The Prince of Mars Returns
Philip Francis Nowlan (1940)
Country of origin: U.S.A.
Available texts by the same author here
Chapter 4: I Wed Lil-rin
Lil-rin recovered before I could make up my mind to leave her long enough to go down to the stream for water."Wh—what was it, Danan-lih—that terrible noise? And you really killed the birrok? Impossible! H—how did you do it?"
I showed her the automatic, at which she gazed, fascinated, as I refilled the magazine. Then she looked up at me with her big blue-green eyes.
"You could have killed me just like that the day I shot at you," she said. "And I didn't have sense enough to take that machine-thing away from you!"
"Why, yes," I laughed. "Of course I could have, but I wouldn't—"
I broke off, for Lil-rin did not join in my laughter. Instead there was a look of almost tragic solemnity in her eyes.
"You not only spared my life when I treated you as an enemy, but saved it as well from the terrible birrok. My life no longer belongs to me, but to you—to do with as you see fit, Danan-lih."
She stood there, straight and slim and brave, her little jaws clenched in the effort to hold back the tears that would not be denied. Then, she whirled away from me and broke into uncontrollable sobs.
I wanted to comfort her, but I was badly flustered. I knew nothing of Martian customs at all. This girl was as much of a soldier as the men of her clan. Did she mean that I had a right to command her military service, or were her words to be taken literally? Lord, was I expected to claim her as my wife!
"Lil-rin," I said at last, and she swung around toward me with a pathetic little air of submission. "Come here and sit down again. You must listen and bear with me while I tell you who I am."
She nodded acquiescence, dabbing a bit at her eyes. She would not look at me. And that made it hard to begin. But somehow I managed it.
"If I only had half a dozen extra arms or legs, or something," I concluded, "there'd be some excuse for your believing my story that I just dropped down here from another planet. But here we are, with not as much difference between us as there might be between a man and a girt of two different races on Earth or on Mars, I imagine.
"It's a wild story. But it's the truth, although I can hardly expect you to believe it."
"But I do believe it," she said gently. "I've seen your space ship. I went back and found it the day after I took you to our camp. I was curious about you. I found your footsteps coming from the edge of the water, and I swam out. I saw something under the water, and I dived. I did not know what it was, of course, but I knew it must contain the secret of where you came from and I was worried. But I didn't tell anybody."
"And I know what's worrying you now," she said, finally looking up at me with grave, serious eyes. "It's ... it's me." She blushed frankly. "But we can't help it, Danan-lih, whether we like it or not. The law is:
"To him who has saved a life, belongs that life and the service thereof," she quoted.
She breathed almost with a sigh. "It has been that way among the Ta n'Ur for untold ages, since the days when fire rained down from the skies, gouging great scars across the face of our world, drying up the ancient oceans and destroying the Old Civilization."
"But Lil-rin," I protested, "I would not dream of embarrassing you, much less of making any claim upon you for what I did. I was saving my own life as well as yours. Besides, you might have killed the birrok with one of your own bolts."
"You can't get out of it that way," she said with a wan little smile. "It's the law. You saved my life. I belong to you. 'Ifs' and 'maybes' and 'perhapses' don't count here on Mars."
"Well," I said, "I can do with my property what I want, can't I? There's no reason why I can't give you back to yourself."
"Yes, there is. Because under the law, in a case like ours, it ... means ... it means—"
"Means what?" I had to ask, knowing the answer in advance.
"Marriage."
"But ... but—" I objected. "Suppose I were already married?"
"Then I would become your wife's slave," she explained unhappily, "and if I were already married, both my husband and I would become your slaves."
I didn't think much of that law. It seemed to have too many disadvantages.
"Do you mean to say," I demanded, "that if I were to save the life of your father, for instance, that he—the chief of your clan—would become my slave?"
"Oh, yes! That is, unless it were in battle, when all lives already belong to him anyway as commander-in-chief. In that event, you could establish no claim on him. But, if you were to save my father's life as you saved mine just now, he—Myar-Lur of the Ta n'Ur—could never submit to the indignity of becoming a slave."
"But how could he help it? You say it is the law, and—"
"He would kill himself," she said simply.
"Oh."
For a long time we sat without speaking. I was trying to get a mental grasp on this strange Martian custom and the problem it involved. Lil-rin sat dejectedly, gazing down the slope toward the undergrowth, in which the dead birrok lay.
Then there came to me a thought in which it seemed there might be a gleam of hope. I put it up to Lil-rin.
"I'm no Ur. Therefore the laws of the Ta n'Ur shouldn't apply to me," I argued.
This would be true if Captain Hanley were on Earth. Travelers in a foreign country, while subject to the civil and criminal regulations in that country, are still citizens of their own state. As such, visitors cannot be forced into any kind of contract-marriage if such is to their rights in their own nation. Foreign governments having diplomatic relations with other states all subscribe to "international law" or a set of customs which guarantees equal rights in commerce and the security of visiting citizens of another state.
"Yes, they do," she insisted. "We're within the treaty boundaries of the Ta n'Ur. And even though you are not one of us, you are subject to our laws."
"Well," I said in a clumsy attempt to comfort her, "I guess you do things differently on Mars. Anyway, we'll find some way out of it, Lil-rin. So—"
"What's the matter?" she asked in sudden anxiety, for my startled expression must have revealed something of the sudden fear that assailed me.
"You wouldn't think of getting out of it by—"
"By killing myself?" She smiled sadly. "No. I don't want to kill myself. I want to live. I ... oh—"
Without warning, she burst into tears and then began to laugh hysterically. She jumped up and started to run back to the camp, then paused and returned slowly.
"You wouldn't run away, would you?" She was pleading with me. "Because if you did, they'd cast me out as a deserted wife."
Then she was gone, her slender little figure flashing in and out among the pale green stems of the forest as she ran back toward the camp.
It was a crazy situation all right. But, no crazier than the fact that I was on Mars. I pinched myself hard and winced. No, this was all real enough. I gazed around at the pale yellow-green vegetation, with its strange, unfamiliar forms. Low over the horizon hovered the sun, not half the size it should be to earthly eyes.
Overhead, the strange tiny moons of Mars, moons only a few thousand miles distant and quite visible though it was broad daylight, hurled themselves across a cloudless sky with a speed that was visibly tremendous. Scarcely a thing on which my eye rested had any aspect of familiarity to me. Yet, everything was vividly real.
As to the girl, well, I didn't see what I could do about that. I sighed, and bent my steps slowly back toward the camp of the Ta n'Ur.
By the time I got there, the entire clan was drawn up in military array. Lil-rin, pathetically courageous, stood with her father several paces in front of the line. When she saw me, she said something to Mornya and stepped forward to meet me.
"We have to go through with it, Danan-lih," she murmured. "Don't hate me too much."
"Don't worry, little one," I whispered. "They make you my slave, or wife, whichever it is. But they can't make me treat you like a menial. You shall always be as free as you are now," and I gave her a little squeeze to reassure her.
"Your kindness makes me more your slave ever," she whispered in reply. "Now come."
She led me before her father. He read some formula rapidly from an inscription on a metal plate—it looked like gold—which he took from a leather case slung over his shoulder. He spoke rapidly in some other tongue than that used normally by Ta n'Ur, so I could not follow him at all.
Then Lil-rin bowed her head, and he placed my hand on her fair hair. Were there tears in her eyes? I wasn't sure. She kept her head averted from me.
The simple ceremony was over in a few moments. The clansmen took it all very solemnly. They gathered in little groups as they walked away, and there were many curious glances thrown over shoulders at us.
Mornya held out his hand to me, and I grasped it, Earth fashion. But I could sense that there was no excess of warmth in him at the idea of Lil-rin's marriage to me, an unknown and mysterious Outlander—for Mornya, of course, did not know my full story. Lil-rin had not dared tell him, nor in all probability would he have believed it.
He looked at me searchingly with troubled eyes. I stammered some promise to him that I would always consider Lil-rin free, but I don't think his mind was on my words. He muttered a perfunctory benediction of some sort. Then he too turned and walked rapidly away, leaving us alone together in the center of the big square.