Part 3 (1/2)
”I proan ”They are creatures of a low order, like yourself and the banths and such things We have no sex--not one of us except our king, who is bi-sexual He produces s from which we, the workers and the warriors, are hatched; and one in every thousand eggs is another king egg, fros in the roo If one of them escaped he would fall upon Luud and try to kill hi; but there would be no difference His nao on as before, for are we not all alike? Luud has lived a long tis, so he lets only a few live that there may be a successor to him when he dies The others he kills”
”Why does he keep irl
”Sos that a swarm has saved are killed When this happens the swar swarm”
”Are all of you the children of Luud?” she asked
”All but a feho are fro, as was Luud; but Luud has lived a long time and notti ti time?”
”No; the rykors live for ten years, perhaps,” he said, ”if they reer be of service to us, either through age or sickness, we leave theet them”
”How horrible!” she exclai horrible about that
The rykors are but brainless flesh They neither see, nor feel, nor hear They can scarcethe of thought than our leather All that they can do for theh and put it in their mouths, but with us--look at theure that he sur
”How do you do it?” asked Tara of Helium ”I do not understand it at all”
”I will show you,” he said, and lay down upon the floor Then he detached hi dead On his spider legs he walked toward the girl ”Now look,” he ad?” and he extended what appeared to be a bundle of tentacles from the posterior part of his head ”There is an aperture just back of the rykor's mouth and directly over the upper end of his spinal column Into this aperture I insert my tentacles and seize the spinal cord Immediately I control every muscle of the rykor's body--it becomes my own, just as you direct the movement of the muscles of your body I feel what the rykor would feel if he had a head and brain If he is hurt, I would suffer if I remained connected with him; but the instant one of them is injured or becomes sick we desert it for another As ould suffer the pains of their physical injuries, similarly do we enjoy the physical pleasures of the rykors When your body becoued you are comparatively useless; it is sick, you are sick; if it is killed, you die You are the slave of amore wonderful about your carcass than there is about the carcass of a banth It is only your brain that makes you superior to the banth, but your brain is bound by the limitations of your body Not so, ours With us brain is everything Ninety per centum of our voluans and they are very small for they do not have to assist in the support of a complicated systes, for we do not require air Far below the levels to which we can take the rykors is a vast network of burrohere the real life of the kaldane is lived There the air-breathing rykor would perish as you would perish There we have stored vast quantities of food in hermetically sealed chambers It will last forever Far beneath the surface is water that will flow for countless ages after the surface water is exhausted We are preparing for the tie of the Barsooone For this purpose e created, that there ht not perish from the planet Nature's divinest creation--the perfect brain”
”But what purpose can you serve when that tiirl
”You do not understand,” he said ”It is too big for you to grasp, but I will try to explain it Barsoole purpose Fro of time Nature has labored arduously toward the consus existed with life, but with no brain Gradually rudimentary nervous systems and minute brains evolved Evolution proceeded The brains becahest development; but there are those of us who believe that there is yet another step--that some time in the far future our race shall develop into the super-thing--just brain The incubus of legs and chelae and vital organs will be rereat brain Deaf, dumb, and blind it will lie sealed in its buried vault far beneath the surface of Barsoo to distract it froht”
”You mean it will just lie there and think?” cried Tara of Heliuht be irl, ”I can think of a nus that would be infinitely more wonderful”
CHAPTER VI
IN THE TOILS OF HORROR
WHAT the creature had told her gave Tara of Heliuht that every created thing fulfilled some useful purpose, and she tried conscientiously to discover just as the rightful place of the kaldane in the universal sches She knew that it must have its place but what that place was it was beyond her to conceive She had to give it up They recalled to her roup of people in Helium who had forsworn the pleasures of life in the pursuit of knowledge They were rather patronizing in their relations with those whoht not so intellectual They considered themselves quite superior She smiled at recollection of a re theotisate Helium Her father liked normal people--people who knew too little and people who knew too much were equally a bore Tara of Helium was like her father in this respect and like him, too, she was both sane and norer there was e world that interested her The rykors aroused her keenest pity, and vast conjecture How and fro to ain and I will tell you,” he said ”If Luud would let me have you, you should never die I should keep you always to sing to irl marvelled at the effect her voice had upon the creature Somewhere in that enormous brain there was a chord that was touched by melody It was the sole link between herself and the brain when detatched froht have other human instincts; but these she dreaded even to think of After she had sung she waited for Ghek to speak For a long tih those awful eyes
”I wonder,” he said presently, ”if it ?”
”Nearly all, a little,” she said; ”but we do s We dance and play and work and love and soht, for we are a race of warriors”
”Love!” said the kaldane ”I think I knohat you mean; but we, fortunately, are above sentiment--e are detached But e dominate the rykor--ah, that is different, and when I hear you sing and look at your beautiful body I knohat you irl shrank froin of the rykor,” she reo,” he coer and our heads ss were very weak and we could not travel fast or far There was a stupid creature that went upon four legs It lived in a hole in the ground, to which it brought its food, so we ran our burrows into this hole and ate the food it brought; but it did not bring enough for all--for itself and all the kaldanes that lived upon it, so we had also to go abroad and get food This was hard work for our weak legs Then it was that we commenced to ride upon the backs of these pries, undoubtedly, but at last cauide the rykor, until presently the latter depended entirely upon the superior brain of his rew smaller as tier had use for them--the kaldane saw and heard for hio upon its hind feet that the kaldane ht be able to see farther As the brain shrank, so did the head The mouth was the only feature of the head that was used and so the mouth alone remains Members of the red race fell into the hands of our ancestors froes of the foriven the red race over that which the rykor was developing into By intelligent crossing the present rykor was achieved He is really solely the product of the super-intelligence of the kaldane--he is our body, to do with as we see fit, just as you do what you see fit with your body, only we have the advantage of possessing an unlimited supply of bodies Do you not wish that you were a kaldane?”
For how long they kept her in the subterranean cha time She ate and slept and watched the interminable lines of creatures that passed the entrance to her prison There was a laden line passing fro food, food, food In the other line they returned eht above When they did not pass she kneas night, and that the banths were about devouring the rykors that had been abandoned in the fields the previous day She corow pale and thin She did not like the food they gave her--it was not suited to her kind--nor would she have eaten over fat The idea of plunificance
Ghek noted that she was growing thin and white He spoke to her about it and she told hiround--that she must have fresh air and sunshi+ne, or she would wither and die Evidently he carried her words to Luud, since it was not long after that he told her that the king had ordered that she be confined in the tower and to the tower she was taken She had hoped against hope that this very thing ht result froain was so to her breast a hope that she had not dared to nurse before, while she lay in the terrible labyrinth from which she knew she could never have found her way to the outer world; but now there was soht reason to hope At least she could see the hills and if she could see theht there not come also the opportunity to reach them? If she could have but ten minutes--just ten little minutes! The flier was still there--she knew that it must be Just ten htful place; but the days wore on and she was never alone, not even for half of ten minutes Many times she planned her escape Had it not been for the banths it had been easy of accoht Ghek always detached his body then and sank into what seemed a semi-comatose condition It could not be said that he slept, or at least it did not appear like sleep, since his lidless eyes were unchanged; but he lay quietly in a corner Tara of Helium enacted a thousand times in her mind the scene of her escape She would rush to the side of the rykor and seize the sword that hung in its harness Before Ghek knehat she purposed, she would have this and then before he could give an alarh his hideous head It would take but a moment to reach the enclosure The rykors could not stop her, for they had no brains to tell the She had watched froate that led froreat latch operated She would pass through and make a quick dash for the hill It was so near that they could not overtake her It was so easy! Or it would have been but for the banths! The banths at night and the workers in the fields by day
Confined to the tower and without proper exercise or food, the girl failed to show the improvement that her captors desired Ghek questioned her in an effort to learn why it was that she did not grow round and plump; that she did not even look as well as when they had captured her His concern was prompted by repeated inquiries on the part of Luud and finally resulted in suggesting to Tara of Heliuht find a new opportunity of escape
”I aht,” she told Ghek ”I cannot become as I was before if I a poor air and getting no proper exercise Pero out in the fields every day and walk about while the sun is shi+ning Then, I am sure, I shall become nice and fat”
”You would run away,” he said
”But how could I if you were alith me?” she asked ”And even if I wished to run ahere could I go? I do not know even the direction of Heliuht the banths would get me, would they not?”
”They would,” said Ghek ”I will ask Luud about it”
The following day he told her that Luud had said that she was to be taken into the fields He would try that for a tirow fatter he will send for you anyway,” said Ghek; ”but he will not use you for food”
Tara of Helium shuddered
That day and for h the enclosure and out into the fields Alas she alert for an opportunity to escape; but Ghek was always close by her side It was not sothe attempt as the number of workers that were always between her and the hills where the flier lay She could easily have eluded Ghek, but there were too many of the others And then, one day, Ghek told her as he accompanied her into the open that this would be the last tio to Luud,” he said ”I aht!” She scarce breathed the word, yet it was vibrant with horror
She glanced quickly toward the hills They were so close! Yet betere the inevitable workers--perhaps a score of the the”
”It is too far,” said Ghek ”I hate the sun It is much pleasanter here where I can stand beneath the shade of this tree”
”All right,” she agreed; ”then you stay here and I alk over It will take o with you You want to escape; but you are not going to”
”I cannot escape,” she said
”I know it,” agreed Ghek; ”but you ht try I do not wish you to try Possibly it will be better if we return to the tower at once It would go hard with me should you escape”
Tara of Heliu into oblivion There would never be another after today She cast about for some pretext to lure him even a little nearer to the hills
”It is very little that I ask,” she said ”Tonight you antto you It will be the last tio and see what those kaldanes are doing I shall never sing to you again”