Zodanga was always a center of vice and corruption, but since
the demise of Zat Arras it has descended into the cesspool of Barsoomian
history. But before we get to the story, let us again first clear up a
minor controversy. Carter states at the beginning of Swords of Mars:
“Over nineteen hundred miles east of The Twin
Cities of Helium, at about
Lat. 30 degrees S., Lon, 172 degrees E., lies
Zodanga.” (SM/1.)
This is, of course, a different location than that given in A
Princess of Mars, which states:
“Helium lies a thousand miles southwest of Zodanga...”
(PM/23.)
As I mentioned somewhere before, I have read commentators and seen maps
drawn by cartographers who have attempted to resolve this contradiction
by making up a story that there are now two Zodangas: Old Zodanga and New
Zodanga, which was rebuilt after the Green
Hordes destroyed Old Zodanga in the new location, nine hundred miles
away, as stated in Swords. Other than the contradiction itself, the idea
that there are two different Zodangas nine hundred miles apart has little
to none evidentiary support. As will shortly become obvious, ERB leaves
no doubt that the two cities are the same:
“It has ever been a hotbed of sedition
since the day that I had led the fierce green hordes of Thark against it,
and, reducing it, added it to the Empire of Helium.
“Within its frowning walls lives many a Zodangan
who feels no loyalty for Helium; and here, too, have gathered numbers of
the malcontents of the great empire ruled over by Tardos Mors, Jeddak of
Helium. To Zodanga have migrated not a few of the personal and political
enemies of the house of Tardos Mors and of his son-in-law, John Carter,
Prince of Helium.” (SM/1.)
Again, we interrupt, for we all know that Carter is literally the son-in-law
of Mors Kojak, father of Dejah Thoris, and son of Tardos Mors, who would
then actually be Carter’s greatfather-in-law. But perhaps that’s too much
nitpicking and over-analysis for a story to take.
It can be argued that ERB had his wife, Emma, in mind when he first
created the character of Dejah Thoris. But in Swords of Mars,
Emma is far from his mind. In code – the first letter of each chapter spells,
“To Florence, with all my love, Ed” – ERB thus proved that he was
dedicating this installment of the Barsoomian Mythos to Florence Dearholt,
the wife of one of his closest friends, and current lover, while both he
and her husband, Ashton Dearholt, were still both married to their wives.
It wouldn’t be too much longer when ERB would divorce
Emma and marry Florence.
The history of the relationship between ERB and Flo allegedly took place
after a meeting ERB had with Ashton and Flo in 1927, but the uncanny resemblance
between some of the characters in A Girl from Hollywood and
the Gilbert family (Flo's maiden name) and Ashton suggests a much longer
relationship. I wouldn't be surprised if some documentation of this was
found someday in the archives.
Thus, these obvious errors ERB made at the beginning of Swords
may have been his unconscious mind's way of saying that the Dejah Thoris
of Swords of Mars is not the same as the Dejah Thoris of
A
Princess of Mars. Who knows? After all, Dejah Thoris has only a
minor role in Swords, Carter's main flirtations being with
Zanda of Zodanga and Ozara, the Jeddara of Thuria. Well, so much for useless
psychological speculation. More likely, he just screwed-up.
“I visited the city as seldom as possible,
as I had little love either for it or its people; but my duties called
me there occasionally, principally because it was the headquarters of one
of the most powerful guilds of assassins on Mars.
“The land of my birth is cursed with its gangsters,
its killers, and its kidnapers; but these constitute but a slight menace
as compared with the highly efficient organizations that flourish upon
Mars. Here assassination is a profession; kidnaping, a fine art. Each has
its guild, its laws, its customs, and its code of ethics; and so widespread
are their ramifications that they seem inextricably interwoven into the
entire social and political life of the planet.” (SW/1.)
Carter then goes on to explain how he has organized his own band of X-Men
superassassins to counter this wave of terror that has gone on in Barsoomian
history for as long as the Religion of Issus has cursed the planet. The
relationship between Zodanga and gangsters tells me, since ERB was from
Chicago, that if there is an Earthly model for Zodanga, then ERB had Chicago
in mind.
Carter’s X-Men have had the least success in Zodanga, so he decides
to go undercover in Zodanga as the Red Panthan, Vandor. Panthans are Martian
soldiers of fortunes. Carter sets the directional compass on his one-man
custom flier, and heads off on his secret mission:
“When I was well beyond The Twin Cities
of Helium, I cut off my running lights and circled to the South, gradually
heading toward the East until I held a true course for Zodanga.” (SM/1.)
On the way, he paints his ship to disguise it and applies the red pigment
given to him by the Ptor brothers – good Zodangans – to disguise his skin.
“Entering a Martian city after dark is
likely to br fraught with embarrassment for one whose mission may not be
readily explained. I was, of course, possible that I might sneak in without
lights; but the chances of detection by one of the numerous patrol boats
was too great; and as I could not safely have explained my mission or revealed
my identity, I should most certainly be sent to the pits and, doubtless,
receive the punishment that is meted to spies – long imprisonment in the
pits, followed by death in the arena.
“Were I to enter with lights, I should most certainly
be apprehended; and as I should not be able to answer questions satisfactorily,
and as there would be no one to sponsor me, my predicament would be almost
equally difficult; so as I approached the city before dawn of the second
day, I cut out my motor and drifted idly well out of range of the searchlights
of the patrol boats.
“Even after daylight had come, I did not approach
the city until the middle of the forenoon at a time when other ships were
moving freely back and forth across the walls.
“By day, and unless a city is actively at war,
there are few restrictions placed upon the coming and going of small craft.
Occasionally the patrol boats stop and question one of these; and as fines
are heavy for operating without licenses, a semblance of regulation is
maintained by the government.
“In my case, it was not a question of a license
to fly a ship but of my right to be in Zodanga at all; so my approach to
the city was not without its spice of adventure.
“At last the city wall lay almost directly beneath
me; and I was congratulating myself upon my good fortune, as there was
no patrol boat in sight; but I had congratulated myself too soon, for almost
immediately there appeared from behind a lofty tower one of those swift
little cruisers that are commonly used in all Martian cities for patrol
service, and it was headed directly toward me.” (SM/1.)
Carter avoids capture and slips easily into the city:
“At the time, many years ago, that Zodanga
was looted by the green hordes of Thark, it had been almost completely
razed. It was the old city which with I had been most familiar, and I had
visited the rebuilt Zodanga upon one or two occasions since.
“Cruising idly about, I finally found that for
which I had sought – an unpretentious public hangar in a shabby quarter
of the city. There are quarters in every city with which I am familiar
where one may go without being subjected to curious questioning, so long
as one does not run afoul of the officers of the law. This hangar and this
quarter of Zodanga looked such a place to me. “The hangar was located on
the roof of a very old building that had evidently escaped the ravages
of the Tharks.” (SM/1.)
That last passage really should settle the controversy, if there ever really
was one in the first place. Carter is clearly traveling to the rebuilt
Zodanga, but it contains remnants of the Old Zodanga, like the hangar,
meaning both the New Zodanga and the Old Zodanga are in the same geographical
location. If you wish to make ERB more infallible, you could argue that
Carter was wrong in his original estimation that Zodanga lies a thousand
miles southeast of Helium since at the time he had never been there before
and was relying on the information of others. But now that he knows from
experience the exact location of Zodanga, he correctly gives the geographical
coordinates in Swords. These types of arguments become so ludicrous it
is best to let them die and move on. Fundamentalism is a very poor vehicle
for reaching truth.
“The landing space was small, and the
hangars themselves dingy and unkempt.” (SM/1.)
We are not told how high this public hangar was that escaped the destruction
of the Green Hordes, but we know from A Princess of Mars
that the barracks hangars were a thousand feet high, and only a few buildings
in Old Zodanga were higher: the docks of the battleships were fifteen hundred
high, and the docks of the freight and passenger stations of the nearby
merchant squadrons were almost as high. (PM/23.)
Since those buildings would have been obvious targets for the Green
Hordes, perhaps this public hangar, whatever its height, was the tallest
building in this old section of the city.
“As my craft settled to the roof, a fat
man, well smeared with black grease, appeared from behind a flier upon
the engine of which he was evidently working.
“He looked at me questioningly, and I thought
with none too friendly an expression. ‘What do you want?’ he demanded.
“‘Is this a public hangar?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘I want a place for my craft.’
“‘Have you got any money?’ he demanded.
“‘I have a little. I will pay a month’s rental
in advance,’ I replied.
“‘The frown melted from his face. ‘That hangar
there is vacant,’ he said, pointing. ‘Run her in there.’
“Having housed my flier and locked the controls,
I returned to the man and paid him.
“‘Is there a good public house nearby?’ I asked,
‘one that is cheap and not too dirty.’
“‘There is one right in this building,’ he replied,
‘as good as any that you will find around here.’
“This suited me perfectly, as when one is on an
adventure of this nature, one never knows how quickly a flier may be required
or how soon it may be all that stands between one and death.
“Leaving the surly hangar proprietor, I descended
the ramp that opened onto the roof.
“The elevators ran only to the floor below the
roof, and here I found one standing with its door open. The operator was
a dissipated looking young fellow in shabby harness.
“‘Ground floor?’ he asked.
“‘I am looking for the lodgings,’ I replied. ‘I
want to go to the office of the public house in this building.’
“He nodded and the elevator started down. The
building appeared even older and more dilapidated from the inside than
the out, and the upper floors seemed practically untenanted.
“‘Here you are,’ he said presently, stopping the
elevator and opening the door.
“In Martian cities, public houses such as this
are merely places to sleep.
There are seldom but few, if any, private rooms. Along the side walls of
long rooms are low platforms upon which each guest places his sleeping
silks and furs in a numbered space allotted to him.
“Owing to the prevalence of assassination,
these rooms are patrolled night and day by armed guards furnished by the
proprietor; and it is largely because of this fact that private rooms are
not in demand. In houses that cater to women, these guests are segregated;
and there are more private rooms and no guards in their quarters, as the
men of Barsoom seldom, if ever, kill a woman, or I may qualify that by
saying that they do not employ assassins to kill them, ordinarily.’” (SM/1.)
Of course, this is no ordinary story in the Barsoomian Mythos, because
the assassins of Ur Jan’s Zodangan Guild kill two of Dejah Thoris’ slave
girls when they kidnap her. (SM/10.)
But that is later on in the story.
“The public house to which chance had
led me catered only to men. There were no women in it.
“The proprietor, a burly man whom I later learned
was formerly a famous panthan, or soldier of fortune, assigned me a sleeping
place and collected his fee for a day’s lodging; and after directing me
to an eating-place in response to my inquiries, left me.
“Scarcely any of the other guests were in the
house at this hour of the day. Their personal belongings, their sleeping
silks and furs, were in the spaces allotted to them; and even though there
had been no guards patrolling the room, they would have been safe, as thievery
is practically unknown upon Mars.
“I had brought with me some old and very ordinary
sleeping silks and furs and these I deposited upon the platform. Sprawled
in the adjoining space was a shifty-eyed individual with an evil face.
I had noticed that he had been eyeing me surrepititiously ever since I
had entered. At last he spoke to me.
“‘Kaor!’ he said, using the familiar term of Martian
greeting.
“I nodded and replied in kind.
“‘We are to be neighbors,’ he ventured.
“‘So it would seem,’ I replied.
“‘You are evidently a stranger, at least in this
part of the city,’ he continued. ‘I overheard you asking the proprietor
where you could find an eatingplace. The one he directed you to is not
as good as the one that I go to. I am going there now; if you’d like to
come along, I’d be glad to take you.” (SM/1.)
This is, of course, Rapas the Ulsio, or Rat. Carter introduces himself
as Vandor, the outof-work panthan seeking employment. Rapas asks him if
he is a Zodangan, since he wears the metal of the city:
“‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘but I have been absent
from the city for years. In fact, I have not been here since it was burned
by the Tharks. There have been so many changes that it is like coming to
a strange city.” (SM/1.)
Again, this passage should lay to rest any idea that there are two separate
cities. Rapas tells Vandor that he is an assassin and may know a place
where Vandor can gain employment.
They meet again at the eating-place the next evening, and Rapas takes
him to his employer. “After we had eaten, we went out into the night; and
Rapas led me through broad avenues and down narrow alleyways until we came
to a large building that stood near the eastern wall of Zodanga.
“It was a dark and gloomy pile, and the
avenue than ran before it was unlighted. It stood in a district given over
to warehouses, and at this time of night its surroundings were deserted.”
(SM/2.)
This is the house of Fal Silvas, a mad scientist of Mars. Since we have
dealt in tedious detail with both the life of Fal Silvas (see ERBzine
#3313), and Ur Jan’s Zodangan Guild of Assassins (see ERBzine
#3374 and 3375),
we will forgo much of the story dealing with those characters and concentrate
as much as possible on Zodangan society. We know nothing about its present
state of government, nor are we told who the Jed is. Thus we have to pick
and choose our sources carefully.
For example, much can be learned about the life of New Zodanga from
Fal Silvas’ slave girl, Zanda, whom Vandor takes under his protection while
under the employment of the mad scientist. It seems that Zanda was not
always a slave girl, as Carter learns one evening while watching her clean
his sword after he has recently placed his “X” on a recent victim of his
crusade against the Guild.
“She cleaned the blood from the blade
and then dried and polished it.
“I watched her as she worked, noticing her shapely
hands and graceful fingers. I had never paid very much attention to her
before. Of course, I had known that she was young and well-formed and good-looking;
but suddenly I was impressed by the fact that Zanda was very beautiful
and that with the harness and jewels and hair-dressing of a great lady,
she would have been more than noticeable in any company.
“‘Zanda,’ I remarked at last, ‘you were not born
a slave, were you?’
“‘No, master.’
“‘Did Fal Silvas buy you or abduct you?’ I asked.
“‘Phystal and two slaves took me one night when
I was on the avenues with an escort. They killed him and brought me here.’
“‘Your people,’ I asked, ‘are they still living?’
“‘No,’ she replied; ‘my father was an officer
in the old Zodangan navy.
He was of the lesser nobility. He was killed when John Carter led the green
hordes of Thark upon the city. In grief, my mother took the last long journey
on the bosom of the sacred Iss to the Valley Dor and the Lost Sea of Korus.
“‘John Carter!’ she said, musingly, and
her voice was tinged with loathing. ‘He was the author of all my sorrows,
of all my misfortune. Had it not been for John Carter robbing me of my
parents I should not be here now, for I should have had their watchful
care and protection to shield me from all danger.” (SM/8.)
From this we see that the bitterness held by Zodanga during the time of
Zat Arras toward Carter still runs deep years later after his demise. It
is nice to see ERB confronting Carter’s seemingly unprovoked hatred toward
Zodanga and it consequences. It may be just in a small way, but Carter
does rescue Zanda and restore her to a somewhat normal life, thus atoning
for his sins, at least with her.
Carter finally gains the trust of Fal Silvas to leave the building to
go on an undercover assignment to infiltrate the Assassins Guild. He meets
Rapas out on the street after he leaves, and agrees to meet him later at
their eating-place. Carter returns to the public house and loads his possessions
into the flier, then, on foot, he proceeds to the address of the Guild
which Fal Silvas has provided for him.
“The way led me through a brilliantly
lighted shopping district and into a gloomy section of the old town. It
was a residential district, but of the meaner sort. Some of the houses
still rested upon the ground, but most of them were elevated on their steel
shafts twenty or thirty feet above the pavement.
“I heard laughter and song and occasional brawling
– the sounds of the night life of a great Martian city, and then I passed
on into another and seemingly deserted quarter.” (SM/3.)
Here he discovers the building of the Guild, the description of which must
be pieced together.
“The farther moon cast a faint light
upon the face of the building but revealed to me nothing of importance.
“At first, I could discern no lights in the building;
but after closer observation I saw a dim reflection beyond the windows
of the upper floor. There, doubtless, was the meeting-place of the assassins;
but how was I to reach it?
“That the doors to the building would be securely
locked and every approach to the meeting-place well guarded, seemed a foregone
conclusion.
“There were balconies before the windows at several
levels, and I noticed that particularly that there were three of these
in front of the windows on the upper story. These balconies offered me
a means of ingress to the upper floor if I could but reach them.
“The great strength and agility which the lesser
gravitation of Mars imparts to my earthly muscles might have sufficed to
permit me to climb the exterior of the building, except for the fact that
this particular building seemed to offer no foothold to the fifth story,
above which its carved ornamentation commenced.” (SM/3.)
Okay, we know the building is over five stories high, for the first five
contain no carved ornamentation. How many stories there are before the
upper floor are anyone’s guess, but I believe it is safe to presume at
least three, for above the fifth floor more than one floor is said to have
balconies in the windows. Usually, carved ornamentation is saved for the
top few stories, at least on Earthly buildings. Three of the windows of
the upper floor have balconies.
Carter’s dilemma is easy to see. He can only leap thirty to thirty-five
feet and there are no hand-holds for the first five stories, or for fifty
feet, calculating each story at ten feet. Since there are no Green warriors
for him to build a human pyramid, there is no way he can use his superhuman
power of leaping tall bounds to gain the balconies.
We will end our story at this point, since further description of Zodanga
or its buildings are scant from here on and do not differ from what we
have learned.
Before we conclude this series on Zodanga, I must mention the first
Zodangans that Carter first met after his brush with the caretaker of the
atmosphere plant: the Ptor brothers who befriended Carter when he was in
need. Carter again runs into one of the brothers while they are both imprisoned,
chained to trees, in the hidden forest kingdom of Invak, in the last part
of Llana of Gathol, the last authentic story in the Barsoomian
Mythos.
In his first appearance in Princess, he is not singled
out personally. He is just one of three brothers. But in Llana we learn
his name. From Ptor Fak we also learn that Zodangans are still scientifically
advanced and at least some of them harbor no ill will toward Carter. Anyway,
Carter is captured by the invisible Invaks, who become visible only under
visibility lamps in the corridors and buildings of Invak, but which are
not operable in the open courtyards.
It is to one of these courtyards that Carter is led and where he is
chained to a tree.
Invisible people stop and observe him. He hears a woman praising his
looks and suffers a kick to the testicles by her jealous suitor. Carter
lunges forward and lands a lucky punch to the man’s face, knocking him
out cold, since Carter has superhuman strength.
“‘That was a beauty that you handed Motus,’
said a voice behind me.
“I wasn’t going to bother even to turn around.
What was the use of turning around and seeing no one there? But when the
voice said, ‘I’ll bet he’s out for a week, the dirty Invak calot,’ I did
turn around, for I knew no Invak had made a remark like that.
“Chained to a tree near me, I saw another red
man (it is strange that I should always think of myself as a red man here
on Barsoom, and yet, perhaps, not so strange after all. Except for my color,
I am a red man – a red man in thought and feeling to the marrow of my bones.
I no longer ever think of myself as a Virginian, so ingrained has become
my love for this world of my adoption.)
“‘Well, where did you come from?’ I demanded.
‘Are you one of the invisibles?’
“‘I am not,’ replied the man. ‘I have been here
all along. When you were first brought I must have been asleep behind my
tree, but the people stopping to comment on you awoke me. I heard you tell
the girl that your name is Dotar Sojat. That is a strange name for a red
man. Mine is Ptor Fak; I am from Zodanga.’
“Ptor Fak! I recalled him now; he was one of the
three Ptor brothers who had befriended me that time that I had wished to
enter Zodanga in search of Dejah Thoris. At first I hesitated to tell him
who I really was; but then, knowing him to be an honorable man, I was about
to when he suddenly exclaimed, ‘By the mother of the nearer moon! Those
eyes, that skin!’
“‘S-h-h,’ I cautioned. ‘I don’t know the nature
of these people yet, and so I thought it wiser to be Dotar Sojat.’
“‘If you’re not Dotar Sojat, who are you?’ demanded
a voice at my elbow. That’s the trouble with this invisibility business
– a man can sneak up on you and eavesdrop, and you haven’t the slightest
idea that there is anyone near you.
“‘I am the Sultan of Swat,’ I said, that being
the first name that popped into my head.
“‘What’s a sultan?’ demanded the voice.
“‘A jeddak of jeddaks,’ I replied.
“‘In what country?’
“‘In Swat.’
“‘I never heard of Swat,’ said the voice.
“‘Well, now that it’s out, you had better tell
your jeddak that he’s got a sultan chained up here in his back yard.’
“The voice must have gone away, for I heard it
no more. Ptor Fak was laughing. ‘I can see that things are going to brighten
up a bit now that you are here,’ he said. ‘My deepest reverence for whichever
one of your ancestors gave you a sense of humor. This is the first laugh
I have had since they got me.’
“‘How long have you been here?’ “‘Several months.
I was trying out a new motor that we have developed in Zodanga and was
trying to establish a record for a circumnavigation of Barsoom at the Equator,
and of course this place had to be on the Equator and right under me when
my motor quit.’” (SM/IV-4.)
Carter discovers that Ptor Fak bears him no grudge for the destruction
of the Zodangan Empire, even laughing at Carter’s little joke about his
name. Of course, Ptor Fak was without the Earthly background that would
have given him a fuller enjoyment of Carter’s sense of humor.
After all, he neither was familiar with baseball nor Earthly geography.
The Sultan of Swat was, of course, Babe Ruth: “swat,” signifying the
swing of his mighty bat. Swat is also a river valley in Pakistan, once
ruled by a sultan, now menaced by the Taliban. Hence the play on words
of the original title. An American reader of the time would have gotten
the joke completely.
Ptor Fak eventually provides essential information leading to their
escape through Rojas, the noble Invak woman. He also witnessed one of the
more intimate negotiating meetings between Carter and Rojas. Since they
can’t see anyone in the courtyard, it always comes as a surprise when Rojas
comes to them.
“Presently I felt a soft hand upon my
arm, and then that same sweet voice that I had heard before said, ‘It is
Rojas.’
“‘I am glad that you came,’ I said. ‘I wished
an opportunity to thank you for the testimony you gave in my behalf before
Ptantus today.’
“‘I’m afraid it didn’t do much good,’ she replied;
‘Ptantus doesn’t like me.’
“Pnoxus wanted me as his mate and I refused him;
so, though Ptantus doesn’t like Pnoxus, his pride was hurt; and he has
been venting his spleen on my family ever since.’ She moved closer to me.
I could feel the warmth of her arm against mine as she leaned against me.
‘Dotar Sojat,’ she said, ‘I wish that you were
an Invak so that you might remain here forever in safety.’
“‘That is very sweet of you, Rojas,’ I said, ‘but
I am afraid that Fate has ordained it otherwise.’
“The soft arm stole up around my shoulders. The
delicate perfume which had first announced her presence to me that afternoon,
filled my nostrils and I could feel her warm breath against my cheek. ‘Would
you like to stay here, Dotar Sojat,’ she paused, ‘– with me?’
“The situtation was becoming embarrassing. Even
Ptor Fak was embarrassed and there were no soft invisible arms around his
neck. I knew that he was embarrassed because he had moved away from us
the full length of his chaim. Of course, he couldn’t see Rojas any more
than I could but he must have heard her words; and, being a gentleman,
he had removed himself as far as possible; and now he sat there with his
back toward us. Being made love to by a beautiful girl in a moonlit garden
may be romantic; but if the girl is wholly invisible it is like being made
love to by a ghost; though I can assure you that Rojas didn’t feel like
a ghost at all.” (SM/IV-6.)
This, unless you are brain dead, is what is known as a sexually charged
scene. We discover, slowly, that ERB-Carter hasn’t been quite forthright
about what is truly going on. At first Carter feels a soft hand on his
arm. She comes closer. How close is hard to tell, for all we are told is
that the soft hand, now an arm, “stole up” around his shoulders and he
could feel her warm breath against his cheek. We know that this isn’t quite
the full story since he next tells us that Ptor Fak was embarrassed without
their being any soft invisible arms around his neck, meaning that they
were around Carter’s. Thus, the fact that their bodies are touching face
to face is not mentioned, but it is to be taken for granted, as is their
state of arousal.
Since everyone is naked on Mars, a lot else could be happening that
is not mentioned.
What is mentioned is that Rojas is making love to Carter in way that
is more obviously physical than verbal, a fact that caused Ptor Fak embarrassment
and a need to let the lovers have their privacy as they engaged in whatever
was really taking place.
ANALYSIS
There is a little enticing humor here as the reader attempts to picture
in his imagination sex between a visible man and an invisible woman and
the visual effects such a union would create for a voyeur, since at this
stage, that is what the reader has become. On this note, we say goodbye
to Zodanga and Zodangans.
As we have seen, the Zodangans were a great people when ruled wisely.
Otherwise, without the advent of Carter, they would have turned into a
World Tyranny under bad rule, which they got under Than Kosis and Zat Arras,
and who knows how many others. As mentioned before, they pursued a political
agenda of annihilation when it came to the Green Hordes, and it was no
great irony that the Green Hordes did them in.
Since the fate of Fal Silvas was not told at the end of Swords
of Mars, he might have been instrumental in the creation of the
new motor Ptor Fak was testing when it failed over the Forest of Lost Men.
But we can’t be sure because it is not mentioned. Of course, neither are
the two spaceships that he and Gar Nal created. Was there some kind of
mechanical brain in the new motor?
We don’t know the fate of Ur Jan either, just that he vowed allegiance
and fealty to the Warlord. Perhaps he became the new Jed of Zodanga or
the Number One Assassin in his XMen.
And there you have it, ERB’s Glory That Was Once Zodanga:
the Fifthteenth Runner-Up in the Seven Wonders of Barsoom.
