L. Camp - The Exotic Enchanter

“When Paxton took up residence in Zodanga, Ur Jan would have slain him for his subversive ideas had he not fled. Any such doctrine would utterly overthrow our social system and reduce the world to seething chaos!”

Shea said: “My own home world has struggled with similar difficulties. Where is Lord Carter now?”

“He has gone off to Ptarth to visit Thuvan Dinh, the Jed, and to promote some of his revolutionary ideas. It will be interesting to see how long Thuvan Dinh puts up with Carter’s transgalactic nonsense.”

“O Jed,” said Shea, “could you tell me more about Lord Carter’s mysterious arrival on Barsoom? likewise with Paxton. Some of our wise men have speculated that they sent their astral bodies to Barsoom, leaving their Earthly ones on their native planet. But that leaves open the question of whence came the mass of their Barsoomian bodies.

“There is also a mystery about where Lord Carter was born and when. He seems to have appeared out of nowhere and to have spent several times the normal Earthly life span, earning his living on Earth as a mercenary soldier — an occupation that no longer commands the respect it once did. Truth to tell, it has fallen into disrepute.”

“We have been puzzled, too,” said the Jed. “Nor have questions to Lord Carter done much to enlighten us. He is a jovial man of action, with little interest in the whys and wherefores of his becoming a Barsoomian.

“Now the consensus is that he is really a Barsoomian, taken to Jasoom as a child or youth by some occult means, like that which brought you and your lady hither. It is surmised that his fair skin marks him as a descendant of the white race, so called, which dominated parts of Barsoom back when the oceans still washed the margins of the continents, before the races that then existed merged to form the present red race.

“But enough of this pleasant chatter, Sir Harold. Not for naught do some folk of Lesser Helium call me ‘Mors Chatterbox’ — albeit not to my face. But the man whose duty it is to stand beside me and stop me when I talk too much is on vacation. So, Doctor Shea, what mean you to do next in pursuit of your vanished offspring?”

“My first step,” said Shea, “is obviously to find out whether Malambroso has actually come to Barsoom. Is that the sort of thing your Barsoomian mastermind, Ras Thavas, would know?”

“Of course! Had you not brought up the matter, I should have suggested him myself. He has his own system of keeping track of events in Barsoomian cities, which we have found useful in warning us of aggressions and revolutions.” The Jed turned to one of his guardsmen. “Dator Thin, you shall send a message to Doctor Ras Thavas, respectfully requesting his presence here forthwith.”

The guardsman saluted and departed. The Jed said:

“Sir Harold, plan you to go about Barsoom searching for this miscreant on your own?”

“Yes, sir, unless you could furnish me with helpers.”

The Jed shook his head. “Since this is a matter among Jasoomians, it concerns not the Empire of Helium, I will not, therefore, let my people become involved therein, aside from furnishing such information as you can elicit from Ras Thavas. It strikes me, however, that clad in those hideous and overheating garments, you could not hope to do aught by stealth. You are as conspicuous as an Otzian on a snowbank.”

From his reading, Shea knew that by “Otzian” the Jed meant a member of the black-skinned race of Barsoom, who dwelt in OtzValley at the South Pole. He continued:

“You will, therefore, wish to adopt Barsoomian garb and color of skin. I am sure that Ras Thavas can show you how to do that — unless you have that curious prejudice among Jasoomians, that it is shameful or improper to expose one’s sexual parts to the view of ones felow beings. You Jasoomians must be a singularly nasty-minded lot, forever thinking of copulation.”

“We can overcome such feelings,” said Shea. “Agreed, darling?”

“Not being a native Jasoomian,” said Belphebe, “I have never suffered from this twitch. If my husband ever had it, he is cured.”

The Jed rang a little bell on his desk. A red Barsoomian, with the usual harness of straps, came through a side door to the sanctum. Mors Kajak said:

“Dattok, lead these Jasoomians to one of the hospitality suites, third class. Farewell for the nonce, O Sheas. Pray hold yourselves in readiness to return hither when Ras Thavas appears.”

The Jed picked up the scroll he had been reading when the Sheas arrived. He unrolled it again and hunted about his cluttered desk for weights to hold down the corners of the strip and prevent it from rolling itself up again.

* * *

The following morning, a flunkey summoned the Sheas to the executive chamber. There Shea and Belphebe found another red Barsoomian in converse with the Jed. The new arrival seemed to be in what to a Barsoomian would be youth — say, in his second or third century — of handsome aspect, but notably lean and starved-looking.

“Here,” said the Jed Mors Kajak to the new Barsoomian, are the Jasoomians whereof I have told you: Mr. and Mrs. Harold Shea, unless you prefer all the fancy titles they claim: Sir, Professor, Doctor, and so on. Sheas, this is Doctor Ras Thavas, with whom you asked to speak.”

Shea raised his right hand in the Barsoomian greeting. “ Kaor , Doctor.”

“ Kaor ,” grunted the young Barsoomian. “Where do you wish us to confer, O Jed?”

“Dattok will show you the way,” said the Jed.

The secretary led them through a maze of hallways to a small conference room. Seated, Shea studied Ras Thavas. He asked:

“Doctor, is it true that you had your brain transferred to the body of a younger man?”

“It is true,” rasped Ras Thavas. “But let us not dwell upon the circumstance of my brain transfer, since social pressures have forced me to give up that kind of neurosurgery. Nor am I a chatterbox like Mors Kajak, to waste precious research time in idle chatter. What would you of me? Pray make it brief.”

Shea poured out the tale of Voglinda’s abduction by Malambroso. He ended: “And so, knowing you for a farsighted and well-informed man, I ask if your intelligence system has apprised you of the arrival of this pair on Barsoom?”

Ras Thavas chuckled. “You are a clever fellow, Doctor Shea, knowing that flattery is the surest means of procuring favors from your fellow man. But think not that it will work on a person of my superior intellect. I easily see through such childish sleights.

“Now, let us suppose that my informants have in fact told me of the arrival on Barsoom of your Doctor Malambroso and his captive infant. If I put you on this wizards track, I shall expect a favor from you in return.”

“Such as?” said Shea.

“That depends. By diligent investigation, Doctor Shea, I have learned a few things about you, if not enough to grasp all aspects of your personality.”

“You mean you have a dossier on me? Where did you get your information, since I only arrived on Barsoom for the first time yesterday?”

Ras Thavas gave a lopsided grin. “Oh, I have ways; I have ways. The inventions of your fellow Jasoomian, the wireless pioneer Gridley, have been of substantial help. But to get down to cases, Doctor, what is your occupation on your native pIanet?”

“I am a professor of psychology at the Garaden Institute, in Garaden, Ohio.”

“Just what I needed! I understand that, starting as a brash, hot-tempered, and emotionally volatile youth, you have learned by painful experience to bridle your natural impulses to as to avoid offense and disarm hostility. Your conduct, here during the last few rats shows all the smoothness one would expect of you.”