“I think not,” said Gull at once. “Don’t go. We need transportation.”
“By the hour or contract price?” parried the Martian.
“Direct to Heliopolis. And no tricks,” warned Gull. “I’ve taken this ride fifty times. I know what the meter should show.”
Muttering to himself, the creature leaped up on his thoat and allowed them to clamber behind. And they were off.
The motion of the thoat was vaguely disconcerting to the sense of balance, like a well trained camel or a very clumsy horse. But it ate up the miles. And for a nominal fee Tarkas consented to supply them with food and drink.
Gull ate quickly, glanced at the girl to make sure she was all right—which she was, though a trifle green and apparently not greatly interested in food—and set to work to question the Thark. “You’ve had some interesting goings-on,” he yelled up towards the enormous head.
“It is even so, Earthling,” tolled Tars Tarkas’s great voice.
“Flying saucers and that sort of thing.”
The bright red eyes regarded him. “Evil things!” roared the Thark somberly. “May Iss bear them away!”
“Oh, I certainly hope that too,” agreed Gull. He was hanging on to the Barsoomian’s back, his face at about the level of the creature’s lower left-hand armpit, and carrying on a conversation presented difficulties. But he persevered. “Have you seen any of it yourself?” he asked. “Psionics or any of that? UFOs? Little green monsters?”
“Watch your mouth!” cried the Barsoomian, enraged.
“No, no. Little green monsters. Nothing personal.”
The Thark glared at him with suspicion and hostility for a moment. Then the huge, reptilian face relaxed. The Thark muttered. “Not now. When we get to Heliopolis, go to the—”
The voice broke off. Tars Tarkas cocked a pointed ear, and stared about.
With a whirring, whining sound, something appeared over the dunes. The girl cried out and clutched at Gull, who had little comfort to give her. Whatever it was, it was not of this planet—or of any other that Johan Gull had ever seen. It had the shape of a flying saucer. It glittered in the blood-red, lowering sun, arrowing straight toward them. As it drew near they could see the markings on its stern:
U.F.O. Cumrovin 2nd
Giant Rock, Earth
“Blood of Issus!” shouted the Barsoomian. “It’s one of them!”
Tars Tarkas bellowed animal hatred to the dark Martian sky and raised his lance. Fierce white fires leaped from its tip, struck the alien vessel, clung and dropped away. The craft was unharmed.
It soared mockingly, tantalizingly overhead for a moment, seeming to dare them to fire on it again. Then a single needle of ruby light darted out of its side, reached down and touched Tars Tarkas between his bright red eyes.
The Barsoomian seemed to explode.
The concussion flung them from the thoat. Dazed, stunned, aching in every bone, Johan Gull managed to drag himself to his feet and look around.
The alien spacecraft was gone. The girl lay stunned and half unconscious at his feet. Yards away Tars Tarkas was a giant mound of gray-green flesh and bright metal parts, writhing faintly.
Gull staggered over to the creature and cradled the ravaged head in his lap.
The scarlet eyes stared sightlessly into his. The ruin of a mouth opened.
“We… are property,” whispered Tars Tarkas thickly, and died.
VI
Once, when Johan Gull was very young, the newest and least reliable of cogs in Security’s great machine, he had been assigned to Heliopolis to counter a Black Hat ploy. Or not quite that, he admitted; he had been sent to add a quite unimportant bit of information to the already huge store that the agent operating on the scene already had. He had envied that agent, had young Johan Gull. He had looked with jealous eyes about the bright, dizzying scenes of Heliopolis and dreamed of a time when he too might be a senior agent in charge, himself a major piece in The Game, squiring a lovely lady on an errand of great consequence, in the teeth of dreadful danger.
All the fun of it was in the anticipation, he thought as they rode into Heliopolis lock on their battered thoat, checked it at the Avis office and dismounted. If only Tars Tarkas had survived to tell what he knew!
But he had not; and Gull was uneasily aware that he knew no more now than when he left Marsport. Still, he thought, brightening, this was Heliopolis, the Saigon of Syrtis Major. He might get killed. He might not be able to protect this lovely and loving girl from mischance. He might even fail in his mission. But he was bound to have a hell of a time.
They found rooms at the Grand and parted to freshen up. Overhead the city’s advertising display flashed on the thin, yellowish clouds of Mars, on, off—on, off:
HELIOPOLIS
The Wickedest City in the Worlds
Liquor * Gambling * Vice
The Family That Plays Together
Stays Together
And indeed, Gull saw, the pleasure-seekers who thronged the concourses and the lobby of the Grand had often enough brought the kiddies. He watched them sentimentally as the bellthing trundled his luggage toward the elevators. It would be most pleasant to spend a holiday here, he thought, with someone you loved. With Alessandra, perhaps. Perhaps even with Kim, Marie Celeste and little Patty…
But he could not afford thoughts like that; and he quickly showered, shaved, put on a clean white suit and met the girl in the great gleaming cocktail lounge of the Grand.
“ ‘Ello, Meesta Gull,” she said softly, her eyes dark and somehow laughing.
Gull regarded her thoughtfully. She was a sight worth regarding, for the girl in the cocktail lounge was nothing like the bedraggled, terrified creature in the ochre sands. Her green-blue eyes were smoky with mystery. Her leongsam, deeply slit, revealed the gleam of a bronzed rounded thigh. A whisper of some provocative scent caressed him; but it was not her charms that had him bemused; it was something else. His eyes narrowed. Somewhere, he thought. Some time…
She laughed. “You are thoughtful,” she said. “Will you ‘ave a drink with me?”
“The pleasure is all mine,” he said gallantly.
“Unless you have other plans?” she inquired. There was no doubt about it; she was poking fun at him.
He rose to her mood. “It’s the least I could do, my dear—seeing you saved my life.”
“Ah! Life.” She glanced wryly at him from the corner of her eye. “What is it, this ‘life’ I ‘ave saved? Can one taste it? Can one carry it to bed?”
Gull grinned. “Perhaps not, but I’m rather attached to mine.” He ordered drinks, watched carefully while they were made, then nodded and raised his glass. “Of course,” he added, “I’ve saved your life too—I guess, let’s see—oh, perhaps three times. From Tars Tarkas. From dying by thirst. From the saucer people. So you actually owe me about three to one, lifesaving-wise.”
“Three to two, dear Meesta Gull,” the girl whispered over the rim of her glass.
“Two? Oh, I think not. Just the torpedoing, really, and as a matter of fact I’m not sure you should get full credit for that. You were a little tardy there.”
She shook her head. “Yes, the torpedoing—and something else. ‘Ave you forgotten? The old warehouse? The —incident—which caused your sore lip?”
Gull stared at her, then brought his glass down with a crash. “Got it!” he shouted. “I remember now!… Oh, damn it, sorry,” he went on, shaking his head. “It was on the tip of my tongue, but I’ve lost it. Sorry.”