The Mastermind of Mars

The Master Mind of MarsTHE MASTER MIND OF MARS

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS

 

 

 

Contents

A LETTER

THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD

PREFERMENT

VALLA DIA

THE COMPACT

DANGER

SUSPICIONS

ESCAPE

HANDS UP!

THE PALACE OF MU TEL

PHUNDAHL

XAXA

THE GREAT TUR

BACK TO THAVAS

JOHN CARTER

 

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MASTER MIND OF MARS

A LETTER

HELIUM, June 8th, 1925

MY DEAR MR. BURROUGHS:

It was in the Fall of nineteen seventeen at an officers' training camp that I

first became acquainted with John Carter, War Lord of Barsoom, through the pages

of your novel "A Princess of Mars." The story made a profound impression upon me

and while my better judgment assured me that it was but a highly imaginative

piece of fiction, a suggestion of the verity of it pervaded my inner

consciousness to such an extent that I found myself dreaming of Mars and John

Carter, of Dejah Thoris, of Tars Tarkas and of Woola as if they had been

entities of my own experience rather than the figments of your imagination.

It is true that in those days of strenuous preparation there was little time for

dreaming, yet there were brief moments before sleep claimed me at night and

these were my dreams. Such dreams! Always of Mars, and during my waking hours at

night my eyes always sought out the Red Planet when he was above the horizon and

clung there seeking a solution of the seemingly unfathomable riddle he has

presented to the Earthman for ages.

Perhaps the thing became an obsession. I know it clung to me all during my

training camp days, and at night, on the deck of the transport, I would he on my

back gazing up into the red eye of the god of battle – my god – and wishing

that, like John Carter, I might be drawn across the great void to the haven of

my desire.

And then came the hideous days and nights in the trenches – the rats, the

vermin, the mud – with an occasional glorious break in the monotony when we were

ordered over the top. I loved it then and I loved the bursting shells, the mad,

wild chaos of the thundering guns, but the rats and the vermin and the mud –

God! how I hated them. It sounds like boasting, I know, and I am sorry; but I

wanted to write you just the truth about myself. I think you will understand.

And it may account for much that happened afterwards.

There came at last to me what had come to so many others upon those bloody

fields. It came within the week that I had received my first promotion and my

captaincy, of which I was greatly proud, though humbly so; realizing as I did my

youth, the great responsibility that it placed upon me as well as the

opportunities it offered, not only in service to my country but, in a personal

way, to the men of my command. We had advanced a matter of two kilometers and

with a small detachment I was holding a very advanced position when I received

orders to fall back to the new line. That is the last that I remember until I

regained consciousness after dark. A shell must have burst among us. What became

of my men I never knew. It was cold and very dark when I awoke and at first, for

an instant, I was quite comfortable – before I was fully conscious, I imagine –

and then I commenced to feel pain. It grew until it seemed unbearable. It was in

my legs. I reached down to feel them, but my hand recoiled from what it found,

and when I tried to move my legs I discovered that I was dead from the waist

down. Then the moon came out from behind a cloud and I saw that I lay within a

shell hole and that I was not alone – the dead were all about me.

It was a long time before I found the moral courage and the physical strength to

draw myself up upon one elbow that I might view the havoc that had been done me.

One look was enough, I sank back in an agony of mental and physical anguish – my

legs had been blown away from midway between the hips and knees. For some reason

I was not bleeding excessively, yet I know that I had lost a great deal of blood

and that I was gradually losing enough to put me out of my misery in a short

time if I were not soon found; and as I lay there on my back, tortured with

pain, I prayed that they would not come in time, for I shrank more from the

thought of going maimed through life than I shrank from the thought of death.

Then my eyes suddenly focussed upon the bright red eye of Mars and there surged

through me a sudden wave of hope. I stretched out my arms towards Mars, I did

not seem to question or to doubt for an instant as I prayed to the god of my

vocation to reach forth and succour me. I knew that he would do it, my faith was

complete, and yet so great was the mental effort that I made to throw off the

hideous bonds of my mutilated flesh that I felt a momentary qualm of nausea and

then a sharp click as of the snapping of a steel wire, and suddenly I stood

naked upon two good legs looking down upon the bloody, distorted thing that had

been I. Just for an instant did I stand thus before I turned my eyes aloft again

to my star of destiny and with outstretched arms stand there in the cold of that

French night – waiting.

Suddenly I felt myself drawn with the speed of thought through the trackless

wastes of interplanetary space. There was an instant of extreme cold and utter

darkness, then–

But the rest is in the manuscript that, with the aid of one greater than either

of us, I have found the means to transmit to you with this letter. You and a few

others of the chosen will believe in it – for the rest it matters not as yet.

The time will come – but why tell you what you already know?

My salutations and my congratulations – the latter on your good fortune in

having been chosen as the medium through which Earthmen shall become better

acquainted with the manners and customs of Barsoom, against the time that they

shall pass through space as easily as John Carter, and visit the scenes that he

has described to them through you, as have I.

Your sincere friend,

ULYSSES PAXTON,

Late Captain, ––th Inf., U.S. Army.

THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD

I MUST have closed my eyes involuntarily during the transition for when I opened

them I was lying flat on my back gazing up into a brilliant, sun-lit sky, while

standing a few feet from me and looking down upon me with the most mystified

expression was as strange a looking individual as my eyes ever had rested upon.

He appeared to be quite an old man, for he was wrinkled and withered beyond

description. His limbs were emaciated; his ribs showed distinctly beneath his

shrunken hide; his cranium was large and well developed, which, in conjunction

with his wasted limbs and torso, lent him the appearance of top heaviness, as

though he had a head beyond all proportion to his body, which was, I am sure,

really not the case.

As he stared down upon me through enormous, many lensed spectacles I found the

opportunity to examine him as minutely in return. He was, perhaps, five feet

five in height, though doubtless he had been taller in youth, since he was

somewhat bent; he was naked except for some rather plain and well-worn leather

harness which supported his weapons and pocket pouches, and one great ornament a

collar, jewel studded, that he wore around his scraggy neck – such a collar as a

dowager empress of pork or real estate might barter her soul for, if she had

one.