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Volume 8310

MOON MAID AT THE EARTH'S CORE
A NOVEL IN 14 CHAPTERS by ANDY NUNEZ

Text amd Art by Andy Nunez

It should be safe enough to tell this now.  I am an old man, having lived far longer than the Biblical three score and ten.  Perhaps it was in part to clean living, or perhaps to a synthesis of a pill given to me by a good friend of mine; nevertheless, as I approach the century mark, my mind remains as clear as ever, and it easily goes back to that time some fifty years ago, when I lived in Encino, California, and was a good friend to the writer Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I am gratified that the world still knows his name, though my own has long been forgotten.  Had I patented my discoveries, I suppose they would have marked me as one of the fathers not only of communication, but of lighter than air design, but for reasons of my own, I kept my discoveries secret.  Airship construction was virtually non-existent after the Hindenburg disaster, and people became more interested in television than radio.  Still, I tinkered with my set, upgrading it from a simple wireless with a sending key to one capable of transmitting sounds across the void.

Ed was kind enough to mention me in several of his stories, embellishing my abilities to fit the needs of his tale.  Usually, he only referred to my radio, with which I had been able to communicate not only with the planet Barsoom, but also with Abner Perry at the Earth’s Core.  From time to time I communicated not only with such well-known characters as John Carter of Mars and Ulysses Paxton, but also Abner Perry and his friend David Innes, the Emperor of Pellucidar, as the world beneath our crust is known.  Some time had passed since I last heard from Perry, when one day I returned from horseback riding with my wife to hear Perry’s thin voice coming from the speaker of the radio.

I remember that day well.  It was a lovely Saturday evening in March, the year being 1950.  I rushed over to the radio and snatched up the microphone.

“Here I am, Perry,” I said.  “What’s up?  Nothing wrong, I hope.”

“Nothing earth-shattering, my boy,” came his voice, crackling through the ether.  “I have just received a story from someone and it is so extraordinary, that I had to convey it to you and Ed.  Are you ready to write?”

“Better than that,” I told him.  “We now have tape recorders up here so that I can record your message on magnetic tape and transcribe it later.”

“I really must come back and take a look at your marvels topside,” he said.  “Well, here goes . . . “

Perry had obviously received this story first-hand, or its teller had written the manuscript himself, since he read it to me in first person.  He paused only to drink some water, or if I had to stop him to change reels on the tape recorder.  By the time he had finished, it was late into the night, and Jana had been kind enough to bring me a sandwich and some iced tea between tending to our children.  I had to agree with Perry.  The story was extraordinary, and it needed to be told.  I could think of no better person to do it than the Admiral himself, Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Signing off from Perry, I snatched a few hours sleep, determined to lay the story in Ed’s lap right after breakfast.

Sunday, March 19, 1950, was a pleasant day in California.  I placed the tape recorder and the reels of tape on the front seat of my Willys Jeep and sped over to Ed’s home on Zelzah.  There was no answer to my knock, but the door was unlocked, and I nudged it open, calling Ed’s name.  There was still no answer.  I found the living room empty, and thinking Ed asleep, I went into his bedroom.  To my horror, he lay prostrate upon the bed, Sunday paper spread before him.  Death had found him, and by the peaceful expression on his face, Ed had not put up a struggle.  I took up his hand, finding it cool to my touch.  Tears started, tracing down my cheeks as grief overcame me.  I turned away from Ed, distraught in the knowledge that so great a heart had been stilled forever.  A scrape of leather wrenched me from my anguish and I saw Ed’s housekeeper before me, her face likewise a mask of pain.

“Oh, my God,” she stumbled.  “The family.  I must call them.”

I brushed past her, my plans aborted, turning to look back at him, lying so still, and voiced aloud the only fitting phrase that sprang to mind, that of Edwin Stanton over the death of Lincoln:  “Now he belongs to the ages.”

On the way back home, I pondered over what to do with this manuscript.  Here would be evidence, on tape, that Pellucidar existed.  The world at large would know that a vast, virtually unsullied world lay beneath their feet.  The narrative would galvanize every explorer and fortune hunter in the world, every huckster and circus ringmaster.  No, I could not let it out.  Men such as the noble Admiral Byrd were one thing, but there were dozens more who would pillage and destroy one of the last untouched places on, or in, the earth.

Now, I am old, and I have decided that it is safe to release a transcript of the narrative.  I destroyed the tapes some years ago, so that there no longer is even this shred of concrete evidence.  The modern reader will no doubt consider it too fantastic to be believed, but I can vouch for the veracity of its sender, Abner Perry, who, at the ripe old age of one hundred and sixty, still calls me from time to time.  I have discussed this long enough.  Here is the story of Byron Wells, late of the United States Navy.

You will find within it a story that answers some questions that readers of the Inner World stories have long pondered, and I hope they please and entertain you.

--Jason Gridley