CHAPTER XX
IN THE ATMOSPHERE FACTORY
For two days I waited there for Kantos Kan, but as he did not come
I started off on foot in a northwesterly direction toward a point
where he had told me lay the nearest waterway. My only food
consisted of vegetable milk from the plants which gave so
bounteously of this priceless fluid.
Through two long weeks I wandered, stumbling through the nights
guided only by the stars and hiding during the days behind some
protruding rock or among the occasional hills I traversed. Several
times I was attacked by wild beasts; strange, uncouth monstrosities
that leaped upon me in the dark, so that I had ever to grasp my
long-sword in my hand that I might be ready for them. Usually my
strange, newly acquired telepathic power warned me in ample time,
but once I was down with vicious fangs at my jugular and a hairy
face pressed close to mine before I knew that I was even threatened.
What manner of thing was upon me I did not know, but that it was
large and heavy and many-legged I could feel. My hands were at its
throat before the fangs had a chance to bury themselves in my neck,
and slowly I forced the hairy face from me and closed my fingers,
vise-like, upon its windpipe.
Without sound we lay there, the beast exerting every effort to reach
me with those awful fangs, and I straining to maintain my grip and
choke the life from it as I kept it from my throat. Slowly my arms
gave to the unequal struggle, and inch by inch the burning eyes and
gleaming tusks of my antagonist crept toward me, until, as the hairy
face touched mine again, I realized that all was over. And then a
living mass of destruction sprang from the surrounding darkness full
upon the creature that held me pinioned to the ground. The two
rolled growling upon the moss, tearing and rending one another in
a frightful manner, but it was soon over and my preserver stood
with lowered head above the throat of the dead thing which would
have killed me.
The nearer moon, hurtling suddenly above the horizon and lighting
up the Barsoomian scene, showed me that my preserver was Woola, but
from whence he had come, or how found me, I was at a loss to know.
That I was glad of his companionship it is needless to say, but my
pleasure at seeing him was tempered by anxiety as to the reason of
his leaving Dejah Thoris. Only her death I felt sure, could account
for his absence from her, so faithful I knew him to be to my
commands.
By the light of the now brilliant moons I saw that he was but a
shadow of his former self, and as he turned from my caress and
commenced greedily to devour the dead carcass at my feet I realized
that the poor fellow was more than half starved. I, myself, was in
but little better plight but I could not bring myself to eat the
uncooked flesh and I had no means of making a fire. When Woola had
finished his meal I again took up my weary and seemingly endless
wandering in quest of the elusive waterway.
At daybreak of the fifteenth day of my search I was overjoyed to
see the high trees that denoted the object of my search. About noon
I dragged myself wearily to the portals of a huge building which
covered perhaps four square miles and towered two hundred feet in
the air. It showed no aperture in the mighty walls other than the
tiny door at which I sank exhausted, nor was there any sign of life
about it.
I could find no bell or other method of making my presence known to
the inmates of the place, unless a small round role in the wall
near the door was for that purpose. It was of about the bigness
of a lead pencil and thinking that it might be in the nature of a
speaking tube I put my mouth to it and was about to call into it
when a voice issued from it asking me whom I might be, where from,
and the nature of my errand.
I explained that I had escaped from the Warhoons and was dying of
starvation and exhaustion.
"You wear the metal of a green warrior and are followed by a calot,
yet you are of the figure of a red man. In color you are neither
green nor red. In the name of the ninth day, what manner of
creature are you?"
"I am a friend of the red men of Barsoom and I am starving. In the
name of humanity open to us," I replied.
Presently the door commenced to recede before me until it had sunk
into the wall fifty feet, then it stopped and slid easily to the
left, exposing a short, narrow corridor of concrete, at the further
end of which was another door, similar in every respect to the one I
had just passed. No one was in sight, yet immediately we passed the
first door it slid gently into place behind us and receded rapidly
to its original position in the front wall of the building. As the
door had slipped aside I had noted its great thickness, fully twenty
feet, and as it reached its place once more after closing behind us,
great cylinders of steel had dropped from the ceiling behind it and
fitted their lower ends into apertures countersunk in the floor.
A second and third door receded before me and slipped to one side as
the first, before I reached a large inner chamber where I found food
and drink set out upon a great stone table. A voice directed me to
satisfy my hunger and to feed my calot, and while I was thus engaged
my invisible host put me through a severe and searching
cross-examination.
"Your statements are most remarkable," said the voice, on concluding
its questioning, "but you are evidently speaking the truth, and it
is equally evident that you are not of Barsoom. I can tell that by
the conformation of your brain and the strange location of your
internal organs and the shape and size of your heart."
"Can you see through me?" I exclaimed.
"Yes, I can see all but your thoughts, and were you a Barsoomian I
could read those."
Then a door opened at the far side of the chamber and a strange,
dried up, little mummy of a man came toward me. He wore but a
single article of clothing or adornment, a small collar of gold from
which depended upon his chest a great ornament as large as a dinner
plate set solid with huge diamonds, except for the exact center
which was occupied by a strange stone, an inch in diameter, that
scintillated nine different and distinct rays; the seven colors of
our earthly prism and two beautiful rays which, to me, were new and
nameless. I cannot describe them any more than you could describe
red to a blind man. I only know that they were beautiful in the
extreme.
The old man sat and talked with me for hours, and the strangest part
of our intercourse was that I could read his every thought while he
could not fathom an iota from my mind unless I spoke.
I did not apprise him of my ability to sense his mental operations,
and thus I learned a great deal which proved of immense value to me
later and which I would never have known had he suspected my strange
power, for the Martians have such perfect control of their mental
machinery that they are able to direct their thoughts with absolute
precision.
The building in which I found myself contained the machinery which
produces that artificial atmosphere which sustains life on Mars.
The secret of the entire process hinges on the use of the ninth ray,
one of the beautiful scintillations which I had noted emanating from
the great stone in my host's diadem.
This ray is separated from the other rays of the sun by means
of finely adjusted instruments placed upon the roof of the huge
building, three-quarters of which is used for reservoirs in which
the ninth ray is stored. This product is then treated electrically,
or rather certain proportions of refined electric vibrations are
incorporated with it, and the result is then pumped to the five
principal air centers of the planet where, as it is released,
contact with the ether of space transforms it into atmosphere.
There is always sufficient reserve of the ninth ray stored in the
great building to maintain the present Martian atmosphere for a
thousand years, and the only fear, as my new friend told me, was
that some accident might befall the pumping apparatus.
He led me to an inner chamber where I beheld a battery of twenty
radium pumps any one of which was equal to the task of furnishing
all Mars with the atmosphere compound. For eight hundred years, he
told me, he had watched these pumps which are used alternately a day
each at a stretch, or a little over twenty-four and one-half Earth
hours. He has one assistant who divides the watch with him. Half a
Martian year, about three hundred and forty-four of our days, each
of these men spend alone in this huge, isolated plant.
Every red Martian is taught during earliest childhood the principles
of the manufacture of atmosphere, but only two at one time ever
hold the secret of ingress to the great building, which, built as
it is with walls a hundred and fifty feet thick, is absolutely
unassailable, even the roof being guarded from assault by air craft
by a glass covering five feet thick.
The only fear they entertain of attack is from the green Martians
or some demented red man, as all Barsoomians realize that the
very existence of every form of life of Mars is dependent upon
the uninterrupted working of this plant.
One curious fact I discovered as I watched his thoughts was that
the outer doors are manipulated by telepathic means. The locks
are so finely adjusted that the doors are released by the action
of a certain combination of thought waves. To experiment with
my new-found toy I thought to surprise him into revealing this
combination and so I asked him in a casual manner how he had managed
to unlock the massive doors for me from the inner chambers of the
building. As quick as a flash there leaped to his mind nine Martian
sounds, but as quickly faded as he answered that this was a secret
he must not divulge.
From then on his manner toward me changed as though he feared that
he had been surprised into divulging his great secret, and I read
suspicion and fear in his looks and thoughts, though his words were
still fair.
Before I retired for the night he promised to give me a letter to a
nearby agricultural officer who would help me on my way to Zodanga,
which he said, was the nearest Martian city.
"But be sure that you do not let them know you are bound for Helium
as they are at war with that country. My assistant and I are of no
country, we belong to all Barsoom and this talisman which we wear
protects us in all lands, even among the green men--though we do
not trust ourselves to their hands if we can avoid it," he added.
"And so good-night, my friend," he continued, "may you have a long
and restful sleep--yes, a long sleep."
And though he smiled pleasantly I saw in his thoughts the wish that
he had never admitted me, and then a picture of him standing over me
in the night, and the swift thrust of a long dagger and the half
formed words, "I am sorry, but it is for the best good of Barsoom."
As he closed the door of my chamber behind him his thoughts were
cut off from me as was the sight of him, which seemed strange to me
in my little knowledge of thought transference.
What was I to do? How could I escape through these mighty walls?
Easily could I kill him now that I was warned, but once he was dead
I could no more escape, and with the stopping of the machinery of
the great plant I should die with all the other inhabitants of the
planet--all, even Dejah Thoris were she not already dead. For the
others I did not give the snap of my finger, but the thought of
Dejah Thoris drove from my mind all desire to kill my mistaken host.
Cautiously I opened the door of my apartment and, followed by Woola,
sought the inner of the great doors. A wild scheme had come to me;
I would attempt to force the great locks by the nine thought waves
I had read in my host's mind.
Creeping stealthily through corridor after corridor and down winding
runways which turned hither and thither I finally reached the great
hall in which I had broken my long fast that morning. Nowhere had
I seen my host, nor did I know where he kept himself by night.
I was on the point of stepping boldly out into the room when a
slight noise behind me warned me back into the shadows of a recess
in the corridor. Dragging Woola after me I crouched low in the
darkness.
Presently the old man passed close by me, and as he entered the
dimly lighted chamber which I had been about to pass through I
saw that he held a long thin dagger in his hand and that he was
sharpening it upon a stone. In his mind was the decision to inspect
the radium pumps, which would take about thirty minutes, and then
return to my bed chamber and finish me.
As he passed through the great hall and disappeared down the runway
which led to the pump-room, I stole stealthily from my hiding place
and crossed to the great door, the inner of the three which stood
between me and liberty.
Concentrating my mind upon the massive lock I hurled the nine
thought waves against it. In breathless expectancy I waited, when
finally the great door moved softly toward me and slid quietly to
one side. One after the other the remaining mighty portals opened
at my command and Woola and I stepped forth into the darkness, free,
but little better off than we had been before, other than that we
had full stomachs.
Hastening away from the shadows of the formidable pile I made for
the first crossroad, intending to strike the central turnpike as
quickly as possible. This I reached about morning and entering
the first enclosure I came to I searched for some evidences of a
habitation.
There were low rambling buildings of concrete barred with heavy
impassable doors, and no amount of hammering and hallooing brought
any response. Weary and exhausted from sleeplessness I threw
myself upon the ground commanding Woola to stand guard.
Some time later I was awakened by his frightful growlings and opened
my eyes to see three red Martians standing a short distance from us
and covering me with their rifles.
"I am unarmed and no enemy," I hastened to explain. "I have been a
prisoner among the green men and am on my way to Zodanga. All I ask
is food and rest for myself and my calot and the proper directions
for reaching my destination."
They lowered their rifles and advanced pleasantly toward me placing
their right hands upon my left shoulder, after the manner of their
custom of salute, and asking me many questions about myself and my
wanderings. They then took me to the house of one of them which was
only a short distance away.
The buildings I had been hammering at in the early morning were
occupied only by stock and farm produce, the house proper standing
among a grove of enormous trees, and, like all red-Martian homes,
had been raised at night some forty or fifty feet from the ground
on a large round metal shaft which slid up or down within a sleeve
sunk in the ground, and was operated by a tiny radium engine in the
entrance hall of the building. Instead of bothering with bolts and
bars for their dwellings, the red Martians simply run them up out
of harm's way during the night. They also have private means for
lowering or raising them from the ground without if they wish to
go away and leave them.
These brothers, with their wives and children, occupied three
similar houses on this farm. They did no work themselves, being
government officers in charge. The labor was performed by convicts,
prisoners of war, delinquent debtors and confirmed bachelors who
were too poor to pay the high celibate tax which all red-Martian
governments impose.
They were the personification of cordiality and hospitality and I
spent several days with them, resting and recuperating from my long
and arduous experiences.
When they had heard my story--I omitted all reference to Dejah
Thoris and the old man of the atmosphere plant--they advised me
to color my body to more nearly resemble their own race and then
attempt to find employment in Zodanga, either in the army or the
navy.
"The chances are small that your tale will be believed until after
you have proven your trustworthiness and won friends among the
higher nobles of the court. This you can most easily do through
military service, as we are a warlike people on Barsoom," explained
one of them, "and save our richest favors for the fighting man."
When I was ready to depart they furnished me with a small domestic
bull thoat, such as is used for saddle purposes by all red Martians.
The animal is about the size of a horse and quite gentle, but in
color and shape an exact replica of his huge and fierce cousin of
the wilds.
The brothers had supplied me with a reddish oil with which I
anointed my entire body and one of them cut my hair, which had grown
quite long, in the prevailing fashion of the time, square at the
back and banged in front, so that I could have passed anywhere upon
Barsoom as a full-fledged red Martian. My metal and ornaments were
also renewed in the style of a Zodangan gentleman, attached to the
house of Ptor, which was the family name of my benefactors.
They filled a little sack at my side with Zodangan money. The
medium of exchange upon Mars is not dissimilar from our own except
that the coins are oval. Paper money is issued by individuals as
they require it and redeemed twice yearly. If a man issues more
than he can redeem, the government pays his creditors in full and
the debtor works out the amount upon the farms or in mines, which
are all owned by the government. This suits everybody except the
debtor as it has been a difficult thing to obtain sufficient
voluntary labor to work the great isolated farm lands of Mars,
stretching as they do like narrow ribbons from pole to pole,
through wild stretches peopled by wild animals and wilder men.
When I mentioned my inability to repay them for their kindness to me
they assured me that I would have ample opportunity if I lived long
upon Barsoom, and bidding me farewell they watched me until I was
out of sight upon the broad white turnpike.
