Jeddak:
"Have you witnessed this concoction yet?" Patterson asks Demetrius, "Absolutely amazing. Could have saved a lot of good men on the line if we'd had access to its like. Rub some on your cuts."
Demetrius takes the material and rubs it on his few cuts and bruises.
"I don't think the fellow even nicked me," he says.
"These are mostly from the trip over." He then steps back and watches.
His eyes dart carefully between speakers as they lapse into Martian. This was pointedly unexpected, this sudden language barrier. He didn't know why he expected everyone on Mars to speak a language he understood, but there it was.
quote:
Patterson and Nantas can appreciate the sarcasm of her words though they are lost on Demetrius. But Patterson quickly translates to his fellow Earthman and the four of you sit back, relax from your recent struggle, and have an opportunity to know one another.
Demetrius shares his tale. He was the son of rich parents in New York City. He decided he was going to study archaeology and did so at the best program in the world in China. There, he encountered Wang Wei, an archaelogist and physicist with a peculiar ambition: to head to Mars to search for signs of civilizations!
Professor Wang had encountered the writings of one John Carter and was convinced that the stories were true. All of Earth's three attempts to reach Mars ended in failure as peculiar energy bursts in the planet's atmosphere took down the spacecraft headed there. Wang, therefore, tried to harness the power of the human mind to transport oneself across space. Demetrius became Wang's assistant and intended first pilot; he trained for years to make himself fit for the journey, just as an astronaut would.
The pair planned things to perfection and even conducted a successful attempt to teleport Demetrius a short distance with gear. The great day came and things were arranged. Demetrius slipped into a dark sleep, as on the test journeys....but woke up naked and alone on the Martian landscape.
"Some of these fine folks then found and bound me, and hauled me here. Before I knew it, here I was with you, Patterson. Now, your turn: how did you come to be in this spot?"