Edgar Rice Burroughs - Venus 2 - Lost on Venus

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Volume Two, Venus Series
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
American novelist, creator of the world famous character of Tarzan, one of the
indispensable icons of popular culture. Burroughs also published science fiction and
crime novels, some 26 novels dealt with the Apeman. Critics have considered
Burroughs's fiction often crudely written and chauvinist. His books, however, are still
widely read and usually more interesting than the films. It is true that Burroughs often
portrayed Africans, Arabs or Asians as evil or comic, but the stories also contain several
elements that have kept them 'politically correct': Waziri warriors are brave, and his cave
girl Nadara and Dejah Thoris, the princess of Mars, are courageous and resourceful
characters.
Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago, Illinois, into a prosperous family. His father,
George Tyler Burroughs, was a Civil War veteran. Burroughs attended several private
schools, including the Michigan Military Academy, Orchar Lake (1892-95), where he
was instructor and assistant commandant (1895-96). He served in the 7th Cavalry in the
Arizona Territory (1896-97) and Illinois Reserve Militia (1918-19). After military career
Burroughs was owner of a stationery store in Pocatello, Idaho (1898), and associated with
American Battery Company, Chicago (1899-03). In 1900 he married Emma Centennia
Hulbert (divorced in 1934); they had two sons and one daughter).
The next ten years the family lived near poverty. Burroughs was associated with
Sweetser-Burroughs Mining Company in Idaho (1903-04), a railroad policeman in Salt
Lake, Utah (1904), a manager of stenographic department at Sears, Roebuck and
Company in Chicago (1906-08), a partner of an advertising agency (1908-09), an office
manager (1909), a partner of a sales firm (1910-11). In 1910-11 Burroughs worked for
Champlain Yardley Company, and from 1912 to 1913 he was manager of System Service
Bureau.
Before Tarzan Burroughs led a life full of failures. The turning point came when he
started to write for pulps at the age of 35 - firmly convinced that he could write as rotten
stuff as published in pulp fiction magazines. His first professional sale was Under the
Moons of Mars, serialized in 1912 and introducing the popular invincible hero John
Carter, who is transported to Mars apparently by astral projection, following a battle with
Apaches in Arizona. The 'Martian' series eventually reached eleven books. Other popular
series from Burroughs's pen were The Carson of Venus books, blending romance and
comedy, the Pellucidar tales, located inside the Earth, and The Land That Time Forgot
trilogy - totally some 68 titles.
Burroughs's first succesfull story was Dejah Thoris, Princess of Mars which appeared in
1912 in All-Story Magazine. A few months later in 1912 appeared his breakthrough
novel TARZAN OF THE APES, followed by 24 other Tarzan adventures. ''If I had
striven for long years of privation and effort to fit myself to become a writer,'' Burroughs
later told, ''I might be warranted in patting myself on the back, but God knows I did not
work and still do not understand how I happened to succeed.'' In 1913 Burroughs founded
his own publishing house Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises and
Burroughs-Tarzan Pictures were founded in 1934.
The world famous protagonist in Tarzan books is John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, whose
aristocratic parents, John Clayton and his wife, Lady Alice, are abandoned on the west
coast of Africa by mutinous sailors. Lady Alice dies insane and his father is killed by a
great ape named Kerchak. Tarzan raised by an ape, Kala, and grows into a leader of the
hairy tribe due to his intelligence and fighting skills. In the jungle Tarzan learns to read
when he founds a book from the remnants of his parents hut. "As he had grown older, he
found that he had grown away from his people. Their interests and his were far removed.
They had not kept pace with him, nor could they understand aught of the many strange
and wonderful dreams that passed through the active brain of their human king." Another
party of whites is marooned at the same west coast - the Porters from Baltimore and
William Clayton, the present Lord Greystoke. During the tale, Tarzan finds love,
becomes a hero, and finds his aristocratic roots. Tarzan falls in love with Jane Porter, but
in the Tarzan of the Apes, Jane rejects his offer of marriage and accepts the proposal of
William Greystoke.
Eventually Jane Porter becomes Tarzan's wife, and they also have a son. With the help of
animals - mostly elephants and apes - Tarzan gains the unofficial status of the king of the
jungle, and gains immortality through an African shaman's secret formula. In several
Tarzan books the invincible hero is involved with lost races, hidden cultures, or even with
an entire lost continent, but never shows any inclination of taking more than ones share of
fortunes during his adventures. During his long career in the jungle, Tarzan battles
against Germans, Japanese, and communits. In the first four books the hero is known
variously as "Tar-Zan" ("white-skin" in the ape tongue), "John Clayton," and "Lord
Bloomstoke" (later changed to "Lord Greystoke").
In addition to his four major adventure series, Burroughs wrote between the years 1912
and 1933 several other adventure novels, among them THE CAVE GIRL (1925), in
which a weak aristocrat develops into a warrior, two Western novels about a white
Apache, THE WAR CHIEF (1927) and APACHE DEVIL (1933), showing sympathy for
Native Americans, and BEYOND THE FARTHEST STAR (1964), a science-fiction
novel about the brutality of war. Burrough's science fiction novels are full of sense of
adventure, taking the reader on a fantastic voyage to chart strange and unfamiliar lands
like Homer did in his Odyssey. THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1924) is a
Darwinist story set on a mysterious island near the South Pole, where dinosaurs and other
primitive species have survived.
The Barsoom books were set on Mars. John Carter, the major hero, is transported to
Barsoon by magical means. Eventually he wins the hand of Princess Thoris. The
Pellucidar series started from AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1922), in which a group of
scientist use their drilling machine to tunnel down into the hollow space at the centre of
the planet. Like in Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) they find
new life forms which have survived for millions of years. '"David," said the old man, "I
believe that God sent us here for just that purpose--it shall be my life work to teach them
His word--to lead them into the light of His mercy while we are training their hearts and
hands in the ways of culture and civilization."' (from At the Earth's Core) Also Tarzan
visits this subterranean world without time in TARZAN AT THE EARTH'S CORE
(1930). Burrough's created the Venus sequence, concerning the exploits of spaceman
Carson Napier, relatively late in his career, in the 1930s. PIRATES OF VENUS appeared
in 1934 and the last book, ESCAPE ON VENUS, in 1946. A posthumous story, 'Wizard
of Venus', was published in 1964 and as the title story of THE WIZARD OF VENUS
(1970).
In 1919 Burroughs purchased a large ranch in the San Fernando Valley, which he later
developed into the suburb of Tarzana. To pay his expensive lifestyle and to cover his
misadventures in financial investments he wrote an average of three novels a year. The
first Tarzan film was produced in 1918, When the Olympic swimming champion Johnny
Weissmuller took the role in the 1930's, the films became really popular.
In 1933 Burroughs was elected mayor of California Beach. He married in 1935 Florence
Dearholt (they divorced in 1942). During World War II Burroughs served at the age of 66
as a war correspondent in the South Pasific. He also wrote columns ('Laugh It Off) for
Honolulu Advertiser (1941-42, 1945). Burroughs died of a heart ailment on March 19, in
1950.
Foreward
WHEN CARSON NAPIER left my office to fly to Guadalupe Island and take off for
Mars in the giant rocket that he had constructed there for that purpose, I was positive that
I should never see him again in the flesh. That his highly developed telepathic powers,
through the medium of which he hoped to communicate with me, might permit me to
envisage him and communicate with him I had no doubts; but I expected no messages
after he had detonated the first rocket. I thought that Carson Napier would die within a
few seconds of the initiation of his mad scheme.
But my fears were not realized. I followed him through his mad, month-long journey
through space, trembling with him as the gravitation of the Moon drew the great rocket
from its course and sent it hurtling toward the Sun, holding my breath as he was gripped
by the power of Venus, and thrilling to his initial adventures upon that mysterious, cloud-
enwrapped planet--Amtor, as it is known to its human inhabitants.
His love for the unattainable Duare, daughter of a king, their capture by the cruel
Thorians, his self-sacrificing rescue of the girl, held me enthralled. I saw the strange,
unearthly bird-man bearing Duare from the rockbound shore of Noobol to the ship that
was to bear her back to her native land just as Carson Napier was overwhelmed and made
prisoner by a strong band of Thorians.
I saw--but now let Carson Napier tell his own story in his own words while I retire
again to the impersonality of my role of scribe.
Contents
Foreward
Contents
Chapter 1 - The Seven Doors
Chapter 2 - Coiled Fury
Chapter 3 - The Noose
Chapter 4 - "Open the Gates!"
Chapter 5 - Cannibals
Chapter 6 - Fire
Chapter 7 - Bull Against Lion
Chapter 8 - Down the Escarpment
Chapter 9 - The Gloomy Castle
Chapter 10 - The Girl in the Tower
Chapter 11 - The Pygmies
Chapter 12 - The Last Second
Chapter 13 - To Live or Die
Chapter 14 - Havatoo
Chapter 15 - The Judgment
Chapter 16 - Attack in the Night
Chapter 17 - City of the Dead
Chapter 18 - A Surprise
Chapter 19 - In Hiding
Chapter 20 - Under Suspicion
Chapter 21 - Flight
Chapter 1 - The Seven Doors
LEADING MY captors, but taking no part in the capture, were Moosko, the Ongyan,
and Vilor, the Thorist spy, who had together conceived and carried out the abduction of
Duare from aboard the Sofal.
They had reached the mainland, carried there by the flying angans, those strange
winged humans of Venus. (To make the story simpler to understand, I am abandoning the
Amtorian plural prefix, "kl" or akloo," and am forming the plural of nouns in the regular
Earth fashion--by adding"s.") The pair had left Duare to her fate when the party was
attacked by the hairy wild men from whom I had fortunately been able to rescue her with
the aid of the angan who had so heroically defended her.
But now, though they had abandoned her to almost certain death, they were furious
with me for having caused her to be carried from their clutches back to the deck of the
Sofal by the last survivor of the angans; and having me within their power, after some
one else had disarmed me, they became courageous again and attacked me violently.
I think they would have killed me on the spot had not a better idea suggested itself to
another member of the Thorist party that had captured me.
Vilor, who had been unarmed, seized a sword from one of his fellows and set upon me
with the evident intention of hacking me to pieces, when this man intervened.
"Wait!" he cried. "What has this man done that he should be killed swiftly and without
suffering?"
"What do you mean?" demanded Vilor, lowering the point of his weapon.
This country in which we were was almost as strange to Vilor as to me, for he was
from the distant mainland of Thora proper, while the party who had assisted in my
capture were natives of this land of Noobol who had been induced to join the Thorists in
their world-wide attempt to foment discord and overthrow all established forms of
government and replace them with their own oligarchy of ignorance.
As Vilor hesitated, the other explained. "In Kapdor," he said, "we have far more
interesting ways of disposing of enemies than spitting them on a sword."
"Explain," commanded the Ongyan, Moosko. "This man does not deserve the mercy
of a quick death. A prisoner aboard the Sofal, with other Vepajans, he led a mutiny in
which all the ship's officers were murdered; then he seized the Sovang, liberated her
prisoners, looted her, threw her big guns into the sea, and sailed away upon a piratical
expedition.
"In the Sofal, he overhauled the Yan, a merchant ship on which I, an ongyan, was a
passenger. Ignoring my authority, he opened fire upon the Yan and then boarded her.
After looting her and destroying her armament, he took me prisoner aboard the Sofal. He
treated me with the utmost disrespect, threatening my life and destroying my liberty.
"For these things he must die, and if you have a death commensurate with his crimes
you shall not go unrewarded by those who rule Thora."
"Let us take him back to Kapdor with us," said the man. "There we have the room with
seven doors, and I promise you that if he be an intelligent being he will suffer more
agony within its circular walls than any prick of a sword point might inflict upon him."
"Good!" exclaimed Vilor, handing his sword back to the man from whom he had
borrowed it. "The creature deserves the worst."
They led me back along the coast in the direction from which they had come, and
during the march I discovered from their conversation to what unfortunate chance I could
attribute the ill fortune that had befallen me at the very moment when it seemed possible
that Duare and I might easily return to the Sofal and our loyal friends.
This armed party from Kapdor had been searching for an escaped prisoner when their
attention had been attracted by the fight between the hairy wild men and the angans who
were defending Duare, just as I had similarly been attracted to the scene while searching
for the beautiful daughter of Mintep, the jong of Vepaja.
As they were coming to investigate, they met Moosko and Vilor fleeing from the
engagement, and these two had accompanied them back to the scene just as Duare, the
remaining angan, and I had sighted the Sofal off shore and were planning on signaling to
her.
As the birdman could transport but one of us at a time, I had commanded him, much
against his will, to carry Duare to the ship. She refused to desert me, and the angan feared
to return to the Sofal, from which he had aided in the abduction of the princess; but I at
length compelled him to seize Duare and fly away with her just as the party of Thorists
were upon us.
There had been a stiff gale blowing from the sea; and I was much worried for fear that
the angan might not have been able to beat his way against it to the deck of the Sofal, but
I had known that death beneath the waters of the sea would be far less horrible to Duare
than captivity among the Thorists and especially in the power of Moosko.
My captors had watched the birdman battling his way against the gale with his burden,
but only for a few minutes; then they had started upon the return march to Kapdor when
Moosko had suggested that Kamlot, who was now in command of the Sofal, would
doubtless land a force and pursue them as soon as Duare acquainted him with the fact of
my capture. And so, as our path dropped behind the rocky pinnacles of the shore line, the
angan and Duare were lost to our view; and I felt that I was doomed to go through
whatever brief hours of life remained to me without knowledge of the fate of the
gorgeous Venusan girl whom fate had decreed to be my first love.
The fact that I should have chanced to fall in love with this particular girl, in the land
of Vepaja where there were so many beautiful girls, was in itself a tragedy. She was the
virgin daughter of a jong, or king, whom custom rendered sacrosanct.
During the eighteen years of her life she had been permitted neither to see nor to speak
to any man other than members of the royal family and a few trusted servitors until I had
invaded her garden and forced my unwelcome attentions upon her. And then, shortly
thereafter, the worst had befallen her. A raiding party of Thorists had succeeded in
abducting her, members of the same party that had captured Kamlot and me.
She had been shocked and terrified at my avowal of my love, but she had not informed
against me. She had seemed to despise me up until the last moment upon the summit of
the rocky cliffs overlooking the raging Venusan sea, when I had ordered the angan to
carry her to the Sofal; then, with outstretched hands, she had implored, "Do not send me
away from you, Carson! Do not send me away! I love you!"
Those word, those unbelievable words, still rang in my ears, leaving me elated even in
the face of the nameless death that I knew awaited me in the mysterious chamber of
seven doors.
The Thorists from Kapdor who formed my escort were much intrigued by my blond
hair and blue eyes, for such were unknown to any of the Venusans I had yet encountered.
They questioned Vilor concerning me; but he insisted that I was a Vepajan, and as the
Vepajans are the deadliest enemies of the Thorists he could not more effectually have
sealed my doom even had I not been guilty of the offenses charged against me by
Moosko.
"He says that he comes from another world far from Amtor; but he was captured in
Vepaja in company with another Vepajan, and he was well known to Duare, the daughter
of Mintep, the jong of Vepaja."
"What other world could there be but Amtor?" scoffed one of the soldiers.
"None, of course," assented another; "beyond Amtor lie only boiling rocks and fire."
The cosmic theory of the Amtorians is as wrapped in impenetrable fog as is their
world by the two great cloud envelopes that surround it. From the spouting lava of their
volcanoes they visualize a sea of molten rock upon which floats Amtor, a vast disk; the
occasional rents in the enveloping clouds, through which they glimpse the fiery sun and
feel his consuming heat assure them that all is fire above; and when these rents occur at
night they believe the myriad stars to be sparks from the eternal, fiery furnace that fuses
the molten sea beneath their world.
I was almost exhausted by what I had passed through since the screeching of the
hurricane and the plunging of the Sofal had awakened me the preceding night. After the
great wave had swept me overboard I had had a battle with the great waves that would
have wholly sapped the strength of a less powerful man than I; and then, after I had
reached shore, I had walked far in search of Duare and her abductors only to have my
strength further sapped by a strenuous battle with the savage nobargans, the hairy
beastmen, who had attacked her abductors.
And now I was about all in as, topping a rise, there burst upon my view a walled city
Iying close to the sea at the mouth of a little valley. I guessed that this was Kapdor, our
destination; and though I knew that death awaited me there I could not but look forward
to the city with anticipation, since I guessed that food and drink might also await me
behind those substantial walls.
The city gate through which we entered was well guarded, suggesting that Kapdor had
many enemies; and all the citizens were armed--with swords, or daggers, or pistols, the
last similar to those I had first become acquainted with in the house of Duran, the father
of Kamlot, in the tree-city of Kooaad, which is the capitol of Mintep's island kingdom,
Vepaja.
These weapons discharge the lethal r-ray, which destroys animal tissue, and are far
more deadly than the .45 automatics with which we are familiar, since they discharge a
continuous stream of the destructive rays as long as the mechanism which generates them
is kept in action by the pressure of a finger.
There were many people on the streets of Kapdor, but they seemed dull and apathetic.
Even the sight of a blond haired, blue eyed prisoner aroused no interest within their
sodden brains. To me they appeared like beasts of burden, performing their dull tasks
without the stimulus of imagination or of hope. It was these that were armed with
摘要：

VolumeTwo,VenusSeriesbyEdgarRiceBurroughsEdgarRiceBurroughsAmericannovelist,creatoroftheworldfamouscharacterofTarzan,oneoftheindispensableiconsofpopularculture.Burroughsalsopublishedsciencefictionandcrimenovels,some26novelsdealtwiththeApeman.CriticshaveconsideredBurroughs'sfictionoftencrudelywritten...

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