Yeah, that's not an ominous chapter title.
- Unless it's some epilogue of a long life well spent. Still ominous.
For ten days, they were feasted and feted in Helium, and the Tharks returned to their lands laden with precious gifts and escorted by an honor guard of ten thousand soldiers and the prince of Helium.
Three weeks later, Tar Tarkas and his acknowledged daughter Sola return, in time for the wedding.
For nine years, John Carter was a statesman, a soldier, and a prince of Helium. More honor and glory were heaped upon his name. As he said, the people never seemed to tire of heaping honors on him or reaffirming their love for Dejah Thoris.
And in a golden incubator room above the palace, there lay a snow white egg. For five years soldiers stood guard over it, and every night John and Dejah would retire to watch over the egg, and plan for the future.
There's a but coming.
But...such things did not last. There has been no communication from the great atmosphere plant. A search for his assistant found his corpse, slain by some unknown assassin. The atmosphere is already diminishing. It would take months to drill through the fortress, and Barsoom has only three days to live.
- I hate to say it, but I Told You So.
They resolve, as one young noble puts it, to "live as if they had a thousand years remaining" to go out with head held high. It becomes hard to breathe.
On the third day, with many fallen asleep, never to wake up, Dejah bids John farewell, and they share a Last Kiss in front of the incubator, before she falls asleep.
- But John Carter is not going to let the woman he loves, his unborn child, his country pass without a fight. The fighting blood of Virginia does not permit it!
He remembers something long forgotten, the password to the solar plant! Calling for the fastest flier, he hurtles toward the plant at breakneck speed. Barely avoiding a crash as he lands, he charges towards the lines of drillers, most of whom have passed on. He awakens one, who knows how to operate the machines, and with his last strength, opens the doors and sends him crawling on to the machines...
- Talk about a Chekhov's Gun. And it might have been last week for me, but it was nine years for him. I'm lucky if I remember what I did last week.
And then he blacks out.
Man, I wonder how far apart the serialization was; this is such a Cliffhanger!
- According to That Other Wiki, All-Story-Magazine (part of Argosy) was published monthly. What a cliffhanger to leave for a month.
- I think I've been spoiled by the modern world; even this novel, collected in 1914, was an Archive Binge...
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