READ THE NOVEL- Chapters 1-31 - ERBzine

Tarzan on Mars
Only on the occasion when his son, Jack Clayton and his
wife, Jeanne Jacot Clayton, arrived on the scene to take up
their vigil with the rest of the group did he break down into
a wistful sort of cheerfulness, but only momentarily. Jack
Clayton, who had learned the jungle ways of his famous sire,
having been better known to certain jungle denizens of
Central Africa as Korak the Killer, at once comprehended the
ape-man's mood, as did the his wife, for she, too, had experienced
that other life which translates the scents and sounds
of the forest into a three-dimensional encyclopedia of meaning.
In fact, father and son soon developed the habit of
disappearing together and not coming back to camp until a day
or two later.
On the very night of the take-off the two were conspicuous
by their absence, and at last the members of the Gridley
expedition felt that their sense of propriety must be subordinated
to the vital experiment that lay before them. Gridley,
himself, was delegated as a committee of one to call Tarzan
to his task. True, the zero hour was still eight hours away, but
the others could no longer endure the anxiety which his
apparently unconcerned absence was causing them.
"Meriem," Gridley said to Jeanne Clayton—for he had
become sufficiently acquainted with the beautiful young
Frenchwoman by now to use her more familiar name—"you
must help us to locate Jack and Tarzan. There is no time left.
Vital preparations must be made."
Meriem laughed, albeit with an ill-concealed not of
sadness in her voice. "I know," she said. "Bwana has caused
you considerable worry, but do not think that for one moment
he has forgotten what lies before him." Her newly displayed
habit of referring to her father-in-law as "Bwana," gridley
recalled, was but another outgrowth of her adventurous past,
stemming from the time when she had been rescued by
Tarzan from Arab slave merchants in Africa. "On the contrary,"
she continued, "it is because of that which lies ahead
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