“But how could he return to Earth in the disabled Barsoom?”
“Ah,” he said, “that raises a point that was of great interest to Julian 5th. After he regained The Barsoom, naturally one of the first questions he asked was as to the condition of the ship and their intentions, and when he learned that they had, in reality, been intending to pass through the crater toward the Earth he questioned them further and discovered that it was the young ensign, Norton, who had repaired the engine, having been able to do it by information that he had gleaned from Orthis, after winning the latter’s friendship. Thus was explained the intimacy between the two, which Julian 5th had so deplored, but which he now saw that young Norton had encouraged for a patriotic purpose.”
“We are docked now and I must be going. Thank you for your hospitality and for your generous interest,” and he held out his hand toward me.
“But the story of Julian 9th,” I insisted, “am I never to hear that?”
“If we meet again, yes,” he promised, with a smile.
“I shall hold you to it,” I told him.
“If we meet again,” he repeated, and departed, closing the stateroom door after him.
Part II
The Moon Men
Being the Story of Julian 9th
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 enlist 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 eyepieces 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 equipment 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 International 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
