3 - Barbarians of Mars (3 page)

 
          
 
Even if I had it would not have diverted me
from my path. The decision made, the vow sworn - and I sensed Hool Haji's own
personal vow sworn, because he was my friend and because I knew just how much
we had in common - I stood my ground and waited for the carriage to reach us.

 
          
 
Reach us it did, then it stopped.

 
          
 
One of the men leaned forward and in a cold
voice, devoid of emotion, said:

 
          
 
"Why you
come
Cend-Amrid?"

 
          
 
I was momentarily taken aback by the form of
the question. It went so well with the dead face.

 
          
 
Something in me made me reply in a more
flowery manner than the one which I normally employ.

 
          
 
"We come with open hearts to ask a favour
of the folk of Cend-Amrid. We come with nothing to offer but our gratitude, to
ask you for help."

 
          
 
"What help?"

 
          
 
"We have a motor that is malfunctioning.
A flying ship of my own construction with a motor of a kind
unlikely to be found on Mars."

 
          
 
"What kind motor?"

 
          
 
"The principle is simple. I call it an
internal combustion engine - but that will mean little to you."

 
          
 
"Does it work?"

 
          
 
"It is not working at present, and that
is why we are here," I explained, quelling my impatience. The
malfunctioning engine was decreasing in importance after what I had observed in
the place that the physician had so aptly termed the City of the Curse.

 
          
 
"Do principles work well?" asked the
dead-faced man.

 
          
 
"Normally," I replied.

 
          
 
"If it works it good, if not work then
bad,"
came
the emotionless voice.

 
          
 
"Can you work?" I said angrily,
hating the implications of the questions.

 
          
 
"Cend-Amrid work."

 
          
 
"I mean - can you repair my motor?"

 
          
 
"Cend-Amrid
do
anything."

 
          
 
"Will you repair my motor?"

 
          
 
"Cend-Amrid think will repair of motor
be
good for Cend-Amrid?"

 
          
 
"It will be good for us - and therefore
ultimately good for Cend-Amrid."

 
          
 
"Cend-Amrid must debate. You come."

 
          
 
"I think we'd prefer to stay outside,
spend the night in our ship and learn your decision in the morning."

 
          
 
"No. Not good.
You not
known."

 
          
 
I was struck by the incredibly primitive
reasoning of the man who spoke and saw at once to what the physician had been
referring when he mentioned the Beast creating the Machine and leaving Man out
of it altogether. Perhaps, looking back, this was good for me, for I realize
now exactly what my Mars means to me in logical terms. Make no mistake, the
curse which had come to Cend-Amrid was even more alien to the Mars I love than
it would be to Earth. And, perhaps because Mars was not prepared against the
dangers inherent in Cend-Amrid, I felt that it was my duty to eradicate the
disease as soon as possible.

 
          
 
"I think it would be best, however, if we
left Cend-Amrid and waited outside," I said. It was my intention, of
course, to try to repair the motor and get back to Varnal as soon as possible,
there to get help. One part of me was aware that just as I resented an
intrusion on my own personal liberty, the rulers of Cend-Amrid would resent an
intrusion of mine, but the decision had been taken and in my heart I knew I was
right, though I decided there and then that if violence could be avoided then
it would be avoided, for I am fully aware that violence produces nothing, in
the end, but further violence, and to react in terms of violence is only to
create more violence in the future.

 
          
 
The dead-faced man's reply was, in fact, an
illustration of this when he said:

 
          
 
"No. Best for Cend-Amrid you stay. If not
stay then Cend-Amrid make stay."

 
          
 
"You will use force to make us
stay?"

 
          
 
"Use many men make two men stay."

 
          
 
"That sounds like force to me, my
friend," said Hool Haji with a grim smile, and his hand went to his sword.
Again I stayed his arm.

 
          
 
"No, my friend - later, perhaps, but let
us first see what we can of this place. With luck they will see no reason in
not helping us. For the moment let us curb our emotions and go along with
them." I muttered this rapidly and the dead-faced man, whose partner
beside him had not moved or spoken at any time, did not appear to hear.

 
          
 
"For the moment," he growled.

 
          
 
"Only for the moment," I assured
him.

 
          
 
The dead-faced man said: "Do you
come?"

 
          
 
"We'll come," I said.

 
          
 
"Follow," he ordered, and then to
the carriage-bearers, who had remained as expressionless and immobile as he and
his friend, he said: "Bearers go back to
Central Place
."

 
          
 
Then
came
another
horrifying and unexpected event.

 
          
 
Instead of turning round, the carriage-bearers
began to run backwards.

 
          
 
Was this efficiency, even in the limited terms
of the rulers of Cend-Amrid?

 
          
 
It was not. It was madness, pure and simple.
Sight of this madness almost made me lose the control I had been fighting to
maintain, but noticing Hool Haji's stance and knowing that he, too, was about
to break, made me restrain him again and thus restrain myself.

 
          
 
In a mood of outraged horror that made me
understand just why the physician had seemed insane we followed the carriage.

THE ELEVEN

 
          
 
The
Central Place
had obviously been created by careful
calculation of the exact
centre
of Cend-Amrid, then
knocking down existing buildings and putting up a structure that was square and
squat, contrasting unnaturally with the other buildings. The
Central Place
also showed signs of having been erected
only recently, and I marvelled at how speedily it must have been built and at
what cost - since it must have been created primarily by human labour.

 
          
 
The
Central Place
had been built by the blood of men -man
subjected to a tyranny far harder to understand than that created by some
power-mad dictator!

 
          
 
The carriage stopped and was lowered to the
ground outside the main entrance - a perfect square let into the side -and from
it, walking like robots, the two men descended, leading the way into the
building.

 
          
 
Inside it was dim, poorly illuminated by
simple lamps that seemed roughly the same as our oil lamps. This surprised me
since most Martian peoples still use the almost everlasting artificial lighting
that was one of the benefits left behind by the Sheev - the super-scientific
race that had, according to legend and the little history that remained,
destroyed themselves in a monstrous war many centuries earlier, leaving just a
few immortals who had learned the error of their ways and rarely became
involved in the affairs of men, fearing perhaps that they might repeat their
errors. I remarked on this to Hool Haji and he said that they had once had
these lights, but in attempting to make more like them had taken them all to
pieces and hadn't been able to put them together again.

 
          
 
This information added to my impression of the
people of Cend-Amrid and helped me to understand why they had become what they
were. In sympathizing with the causes of their insanity, it did not alter one
wit my intention to attempt, in the best way I could, to eradicate this
insanity.

 
          
 
We walked behind the two into a chamber where
we found nine more men, all having the same unnaturally erect bearing and
immobile expression as the first two. They differed, of course, in physical
appearance.

 
          
 
The first two took their places at a circular
table where the other nine already sat. In the centre of the table, which had
been hollowed out, was a grisly sight. In this place it seemed strange that it
should be there - until I realized the exact significance of it.

 
          
 
It was a human skeleton.

 
          
 
A memento mori, in fact.

 
          
 
Originally - and perhaps even the Eleven had now
lost sight of their original motive - it had been placed there to remind them
of death. If the physician had been right, it was fear of the plague which had
caused them to create this unnatural system of government.

 
          
 
The next thing I noticed was that there was
one place short at the table. Yet if there were twelve seats around the
skeleton, then where was the twelfth? For the rulers of Cend-Amrid called
themselves the Eleven.

 
          
 
I hoped that I might find an answer to this
later on.

 
          
 
In the same flat voice, the man I had
originally spoken with told the other ten exactly what had passed between us.
He made no personal comment on this and did not seem to be trying to convey
anything but the precise information.

 
          
 
When he had finished, the others turned to
regard us.

 
          
 
"We talk," said the first man after
a moment.

 
          
 
"Shall we go, so that you can
decide?" I asked.

 
          
 
"No need. We consider factors. You here
not matter."

 
          
 
And then began an incredible conversation
between the eleven men. Not once did anyone state an opinion depending 281 on
his own personality. To some this might sound attractive - reason ruling
emotions - but to experience it was horrifying, for I suddenly realized that a
man's personal point of view is necessary if any realistic conclusion is to be
reached, no matter how imperfect it might seem.

 
          
 
To repeat the whole conversation would bore
you but, in essence, they debated whether by being of use to us they could get
something good for Cend-Amrid.

 
          
 
Finally they came to a conclusion - a
conclusion which I couldn't help feeling a more balanced human being would have
come to in a matter of moments. Briefly, it was this: If I would explain how an
internal combustion engine was constructed and explain, in general, how it
worked, they would help me repair mine.

 
          
 
I knew how dangerous it could be if I started
this unhealthy society on the road to real technical advancement, but I
pretended to agree, knowing also that they did not have the tools necessary to
build many internal combustion engines before I could be back with help and
attempt to cure the sickness that had come to Cend-Amrid.

 
          
 
"You show?" queried one of the
eleven.

 
          
 
"I show," I agreed.

 
          
 
"When?"

 
          
 
"In the morning."

 
          
 
"Morning.
Yes."

 
          
 
"Can we now return to our airship?"

 
          
 
"No."

 
          
 
"Why not?"

 
          
 
"You stay, you not stay. We now know. So
you stay here."

 
          
 
I shrugged.
"Very well.
Then perhaps we can sleep somewhere until the morning." At least, I
thought, we could conserve our energy until we had decided how to act.

 
          
 
"Yes."

 
          
 
"Is there an inn we could stay at?"

 
          
 
"Yes, but you not stay there."

 
          
 
"Why not?
You
could guard it if you didn't trust us."

 
          
 
"Yes, but you die, not die. We not know.
So you stay here."

            
"Why might we die?"

 
          
 
"Plague
make
die."

 
          
 
I understood. They did not want us to become
infected with the plague, which still held sway, we gathered, in the city. This
place was better protected, perhaps, than the rest of the city.

 
          
 
We agreed to stay.

 
          
 
The first man then led us out of the chamber and
down a short passage-way, at the end of which a flight of steps ran downwards
into the cellars of the
Central Place
.

 
          
 
We descended the steps and came to another
passage with many doors on both sides. They looked suspiciously like a row of
cells in a prison.

 
          
 
I asked the man what they were.

 
          
 
"Malfunctioning heads kept here," he
told me.

 
          
 
I knew then that this was probably where the people
who were still useful to Cend-Amrid, in the city's terms, but who had been
judged insane, again in the city's terms, were imprisoned.

 
          
 
Presumably we were thought to be in this
class. So long as they did not remove our weapons I was willing to let them
lock us up for the night if, by allowing this, we could eventually get our
motor repaired and make the journey back to Vamal, there to decide how best we
could overcome the double curse lying on Cend-Amrid - the curse of physical and
mental disease. A combination, I could not help
thinking,
that
was rare on Mars - where disease is rare - but far less so on
Earth. Another thing I could not help considering was whether, if there had
been more disease on Mars, the people would be the same. I concluded that they
would not have been. I think I am right.

 
          
 
I am a scientist, I know, but I am not a
philosophical man -I prefer action to thought. But the example of Cend-Amrid
affected me deeply and I feel I must take pains to explain just why I prefer
the society of Mars to the society of Earth. Mars, of course, is not perfect -
and perhaps it is partially why I have found my true home on Mars. For there
the people have learned the lesson of trying too hard for perfection. There, on
the whole, they have learned the great lesson - to respect the human individual
above all things. Not merely to respect the strong but to respect the weak as well,
for the strengths and the weaknesses are, to a great extent, in us all. It is
circumstance more than anything else which creates the one we would term weak
or the one we would term strong.

 
          
 
This was another part of the reason why I so hated
what the men of Cend-Amrid had become.

 
          
 
In the end, perhaps, it was to resolve itself
into a matter of wits and sword-play. But you must know that my mind was at
work before my sword-arm.

 
          
 
And if Mars is a preferable place to Earth you
must understand why. The reason is this: Circumstances are kinder to Mars than
Earth. There is little disease on the planet and the population is small enough
to allow every man the chance of becoming himself.

 
          
 
The dead-faced man now opened a door and stood
back to allow us to enter.

 
          
 
I was surprised to see another inhabitant of
the small cell, which was fitted with four bunks. He was unlike the Eleven, but
there was something about his haunted eyes that made me think of the physician
we had first met.

 
          
 
"He not good for others here," said
the dead-faced man, "but this only place for you. Not talk to him."

 
          
 
We said nothing as we entered the cell and
watched the door close on us. We heard a bar drop and knew we were imprisoned.
Only the fact that we still had our weapons comforted us.

 
          
 
"Who are you?" asked our cell-mate
when the footfalls of the other man had died. "Why has
Six
imprisoned you and let you keep your swords?"

 
          
 
"He was Six, was he?" I smiled.
"We were never introduced."

 
          
 
The man got up and came towards me angrily.
"You laugh - at that?" He pointed towards the door. "Have you no
understanding of what you are laughing at?"

 
          
 
I became serious. "Of course," I
said, "but it seems to me that if action is to be taken against that"
- I nodded in the direction he had pointed - "we must keep our heads and
not become as mad, in our own way, as those we intend to fight."