“I can manage,” said Ras Thavas, pointing. “There go your magician and his captive now!”
Across the field, a boat-shaped, wingless Barsoomian aircraft was taking off on a long slant, impelled by a single airscrew in the stern. Shea groaned, saying:
“We could never catch up with that machine on thoats. We must obtain our own flier!”
“Could we rent one?” asked Belphebe.
“I daresay.” Ras Thavas addressed the driver: “Put us down at the big central building!”
The driver obeyed. He and Ras Thavas settled the fare, while Shea jogged into the building and sought out the rental desk.
The man at the desk proved a stout Zodangan with an aggressive commercial manner: “. . . Are you sure you do not wish to buy a ship, sir? I have several repossessed craft in excellent shape, every one a steal at its present price. One was used by a former Jed of Zodanga. . . .”
“I do not wish to buy.” said Shea. “As I said, what I want is to rent a ship for three or four passengers, for a few days.”
“. . . But sir, our easy-payment plan calls for payments hardly larger than our rental fees, and you end up owning the ship.” He spread out a sheet of Barsoomian paper bearing sketches of fliers. “Now here’s a fine little ship with seats for five and a stern gun for emergencies. . . .”
“I wont buy,” said Shea with emphasis. “but I do wish to rent.”
“But consider, sir! This one was owned by a former dwar of the Jed’s guard. . . .”
By shouting, Shea finally convinced the salesman that his sales pitch went to waste. At long last he signed papers making him the renter of a five-seater named the Banth. He paid most of his remaining cash as a deposit to insure the return of the craft. He also insisted upon a receipt.
“Do you know how to work everything?” asked the clerk.
Shea nodded toward Ras Thavas. “I shah rely on our friend here, since he owns the finest intellect on Barsoom.”
* * *
Ras Thavas explained: “You rise by dropping ballast — those bags of sand tied along the sides. This instrument tells you your altitude.”
“How do you come down again?” asked Shea.
“This lever releases some of the —” Ras Thavas used an unfamiliar word, which sounded to Shea like refufupizaidi “— which causes the ship to descend. Be careful not to release too much at once, or we shall crash, or at best not be able to rise again.”
Shea inferred that the mysterious refufupizaidi was some sort of lifting agent, comparable to the hydrogen and helium gases used in Earthly balloons. Burroughs, no scientist, had called it the English Barsoomian Ray. Ras Thavas continued:
“This is the motor control. Turn it to the right and the propeller revolves, the further the faster.”
“What’s the source of its power?”
Ras Thavas gave a technical explanation full of words that Shea did not know. Shea got the impression that the source was analogous to an Earthly storage battery, with a much higher capacity in proportion to its weight.
“How do I steer?” asked Shea. “I see no rudder or ailerons.”
“The stem post holding the propeller swivels,” explained the savant. “You turn this wheel, so. Here is the compass. You can set the machine to fly on instruments and stop at a predetermined time. This is the airspeed indicator. These gauges tell you how the charge of refufupizaidi is doing.”
“Tell me,” said Shea to the clerk, who stood around. “Was that little ship that just took off one rented from you? It flew that way —” he pointed “— but it’s now out of sight.”
“Mean you that alien in the weird costume, with a tuft of hair on his chin?”
“Yes. Did he say where he was going?”
“Yes, sir. He said he was taking his granddaughter to see her kinfolks in Toonol.”
“Where can I get a map, showing the landmarks between here and Toonol?”
“There should be one in the side pocket, sir. Here you are!”
They climbed aboard. Shea studied the map as the clerk walked off, back toward the administration building. Shea said:
“Are we all ready, despite the fact that this is one of the most amateurish, ill-planned expeditious of my long experience?”
Ras Thavas: “You snap the fittings on the ends of these harness straps to these cleats.”
“Like Earthly seat belts,” said Shea. Belphebe had already fastened hers.
“Watch me,” Shea said to Ras Thavas, “and correct me if you see me doing anything wrong. Here goes!”
He released the sand in one of the ballast bags and turned the wheel controlling the motor. The Banth rose slowly, and the airscrew began to revolve in its protective cage. When it dissolved into a blur to the sight, the Banth began to move horizontally.
IV
The airscrew purred in its cage behind the passengers, whose hair fluttered the wind. Belphebe spoke to Ras Thavas:
“What surprises me, Doctor, is the ease with which we took off. On Earth you’d need a pilots license, like those they demand in the Heliums; and you’d have to file a flight plan with the Federal Aviation Administration, and so on. More and more paperwork.”
“Things have not yet got to that stage here,” said Ras Thavas. “But them have been so many accidents lately — people getting lost in strange parts of the planet, pilots flying drunk, and fliers running into one another — that there is a move to impose similar rules all over Barsoom. Of course, the move meets fierce resistance from those who think it a natural right of any free Barsoomian who can get his hands on a flier to fly it whensoever and whithersoever he pleases. Besides, each city-state has its own ideas of the right rules and would resist with arms any attempt to impose upon it rules written elsewhere.”
Belphebe asked Shea: “Are you doing all right, darling?”
“It’s not difficult, compared to flying an Earthly airplane,” said Shea. “It feels much like the blimp of which I was once allowed to take the controls for a few minutes. Presently I’ll give you your turn at the controls.”
Ras Thavas asked: “How goes your navigation, Doctor Shea?”
“All right so far,” grunted Shea, whose attention flickered back and forth from the terrain below to the flier’s compass and to the map spread out on his lap. He said:
“This Barsoomian landscape is notably shy of landmarks, compared to Earth. You have to figure out where you are by dead reckoning or you don’t figure it. Nearly as I can guess, it should take us about ten zodes to reach Ptarth, which lies almost halfway from Zodanga to Toonol. Then another day’s flight should take us to Toonol.
“Doctor, would Ptarth be a safe place to land, to get a bite to eat and maybe spend the night? Or Is it one of those xenophobic cities where they kill strangers on sight?”
“Safe enough for us.” said Ras Thavas. “Just put the Heliumite badges back on your harness. Jed Thuvan Dinh is an old ally of the Heliums.”
“Harold,” said Belphebe, “I’m cold! Nudism is one thing on a beach in Florida but something else up in the Barsoomian atmosphere.”
Shea rummaged through the lockers until he found a pile of blankets and handed one to each of the others. Belphebe asked:
“Is there any way to catch up with Malambroso before he reaches Toonol — if that be where he is going?”
“Since I don’t know the top speed of Malambroso’s flier,” said Shea, “I have no way of telling. I’ve already turned our motor control all the way to ‘fast’.”
“Then,” she continued, “what is that little speck in the sky ahead? Now and then it winks at us, as if the sun reflected from metal.”
Shea stared, “I can’t see it, darling; but then, your eyes were always better than mine at long distances.”
“Too bad we don’t have some sort of telescope or field glasses,” she said.
“Now that you mention it,” growled Ras Thavas, “I have something that may help. From a container dangling from his harness he produced a small monocular telescope, whic
h he pulled out to full length and put to one eye.
“It is indeed a flier,” he said at last. At Shea’s request he handed him the scope.
The vibration from the whirring airscrew made it hard to get a fix on the target, and the magnification was so high that the scope could cover only a narrow field. After tracking back and forth, Shea finally fixed upon the image of a flier, stern-to and looking no bigger than a gnat. Belphebe asked:
“Would Malambroso follow the same route as ours, passing near Ptarth?”
“Probably,” replied Ras Thavas. “Ptarth is only a slight detour, and navigation charts assume that, on a flight from Zodanga to Toonol, all ships would fly to or near Ptarth. The same would apply to Phundahl, if the Phundahlians did not shoot down any foreign flier that enters what they consider their airspace. So we give Phundahl a wide detour.”
“What would happen if we landed there?” asked Shea.
They would ask us whither we were going, and if we said ‘Phundahl’ without exactly using the local pronunciation, they would cut off our heads.”
“Hospitable people,” said Belphebe. “What is the official pronunciation?”
“It is neither ‘Fundahl’ nor ‘Pfundahl,’ but something like ‘Pwhundahl.’ It takes practice to say it just right.”
Belphebe said: “Then let’s not stop at Phundahl.”
“No argument there,” said Shea. “Reminds me of one of those Balkan counties, where using the wrong dialect of the national language can get your throat cut.” Peering through the telescope again, he said: “Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I do believe we are gaining on them.”
“Let me have a look,” said Belphebe. “I can’t see that they’re getting any closer.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Shea, “with a difference in our speeds of only a few haads per zode. Let’s have a look at that bow gun.”
“Harold! Even if we catch up with them, you wouldn’t dare shoot for fear of hitting Voglinda, or causing them to crash.”
“I suppose you’re right,” sighed Shea. “If we get close enough, perhaps we can pick off Malambroso, either me with my pistol or you with your bow.”
“Assuming he doesn’t snatch up our child as a shield!”
“What should I do if he does? Jump from the Banth to his flier, sword in hand?”
Ras Thavas said: “That were too risky to be practicable. You would probably fall to the ground below, and at this altitude that were fatal. If we get close enough for any such leaps, I am sure that, with our gun, we could disable their ship sufficiently to let us take it in tow.”
“Unless,” said Belphebe, “he’s holding a knife to Voglinda’s throat, threatening to kill her if we make a hostile move.”
“Sentimentalists!” snorted Ras Thavas.
Shea: “I’ve warned you not to use that word, Doctor. If you want to make people hostile, just sneer at their profoundest feelings!”
“Sorry; I forgot,” said Ras Thavas.
Belphebe said: “And suppose he throws a magical spell at us?”
“Wouldn’t work here” said Shea, “same as on Earth.”
“How about that cloud of smoke he used to cover his flight from the Arms Fair?”
“That was just a plain, nonmagical smoke grenade, such as they make on Earth.”
* * *
For hours the Banth purred along, now and then rising or falling with thermal air currents, while its three passengers argued over strategies. Malambroso’s flier became larger with agonizing slowness, To Shea’s naked vision it grew from a speck the size of an insect to that of a small bird.
The small, brilliant Barsoomian sun was nearing the flat horizon when Ras Thavas, telescope to eye, said:
“Methinks our quarry has seen us, Doctor Shea. He is turning his flier. He has a bow gun like ours, and he cannot shoot straight aft for fear of hitting his own propellor.”
“I’ll take a converging course,” said Shea “When we get closer, you might fire a couple of shots to throw his aim off. Be careful to miss him!”
“I am no gunner,” said Ras Thavas. “The last time I fired one of these things was centuries ago, in my other body, Methinks it better than you give me the helm whilst you do the shooting.”
“Maybe so. But how do you work these guns?”
“Pull this bolt handle back, opening the chamber. Place the projectile, here, in the chamber and push it forward. Place behind it this cartridge of propellant. Close the bolt, and you are to fire by pulling lanyard.”
Shea followed instructions. Ras Thavas said: “Try to cripple his propellor.”
As the fliers came closer, Shea saw Malambroso climb out on his foredeck and swing his bow gun around. Shea aimed low and jerked the lanyard. Boom!
The gun discharged a vast cloud of smoke, which for an instant hid Malambroso’s flier, While Shea did not know the composition of Barsoomian gunpowder, he saw that its effects were much like those of Earthly black powder.
Boom! A similar cloud erupted from the other flier’s gun, There was no sound of a projectile striking the Banth, so Shea inferred that Malambroso, too, had missed. But, he thought, Malambroso might not have missed on purpose.
Shea tried to imagine what went on in Malambroso’s mind. The wizard had started out by demanding Florimel and, finding Shea uncooperative, had kidnapped the Shea’s daughter in a daft attempt to compel Shea’s help in the matter. But if he slew both Sheas, then what good would his possession of Voglinda Shea do him? it would hardly advance his suit for the body and soul of Florimel, who very much had a mind of her own. Altogether, Malambroso evidently did not have a well-worked-out plan. Ras Thavas might be an exasperating egotist, but at least he was smarter than that.
“Clean out your cartridge chamber before reloading,” said Ras Thavas, reaching into the flier’s tool chest and handing Shea a rag. “Otherwise a spark might set off your next charge of propellant.”
Shea was working away on his chamber, and the ships were circling closer, when there came another Boom! followed by a loud clank. The Banth shuddered.
“Propellor,” said Ras Thavas.
Boom! The Banth lurched. Ras Thaws said: “Hull, methinks. He is turning away.”
Shea took back to the helm, but now the Banth vibrated violently. When he turned the motor, control back to ‘slow,’ the vibrations eased. The other flier diminished swiftly into the evening sky.
“Guess we stop at Ptarth willy-nilly,” said Shea. He brought the propellor to a halt. “How much damage, Doctor?”
“We shall have to get it repaired,” said Ras Thavas, “before proceeding. One blade is badly bent.”
“How about that hit on our hull?”
“Just a sofad whilst I look.”
Ras Thavas shifted the ends of his safety straps to cleats on the sides of the hull. Then he climbed over the rail and lowered himself headfirst toward the keel, When he came back up, his naturally red face was further incarnadined by a suffusion of blood. Shea could not avoid a twinge of admiration for the scientist’s courage. He, Shea, could not have undertaken such a human-fly stunt so casually.
“It looks like a mere graze, a glancing blow,” said Ras Thavas. “Let us hope it did no damage to the interior.”
“Damn, damn,” said Shea.
“Be not too disturbed, Doctor Shea,” said Ras Thavas. “It was luck that enabled Malambroso to fire three shots without cleaning his chamber between shots and without blowing up his flier, himself, and your infant. Perhaps luck will be on our side next time, though I am not so childish as to think that bad luck one time assures good the next.”
Below, a shadow of night swept across the flat landscape toward the sinking sun. Soon the last bit of sun winked out, and darkness sharply fell. Stars blinked in. The moon Thuvia was not in sight; Cluros was visible but no brighter than Venus appears at its maximum on Earth. Belphebe said:
“I see a distant patch of light off our port bow. Would that be Ptarth?”
“Bless your eyesight
, darling,” said Shea. “The map shows Ptarth in that direction.”
Belphebe said: “Didn’t Jed Mors Kajak tell us John Carter was off visiting the Jed of Ptarth? Why shouldn’t we look him up? He might be glad to see an Earthian couple and lend his help against Malambroso. From what I’ve heard, he throws a lot of weight on Barsoom.”
Shea thought before shaking his head. “I think not, darling. Malambroso could use the time to get far ahead of us. My guess is that the time is more precious to us right now than even the help of the great John Carter.”
* * *
At the following sunrise, the Banth took off from Ptarth with Shea at the controls. He studied the map and set the course for Toonol.
“Aside from padding our hotel bill with a charge for wine we never drank,” said Shea, “and overcharging us for straightening our bent propellor, the Ptarthians treated us nicely enough.”
“Be fair, darling,” said Belphebe. “They worked through the night on the propellor, and you know any Earthly machine shop would charge overtime rates for that.”
“True” said Shea, who then had to explain to Ras Thavas what he meant by “padding a hotel bill”. “Do you think I am giving Phundahl a wide enough miss, Doctor?”
Ras Thavas looked at the chart. “Yes, I believe you have. “A fellow named Fal Sivas in Zodanga is, I hear, working on a system for mental control of a flier. It were bandy to whisk us out of danger if the Phundahlians should attack us in the air.
“This Fal Sivas, I am told, thinks all too well of himself. He goes about calling himself the Master Mind of Barsoom, when it is obvious that he is no such thing. If anyone deserves that title, it is I, not he. . . . Oop, Sorry, Doctor Shea. I forgot again.”
Shea grinned. “You’re learning, old boy. With half a year of my training, you’d be so polite and tactful that Helium could use you as ambassador to negotiate sensitive issues.”
“They tiled that once,” said Ras Thavas sadly. “They sent me with a delegation to Manator. But something I said so enraged the Jed there we almost had a war, although Manator is halfway round Barsoom from the Heliums.
* * *
The day passed uneventfully, save for the sight of a column of the nomadic green men of Barsoom, each with four arms and twice the stature of a red Barsoomian, crossing the yellow-pink, moss-covered plain below. One green man wheeled his oversized thoat, pulled a musket from a boot in his saddle, and fired upward at the Banth. with a cloud of smoke. A projectile whistled past.
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