John Carter by Stuart Moore Page A

medallion rose up, stopping to hover just a few inches above the floor.
    Carter grabbed Dejah’s hand, and together they stepped back as the floor beneath them came alive, glowing with luminous text and symbols. Abstract shapes connected by radiant lines, arcs, circles. When it was done, Carter stared in awe at the final pattern.
    The nine-legged spider. Its legs stretched outward from their common origin point: the mark directly beneath the hovering medallion.
    â€œNine,” Dejah whispered. “Nine rays.”
    He looked at her, puzzled.
    â€œCarter, the Ninth Ray is real. It can be harnessed! Don’t you see?” She darted around the floor, pointing and gesturing at the grid of lines. “This entire structure runs on Ninth Ray isolates. I was right! Mother Issus—” She stopped, whirled around. “The Therns. They’re real. And you…you really are John Carter of Earth ?”
    He grinned at her excitement. “Yes, ma’am.”
    â€œAnd the ships that sail the sea…you’ve seen them. It must be a beautiful sight.”
    â€œIt truly is.” He moved toward her. “But I’m not sure I’d trade it for the look on your face right now.”
    Carter stepped on another disk of light—and that mark too expanded under his feet, eclipsing the first pattern with its own. A central glowing spot with nine concentric circles fanning out around it. Various-size dots swelled along each line, completing a model of the solar system. Just as Dejah had etched it out in the sand back in the Thark settlement.
    But the pattern didn’t stop there. As Carter and Dejah stared, eight more lines sprouted from the third dot, the one representing Earth. The lines spread out, crossing the concentric circles, forming links to every other planet in the diagram. Along each line, glyphs appeared in the ancient language of Barsoom.
    Together they knelt down next to “Earth” and began tracing the lines with their fingers. Carter turned to Dejah. “What’s it say?”
    â€œI’m not sure.” She ran a hand over the glyphs. “It appears to be a…a kind of technical diagram. This line links Jasoom to Barsoom, and the glyph here…it’s like our symbol for a transcription. A copy sent along these lines between the worlds. Like—”
    â€œLike a telegram.” Carter shook his head, struggling with the concept. “You’re saying I got telegraphed here? I’m a copy of myself?”
    â€œPossibly. These words could be the command for travel.” She frowned. “I don’t like guessing. I need more information…charts, codices…”
    Carter’s pulse quickened. Could this be his way home?
    â€œThese charts. Where could we find them?”
    â€œIn the Hall of Science. In Helium.”
    â€œOh yes. Let’s just turn around and head on back to Helium.” Suddenly angry, he lifted her up into the air. “What do you take me for?”
    She looked down into his eyes for a long moment.
    â€œI take you for a man who’s lost,” she said.
    â€œI won’t be lost if you tell me how to work this thing.”
    â€œI’ll tell you what I can. But everything I need to understand that medallion is in Helium.”
    He pulled her closer, staring into her eyes. Was she telling the truth? Or was this just another trick to lure him to her city?
    â€œI’m trying to help you,” she continued. “To get you back to your cave of gold. Isn’t that what you want?”
    â€œYes,” he said. But even to him, the answer seemed weak. Hollow.
    â€œNo,” she replied, firmer now. “I don’t believe that. We were born worlds apart, but I know you, John Carter.” He tried to look away but her blue eyes held him fast. “From the first moment you leaped into the sky and caught me, I knew. When we stood together atop that tower, swords drawn, I—I felt the