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.
