Under the Moons of Mars Read Online Free Page B

unbound and pushed in to join them. They slammed the barred gate and locked it with a key. Men and women in the cage grabbed at the bars and tried uselessly to pull them loose. They yelled foul epithets at our captors.
    I wandered to the far side of our prison, which was a solid wall, and slid down to sit with my back to it. Though I was weak, and in pain, I tried to observe my circumstances, attempted to formulate a plan of escape.
    One Red man came forward and stood over me. He said, “John Carter, Jeddak of Helium.”
    I looked up in surprise. “You know me?”
    “I do, for I was once a soldier of Helium. My name is Farr Larvis.”
    I managed to stand, wobbling only slightly. I reached out and clasped his shoulder. “I regret I didn’t recognize you, but I know your name. You are well respected in Helium.”
    “Was respected,” he said.
    “We wondered what happened to your patrol,” I said. “We searched for days.”
    Farr Larvis was a name well-known in Helium: a general of some renown who had fought well for our great city. During one of our many conflicts with the Green Men of Mars, he and a clutch of warriors had been sent to protect citizens on the outskirts of the city from Thark invaders. The invaders had been driven back, Farr Larvis and his men pursuing on their thoats. After that, they had not been heard of again. Search parties were sent out, and for weeks they were sought, without so much as a trace.
“We chased the Tharks,” Farr Larvis said, “and finally met them in final combat. We lost many men, but in the end prevailed. Those of us who remained prepared to return to Helium. But one night we made our camp and the gold ones came in their great winged beasts. They came to us silently and dropped nets, and before we could put up a fight, hoisted us up inside the bellies of their beasts. We were brought here. I regret to inform you, John Carter, that of my soldiers, I and two others are all that remain. The rest have become one with the machine.”
    He pointed the survivors out to me in the crowd.
    I clasped his shoulder again. “I know you fought well. I am weak. I must sit.”
    We both sat and talked while the other Red Martians wandered about the cell, some moaning and crying, others merely standing like cattle waiting their turn in the slaughter-house line. Farr Larvis’s two soldiers sat against the bars, not moving, waiting. If they were frightened, it didn’t show in their eyes.
    “The gold men, they are not men at all,” Farr Larvis told me.
    “Machines?” I said.
    “You would think, but no. They are neither man nor machine, but both. They are made up of body parts and cogs and wheels and puffs of steam. And most importantly, the very spirits of the living. Odar Rukk is responsible.”
    “And who and what is he?” I asked.
    “His ancestors are from the far north, the rare area where there is ice and snow. They were a wicked race, according to Odar Rukk, fueled by the needs of the flesh. They were warlike, destroying every tribe within their range.”
    “Odar Rukk told you this personally?”
“He speaks to us all,” said Farr Larvis. “There are constant messages spilled out over speakers. They tell his history, they tell his plans. They explain our fate, and how we are supposed to accept it. According to him, in one night there came a great melting in the north, and the snow and much of the ice collapsed. Their race was lost, except for those driven underground. These were people who found a chamber that led down into the earth. It was warmer there, and they survived because the walls were covered in moss that gave heat and light. There were wild plants and wild animals, and the melting ice and snow leaked down into the world and formed lakes and creeks and rivers. In time these people populated all of the underground. They found gold. They discovered hissing vats of volcanic release; it’s the power source for most of what occurs here. They built this city.
    “But in