L. Camp - The Exotic Enchanter

“Turn right as you leave,” said the clerk, “and at the third street on the right, turn right again. Number fourteen is the last house at the end of a long block on your left. You cannot miss it.”

Shea muttered: “I’ve had people tell me before that I couldn’t miss the place I was looking for, and gotten as thoroughly lost as ever.”

Ras Thavas: “I hear that on Jasoom, the streets all have names or numbers, shown by signposts; and the houses are numbered in regular order, with number fifteen following number fourteen and so forth.”

“I don’t know about Jasoom,” said Shea, “but that’s how we do it on Earth. It makes places much easier to find.”

“You would never get Barsoomians to agree. Why, if anyone could be tracked down from the name of his street and the number of his house, any assassin or enemy could find and kill him! That is the reason that the costlier houses can be raised on telescoping pillars at night.”

“Since Jed Ur Jan,” said Shea in a lowered voice, “is himself an old assassin, I should think he’d want to make things easier for assassins.”

Ras Thavas smiled crookedly. “A Jed soon discovers that he cannot rely solely upon one small part of the populace for support, especially in a world as much given to homicide as Barsoom. A ruler can keep his subjects under control for a while by terrifying penalties. But if he makes himself disliked enough. sooner or later a subject — even a mere slave — will try to shoot or stab him.”

Belphebe appeared. As she and Shea exchanged a morning embrace, Ras Thavas said: “Lady Belphebe, had I met you a thousand years ago, my life might have followed a different pattern. I have watched with admiration how you and Doctor Shea act in concert, supporting each other. Even though you squabble occasionally, you always present a united front against the outside world. And I believe the building across the street is the one whereto the clerk directed us.”

The building in question was a rooming house, run by a red Barsoomian landlady with four slaves. She informed them that Mar Vas had gone out earlier and had not returned. He had left word, however, that if Doctor Ras Thavas came, he was to be shown to Mar Vas’ room.

The room turned out to be used as a home laboratory, with tables here and there bearing unfamiliar pieces of equipment and a tangle of wires everywhere.

“You behold Mar Vas’ experiments in wireless communication,” said Ras Thavas. “Do you understand this apparatus?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Shea. “On Earth they used to sell do-it-yourself kits for making such apparatus, but in my time they sold complete sets, contained in a single compact box, so big.” Shea illustrated with gestures. “I never mastered that skill, unfortunately.”

In answer to further questions, the landlady said: “I remember his saying something about visiting the Arms Fair.”

“Where is that?” asked Shea.

“Go that way along the nearest cross street till you come to the public fountain, then turn right. . . .”

* * *

Another hour found them before a circus-sized tent, with swarms of Barsoomians going in and out. To one side of the entrance, a stand bore a spacious sign. Shea could not read the writing; for, while Barsoom spoke essentially one language, each nation had evolved its own system of writing. He appealed to Ras Thavas for a translation. The latter studied the sign for some seconds, then spoke:

“It says; Down with the Restrictionists! They seek to deprive us honest men of means of defending our lives, property, and honor. They would reduce all free Barsoomians to the status of sniveling slaves! Smite the cowardly scoundrels!”

“What’s that all about?” asked Shea. “Who are the Restrictionists?”

“They are members of a movement to restrict the right of free Barsoomians to go armed. Since a sword is a symbol of being a free man, any threat to take away a man’s sword incites him to furious resistance.”

“How about guns?”

“Meseems they have not got around to considering guns yet, since guns are a fairly new feature of Barsoomian personal armament. The gun was invented in my own lifetime and has not yet acquired the status in Barsoomian culture that the sword has. You have already learned that, if threatened with a sword, it is deemed a dreadful crime to defend oneself with a gun, which is thought a cowardly, unmanly weapon. But, because of its ability to slay at a distance, in some places the gun is inching its way into the status that the sword has long enjoyed.”

“Will the Barsoomians get around to forbidding guns in private hands?”

“They may.” Ras Thavas gave a cynical smile. “But even if they manage to stop all carrying of weapons, the only result will be an increase in population, until numbers are again limited by lack of food and water.”

Shea frowned at the sign. “What’s that squiggle down at the bottom?”

“That, my good Doctor Shea, is the colophon of the Arms Makers Guild, who paid for the sign. I would not be so misanthropic as to accuse the Guild of erecting the sign purely from selfish motives, to stimulate the arms business.” The scientist snickered. “But you may judge that matter for yourself. Here, Shea, it is up to you to pay for our admission. The entrance fee is small. I trust that you changed enough of your Jasoomian — excuse me; I meant Earthian — gold pieces into local currency?”

Shea said “I think we shall manage. The kind of man you claim you would like to be would say: Oh, let me pay for all the admissions? Then I would argue the matter, and you would gradually let yourself be talked out of paying.”

“Meseems a silly business, making an offer that I do not intend to keep. What if you then said: ‘Thank you, Doctor; that is generous of you!’?”

“You would pay with a good grace, not even looking sour at the prospect. That is how things are done among human beings.”

Shea handed in the required number of elliptical coins. Inside, they found long aisles between rows of tables, on which arms displayed by dealers were set out in lavish quantities: swords, daggers, muskets, pistols, and less usual arms such as battle-axes, pikes, halberds, maces, and fauchards. Shea remarked:

“Doctor, one thing about Barsoom puzzles me. For folk who make such a fetish of combat with hand weapons, nobody gives a thought to armor, or even shields. On Earth, at one time the art of making armor was highly developed, so that a fighter could go into battle completely encased in steel, so cleverly made that he could move about almost as freely as he could without any armor.”

“The matter has been discussed on Barsoom,” said Ras Thavas. “For centuries, the general opinion among the sword-wearing class has been that wearing armor is an open admission of cowardice. Most Barsoomian warriors would rather die bravely than survive by means deemed unmanly.”

“Seems a little extreme,” said Shea. “We Earthians admire courage, too, but not to the point of suicide.”

Ras Thavas chuckled. “I know what you mean. As the philosopher Kong Dusar said, any virtue carried to an extreme becomes a vice. But the actual reason for the Barsoomian disdain of armor — albeit Barsoomians are loath to admit it — is that before guns appeared, during the first century or two of my former life, our smiths were too unskilled to make practical suits of the sort you speak of. They would have so weighed down the warrior that he could not make full use of his limbs.

“Then came the gun, and to make armor bullet-proof it would have to be even thicker and heavier, So sword wearers, unable to obtain suits of practical armor, made a virtue of fighting naked.”

Shea said: “Some Earthian peoples, like the ancient Greeks and Celts, went through similar stages. When their smiths learned how to make good, practical armor, the warriors put it on. On Earth, the gun had an effect somewhat like that on Barsoom; it caused the virtual abandonment of armor.”