen of all Barsoom—with the smoking wreckage of her life’s work.

  LATE THAT NIGHT, John Carter sat chained to a wall alongside rows of diapered Thark babies. The Thark nursery resembled a dungeon: filthy walls, rusted chains, a hard clay floor.

  Female Tharks moved gently along the row of green-skinned hatchlings, tipping kettles of a strong, foul brew into the tiny, hungry mouths. They murmured words, the harsh, unknown language of the Tharks.

  The female called Sola approached Carter, hesitantly at first. Then she grabbed hold of his head. When he struggled, she vaulted on top of him, pinning his arms with two of her four hands. Sola was wiry but tall, and she outweighed Carter by a good measure. With her third hand, she forced open h
is mouth, and with the fourth she poured the brew. He gagged, swallowed, and coughed.

  Sola was speaking, too…and as Carter sputtered, he realized he was beginning to understand her words. “Drink…good…”

  He blinked, shook his head. “What’s in that stuff?”

  Her strange eyes bored into his. When she spoke again, he heard every word clearly.

  “The voice of Barsoom.”

  After he had consumed the potion, Carter was able to remember and translate the words the Tharks had spoken earlier that day. And then their customs made sense…as much sense, at least, as anything he’d seen in this strange place.

  They’d ridden into the city as a troop. Carter, tied to a pack thoat along with the newborns, had watched as a settlement of ruined buildings loomed into view. The troop passed along the ramparts of a seawall and in through a crumbling gate.

  A horde of Tharks seemed to materialize, creeping out of every portal, every building’s doorway. Hundreds of them swarmed around the returning troop, welcoming their warriors home. Carter noticed that every Thark carried weapons, even the children.

  As the warriors came to an open square, the female Tharks—dozens of them—stepped forward. One giant scowling female, whom Carter would come to know as Sarkoja, ordered them into two lines facing each other, roughly five feet apart.

  Then Tars Tarkas, leader of the Thark warriors, slashed out, cutting the baskets free from the pack thoat. The babies tumbled to the ground along with Carter, who grunted and lay still for a moment, dazed and stiff. As he watched, the babies reeled, staggered to their feet, and scampered into the gauntlet between the two lines of females.

  The females moved in, reaching for the babies. Some of the hatchlings squirmed and dodged away, scuttling and squirming with their four arms, while others allowed themselves to be scooped up. Several times, two females reached for the same baby and began to fight, grappling until one either fell or abandoned the struggle, turning her attention to a different child.

  Not for the first time, Carter wondered, where on Earth am I?

  One female—Sola—held back and failed to catch a child. The other women shouted at her, some of them holding out their newly adopted charges to taunt her. Sarkoja strode over to Sola, shoved her backward, and slapped her.