L. Camp - The Exotic Enchanter

Ras Thavas: “You snap the fittings on the ends of these harness straps to these cleats.”

“Like Earthly seat belts,” said Shea. Belphebe had already fastened hers.

“Watch me,” Shea said to Ras Thavas, “and correct me if you see me doing anything wrong. Here goes!”

He released the sand in one of the ballast bags and turned the wheel controlling the motor. The Banth rose slowly, and the airscrew began to revolve in its protective cage. When it dissolved into a blur to the sight, the Banth began to move horizontally. IV

The airscrew purred in its cage behind the passengers, whose hair fluttered the wind. Belphebe spoke to Ras Thavas:

“What surprises me, Doctor, is the ease with which we took off. On Earth you’d need a pilots license, like those they demand in the Heliums; and you’d have to file a flight plan with the Federal Aviation Administration, and so on. More and more paperwork.”

“Things have not yet got to that stage here,” said Ras Thavas. “But them have been so many accidents lately — people getting lost in strange parts of the planet, pilots flying drunk, and fliers running into one another — that there is a move to impose similar rules all over Barsoom. Of course, the move meets fierce resistance from those who think it a natural right of any free Barsoomian who can get his hands on a flier to fly it whensoever and whithersoever he pleases. Besides, each city-state has its own ideas of the right rules and would resist with arms any attempt to impose upon it rules written elsewhere.”

Belphebe asked Shea: “Are you doing all right, darling?”

“It’s not difficult, compared to flying an Earthly airplane,” said Shea. “It feels much like the blimp of which I was once allowed to take the controls for a few minutes. Presently I’ll give you your turn at the controls.”

Ras Thavas asked: “How goes your navigation, Doctor Shea?”

“All right so far,” grunted Shea, whose attention flickered back and forth from the terrain below to the flier’s compass and to the map spread out on his lap. He said:

“This Barsoomian landscape is notably shy of landmarks, compared to Earth. You have to figure out where you are by dead reckoning or you don’t figure it. Nearly as I can guess, it should take us about ten zodes to reach Ptarth, which lies almost halfway from Zodanga to Toonol. Then another day’s flight should take us to Toonol.

“Doctor, would Ptarth be a safe place to land, to get a bite to eat and maybe spend the night? Or Is it one of those xenophobic cities where they kill strangers on sight?”

“Safe enough for us.” said Ras Thavas. “Just put the Heliumite badges back on your harness. Jed Thuvan Dinh is an old ally of the Heliums.”

“Harold,” said Belphebe, “I’m cold! Nudism is one thing on a beach in Florida but something else up in the Barsoomian atmosphere.”

Shea rummaged through the lockers until he found a pile of blankets and handed one to each of the others. Belphebe asked:

“Is there any way to catch up with Malambroso before he reaches Toonol — if that be where he is going?”

“Since I don’t know the top speed of Malambroso’s flier,” said Shea, “I have no way of telling. I’ve already turned our motor control all the way to ‘fast’.”

“Then,” she continued, “what is that little speck in the sky ahead? Now and then it winks at us, as if the sun reflected from metal.”

Shea stared, “I can’t see it, darling; but then, your eyes were always better than mine at long distances.”

“Too bad we don’t have some sort of telescope or field glasses,” she said.

“Now that you mention it,” growled Ras Thavas, “I have something that may help. From a container dangling from his harness he produced a small monocular telescope, which he pulled out to full length and put to one eye.

“It is indeed a flier,” he said at last. At Shea’s request he handed him the scope.

The vibration from the whirring airscrew made it hard to get a fix on the target, and the magnification was so high that the scope could cover only a narrow field. After tracking back and forth, Shea finally fixed upon the image of a flier, stern-to and looking no bigger than a gnat. Belphebe asked:

“Would Malambroso follow the same route as ours, passing near Ptarth?”

“Probably,” replied Ras Thavas. “Ptarth is only a slight detour, and navigation charts assume that, on a flight from Zodanga to Toonol, all ships would fly to or near Ptarth. The same would apply to Phundahl, if the Phundahlians did not shoot down any foreign flier that enters what they consider their airspace. So we give Phundahl a wide detour.”

“What would happen if we landed there?” asked Shea.

They would ask us whither we were going, and if we said ‘Phundahl’ without exactly using the local pronunciation, they would cut off our heads.”

“Hospitable people,” said Belphebe. “What is the official pronunciation?”

“It is neither ‘Fundahl’ nor ‘Pfundahl,’ but something like ‘Pwhundahl.’ It takes practice to say it just right.”

Belphebe said: “Then let’s not stop at Phundahl.”

“No argument there,” said Shea. “Reminds me of one of those Balkan counties, where using the wrong dialect of the national language can get your throat cut.” Peering through the telescope again, he said: “Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I do believe we are gaining on them.”

“Let me have a look,” said Belphebe. “I can’t see that they’re getting any closer.”

“You wouldn’t,” said Shea, “with a difference in our speeds of only a few haads per zode . Let’s have a look at that bow gun.”

“Harold! Even if we catch up with them, you wouldn’t dare shoot for fear of hitting Voglinda, or causing them to crash.”

“I suppose you’re right,” sighed Shea. “If we get close enough, perhaps we can pick off Malambroso, either me with my pistol or you with your bow.”

“Assuming he doesn’t snatch up our child as a shield!”

“What should I do if he does? Jump from the Banth to his flier, sword in hand?”

Ras Thavas said: “That were too risky to be practicable. You would probably fall to the ground below, and at this altitude that were fatal. If we get close enough for any such leaps, I am sure that, with our gun, we could disable their ship sufficiently to let us take it in tow.”

“Unless,” said Belphebe, “he’s holding a knife to Voglinda’s throat, threatening to kill her if we make a hostile move.”

“Sentimentalists!” snorted Ras Thavas.

Shea: “I’ve warned you not to use that word, Doctor. If you want to make people hostile, just sneer at their profoundest feelings!”

“Sorry; I forgot,” said Ras Thavas.

Belphebe said: “And suppose he throws a magical spell at us?”

“Wouldn’t work here” said Shea, “same as on Earth.”

“How about that cloud of smoke he used to cover his flight from the Arms Fair?”

“That was just a plain, nonmagical smoke grenade, such as they make on Earth.”

* * *

For hours the Banth purred along, now and then rising or falling with thermal air currents, while its three passengers argued over strategies. Malambroso’s flier became larger with agonizing slowness, To Shea’s naked vision it grew from a speck the size of an insect to that of a small bird.

The small, brilliant Barsoomian sun was nearing the flat horizon when Ras Thavas, telescope to eye, said:

“Methinks our quarry has seen us, Doctor Shea. He is turning his flier. He has a bow gun like ours, and he cannot shoot straight aft for fear of hitting his own propellor.”