The Master Mind of Mars

Almost at the same instant, one of my bullets found and extinguished the enemy searchlight. Our craft was out of control, running swiftly toward a collision with the Toonolian flyer.

I asked Dar Tarus if our ship was beyond repair. His reply was that it would take hours—in which time the whole Toonolian air patrol would be upon us.

“Then we must have another ship!” I said. I pointed at the enemy craft. “We shall not have to look far.”

Dar Tarus shrugged. “Why not? It would be a glorious fight . . . and a worthy death!”

Edgar Rice Burroughs MARS NOVELS

A PRINCESS OF MARS (#1) THE GODS OF MARS (#2) THE WARLORD OF MARS (#3) THUVIA, MAID OF MARS (#4) THE CHESSMEN OF MARS (#5) THE MASTER MIND OF MARS (#6) A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS (#7) SWORDS OF MARS (#8) SYNTHETIC MEN OF MARS (#9) LLANA OF GATHOL (#10) JOHN CARTER OF MARS (#11)

THE MASTER MIND OF MARS

Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Master Mind of Mars was first published in Amazing Stories Annual magazine, Volume I, number 1 on July 15, 1927.

Copyright © 1927 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.

ISBN 0-345-33424-8

C O N T E N T S

CHAPTER PAGE A Letter 7

I The House of the Dead 10

II Preferment 20

III Valla Dia 28

IV The Compact 42

V Danger 53

VI Suspicions 61

VII Escape 72

VIII Hands Up! 81

IX The Palace of Mu Tel 92

X Phundahl 106

XI Xaxa 116

XII The Great Tur 129

XIII Back to Thavas 140

XIV John Carter 150

A LETTER

HELIUM, June 8th, 1925 MY DEAR MR. BURROUGHS:

It was in the Fall of nineteen seventeen at an officers’ training camp that I first became acquainted with John Carter, War Lord of Barsoom, through the pages of your novel “A Princess of Mars.” The story made a profound impression upon me and while my better judgment assured me that it was but a highly imaginative piece of fiction, a suggestion of the verity of it pervaded my inner consciousness to such an extent that I found myself dreaming of Mars and John Carter, of Dejah Thoris, of Tars Tarkas and of Woola as if they had been entities of my own experience rather than the figments of your imagination.

It is true that in those days of strenuous preparation there was little time for dreaming, yet there were brief moments before sleep claimed me at night and these were my dreams. Such dreams! Always of Mars, and during my waking hours at night my eyes always sought out the Red Planet when he was above the horizon and clung there seeking a solution of the seemingly unfathomable riddle he has presented to the Earthman for ages.

Perhaps the thing became an obsession. I know it clung to me all during my training camp days, and at night, on the deck of the transport, I would lie on my back gazing up into the red eye of the god of battle—my god—and wishing that, like John Carter, I might be drawn across the great void to the haven of my desire.

And then came the hideous days and nights in the trenches—the rats, the vermin, the mud—with an occasional glorious break in the monotony when we were ordered over the top. I loved it then and I loved the bursting shells, the mad, wild chaos of the thundering guns, but the rats and the vermin and the mud—God! how I hated them. It sounds like boasting, I know, and I am sorry; but I wanted to write you just the truth about myself. I think you will understand. And it may account for much that happened afterwards.