"09 - Synthetic Men of Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

untranslatable, measures of time and of distance will be usually in my own
words; and there are occasional interpolations of my own that I have not
bothered to assume responsibility for, since their origin will be obvious to the
reader. In addition to these, there must undoubtedly have been some editing on
the part of Vad Varo.
So now to the strange tale as told by Vor Daj.
CHAPTER II
THE MISSION OF THE WARLORD
I AM VOR DAJ. I am a padwar in The Warlord's Guard. By the standards of
Earthmen, for whom I understand I am writing this account of certain adventures,
I should long since have been dead of old age; but here on Barsoom, I am still a
very young man. John Carter has told me that it is a matter worthy of general
public interest if an Earthman lives a hundred years. The normal life expectancy
of a Martian is a thousand years from the time that he breaks the shell of the
egg in which he has incubated for five years and from which he emerges just
short of physical maturity, a wild creature that must be tamed and trained as
are the young of the lower orders which have been domesticated by man. And so
much of that training is martial that it sometimes seems to me that I must have
stepped from the egg fully equipped with the harness and weapons of a warrior.
Let this, then, serve as my introduction. It is enough that you know my name and
that I am a fighting man whose life is dedicated to the service of John Carter
of Mars.
Naturally I felt highly honored when The Warlord chose me to accompany him upon
his search for Ras Thavas, even though the assignment seemed of a prosaic nature
of offering little more than an opportunity to be with The Warlord and to serve
him and the incomparable Dejah Thoris, his princess. How little I foresaw what
was in store for me!
It was John Carter's intention to fly first to Duhor, which lies some ten
thousand five hundred haads, or about four thousand earth miles, northwest of
the Twin Cities of Helium, where he expected to find Vad Varo, from whom he
hoped to learn the whereabouts of Ras Thavas, who, with the possible exception
of Vad Varo, was the only person in the world whose knowledge and skill might
rescue Dejah Thoris from the grave, upon the brink of which she had lain for
weeks, and restore her to health.
It was 8:25 (12:13 A.M. Earth Time) when our trim, swift flier rose from the
landing stage on the roof of The Warlord's palace. Thuria and Cluros were
speeding across a brilliant starlit sky casting constantly changing double
shadows across the terrain beneath us that produced an illusion of myriad living
things in constant, restless movement or a surging liquid world, eddying and
boiling; quite different, John Carter told me, from a similar aspect above
Earth, whose single satellite moves at a stately, decorous pace across the vault
of heaven.
With our directional compass set for Duhor and our motor functioning in silent
perfection there were no navigational problems to occupy our time. Barring some
unforeseen emergency, the ship would fly in an air line to Duhor and stop above
the city. Our sensitive altimeter was set to maintain an altitude of 300 ads
(approximately 3000 feet), with a safety minimum of 50 ads. In other words, the
ship would normally maintain an altitude of 300 ads above sea level, but in
passing over mountainous country it was assured a clearance of not less than 50
ads (about 490 feet) by a delicate device that actuates the controls as the ship