by: Rick Johnson 
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
RikJohnson@juno.com
Return to the Home Page.
Return to the Amtor Page.
Return to the Barsoom Page.
Return to the Caspak Page.
Return to the Pal-ul-Don Page.
Return to the Pellucidar Page.
Return to the Va-Nah Page.
Return to the Lost Cities Page.
Return to the To Be Announced Page.
I
Jason rode across the desert with mixed feelings. Now that Jennings was safe, he felt the need to find and rescue North, Stroud and even Steve, the technician who preferred to be called Bar Komas. He felt this not from loyalty for they were a danger to Earth, Barsoom and every other planet in the Galaxy including his own Barony of Drakonis, for once Earth became convinced that they were not alone, the Humans would divert everything but military spending towards space travel. They would impoverish their planet and let people starve in the streets in the hope of finding their ‘brothers in the stars,’ which was their way of saying ‘we must be strong and powerful to protect ourselves at any cost even if we have to con or steal advanced technology’. If the other humans in space wanted to be found by the Homeworld, they’d have returned to Earth centuries ago. And when Barsoom had contacted Earth in the early 1960’s, the Terran governments had repressed that knowledge from their own people, used the information given to them for their own ends and lied to the Red Men to gain even more technology. Then, thankfully, forgot that Mars was inhabited.. or repressed the info from even themselves.
Once they found Barsoom or any other world, one of two things would happen, they’d do something stupidly arrogant and be destroyed or, if outnumbered and out-gunned, they’d buy land under promises of peace, then buy more and slowly spread out until they could steal the land they wanted. It would be Africa or America all over again. No, better they die here and now and keep the secret for the good of all.
But then, he had promised Jennings and she had paid for his promise, first grudgingly then willingly. But pay she did and he’d be just like a human if he broke his promise, even if Jennings had released him. The question now was, where to search and who to find first?
Steve, no, Bar Komas as he wished to be called, had headed north with Kara and Vos Kar who were thoat herders. Since the River Iss is in the middle of the Great Desert, that meant they’d need to remain close to water. And since the Therns swept the Iss free of habitation, that meant another hidden valley or the thoat herds of Heaven’s Gate would be their goal.
North and Stroud would head south into the Otz Mountains. There would be trails into the mountains, built and maintained by the Therns to facilitate the travels of the pilgrims. North would drag Stroud down these paths until even he realized that Wilkes was dead or had left the Iss kilometers upstream. The question here was: how far in would North go before this realization struck?
Either way they both would stick close to the River as the only source of water so he rode east to find a starting point. By thoat he could ride 35-40 kilometers a day easy which made the Iss a two to three-day ride away depending on how hard he pushed the animal and who long the frail beast could carry his Terrestrial weight. Three days would be enough time for him to decide. He would miss Jennings though and not for the sex alone for the woman was intelligent and personable and kept him entertained with her wit and conversation. But alone he worried only for himself so he balanced the loneliness with safety for he could more easily defend himself if he didn’t have to worry about protecting anyone else. With Jennings safe, his only real worry for himself was how long would he survive before he died of Celibacy? A month? Maybe two! So he was on a time schedule or he’d have to find another bed-mate and among the Red Men, that meant a female slave and another life to protect.
The first day was the roughest for the red sand dunes slowed him by forcing the thoat to travel north to avoid getting bogged down. There was no moss to speak of and the heat was unbearable during the day and freezing at night. The morning after that first night, his silk tent was frozen from residual humidity trapped in the folds when he had rolled the material. But the silk soon thawed out and he was able to pack it and head on after he dug his thoat from the sand. The animal had somehow buried itself in the sand to remain warm over the night for this far south, the days were hot and the nights freezing. Despite his attempts, he never found out how a two-toed animal could so easily dig such a large pit in the sand and fill it in after itself so he listed this as one more mystery of the Red Planet that would be incomprehensible to Earth minds.
By the third day he saw to the northwest another line of hills, another impact crater that littered the planet and whose stony-iron composition added so much mass and free iron to the planet. This is why Mars was the Red Planet, all that iron on the surface from millions of years of impacts absorbed the water in the air and ground to form rust. The planet was literally rusting away even as the atmosphere leaked into space.
But hills meant moisture traps and that meant Mantilla for him and moss for the thoat so he turned towards the hills, reaching them the next day. After days in the saddle, Jason needed rest for although he could ride and had often lived in the saddle, he was out of shape and sore. His ass hurt, his tail was cramped from always being turned aside in the Martian saddle and his thighs were rubbed raw. A few days rest would do both him and the thoat well so he moved to the east seeking the Iss and water and a place to set camp away from Thern fliers and white apes but near to moss and water and mantilla.
II
Eibhlin was not happy. She was a soldier, a Panthan hired to fight for some king on some planet that no one in 17th century Ireland knew existed. Hell! When she was born, they were still arguing if the Earth or the Sun were the center of the universe and the planets were still seen to be lights on a sphere surrounding the universe.
Now, twenty years later and after being abducted by aliens, physically changed by them and traveling around the Galaxy, she knew the truth, but that truth didn’t comfort her sore arse any. She had ridden horses on Earth but that was when she was still a teen and the thoat she had found was a horse only by use, and for the last couple decades, she had ridden starships where the chairs were made to be comfortable even for an alien with a tail.
Because the air on this planet was so thin, she couldn’t join the flying Navy and her thirst for adventure and her desires for her own gender as lovers almost forced her into the role of an alien mercenary. At least until her starship could find and rescue her.
Normally, the Red Men refused to allow women to be soldiers. Something about the natural chivalry of the male which prevented them from fighting women but unlike Earth where English knights would regularly rape Irish, French and even English girls, here they really did believed in that. So how did she manage to allow them to accept her? Because as an alien, she didn’t have to fit their roles. Red Woman were flat-chested and human-looking and near helpless, or so they allowed their men to believe. Eibhlin thought it was just a pretense to avoid the battlefield and the hardships of war. Or maybe it was the way women really were for she saw no difference between the Red Women of Barsoom, the women of Ireland in the 17th century and the women of California in the 21st century. They all wanted to marry someone though the American girls looked for a pretty face, the Irish girls looked for wealth and title and the Red Women looked for chivalry and strength. When Eibhlin had told her American lover about arraigned marriages in Ireland, the woman was angry and called Eibhlin’s father a panderer who would sell his own daughter for a few bucks. No, Eibhlin’s father actually loved her as much if not more than Jean’s father loved her. The difference was that Eibhlin understood that a good marriage was better than a loving marriage for Jean had loved a half dozen people, been married twice and each time swore eternal love and then divorced or left her ‘eternal love’. At least if Eibhlin’s father married her off, she knew she would be married forever and her marriage would serve her nation and make her people’s lives easier and better. Duty was the difference. And love sometimes had to be sacrificed for Duty.
And duty was why she was riding across the desert, he arse sore and her hair dirty. Fortunately, with the lower gravity of Barsoom and her natural firmness and the gentle gait of the thoat, her breasts didn’t ache like her smaller ones did when she rode real horses in Ireland.
“Damn that woman!” she cursed for the hundredth time. Did she know nothing of family duty? And that was why she was here. Eibhlin was an alien and despite her looks, she was valuable because she was stronger than any man on the planet (thanks to both her Earthly birthplace and the Demons who wanted their tech-slaves strong) and she was telepathically invisible to any Red Man. It was too easy for a local Red Man with training and experience to detect the minds of his pursuers long before they could be caught. Young Red Men had some skill but that skill increased with age until at near a thousand years of age, a Red Man could easily read and sort every thought in a dozen minds and probably could see through each other’s body with what she could only believe was something akin to ‘x-ray’ vision. But that was impossible. Yet, her Jed was near 800 years old and could see her internal organs as she stood before him as if she had no flesh or skin. No wonder they were required to take their Pilgrimage to Heaven long before then. Or had been, before John Carter had near destroyed the Martian religion, leaving the Red Men without faith or purpose. In that Eibhlin felt kin for she had lost her own faith in god when she had been gang-raped and murdered on Earth long ago.
Also. Being a woman, the Odwar who was her father felt his daughter would be safe with the panthan. Eibhlin laughed at that for the Red Woman had a reputation as being a slut and bedding anyone who would embarrass her father. Had the man known in advance what he would bear, he would have destroyed her egg long ago and had his wife hatch more complacent children.
But the girl, for Red Women were still considered to be girls until they had long past forty years, had run off with some fool from another city. The girl had thrown away her future, her position and probably her life just to prove that she was an individual. Hell! Even Eibhlin would have married a man with position had her parents asked. She would have kept a female lover but she would have been the dutiful wife and born children for her husband and allowed him his own affairs, but she did understand family duty. And now she was racing across the desert seeking this idiot girl who understood nothing.
And what when she found her? Kill the boy? Tie the girl up and bring her back fighting? These and other thoughts passed through her mind as she crossed the mossy landscape.
She had started in a flier, going low to breathe the thin air but then a lucky shot from a Green Man south of the Koal Forest had burst a buoyancy tank and only by piling all her gear in the stern and tossing everything else over the side was she able to keep the nose up. Miles later, hundreds she hoped, she slammed into the ochre sward. She ran for a day to escape more Green Men and fortunately she was able to out-run their thoats so she found sanctuary in the hills as they found her flier. Then, days later she found her current thoat and calling it to her, tamed and mounted for the animal was of the domesticated variety and probably one gone feral after a battle had killed its master. At least it accepted her and allowed her to mount and so she continued her journey bareback following the River she had passed over. She had an idea of where the two had gone and a gamekeeper in the Koal Forest had told her, eventually, that the two had flown south along the River Iss. Although their ancient religion had been discredited, following the river as if on Pilgrimage would be exactly the stupid thing she would do to embarrass her father even more. Didn’t that idiot she was running with know he was but a toy to be used and cast away when she was tired of her game?
But game or not, she’d not be able to return to her father without help and that was why Eibhlin was racing across the desert, her only hope was the knowledge that the girl wanted to get caught.
III
Jason moved into the forest valley, another one watered by the Iss and walked north, seeking what he wasn’t certain. South, the Iss entered another long valley which was almost fully marsh and so unlikely to be habitable though he recalled in Iraq along the Tigris when he was a galley slave that Marsh Arabs would make floating islands from the reeds and so rarely needed to visit shore.
But for some reason, he felt the need to move north along the Iss and that brought him into this secluded valley which was probably inhabited by anything from apostate pilgrims who had turned away from Dor to any of the dozen species of intelligent life that inhabited Barsoom. They had Green and Red Men, Intelligent Insect Kaldanes and even the sentient Marsh Kangaroos that Ras Thavas had created in one of his pedagogueic states. So he walked slowly and carefully, his thoat left outside, searching with all of his enhanced senses for danger because that single snake-bite had taught him how vulnerable he was.
Occasionally he would sit aside and hide as a pilgrim would paddle down the river or a dirty Red Man carrying a cudgel or naked sword strode the path but this valley was generally avoided for he had found a trail that led along the Iss to pass along the outsides of the valley. As the Iss exited the valley, it did so by way of a very low opening with considerable rapids, proof that this valley was avoided by the Therns and their prey. The smashed boat on the rocks outside the valley was proof that some souls would dare the valley with dire consequences. But, unlike the Martian, Jason could swim for he had learned in the rocky surf of Western Ireland and so managed to pass into the valley, wet and bruised but alive.
How wide or long the valley was he could not tell for distances on this world of a too close horizon were difficult to measure. And the scarlet trees made him further confused for most planets he had visited had green vegetation, bred from green algae by the Demons or occasionally, a natural evolution. On Barsoom, the plant life evolved from red algae, he believed, though there was no proof of this.
It was some kilometers in that he found the flyer in a clearing. Undamaged by rifle-fire it had simply slipped a bearing due to poor maintenance and twisted the prop-shaft. It would float but not fly until a machine shop could straighten and re-temper the shaft and so had been abandoned. Now to find the owners.
A search revealed tracks to the river then nothing so he followed them and chose north not really caring what or whom he found but it gave him a destination. His thoat would be fine and with so much water and thick moss, would not leave for some time. Graystoke would have simply jumped into the trees and moved through the branches but trying that, Jason quickly fell with a broken branch in hand and tail. It appeared that maybe in Africa the trees would support such travel but not here where the trees never needed to develop strength to counter gravity, heavy animals and strong winds and rains. True he could easily climb into some of the larger but not travel between so he continued along the ground which had no path. More evidence that the pilgrims avoided this valley. But why?
Eventually he heard screams and estanned violence so running forward with drawn sword, he burst into a hillock upon which were a number of Red Men fighting with savages armed with old swords but no sheaths or modern gear. A quick glance showed not even the silk and leather worn by the normal Red Men but mud painted over their body in imitation of harness. Being a native of an invaded nation himself, Jason was unwilling to risk his life for anyone without knowing who was invading whom. For all he knew, the savages were Barsoom’s version of the Red Indians of America who were defending their valley from British invaders and despite the century and more between him and his dead wife, he still remembered living in an occupied nation. So until he could be certain, he moved around and avoided the fight.
On the hill-ward side of the clearing he saw the Red Men finally break and run, chased by the larger hoard of savages and once all were gone, he approached the hillock to see what he could discover. There wasn’t much, either the savages didn’t believe in taking heads or other bodily trophies or had no chance to do so in their chase and none of the bodies carried firearms or indications of rank or nation so he moved around until he heard a moan. He quickly leapt to the top of a pile of rocks to be met by a woman pointing a sword at him and standing by a wounded man.
The woman was Weir but wore a woman’s harness in a male fashion with a silk bra, clothing that was unknown upon Barsoom, and the sword she held resembled a Japanese Katana but was different, lighter, longer without guard and held easily by the woman who would be hard put to reach five feet in height. He looked, then lowered his own blade and commented, “I wasn’t aware that other Weir had visited Barsoom save myself and Ayiesha and those Historians. But as Weir do not war against Weir, might I suggest you lower your blade also.”
IV
Eibhlin found a vague trail that entered another valley and left her thoat to climb over the rocks to the forest within. Like all Martian vegetation, it was red or reddish-yellow, not green and the trees looked more like giant reeds or ferns but she felt the need to explore the valley for evidence of her charge.
Days of exploration later she met a group of pilgrims who had ignored the road around the valley for the water that passed her and joined them, hoping for company and information. Then the savages had struck and the group had made a stand on a hillock. The savages were armed with swords taken from previous pilgrims but had no skill and so despite the odds, the Red Men and their Weir companion were barely holding their own until more savages arrived. That was when the Red Men gave ground and raced for the safety of the valley walls. Eibhlin would have joined them but remained behind to carry a wounded man and when she found herself alone, decided to treat him there and leave later.
Eibhlin estanned someone, not a Red Man and not a human but different and yet similar. So she left the man she had been helping, drew and was on guard when the other arrived. He was Weir, like herself! The same prehensile tail, the same pointed ears and antennae, the same cat-eyes and feet and hands, totally Weir but armed and harnessed as a Red Man. He stared back then lowered his weapon and spoke to her in Spanglic. She was so shocked by his appearance that she froze then lowered her own blade and spoke, “Who are you? You are Weir! Did the Demons take you too? Are there more of us? You said other names….” She rattled on until the other returned his sword to its sheath and looked at her again.
“I read confusion in your mind. Aren’t you from Drakonis?”
“I am not. I am the Lady Eibhlin Ingean Ui Bhrian from Belfast, Ireland, on Earth,” she answered in Spanglic.
Upon hearing this Jason switched from Spanglic to Gaelic, “Cén chaoi a bhfuil tú?” which caused Eibhlin to look at this strangely then recognition and she said, “My father was from Innis and spoke thus. You are a Connachtman. In Ulster we say, Cad é mar atá tú?”
Jason laughed, “Either way it means the same, ‘how are you’. If our speech differs so, perhaps we should continue in Spanglic or Barsoomian?”
“Never! I haven’t heard the tongue of Eire for more than twenty years since I was taken by the Demons. Even your Western accent is a song to my ears. We’ll understand each other well enough in time.”
“Then I am the Lord Jason Obrien of Innis in Connacht, and also Baron Drakonis on the Frontier of the Commonwealth. Perhaps we are related? I was taken by the Demons in the middle of the 20th century then when returned to Earth, sought a way to return to the Commonwealth where I helped form the Barony of Drakonis. And your story?”
Eibhlin knelt to help the wounded but it was no use. Even the fantastic healing salves of the Red Man of Barsoom could not heal that many deep thrusts and the man was dead. All she could do was make him comfortable. “I was taken from Belfast in the middle of the 17th century. I was a Demon slave for three or more years then they gave me a Vanthi ship and released me. I’ve been searching for others like me for twenty years.”
“So, what year do you think this is?”
“I know not. I originally left Earth in 1653 and assume that I lived in Demon and Vanthi space the same time. But when I return to Earth, it is late 20th to early 21st or late 22nd century. Would that I could return to my own time to free my homeland. But I cannot for some reason and when I do find that Ireland is free or destroyed with the rest of the world.”
Jason thought, sat then mused, “So you live in Demon space in the mid 1600s. The Kris war is still being fought and I think the Demons are then turning humans into Mon. But I didn’t know they were taking Humans and making Weir back then. I thought that I was the first.”
“But there are others like us? Tell me please. I’ve searched for twenty years ever since they released me but only rumors have I heard.”
Jason smiled and said, “I always thought I was the first Weir and when I was released, I lived in the Commonwealth but hated it as only Mon existed unless I wanted to live among the Vanthi or Kentauran or a few other near-humans for though I also heard rumors, never was I able to find Weir or True-Human. So I settled on a Kos Frontier World, allowed some others from Earth to live there too then as our numbers grew, negotiated independence and the grandchildren of the Human settlers were born Weir and today, well today by my standards which is about the first decade of the 21st century, Drakonis covers four dozen stars with millions of Weir and humans living in peace. You know nothing of this?”
“Nothing. I don’t even know this Commonwealth or Kos but Kentaurus is the center of the Holy Empire of God in Christ which covers much of Demon Space. Edward and Londinium and Vanthi are human nations and Vanthi are the only fully human with the Demons changing the humans of Edward and Londinium into their Soldier Mon.”
“Well, Lady Eibhlin, we have much to discuss though I fear changing history if I tell you too much. Instead, you said your father was from Innis?”
“He was. Aonghus O’Brien of Innis who married Mairayd Ui Neill of Belfast to bear me in 1635. The British under Cromwell (she spat), may he rot in Hell for eternity, took my mother and sold her into slavery to the Americas then hanged my father and burned my home. They then raped and shot me then the Demons found me and made me thus.”
“Hm, then it appears that we are family for I have distant relatives in Ulster. You, Lady Eibhlin, are probably my great-aunt 300 years ago.”
“Family? Clansmen?” she flung herself into his arms in happiness. “I felt I was alone and now I am found.”
“More than that, Auntie.” He confessed. “You say you are forty years old. I am some two hundred years old so although you are my senior in objective time, I am yours in subjective time.”
She looked up to him for though Jason was short by 20th century human standards, he still was some ten inches taller than she. “Two hundred. It seems the Demons told the truth when they said I’d be young for centuries. You must have learned to solve the problems that plague me.”
“Perhaps but we should leave for the savages return and I have no wish to kill them.”
“Why not?” but she allowed herself to be led away.
“They haven’t harmed me and for all I know, this is their home and you invaded their land as the British invaded ours.”
“I never thought of it that way. I fought the English for years until they killed my family and myself. It’s hard to think that these savages may be like me and I have murdered the loving fathers of orphan children.”
“I fought the Brits myself, even when they burned my house with my wife and children inside but I learned that I could kill every Brit in Ireland and they would still come. And even if I killed them all, it wouldn’t bring my wife and children back or make them rest any easier.”
“Then, dear nephew, we are related by blood and Clan and tragedy. We should get drunk together could I stand this swill the Red Men call wine.” Jason understood for although he enjoyed the alcohol, the Martian wine gave him overly loose stools so he tended to avoid strong drink on Barsoom.
The two moved quickly to the south as each explained their mission and method of arrival upon Barsoom. Jason had discovered that some American scientists had accidentally invented a teleporter and he was sent to destroy the device, only to be caught in the explosion he had set which brought him and the scientists and their security personal to Barsoom. Some had died, one scientist, Jennings, was safe nearby in a hidden city and he was searching for the security chief, Captain North, the project head, Dr Stroud and the technician, Bar Komas, to return them all to Earth somehow. He hadn’t figured out that last part yet.
She had decided to visit Barsoom and gotten trapped in a stargate on Earth which caused her to arrive in the Koal Forest. She eventually met and assisted a Red Men and Women, then took a job as a panthan where she was assigned to find a lost Red Woman who was last seen flying this way.
“I wonder if that was their flyer I found. The shaft was twisted but otherwise undamaged. Red with blue stripes and the device of a rope intertwined with a sword?”
“Exactly. Show me that flier for I must return my charge to her father, though privately I think she, no, he would be better off with her dead.”
They moved through the forest avoiding the savages by hiding in the trees until they found the flier and examining it she commented, “I see no blood or sign of violence. It looks like they landed safe and walked away. Did you see any sign of their passing?”
“I did not. I thought that they may have moved north the way they came but found nothing until I met with you.”
“And I saw nothing as I moved south. I’ve been in this valley for days spying on the savages and only recently met the Red Men who were attacked.” She sighed then changed track, “They could not have crossed the river for Red Men cannot swim and if neither of us met them, then they must have moved away from the river to the hills in the west.”
“Or maybe taken a boat down the river. I did see some do that. The southern entrance, though is dangerous to use, what of the north for Red Men are as good at climbing as they are at swimming?”
“The opening in the north can be crossed with some effort. There are rapids where the river cuts through the hills but it is covered with trees and dangerous reptiles. I was near eaten a dozen times entering. I Suspect that they would have flown over and knowing the size of this valley, chose to follow the river to the nearer entrance in the south.”
Jason agreed for Eibhlin had spent days inside following the Iss while he was only inside for a few hours but they were still far from the exit when night fell. So choosing a strong tree, they built a bower and roofed it with branches and silk to contain body heat and crawled inside. Jason had spent more than half a century among the Weir Race and Eibhlin wanted to know everything. Then in the darkness lit only by a hanging radium torch set on low power, she asked, “Nephew, I don’t know how to ask this. When the Demons changed me, they made a mistake. I… I suffer every month unless I am… I cannot say.”
He looked at her, glowing in the dark and understood, “Your Need?”
“My Need. You are centuries older, have you solved this?”
“We have not. We all endure, but on Drakonis there are so many of us that we never suffer for want of a partner. I suffer also but until a few days ago, I was traveling with a human woman who settled my own Need so I am not in pain yet. Are you?”
“I am. And I am shamed for this sin which I cannot control and which makes me disgusted with myself for what I must do.”
“I understand,” he was sympathetic and took her hand. “In your time, sex is a sin. In mine, a pleasure. Humans don’t understand us or why we must do this or die. It’s one of the reasons Drakonis was founded, to give us a place where we could bed each other safely without fear or shame.” He leaned to her and kissed her and felt her Need. Touching like this, her Need lowered and his raised so she no longer suffered but his advanced by weeks. With that long kiss, she pushed away.
“You did something to me. I don’t suffer now. What did you do?”
“We shared intimacy. When we kissed, we conjoined our cycles to one. My Need was a month away, yours immediate. Now we both are weeks away.”
All that in a second’s kiss?” She asked.
“A second?” he laughed. “Look at the larger moon. When we kissed it was not even risen, now it’s near setting. That kiss lasted near a half-hour.” He reached for her again, stroking her breast but she pushed him away.
“I’m not suffering now. Please let me wait.”
“Why? Sex is fun and we are together, why not spend the night in passion?”
“Jason, nephew, I,… I prefer women for my pleasure. You are a nice man and family but I have no lust for you. I’m sorry but ..”
“You’re gay? Figures. The first Weir I meet on this planet with whom I can let go and not fear breaking to pieces in my passion and she likes women. Eibhlin, most Weir are bi-sexual and take their pleasures however they can. Have you no desire for men?”
“I do not. Jason, I was seventeen and a virgin when the British raped me violently. They beat me, breaking teeth and ribs and then took their turns not caring that I was dieing with the pain of my injuries. Then when they were done, they shot me.
“Later when I awoke, my only companion who was even remotely human was a S’tyr woman and she was my first lover and I went to her only because I must, though I learned to enjoy her touch. When she was replaced by a S’tyr male, I went to him only when I was forced by Need. I hated myself for needing his body. Can you accept this? In weeks I will come to you because I must, not because I want to. Can you be patient?” Eibhlin knew that although she was far stronger than any human man or Red man, Jason was stronger than she and could easily force her. She had spent too many years being stronger than she looked and easily able to defend herself. Now, this man, her own race and ancestry, was far stronger than was she and that made her feel inadequate, helpless and she hated that feeling. She hoped that family ties would make him respect her wishes and save her another assault.
Jason leaned back, sighed and commented, “When I was that age, younger really, I was kidnapped by Arabs, made a galley slave and for a year was starved, beaten, worked near to death and gang-raped often. You had one assault, I had dozens. But I learned that not all men are like that and I got over it. Maybe it was being with normal men who didn’t attack me that helped but you never had that chance. I can wait. I won’t like it but neither will I force you. But remember, Auntie, we both suffer Need and as you will come to me when yours rises, I will come to you when mine rises. We need each other and will die without sex. Please remember that when I approach you. But I will try to wait until you are ready.”
Eibhlin squeezed his hand and smiled in the dark. “Thank you dear nephew. When the time comes, please be gentle with me and try to not be insulted when I wish you were a woman.”
Jason laughed then, “Most men don’t care what their partner thinks during sex. I’ll try to close my mind and not read your thoughts. Good night.”
V
In the morning they broke their fast with trail rations and what fruit they could safely eat then left for the opening. Although it was nearby, Jason had no desire to either climb the cliff or ford the cave in the dark. When they approached, Eibhlin stared and asked, “Could anyone pass through that and live?”
The cave was low and had rapids from rock fall and the river Iss stretched from side to side with but a foot of air-space above. “I did but it wasn’t easy. I would have turned away but I felt something calling me and I suppose it was you. Weir can sense each other.”
She looked at him again then said, “I have so much to learn about myself from you. The Demons told me almost nothing save what they felt I needed.”
“I suspect that despite their 50 million years of intelligence and thousand years experimenting on humans, the still never fully understood us and made more mistakes creating us than we know.”
As Jason led her into the river, they fought the current and rapids and often survived only because they had not two hands as a human but feet and tail to grasp as well. So when a hand slipped free, they had feet and tail holding and so, moving one limb at a time, they passed through, wet, bruised but safe. Then they passed a haad downstream where the Iss widened and the current faded to make their exit easier and on the shore, Jason pointed, “My thoat is over there. It can carry two I hope. We Earthers are much heavier than the Red People.”
“Jason!” Eibhlin snapped, “Look there. Hold me!” and she dropped her weapons-belt and returned to the river. Jason lay down and took her wrists as she probed the water with her feet then said, “Pull me up.” In her left foot was a diadem, a rope twisted around a sword. She held it to her breast, the silk covering her breasts transparent in the wetness and Jason saw what she held matched one she wore on her harness, save Eibhlin’s was plainer than this jewel. “This belongs to Para Far. She came this way and lost this in the rapids. She may be downstream alive or dead.”
“Or still in a canoe. You search the river and I’ll fetch my thoat,” he commanded and ran off to the hills. Running on Barsoom was easier than on Earth for both his Weir constitution and the lower gravity and soon he found the place where his gear was stored and called for his steed who came to be saddled. Green Men control their mounts by thought alone, Red Men by thought and touch and so bit and spurs were unknown. Jason wondered occasionally about that considering the Thoat was a herbivour, it did have a nasty bite and could do damage if it was angry and spurring a thoat was likely to make it throw you and kill the maker of its pain.
It didn’t take long to return to the river and follow south to see his aunt beset by a half dozen Orovars. Orovars! Every visitor claimed that they were extinct and here they were, twice he met them and twice they were seeking the lives of his own. So with a thought and gentle kick, Jason drew his swords and charged.
On Earth, a horse is a thousand pounds of bone and muscle charging on steel-shod hooves at thirty-five miles an hour. Only a fool stands their ground for risk of being knocked aside, broken or being trampled to death. The skill of the horseman was to cause the enemy to leap to the rider’s shield or lance side so he could defend and attack. On Barsoom the thoat was more graceful and was more like a very long antelope. The lighter gravity made for lighter bones and muscles and the eight legs were long and thin and with eight to support the weight and move the animal, a thoat looked more like a long thin antelope than a horse.
Thus the tactics were different. Running a man down would injure the thoat as much as the man so you passed to keep the enemy on your right or sword-side and slashed as you passed by. You never stopped for fear someone nearby would stab you from behind. So pass and slash is what Jason did and two Orovars fell before his blade as he ran on. Then turning he charged again but this one was ready and jumped to Jason’s left and cut at his undefended left side.
Jason barely blocked with his short sword and couldn’t use his right so ran on, turned and charged again. Jason sought to pass his enemy on his right, the Orovar sought the left and so they danced on the moss. The Orovar had a bit more agility than a charging thoat who was committed to a charge and as Jason passed, the man leapt to his left and cut to be blocked again by Jason’s short-sword. Then before he could recover, he saw too late that Jason had his long-sword behind his back and hanging over his left side and the blade caressed the Orovar’s neck, killing him instantly.
Jason turned again and found that of his aunt’s two main opponents, one was dead and the other seeking her life. He stopped his mount and watched. This was the first time he saw her in action and he wanted to see her skill. Jason had no worries about women warriors for he had trained many in his day and he respected those who survived. And Eibhlin had fought the British and won, mostly, so she wasn’t the helpless teen she looked. Barely five foot tall and looking seventeen years, her body had the reflexes and strength the Demons felt was needed to repair their starships and it soon was obvious that Eibhlin fought with speed and strength but her skill were barely adequate. The Orovar was the far better swordsman and was held at bay only because of Eibhlin’s greater strength, speed and her unusual moves that resembled Kendo but weren’t.
“Will you help me!” she demanded between breaths.
“You are doing fine, Auntie,” he laughed back. “Beware his feints, he uses them well but opens his lower left as he does so.”
This was in Gaelic so the Orovar understood nothing until he feinted and Eibhlin ignored the presumed stroke and struck his left leg, crippling him as her Demon-made blade cut to the bone. The Orovar went down and she disarmed him then knelt to bind his wound though the near molecular edge had done its work too well.
Jason dismounted and helped as she asked the Martian, “A woman and man passed this way, She in the harness of an Odwar’s daughter, he as a simple Than. Did you see them?”
The man stiffened in pain and said, “No. Not them. But we did take two others, both in plain harness and accompanied by a Jasoomian of no skill at all. Too many aliens are on our world. Soon there will be no room for us.” Then he died.
“That was Vos Kar, Kara and Steve who now calls himself Bar Komas. He is one I seek and has managed to get himself captured by slavers again. The fool thinks he is a great adventurer who will triumph because of his greater strength. But John Carter was a swordsman long before he came to Barsoom and even then, barely survived until he could take fencing lessons. Speaking of which, you could use some yourself. You have skills and were trained but aren’t good enough yet for real combat.”
She helped strip the body and commented, “When I was a slave of the Demons, we took aboard a Warrior-Monk named Brount. He was like a boar, standing erect and with a long snout and three fingers. He carried a sword like this one which the Demons made for me and he taught me to fight with sword and hand and to meditate. He saved my sanity and soul.”
“Well, a lot of his moves are excellent, but more suited for meditation and form than on the battlefield. I was like that with Kendo and Karate and Fencing. What I learned in the Dojo was fine but needed to be adapted to the battlefield where rules don’t exist. It seems that my search lies south as does yours so we have more reason to travel together.”
VI
Although the thoat wasn’t built for their combined weights, they mounted and rode for an hour then walked for an hour to rest the beast and alternating, made decent time and conversed on the way.
“The Demons took me from Belfast in 1653 when the British left me for dead. I remember being killed and dead on the peat then when I awoke, I was like this. They gave me only a few hours to accept my new form before they put me to work repairing their ship. It was days before I could convince them to give me clothes. Then some years later, we captured a Vanthi Merchant-Raider and I was given their ship and freed.”
“My story is different and more curious,” Jason explained, “For it was in 1965 (I think) when I was taken. It was an accident. I was walking along a pond when this large reptilian monster came out and I thought it was attacking me. I defended myself and lost. When I awoke, I was still human and they said I was alive only because it was the Time of the Divine King and they were forbidden to kill but when the Holiday was over, they’d toss me out an airlock so I could be good and free until then or bad and be locked in that airlock. I wasn’t stupid and made myself as useful as I could. They never did get around to tossing me out that airlock though over the next year or two they began to change me. I’d go to sleep in my room then wake up in their med-bay with enhanced ears or eyes. Once I woke up furry then the next day hairless. I got the feeling that they were experimenting with me to see what would be useful and what not.”
He laughed then continued, “I took to piling furniture against my door or sleeping in hidden places but it never helped. Strange thing is that when they did something like adding this tail, it worked perfectly as if I was born that way.”
Eibhlin thought then said, “Strange. You were taken three centuries after myself yet with me they knew exactly what to do and probably did so to others before me. Yet we are the same. It makes no sense. If I was made thus in one operation in 1653, why did they experiment on you in 1965 to perfect our race?”
“I don’t know. I always thought I was the first, now I may be the thousandth.”
They talked about their abilities and she told him, “I find that not only can I sense EM-fields but can control them too. It is simple for me to control computers on Earth though Vanthi and Demon and Mon machines are beyond me.”
“And can you seek and implant thoughts too?” he asked.
“I can to an extent. It’s easier to implant a thought than to seek one.”
“Try this. Ask the question and the thought will surface. Seek the memory at that time before they can bury it then ask again later and compare. You won’t be able to do a probe like the S’tyr but this will help.”
“A S’tyr, Chlareissah was the ship’s telepath and my friend. She helped me accept what I became and taught me to enjoy sex though with a woman. I missed her when she returned home and was replaced by Silvorak’k who was nice in his way but he was like you, his thoughts were always of sex and I found I desired women so sought him only when in Need.” Jason could estann her longing easily.
“The telepath of my ship was Chrisiess and I eventually learned that to her I was just something to do at night. After she left without even saying ‘good-bye’ I realized that sex was the only thing we did. We never talked or were close. She would call for me, we’d had sex and then separate. Being a young kid in my twenties, I saw that as the perfect relationship but now I want more.”
“That’s why I look seventeen and you twenty-five. They stopped us from ageing when we were taken. I hope they never take a child for she would spend centuries never growing up,” that was a mixture of humor and fear for Eibhlin.
At their break, Jason would teach her some of the sword-tricks he had learned over the centuries of his life and with Brount’s earlier training, she learned well. “In Ireland I thought sword-play was hack-and-slash with a heavy broad sword. Brount taught me that the blade was art and the Demons made this for me to match his. Strange but until this time, I never used it in anything other than my Dance.”
“Dance?” he asked.
“Like this,” and she showed him her Dance of the Blade, going through every stance and cut and block.
When she was done, he took her sword and said, “This is like a lighter katana. But we called those Dances ‘Kata’.” He showed her some and she said, “I see many of the same moves. Could Brount have learned his ways on Earth?”
“Doubtful. I’ve heard of these Warrior-Monks. They are rare but they all carry the same sword and are seeking something. I don’t know where they are from though and never saw one myself.” He returned her sword and they continued on searching.
Later she said as they rode, she asked, “Is sex all you think about?”
“It’s hard to not when your chest is pressing into my back.”
“Your thoughts are obsessed with using my body. Can you at least stop projecting them?”
“I’m not consciously doing that. But frankly, Eibhlin, you are an attractive and sexy woman and it’s difficult to keep my thoughts off you.”
She secretly enjoyed that comment for she knew she was far from plain but never saw herself as beautiful though many had told her that and most were saying whatever they needed to bed her. Her telepathy and IR-sight always told her when they were lieing and she knew that her nephew was not. But his constant lust was a problem and she argued with herself to give in or not. She hoped that if she did, he’d be satisfied and leave her alone but he may pursue her all the more if she did. She knew that eventually she would be forced to lie with him or seek female slaves to share. Hopefully she had a couple weeks to consider options. Still, he was always hard when she touched him or held him like she was now and that disturbed her. How long before he gave up and forced her just to ease his erection? She tried to move back for the thoat was that long but the undulations of the animal soon forced her against him again. She needed to find one of her own and she cursed herself for seeking the girl instead of returning for her own thoat. That stupid slut needed a good spanking.
Damn! He picked up that image and his erection was back. Was the man a pervert too? It would be so easy to slide her hand down to ease him and pretend it was an accident but she held his harness at his chest instead, feeling her own sexual need rise with the motion of the thoat and the smell of his sweat that was making her heady and wet.
VII
That night over dinner she approached the subject. He was older than she, looked older and had more experience so should know. “Jason? When we suffer our Need and there are no women around, what do you do? Do you resort to men? Or did your experience as a galley slave, being gang-raped, make you as afraid of men as mine did me?” She was embarrassed and curious at the same time and he could see the heat flush her face and chest.
He laughed, “A hundred years ago I would have refused to answer and even now it’s embarrassing but yes, I have resorted to men upon occasion. And yes, I felt ashamed doing so. Those who are born Weir on Drakonis are mostly straight for we have no real Lesbians or Homosexuals as on Earth. But most are also bi-sexual and see nothing wrong with members of their own gender as occasional bed-mates. Ayiesha preferred men and is engaged to a Red Man but beds Lanai women when she is on patrol and human and Weir men or women when apart from her lover. I understand she also beds her best friend Caroline even when she has a man in her bed. Weir are very accommodating like that and if they see someone in Need, they offer themselves with no thoughts for gender or age and never feel shame for what they do and with whom they do it.
“For me, I grew up in Ireland as did you and in that catholic country, with aunts and sisters who are catholic nuns and uncles and brothers who are catholic priests, a horror and disgust of homosexuality was pounded into me at a very early age. Being repeatedly gang-raped as a teen only reinforced that and it took years to get over my hatred of gays.
“But I was fortunate in having gay and bi-sexual friends who showed me that gays were not the evil I had been taught. And it was when I was cursed in Russia a some years ago that taught me to be more accepting. I still prefer women and resort to men only as a last resort simply because, well, my body is designed for women and ‘back-door’ sex often hurts unless I am very relaxed. Besides,” he laughed, “Men are ugly. A naked woman is a work of art. A naked man is just hairy. I don’t know how you women can stand to be with us.”
“My only good experience with a man was when I traveled with Kevin and Cyndi. They helped me on Earth after Jean left me.”
“Jean?” Jason caught her image. “This Jean?” he touched her with his tail tip and sent his own image to her.
Eibhlin gasped, “It is! Younger but the same. You and she?”
Jason laughed, “The Gods are having fun with our family. It seems that the Demons like the Obriens for their technicians and we choose the same profession and it now seems that we dated the same woman.” Jason stood and cried to the twin moon orbiting low in the north, “Will one of you PLEASE explain why You are playing with our lives?”
When he sat and sulked, Eibhlin forced jealousy down. This man had loved her love. He had been with the woman she still loved and she could estann that he still did. He had had her first and Eibhlin was just the left-over.
Later, she tried again, “Sex with Kevin was nice. Sex with other men was just sex. Why?”
Jason tried to snap at her because Jean had cheated on him with other women and now, he was with one of those. No, logic dictated that Eibhlin was with Jean long years after she left so didn’t count but logic and the heart rarely talked. So he tried to repress his anger and asked, “When you were with other men, why?”
“Because I needed them. I was about to die from lack of sex and this body the Demons cursed me with forces me to rut like an animal in heat.” She as bitter and angry, a slave to her needs which prevented her from just relaxing and enjoying what her S’tyr lover had said was a gift of the Goddess.
“And Kevin?”
“Kevin found me on the lake-shore after I was attacked by criminals. He and Cyndi were kind and caring and helped me when I needed it. My Need was high as it always is when I change and Cyndi offered herself to ease my pain and suffering. Kevin joined in and it was … nice. We were lovers, we three for years aboard my ship. It was the only time I enjoyed sex with a man.”
“So, Auntie, when a man is kind and gentle to you, you enjoy it but when you are desperate and will die without, you seek a man in shame and disgust. I see a pattern. Perhaps if you would think of men as fun and not desperation, it would be easier for you.”
“And if I do, will I be straight?” He picked up a mixture of hope and revulsion under the curiosity. This woman had never had the benefits of living among her own kind. But then, neither did he until fifty years ago.
“Probably not. You are a lesbian. Why, I don’t know or care. But you enjoy women too much to give them up any more than I will. The best you can hope for is to enjoy the men you are forced to bed and not feel guilty or disgusted. Someday I’ll tell you a story about a certain Chinese Merchant I knew. But now I am sleepy.”
Jason was a morning person as Eibhlin a night person. Eibhlin could party all night but Jason, it seemed, fell asleep with the sunset and was disgustingly cheerful at sunrise when decent people were sleeping off their hangovers. Eibhlin heard the thoat nestling between rocks to remain warm and she checked the silk tent and fires they banked for their own warmth, then watched and thought. Silvorak’k was always after her body and when she submitted, it was to keep him quiet or when her Need drove her to him. But when he had saved that Vanthi from the Demons at her request, she rewarded him with her body. To prevent his telepathy from knowing, she forced herself to believe that she wanted him and somehow it was not unpleasant. Maybe Jason was right. At times he was an ass but he was loyal and considerate and far more experienced than she.
The man was snoring now. He denied it when awake claiming that he slept lightly and never snored but a banth could hear him a dozen haads away and eat his foot and Jason wouldn’t awake until the banth had worked its way to his hip. Like all men Jason thought with his dick. Unlike all men, Jason could control his urges and focus on other things, sometimes.
She licked her lips and enjoyed the sensation as the Martian climate dried them quickly. Without the tingle, she knew she didn’t Need sex. She did wonder if Jason’s lips and nipples turned red with his Need as did hers or did just his penis redden in its hardness? There was so much to learn about her Weir body and this man could explain it all and more. He could introduce her to other Weir, to Weir women who would love her. Maybe she could marry? He kept his title so could she live on his world, again a Tierna with lands and title and wealth?
Strange though how when she and Jean first began as a couple, Eibhlin wanted her every day, all day without a break. She could have starved to death in Jean’s arms and died happy. But with Kara and her other lovers, sex was fun and daily at first but then settled down to once a week. She didn’t need sex often but enjoyed it more when she was in love. That was the key! She enjoyed sex more when she cared about it and her partner and wanted to enjoy herself. Jason was right. She saw men as an evil necessity. But those few times when she approached it as a pleasure, she actually enjoyed it.
She crawled under their low tent and reached for Jason. He wouldn’t awaken easily so this would be an interesting experiment. Like her, he removed his harness to sleep. Like her he slept in his loincloth and she slept in hers and her bra. She unfastened his loincloth and turned the light up a bit. She had seen many male members but never looked at them, believing them to be hideously aggressive organs. This time she divorced herself and looked as if she were studying a circuit board. It wasn’t large and she knew it would grow, but how large? Those British soldiers felt like they were horses, but she was a virgin and they had forced her. She never really noticed with most men, that wasn’t what she needed.
She played with it and watched it stir them grow a bit. Like a toy, she licked it and almost laughed as it stirred again. She was actually having fun. But then, she was in control this time and could quit whenever she wanted.
She touched his testicles, feeling their hardness within their hairy sacks then ignored them and returned to the shaft. The skin was amazingly soft and she caressed it with her cheek. Very soft and more pleasant than a man’s scratchy face. She leaned over rubbed her breast over it, feeling her nipple grow hard and erect as she did so. He became erect below and she above. But she had two to his one and she switched breasts then moved again to hold his now full erection between her breasts, carefully sliding them as if she were stroking him to climax. She had seen men masturbate on TV in those porn movies she & Jean occasionally watched in California and found the sensation of his penis sliding between her breast to be somehow, sensual. Then she stopped and using her tongue, wet the shaft with her saliva and found the lubricant to be nicer.
Finally it was time and she moved above and slowly lowered herself onto him, gasping with pleasure as she engulfed his manhood. This was better than Kevin. She sat there, impailed and feeling every sensation from lips to cervix then began to move slowly. She rubbed her breasts as she did so then lifted off, reached down and collected some of her own juices to rub onto her nipples as she continued. Moments later she climaxed. Not an earth-shattering one but nice anyway.
She considered stopping but decided that if she was to do this, she should go all the way. Hell, she was having fun. So she moved again and taking his hands, placed them on her breasts feeling the rough soldier callouses on her soft skin. Then he moved and squeezed.
Panicking, she almost left but he was gentle and she idly wondered when he had awoken. But so long as all he did was massage her breasts, she was content and began to move again, stroking her own ‘little lady’ as she did so. His tail wrapped around and she took it with her free hand and kissed the tip, moving her own to his mouth so he could kiss the sensitive pad on the end. He was licking her tail and rubbing her breasts and inside and soon, too soon, she climaxed again. Then again and she lost count but each was better than before and as she felt him grow harder inside, she held his hands to her, squeezed her breasts hard with his hands, forcing them flat and felt his spurt then she screamed with her final orgasm.
Satiated, she lay on him, feeling his warmth, the hairlessness of his body so much like a woman but so much harder and touching his lips, whispered, “shhh, go back to sleep.” And she nestled in his arms as she felt him grow soft and slip out.
She woke the next morning, alone and then she heard him calling to her. When she exited, the morning cold stinging her nipples, he was there, naked long sword in hand and examining the earth.
She approached and his tail reached up to caress her cheek. She had unconsciously done this to her lovers and now felt that experience for the first time. It was pleasant like when her father had squeezed her hand to say, ‘I love you’ so she turned and kissed it then looked.
“We missed this last night but someone camped here a couple days before. Maybe ten men but no thoats. But look here, these marking scratched in the rock! As if someone were leaving a message.”
“Can you read it?” she asked. Maybe it was Para Far and as pleasant as last night was, she wanted to finish her mission.
“I cannot. Although the telepathy of the Red Man keeps the language uniform, their written languages differ. It could be those slavers. Maybe they have Steve, maybe your charge. Maybe neither. We should get moving… unless you would like…”
“Shhh,” she pressed her fingers against his lips. “Let me think for awhile without speech.”
She felt his lips move as if he were about to say something or it could have been a kiss but he respected her wishes for she radiated confusion.
They had a quick breakfast and mounting, rode south again. She still loved women, that she was certain, but he was pleasant and she found the motion of the thoat, her breasts rubbing against his back and the memories to be erotic and she began to moan as she allowed the sensations to flow. Her hands slid low and then worked inside his loincloth and she linked herself with his feelings to climax together. Then, almost disgusted with the mess she had made, wiped her hands on some silk and returned to holding his harness. He patted her hands but she ignored the compliment.
At lunch Jason approached her, taking her from behind and kissing her on the neck as he moved her waist-length braids aside. She began to respond then stopped, “Please. Not now. I’m not ready or certain.” He hugged her again, kissed her shoulder then released her. “Do you want to talk yet?”
She looked down then said, “Later please, let us return to business for the moment.”
That night, she resisted again, still confused and asked, “Will I become pregnant? I was implanted with a contraceptive device on the Demon ship but that was twenty years ago and I don’t know how powerful Weir seed is. I may be barren for I’ve not suffered my menses since my change.”
He approached and ran his hands over her body, not touching, feeling her as if she were feeling for energy currents in a circut. “There it is.” He closed his eyes and ‘felt’, his hands inches over her belly. He then took her hand and said, “Feel the energy here, then here! Move around and feel the difference. This one is your device on your womb, more a biological machine to regulate yourself. It prevents menstruation and ovulation and regulates and calm your hormones so you are constant without the normal female cycles.”
He dropped his loincloth and held her hand over his lower belly then down to his manhood and below. “Feel here,” He held his manhood up and away with his tail and placed her hand between his spread legs, not allowing her to touch him. “I have the same thing only next to my prostate. We are given these when they changed us but normal Weir are born with them. Weir become sexually active at fifteen but cannot be fertile until twenty-five. Even then, both must want the baby to make the organ go dormant. Weir don’t pop out babies every year like humans do, we have to work each time so we don’t overpopulate the galaxy.
“So unless you and I both want babies, we cannot.”
She was relieved and ignored him replacing his loincloth. “That’s why I never got pregnant. I thought it was because my Need interfered.”
They settled in and she lay in his arms. Yes, she still wanted a woman but being held like this was comforting and made her feel safe. It wasn’t sexual at all, just very safe and secure as when she lay with her father and he held her telling her that everything would be fine. It was obvious that he felt otherwise.
As she stiffened, the mood broken, he stroked her hair, “Eibhlin, men are wired differently than women. You see sex as romance, we see it as sport. Men give love to get sex, women give sex to get love. I understand that you can lay here and sex is the furthest thing in your mind but to a man, a woman’s touch, no matter how chaste, is a signal for sex. Relax, accept that we are like this and don’t be insulted.”
She tried but, “So if a dog were to lay in your arms, you’d want sex?”
“Not with the dog but the feelings are the same. I like cuddling too, but after sex. I’ll try to not push but I cannot change what I am any more than you can change what you are.”
She settled in again, tried to relax and when he made no more moves save that hardness below, she calmed, “It must be easier for humans who cannot estann emotions or thought.” Later as she began to drift off, she turned and kissed him. “Shh, wake up. I’m ready now.”
“It’s late. How about morning?” he mumbled.
She reached down to find him soft but soon had him ready and awake. This time it was different and in its own way as pleasant. Between her fears for pregnancy being eased and the knowledge that he would stop when she asked and the knowledge that she was initiating the act and so in control, she was able to relax and enjoy it. She even enjoyed his weight on her, something that she hated before and afterwards, she was glad that Weir only needed a few hours sleep a night. If it wasn’t so damn cold at night, they could travel in the dark. But being held in the dark afterwards was worth the lost time.
Over the next days, she experimented and learned to enjoy sex with a man and he taught her about the changes the Demon created and how an entire race acted to each other. He also told her about Drakonis and the Commonwealth.
“Drakonis is less than a century old and the first Weir born only 50 years ago so we are still learning, still forming our culture. Until you, I never thought there were others of our kind outside the Barony.
“I fought in the Kris Wars with the Demons. Your time the War was a stalemate, Pagan and Demon almost exterminated then as the Demons changed themselves into Termagants and Fiends, and the Humans into Mon, they were able to fight back. By my time the Kris were restricted to a couple dozen stars and being pushed back further. We would attack a world, the Kris would send everything they had to stop us as their civilians escaped. It was a war of extermination. We had sought peace and the Kris nuked dozens of worlds into radioactive dust, sent billions into their death camps as ‘heretics’ or ‘inhuman’ so we changed our ways and did to them what they did to us.
“When the Demons dumped me back on Earth, I didn’t fit in. Earth was almost dead from the Rapture and the few survivors were more concerned with staying alive than conquest. I was in England but still hated the English. Strange as most of Ireland had become free before I was born and I was fighting with the IRA to free Ulster. Then the Rapture happened and it all became useless when humanity came near extinct. I found myself begging the ‘enemy’ for work and the Brits not understanding why I was angry with them.
“I was sent to Barsoom via StarGate, the same one Ulyssus Paxton used, to track down some previous agents and got stuck there for a couple years. Then I managed to capture a Morgor ship, hired a crew from Earth and left for the Commonwealth.
“A few months out we found a Vanthi freighter drifting. They had run out of fuel and froze to death. So we towed it to a gas giant, used the Morgor engines to refuel and I took half the crew on and out while the remaining humans took the Morgor ship back to Earth.” Eibhlin thought it strange how Jason, born human as was she, now saw himself as different. She rarely thought of herself as Weir in the same way he did. She saw herself as human only changed.
Eibhlin added, “I had heard that the Vanthi had sent ships to Earth but none returned. I always suspected it was a fuel problem. There aren’t many Class-M worlds between the Demons and Earth. When I returned to Earth, I made certain I had a converter installed so I could refuel at any gas giant. It messed with my engines and would require a total rebuild every few years but I got home and back.”
Jason continued, she still wouldn’t hold his hand as they walked, “I suppose that with the War on, the Mon couldn’t spare anyone to go back and the Kris were too concerned with the War to spare anyone either. When I returned to Demon Space, I used the Vanthi ship to smuggle weapons, food and medical supplies to the surviving Kentaurans. Since they were no longer ‘as god made them’, the Kris killed them when they could and the Kentaurans were hiding in the caves. I got shot down and joined then as a guerilla. It was like Ireland all over only in the desert.
“After five years, the camps had stopped and there were no more patrols. We snuck out to find the cities deserted. A Mon fighter flew overhead and we found the people, they had entered their churches and committed mass suicide to prevent defeat. The War was over, finally. So I remained to help bury the dead, millions of dead, all women and children and old crippled men. Then I rebuilt for awhile, got another ship and settled in Kos, that’s outside Londinium, until I got tired of being around 9’ tall people.
“So I found Gaea, a Demon-changed world and settled in and eventually built it into Drakonis Barony. We negotiated independence because even Kos was tired of war, bought a couple old Ramjet starships and began to bring select humans back to Gaea. The Demons helped and fought to help defend the Barony but took their pay by doing something to ensure that all humans would bear Weir grand-children. So we are spreading, the Demons occasionally take our people and no one is poor or oppressed or homeless. It’s a very nice place to be.”
“But the Demons still take your people?”
“They do, but no one seems to mind. Those taken can message their families and are gone a few years then are in demand as ship-crew when they return. Really, do you regret your service?”
“Sometimes, but then, I had no family alive to miss. I suppose you are my only family now.”
“When you visit Drakonis, tell them you are my aunt and a member of my Clan. We aren’t large but are very wealthy and powerful and are always welcome in my home.”
“One question then, nephew, I may be learning to enjoy sex with a man but my tastes still prefer women.”
He laughed, “We are not Earth. We take their best and reject the rest. So we do not legislate the heart. Marry or bed whomever you will, man, woman or both and none will think ill of you. Those in higher position understand arraigned marriages but most people marry whom they will and gay marriages are as legal and accepted as are straight so long as children are born within marriage for we see unwed parents as a disgrace.”
“Then, nephew, before your Barony, how did you stand those years alone in your ship without women? It was always a problem with me.”
“Simple. I built a woman!” then seeing her expression, “I used Demon technology to build Andromeda, the first Lanai. I patterned her after Weir but without reproductive organs so she would be a sex-partner and crew, then later built Casseopea as well. We three worked well together, they crewed with me, served my sexual needs and when on Kentaurus, fought with me. Today they are Field Marshals in the Barony, the highest positions in the military. Something like the Barsoomian Jedwar or the American Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
“I was wondering about building a lover. So it can be done?”
“Easily. If you know what you are doing and aren’t afraid to admit that you need help. Terran cinema has the ‘Frankenstein Complex’ where the mad scientist tries to create a robot or clone or synthetic and they always seen to go berserk. When was the last time tour toaster tried to take over your ship? Be humble and program a good loyalty complex but avoid jealousy and you can have whatever you want.”
“A crew of beautiful women and the occasional male to operate my ship and serve my needs. Sounds … nice. When we finish here, you must show me how.”
VIII
A couple days later, they were resting the thoat which was rapidly being exhausted under the double burden of the Weir when they saw a party of Orovars approach.
“Slavers?” she asked.
“Perhaps. We should prepare in case. When the Issus religion was discredited, Slavers saw no reason to avoid taking those pilgrims who continued their obligation. The Therns kept their numbers down before but with their reduced numbers, slavery on the Iss seems to have increased. Of course, this is all conjecture.”
Eibhlin explained to him, “My company from Ptarth had Therns as panthans, three of them. They were unbelievable fighters but most of the Red Men avoided them because they were still seen as gods by many.”
The main party stopped some meters away then after talking, two approached, “Koar!” one said, raising his hand in peace.
The Weir replied in kind and waited. Jason knew that he could easily take a number of the Orovars who seemed to be but adequate swordsmen but there were too many and his aunt was still barely adequate herself. So if it came to blows, their best chance would be to flee for no Red Man could catch them on foot. Assuming that none had firearms.
After the usual examination by the Orovars, a fact that neither Irish ever became accustomed to, the leader of the Auburn-haired white-men asked, “I’ve never seen anyone like you before. Are you some hidden race and why are you on Pilgrimage?”
Jason smiled back, neither he nor Eibhlin could estann any aggression from the White Men and so assumed peace and made their Introductions. “Neither. I am Jason Obrien, Lord Drakonis. We both originally come from Ireland, a nation far away though I now serve Drakonis. But we are both seeking lost companions and our path leads us along the Iss so we travel together for reasons of family and Race. I seek three Jasoomians, all men, one elderly.”
“And I,” Eibhlin jumped in, “am the Lady Eibhlin Ui Bhrian, a Panthan in the service of Ptarth and am seeking a Red Woman and her Red man companion. Their Flier as damaged north and I believe they are walking downstream seeking rescue or safety.”
The Orovars conferred in whispers that the Weir could not hear well then replied, “None of us have seen any Jasoomians who would be immediately noticeable. But as for the Red Man and Woman, we see many of these though we hide to avoid them for our safety lies not in numbers but in secrecy. It is only that you look so different that our curiosity was raised and we sought you out.”
“You sought us? Eibhlin asked.
“Yes, we’ve been watching you for days now, arguing as to what manner of people you are. You act almost as if married yet no Barsoomian takes his wife into danger and few are the women who carry swords. You, Lord Jason Obreen, are armed as a Pilgrim but you, Lady Avleen Obreen are as a Panthan with revolver which is forbidden along the Iss. It is clear that you only met recently though you claim relation and act as married. We find that to be curious and would learn more. Thus were we sent by our Jed to contact you. Please, if you would. Come with us to our camp and let us discuss these matters.”
“Can we trust them?” Eibhlin asked in Gaelic.
“I don’t know. They survive in secrecy so revealing themselves to us opposes that tactic so they either intend to kill or enslave us to keep their secret or have unknown ways to ensure we do not speak of their existence as I intend to do to the Humans I return to Earth. So far the only Orovars I have met was one centuries ago who was possessed by a Corphal and had been entombed for a couple hundred thousand years until she arose from the dead to eat a couple Toonol military companies and then a group of slavers whom I killed shortly after this most recent arrival. Orovars are supposed to be extinct though. So I cannot judge yet. Have you ideas?”
“I do not. I cannot estann duplicity but reading their thoughts is difficult. Maybe the Barsoomian telepathy developed with the Red Race and these are telepathically as dense as are normal Earth-people.”
The leader of the Orovars added, “If it makes your decision any easier, there is a sandstorm approaching from the west and there is no cover for some dozens of haads besides our camp.”
Sighing, for the Orovars were not aligned for battle and none had asked for their weapons, “Then, please lead on. I admit that I am tired of mantilla and trail rations and could use a comfortable bed.”
The group walked away into the Great Desert, none asking the aliens any questions nor did they answer any and soon they left the ochre moss-covered rocks and entered the dunes and rocks of the Desert proper. As always, the Weir eye-slits narrowed to mere slits though the Orovars seemed to not mind the bright sunlight for none wore hats or sun-glasses, a fact that Jason never understood for he tended to suffer without either though he noticed that Eibhlin had pulled the ends of the silk bow that tied her braid over her head and shoulders as a scarf to shield the sun. “Smart girl” Jason thought, “smarter than me sometimes.”
Within an hour Jason asked their leader, “How far?”
“Not far,” he replied. “With the Therns patrolling the River, we prefer to keep far enough away to avoid their discovery and capture but close enough to spy on the river and those who travel.”
Soon they reached a pile of rocks that resembled any of the others save this was larger, almost a kilometer across and a couple hundred meters high. The group moved to the north side as if to pass around then as the wind began to whip sand around, turned into a crevase and soon stopped at a sheer wall which opened to reveal the hillock to be hollow. The hillock wasn’t hollow as tunneled but appeared to be a small impact crater with a dome overhead and lights hanging below to illuminate the interior which was lush with red vegetation.
“It’s like a garden,” Eibhlin commented noticing the paths and neatly cared-for vegetation. “And this is but a camp?”
“Yes. We must live in the Desert that Barsoom has become but we don’t have to live like the savages who now inhabit the planet.”
“I gather that you pipe water from the Iss?” Eibhlin noticed the pipes and sprinklers that crossed overhead. “For rain?”
“Of course.” Her guide responded. “And we recycle as much water as we can to avoid draining the River. We have had 200,000 years to perfect our science.”
“I would think that in that time you would have developed space travel to either move to another world or bring frozen water and air from Garobus to replenish what you have lost.”
“We tried but Morgors on Garobus attacked our ships that we sent there, we cannot adapt to Jasoom’s greater gravity and those we sent to the stars never returned. And now we are too few in numbers to divert vital resources from survival to other areas. We, like the Red and Green Men are a dying race with no future so we seek sucrose in pleasure and memories of our past.”
Jason commented to his aunt, “There is a theory that the nearer moon was colonized by Orovars long ago whose descendents became the blue-skinned Thurians. But if they sent ships to the stars, they must have been sleeper-ships or generation-ships for I cannot see these people having developed star-drives. When I get home, I’ll have to send ships to search for them as well as other Weir worlds. Meeting you, my dear, has opened my eyes to a lot of things.”
She touched him with her tail and fingers, smiled and added, “As you have to for me. But if they think we are married, we should allow them thus or we will be separated and I believe our safety depends on us being together.”
“Agreed.”
Jason started to do some rough calculations. A Morgor ship can do 19 million miles a day which puts that at 220 miles per second or .0012c. Which means the Orovars could be about 2400 light years away from Sol. No, he was thinking in Terran years. If Martian years that would be closer to 4500 light years or halfway to Drakonis. IF they were headed in that direction. There are a lot of Class-M planets within 4500 light years and there was no guarantee that they’d be heading in a straight line. More likely they’d head for a nearby G-type star seeking a Class-M and if they found none then to the next G-type which meant a zig-zag course all over the place. Unless they had those marvelous Barsoomian telescopes that allowed them to actually see nearby star systems as easily as the Hubbard Telescope around Earth saw nearby planets. If so they’d spy a nearby Class-M world, determine its possibility as a potential home and head there. If it was suitable, they’d settle in and send the ships back for the remaining Orovars. If not they’d look around, find another and so on. But then the Morgor Fleet left Jupiter in the mid-Twentieth Century and arrived 10,000 light years away in the mid-Twenty-first Century though this was impossible with Morgor technology so they must have found a Stargate out in the Oort Cloud that shifted them to Leviathan where they met the Drakonan Fleet and were destroyed. Things like this gave Jason a headache so he gave up but decided to remember the possibility of an Orovar ship or colony out there along with a centuries-old Weir Colony too. It would give the Spacers something to look for instead of causing trouble when they were flying around the Galaxy pretending to be Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon or Han Solo.
Eibhlin whispered to him, “You are thinking too hard and not about me, our task or safety, it’s giving me a headache. Can’t you just relax and enjoy the beauty of this place?”
He reached out, squeezed her hand and smiled back, “I’ll try. But I am interested in learning more about their ships. These and the possibility of other Weir colonies are worth searching for.”
“It’s a big galaxy and I’ve spend twenty years searching Demon Space for others of our race with no luck. I don’t think a colony exists though there may be numerous solitary Weir out there someplace. At least those who survived the Celebacy problem. In the meantime we should focus on ensuring that we leave here alive.”
The group walked across the interior which was so much like a park that Jason wondered why it was empty of humanity. The ceiling was criss-crossed with pipes and lights and what he took to be sprinklers for the vegetation inside appeared to be similar to that he saw in the edges and islands of the Toonol Marsh. Vegetation that had died off long ago as Barsoom became desert. The ground had paths and the occasional bench for rest and the Irishman noted that each bench faced a particularly beautiful grove of Glorestra or Pimalia bloom. Orovars, he recalled, had been obsessed with beauty and that showed even in this small isolated camp. “Back home,” he commented to his guards, “we do the same. Place bowers like this in special places and often will gather together to observe the cherry trees bloom in the Spring or a particularly beautiful sunset over the ocean.”
“So your people are not so militaristic as are the Red or Green Men?”
“Hardly. We breed Lanai to fight for us so we do not have to but I am one of those Weir who choose to take up the sword to defend my nation. But I suspect that you give the Red men discredit. They love beauty as much as do you and I, only they cannot divert as much wealth to wards that as they would wish. The waterways require constant maintainance after a half-million years and they are arguing over sending a fleet to Garobus to collect ice-water and that alone would break most nations and leave them helpless against the Green Men. John Carter is trying to form an Alliance of Red and Green Men to crate peace and so encourage the ice-project but a half-million years of war isn’t easy to forget.”
“When we began to intermarry with the Yellow and Black Races and produce the Red Race, some of us saw this as good to breed a race capable of survival in the desert. But others saw this as mongrelizing the purity of the Orovars. So our ancestors came here, hid away and focused on survival in our own manner. Here we are safe from Green and Red attacks. Safe from the desert and we have enough water stored below to survive another million years even were the Iss to run dry. Plus we have our own air-generator plants to enable us to..”
“:Shh!” another hissed. “You act as if these are our friends. They may not be prisoners but they are not allies.”
“I apologize, Padwar. I shall watch my tongue.”
Eibhlin tripped over a small stone then called out, “I’m ok. Please, let me rest a moment,” as she knelt there, he hands and feet firmly on the grassy walkway for the walls were mossy but the ground covered with the red grass so beloved by the Red Man but which was rare for it required frequent waterings. Then she stood, with assistance and with a polite ‘thank you’ they continued on. Jason knew the fall was a subtrefuge but for what?
Soon all reached a small building carved into the walls and entering, their escort saluted the man behind the desk, “Dwar, here are the foreigners you called for.”
The Orovar behind the desk stared at the two for some time, examining ever aspect of their bodies and harness then said, “Please sit. I have a lot of questions to ask you. Wine?”
Jason begged off but Eibhlin said, “Please,” and took the glass happily. Jason knew the two were allergic to Barsoomian alcohol and she would suffer later on if she drank the entire glass but Eibhlin sipped the wince carefully and so the interview began.
As interviews go it was similar to that he endured when he left Jennings at the other city. Very casual, friendly and designed to encourage the two to talk. Since most of Jason’s interrogations had been done with rubber hoses and cattle-prods (the British and American police used techniques similar to every police-state he had ever visited) he was pleasantly surprised and found himself opening up more and more. The two confessed that they were originally from Jasoom but abducted and modified by alien Demons. That both had been trained in both war and technology, that Jason lived in a Barony of four dozen stars some ten-thousand light years away but Eibhlin lived centuries in the past in another nation. And Jason told how he had been sent to destroy the Human’s teleporter and had been caught in the blast and transited here.
The Dwar then asked, “And you Lady Avleen Obreen, you said you had plans to visit our world but these were changed. Might I ask you why you wanted to leave Jasoom for Barsoom?”
She finished her wine with a gulp and held it for more, knowing that very soon she’d be running for the toilet. But the memories hurt. “My lover, Kara, decided to see Earth, the world of her ancestors. And so I brought her there in my ship and she just left me. I was devastated and didn’t know what to do until I saw a comic book or graphic novel, I don’t know for certain what they are called other then they are booklets of cheap paper filled with drawings and words to tell a story. This one was about John Carter, an Earthman who had come to Barsoom and told his uncle the story. His uncle pretended that it was all made-up but I knew that it was true and it seemed like an omen so I decided to visit and forget Kara.”
He thought about this then said, “Do you mind remaining her until the storm passes? I’d like to think about what you said. Padwar, show our guests our nicest quarters and find slaves to attend to their needs.”
Bowing, they were led away and across the park to another door where they were shown how to lock their quarters which turned to be a small private apartment with one bedroom, a small kitchen and smaller toilet and bath. Eibhlin immediately stripped and began to fill the bath as she called, “Nephew, how about you fix dinner. I’m a terrible cook but am so filthy I need a bath. You are so lucky with your short hair.”
“You would be better at cooking yourself. I’m a worse cook and can barely cook on the trail.”
“Then we’ll starve in a supermarket.” She laughed.
Moments later there was a knock at the door and two Red Women in the collars of slaves knelt and asked to enter. “Master, we are assigned to serve you in all your needs while you are here. Please, command and we shall obey.”
Like all Red Women, they were beautiful in face and form though smaller in their body than Jason preferred but he bade them enter, “Well, then, dinner first. But we have a constitution sensitive to many of your foods. So, let me tell you what we can and cannot eat and try to avoid spices. Even your salt is dangerous to us in large quantities as we are adapted to sodium chloride and not your potassium chloride. And Streichnine and Arsenic are deadly to us.”
One of the women entered the bath and soon Jason heard moans of pleasure as his aunt endured her back being scrubbed and her hair washed. For him he tried to engage the other slave in conversation but she refused to respond, speaking only to ask questions about the meal.
Later on, the two slaves waited on the Irish who ate with gusto. Eibhlin held her glass which was immediately refilled and commented, “I miss servants. We had a houseful of them in Belfast. I wonder if any survived when the British burned my home.”
“By my time, our family fortune was gone and we had to sell most of our lands to pay the tax bills. I was born in a small thatch-roof house that once housed a servant family in your time. I never had the advantage of servants until I was an adult but never became comfortable ordering people about save in war.”
“Yet, you enjoy this as well as do I. Yet…” Eibhlin stood and said, “I am going to suffer this wine tomorrow. She stretched and was immediately served by her slave who rubbed her shoulders. “That feels so good. Tell me girl, what are your duties here, aside from feeding and spying on us?”
Jason was wondering the same but yawned for the hour was getting late. “Mistress, the Orovars think of little more than pleasure. They are a dying people and take slaves from Pilgrimage which go below and are never seen again save we few who are deemed beautiful enough to serve here. Command and we shall obey with entheusiasm.”
“Interesting, then come here and give me a kiss for I have been long without a woman and I see my nephew is fast falling asleep and so will not need either of you.”
Jason didn’t quite fall asleep and soon was kept awake by the passion of his aunt and both slave-girls who seemed to work hard at their task. Eventually, Eibhlin said, “Enough! I can do this all night with two such beauties but I see Jason has been at attention for some time and needs his flag-pole lowered. Let me relieve myself of the wine while you two care for him.” And she ran to the toilet while the slave-girls insisted on tending to their master’s needs. Jason could barely hear Eibhlin in the toilet as the Barsoom wine ate its way through her system and probably clogged the drain pipes. But the girls were very good at their task of giving pleasure and soon the condition of his relative was gone from his mind.
In the morning, he found himself alone with Eibhlin around whom he was wrapped so woke her up. “Not now, I’m exhausted. I spent more time shitting that wine than fucking those girls and my arse is sore and raw.”
“You sound still drunk else you’d not be so graphic. But listen up. They won’t let us leave. We know too much and they will be terrified that we’ll tell someone they exist. All this is a ruise.”
“I know,’ she moaned as she rolled over. “I felt it when we entered so when I faked my tripping, I felt the ground and felt vibrations. I’m not like you, Jason. I may be what you call ‘medieval’ in origin but I spent half my life on starships and space-stations. We feel the engines through the deck and wake at the slightest change. I felt that here. And those braces holding the ceiling. They aren’t just to keep the air in, they are too strong for that. This ‘camp’ is a ship! Maybe a generation ship, probably one of many.”
“I wondered. The girls said most slaves go below and are never seen again. They are probably being worked to death to build the structure below and keep the engines working. No one here knows how star-drives work so they need standard Boyancy tanks to lift off and into space which is slow but dependable.”
“How long do you think they’ve been doing this?”
“I don’t know. The technology for space travel is old. The Atmosphere plants were built so long ago that both the Yellow Okar and Red Panar were able to build their own hot-house cities in the Artic with individual atmosphere plants. There is also a theory that the Orovars colonized the nearer moon and visited Earth and Jupiter so roofing over an impact crater to provide an isolated and sustainable home then turning that home into a ship is but a small jump.
“Humans have a difficult time thinking past a couple decades. A few will think to their children but most do not because they are dayflies and die so quickly. Draconans with our 500 year lifespan think in terms of thousands of years. I don’t know how long the Orovars live, certaintly centuries, possibly less than the Red Man’s thousand years but they think in terms of a hundred thousand years. The waterways were built to last a half million years easily so I can see them roofing over a crater, moving inside and spending ten thousand years making it a nice place to live.
“Then some Jed decides to leave Barsoom and seek a better world and so they start to dig down and build a hull under the ground, add engines and so on, all a little at a time with captured slave labour and found materials. They are patient so spending a hundred thousand years to complete the project and another hundred thousand in space flight doesn’t bother them at all. That Orovar I met my first trip had been buried a half-million years and was patiently waiting for someone to dig her up.”
“So, nephew, the Orovars saw their race as being degraded into the Red Race and wanting to be pure, isolated themselves here because the Therns keep everyone away, the Desert keeps the Green Men away and the Iss provides water. Then they capture Red Men for slave labour to convert the valley into a generation star-ship and when they are done, they leave. So why us? Why are they being so kind to us?”
“Because, dear Auntie, they know we are aliens and so understand space travel. They know you are a Starship Engineer and I a Navigator and pilot who knows which worlds are suitable. The Americans have a saying, ‘you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar’ so by making us happy, they can entice us into their service. Thus the pleasant demeanour, the beautiful slaves and all else. One thing though, we spoke too freely during the interview. Could we have been drugged?”
“Only I drank the wine so it would have been a gas we could not smell. But it affected the Dwar not at all. And they keep us here in this camp so we don’t contaminate or threaten the main city and what they learn is sent to the other cities and camps. As a military woman, I appreciate the plan but as an Irish Noble I refuse to be a slave again. Let’s get out of here.”
“How? They are adequate swordsmen as are you but outnumber us and I cannot kill them all.”
She laughed, “But we can climb and I have my beamer to cut a hole in the roof.”
IX
Almost immediatly they heard someone at the door and switching from Gaelic to Barsoomian, answered to find the Dwar from yesterday smiling at them. “I have come to invite you to breakfast. I understand that my slaves gave you the service you wished? If not, I will ensure that they do better in the future.”
Eibhlin returned to dress in private as Jason offered, “They were quite attentive. And imaginative. I gather that … “ he trailed off not knowing how to ask then Eibhlin entered and pushed him back to finish dressing himself.
“My lover asks but fears embarrassing you about your beliefs and attitudes towards our desires on the more physical level.”
The Dwar laughed and responded as he led them away. “The Green Men think of nothing but war and torture. The Red Man thinks of war and adventure. Here, we are isolated from both so we seek to end the tedium with pleasures of all sorts. Food, drink, art, nature, and even love-making. Here, see this Glorestra bloom. It was specially bred by us over a hundred years. Note the color, the unique shape of the petal. We do the same with our other pleasures as well. So although the Red man would find your personal lives and desires for each other and your own gender to be an abomination, we see it as we do with a good meal, seeking pleasure as we wish. So fear not our disdain for your lack of marriage or the relation of aunt and nephew and think nothing of your desires for other women, just enjoy the experience and experiment as you will for with so many willing slaves, nothing is forbidden and they are, I assure you, willing.”
Jason looked at the blossom but was unable to tell any difference between this and the ones he had seen in the Toonol Marshes. It was still adapted not for reproduction but for feeding and soon an insect-like thing flew in, attracted to the scent or colour, and the blossom snapped closed to consume it. On Barsoom, flowers were designed to eat.
Eibhlin whispered, “I see no difference from any other.”
“Me neither but they do. I recall one woman on Earth who had 125 different colours of red nail polish. To me they all looked similar and could be orange, red and slut-red but she saw tones and shades I missed. At least they won’t stone us for our Need.”
“Tell me, Dwar, you say this is but a camp? This implies more than one and a main city somewhere.”
He ignored the remark and commented on the flowers, the intricate watering system and anything else to avoid their questions. Finally as all were eating, the two visitors carefully picking at their meal, the Dwar asked, “I understand that you, Lady Avleen Obreen, possess a starship that can cross the expanse far faster than light. But you, Lord Jason Obreen do not?”
Once again he found himself opening up but could not detect any reason for this. On Drakonis they used truth drugs on all of their suspects and interrogations or a mechanical device that forced the subject to believe that they were helping out by speaking all, but he could not smell anything in the air or taste anything in the food nor did his antennae detect any EM-fields so the reason was unknown to him. The fact that he wondered why implied that this openness was unnatural and coerced though he still spoke. “I have a ship but prefer to use the Stargates. These are natural wormholes in the universe that can be stabilized and we have one between Jasoom and Gaea.”
“With all your travel, surely you have seen many worlds. How many are suitable for colonization and what dangers will we find if we visit them?”
He had apparently dropped all pretense of anything polite as his voice became stern. Eibhlin added, “I come from centuries in the past but we prefer to visit only those worlds that are what we call Class-M or Jasoom-like where we can live because air, gravity and biology are similar to our own. Barsoom is at the lower end of Class-M and so is barely habitable to us. If you travel, you’d need to find similar worlds to this lest a greater gravity crush you or the biology be Right-Handed instead of our own Left-Handed. This is why most aliens look so similar. They come from similar environments.”
Jason added, “There are, of course, different life-forms like Black Clouds which are intelligent gas-beings a thousand karads across which float through space. Or silicates which live in the atmosphere of Gas Giants like Garobus or anything your imagination can conceive. But really, we cannot live on a gas giant and they cannot live on a stony-iron world so we rarely visit each other and focus on worlds that are similar in form with life that we can relate too.”
“How many of these are out there? And how close?”
“It’s hard to say. There are 100 billion stars in this galaxy. Another 100 billion in the satellites and another 100 billion in the Halo so this galaxy has easily 300,000,000,000 stars. About half are G-type and most have planetary systems but only about 10% have a Class-M world and only half those have Left-Hand molecules.”
“Still,” he continued, “that is near seven and a half billion possible worlds which would place one habitable world every….. ten light years?” [note: I translated this to Earth measurements for ease]
“True, if the math were true. The truth is that although there should be a thousand Class-M worlds between Barsoom and Drakonis and a hundred of these with a technical civilization, you would be lucky to find ten along your route. If the math worked, the Vanthi would have long ago returned to Jasoom and conquered their former homeworld.” Eibhlin added.
The Dwar thought for a moment then added, “It seems an impossible task. Our ships are far too slow so we must choose our destination well before we travel or… have better ships.” He nodded and immediately the two Weir jumped to their feet and drew their longswords, only to face their opponents standing at ease.
“Re-sheath your swords, hand to me your blades and revolver. Then go calmly with the Padwar and make no attempts to escape.” The Dwar ordered and the two obeyed. They knew they were being controlled but were helpless to resist and did as they were told.
They were led through a concealed door then down a winding stairs for Orovars retained these anachronisms until they reached a large room with throbbing machinery. “This,” their captor explained, “is the drive to this city. It gives us power and will someday launch us into space. Can you improve it to multi-light speeds?”
Eibhlin looked it over and then replied, “I don’t know. I was trained to repair starships, not build them. I’ll have to see what I can do.”
“Then do so. You, Jason Obreen, come with me and show me where me may find our new home.”
Following orders, Eibhlin looked over the engines and saw that they were primitive even by Vanthi standards. A demon engine this size could move a planet and one capable of moving this ‘camp’ at multi-light speeds would barely fill a small room. Still, welding a damaged brace was far easier than creating and forging the exotic metals needed to produce that brace. Even in Ireland, she used a matchlock and could even repair it but if tossed into a dungeon, she would be totally unable to actually build a forge to create such a weapon. Yet they wished her to do that here. Create metals capable of taking ten-thousand gravity forces for years at a time without fail. This camp may be structured to withstand a four-g acceleration but that is far from the forces suffered in starflight and if the metal didn’t deform, the welds would snap or rivets shear with the forces involved. Building a space ship is easy. Even Earth proved that when they invented the submarine. It was getting that ship into space and to another planet without it falling apart that was the hard part.
Still, she might be able to improve the engines and perhaps double the speed without danger to the structure or crushing the inhabitants. The problem with garden-colony ships like this was that they needed a constant one-g acceleration to keep things from floating away and to stress the plants to grow properly. This was possible up to a point. And course changes were always a problem as the ship rotated 180 degrees, thus tossing everything against the bulkhead and Barsoomian plants just weren’t as strong as most other Class-M vegetation. With .38 gravity, they didn’t need strength so even the trees were more like giant ferns than woody growths and would bend or snap at the slightest course change.
X
Jason was taken to another room where he saw one of the marvelous an-opticonic telescopes that allowed the Red Men to observe life on all the planets in the Solar System with considerable detail. With this device he could actually see a planet around a nearer star as easily as the Terran Hubble Telescope observed Mars. He had used one in Ardane in the Toonolian Marsh so knew it had a glass lens only to protect the internal circuitry for the telescope did not use a lens to concentrate light as Earthly telescopes did, they used magnetic fields to enhance the random light waves detected and so although looked like an optical telescope they were closer to a radio telescope in nature.
Jason looked over their readings, images and data that they had collected over a hundred thousand years. There wasn’t much, just refinements of previous sightings which caused the older records to be recycled but they did show what he wanted to see.
“Searching the galaxy is impossible with 300,000,000,000 stars for if you spent even a quarter zone on each one, it will take a million years to search them all. So we must narrow the search and we do that by eliminating as many stars as is possible. Gas Giants are either Sol-type stars that are dying and so expanded to destroy their systems but will shrink before the new planets can cool or are naturally so large that they will die long before a planet cools enough to form life. Other stars have similar or different problems so we search stars that are about the mass of your sun to twice its mass. We call these G-type stars because they have a life long enough to form habitable planets and are the proper temperature to support life on those planets.
“Next we calculate the eco-sphere for carbon-based life. Since temperature is a function of distance, we determine the surface temperature of the sun then work out to the idea temperature for Orovar life which is about 2.6 million Karads plus or minus 20%.
“Then we search for a suitable stony planet of Barsoom mass to twice Barsoom mass within that eco-sphere and here we find three. Cosoom, Jasoom and Barsoom.
“This is Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to Barsoom outside the one we orbit. I don’t know what you call it. As you can see it is a G-Type star with a number of planets but if you calculate the eco-sphere based on the mass and temperature of Alpha C we know where to look for a Class-M world you can live on. Now it is a matter of searching that eco-sphere and if you find nothing useful, too large or too small, you move to the next G-type star, recalculate for the different mass and temperature and search again.”
They looked at him strangely then the dwar said, “We know that. We discovered the basic principles of cosmology a half million years ago. We’ve searched the stars within a hundred light years of Barsoom and found nothing useful. At least nothing confirmed useful. What we want you to tell us is what nearby stars can support us and the safest and fastest way to reach them.”
“Oh, I misunderstood. I’m used to dealing with Jasoomians who are so brilliant in one area then so stupid in others. As for your question, I don’t know.”
The White men looked at each other then at him then the Dwar screamed, “YOU DON’T KNOW! You told us you navigated starships across the galaxy and you don’t know!”
“Well,” Jason smiled, “I navigate between Jasoom and Drakonis. That’s almost a straight-line 10,000 light years long by our measurements. I know that path fairly well but I just don’t go exploring. I’m too busy with defending the Barony and I usually vacation on Jasoom so rarely go anywhere else. Oh I did some when I was younger, but that was in Commonwealth Space which is, as I said, ten thousand light years away. And, as a kid I traveled with the Demons who went everywhere but they never told me where they were so for all I know, I could have been a dozen light years from here or a dozen thousand. Sure if you visit my Barony, we have a dozen worlds suitable for your people but you’d have to buy your way in and agree to become Baronial subjects and we enforce interbreeding between the races. I’m sure that there are probably terra-formed worlds in the Commonwealth that you can use for the Demons are always making them but they don’t tell us where they are and we stumble across them only when we are lost.”
The Dwar stared for a time then snapped, “He is useless to us. Take him below.”
XI
Eibhlin was examining the engines a Padwar came in with a dozen slaves, each of whom looked as if they had been worked near to death. “These will do as you wish. If you need more, call. If they do not work to your standards, tell us and we will return them below.”
She looked them over then called, “Food! I cannot have my workers starving. A man dying of nourishment makes mistakes and a mistake on a containment field or a structural brace could easily destroy the entire ship. Feed them well and they will serve me well. Starve them and you risk all.”
As the Orovars left to fetch food, not with any entheusiasm she noted, she looked over her charges. “Do any of you understand spaceships? Quantum mechanics? Anti-matter physics? How about flier technology?”
One stepped forward and introduced himself, “I am Koran Flar, I was a flier mechanic for Helium. Since you seem kind, at least you are no Orovar, I’ll be honest with you. None of us are willing slaves. We were all captured on the Iss seeking Heaven and forced to work below or die. The Orovars take the most beautiful and handsome for their pleasure and the rest of us go below to work until we die.”
She thought about this for less than a second, already come to the same conclusion. No wonder the female slaves were so willing to service hers and Jason’s carnal desires. The alternative is to go below and work until they were dead from exhaustion. “Do you know how they control us?”
“No. They approached us, offered us safety and supplies for the trip and we simply followed. The longer we remained, the more willing we are to serve them.”
“And what of escape?”
“In the beginning we think and plan but then those images and desires fade with time. Even now when you mention the word, I want to leave and continue on to Dor but I cannot seem to force myself to plan or to carry my plans out.”
Eibhlin had given up the thought of drugs in the food, drink or air and had met enough races with telepathic abilities to understand that they were probably controlled by either a mind of such power that it could subdue hundreds or some device that did the same. Either way, she wanted to escape but found herself diverted to the problems at hand. “The Orovars wish this ship to be made stronger and capable of interstellar flight. This I can but not at the speeds they need. The stresses are so great at near light speeds that striking even a grain of sand will destroy this entire ship and any course change other than a casual drift will shear welds and bolts. So we will be enhancing their engines and the structural integrity as best we can.” Such things were learned more from trial-and-error than an engineer’s dreams and the Orovars hadn’t been in space for half a million years.
And so the work began. Eibhlin would examine the engines and radium reactor, make changes and the Orovars never questioned her designs, a sure sign that they knew their control was perfect.
Once when an Orovar came to her and began to stroke her arms, she pushed him away in disgust, “I am not some tramp to submit to your desires. Seek another slave!” and she pushed him so hard he struck the wall and fell to the floor senseless. Later after his fellows had removed him, giving her ill looks, she realized that their control over her wasn’t total. Whatever methods they used made her subject to their will to work hard and avoid escape but her personal life and desires were still her own. That gave her a clue that slipped away as she sought it and so she began to wander around the ship, always below examining the structure and power leads, assigning slaves to this duty and that until she saw her cousin.
XII
Being taken ‘below’ wasn’t what Jason thought it would be. As a former Galley-Slave, he knew the whip and long hours of hard work with little food followed by the dead being left in their chains until the stink was so bad the overseers finally tossed it overboard before the other slaves would resort to cannibalism. Although he feared and hated those thoughts, the idea of escape was but a casual thought with no real meaning and this disturbed him on a much deeper level.
Here, although the food was poor and limited, there were no whips. Most of his work was to crawl around the smaller rooms of hydroponics and tend the crops then harvest and preserve the yield for future use. The storerooms in this camp alone would feed a city for a generation easily and still they grew more. Unlike the main garden at ground level, below was simply the inside of a ship, ceilings maybe three meters high, corridors as wide or wider when necessary and rooms upon rooms. As he traveled between the hydroponics and storerooms he began to map the structure and plan his future. After two hundred years, he was very good at keeping his subsurface thoughts hidden from a casual probe for this is what he decided was happening here.
Some worlds used low-frequency radio waves akin to telepathy broadcast across a city to control the population. Drakonan Ramships did the same to encourage the new colonists they took from Earth to abandon their old ways and racial hatreds and to merge into one homogonous society. After a year of that influence, it was safe to release them into the general population. This must be a similar device. But the bad points were that the influence was so broadband that you could only influence, not control people and could only read surface thoughts and desires. Actual mind control required far more power which must be concentrated in a smaller area. Star Fleet had those which were used to interrogate prisoners who thought they were helping by offering any and all information. Having been in that chair (all Draconan military were required to so that they could understand the effects and not misuse them) he knew that what he suffered was a simply broad-band influence and not total control. But he had to find and destroy the device before he could use his plans. So for now he played the slave.
He took her aside and spoke in Gaelic for thinking in this language would confuse their captors and hopefully miss their probes. “Auntie, I believe we are being controlled by a device that mimics telepathy. Our human-minds have a different transmission frequency than the Barsoomian which is why we can read their thoughts but they cannot read ours. I believe that we are receiving their control-broadcasts but they are unable to receive our mental transmissions so if we speak Gaelic, we should be safe.”
“Then come with me,” she said in Barsoomian, “for I need an engineer familiar with starship structure to help instruct the Red Men.” Then in Gaelic, “I believe the same but am unable to locate the device. I’ve traced the power drains and there is nothing save the reactor and engines that take more then normal power. Have you any ideas?”
“One, this ship is a food production plant growing and storing massive amounts of food and water and air. I suspect a fleet will leave, the main city with many of these camps following or attaching to one large colony-ship, each capable of independent survival if necessary. Most of the Orovars go about unarmed and with their slaves under their mental control, this explains why they are such poor fighters. But there is one place below that is heavily guarded. And these with radium rifles. Something or someone important is there.”
“Possibly. I know that the engines and reactors are poorly guarded which implies that your area is more important than even the ship’s heart and strength. Can you take me there?”
“Easily,” and as he led her away he switched to Barsomian. “I don’t see how this ship can lift off buried under tons of rock for millennia. Even our own battle-cruisers are unable to push up more than a few meters of rock when hidden underground.”
“Unless their metals are good enough to compensate for the poor structural design, they may be trapped here and need to dig themselves out first. And that will attract attention from the Therns who patrol the Iss. Still, I need to strengthen the integrity of the hull and for that I need someone familiar with interstellar stresses.”
As they passed down a corridor with three slaves in tow, Jason tapped his aunt with his tail and she glanced aside to notice an ornate door guarded by a number of Orovars who glanced at the group but never readied their arms. Doubtless they thought their control good enough to place but an honour guard about. “Feel that?”
“I do,” she replied. “We found it.” Then turning to Koran Flar asked, ‘Why do the pleasure slaves above fear being sent ‘below’ so much. It seems like a pleasant enough fate. You are not beaten or worked to death though the food could be better.”
“I know not,” he replied. “I know only that those who displease the Orovars are terrified when they come here and mourn for their easy life above.”
“Probably an aspect of the control, to make them think this life is so terrible that they will gladly sell their souls to remain a play-toy.” She suggested.
Jason took her by the arm and pulled, “You are slowing, glancing back, why?”
“I don’t know. I have a feeling that I should go back. Something behind that door is calling to me.”
“Focus on the task at hand. Mental control influences the Right side of the brain. Logical thought like engineering problems are ruled by the left side of the brain. If we concentrate on difficult logical and technical problems we can break the influence. Tell me about the reactor and how the ship will lift off. There must be something there that we are missing to allow these crater-bases to become starships.”
She did so and as she talked and answered questions, the pull lessened and faded from her mind. Something or someone behind that door wanted her. And her life taught that anything that anted her that bad wasn’t what she wished to meet.
As they worked on some bracing, discussing the needed additions and describing them to the slaves so they could fetch tools and equipment, Eibhlin commented in Gaelic, “Whatever was behind that door wanted me. Not me, my body. I’ve felt that before in Human-worlds like Earth and the Vanthi. I call it the ‘desire-for-exotics’ where men see me and wonder what sex would be like with a woman who has a tail. I think it’s their latent homosexuality but most men seem to like strange and unusual women in their bed upon occasion.”
“Probably why the magazines in America are filled with ads for meeting Asian women. That means that whatever is controlling us is human for no machine thinks of sex. And if human, he must sleep sometimes. I have a plan but you won’t like it.”
“I rarely like your plans but they seem to work more often than not.” She replied with some caution.
XIII
The group worked late, sending out for meals until the braces were done to the satisfaction of both Irish. Occasionally an Orovar would pass by, stop to watch then move on so sure were they of their control. During this time, the two would casually touch each other, then sneak a kiss and once when alone, almost consummated their passion until interrupted, forcing both to hurridly adjust harness and return to work. During all this, Eibhlin felt her Need rise and knew Jason’s was too. Despite the service of the Red Women slaves a few days ago, the interrupted sexual teasing was taking its toll on the two much to the embarrassment of the Red slaves who tried to not watch and move away. Finally Eibhlin said, “Enough! I cannot concentrate. I need a man or two and perhaps some girls as well. Let us quit for the day and return when I am calmer.” And she led the group back to their quarters only to be met by an armed guard at the intersection that led to the decorated door.
“Send the slaves back but your two come with me.” And he led them to the door where he stopped and asked, “Have you any blades or revolvers? Good, then enter and obey.”
Once inside the two were confronted by a large room of sybaritic luxury that caused them to stop. Silks decorated the walls and ceiling, rugs of exotic furs and weavings covered the floor and an entire wall was filled with a kitchen and bottles of drink of all vintages. But the center was a bed of massive proportions, hanging from the usual chains to prevent vermin like the ulsio from entering. Upon the bed were five slaves, naked and not wearing anything which was unusual for even slaves wore collars or some harness. Two were well-built men the other three beautiful women, all fondling the main occupant of the bed. The center of their attention was obviously an Orovar but one the likes neither had ever seen for on a world that prided itself on the beauty and conditioning of its citizens, this one was a slug. His head was bulbuous as if his brain had grown twice normal size and he must have weighed as much as four normal men. So fat was he that he could not even sit and simply lay there as his slaves would rub oils and lotions over him only to have another wipe him clean. The weir could see fatalism in their eyes yet still they worked, unceasingly to give physical pleasure to a man who was unable to seek it himself.
It was easy to look away and on another wall was a complex device with wires that led to the back of the head of the corpulous man. Both could feel the em-fields radiate from this device, fields that gave both a migrane which helped break the control of their captor.
“You wonder at my magnificence?” the man said in a surprisingly feminine voice. What need is there for chains or armed guards when I exist! I control all. I see all! I prevent revolution or escape. And in return, I receive the best we have. Food, drink, scent, slaves. There is no pleasure that is denied me and now I would wish you.”
“You control the Orovars?” Eibhlin asked as she began to remove her harness.
“No, just the slaves for we Orovars have little telepathic ability. I was bred for this task and this device your companion studies amplifies my thoughts and will. Each city and camp has one like me to sustain it. But think not of escape for though I cannot read your thoughts, I see that I can control your actions.” Jason found himself caressing his aunt as if on stage. Angered but unable to control himself he began to calculate the power drain and circutry that would allow the Orovar to link with such a device. Then he felt himself rise as he kissed Eibhlin whose harness fell to the ground with his. Naked they moved towards the bed to join the obscene occupant and then Eibhlin pushed Jason away long enough to rise her Beamer and rake their taskmaster. The invisible beam opened him from hip to head within a second and his screams of agony were cut off as his throat and head fell apart in twain. Then she turned and ran to the amplifier and began to cut it into pieces as Jason ran to the door to attack the guards who were entering.
Although unarmed, he was easily thrice their strength and speed and had near two centuries of unarmed combat experience and so soon they were alone. “Good thing they specified blades and revlovers. My Beamer is a tool modified to a weapon and as long as I focused on it being as tool, I was able to keep it.”
“Then Auntie, I see the slaves are awakening so as I don’t know how long it will be before they return to their senses, and on the chance that there may be another of these around, I suggest we leave now!”
He tossed her a sword then swore, “These are useless, just decorations,” and tossed the rifles aside. “Well, we do it the hard way.” And led his relative out.
Although Orovars tried to stop them, beneath the Irish fury of the two, angered at how they had been forced to perform, they cut down the limited opposition. And as the Red Slaves followed, gathering what swords they could as they followed, by the time any real force was mounted to stop them, the two Weir led an army of their own. The Orovars may have invented the Sword on Barsoom but it was the Red man who perfected the Art and soon all who opposed were dead.
They ran to the office of the Dwar seeking revenge but he was gone. Eibhlin paused only long enough to trade her long-sword in for her Demon Blade that was on a wall then they ran to the exit hatch, leaving their Red Companions to finish their revenge as they would. Then outside, they made for the Iss.
“The Orovars will follow!” Eibhlin panted.
“No other water in the Great Desert so we have no choice. Just keep thinking how disgusting men are and how much you hate slavery and keep technical matters in your mind until we are away from their influence.”
“How many of these camps are there do you think?”
“Dozens? I know not. But they must be scattered and are torn between the need to kill us and keep their secrets and fear for our abilities. We’ll see what happens.”
“I hope that they cannot control the Banths, calots and Green Men.” She commented, not at all in jest but fear.
Finally, they saw the banks of the River Iss and were soon joined by a dozen Red Men and Women, all former slaves with maybe a dozen more straggling behind. Koran Flar mentioned, “I wouldn’t have thought escape possible. But I feel no more influence so perhaps we are now safe. Jason Obreen, Lady Avleen Obreen, since your path goes south, do you mind if we accompany you for a while? Some of us have lost our taste for Pilgrimage and wish to return home, others like me feel we will be safer with you. And besides, I owe you a debt to repay.”
The two looked at each other and Jason said, “I don’t mind and would enjoy the company though my aunt and I tend to be a bit ribald at times so bear with our less attractive needs.”
The Red Man laughed, “After fifty years as a slave to those, I will happily accept the honest love you two express over the decadance we endured. Lead on!”
To contact me or to request topics to be covered, send to RikJohnson@juno.com
by: Rick Johnson
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
