"Helium," he said, "rightly boasts the
most beautiful women of Barsoom, and of all her treasures the wondrous daughter
of Mors Kajak, Dejah Thoris, is the most exquisite flower.” (PM XXI)
“In addition to
the twin-city formation of Helium, another distinguishing feature is the two
immense towers, one of vivid scarlet rising nearly a mile into the air from the
center of one of the cities, while the other, of bright yellow and of the same
height, marks her sister.” (PM XXIII)
Helium
is unique for its twin capital cities which
are two karads (75 miles) apart; these cities lie 27 karads southwest of
Zodanga. A great wind storm toppled the
Scarlet Tower of lesser Helium about twenty years after the birth of Tara of Helium,
daughter of John Carter and Princess, Dejah Thoris. (CM V)
“As he moved with the throng in the parklike canyon of
the thoroughfare the life of an awakening Martian city was in evidence about
him. Houses, raised high upon their slender metal columns for the night were
dropping gently toward the ground. Among the flowers upon the scarlet sward
which lies about the buildings children were already playing, and comely women
laughing and chatting with their neighbours as they culled gorgeous blossoms for
the vases within doors.
“The pleasant ‘kaor’ of the Barsoomian greeting fell
continually upon the ears of the stranger as friends and neighbors took up the
duties of a new day.
“The district in which he had landed was residential—a
district of merchants of the more prosperous sort. Everywhere were evidences of
luxury and wealth. Slaves appeared upon every housetop with gorgeous silks and
costly furs, laying them in the sun for airing. Jewel-encrusted women lolled
even thus early upon the carven balconies before their sleeping apartments.
Later in the day they would repair to the roofs when the slaves had arranged
couches and pitched silken canopies to shade them from the sun. Strains of
inspiring music broke pleasantly from open windows, for the Martians have
solved the problem of attuning the nerves pleasantly to the sudden transition
from sleep to waking that proves so difficult a thing for most Earth folk.
“Above him raced the long, light passenger fliers,
plying, each in its proper plane, between the numerous landing-stages for
internal passenger traffic. Landing-stages that tower high into the heavens are
for the great international passenger liners. Freighters have other
landing-stages at various lower levels, to within a couple of hundred feet of the
ground; nor dare any flier rise or drop from one plane to another except in
certain restricted districts where horizontal traffic is forbidden. (TMM II)
“Along the close-cropped sward which paves the avenue
ground fliers were moving in continuous lines in opposite directions. For the
greater part they skimmed along the surface of the sward, soaring gracefully
into the air at times to pass over a slower-going driver ahead, or at
intersections, where the north and south traffic has the right of way and the east
and west must rise above it. From private hangars upon many a roof top fliers
were darting into the line of traffic. Gay farewells and parting admonitions
mingled with the whirring of motors and the subdued noises of the city. Yet with all the swift movement and the
countless thousands rushing hither and thither, the predominant suggestion was
that of luxurious ease and soft noiselessness.
“Martians dislike harsh, discordant clamour. The
only loud noises they can abide are the martial sounds of war, the clash of
arms, the collision of two mighty dreadnoughts of the air. To them there is no
sweeter music than this.” (TMM II)
Lower artwork from Neal McDONALD
.jpg)
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