CHAPTER XII

GHEK PLAYS PRANKS

While Tara of Helium was being led to The Towers of Jetan, Ghek was

escorted to the pits beneath the palace where he was imprisoned in a

dimly-lighted chamber. Here he found a bench and a table standing upon

the dirt floor near the wall, and set in the wall several rings from

which depended short lengths of chain. At the base of the walls were

several holes in the dirt floor. These, alone, of the several things he

saw, interested him. Ghek sat down upon the bench and waited in

silence, listening. Presently the lights were extinguished. If Ghek

could have smiled he would have then, for Ghek could see as well in the

dark as in the light--better, perhaps. He watched the dark openings of

the holes in the floor and waited. Presently he detected a change in

the air about him--it grew heavy with a strange odor, and once again

might Ghek have smiled, could he have smiled.

Let them replace all the air in the chamber with their most deadly

fumes; it would be all the same to Ghek, the kaldane, who, having no

lungs, required no air. With the rykor it might be different. Deprived

of air it would die; but if only a sufficient amount of the gas was

introduced to stupefy an ordinary creature it would have no effect upon

the rykor, who had no objective mind to overcome. So long as the excess

of carbon dioxide in the blood was not sufficient to prevent heart

action, the rykor would suffer only a diminution of vitality; but would

still respond to the exciting agency of the kaldane's brain.

Ghek caused the rykor to assume a sitting position with its back

against the wall where it might remain without direction from his

brain. Then he released his contact with its spinal cord; but remained

in position upon its shoulders, waiting and watching, for the kaldane's

curiosity was aroused. He had not long to wait before the lights were

flashed on and one of the locked doors opened to admit a half-dozen

warriors. They approached him rapidly and worked quickly. First they

removed all his weapons and then, snapping a fetter about one of the

rykor's ankles, secured him to the end of one of the chains hanging

from the walls. Next they dragged the long table to a new position and

there bolted it to the floor so that an end, instead of the middle, was

directly before the prisoner. On the table before him they set food and

water and upon the opposite end of the table they laid the key to the

fetter. Then they unlocked and opened all the doors and departed.

* * * * *

When Turan the panthan regained consciousness it was to the realization

of a sharp pain in one of his forearms. The effects of the gas departed

as rapidly as they had overcome him so that as he opened his eyes he

was in full possession of all his faculties. The lights were on again

and in their glow there was revealed to the man the figure of a giant

Martian rat crouching upon the table and gnawing upon his arm.

Snatching his arm away he reached for his short-sword, while the rat,

growling, sought to seize his arm again. It was then that Turan

discovered that his weapons had been removed--short-sword, long-sword,

dagger, and pistol. The rat charged him then and striking the creature

away with his hand the man rose and backed off, searching for something

with which to strike a harder blow. Again the rat charged and as Turan

stepped quickly back to avoid the menacing jaws, something seemed to

jerk suddenly upon his right ankle, and as he drew his left foot back

to regain his equilibrium his heel caught upon a taut chain and he fell

heavily backward to the floor just as the rat leaped upon his breast

and sought his throat.

The Martian rat is a fierce and unlovely thing. It is many-legged and

hairless, its hide resembling that of a newborn mouse in repulsiveness.

In size and weight it is comparable to a large Airedale terrier. Its

eyes are small and close-set, and almost hidden in deep, fleshy

apertures. But its most ferocious and repulsive feature is its jaws,

the entire bony structure of which protrudes several inches beyond the

flesh, revealing five sharp, spadelike teeth in the upper jaw and the

same number of similar teeth in the lower, the whole suggesting the

appearance of a rotting face from which much of the flesh has sloughed

away.

It was such a thing that leaped upon the breast of the panthan to tear

at his jugular. Twice Turan struck it away as he sought to regain his

feet, but both times it returned with increased ferocity to renew the

attack. Its only weapons are its jaws since its broad, splay feet are

armed with blunt talons. With its protruding jaws it excavates its

winding burrows and with its broad feet it pushes the dirt behind it.

To keep the jaws from his flesh then was Turan's only concern and this

he succeeded in doing until chance gave him a hold upon the creature's

throat. After that the end was but a matter of moments. Rising at last

he flung the lifeless thing from him with a shudder of disgust.

Now he turned his attention to a hurried inventory of the new

conditions which surrounded him since the moment of his incarceration.

He realized vaguely what had happened. He had been anaesthetized and

stripped of his weapons, and as he rose to his feet he saw that one

ankle was fettered to a chain in the wall. He looked about the room.

All the doors swung wide open! His captors would render his

imprisonment the more cruel by leaving ever before him tempting

glimpses of open aisles to the freedom he could not attain. Upon the

end of the table and within easy reach was food and drink. This at

least was attainable and at sight of it his starved stomach seemed

almost to cry aloud for sustenance. It was with difficulty that he ate

and drank in moderation.

As he devoured the food his eyes wandered about the confines of his

prison until suddenly they seized upon a thing that lay on the table at

the end farthest from him. It was a key. He raised his fettered ankle

and examined the lock. There could be no doubt of it! The key that lay

there on the table before him was the key to that very lock. A careless

warrior had laid it there and departed, forgetting.

Hope surged high in the breast of Gahan of Gathol, of Turan the

panthan. Furtively his eyes sought the open doorways. There was no one

in sight. Ah, if he could but gain his freedom! He would find some way

from this odious city back to her side and never again would he leave

her until he had won safety for her or death for himself.

He rose and moved cautiously toward the opposite end of the table where

lay the coveted key. The fettered ankle halted his first step, but he

stretched at full length along the table, extending eager fingers

toward the prize. They almost laid hold upon it--a little more and they

would touch it. He strained and stretched, but still the thing lay just

beyond his reach. He hurled himself forward until the iron fetter bit

deep into his flesh, but all futilely. He sat back upon the bench then

and glared at the open doors and the key, realizing now that they were

part of a well-laid scheme of refined torture, none the less

demoralizing because it inflicted no physical suffering.

For just a moment the man gave way to useless regret and foreboding,

then he gathered himself together, his brows cleared, and he returned

to his unfinished meal. At least they should not have the satisfaction

of knowing how sorely they had hit him. As he ate it occurred to him

that by dragging the table along the floor he could bring the key

within his reach, but when he essayed to do so, he found that the table

had been securely bolted to the floor during the period of his

unconsciousness. Again Gahan smiled and shrugged and resumed his eating.

* * * * *

When the warriors had departed from the prison in which Ghek was

confined, the kaldane crawled from the shoulders of the rykor to the

table. Here he drank a little water and then directed the hands of the

rykor to the balance of it and to the food, upon which the brainless

thing fell with avidity. While it was thus engaged Ghek took his

spider-like way along the table to the opposite end where lay the key

to the fetter. Seizing it in a chela he leaped to the floor and

scurried rapidly toward the mouth of one of the burrows against the

wall, into which he disappeared. For long had the brain been

contemplating these burrow entrances. They appealed to his kaldanean

tastes, and further, they pointed a hiding place for the key and a lair

for the only kind of food that the kaldane relished--flesh and blood.

Ghek had never seen an ulsio, since these great Martian rats had long

ago disappeared from Bantoom, their flesh and blood having been greatly

relished by the kaldanes; but Ghek had inherited, almost unimpaired,

every memory of every ancestor, and so he knew that ulsio inhabited

these lairs and that ulsio was good to eat, and he knew what ulsio

looked like and what his habits were, though he had never seen him nor

any picture of him. As we breed animals for the transmission of

physical attributes, so the Kaldanes breed themselves for the

transmission of attributes of the mind, including memory and the power

of recollection, and thus have they raised what we term instinct, above

the level of the threshold of the objective mind where it may be

commanded and utilized by recollection. Doubtless in our own subjective

minds lie many of the impressions and experiences of our forebears.

These may impinge upon our consciousness in dreams only, or in vague,

haunting suggestions that we have before experienced some transient

phase of our present existence. Ah, if we had but the power to recall

them! Before us would unfold the forgotten story of the lost eons that

have preceded us. We might even walk with God in the garden of His

stars while man was still but a budding idea within His mind.

Ghek descended into the burrow at a steep incline for some ten feet,

when he found himself in an elaborate and delightful network of

burrows! The kaldane was elated. This indeed was life! He moved rapidly

and fearlessly and he went as straight to his goal as you could to the

kitchen of your own home. This goal lay at a low level in a spheroidal

cavity about the size of a large barrel. Here, in a nest of torn bits

of silk and fur lay six baby ulsios.

When the mother returned there were but five babies and a great

spider-like creature, which she immediately sprang to attack only to be

met by powerful chelae which seized and held her so that she could not

move. Slowly they dragged her throat toward a hideous mouth and in a

little moment she was dead.

Ghek might have remained in the nest for a long time, since there was

ample food for many days; but he did not do so. Instead he explored the

burrows. He followed them into many subterranean chambers of the city

of Manator, and upward through walls to rooms above the ground. He

found many ingeniously devised traps, and he found poisoned food and

other signs of the constant battle that the inhabitants of Manator

waged against these repulsive creatures that dwelt beneath their homes

and public buildings.

His exploration revealed not only the vast proportions of the network

of runways that apparently traversed every portion of the city, but the

great antiquity of the majority of them. Tons upon tons of dirt must

have been removed, and for a long time he wondered where it had been

deposited, until in following downward a tunnel of great size and

length he sensed before him the thunderous rush of subterranean waters,

and presently came to the bank of a great, underground river, tumbling

onward, no doubt, the length of a world to the buried sea of Omean.

Into this torrential sewer had unthinkable generations of ulsios pushed

their few handsful of dirt in the excavating of their vast labyrinth.

For only a moment did Ghek tarry by the river, for his seemingly

aimless wanderings were in reality prompted by a definite purpose, and

this he pursued with vigor and singleness of design. He followed such

runways as appeared to terminate in the pits or other chambers of the

inhabitants of the city, and these he explored, usually from the safety

of a burrow's mouth, until satisfied that what he sought was not there.

He moved swiftly upon his spider legs and covered remarkable distances

in short periods of time.

His search not being rewarded with immediate success, he decided to

return to the pit where his rykor lay chained and look to its wants. As

he approached the end of the burrow that terminated in the pit he

slackened his pace, stopping just within the entrance of the runway

that he might scan the interior of the chamber before entering it. As

he did so he saw the figure of a warrior appear suddenly in an opposite

doorway. The rykor sprawled upon the table, his hands groping blindly

for more food. Ghek saw the warrior pause and gaze in sudden

astonishment at the rykor; he saw the fellow's eyes go wide and an

ashen hue replace the copper bronze of his cheek. He stepped back as

though someone had struck him in the face. For an instant only he stood

thus as in a paralysis of fear, then he uttered a smothered shriek and

turned and fled. Again was it a catastrophe that Ghek, the kaldane,

could not smile.

Quickly entering the room he crawled to the table top and affixed

himself to the shoulders of his rykor, and there he waited; and who may

say that Ghek, though he could not smile, possessed not a sense of

humor? For a half-hour he sat there, and then there came to him the

sound of men approaching along corridors of stone. He could hear their

arms clank against the rocky walls and he knew that they came at a

rapid pace; but just before they reached the entrance to his prison

they paused and advanced more slowly. In the lead was an officer, and

just behind him, wide-eyed and perhaps still a little ashen, the

warrior who had so recently departed in haste. At the doorway they

halted and the officer turned sternly upon the warrior. With upraised

finger he pointed at Ghek.

"There sits the creature! Didst thou dare lie, then, to thy dwar?"

"I swear," cried the warrior, "that I spoke the truth. But a moment

since the thing groveled, headless, upon this very table! And may my

first ancestor strike me dead upon the spot if I speak other than a

true word!"

The officer looked puzzled. The men of Mars seldom if ever lie. He

scratched his head. Then he addressed Ghek. "How long have you been

here?" he asked.

"Who knows better than those who placed me here and chained me to a

wall?" he returned in reply.

"Saw you this warrior enter here a few minutes since?"

"I saw him," replied Ghek.

"And you sat there where you sit now?" continued the officer.

"Look thou to my chain and tell me then where else might I sit!" cried

Ghek. "Art the people of thy city all fools?"

Three other warriors pressed behind the two in front, craning their

necks to view the prisoner while they grinned at the discomfiture of

their fellow. The officer scowled at Ghek.

"Thy tongue is as venomous as that of the she-banth O-Tar sent to The

Towers of Jetan," he said.

"You speak of the young woman who was captured with me?" asked Ghek,

his expressionless monotone and face revealing naught of the interest

he felt.

"I speak of her," replied the dwar, and then turning to the warrior who

had summoned him: "return to thy quarters and remain there until the

next games. Perhaps by that time thy eyes may have learned not to

deceive thee."

The fellow cast a venomous glance at Ghek and turned away. The officer

shook his head. "I do not understand it," he muttered. "Always has

U-Van been a true and dependable warrior. Could it be--?" he glanced

piercingly at Ghek. "Thou hast a strange head that misfits thy body,

fellow," he cried. "Our legends tell us of those ancient creatures that

placed hallucinations upon the mind of their fellows. If thou be such

then maybe U-Van suffered from thy forbidden powers. If thou be such

O-Tar will know well how to deal with thee." He wheeled about and

motioned his warriors to follow him.

"Wait!" cried Ghek. "Unless I am to be starved, send me food."

"You have had food," replied the warrior.

"Am I to be fed but once a day?" asked Ghek. "I require food oftener

than that. Send me food."

"You shall have food," replied the officer. "None may say that the

prisoners of Manator are ill-fed. Just are the laws of Manator," and he

departed.

No sooner had the sounds of their passing died away in the distance

than Ghek clambered from the shoulders of his rykor, and scurried to

the burrow where he had hidden the key. Fetching it he unlocked the

fetter from about the creature's ankle, locked it empty and carried the

key farther down into the burrow. Then he returned to his place upon

his brainless servitor. After a while he heard footsteps approaching,

whereupon he rose and passed into another corridor from that down which

he knew the warrior was coming. Here he waited out of sight, listening.

He heard the man enter the chamber and halt. He heard a muttered

exclamation, followed by the jangle of metal dishes as a salver was

slammed upon a table; then rapidly retreating footsteps, which quickly

died away in the distance.

Ghek lost no time in returning to the chamber, recovering the key,

relocking the rykor to his chain. Then he replaced the key in the

burrow and squatting on the table beside his headless body, directed

its hands toward the food. While the rykor ate Ghek sat listening for

the scraping sandals and clattering arms that he knew soon would come.

Nor had he long to wait. Ghek scrambled to the shoulders of his rykor

as he heard them coming. Again it was the officer who had been summoned

by U-Van and with him were three warriors. The one directly behind him

was evidently the same who had brought the food, for his eyes went wide

when he saw Ghek sitting at the table and he looked very foolish as the

dwar turned his stern glance upon him.

"It is even as I said," he cried. "He was not here when I brought his

food."

"But he is here now," said the officer grimly, "and his fetter is

locked about his ankle. Look! it has not been opened--but where is the

key? It should be upon the table at the end opposite him. Where is the

key, creature?" he shouted at Ghek.

"How should I, a prisoner, know better than my jailer the whereabouts

of the key to my fetters?" he retorted.

"But it lay here," cried the officer, pointing to the other end of the

table.

"Did you see it?" asked Ghek.

The officer hesitated. "No but it must have been there," he parried.

"Did you see the key lying there?" asked Ghek, pointing to another

warrior.

The fellow shook his head negatively. "And you? and you?" continued the

kaldane addressing the others.

They both admitted that they never had seen the key. "And if it had

been there how could I have reached it?" he continued.

"No, he could not have reached it," admitted the officer; "but there

shall be no more of this! I-Zav, you will remain here on guard with

this prisoner until you are relieved."

I-Zav looked anything but happy as this intelligence was transmitted to

him, and he eyed Ghek suspiciously as the dwar and the other warriors

turned and left him to his unhappy lot.