John Carter by Stuart Moore Page B

officer. He saluted the guards and led Carter swiftly onto an open-air elevator platform.
    As the platform started to rise, Matai shifted back into his true, robed form.
    â€œWhat is your cause?” Carter asked.
    â€œOh, we have none. We are not haunted by mortality as you are. We are eternal.”
    â€œThe wedding—this little stroll. Why not just kill me? Kill Dejah?”
    â€œDon’t question our motives, Earthman.” Matai gestured out past the open platform, at the city of Zodanga laid out below. “What must happen will happen. Tonight Dejah Thoris will say her vows, drink from the chalice, and seal the fate of Barsoom. Our agents have spent decades preparing for this: they ply their trade in the Council of Helium, in the highest spires of Zodanga, in the lowest slums of Barsoom.
    â€œWe are everywhere. We’ve been playing this game since before the birth of this world, and we will play it long after the death of yours.”
    Carter gazed out over the city’s spires. He could just make out the royal float receding into the distance down the crowd-choked Avenue of Warriors.
    â€œYou see,” Matai continued, “we don’t actually cause the destruction of a world. We simply manage it…feed off it, if you like. But on every host world, it plays out the same way. Populations rise, societies divide, wars rage. And all the while, the neglected planet slowly dies.”
    The platform reached the elevated Hangar Deck. Matai Shang, in officer form again, snapped out an order. “Prisoner transport. Prep a two-man flier immediately.”
    The flier was a frightening contraption: barely more than a large cylinder with instrument controls, a windscreen, and metal “wings” fanning out from the sides to collect solar energy. As the Thern anchored him to the rear seat, throttling the engine to life, Carter felt a deep sense of despair. The unearthly web held him fast, responding to Matai Shang’s every slight command. Carter was utterly helpless.
    But more than that. The Therns held this world in a vise, and they seemed all-powerful. No man from Earth, no Thark, Zodangan, or Heliumite, could possibly stand against them. No creature on either world…
    Before they could take off, the flier suddenly slammed over onto its side. Matai was thrown free, but Carter went down with the flier. He struggled to turn his head and managed to see a snarling, bulky figure spring through the air, landing atop the Thern with a clamping of powerful jaws.
    â€œWoola!” Carter cried.
    Matai struggled beneath the animal’s bulk. Woola snapped out and crunched Matai’s bracelet, crushing it against the Thern’s arm. Matai cried out in pain.
    With the bracelet destroyed, Carter’s shackles crumbled to dust. He jumped to his feet, then knelt down next to the trapped, squirming Thern.
    â€œImmortal ain’t bulletproof,” Carter said, petting Woola absently. “I shot one of you back on Earth. Remember that.”
    Carter grabbed the medallion, shoving it quickly into his boot. Then he turned to see the Zodangan guards pointing and running toward him. Woola whimpered urgently.
    Carter turned his attention to the two-man flier, still humming with power. He hopped onto it, fumbled with its controls. And tried not to think about what he had to do now.
    Captain John Carter, veteran of nineteenth-century ground combat, was about to make his first solo flight.

F OR C ARTER , the next hour passed in a blur of instinct and action. He managed to guide the flier up, lost control, and righted it again. He heard Matai Shang shout something, and then a loud buzzing rose up behind him: guards on mounted fliers taking off in pursuit. Carter panicked, plummeted his flier over the side of the Hangar Deck, then pulled up just in time to see the palace looming ahead.
    He banked sharply, lost control, and dove again—into the mazelike pipework of the city’s