“You will, therefore, wish to adopt Barsoomian garb and color of skin. I am sure that Ras Thavas can show you how to do that — unless you have that curious prejudice among Jasoomians, that it is shameful or improper to expose one’s sexual parts to the view of ones felow beings. You Jasoomians must be a singularly nasty-minded lot, forever thinking of copulation.”
“We can overcome such feelings,” said Shea. “Agreed, darling?”
“Not being a native Jasoomian,” said Belphebe, “I have never suffered from this twitch. If my husband ever had it, he is cured.”
The Jed rang a little bell on his desk. A red Barsoomian, with the usual harness of straps, came through a side door to the sanctum. Mors Kajak said:
“Dattok, lead these Jasoomians to one of the hospitality suites, third class. Farewell for the nonce, O Sheas. Pray hold yourselves in readiness to return hither when Ras Thavas appears.”
The Jed picked up the scroll he had been reading when the Sheas arrived. He unrolled it again and hunted about his cluttered desk for weights to hold down the corners of the strip and prevent it from rolling itself up again.
* * *
The following morning, a flunkey summoned the Sheas to the executive chamber. There Shea and Belphebe found another red Barsoomian in converse with the Jed. The new arrival seemed to be in what to a Barsoomian would be youth — say, in his second or third century — of handsome aspect, but notably lean and starved-looking.
“Here,” said the Jed Mors Kajak to the new Barsoomian, are the Jasoomians whereof I have told you: Mr. and Mrs. Harold Shea, unless you prefer all the fancy titles they claim: Sir, Professor, Doctor, and so on. Sheas, this is Doctor Ras Thavas, with whom you asked to speak.”
Shea raised his right hand in the Barsoomian greeting. “Kaor, Doctor.”
“Kaor,” grunted the young Barsoomian. “Where do you wish us to confer, O Jed?”
“Dattok will show you the way,” said the Jed.
The secretary led them through a maze of hallways to a small conference room. Seated, Shea studied Ras Thavas. He asked:
“Doctor, is it true that you had your brain transferred to the body of a younger man?”
“It is true,” rasped Ras Thavas. “But let us not dwell upon the circumstance of my brain transfer, since social pressures have forced me to give up that kind of neurosurgery. Nor am I a chatterbox like Mors Kajak, to waste precious research time in idle chatter. What would you of me? Pray make it brief.”
Shea poured out the tale of Voglinda’s abduction by Malambroso. He ended: “And so, knowing you for a farsighted and well-informed man, I ask if your intelligence system has apprised you of the arrival of this pair on Barsoom?”
Ras Thavas chuckled. “You are a clever fellow, Doctor Shea, knowing that flattery is the surest means of procuring favors from your fellow man. But think not that it will work on a person of my superior intellect. I easily see through such childish sleights.
“Now, let us suppose that my informants have in fact told me of the arrival on Barsoom of your Doctor Malambroso and his captive infant. If I put you on this wizards track, I shall expect a favor from you in return.”
“Such as?” said Shea.
“That depends. By diligent investigation, Doctor Shea, I have learned a few things about you, if not enough to grasp all aspects of your personality.”
“You mean you have a dossier on me? Where did you get your information, since I only arrived on Barsoom for the first time yesterday?”
Ras Thavas gave a lopsided grin. “Oh, I have ways; I have ways. The inventions of your fellow Jasoomian, the wireless pioneer Gridley, have been of substantial help. But to get down to cases, Doctor, what is your occupation on your native pIanet?”
“I am a professor of psychology at the Garaden Institute, in Garaden, Ohio.”
“Just what I needed! I understand that, starting as a brash, hot-tempered, and emotionally volatile youth, you have learned by painful experience to bridle your natural impulses to as to avoid offense and disarm hostility. Your conduct, here during the last few rats shows all the smoothness one would expect of you.”
“And what has all that to do with you, Doctor?” asked Shea.
“I shall come to that forthwith. When Vad Varo — formerly Ulysses Paxton of your world — transferred my brain from the worn-out body it then occupied to the body you now see before you, he did an excellent job. That is no cause for surprise, since he had the greatest possible teacher of neurosurgery, namely me.”
Shea asked. “What happened to the original brain of the body you are now using?”
It was incinerated. That was no great loss to civilization, since it was a brain of a relatively primitive, stupid type, who had left school for good as a child. But when these facts came out, sentimentalists raised such an ebullition that I was forced to give up my practice of brain transfer.
“In one respect, however, Vad Varo was never able to complete his task. The original body retained a battery of glands, whose functions affect even my superior brain. Therefore mundane urges and desires that I thought I had long since cast aside as mere irrational sentimentalism arise to plague me.
“In fact, I seem to be turning into the very sort of creature I most despised: an emotional, irrational sentimentalist. Why, finding myself recently in the company of two of Mors Kajak’s handsome nubile daughters, I found to my horror that I developed a hearty erection. Since on Barsoom we do not conceal the parts in question by those ridiculous costumes that Jasoomians wear, and since the phenomenon in question is, on Barsoom, accounted the worst possible breach of good manners, I was forced to mutter an excuse and beat a hasty retreat.
“So then, you may ask, why do I not simply mingle with others of my class and form such attachments as my glands dictate, as other mortals do? The difficulty is that, having steered my course for centuries by the ideal of a purely rational, objective, emotionless scientist, I find that I cannot freely mingle with the rabble. To be blunt, they do not like me and, further to aggravate matters, most of them bore me.
“In forming their personal relationships, they make no allowance for my obvious mental superiority. If I join a group happily chattering away about trivial matters, they fall silent at my approach. If I seek a social engagement with one of the more promising rabblites, of either sex, the object of my wish for good fellowship makes transparent excuses: he or she is unwell, or has a previous engagement, or has just lost a close relative, or some such fribbling pretext. Nobody ever invites me to anything! Intellectually I know that lonesomeness is just one more irrational sentiment, forced upon me by the primitive glands of the stupid previous owner of this body. But that fact does not make the emotion any less painful.”
Shea, grinning, said aside to Belphebe: “He reminds me of Edgar Poe.”
“Who or what is Edgar Poe?” snapped Ras Thavas.
“A crow I once knew.”
“What is a crow?”
“A large black Earthly bird, omnivorous and relatively intelligent. Edgar was found by a couple as a fledgling who had fallen out of its nest before it was airworthy. They took him home and fed him up, so that he grew into a big, handsome adult crow. Then the couple decided it was a shame to keep Edgar penned up indoors. They took him to a place they knew a flock of wild crows frequented and turned him loose.
“A fortnight later, one of them opened the back door. There was Edgar, taking the begging attitude, like this.” Shea squatted, half spread his arms, and looked up with his mouth open. “He was bald, because all the feathers had been pecked off the crown of his head.
“What had happened was that Edgar, having lived among human beings through his formative years, thought of himself as human and tried to behave accordingly. He had never learned proper crow manners and etiquette; so the other crows of the flock he tried to join set upon him. In the end, the couple had to take him back, although they confessed that the full-grown Edgar in the house was something of a nuisance. Now, what am I supposed
to do about your problem?”
“You shall take me in hand and teach me the little sleights and dodges and mannerisms of friendly social intercourse — the details your Edgar failed to learn about his fellow crows. For centuries I have avoided learning such details with the rabble, lest they waste time that were better spent on my research. In other words, you shall teach me how to get along with people, even mere rabblites.”
“Jeepers!” cried Shea. “That would take a lot of doing. What makes you think an alien like me would know how to tinker with your mental works? You need a Dale Carnegie type.”
“A what type? Never mind, my superior telepathic powers convey the sense of your meaning. As a professional psychologist — an occupation entirely lacking on Barsoom, save for my own limited forays into that field — you are the best-qualified person on this planet. Psychologically, we Barsoomians are very close to you Jasoomians. The difference you will in due course discover and make allowances for. Your being an alien is an advantage, since it enables you to view Barsoomian society and customs with a coldly objective eye.”
Shea objected: “Meanwhile; what happens to our daughter Voglinda? I can’t chase after Malambroso and at the same time give you a crash course in human relations.”
“That is my condition,” said Ras Thavas. “Teach me the skills I have set forth, and I will do what I can to further your search for your daughter. Otherwise I will do naught, and with your ignorance of this world you will probably encompass your own speedy destruction.”
“Be reasonable! What you ask is as feasable as jumping out the window and flying by flapping my arms!”
“I am always reasonable. You have my condition.”
“May I make a suggestion?” asked Belphebe.
“By all means, do,” said Shea. “Whenever we get really stuck, I know I can count on you to pull a rabbit out of the hat.”
“What is a rabbit?” asked Ras Thavas.
“A mere figure of speech; ignore,” said Shea. “What’s your suggestion, darling?”
“Why don’t we bring Doctor Ras with us in searching for Voglinda? You can coach him daily in polite social intercourse and scold him when he makes a gaffe. If he be half as brilliant as he thinks he is, he would be a valuable guide in this alien world.”
“Depends on where we’re going.” Shea turned to Ras. “So, will you now tell us where we are going?”
“Do you agree to the lady’s scheme?” said Ras Thavas, “I hate to lose the research time; but the cold logic of my superior mind dictates that I agree to the lady’s scheme. Do you also agree?”
“Yes, I do, If you will guide and help us to our objective. I’ll do my best to make you over into a suave Barsoomian-of-the-world. I can’t guarantee success in changing your habits, fixed by a thousand years of conditioning; but I’ll do my best. So, where are they?”
Ras Thavas replied: “One of my informants in the city of Zodanga has reported that a man of alien aspect arrived from another world with a small child a day or two ago. From such details as I could elicit by wireless, the pair agree with your descriptions of Malambroso and Voglinda.”
“Where is Zodanga?”
“About three thousand haads from here, in a roughly northeasterly direction.”
Belphebe asked: “What’s that in Earthly measurements?”
Shea replied: “I don’t remember the exact conversion factor; but its something like two thousand miles. The haad comes close to the kilometer.”
“Quite a distance,” said Belphebe.
“One must get used to great distances on Barsoom. Although the planet is smaller than our Earth, the fact of having no oceans makes the land area over twice ours.”
“Then how do we get there?” she asked. “Borrow one of their flying machines?”
“That would not be practicable,” said Ras Thavas. “if any Heliumite would be willing to lend or rent such a machine, he would certainly not do it to an alien of whom he knows naught.”
“How much would one cost?” asked Shea. “New or secondhand?”
“A new flier to carry three would run about ten thousand crowns.”
Shea exchanged looks with his wife. “I doubt if we brought anything like that with us. And I don’t suppose they accept credit cards.”
“What is a credit card?” asked Ras Thavas. “Never mind. Anyway, who should pilot the craft? The Heliums, who like to think of themselves as thoroughly up-to-date, have installed a newfangled system of licenses for piloting theirs, and rules to govern air traffic. I do not have a pilot’s license so one of you Sheas would have to obtain one. That calls For a course of instructions and passing a flight test and a written examination.”
“Oh-oh!” said Shea. “Looks as if bureaucracy has caught up with Barsoom at last!”
“There are reasons,” said Ras Thavas, “Lord Carter was persuaded to start a course at the local university on Earthly capitalism. His praises of the free-market system proved so popular that the Jed was prevailed upon to abolish the former restrictions on free enterprise.
“Soon, enterprising Heliumites set up factories to make fliers, cheap enough for ordinary folk to buy. Some of these machines were hastily built and killed their occupants. That was only one example of the shortcomings of capitalism, which transpired little by little. So now a powerful faction is urging more regulations, which Lord Carter furiously opposes, calling such interference in business un-American, whatever that means.
“In any case, the air over the Helium’s became too crowded for safety, especially when some of the younger and more reckless males began doing acrobatic stunts with their fliers. Aerial collisions became a daily occurrence. The rain of machines and bodies on roofs and streets led the Jeddak, following Lord Carter’s advice, to impose a strict system of licensing.”
Belphebe asked: “Isn’t there any public transport on Barsoom? Say, an airline?”
Ras Thavas chudded. “One Heliumite last year essayed to start a regular passenger service by flier to Zodanga and Zor. But it foundered on one of the weaknesses of human nature.”
“How so?” asked Shea.
“You know our Barsoomian custom, of always going armed, at least with sword and dagger if not with a pistol as well? That is how we distinguish free men from slaves by sight. Thus I, being unarmed at the moment, could be mistaken for a slave, were not my repute so high that no Heliumite, at least, would commit that error. The Jed’s secretary, Dattok, is a slave. I forgo sword wearing in the Heliums because the cursed things are a nuisance, forever tripping me up or hitting me in the shins.
“Well, it did not take long for the lawless element to reason out a way to turn the airline fares to their advantage. Suppose a criminal wished to fly to, say, Horz, which is halfway round the planet. So he would buy a ticket to Zor, which was vastly cheaper. Then, when the flier had taken off, he would draw sword and pistol and command the pilot to take him to Horz. This led to aerial fights and fatal crashes.
“First, the capitalist who launched the scheme tried to disarm his passengers, demanding that all weapons — swords, daggers, pistols, and so on — be handed in to the gate guards. But you must understand that, for Barsoomians, the sword has a mystical prestige. To ask a free Barsoomian to surrender his sword is like asking him to become a slave.
“Hence fights broke out, with gate guards and would-be passengers slain. Hence the passengers dropped off, and his company went bankrupt by the end of last year.”
“What happens to one who goes bankrupt here?”
“He is auctioned off as a slave to his creditors. Of the money paid for him, most goes to the governments tax collectors, while the remainder is divided amongst the unsuccessful creditors. I am sure that your home world, being technologically more advanced than we are, has long since mastered such problems.”
“I fear not,” said Shea. “Among certain classes of Jasoomians, the pistol has acquired something of the same mystical glorification that here applies to the sword. A few centuries ago, th
e sword on my world had much the same status. Wearing a sword proved that one belonged to the gentleman class, Now that the sword is obsolete as a military weapon, the pistol has somewhat taken its place psychologically.”
Belphebe: “That’s all very well, but then how do we get to Zodanga? You don’t seem to have railroads or buses.”
Ras Thavas said: “I fear we must either walk or ride on the backs of thoats. Do you two ride any riding animal?”
“Yes,” she replied. “We are both experienced riders of a Jasoomian beast called a ‘horse.’ How long would it take to get to Zodanga on thoat-back?”
“Three thousand haads . . . ?” Ras Thavas frowned in thought, twitching his fingers to do sums. “With good beasts, assuming no accidents or hostile encounters, forty to fifty days.”
Shea grunted and Belphebe groaned. Shea said: “Is there no way to get us there faster?”
“Not that I know of, unless Sir Harold can work his symbolic-logic spell to move us to another part of the planet.”
“I fear that won’t work, either,” said Shea. “An attempt would probably snap us back to the planet we started from.”
“Then,” said Belphebe, “we must make the best of it. It might even have advantages. Harold can work on Doctor Ras to make him into the perfect Barsoomian gentleman.”
Ras Thavas made a face of disgust.
“Yes,” said Shea. “And, Doctor, have you been eating regularly? You look starved.”
Ras Thavas waved a dismissing hand. “My body keeps signalling that it wants more to eat; but I cannot afford the time away from my research to indulge its primitive lusts. Its previous owner was an athlete, and his body doubtless wishes to continue in the gluttonous habits it formed in its previous life.”
“For our scheme,” said Shea, “you must be in top physical trim. So be prepared to eat what and when I tell you to.”
“The body I now wear,” said Ras Thavas haughtily, “was the physically finest among the hundreds of specimens that have passed through my laboratories. In fact Its previous owner, if weak in intellect, had a repute as a champion wrestler or something of the sort.”
The Exotic Enchanter Page 16