A Princess of Mars

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  CHAPTER VII

  CHILD-RAISING ON MARS

  After a breakfast, which was an exact replica of the meal of thepreceding day and an index of practically every meal which followedwhile I was with the green men of Mars, Sola escorted me to the plaza,where I found the entire community engaged in watching or helping atthe harnessing of huge mastodonian animals to great three-wheeledchariots. There were about two hundred and fifty of these vehicles,each drawn by a single animal, any one of which, from their appearance,might easily have drawn the entire wagon train when fully loaded.

  The chariots themselves were large, commodious, and gorgeouslydecorated. In each was seated a female Martian loaded with ornamentsof metal, with jewels and silks and furs, and upon the back of each ofthe beasts which drew the chariots was perched a young Martian driver.Like the animals upon which the warriors were mounted, the heavierdraft animals wore neither bit nor bridle, but were guided entirely bytelepathic means.

  This power is wonderfully developed in all Martians, and accountslargely for the simplicity of their language and the relatively fewspoken words exchanged even in long conversations. It is the universallanguage of Mars, through the medium of which the higher and loweranimals of this world of paradoxes are able to communicate to a greateror less extent, depending upon the intellectual sphere of the speciesand the development of the individual.

  As the cavalcade took up the line of march in single file, Sola draggedme into an empty chariot and we proceeded with the procession towardthe point by which I had entered the city the day before. At the headof the caravan rode some two hundred warriors, five abreast, and a likenumber brought up the rear, while twenty-five or thirty outridersflanked us on either side.

  Every one but myself--men, women, and children--were heavily armed, andat the tail of each chariot trotted a Martian hound, my own beastfollowing closely behind ours; in fact, the faithful creature neverleft me voluntarily during the entire ten years I spent on Mars. Ourway led out across the little valley before the city, through thehills, and down into the dead sea bottom which I had traversed on myjourney from the incubator to the plaza. The incubator, as it proved,was the terminal point of our journey this day, and, as the entirecavalcade broke into a mad gallop as soon as we reached the levelexpanse of sea bottom, we were soon within sight of our goal.

  On reaching it the chariots were parked with military precision on thefour sides of the enclosure, and half a score of warriors, headed bythe enormous chieftain, and including Tars Tarkas and several otherlesser chiefs, dismounted and advanced toward it. I could see TarsTarkas explaining something to the principal chieftain, whose name, bythe way, was, as nearly as I can translate it into English, LorquasPtomel, Jed; jed being his title.

  I was soon appraised of the subject of their conversation, as, callingto Sola, Tars Tarkas signed for her to send me to him. I had by thistime mastered the intricacies of walking under Martian conditions, andquickly responding to his command I advanced to the side of theincubator where the warriors stood.

  As I reached their side a glance showed me that all but a very few eggshad hatched, the incubator being fairly alive with the hideous littledevils. They ranged in height from three to four feet, and were movingrestlessly about the enclosure as though searching for food.

  As I came to a halt before him, Tars Tarkas pointed over the incubatorand said, "Sak." I saw that he wanted me to repeat my performance ofyesterday for the edification of Lorquas Ptomel, and, as I must confessthat my prowess gave me no little satisfaction, I responded quickly,leaping entirely over the parked chariots on the far side of theincubator. As I returned, Lorquas Ptomel grunted something at me, andturning to his warriors gave a few words of command relative to theincubator. They paid no further attention to me and I was thuspermitted to remain close and watch their operations, which consistedin breaking an opening in the wall of the incubator large enough topermit of the exit of the young Martians.

  On either side of this opening the women and the younger Martians, bothmale and female, formed two solid walls leading out through thechariots and quite away into the plain beyond. Between these walls thelittle Martians scampered, wild as deer; being permitted to run thefull length of the aisle, where they were captured one at a time by thewomen and older children; the last in the line capturing the firstlittle one to reach the end of the gauntlet, her opposite in the linecapturing the second, and so on until all the little fellows had leftthe enclosure and been appropriated by some youth or female. As thewomen caught the young they fell out of line and returned to theirrespective chariots, while those who fell into the hands of the youngmen were later turned over to some of the women.

  I saw that the ceremony, if it could be dignified by such a name, wasover, and seeking out Sola I found her in our chariot with a hideouslittle creature held tightly in her arms.

  The work of rearing young, green Martians consists solely in teachingthem to talk, and to use the weapons of warfare with which they areloaded down from the very first year of their lives. Coming from eggsin which they have lain for five years, the period of incubation, theystep forth into the world perfectly developed except in size. Entirelyunknown to their mothers, who, in turn, would have difficulty inpointing out the fathers with any degree of accuracy, they are thecommon children of the community, and their education devolves upon thefemales who chance to capture them as they leave the incubator.

  Their foster mothers may not even have had an egg in the incubator, aswas the case with Sola, who had not commenced to lay, until less than ayear before she became the mother of another woman's offspring. Butthis counts for little among the green Martians, as parental and filiallove is as unknown to them as it is common among us. I believe thishorrible system which has been carried on for ages is the direct causeof the loss of all the finer feelings and higher humanitarian instinctsamong these poor creatures. From birth they know no father or motherlove, they know not the meaning of the word home; they are taught thatthey are only suffered to live until they can demonstrate by theirphysique and ferocity that they are fit to live. Should they provedeformed or defective in any way they are promptly shot; nor do theysee a tear shed for a single one of the many cruel hardships they passthrough from earliest infancy.

  I do not mean that the adult Martians are unnecessarily orintentionally cruel to the young, but theirs is a hard and pitilessstruggle for existence upon a dying planet, the natural resources ofwhich have dwindled to a point where the support of each additionallife means an added tax upon the community into which it is thrown.

  By careful selection they rear only the hardiest specimens of eachspecies, and with almost supernatural foresight they regulate the birthrate to merely offset the loss by death.

  Each adult Martian female brings forth about thirteen eggs each year,and those which meet the size, weight, and specific gravity tests arehidden in the recesses of some subterranean vault where the temperatureis too low for incubation. Every year these eggs are carefullyexamined by a council of twenty chieftains, and all but about onehundred of the most perfect are destroyed out of each yearly supply.At the end of five years about five hundred almost perfect eggs havebeen chosen from the thousands brought forth. These are then placed inthe almost air-tight incubators to be hatched by the sun's rays after aperiod of another five years. The hatching which we had witnessedtoday was a fairly representative event of its kind, all but about oneper cent of the eggs hatching in two days. If the remaining eggs everhatched we knew nothing of the fate of the little Martians. They werenot wanted, as their offspring might inherit and transmit the tendencyto prolonged incubation, and thus upset the system which has maintainedfor ages and which permits the adult Martians to figure the proper timefor return to the incubators, almost to an hour.

  The incubators are built in remote fastnesses, where there is little orno likelihood of their being discovered by other tribes. The result ofsuch a catastrophe would mean no children in the community for anotherfive years. I was
later to witness the results of the discovery of analien incubator.

  The community of which the green Martians with whom my lot was castformed a part was composed of some thirty thousand souls. They roamedan enormous tract of arid and semi-arid land between forty and eightydegrees south latitude, and bounded on the east and west by two largefertile tracts. Their headquarters lay in the southwest corner of thisdistrict, near the crossing of two of the so-called Martian canals.

  As the incubator had been placed far north of their own territory in asupposedly uninhabited and unfrequented area, we had before us atremendous journey, concerning which I, of course, knew nothing.

  After our return to the dead city I passed several days in comparativeidleness. On the day following our return all the warriors had riddenforth early in the morning and had not returned until just beforedarkness fell. As I later learned, they had been to the subterraneanvaults in which the eggs were kept and had transported them to theincubator, which they had then walled up for another five years, andwhich, in all probability, would not be visited again during thatperiod.

  The vaults which hid the eggs until they were ready for the incubatorwere located many miles south of the incubator, and would be visitedyearly by the council of twenty chieftains. Why they did not arrangeto build their vaults and incubators nearer home has always been amystery to me, and, like many other Martian mysteries, unsolved andunsolvable by earthly reasoning and customs.

  Sola's duties were now doubled, as she was compelled to care for theyoung Martian as well as for me, but neither one of us required muchattention, and as we were both about equally advanced in Martianeducation, Sola took it upon herself to train us together.

  Her prize consisted in a male about four feet tall, very strong andphysically perfect; also, he learned quickly, and we had considerableamusement, at least I did, over the keen rivalry we displayed. TheMartian language, as I have said, is extremely simple, and in a week Icould make all my wants known and understand nearly everything that wassaid to me. Likewise, under Sola's tutelage, I developed my telepathicpowers so that I shortly could sense practically everything that wenton around me.

  What surprised Sola most in me was that while I could catch telepathicmessages easily from others, and often when they were not intended forme, no one could read a jot from my mind under any circumstances. Atfirst this vexed me, but later I was very glad of it, as it gave me anundoubted advantage over the Martians.