Slavery

: Thuvia, Maid Of Mars

As the ruler of Ptarth, followed by his courtiers, descended from

the landing-stage above the palace, the servants dropped into their

places in the rear of their royal or noble masters, and behind the

others one lingered to the last. Then quickly stooping he snatched

the sandal from his right foot, slipping it into his pocket-pouch.



When the party had come to the lower levels, and the jeddak had

disperse
them by a sign, none noticed that the forward fellow who

had drawn so much attention to himself before the Prince of Helium

departed, was no longer among the other servants.



To whose retinue he had been attached none had thought to inquire,

for the followers of a Martian noble are many, coming and going

at the whim of their master, so that a new face is scarcely ever

questioned, as the fact that a man has passed within the palace

walls is considered proof positive that his loyalty to the jeddak

is beyond question, so rigid is the examination of each who seeks

service with the nobles of the court.



A good rule that, and only relaxed by courtesy in favour of the

retinue of visiting royalty from a friendly foreign power.



It was late in the morning of the next day that a giant serving man

in the harness of the house of a great Ptarth noble passed out into

the city from the palace gates. Along one broad avenue and then

another he strode briskly until he had passed beyond the district

of the nobles and had come to the place of shops. Here he sought

a pretentious building that rose spire-like toward the heavens,

its outer walls elaborately wrought with delicate carvings and

intricate mosaics.



It was the Palace of Peace in which were housed the representatives

of the foreign powers, or rather in which were located their

embassies; for the ministers themselves dwelt in gorgeous palaces

within the district occupied by the nobles.



Here the man sought the embassy of Dusar. A clerk arose questioningly

as he entered, and at his request to have a word with the minister

asked his credentials. The visitor slipped a plain metal armlet

from above his elbow, and pointing to an inscription upon its inner

surface, whispered a word or two to the clerk.



The latter's eyes went wide, and his attitude turned at once to

one of deference. He bowed the stranger to a seat, and hastened

to an inner room with the armlet in his hand. A moment later

he reappeared and conducted the caller into the presence of the

minister.



For a long time the two were closeted together, and when at last

the giant serving man emerged from the inner office his expression

was cast in a smile of sinister satisfaction. From the Palace of

Peace he hurried directly to the palace of the Dusarian minister.



That night two swift fliers left the same palace top. One sped

its rapid course toward Helium; the other--





Thuvia of Ptarth strolled in the gardens of her father's palace, as

was her nightly custom before retiring. Her silks and furs were

drawn about her, for the air of Mars is chill after the sun has

taken his quick plunge beneath the planet's western verge.



The girl's thoughts wandered from her impending nuptials, that

would make her empress of Kaol, to the person of the trim young

Heliumite who had laid his heart at her feet the preceding day.



Whether it was pity or regret that saddened her expression as she

gazed toward the southern heavens where she had watched the lights

of his flier disappear the previous night, it would be difficult

to say.



So, too, is it impossible to conjecture just what her emotions may

have been as she discerned the lights of a flier speeding rapidly

out of the distance from that very direction, as though impelled

toward her garden by the very intensity of the princess' thoughts.



She saw it circle lower above the palace until she was positive

that it but hovered in preparation for a landing.



Presently the powerful rays of its searchlight shot downward from

the bow. They fell upon the landing-stage for a brief instant,

revealing the figures of the Ptarthian guard, picking into brilliant

points of fire the gems upon their gorgeous harnesses.



Then the blazing eye swept onward across the burnished domes and

graceful minarets, down into court and park and garden to pause at

last upon the ersite bench and the girl standing there beside it,

her face upturned full toward the flier.



For but an instant the searchlight halted upon Thuvia of Ptarth,

then it was extinguished as suddenly as it had come to life. The

flier passed on above her to disappear beyond a grove of lofty

skeel trees that grew within the palace grounds.



The girl stood for some time as it had left her, except that her

head was bent and her eyes downcast in thought.



Who but Carthoris could it have been? She tried to feel anger

that he should have returned thus, spying upon her; but she found

it difficult to be angry with the young prince of Helium.



What mad caprice could have induced him so to transgress the

etiquette of nations? For lesser things great powers had gone to

war.



The princess in her was shocked and angered--but what of the girl!



And the guard--what of them? Evidently they, too, had been so much

surprised by the unprecedented action of the stranger that they

had not even challenged; but that they had no thought to let the

thing go unnoticed was quickly evidenced by the skirring of motors

upon the landing-stage and the quick shooting airward of a long-lined

patrol boat.



Thuvia watched it dart swiftly eastward. So, too, did other eyes

watch.



Within the dense shadows of the skeel grove, in a wide avenue

beneath o'erspreading foliage, a flier hung a dozen feet above the

ground. From its deck keen eyes watched the far-fanning searchlight

of the patrol boat. No light shone from the enshadowed craft. Upon

its deck was the silence of the tomb. Its crew of a half-dozen

red warriors watched the lights of the patrol boat diminishing in

the distance.



"The intellects of our ancestors are with us to-night," said one

in a low tone.



"No plan ever carried better," returned another. "They did precisely

as the prince foretold."



He who had first spoken turned toward the man who squatted before

the control board.



"Now!" he whispered. There was no other order given. Every man

upon the craft had evidently been well schooled in each detail

of that night's work. Silently the dark hull crept beneath the

cathedral arches of the dark and silent grove.



Thuvia of Ptarth, gazing toward the east, saw the blacker blot

against the blackness of the trees as the craft topped the buttressed

garden wall. She saw the dim bulk incline gently downward toward

the scarlet sward of the garden.



She knew that men came not thus with honourable intent. Yet she

did not cry aloud to alarm the near-by guardsmen, nor did she flee

to the safety of the palace.



Why?



I can see her shrug her shapely shoulders in reply as she voices

the age-old, universal answer of the woman: Because!



Scarce had the flier touched the ground when four men leaped from

its deck. They ran forward toward the girl.



Still she made no sign of alarm, standing as though hypnotized.

Or could it have been as one who awaited a welcome visitor?



Not until they were quite close to her did she move. Then the

nearer moon, rising above the surrounding foliage, touched their

faces, lighting all with the brilliancy of her silver rays.



Thuvia of Ptarth saw only strangers--warriors in the harness of

Dusar. Now she took fright, but too late!



Before she could voice but a single cry, rough hands seized her.

A heavy silken scarf was wound about her head. She was lifted

in strong arms and borne to the deck of the flier. There was the

sudden whirl of propellers, the rushing of air against her body,

and, from far beneath the shouting and the challenge from the guard.



Racing toward the south another flier sped toward Helium. In its

cabin a tall red man bent over the soft sole of an upturned sandal.

With delicate instruments he measured the faint imprint of a small

object which appeared there. Upon a pad beside him was the outline

of a key, and here he noted the results of his measurements.



A smile played upon his lips as he completed his task and turned

to one who waited at the opposite side of the table.



"The man is a genius," he remarked.



"Only a genius could have evolved such a lock as this is designed

to spring. Here, take the sketch, Larok, and give all thine own

genius full and unfettered freedom in reproducing it in metal."



The warrior-artificer bowed. "Man builds naught," he said, "that

man may not destroy." Then he left the cabin with the sketch.



As dawn broke upon the lofty towers which mark the twin cities

of Helium--the scarlet tower of one and the yellow tower of its

sister--a flier floated lazily out of the north.



Upon its bow was emblazoned the signia of a lesser noble of a

far city of the empire of Helium. Its leisurely approach and the

evident confidence with which it moved across the city aroused no

suspicion in the minds of the sleepy guard. Their round of duty

nearly done, they had little thought beyond the coming of those

who were to relieve them.



Peace reigned throughout Helium. Stagnant, emasculating peace.

Helium had no enemies. There was naught to fear.



Without haste the nearest air patrol swung sluggishly about and

approached the stranger. At easy speaking distance the officer

upon her deck hailed the incoming craft.



The cheery "Kaor!" and the plausible explanation that the owner had

come from distant parts for a few days of pleasure in gay Helium

sufficed. The air-patrol boat sheered off, passing again upon its

way. The stranger continued toward a public landing-stage, where

she dropped into the ways and came to rest.



At about the same time a warrior entered her cabin.



"It is done, Vas Kor," he said, handing a small metal key to the

tall noble who had just risen from his sleeping silks and furs.



"Good!" exclaimed the latter. "You must have worked upon it all

during the night, Larok."



The warrior nodded.



"Now fetch me the Heliumetic metal you wrought some days since,"

commanded Vas Kor.



This done, the warrior assisted his master to replace the handsome

jewelled metal of his harness with the plainer ornaments of an

ordinary fighting man of Helium, and with the insignia of the same

house that appeared upon the bow of the flier.



Vas Kor breakfasted on board. Then he emerged upon the aerial dock,

entered an elevator, and was borne quickly to the street below,

where he was soon engulfed by the early morning throng of workers

hastening to their daily duties.



Among them his warrior trappings were no more remarkable than is

a pair of trousers upon Broadway. All Martian men are warriors,

save those physically unable to bear arms. The tradesman and

his clerk clank with their martial trappings as they pursue their

vocations. The schoolboy, coming into the world, as he does, almost

adult from the snowy shell that has encompassed his development

for five long years, knows so little of life without a sword at

his hip that he would feel the same discomfiture at going abroad

unarmed that an Earth boy would experience in walking the streets

knicker-bockerless.



Vas Kor's destination lay in Greater Helium, which lies some

seventy-five miles across the level plain from Lesser Helium. He

had landed at the latter city because the air patrol is less

suspicious and alert than that above the larger metropolis where

lies the palace of the jeddak.



As he moved with the throng in the parklike canyon of the thoroughfare

the life of an awakening Martian city was in evidence about him.

Houses, raised high upon their slender metal columns for the night

were dropping gently toward the ground. Among the flowers upon the

scarlet sward which lies about the buildings children were already

playing, and comely women laughing and chatting with their neighbours

as they culled gorgeous blossoms for the vases within doors.



The pleasant "kaor" of the Barsoomian greeting fell continually

upon the ears of the stranger as friends and neighbours took up

the duties of a new day.



The district in which he had landed was residential--a district of

merchants of the more prosperous sort. Everywhere were evidences

of luxury and wealth. Slaves appeared upon every housetop with

gorgeous silks and costly furs, laying them in the sun for airing.

Jewel-encrusted women lolled even thus early upon the carven

balconies before their sleeping apartments. Later in the day they

would repair to the roofs when the slaves had arranged couches and

pitched silken canopies to shade them from the sun.



Strains of inspiring music broke pleasantly from open windows,

for the Martians have solved the problem of attuning the nerves

pleasantly to the sudden transition from sleep to waking that proves

so difficult a thing for most Earth folk.



Above him raced the long, light passenger fliers, plying, each in

its proper plane, between the numerous landing-stages for internal

passenger traffic. Landing-stages that tower high into the heavens

are for the great international passenger liners. Freighters have

other landing-stages at various lower levels, to within a couple

of hundred feet of the ground; nor dare any flier rise or drop from

one plane to another except in certain restricted districts where

horizontal traffic is forbidden.



Along the close-cropped sward which paves the avenue ground fliers

were moving in continuous lines in opposite directions. For the

greater part they skimmed along the surface of the sward, soaring

gracefully into the air at times to pass over a slower-going driver

ahead, or at intersections, where the north and south traffic has

the right of way and the east and west must rise above it.



From private hangars upon many a roof top fliers were darting into

the line of traffic. Gay farewells and parting admonitions mingled

with the whirring of motors and the subdued noises of the city.



Yet with all the swift movement and the countless thousands rushing

hither and thither, the predominant suggestion was that of luxurious

ease and soft noiselessness.



Martians dislike harsh, discordant clamour. The only loud noises

they can abide are the martial sounds of war, the clash of arms,

the collision of two mighty dreadnoughts of the air. To them there

is no sweeter music than this.



At the intersection of two broad avenues Vas Kor descended from the

street level to one of the great pneumatic stations of the city.

Here he paid before a little wicket the fare to his destination

with a couple of the dull, oval coins of Helium.



Beyond the gatekeeper he came to a slowly moving line of what to

Earthly eyes would have appeared to be conical-nosed, eight-foot

projectiles for some giant gun. In slow procession the things

moved in single file along a grooved track. A half dozen attendants

assisted passengers to enter, or directed these carriers to their

proper destination.



Vas Kor approached one that was empty. Upon its nose was a dial

and a pointer. He set the pointer for a certain station in Greater

Helium, raised the arched lid of the thing, stepped in and lay down

upon the upholstered bottom. An attendant closed the lid, which

locked with a little click, and the carrier continued its slow way.



Presently it switched itself automatically to another track, to

enter, a moment later, one of the series of dark-mouthed tubes.



The instant that its entire length was within the black aperture

it sprang forward with the speed of a rifle ball. There was an

instant of whizzing--a soft, though sudden, stop, and slowly the

carrier emerged upon another platform, another attendant raised

the lid and Vas Kor stepped out at the station beneath the centre

of Greater Helium, seventy-five miles from the point at which he

had embarked.



Here he sought the street level, stepping immediately into a waiting

ground flier. He spoke no word to the slave sitting in the driver's

seat. It was evident that he had been expected, and that the fellow

had received his instructions before his coming.



Scarcely had Vas Kor taken his seat when the flier went quickly

into the fast-moving procession, turning presently from the broad

and crowded avenue into a less congested street. Presently it left

the thronged district behind to enter a section of small shops,

where it stopped before the entrance to one which bore the sign of

a dealer in foreign silks.



Vas Kor entered the low-ceiling room. A man at the far end

motioned him toward an inner apartment, giving no further sign of

recognition until he had passed in after the caller and closed the

door.



Then he faced his visitor, saluting deferentially.



"Most noble--" he commenced, but Vas Kor silenced him with a gesture.



"No formalities," he said. "We must forget that I am aught other

than your slave. If all has been as carefully carried out as it

has been planned, we have no time to waste. Instead we should be

upon our way to the slave market. Are you ready?"



The merchant nodded, and, turning to a great chest, produced

the unemblazoned trappings of a slave. These Vas Kor immediately

donned. Then the two passed from the shop through a rear door,

traversed a winding alley to an avenue beyond, where they entered

a flier which awaited them.



Five minutes later the merchant was leading his slave to the public

market, where a great concourse of people filled the great open

space in the centre of which stood the slave block.



The crowds were enormous to-day, for Carthoris, Prince of Helium,

was to be the principal bidder.



One by one the masters mounted the rostrum beside the slave block

upon which stood their chattels. Briefly and clearly each recounted

the virtues of his particular offering.



When all were done, the major-domo of the Prince of Helium recalled

to the block such as had favourably impressed him. For such he

had made a fair offer.



There was little haggling as to price, and none at all when Vas

Kor was placed upon the block. His merchant-master accepted the

first offer that was made for him, and thus a Dusarian noble entered

the household of Carthoris.



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