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READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

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Tarzan on Mars<br />

A thousand miles away on the lonely dead sea bottoms a<br />

great banth lifted his head. He heard a distant sound like the<br />

sighing of a gigantic monster. A dull red glow cut a wound<br />

across the sky, as though a titanic talon had struck the world<br />

a might blow.<br />

And again, in the deserted city of Horz, a green warrior<br />

of Thark halted his giant thoat with a mental command as he<br />

pivoted his chameleon eyes upward. Something faster than<br />

any airship of Barsoom was hurtling over him, far aloft—and<br />

his superstitious soul shuddered before the unknown.<br />

Less than an hour later, a large flock of giant malagors<br />

spread their wings over the great Toonolian Marsh and fled<br />

in a panic as a roaring, smoldering fireball hurtled over the<br />

islands and reeds and stagnant water. A great saurian creature<br />

lifted its reptilian head from the swamp and voiced a piercing<br />

scream of beastly rage, for its brain was too small to register<br />

fear.<br />

Then the saurian died as the rocket struck it and carried<br />

its remains deep down into the mud and slime, where the<br />

murky waters continued to boil for hours.<br />

But there were several wild thoats in the waterless Sea<br />

of Throxus who saw something else. It came soundlessly out<br />

of the sky, a small, gliding thing with short, swept-back<br />

wings. For a moment they watched it intently, and then they<br />

returned to their feeding upon the ocre moss at their feet.<br />

Thuria and Cluros were momentarily absent from the<br />

star-fired sky as Tarzan opened the hatch of the glider and<br />

stepped out unceremoniously onto the moss-grown soil of<br />

Barsoom.<br />

Dressed in a high altitude flying suit given to the Gridley<br />

Foundation by the United States Air Force, Tarzan might well<br />

have impressed any native observer as an alien visitor from<br />

the stars. He pushed back his padded crash helmet and<br />

examined the unfamiliar sky. There were far too many stars<br />

to permit of recognition of the constellations, but he could not<br />

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