Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs (29 page)

Tarzan wasn’t sure in which he believed. The anthropoid apes hadn’t believed in much, though they did have some rites of their own—and it was to the place of those rites that he must now go.

As the ship steamed away, fast disappearing on the blue horizon, Tarzan removed all his garments. It was difficult enough to wear clothes in England, but it was torture here in Africa, where he should be home.

Knowing the ship would return for him in a month, he took care to fold the clothes and store them in the valise, from which he took his breechclout and his brass ornaments for arms and legs. Then, truly
Tarzan
again, he turned toward the jungle. . . .

Before long, he was swinging from tree to tree, following a familiar route. First, he had to go to where the old diary said the invaders’ ship would land. There, he should find drawings on the wall, and then he would know for certain whether this had been a mere nightmare from his ancestor, or the truth.

The old treetop cabin was as Tarzan had left it, protected by the cunning lock on the door which made it impossible for the anthropoid apes or other wildlife to penetrate it. Sliding the lock open with the ease of long familiarity, Tarzan entered to find the interior largely undisturbed as well. He stowed his valise and looked wistfully at the bed where his mother had died a year after giving birth to him, and the place where his father had been killed. These reminders held no terror of sadness for him, since he’d never really known his parents. Having grown up among wild beasts, he had a very matter-of-fact view of life and death. Creatures lived and hunted and ate other creatures, and eventually one died and became food for others. He did not lament over it.

For a moment, he hesitated over his own purpose in racing back to Africa. If that philosophy were true, perhaps it held true in the greater universe, as well. Why was it any different for creatures from another world to hunt and kill the inhabitants of Earth? It was the order of nature.

His qualms were of short duration, however. Tarzan could apply such a philosophy to himself, as he had never counted himself much above the beasts. But Jane and Jack were also creatures of Earth, as were his many good friends, animal and human. Well did he remember losing Kala, his ape-mother. Though she had been rude and ugly, in the way of such things, he thought of her with all the bittersweet tenderness and respect that he would have lavished on his real mother, the late Lady Alice.

The thought that their lives should count for nothing made Tarzan’s heart tighten in his chest. Yes, he would fight these invaders—not for himself, but for all the creatures of this Earth that he loved.

He was surprised to hear something heavy throw itself against the door of the cabin. He unsheathed his knife. He had killed lions and panthers with only his sharp knife and a rope. But when a soft growl echoed outside the door, he recognized the animal voice—Sheeta the panther, who, not so long since, had helped him rescue Jack and Jane when they’d been abducted by the dastardly Rokoff.

Tarzan
murred
back at Sheeta, conveying thoughts that could only be implied in the panther language, “Hello, Sheeta, my old friend and ally who helped me fight evil among the humans. I am Tarzan of the Apes, and I am back.”

The soft
murr
that answered was all the welcome he could hope for.

With Sheeta following stealthily on the ground, Tarzan flew from tree to tree, suspended by ropes as he headed for the place he had read about in the diary. He remembered the site of his first great battle, where he’d killed Tublat, the unjust mate of his foster-mother, Kala.

He had always thought of the place as a natural amphitheater, a part of the landscape like the mountains and hills and the ocean itself. But if his ancestor’s diary was correct, this arena was not natural at all, but an alien construction, a landing pad for a sort of ship that could cross from one world to another. The idea should have made Tarzan’s head spin, but he had already been forced to adapt his view of the world to include seemingly impossible things: wheeled vehicles, large cities, great industries. Adapting his mind now to the idea of yet another complex civilization that came from beyond the sky did not cause him any greater consternation.

The open amphitheater was circular in shape, and its unnatural strangeness was emphasized by the fact that it remained unen-cumbered by entangling vines and creepers. The encroaching jungle itself seemed to avoid the place.

The dense jungle choked off access, though, as if to deny any intruders. Giants of the untouched forest grew close, with matted growth clogging the spaces between their trunks. The only opening Tarzan could find into the level arena was through the upper branches of the trees. He knew his way.

Throughout Tarzan’s childhood, the anthropoid apes had often gathered here. In the center of the amphitheater he now saw one of the earthen drums built by the anthropoids for their strange rites, which have been heard by men across the vast unexplored jungle, but never witnessed. Tarzan was the only human who had ever seen the wild, frenzied revelry the drums inspired.

On moonlit nights, the anthropoid apes would dance in a rite that marked all important events in the life of the tribe: a victory, the capture of a prisoner, the killing of some fierce jungle denizen, the death or accession of a king. Here prisoners were dragged to be killed and devoured. Here Tarzan had defeated his first enemy and, later, had ascended as king of the anthropoid apes.

A long time had passed since then, and now another ruled the tribe, one who owed Tarzan fealty and who would recognize him as his lord. But before Tarzan would call on Akut and his people, he must first confirm that the strange symbols reported by his ancestor were indeed on the walls.

With his knife, Tarzan scraped at a half-buried wall of stone near the edge of the amphitheater. His wide blade revealed deep engravings in the stone: marks that represented the worlds encircling the sun, the larger rings of their orbits, and sharp triangle-shapes of the vessels that sailed between worlds.

Again he studied the ancient drawings and remembered the celestial engine at home which showed the alignments of those planets, and he had no doubt in his mind that his ancestor was correct. The engravings were clear, showing the movements of planets and indicating that when the planet Mars should be close to Earth and in just such an alignment, the ships of the Martians would fly to Earth.

Clearing more debris from the wall, Tarzan saw additional, more detailed drawings that the other John Clayton had mentioned but not copied: human captives being driven into the triangular ship, pictograms that showed them being forced to serve creatures with many tentacles and a confusion of eyes, and then being devoured by those monsters.

There was more, and Tarzan no longer had any reason to doubt the prophecy of his ancestor: if the Martian scout ship could get through, then the invaders would send an armada, intending to rule the Earth as overlords, as superior to humans as humans were to anthropoid apes.

Tarzan opened the well-thumbed diary, which he’d carried in his arrow quiver. What worried him most was his ancestor’s warning, “They have a mind ray which can render you servile and mindless. Under its influence you will be unable to resist the enemy. Humans fall under this ray, but animals seem immune, and it was with the help of my faithful—” There a large stain blocked out the rest of the story, picking up much later with, “And thus, the space menace defeated, in peace and honor I travelled to England, bringing this warning to my fellow men, which, alas, none of them would believe.”

An alien mind ray. Tarzan wondered if he was human enough to fall under the influence of invaders, or if he still carried enough of the jungle within his heart and mind. Regardless, he must make sure that others stood ready to defeat the Martians and save Earth from subjugation.

If the mechanical celestial sphere was accurate, the initial ship would land tonight. He had very little time to gather his allies.

First, he explained the situation to Sheeta, as much as possible in the panther language. She understood that he would be fighting, and she knew to help him, and also that she was not to eat any of the animals of Earth, not in this battle.

Next, he visited Tantor the elephant, his old friend. The great gray beast remembered him, and Tarzan needed only moments to explain the situation, for elephants are as wise as humans. Tantor promised Tarzan that he would gather those creatures that were the elephant’s fast friends: some tribes of monkeys, some birds, large snakes that slithered through the grass, and a tribe of wise old elephant matriarchs.

Meanwhile Tarzan went in search of Akut’s people, the anthropoid apes who were descended from the ones who had raised him. At first, he worried that the new tribe leader would not remember him, and Tarzan would have to fight once more for his supremacy, but when he approached the tribe by a river, after the first moment of alarm in which the apes gathered children to themselves and flitted to the upper branches of trees, they recognized him and called out, “Welcome, Tarzan, defeater of Kerchak, lord of the jungle and friend of Akut.”

Tarzan answered them by explaining that a great evil was coming from the sky and that they must defeat it. They were fearful of the news, but angry when he described the threat further. The entire tribe agreed to meet him by the amphitheater at moonrise.

Confident in his growing army, Tarzan went through the jungle on his own, to the nearby native village. When he’d been but a boy, he had convinced these savages that he was a supernatural entity, and they had appeased him by leaving out food as well as arrows poisoned with a fast-acting mixture. He feared that they’d fallen out of the habit after so much time had passed, but he found the arrows there in the little hut they’d built to revere him, and also fresh food.

Back home in England, Lord Greystoke would no more dream of eating leftover scraps than he would dream of sharing his dogs’ kennels. Here, though, a different law applied. He ate the food; then he collected the poison-tipped arrows and returned through the high branches to his treetop cabin, where he restrung the bow he had taken long ago from a defeated enemy. He was preparing for a war against another world.

True, he could have brought a rifle with him and used that against the invaders. But he was more familiar with bow and arrows, and with its flash and explosion a rifle would give away his position. Yes, the arrows would be better.

He worried that the poison in the arrows would be ineffective against creatures from another world. But then he remembered the pictographs of the invaders devouring humans, and he reasoned that if the monsters could eat humans, then they must succumb to poisons of Earth.

* * *

When the moon rose over the ancient amphitheater, Tarzan was ready. Waiting in the crook of a tree above the ground, he felt and heard the animals of Earth nearby, also ready.

Before long, high above, there appeared a wheel of fire falling from the sky, a contraption that tumbled and made a sound just at the edge of hearing. Tarzan heard the first keenings of fear from the gathered animals, and he gave the shout of the great anthropoid apes, urging them to stand firm.

As the wheel of fire descended and finally came to rest in the amphitheater, Tarzan could tell that the supposedly natural arena had been designed to accommodate the otherworldly vessel. The triangular ship smoked, exuding acrid fumes; its walls were made of a black metal with a green sheen, and it gleamed wetly for all it had been on fire just moments before.

The ship remained quiet for an agonizing moment, and Tarzan wondered whether to command his animals to advance on it and stomp it flat before the invaders could emerge. But he reasoned that any such ship that could cross the vast space between the worlds must be hardier than the hooves and claws of the animals of Earth. He bided his time.

Then a tower emerged from the top of the contraption, emitting a light that seemed no natural light, but a glow that he perceived from the back of his brain rather than through the eyes. Tarzan stared at it, felt dizzy, but could not stop looking. Its effect on him was similar to what he had seen of a bird when faced with the hypnotic stare of a serpent. For a long, indefinable moment, he remained frozen on the tree branch, his eyes fixed on the light, and his mind filled with only a vague apprehension of danger and the stillness of death.

In vain, the tribe of anthropoid apes called out to him and asked what to do. In vain, Sheeta nudged him. In vain, Tantor let out a loud trumpet to demand his attention. But he could not respond. Instead, at the back of Tarzan’s mind, he had a fuzzy recollection of the mind ray that his ancestor warned would render humans docile.
Humans.
He struggled, but he could not fight off the influence of the ray.

Then the Martians emerged from their ship, hideous things that brought a wave of nausea even to his fogged brain. Tentacled bodies that slumped and lurched forward, with dark, oily skin that oozed a slime, leaving a trail behind them. And clusters of eyes that had looked upon alien skies which they had conquered, and sideways maws ringed with needlelike teeth, ready to suck and chew. They wished to be the new overlords of Earth, and their pulsing signal sent out an irresistible summons across the jungle.

Tarzan’s stupor lasted an indefinite time, perhaps days, as he struggled—and then humans began to emerge from the jungle, making their way through the thick underbrush, battering down a new path. Natives both male and female, some of the women carrying little babes on their hip, utterly ignoring all of the wild animals gathered there by Tarzan. Instead, they marched forward singly or in groups, summoned by the terrible mind ray. And the hideous Martians waited there in front of their open ship to receive them as slaves, or as food.

He might have remained frozen forever, but then among the mass of dark-skinned natives clad in skins and tribal ornaments, he saw a figure clad as an English lady, and as the eerie moonlight fell upon her face, Tarzan recognized the beautiful features of his wife, Jane.