Edgar Rice Burroughs - Moon 2 - The Moon Men

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The Moon Men

Edgar Rice Burroughs

PROLOGUE

THE CONQUEST

IT was two years after I had first met him aboard

the liner Harding that I came across him again. I

had just been appointed Secretary of Commerce.

He came to my office in Washington on official

business during March, 1969. I invited him to my

home for dinner and it was later in the evening that

I importuned him for the promised story of Julian

9th.

He laughed good naturedly. "Very well," he

exclaimed, "here goes!"

Let me preface this story, as I did the other that I

told you on board the liner Harding two years ago,

with the urgent request that you attempt to keep

constantly in mind the theory that there is no such

thing as time—that there is no past and no future

—that there is only now, there never has been

anything but now, and there never will be anything

but now. It is a theory analogous to that which

stipulates that there is no such thing as space.

I have told you of the attempt made to reach

Mars in The Barsoom and of how it was thwarted

by Lieutenant Commander Orthis. That was in the

year 2026.

The son that was born to Julian 5th and the

Princess Nah-ee-lah in 2036 was the great-

grandfather of Julian 9th for whose story you have

asked me, and in whom I lived again in the

twenty-second century.

For some reason no further attempts were made

to reach Mars with whom we had been in radio

communication for seventy years. Possibly it was

due to the rise of a religious cult which preached

against all forms of scientific progress and which

by political pressure was able to mold and

influence several successive weak administrations

of a notoriously weak party that had had its origin

nearly a century before in a group of peace-at-any-

price men.

In the year 2050 the blow fell. Lieutenant

Commander Orthis, after twenty-four years upon

the Moon, returned to Earth with one hundred

thousand Kalkars and a thousand Va-gas. In a

thousand great ships they came, bearing arms and

ammunition and strange, new engines of

destruction fashioned by the brilliant mind of the

arch villain of the universe. No one but Orthis

could have done it. No one but Orthis would have

done it. It had been he who had perfected the

engines that had made The Barsoom possible, and

after he had become the dominant force among the

Kalkars of the Moon and had aroused their

imaginations with tales of the great, rich world

lying ready and unarmed within easy striking

distance of them, it had been an easy thing to en-

list their labor in the building of the ships and the

manufacture of the countless accessories necessary

to the successful accomplishment of the great

adventure. The Moon furnished all the needed

materials, the Kalkars furnished the labor, and

Orthis the knowledge, the brains and the

leadership. Ten years had been devoted to the

spreading of his propaganda and the winning over

of The Thinkers, or Kalkars, and then fourteen

years were required to build and outfit the fleet.

Five days before they arrived astronomers

detected the fleet as minute specks upon the eye-

pieces of their telescopes. There was much

speculation, but it was Julian 5th alone who

guessed the truth. He warned the governments at

London and Washington, but though he was then

in command of the International Peace Fleet, his

appeals were treated with levity and ridicule. He

knew Orthis and so he knew that it was easily

within the man's ability to construct a fleet, and he

also knew that only for one purpose would Orthis

return to Earth with so great a number of ships. It

meant war, and the Earth had nothing but a

handful of cruisers wherewith to defend herself—

there were not available in all the world twenty-

five thousand organized fighting men, nor equip-

ment for more than half again that number.

The inevitable occurred. Orthis seized London

and Washington simultaneously. His well-armed

forces met with practically no resistance. There

could be no resistance, for there was nothing

wherewith to resist. It was a criminal offense to

possess firearms. Even edged weapons with blades

over six inches long were barred by law. Military

training, except for the chosen few of the Inter-

national Peace Fleet, had been banned for years.

And against this pitiable state of disarmament and

unpreparedness was brought a force of a hundred

thousand well-armed, seasoned warriors with

engines of destruction that were unknown to Earth

Men. A description of one alone will suffice to

explain the utter hopelessness of the cause of the

Earth Men.

This instrument, of which the invaders brought

but one, was mounted upon the deck of their flag

ship and was operated by Orthis in person. It was

an invention of his own which no Kal-kar

understood or could operate. Briefly, it was a

device for the generation of radio-activity at any

desired vibratory rate and for the directing of the

resultant emanations upon any given object within

its effective range. We do not know what Orthis

called it, but the Earth Men of that day knew it as

an electronic rifle.

It was quite evidently a recent invention, and

therefore in some respects crude, but be that as it

may, its effects were sufficiently deadly to permit

Orthis to practically wipe out the entire

International Peace Fleet in less than thirty days, as

rapidly as the various ships came within range of

the electronic rifle. To the layman, the visual

effects induced by this weird weapon were

appalling and nerve shattering. A mighty cruiser

vibrant with life and power might sail majestically

to engage the flag ship of the Kalkars, when, as by

magic, every aluminum part of the cruiser would

vanish as mist before the sun, and as nearly ninety

percent of a Peace Fleet cruiser, including the hull,

was constructed of aluminum, the result may be

imagined—one moment there was a great ship

forging through the air, her flags and pennants

flying in the wind, her band playing, her officers

and men at their quarters—the next a mass of

engines, polished wood, cordage, flags and human

beings hurtling earthward to extinction.

It was Julian 5th who discovered the secret of

this deadly weapon and that it accomplished its

destruction by projecting upon the ships of the

Peace Fleet the vibratory rate of radio-activity

identical with that of aluminum, with the result

that, thus excited, the electrons of the attacked

substance increased their own vibratory rate to a

point that they became dissipated again into their

elemental and invisible state—in other words,

aluminum was transmuted into something else that

was as invisible and intangible as ether. Perhaps it

was ether.

Assured of the correctness of his theory, Julian

5th withdrew in his own flag ship to a remote part

of the world, taking with him the few remaining

cruisers of the Fleet. Orthis searched for them for

months, but it was not until the close of the year

2050 that the two fleets met again and for the last

time. Julian 5th had by this time perfected the plan

for which he had gone into hiding, and he now

faced the Kalkar fleet and his old enemy, Orthis,

with some assurance of success. His flag ship

moved at the head of the short column that

contained the remaining hope of a world and Julian

5th stood upon her deck beside a small and

innocent looking box mounted upon a stout tripod.

Orthis moved to meet him—he would destroy

the ships one by one as he approached them. He

gloated at the easy victory that lay before him. He

directed the electronic rifle at the flag ship of his

enemy and touched a button. Suddenly his brows

knitted. What was this? He examined the rifle. He

held a piece of aluminum before its muzzle and

saw the metal disappear. The mechanism was

operating, but the ships of the enemy did not

disappear. Then he guessed the truth, for his own

ship was now but a short distance from that of

Julian 5th, and he could see that the hull of the

latter was entirely coated with a grayish substance

that he sensed at once for what it was—an

insulating material that rendered the aluminum

parts of the enemy's fleet immune from the

invisible fire of his rifle.

Orthis' scowl changed to a grim smile. He turned

two dials upon a control box connected with the

weapon and again pressed the button. Instantly the

bronze propellers of the Earth Men's flag ship

vanished in thin air, together with numerous

fittings and parts above decks. Similarly went the

exposed bronze parts of the balance of The

International Peace Fleet, leaving a squadron of

drifting derelicts at the mercy of the foe.

Julian 5th's flag ship was at that time but a few

fathoms from that of Orthis. The two men could

plainly see one another's features. Orthis'

expression was savage and gloating, that of Julian

5th sober and dignified.

"You thought to beat me, then!" jeered Orthis.

"God, but I have waited and labored and sweated

for this day. I have wrecked a world to best you,

Julian 5th, to best you and to kill you, but to let

you know first that I am going to kill you—to kill

you in such a way that man was never before

killed, as no other brain than mine could conceive

of killing. You insulated your aluminum parts,

thinking thus to thwart me, but you did not

know— your feeble intellect could not know—that

as easily as I destroyed aluminum I can, by the

simplest of adjustments, attune this weapon to

destroy any one of a hundred different substances

and among them human flesh or human bone. That

is what I am going to do now, Julian 5th. First I am

going to dissipate the bony structure of your frame.

It will be done painlessly—it may not even result

in instant death, and I am hoping that it will not.

For I want you to know the power of a real

intellect—the intellect from which you stole the

fruits of its efforts for a life time; but not again,

Julian 5th, for today you die—first your bones,

then your flesh, and after you, your men, and after

them your spawn, the son that the woman I loved

bore you; but she-she shall belong to me! Take that

memory to hell with you!" and he turned toward

the dials beside his lethal weapon.

But Julian 5th placed a hand upon the little box

resting upon the strong tripod before him, and he it

was who touched a button before Orthis had

touched his. Instantly the electronic rifle vanished

beneath the very eyes of Orthis, and at the same

time the two ships touched and Julian 5th had

leaped the rail to the enemy deck and was running

toward his arch enemy.

Orthis stood gazing horrified, at the spot where

the greatest invention of his giant intellect had

stood but an instant before, and then he looked up

at Julian 5th approaching him and cried out

horribly.

"Stop!" he screamed. "Always, all our lives you

have robbed me of the fruits of my efforts.

Somehow you have stolen the secret of this, my

greatest invention, and now you have destroyed it.

May God in heaven—"

"Yes," cried Julian 5th, "and I am going to

destroy you, unless you surrender to me with all

your force."

"Never!" almost screamed the man, who seemed

veritably demented, so hideous was his rage.

"Never! This is the end, Julian 5th, for both of us."

Even as he uttered the last word, he threw a lever

mounted upon a controlboard before him. There

was a terrific explosion, and both ships, bursting

into flame, plunged meteor-like into the ocean

beneath.

Thus went Julian 5th and Orthis to their deaths,

carrying with them the secret of the terrible

destructive force that the latter had brought with

him from the Moon; but the Earth was already

undone. It lay helpless before its conquerors. What

the outcome might have been had Orthis lived,

may only remain conjecture. Possibly he would

have brought order out of the chaos he had created

and instituted a reign of reason. Earth Men would

at least have had the advantage of his wonderful

intellect and his power to rule the ignorant Kalkars

that he had transported from the Moon.

There might even have been some hope had the

Earth Men banded together against the common

enemy, but this they did not do. Elements who had

been discontented with this or that phase of

government joined issues with the invaders. The

lazy, the inefficient, the defective, who ever place

the blame for their failures upon the shoulders of

the successful, swarmed to the banners of the

Kalkars in whom they sensed kindred souls.

Political factions, labor and capital each saw, or

thought they saw, an opportunity for advantage to

themselves in one way or another that was inimical

to the interests of the others. The Kalkar fleets

returned to the Moon for more Kalkars until it was

estimated that seven millions of them were being

transported to Earth each year.

Julian 6th, with Nah-ee-lah, his Moon Maid

mother, lived, as did Or-tis, the son of Orthis, but

my story is not to be of them, but of Julian 9th,

who was born just a century after the birth of

Julian 5th.

Julian 9th will tell his own story.

THE FLAG

I WAS born in the teivos of Chicago, January 1,

2100, to Julian 8th and Elizabeth James. My father

and mother were not married, as marriages had

long since become illegal. I was called Julian 9th.

My parents were of the rapidly diminishing intel-

lectual class and could both read and write. This

learning they imparted to me, although it was very

useless learning—it was their religion. Printing

was a lost art, and the last of the public libraries

had been destroyed almost a hundred years before

I reached maturity, so there was little or nothing to

read, while to have a book in one's possession was

to brand one as of the hated intellectuals, arousing

the scorn and derision of the Kal-kar rabble and

the suspicion and persecution of the lunar author-

ities who ruled us.

The first twenty years of my life were

uneventful. As a boy I played among the

crumbling ruins of what must once have been a

magnificent city. Pillaged, looted and burned half a

hundred times, Chicago still reared the skeletons of

some mighty edifices above the ashes of her

former greatness. As a youth, I regretted the

departed romance of the long gone days of my

forefathers when the Earth Men still retained

sufficient strength to battle for existence. I

deplored the quiet stagnation of my own time with

only an occasional murder to break the monotony

of our black existence. Even the Kalkar Guard,

stationed on the shore of the great lake, seldom

harassed us, unless there came an urgent call from

higher authorities for an additional tax collection,

for we fed them well and they had the pick of our

women and young girls—almost, but not quite, as

you shall see.

The commander of the guard had been stationed

here for years, and we considered ourselves very

fortunate in that he was too lazy and indolent to be

cruel or oppressive. His tax collectors were always

with us on market days; but they did not exact so

much that we had nothing left for ourselves, as ref-

ugees from Milwaukee told us was the case there. I

recall one poor devil from Milwaukee who

staggered into our market place of a Saturday. He

was nothing more than a bag of bones, and he told

us that fully ten thousand people had died of

starvation the preceding month in his teivos. The

word teivos is applied impartially to a district and

to the administrative body that misadministers its

affairs. No one knows what the word really means,

though my mother has told me that her grandfather

said that it came from another world, the Moon,

like Kash Guard, which also means nothing in

particular—one soldier is a Kash Guard, ten

thousand soldiers are a Kash Guard. If a man

comes with a piece of paper upon which something

is written that you are not supposed to be able to

read and kills your grandmother or carries off your

sister, you say: "The Kash Guard did it."

Three Saturdays a month, the tax collectors were

in the market places appraising our wares, and on

the last Saturday they collected one per cent of all

we had bought or sold during the month. Nothing

had any fixed value—today you might haggle half

an hour in trading a pint of beans for a goat skin,

and next week if you wanted beans the chances

were more than excellent that you would have to

give four or five goat skins for a pint, and the tax

collectors took advantage of that—they appraised

on the basis of the highest market values for the

month.

My father had a few long-haired goats—they

were called Montana goats; but he said they really

were Angoras, and Mother used to make cloth

from their Heece. With the cloth, the milk, and the

flesh from our goats we lived very well, having

also a small vegetable garden beside our house; but

there were some necessities that we must purchase

in the market place, it being against the law to

barter in private, as the tax collectors would then

have known nothing about a man's income.

After supper one night Father and I went out and

milked the goats and saw that the sheds were

secured for the night against the dogs. It seems as

though they become more numerous and more

bold each year. They run in packs now where there

were only individuals when I was a little boy, and

it is scarce safe for a grown man to travel an

unfrequented locality at night. We are not

permitted to have firearms in our possession, nor

even bows and arrows, so we cannot exterminate

them, and they seem to realize our weakness,

coming close in among the houses and pens at

night. They are large brutes—fearless and

powerful. There is one pack more formidable than

the others which Father says appears to carry a

strong strain of collie and Airedale blood—the

members of this pack are large, cunning, and

ferocious, and are becoming a terror to the city—

we call them the hellhounds.

After we returned to the house with the milk, Jim

Thompson and his woman, Mollie Sheehan, came

over. They live up the river about half a mile, on

the next farm, and are our best friends. They are

the only people that Father and Mother really trust,

so when we are all together alone we speak our

minds very freely. It seemed strange to me, even as

a boy, that such big, strong men as Father and Jim

should be afraid to express their real views to

anyone, and though I was bom and reared in an

atmosphere of suspicion and terror, I could never

quite reconcile myself to the attitude of servility

and cowardice which marked us all.

And yet I knew that my father was no coward.

He was a fine looking man, tall and wonderfully

muscled, and I have seen him fight with men and

with dogs. Once he defended Mother against a

Kash Guard, and with his bare hands he killed the

armed soldier. He lies in the center of the goat pen

now, his rifle, bayonet, and ammunition wrapped

in many thicknesses of oiled cloth beside him. We

left no trace and were never even suspected; but

we know where there is a rifle, a bayonet, and

ammunition.

Jim had had trouble with Soor, the new tax

collector, and was very angry. Jim was a big man,

and like Father, was always smooth shaven as

were nearly all Americans, as we called those

whose people had lived here long before the Great

War. The others—the true Kalkars—grew no

beards. Their ancestors had come from the Moon

many years before. They had come in strange ships

year after year, but finally, one by one, their ships

had been lost, and as none of them knew how to

build others or the engines that operated them, the

time came when no more Kalkars could come from

the Moon to Earth.

Jim was terribly mad. He said that he couldn't

stand it much longer—that he would rather be dead

than live in such an awful world; but I was

accustomed to such talk—1 had heard it since

infancy. Life was a hard thing—just work, work,

work for a scant existence over and above the

income tax. No pleasures—few conveniences or

comforts; absolutely no luxuries—and worst of all,

no hope. It was seldom that anyone smiled—

anyone in our class—and the grown-ups never

laughed. As children we laughed—a little; not

much. It is hard to kill the spirit of childhood; but

the brotherhood of man had almost done it.

Father placed his hand upon Jim's shoulder.

"We must not weaken, my friend," he said. "I

often feel the same way," and then he walked

quickly across the room to the fireplace and

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TheMoonMenByEdgarRiceBurroughsPROLOGUETHECONQUESTITwastwoyearsafterIhadfirstmethimaboardthelinerHardingthatIcameacrosshimagain.IhadjustbeenappointedSecretaryofCommerce.HecametomyofficeinWashingtononofficialbusinessduringMarch,1969.IinvitedhimtomyhomefordinneranditwaslaterintheeveningthatIimportunedh...

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