1899- Journey to Mars

“No,” Mort Prime whispered. “No higher...functions. It needed...me to make it...whole.”

“Tell me,” Billy said, “had you worked out who was going to do the surgery? I mean, it would take a genius to put your brain into that metal contraption. Who was going to do that?”

“Oh,” Mort Prime said. “I hadn’t yet...thought...”

Billy waited for the madman to finish the sentence, only to realize he would have to wait until the end of time. Mort Prime was dead.

“Billy!” Avi shouted.

Billy looked to see Avi at the base of the stairs a hundred feet away. “What is it?”

“Koothrappally is here! And he is alive!”

[ 97 ]

The Argent lifted slowly above the surface over the canal until pink sunlight flooded the bridge of the ship. With the upper hatch open, Ekka conveyed Bixie’s command to Edgar Burroughs to move the ship over the edge of the horde of morts and corts.

From where Bixie stood on top of the ship, she could see the first of the ten-legged spiders as it breasted the canal wall and picked up speed as it began to gain on the Argent. More spiders followed. After the space of a few breaths, there were dozens of them.

“Move over dem!” Bixie shouted, and Ekka in turn shouted inside to Edgar.

The Argent picked up speed and swooped over the heads of the enemy flanking the wall. Their heads turned upward one by one to watch the ship.

After a moment their attention turned the to their left as their comrades along the fringes began to shriek.

Huge ten-legged Martian spiders, hundreds of them, crumpled the flanking line of morts and corts and began tearing their bodies apart.

From above, Bixie hurled the eggs down onto the heads of the morts and corts below.

“Take dat, damn you!” she shouted. Then to the spiders she shouted. “Come get dinner!”

On the bridge, Pat Garrett sat at the gunners station next to Edgar. “Tell me how this here thing works again.”

“Just do what you saw Billy and Ekka doing. Try it till you get it right.”

“Hmph. I’ll give it a shot.”

After a moment Pat had the forward guns firing down into the crowd, chewing up the enemy.

“I see,” he said. “Very nice.”

“Fish in a barrell,” Edgar said.

“I believe that about sums it up.”

Something caught the corner of Pat’s eye and he paused firing to look. Off to the left of the ship, a line of horsemen charged their way into the attacking morts and corts. Guns blazed and swords flashed in the burnished pink glow of the evening sunlight.

“Our people!” Pat exclaimed and pointed. “Over there by the rock.”

Edgar looked. For a moment he thought he saw John Carter and the waving hair of Dejah Thoris.

“Ekka!” Edgar called. “Our people need us! We’re going to the horses! Hold on tight!”

Ekka shouted this back to Bixie who fell backwards as the ship lurched beneath her. Ekka leapt onto the upper surface of the Argent and caught Bixie’s wrist in the last instant before she fell to the ground.

“Drop the rest of those eggs.” Ekka said.

Bixie let the sack go and it rolled off of the ship and disappeared into space.